ABSTRACT
The History of Benignus is, in these volumes, brought to such a period as sufficiently enforces the moral intended to be deduced from it. The laws of romance, novel, and comedy, might require a different catastrophe: for in those, it is too often the custom, (at all events, even though many are brought in, as it were, by the head and shoulders) to croud the last scene with persons married or murdered, to the novel reader’s satisfaction. But the laws of narrative ought to be less rigid, and, I flatter myself, the reader will forgive my adhering, upon this occasion, to human nature, even though I verge against the formalities of literary custom.—
The former portions of the work contain many of those dialogues, conversation-pieces, and characters, which fell, necessarily, in the way of our emigrating author in his romantic ramble after happiness.
