Now, if we ARE to be interested by rascally actions, let us have them with plain faces, and let them be performed, not by virtuous philosophers, but by rascals.

Another clever class of novelists adopt the contrary system, and create interest by making their rascals perform virtuous actions.

Against these popular plans we here solemnly appeal.

We say, let your rogues in novels act like rogues, and your honest men like honest men; don't let us have any juggling and thimble-rigging with virtue and vice, so that, at the end of three volumes, the bewildered reader shall not know which is which; don't let us find ourselves kindling at the generous qualities of thieves, and sympathising with the rascalities of noble hearts.

For our own part, we know what the public likes, and have chosen rogues for our characters, and have taken a story from the "Newgate Calendar," which we hope to follow out to edification.