Gracious Heaven! what a revengeful feeling is there in the exclamation “O that mine adversary had written a book!” To be snarled at, and bow-wowed at, in this manner, by those who find fault because their intellect is not sufficient to enable them to appreciate!  Authors, take my resolution; which is, never to show your face until your work has passed through the ordeal of the Reviews—­keep your room for the month after your literary labour.  Reviews are like Jesuit father confessors—­guiding the opinions of the multitude, who blindly follow the suggestions of those to whom they may have entrusted their literary consciences.  If your work is denounced and to be released at once from your sufferings by one blow from the paw of a tiger, than to be worried piecemeal by creatures who have all the will, but not the power, to inflict the coup de grace?

The author of “Cloudesley,” enumerating the qualifications necessary to a writer of fiction, observes, “When he introduces his ideal personage to the public, he enters upon his task with a preconception of the qualities that belong to this being, the principle of his actions, and its necessary concomitants, &c, &c.”  That such preparation ought to be made, I will not deny; but were I to attempt an adherence to these rules, the public would never be troubled with any production of mine.  It would be too tedious a journey in perspective for my wayward intellect; and if I calculated stages before I ordered my horses, I should abandon the attempt, and remain quietly at home.  Mine is not a journey of that methodical description; on the contrary, it is a ramble hand-in-hand with Fancy, with a light heart and a lighter baggage; for my whole wallet, when I set off, contains but one single idea—­but ideas are hermaphrodite, and these creatures of the brain are most prolific.  To speak more intelligibly, I never have made any arrangement of plot when I commenced a work of fiction, and often finish a chapter without having the slightest idea of what materials the ensuing one is to be constructed.  At times I feel so tired that I throw down the pen in despair; but t is soon taken up again, and, like a pigmy Ant, it seems to have imbibed fresh vigour from its prostration.

I remember when the “King’s Own” was finished, I was as happy as a pedestrian who had accomplished his thousand miles in a thousand hours.  My voluntary slavery was over, and I was emancipated.  Where was I then?  I recollect; within two days’ sail of the Lizard, returning home, after a six weeks’ cruise to discover a rock in the Atlantic, which never existed except in the terrified or intoxicated noddle of some master of a merchant vessel.

It was about half-past five in the evening, and I was alone in my after-cabin, quite alone, as the captain of a man-of-war must be, even when in presence of his ship’s company.  If being sent to sea has been pronounced by the officers and men to be transportation, being the captain of the ship may truly be designated as solitary confinement.