NOVEL

(From the Italian novella, derived from the Latin nov us, new.) A species of prose fictitious composition. The Italian novella, of which the best and earliest specimens are those contained in the Decameron of Boccaccio, was rather a short tale, turning on an event, or on a series of adventures of humour, pathos, or intrigue, than a novel in the modern acceptation of the term. In its present signification in the English language it seems to expre a species of fictitious narrative somewhat different from a romance;yet it would be difficult to a ign the exact distinction, and, in the French language, the same name (roman) is used for both; while it differs from a tale merely in the circumstance that a certain degree of length is nece ary to constitute a novel.- Although, in fact, the terms novel and romance are often used indifferently, yet they have also often been treated as distinct cla es of composition in English literature. Perhaps,if we seek to draw the distinction with as much of accuracy ns the subject will admit, we may say that the proper object of a novel is the delineation of social manners, or the development of a story founded on the incidents of ordinary life, or both together. Thus will be excluded from the cla of novels, on the one hand, tales of which the incidents are not merely improbable (for this may be the case in a novel), but occurring out of the common course of life, and such as are founded on imaginary times and imaginary manners, tales of supernatural incidents, chivalrous romances, pastoral romances, .; and, on the other hand, we must exclude from the same cla fictitious narratives, in which the author's principal object is neither the story nor the costume, but which are obviously written with an ulterior view, although their incidents and character may perhaps, in other respects, fall under the definition suggested above. Thus, political, philosophical, and satirical fictions are clearly not to be ranked as novels. But it is obvious that no definition can be drawn which shall, on this subject, entirely satisfy the caprices of popular language. Of the novel, in this confined sense, the works of Richardson, and those of Fielding and Smollet, afforded, perhaps, the first examples in English literature. The first of these authors gave birth to the sentimental novel, the latter two to the comic or humorous. Marivaux, Prevost, , spread the former style of composition in France; where, as well as on the Continent generally, it attained a high degree of vogue. The novel of manners, whether comic or serious, has, perhaps, been always a more popular species of fiction in England. It may be doubted whether the historical fiction,to which Sir Walter Scott has given such universal popularity, belongs strictly to the cla of novel or romance. By aiming at the delineation of real, although past manners, and by the general turn of the story, it seems to resemble the former; while the romantic character of many of its incidents seems to as simulate it to the latter. For the general history of prose fictitious composition, see Romance. [s. 850]