consequently, virtue, the most important benefit; for every truth is a
moral. This great and universal end, I am led to imagine, is rather
crippled than extended by the rigorous attention to the one isolated
moral you mention.

"Thus Dryden, in his Essay on the Progress of Satire, very rightly
prefers Horace to Juvenal, so far as instruction is concerned; because
the miscellaneous satires of the former are directed against every vice--
the more confined ones of the latter (for the most part) only against
one. All mankind is the field the novelist should cultivate--all truth,
the moral he should strive to bring home. It is in occasional dialogue,
in desultory maxims, in deductions from events, in analysis of character,
that he should benefit and instruct. It is not enough--and I wish a
certain novelist who has lately arisen would remember this--it is not
enough for a writer to have a good heart, amiable sympathies, and what
are termed high feelings, in order to shape out a moral, either true in
itself, or beneficial in its inculcation. Before he touches his tale, he
should be thoroughly acquainted with the intricate science of morals, and
the metaphysical, as well as the more open, operations of the mind. If
his knowledge is not deep and clear, his love of the good may only lead
him into error; and he may pass off the prejudices of a susceptible heart
for the precepts of virtue. Would to God that people would think it
necessary to be instructed before they attempt to instruct. 'Dire
simplement que la vertu est vertu parce qu'elle est bonne en son fonds,
et le vice tout au contraire, ce n'est pas les faire connoitre.' For me,
if I was to write a novel, I would first make myself an acute, active,
and vigilant observer of men and manners. Secondly, I would, after having
thus noted effects by action in the world, trace the causes by books, and
meditation in my closet. It is then, and not till then, that I would
study the lighter graces of style and decoration; nor would I give the