. . . a little attention however to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful as well as pleasant . . . considering history as a moral exercise, her lessons would be too unfrequent if confined to real life. of those recorded by historians few incidents have been attended with such circumstances as to excite in any high degree this sympathetic emotion of virtue. we are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage . . . thus a lively and lasting avenue of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written. this is my idea of well-written Romance, of Tragedy, Comedy and Epic poetry . . .

. . . A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively employed. when this poison infects the mind, it destroys it’s tone, and revolts it against wholsome reading. reason and fact, plain and unadorned are rejected. nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of fancy; and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. the result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real business of life . . .