d heart."

The _Editor_ quoted on page 23 is presumably Marryat himself. At least
the footnote occurs in the first edition, and was probably reprinted
from the magazine, where the identity of editor and author was not so
patent.

It is here printed from the first edition, in three volumes; motto:
Honesty is the best policy. James Cochrane & Co., 1832.[1]
R.B.J.
[Footnote 1: Thompson has been changed to Johnson and, in another place,
Robinson to Robertson, in order to let the same characters act under one
name throughout the book.]

Newton Forster;

OR,

The Merchant Service

* * * * *

Chapter I

"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 canvas 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 "d----d good-natured
friends."

"I like your first and second volume," said a tall, long-chinned,
short-sighted blue, dressed in yellow, peering into my face, as if her
eyes were magnifying glasses, and she was obtaining the true focus of
vision, "but you fall off in your last, which is all about that _nasty_
line-of-battle ship."

"I don't like your plot, sir," bawls out in a stentorian voice an
elderly gentleman; "I don't like your plot, sir," repeated he with an
air of authority, which he had long assumed, from supposing because
people would not be at the trouble of contradicting his opinions, that
they were incontrovertible--"