unable to satisfy, is an error fatal to his literary reputation.
Besides, when we meet such a title as the Gunpowder Plot, or any
other connected with general history, each reader, before he has
seen the book, has formed to himself some particular idea of the
sort of manner in which the story is to be conducted, and the
nature of the amusement which he is to derive from it. In this
he is probably disappointed, and in that case may be naturally
disposed to visit upon the author or the work, the unpleasant
feelings thus excited. In such a case the literary adventurer
is censured, not for having missed the mark at which he himself
aimed, but for not having shot off his shaft in a direction he
never thought of.

On the footing of unreserved communication which the Author has
established with the reader, he may here add the trifling
circumstance, that a roll of Norman warriors, occurring in the
Auchinleck Manuscript, gave him the formidable name of
Front-de-Boeuf.

Ivanhoe was highly successful upon its appearance, and may be
said to have procured for its author the freedom of the Rules,
since he has ever since been permitted to exercise his powers of
fictitious composition in England, as well as Scotland.

The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes
of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when
arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not
assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less
interesting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of
the age rendered such an union almost impossible, the author may,