works. Among such offenders I venture to enrol myself by soliciting the honour of inscribing to you these volumes. In my first attempt as a Novel-writer I followed where you had led the way, not in the presumptuous hope of ever coming near to you in your flight, but that when my wing proved unequal to support me, I might at least claim the apology of Phaeton for my failure. You have introduced a new æra into our literature; the world has sanctioned your writings with an undivided approbation; among your readers you possessed few more ardent admirers than myself, and thus circumstanced it was difficult to avoid aiming at a mark upon which my eye had so long been fixed, even although I knew it to be utterly beyond my reach.

But it is not your reputation as a writer, however unrivalled it may be, that constitutes

your best fame. No, Sir, you have achieved a still fairer renown. You have exalted the

tone and feeling, as well as the quality of our literature, by discarding from it all that

jealousy, bitterness, and malice which had stigmatized authors with the hereditary appella

tion of the irritable race. The future Hercules announced himself by strangling these serpents in the very outset of his career. By your gentleness and urbanity towards your predecessors, when exercising the functions of an Editor or a Commentator; by the generous encouragement which you have seized every occasion of extending to your contemporaries ; by the liberality and courtesy which have invariably marked your conduct whenever opportunity for their display, you have afforded the world an illustrious ex

there was an

ample, that the highest and noblest qualities of the head and heart will generally be found

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în conjunction, and have enabled England to boast that her literary Bayard neither fears a rival nor a reproach. You have pursued your glorious career in charity with all men, and if you did not already enjoy a sufficing reward in the peace and happiness that you have thus assured to your own bosom, you would possess it in the certain knowledge that from one extremity of the kingdom to the other, amid all the sects and parties into which it is divided, you are not less universally admired as a writer, than esteemed and respected as a man.

This, Sir, is an exalted eulogy; but I should disdain to record it, were it not known to be a just one. Even merited praise, however, may be offensive to the humility of true genius and virtue, and I should apologize for the strain I have used, but that I feel it to be sanctioned by the motive. By directing attention to the

noble example you have thus set, and to the high reward it has procured for you, the imi

tators of your honourable and generous candour may perhaps become more numerous than those who have been the copyists of your style. This, at least, will be a safe ambition; for it is one in which all may command success. In this career many have already done themselves honour, by treading in your footsteps; and more, it is to be hoped, will follow. Such imitators can never be termed a servile herd: every honest friend of the Muses will wish to see them multiplied, until they shall form a large fraternity of generous competitors, who, however they may differ as scholars or authors, shall make it their peculiar boast that they possess but one tone and one feeling towards cach other as gentlemen.

May this reformation be effected! may this brotherhood rally around you as their founder,

and their tutelary guardian! may you be truly

enabled to exclaim :

"My power's a crescent, and my auguring hope
Says it will come to the full;"

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For you may rest assured, that no lover. of pure and dignified literature will behold this increasing circle without fervently ejaculating— "Impleat orbem !"

I have the honour to be, with an equal admiration of your talents and your virtues,

Sir,

Your very obedient, humble Servant,

THE AUTHOR.

Brighton, June, 1827.