me anything like the
modified satisfaction that is given by _Parismus_: and after all, if a
man will not take the trouble to finish writing his book (which Orrery
never did) why should his readers take the trouble even to finish
reading what he has written? The scene is Parthia, with alternation to
Syria, and diversions and episodes elsewhere: and though there is a
certain amount of fighting, the staple is quite decorous but exceedingly
dull love-making, conducted partly in the endless dialogue (or rather
automatic monologue) already referred to, and partly in letters more
"handsome" even than Mr. Frank Churchill's, and probably a good deal
more sincere in their conventional way, but pretty certainly less
amusing. The original attraction indeed of this class of novel
consisted, and, in so far as it still exists, may be said to consist, in
noble sentiment, elegantly expressed. It deserved, and in a manner
deserves, the commendatory part of Aramis's rebuke to Porthos for
expressing impatience with the compliments between Athos and D'Artagnan
at their first and hostile rencounter.[3] Otherwise there is not much to
be said for it. It does not indeed deserve Johnson's often quoted remark
as to Richardson (on whom when we come to him we shall have something
more to say in connection with these heroic romances), if any one were
to read _Parthenissa_ for the story he would not, unless he were a very
impulsive person, "hang himself." He would simply, after a number of
pages varying with the individual, cease to read it.

[3] "Quant a moi, je trouve les choses que ces messieurs se
disent fort bien dites et tout a fait dignes de deux
gentilhommes."

The work of the great Lord Advocate who was traduced by Covenanting
malice is in a certain sense more interesting: and that not merely
because it is much shorter. _Aretina_ or _The Serious Romance_, opens
with an "apology for Romances" generally, which goes far to justify
Dryden's high opinion of Mackenzie as a critic. But it cannot be said to
be much--it is a little--more interesting as a story than _Parthenissa_,
and it is written in a most singular lingo--not displaying the racy
quaintness of Mackenzie's elder contemporary and fellow-loyalist
Urquhart, but a sort of Scotified and modernised Euphuism rather
terrible to peruse. A library is "a bibliotheck richly tapestried with
books." Somebody possesses, or is compared to "a cacochymick stomach,
which transubstantiates