to it if he have.
But who would not swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?"

PISISTRATUS (stirring the fire in great excitement).--"My title! my
title!--what shall be my title?"

MR. CAXTON (thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and in his most
didactic of tones).--"From a remote period, the choice of a title has
perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their
invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced.
To begin with the Hebrews. 'The Lips of the Sleeping' (Labia
Dormientium)--what book did you suppose that title to designate?--A
Catalogue of Rabbinical Writers! Again, imagine some young lady of
old captivated by the sentimental title of 'The Pomegranate with its
Flower,' and opening on a Treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials! Let us
turn to the Romans. Aulus Gellius commences his pleasant gossipping
'Noctes' with a list of the titles in fashion in his day. For instance,
'The Muses' and 'The Veil,' 'The Cornucopia,' 'The Beehive,' and 'The
Meadow.' Some titles, indeed, were more truculent, and promised food to
those who love to sup upon horrors,--such as 'The Torch,' 'The Poniard,'
'The Stiletto'--"

PISISTRATUS (impatiently).--"Yes, sir, but to come to My Novel."

MR. CAXTON (unheeding the interruption).--"You see you have a fine
choice here, and of a nature pleasing, and not unfamiliar, to a
classical reader; or you may borrow a hint from the early dramatic
writers."

PISISTRATUS (more hopefully).--"Ay, there is something in the Drama akin
to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I may catch an idea."

MR. CAXTON.--"For instance, the author of the 'Curiosities of
Literature' (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarizing much of the
information I bestow upon you) tells us of a Spanish gentleman who
wrote a Comedy, by which he intended to serve what he took for Moral
Philosophy."

PISISTRATUS (eagerly).--"Well, sir?"

MR. CAXTON.--"And called it 'The Pain of the Sleep of the World.'"

PISISTRATUS.--"Very comic, indeed, sir."

MR. CAXTON.--"Grave things were then called Comedies, as old things are
now called Novels. Then there are all the titles of early Romance itself
at your disposal,--'Theagenes and Chariclea' or 'The Ass' of Longus, or
'The Golden Ass' of Apuleius, or the titles of Gothic Romance, such as
'The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful History of
Perceforest, King of Great Britain.'" And therewith my father ran over a
list of names as lon