Miss Austen's immediate influence in the other direction was almost _nil_: and this was hardly to be regretted, because a tolerably stationary state of manners, language, etc., such as her kind of novel requires, had not quite, though it had nearly, been reached.

At any rate, the kind of ebb or half ebb, which so often, though not so certainly, follows flood-tides in literature, came upon the novel in the twenties and thirties.

Even the striking appearance of Dickens and _Pickwick_ in 1837 can hardly be said to have turned it distinctly: for the Dickensian novel is a species by itself--neither strictly novel nor strictly romance, but, as Polonius might say, a picaresque-burlesque-sentimental-farcical-realist-fantastic nondescript.
Not till _Vanity Fair_ did the novel of pure real life advance its standard once more: while the historical novel-romance of a new kind may date its revival with--though it should scarcely trace that revival to--_Esmond_, or _Westward Ho!_ or both.
Between Scott on the earlier side and Dickens and Thackeray on the other, there was an immense production of novels, illustrated by not a few names which should rank high in the second class, while some would promote more than one of them to the first.

The lines of development, as well as the chief individual practitioners, may be best indicated by short discussions of Hook, Bulwer, Disraeli, Ainsworth, James, Marryat, and Peacock.
The most probable demur to this list is likely to be taken at the very first name.

Theodore Hook has had no return of the immense popularity which his _Sayings and Doings_ (1826-1829) obtained for him; nor, perhaps, is he ever likely to have any; nor yet, further, save in one respect, can he be said to deserve it.