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xiv. Though I can only, then, advance a claim to the merit of the renewer, not the creator,—the furbisher of old pictures, not the artist of new,—I am yet very far from certain that I can reach even an equal merit in any other branch of literature; and thus you perceive a fourth novel from my pen, where your unreflecting friendship would have wished to see an attempt in political morals or history:—History! after all, and despite of all discouragement, there is to every student, every man of closet, or academic, recollections, a wonderful stimulus in that word! and, perhaps, I may already, and in defiance of my own judgment, and the warnings around, have nursed within me some project in that most noble yet least ransacked department of intellectual research, which in after-years I may disappoint you and embody. But this is not to be lightly begun, nor even immaturely conceived; and how many casualties may arise to mar altogether the execution of such a project! how many casualties, even at the best, may procrastinate it to the languor of age, and the energies slackened by long familiarity with the crosses and contests of life! Often, when through youth and manhood we imagine we are cherishing our concluding triumph, we are only nursing our latest