The bow will not be for ever bent: "Opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum." I endeavoured, however, to take my repose to myself in security, and not to inflict a set of crude and incoherent dreams upon my readers.

In the meantime, when I revived, I revived in earnest, and in the course of that month carried on my work with unabated speed to the end.
Thus I have endeavoured to give a true history of the concoction and mode of writing of this mighty trifle.

When I had done, I soon became sensible that I had done in a manner nothing.

How many flat and insipid parts does the book contain! How terribly unequal does it appear to me! From time to time the author plainly reels to and fro like a drunken man.

And, when I had done all, what had I done?
Written a book to amuse boys and girls in their vacant hours, a story to be hastily gobbled up by them, swallowed in a pusillanimous and unanimated mood, without chewing and digestion.