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A critical friend of ours, whom we consult
in all our literary projects, and whose opinions
we always follow, when we like them, assures
us that this our work will undoubtedly fail in
attracting the affections of that class of fashionable
readers to whom we especially address ourselves,
for want of the indispensable requisite of
a reasonable quantity of bloodshed and murder.

“All the works of imagination,” said
he, “which have been the most singularly successful
of late, you will observe, abound in battle,
murder, and sudden deaths, events for
which people of a pure natural taste have a peculiar
relish, as is evinced in the avidity with
which they peruse the accounts of last dying
speeches and executions. All writers,”

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continued our critical monitor, “agree, that what is
most agreeable to nature, in narration, sentiment,
or description, approaches the nearest to
the true standard of taste; and, consequently,
the vulgar taste must come the nearest to perfection,
being the least sophisticated by arbitrary
rules, or factitious refinements. It is, therefore,
a happy omen for literature, that the fashionable
taste is now making daily approaches to
that of the vulgar, and no longer banquets with
such extraordinary zest on those refinements in
sentiment, those polished graces, and latent
beauties, which, in less happy ages of literature,
were relished with such unaccountable delight.
Such effeminacies as these have given
place to more manly and unsophisticated compositions—
to delineations of habits and manners,
which, being natural and vulgar in themselves,
are calculated to enchant all persons of
a truly natural taste. The writer who would
please the public now, must deal in perpetual
excitements; must lavish incidents like chaff
before the wind; and excite either disgust,
astonishment, or horror, in every page, or his
book will certainly come upon the parish before
it is six months old.”

Our friend further assured us, that, as he saw

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no possibility of bringing the catastrophe of our
history to a fortunate issue, the best thing we
could do, would be to kill off all our principal
actors as fast as possible, for which purpose he
advised us to borrow the assistance of Tristan
L'Hermite, Trois Echelles, and other pleasant
fellows, equally expert at hanging and
joking, who give such a marvellous zest to the
late work of our great master in the mysteries
of historical fiction. But, notwithstanding what
our friend said on this subject, we cannot but
hope, and believe, that the good people of this
country, owing to the mildness of their laws,
and other circumstances, are not so fond of
hanging, and such like amusements, as some
of the more refined nations of the world. We
trust they may possibly be brought to relish
less piquant entertainments, and that, although
they do stick pegs in the claws of lobsters to
prevent their biting, and sometimes cut off the
heads of chickens with a dull axe, they will, peradventure,
excuse us if we finish this our work
without a single additional instance of mortality,
natural or otherwise, or resorting to the aid
of our old friends, Messrs. Trois Echelles and
Tristan L'Hermite.

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