engaged a passage in a northern whaler, and have only just returned after an absence of half a year. Yes, Smith! Incredible as it may appear to you, I have actually been in Iceland, seen Hecla in a state of conflagration; and it was by that lurid light, while my mutton was boiling in the Geyser, that I first unfolded your manuscript, and read the introductory chapters of "SILAS SPAVINHITCH; _or, Rides around the Circus with Widdicomb and Co._" I trust, therefore, that after this explanation, you will discontinue the epithet of "beast," and the corresponding expletives which you have used rather liberally in your last two epistles. When you consider the matter calmly, I think you will admit that you have suffered no very material loss in consequence of the unavoidable delay; and, as to the public, I am quite sure that they will devour Silas more greedily about Christmas, than if he had made his appearance, all booted and spurred, in the very height of the dog-days. You will also have the opportunity, as your serial is not yet completed, of reflecting upon the justice of the hints which I now venture to offer for your future guidance--hints, derived not only from my observation of the works of others, but from some little personal experience in that kind of popular composition; and, should you agree with me in any of the views hereinafter expressed, you may perhaps be tempted to act upon them in the revision and completion of your extremely interesting work. First, then, let me say a few words regarding the purpose and the nature of that sort of _feuilleton_ which we now denominate the serial. Do not be alarmed, Smith. I am not going to conglomerate your faculties by any Aristotelian exposition. You are a man of by far too much practical sense to be humbugged by such outworn pedantry, and your own particular purpose in penning Silas is of course most distinctly apparent. You want to sack as many of the public shillings as possible. That is the great motive which lies at the foundation of all literary or general exertion, and the man who does not confess it broadly and openly is an ass. If your study of Fitzball has not been too exclusive, you may perhaps recollect the lines of Byron:-- "No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade, Let such forego the poet's sacred name, Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame; Low may they sink to merited contempt, And scorn remunerate the mean attempt! Such be their meed, such still the just reward Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!"