Frank Mildmay

This is an interesting passage for several reasons. It is obviously full of all that frank directness in the explanation of motive and purpose which we should expect from so thorough-going and simple-hearted a man as Captain Marryat. He tells us, without any circumlocution, that he wrote his book in order to gibbet some of his enemies, that the hero was not intended for himself, and that he received very unmerciful handling on the part of the critics. The author was not a man to brook contradiction or antagonism in any part of his life, and the mere fact that he was assured that he had made a mistake would be quite sufficient inducement to him to repeat it on the first opportunity. Nearly every subsequent book is better than Frank Mildmay; but it ought also to be remembered that in Percival Keene the hero possesses no more admirable a character than does the Naval Officer.

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