The real secret of the novel was not found out till this was discarded.

Perhaps that real secret does not lie so much anywhere else as here.
A few words may not improperly be said about some of the circumstances and details of novel-appearance and distribution, etc., at this palmy day of English fiction.

At what time the famous "three-decker" was consecrated as the regular novel line-of-battle-ship I have not been able to determine exactly to my own satisfaction.

Richardson had extended his interminable narrations to seven or eight volumes: Miss Burney latterly had not been content with less than five.

From the specimens I have examined, I have an idea that with the "Minerva Press" and its contemporaries and successors at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, _four_ was a very favourite if not the most usual number.