Through successive brilliant periods of litera- 
ture and intellectual discernment, during which 
scarce a line of human character may have been 
left untraced, or the most latent motives to action 
unpenetrated by the keen glance of refined 
judgment and critical scrutiny, the Author who 
for the first time enters upon the field of letters— 
while in very truth he dashes forward with head- 
long zeal, hold and elate, because blind to his 
peril — has been permitted to shelter his forces 
under the breastworks of inexperience, diffidence 
of his strength, and distrust as to the quality or 
the sufficiency of his stores ; and his position has 
remained unchallenged. Johnson has said, and 
we readily admit, that “ the difficulty of the first 
