Having advanced you the sum agreed upon for two octavo volumes, each containing thirty-five sheets, we find that Vol. II. wants a sheet and a half of the proposed quantity. Partner and self therefore consider you as indebted to us in the sum of twenty-five pounds, which you will forthwith please to return. I am, Sir, For Partner and self, &c. &c. Base caitiff! but a truce to such miserable dreams. Let us resume the issue of our friend’s first literary adventure. For the first month after publication, the stature was more erect, the ears remarkably vigilant and on the stretch, the visits to the bookseller’s shop perpetual. After an interval of a fortnight, with a tremulous voice the question was proposed, How do we get on? The reply was not the most exhilarating; I know not how we _get on_, but I know we do not _go off_. It was, however, subjoined in a consolatory tone, “Perhaps when we shall be noticed in the reviews, things may do better.” Here a new string was vibrated upon. Those Gorgonian monsters, whose visionary aspect presented the dogs of Scylla, with more hands than Briareus, more eyes than Argus, to the disturbed imagination of the inexperienced author. He fancied to himself a solemn and formidable conclave of grave, severe, and profound scholars, with bushy wigs and frowning brows, formally assembled to pronounce their irreversible sentence upon every production of literary adventurers. The abrupt and sarcastic irony with which the efforts of some unfledged authors were dismissed, haunted him in his sleep, and appalled his very soul. He knew better afterwards, being himself admitted behind the curtain, but in this dreadful interval, his anxiety was of no ordinary kind. He had perpetually before his eyes Homer’s description of Scylla and Charybdis. No bird of air, no dove of swiftest wing, That bears ambrosia to the ethereal king, Shuns these dire rocks—in vain she cuts the skies, The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies. ... Here Scylla bellows from her dire abodes, Tremendous pest, abhorred by men and gods, Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar The whelps of lions in the midnight hour. His bookseller usually received the magazines and reviews on the evening before their general publication, and had the good nature to indulge the Aspirant after literary distinction, with a previous of these arbiters of destiny. No sooner had the bugle of the guard announced the arrival of the mail, than, with hurried step and nervous solicitude, a visit was paid to the bookseller. Alas! the poor author’s fame had not yet reached the cognizance of those, whose determination was to fix its value. Another month succeeded, and yet another, and a similar disappointment and mortification was experienced. At length, in the latter part of the monthly catalogue of one of these Lunar oracles, the following remark appeared.—