But this writer is tawdry; he has the worst vices of the sensational school--he shows everywhere marks of haste, gross carelessness, and universal feebleness.

When he gets hold of a good fancy, he lacks the patience that is necessary in order to work it up in an effective way.

He is a gross plagiarist, and over and over again violates in the most glaring manner all the ordinary proprieties of style.

What can be more absurd, for instance, than the language which he puts into the mouth of Layelah?
Not content with making her talk like a sentimental boarding-school, bread-and-butter English miss, he actually forgets himself so far as to put in her mouth a threadbare joke, which everyone has heard since childhood." "What is that ?" "Oh, that silly speech about the athaleb swallowing its victuals whole." "What's the matter with that ?" asked Oxenden.

"It's merely a chance resemblance.