for, if he does not know it himself, he is sure to let his readers know
it; if he does not see the dark spots, he will not endeavour to conceal
them; and, if he thinks them bright ones, he will blazon them. But
novel-writing, when well done, is, after all, the best species of
writing; for, if what all the world says, is true; what all the world
reads, must be good. A novel writer, of any talents, will draw his
portraits from the life--will catch at every striking feature, and
generally paint man as he is; and there is this difference between
actual histories and works of imagination, that the former are for the
most part true in letter, but false in spirit; and the latter, false in
letter, and true in spirit; the one is correct in names, dates, and
places, but out of truth in everything else: the other is not correct in
names, dates, and places, but perfectly true in every other point.

The worst part of a novel is the hero or heroine: these are too
frequently fabrications from the author's fancy, instead of portraits
from nature; or, if taken from life, they are tortured into a perfection
that life never knew. This is too much the case with "Thaddeus of
Warsaw," and ten thousand others. Ladies are not good hands in painting
heroes, nor gentlemen always equal to the portraying of heroines. The
author of _Werter_ knew that, and therefore he did not disfigure his
wicked and interesting work with an artificial Charlotte: he leaves her
to the reader's own fancy, who has nothing to do but to fancy himself
Werter, and his own imagination will paint Charlotte.

When the hero is made the vehicle of one moral lesson, as Vivian, in
Miss Edgeworth's "Tales of Fashionable Life," then there is no need of
artificial ornament; and when there is no intention of presenting an
unmixed character of evil, nothing remains but to draw from life, and
the work is perfect. One of Miss Edgeworth's failings is of great