he _belles lettres_, in the interest of his "amorous
complexion," by "lampooning the rivals" of the young ladies who admired
him.

Such are the happy beginnings, accompanied by practical jokes, of this
interesting model. Smollett's heroes, one conceives, were intended to be
fine, though not faultless young fellows; men, not plaster images; brave,
generous, free-living, but, as Roderick finds once, when examining his
conscience, pure from serious stains on that important faculty. To us
these heroes often appear no better than ruffians; Peregrine Pickle, for
example, rather excels the infamy of Ferdinand, Count Fathom, in certain
respects; though Ferdinand is professedly "often the object of our
detestation and abhorrence," and is left in a very bad, but, as "Humphrey
Clinker" shows, in by no means a hopeless way. Yet, throughout, Smollett
regarded himself as a moralist, a writer of improving tendencies; one who
"lashed the vices of the age." He was by no means wholly mistaken, but
we should probably wrong the eighteenth century if we accepted all
Smollett's censures as entirely deserved. The vices which he lashed are
those which he detected, or fancied that he detected, in people who
regarded a modest and meritorious Scottish orphan with base indifference.
Unluckily the greater part of mankind was guilty of this crime, and
consequently was capable of everything.

Enough has probably been said about the utterly distasteful figure of
Smollett's hero. In Chapter LX. we find him living on the resources of
Strap, then losing all Strap's money at play, and then "I bilk my
taylor." That is, Roderick orders several suits of new clothes, and
sells them for what they will fetch. Meanwhile Strap can live honestly
anywhere, while he has his ten fingers. Roderick rescues himself from
poverty by engaging, with his uncle, in the slave trade. We are apt to
consider this commerce infamous. But, in 1763, the Evangelical director
who helped to make Cowper "a castaway," wrote, as to the slaver's
profession: "It is, indeed, accounted a genteel employment, and is
usually very profitable, though to me it did not prove so, the Lord
seeing that a large increase of wealth could not be good for me." The
reverend gentleman had, doubtless, often sung--

"_Time for us to go_,
_Time for us to go_,
_And when we'd got the hatches down_,
'_Twas time for us to go_!"

Roderick, apart from "black ivory," is aided by his