But as surely as the cadet drinks too much pale ale, it will disagree with him; and so surely, dear youth, will too much novels cloy on thee.  I wonder, do novel-writers themselves read many novels?  If you go into Gunter’s, you don’t see those charming young ladies (to whom I present my most respectful compliments) eating tarts and ices, but at the proper eventide they have good plain wholesome tea and bread-and-butter.  Can anybody tell me does the author of the “Tale of Two Cities” read novels? does the author of the “Tower of London” devour romances? does the dashing “Harry Lorrequer” delight in “Plain or Ringlets” or “Sponge’s Sporting Tour?” Does the veteran, from whose flowing pen we had the books which delighted our young days, “Darnley,” and “Richelieu,” and “Delorme,"* relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and thrill over the “Three Musqueteers?” Does the accomplished author of the “Caxtons” read the other tales in Blackwood? (For example, that ghost-story printed last August, and which for my part, though I read it in the public reading-room at the “Pavilion Hotel” at Folkestone, I protest frightened me so that I scarce dared look over my shoulder.) Does “Uncle Tom” admire “Adam Bede;” and does the author of the “Vicar of Wrexhill” laugh over the “Warden” and the “The Three Clerks?” Dear youth of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous pudor!  I make no doubt that the eminent parties above named all partake of novels in moderation—­eat jellies—­but mainly nourish themselves upon wholesome roast and boiled.

* By the way, what a strange fate is that which befell the veteran novelist!  He was appointed her Majesty’s Consul- General in Venice, the only city in Europe where the famous “Two Cavaliers” cannot by any possibility be seen riding together.

Here, dear youth aforesaid! our Cornhill Magazine owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a table where thou shalt sit in good company.  That story of the “Fox"* was written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night:  that account of China** is told by the man of all the empire most likely to know of what he speaks:  those pages regarding Volunteers*** come from an honored hand that has borne the sword in a hundred famous fields, and pointed the British guns in the greatest siege in the world.

     * “The Search for Sir John Franklin. (From the Private
     Journal of an Officer of the ’Fox.’)”

     ** “The Chinese and the Outer Barbarians.”  By Sir John
     Bowring.

     *** “Our Volunteers.”  By Sir John Burgoyne.