But as surely as the cadet drinks too much pale ale, it will disagree with him; and so surely, dear youth, will too much novels cloy on thee. I wonder, do novel writers themselves read many novels? If you go into Gunter’s, you don’t see those charming young ladies (to whom I present my most respectful compliments) eating tarts and ices, but at the proper evening-tide they have good plain wholesome tea and bread-and-butter. Can anybody tell me does the author of the _Tale of two Cities_ read novels? does the author of the _Tower of London_ devour romances? does the dashing _Harry Lorrequer_ delight in _Plain or Ringlets_ or _Sponge’s Sporting Tour_? Does the veteran, from whose flowing pen we had the books which delighted our young days, _Darnley_, and _Richelieu_, and _Delorme_[34] relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and thrill over the _Three Musqueteers_? Does the accomplished author of the _Caxtons_ read the other tales in _Blackwood_? (For example, that ghost-story printed last August, and which for my part, though I read it in the public reading-room at the Pavilion Hotel at Folkestone, I protest frightened me so that I scarce dared look over my shoulder.) Does _Uncle Tom_ admire _Adam Bede_; and does the author of the _Vicar of Wrexhill_ laugh over the _Warden_ and the _Three Clerks_? Dear youth of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous pudor! I make no doubt that the eminent parties above named all partake of novels in moderation--eat jellies--but mainly nourish themselves upon wholesome roast and boiled. Here, dear youth aforesaid! our CORNHILL MAGAZINE owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a table where thou shall sit in good company. That story of the _Fox_ was written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night: that account of China is told by the man of all the empire most likely to know of what he speaks: those pages regarding Volunteers come from an honoured hand that has borne the sword in a hundred famous fields, and pointed the British guns in the greatest siege in the world.