is sometimes a master of pathos, he frequently gives an
exhibition of weak and forced sentimentalism. He more uniformly excels
in subtle humor, which is his next most conspicuous characteristic.

_Roderick Random_ (1748), _Peregrine Pickle_ (1751), and _The
Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_ (1771) are Smollett's best novels.
They are composed mainly of a succession of stirring or humorous
incidents. In relying for interest more on adventure than on the
drawing of character, he reverts to the picaresque type of story.

The Relation of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and
Smollett to Subsequent Fiction.--Although the modern reader
frequently complains that these older novelists often seem heavy, slow
in movement, unrefined, and too ready to draw a moral or preach a
sermon, yet these four men hold an important place in the history of
fiction. With varying degrees of excellence, Richardson, Fielding, and
Sterne all have the rare power of portraying character from within, of
interpreting real life. Some novelists resort to the far easier task
of painting merely external characteristics and mannerisms. Smollett
belongs to the latter class. His effective focusing of external
peculiarities and caricaturing of exceptional individuals has had a
far-reaching influence, which may be traced even in the work of so
great a novelist as Charles Dickens. Fielding, on the other hand, had
great influence of Thackeray, who has recorded in _The English
Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ his admiration for his earlier
fellow-craftsman.

Although subsequent English fiction has invaded many new fields,
although it has entered the domain of history and of sociology, it is
not too much to say that later novelists have advanced on the general
lines marked out by these four mid-eighteenth century pioneers. We may
even affirm with Gosse that "the type of novel invented in England
about 1740-50 continued for sixty or seventy years to be the only
model for Continental fiction; and criticism has traced in every
French novelist, in particular, the stamp of Richardson, if not of
Sterne, and of Fielding."

PHILOSOPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND POLITICAL PROSE

Philosophy.--Although the majority of eighteenth-century writers
disliked speculative thought and resolutely turned away from it, yet
the age produced some remarkable philosophical works, which are still
discussed, and which have powerfully affected later thought. David
Hume (1711-1776) is the greatest