Volume One--Chapter One. And what is this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?—Oh! ’tis out of all plumb, my lord,—quite an irregular thing; not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. I had my rule and compasses, my lord, in my pocket.—Excellent critic! Grant me patience, just Heaven! Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting! Sterne. What authors in general may feel upon the subject I know not, but I have discovered, since I so rashly took up my pen, that there are three portions of a novel which are extremely difficult to arrange to the satisfaction of a fastidious public. The first is the beginning, the second the middle, and the third is the end. The painter who, in times of yore, exposed his canvass to universal criticism, and found to his mortification that there was not a particle of his composition which had not been pronounced defective by one pseudo-critic or another, did not receive severer castigation than I have experienced from the unsolicited remarks of “damned good-natured friends.”