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.