Fielding, and
Smollett the general character and possibilities of the novel had been
shown, with the exception just noted: and indeed hardly with that
exception, because they showed the way clearly to it. But its almost
illimitable particular capabilities remained unshown, or shown only in
Fielding's half extraneous divagations, and in earlier things like the
work of Swift. Sterne took it up in the spirit of one who wished to
exhibit these capabilities; and did exhibit them signally in more than
one or two ways. He showed how the novel could present, in refreshed
form, the _fatrasie_, the pillar-to-post miscellany, of which Rabelais
had perhaps given the greatest example possible, but of which there were
numerous minor examples in French. He showed how it could be made, not
merely to present humorous situations, but to exhibit a special kind of
humour itself--to make the writer as it were the hero without his ever
appearing as character in _Tristram_, or to humorise autobiography as in
the _Sentimental Journey_. And last of all (whether it was his greatest
achievement or not is matter of opinion), he showed the novel of purpose
in a form specially appealing to his contemporaries--the purpose being
to exhibit, glorify, luxuriate in the exhibition of, sentiment or
"sensibility." In none of these things was he wholly original; though
the perpetual upbraiding of "plagiarism" is a little unintelligent.
Rabelais, not to mention others, had preceded him, and far excelled him,
in the _fatrasie_; Swift in the humour-novel; two generations of
Frenchmen and Frenchwomen in the "sensibility" kind. But he brought all
together and adjusted the English novel, actually to them, potentially
to much else.

To find fault with his two famous books is almost contemptibly easy. The
plagiarism which, if not found out at once, was found out very soon, is
the least of these: in fact hardly a fault at all. The indecency, which
_was_ found out at once, and which drew a creditable and not in the
least Tartuffian protest from Warburton, is a far more serious
matter--not so much because of the licence in subject as because of the
unwholesome and sniggering tone. The sentimentality is very often simply
maudlin, almost always tiresome _to us_, and in very, very few
cases justified by brilliant success even in its own very doubtful
kind. Most questionable of all, perhaps, is the merely mechanical
mountebankery--the blanks, and the dashes, and the rows