ildest manner by my own
counsel."

_Mr. Caxton_.--"You see that Roland tells us exactly what sort of a book
it shall be."

_Pisistratus_.--"Trash, sir?"

_Mr. Caxton_.--"No--that is not necessarily trash--but a book of that
class which, whether trash or not, people can't help reading. Novels have
become the necessity of the age. You must write a novel."

_Pisistratus_, flattered, but dubious.--"A novel! But every subject on
which novels can be written is preoccupied. There are novels on low life,
novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels philosophical,
novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive of India, the
Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From what bird, wild
eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I

"'Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing!'"

_Mr. Caxton_, after a little thought.--"You remember the story which
Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night. That
gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot--puts you
chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you with
characters which have been sparingly dealt with since the time of
Fielding. You can give us the country squire, as you remember him in your
youth: it is a specimen of a race worth preserving--the old
idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring
Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London. You can
give us the old-fashioned parson, as in all essentials he may yet be
found--but before you had to drag him out of the great Puseyite sectarian
bog; and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many
popular writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a
little in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in
the kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something
useful might be done by a few good-humored sketches of those innocent
criminals a little better off than their neighbors, whom, however we
dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one shape
or another, as long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the whole,
as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the dice
box of society how we will."

_Pisistratus_.--"Very well said, sir; but this rural country gentleman
life is not so new as you think. There's Washington Irving--"

_Mr. Caxton_.--"Charming--but rather the manners of the last cent