form to the public."

MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly the present title cannot be even pronounced by
many without inflicting a shock upon their nervous system. Do you think,
for instance, that my friend, Lady Priscilla Graves--who is a great
novel-reader indeed, but holds all female writers unfeminine deserters
to the standard of Man--could ever come out with, 'Pray, sir, have you
had time to look at--MY Novel?'--She would rather die first. And yet
to be silent altogether on the latest acquisition to the circulating
libraries would bring on a functional derangement of her ladyship's
organs of speech. Or how could pretty Miss Dulcet--all sentiment, it
is true, but all bashful timidity--appall Captain Smirke from proposing
with, 'Did not you think the parson's sermon a little too dry in--MY
Novel'? It will require a face of brass, or at least a long course
of citrate of iron, before a respectable lady or unassuming young
gentleman, with a proper dread of being taken for scribblers, could
electrify a social circle with 'The reviewers don't do justice to the
excellent things in--My Novel.'"

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Awful consequences, indeed, may arise from the
mistakes such a title gives rise to. Counsellor Digwell, for instance, a
lawyer of literary tastes, but whose career at the Bar was long delayed
by an unjust suspicion amongst the attorneys that he had written a
'Philosophical Essay'--imagine such a man excusing himself for being
late at a dinner of bigwigs, with 'I could not get away from--My Novel!'
It would be his professional ruin! I am not fond of lawyers in general,
but still I would not be a party to taking the bread out of the mouth
of those with a family; and Digwell has children,--the tenth an innocent
baby in arms."

MR. CAXTON.--"As to Digwell in particular, and lawyers in general, they
are too accustomed to circumlocution to expose themselves to the danger
your kind heart apprehends; but I allow that a shy scholar like myself,
or a grave college tutor, might be a little put to the blush, if he were
to blurt forth inadvertently with, 'Don't waste your time over trash
like--MY Novel.' And that thought presents to us another and more
pleasing view of this critical question. The title you condemn places
the work under universal protection. Lives there a man or a woman so
dead to self-love as to say, 'What contemptible stuff is--MY Novel'?
Would he or she not rather be impelled by that strong impulse of an
honourable