ately a defaulter. Themselves they regard
in the light of creditors, and me as a slippery debtor, who, having
been permitted to pay his debts by instalments--three, suppose, or
four:--has paid two, and then absconded in order to evade the rest.
Certainly to this extent I go along with them myself, that, in all
cases of a tale or story moving through the regular stages of a plot,
the writer, by the act of publishing the introductory parts, pledges
himself to unweave the whole tissue to the last. The knot that he has
tied, though it should prove a very Gordian knot, he is bound to
untie. And, if he fails to do so, I doubt whether a reader has not a
right of action against him for having wantonly irritated a curiosity
that was never meant to be gratified--for having trifled with his
feelings--and, possibly, for having distressed and perplexed his moral
sense; as, for instance, by entangling the hero and heroine (two young
people that can be thoroughly recommended for virtue) in an Irish bog
of misfortunes, and there leaving them to their fate--the gentleman up
to his shoulders, and the poor lady, therefore, in all probability up
to her lips. But, in a case like the present, where the whole is
offered as a _sketch_, an action would not lie. A sketch, by its very
name, is understood to be a fragmentary thing: it is a _torso_, which
may want the head, or the feet, or the arms, and still remain a
marketable piece of sculpture. In buying a horse, you may look into
his mouth, but not in buying a _torso_: for, if all his teeth have
been gone for ten centuries, which would certainly operate in the way
of discount upon the price of a horse, very possibly the loss would be
urged as a good ground for an _extra_ premium upon the torso. Besides,
it is hard to see how any proper _end_ could be devised for a paper of
this nature, reciting a few incidents, sad and gay, from the records
of a half-forgotten childhood, unless by putting the child to death;
for which denouement, unhappily, there was no solid historical
foundation.

Right or wrong, however, my accusers are entitled to my gratitude;
since in the very fact of their anger is involved a compliment. By
proclaiming their indignation against the procrastinating or
absconding sketcher, they proclaim their interest in the sketch; and,
therefore, if any fierce Peter Peebles should hang upon my skirts,
haling me back to work, and denouncing me to the world as a fugitive
from my public d