He was certainly not the first, nor
the last, young Templar who has quitted special pleading on a crusade to
the heights of Parnassus, and he began early to try the nib of his pen
and the colour of his ink in a novel. Eheu! how many a novel has issued
from the dull, dirty chambers of that same Temple! The waters of the
Thames just there seem to have been augmented by a mingled flow of
sewage and Helicon, though the former is undoubtedly in the greater
proportion. This novel, called 'Incognita; or, Love and Duty
Reconciled,' seems to have been--for I confess that I have not read more
than a chapter of it, and hope I never may be forced to do so--great
rubbish, with good store of villains and ruffians, love-sick maidens who
tune their lutes--always conveniently at hand--and love-sick gallants
who run their foes through the body with the greatest imaginable ease.
It was, in fact, such a novel as James might have written, had he lived
a century and a half ago. It brought its author but little fame, and
accordingly he turned his attention to another branch of literature, and
in 1693 produced 'The Old Bachelor,' a play of which Dryden, his friend,
had so high an opinion that he called it the 'best first-play he had
ever read.
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