The result of all I have said is, to shelter my own daring under the canon of the brightest genius this
country, at least, has produced. I might have pleaded, that having created a new species of romance,
I was at liberty to lay down what rules I thought fit for the conduct of it: but I should be more proud of
having imitated, however faintly, weakly, and at a distance, so masterly a pattern, than to enjoy the entire
merit of invention, unless I could have marked my work with genius as well as with originality. Such as it
is, the public have honoured it sufficiently, whatever rank their suffrages allot to it.