To say that it wants either contraction or expansion; less "talk about it" and more actual conversation; a stronger projection of character and other things; is merely to say that it is an experiment in the infancy of the novel, not a following out of secrets already divulged.

It certainly is the first prose story in English which can be ranked with things that already existed in foreign literatures.
Nor is it the only one of the batch in which advance is seen.

"The King of Bantam," for instance, is the account of an "extravagant," though not quite a fool, who is "coney-catched" in the old manner.

But it opens in a fashion very different indeed from the old manner.

"This money is certainly a most devilish thing! I'm sure the want of it had been like to ruin my dear Philibella!" and the succeeding adventures are pretty freshly told.