It should have so much sublimity, beauty, or novelty, as to interest the reader; and should be expressed in picturesque language, so as to bring the scenery before his eye; and should lastly bear so much veri-similitude as not to awaken him by the violence of improbability or incongruity.

If the dock were policed at this hour, no police, save by the veriest accident, could have detected the children crouching with 'Dolph behind a breastwork of paraffin-casks, and waiting for Bill's signalthe first two or three bars of The Blue Bells of Scotland whistled thrice over.

I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudicesmade up of likings and dislikingsthe veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies.