TO THE READER. It is not without considerable apprehension that I offer myself as an avowed Author at the bar of public opinion, -and that apprehension is heightened by its being the general custom to give indiscriminately the name of NOVEL to every thing in Prose that comes in the shape of a Story, however simple it be in its construction, and humble in its pretensions. By this means, the following Publication is in danger of being tried by a standard according to which it was never intended to be made, and to be criticized for wanting those merits which it was never meant to possess. I...