Henry Author:Richard Cumberland General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1795 Original Publisher: Printed for C. Dilly Subjects: English fiction Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to... more » Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: H E N R T. BOOK THE FOURTH. Chapter I. Author appeals to his Readers. "I" SHALL now put in a few words, whilfl my hiftory paufes, touching what I claim from my readers, as a right, and what I hope and expert from them, as a favour. My claim is briefly this, credit in all cafes for an honeft meaning, or in other words, the beft lenfe that a doubtful pafiage will bear : it is thus I have treated others, the fame treatment I have a right now to claim from them. On the fcore of favour I am their fuitor in the humbleft fenfe, for I fee fo many imper- fectionsMlarting up in my performance, which I cannot cure, and fufpecl there may be fo many more, which poffibly I mail not difcover, that I have no notion of fending my fins into the world without one apology ; I am not hardy enough to give in the account between my readers and myfelf, without the ufual falvo of er- Vol. II. , B rors rors excepted. -- " Take Nature for your guide," fays the critic; " follow her and you can't " go wrong." True, mofl: fagacious critic, I reply ; but what is fo difficult ? Does the tragic poet always find her out ? Does the comic writer never mifs her haunts ? Yet they profefs to paint from nature, and no doubt they do their beft: the outline may be true, but the leaf t ffip in filling it up mars the portrait ; it demands a fteady hand, a faithful eye, a watchful judgment, to make the like- nefs perfect ; and grant it perfect, the author's work will gain no praife, unlefs it be pleafing alfo ; for who opens a novel but in the ex- pectation of being amu...« less