He could not keep up his own interest in his characters after he had developed them; he could take pleasure in giving them life,--he had little pleasure in ushering them into an earthly paradise; so that part of his business he did carelessly, as his only rivals in literature have also done it.
The critics censured, not unjustly, the "machinery" of the story,--these mysterious "assets" of Osbaldistone and Tresham, whose absence was to precipitate the Rising of 1715.

The "Edinburgh Review" lost its heart (Jeffrey's heart was always being lost) to Di Vernon.

But it pronounces that "a king with legs of marble, or a youth with an ivory shoulder," heroes of the "Arabian Nights" and of Pindar, was probable, compared with the wit and accomplishments of Diana.

This is hypercriticism.

Diana's education, under Rashleigh, had been elaborate; her acquaintance with Shakspeare, her main strength, is unusual in women, but not beyond the limits of belief.