Captain. Some books will defy all alchemy.
Author. They will be but few in number; since, as for the writers, who are possessed of no merit at all, unless indeed they publish their works at their own expense, like Sir Richard Blackmore, their power of annoying the public will be soon limited by the difficulty of finding undertaking booksellers.
Captain. You are incorrigible. Are there no bounds to your audacity?
Author. There are the sacred and eternal boundaries of honour and virtue. My course is like the enchanted chamber of Britomart—
“Where as she look'd about, she did behold
How over that same door was likewise writ,
Be Bold—Be Bold, and everywhere Be Bold. Whereat she mused, and could not construe it;
At last she spied at that room's upper end
Another iron door, on which was writ—
BE NOT TOO BOLD.”
Captain. Well, you must take the risk of proceeding on your own principles.
Author. Do you act on yours, and take care you do not stay idling here till the dinner hour is over.—I will add this work to your patrimony, valeat quantum.
Here our dialogue terminated; for a little sooty-faced Apollyon from the Canongate came to demand the proof-sheet on the part of Mr. M'Corkindale; and I heard Mr. C. rebuking Mr. F. in another compartment of the same labyrinth I have described, for suffering any one to penetrate so far into the penetralia of their temple.
I leave it to you to form your own opinion concerning the import of this dialogue, and I cannot but believe I shall meet the wishes of our common parent in prefixing this letter to the work which it concerns.
I am, reverend and dear Sir,