History of Fiction (John Colin Dunlop)  

"The History of Fiction, therefore, becomes, in a considerable degree, interesting to the philosopher, and occupies an important place in the history of the progress of society. By contemplating the fables of a people, we have a successive delineation of their prevalent modes of thinking, a picture of their feelings and tastes and habits. In this respect prose fiction appears to possess advantages considerably superior either to history or poetry. In history there is too little individuality ; in poetry too much effort, to permit the poet and historian to portray the manners living as they rise."

--History of Fiction (1814) by John Colin Dunlop