single creaming, and who are eternally harping to young authors to
husband their efforts, and to be chary of their reputation, lest it
grow hackneyed in the eyes of men. Perhaps I was, and have always
been, the more indifferent to the degree of estimation in which I
might be held as an author, because I did not put so high a value as
many others upon what is termed literary reputation in the abstract,
or at least upon the species of popularity which had fallen to my
share; for though it were worse than affectation to deny that my
vanity was satisfied at my success in the department in which chance
had in some measure enlisted me, I was, nevertheless, far from
thinking that the novelist or romance-writer stands high in the ranks
of literature. But I spare the reader farther egotism on this subject,
as I have expressed my opinion very fully in the Introductory Epistle
to the Fortunes of Nigel, first edition; and, although it be composed
in an imaginary character, it is as sincere and candid as if it had
been written "without my gown and band."

In a word, when I considered myself as having been unsuccessful in the
Monastery, I was tempted to try whether I could not restore, even at
the risk of totally losing, my so-called reputation, by a new
hazard--I looked round my library, and could not but observe, that,
from the time of Chaucer to that of Byron, the most popular authors
had been the most prolific. Even the aristarch Johnson allowed that
the quality of readiness and profusion had a merit in itself,
independent of the intrinsic value of the composition. Talking of
Churchill, I believe, who had little merit in his prejudiced eyes, he
allowed him that of fertility, with some such qualification as this,
"A Crab-apple can bear but crabs after all; but there is a great
difference in favour of that which bears a large quantity of fruit,
however indifferent, and that which produces only a few."