uncle and his long
lost father. The base world, in the persons of Strap, Thompson, the
uncle, Mr. Sagely, and other people, treats him infinitely better than he
deserves. His very love (as always in Smollett) is only an animal
appetite, vigorously insisted upon by the author. By a natural reaction,
Scott, much as he admired Smollett, introduced his own blameless heroes,
and even Thackeray could only hint at the defects of youth, in "Esmond."
Thackeray is accused of making his good people stupid, or too simple, or
eccentric, and otherwise contemptible. Smollett went further: Strap, a
model of benevolence, is ludicrous and a coward; even Bowling has the
stage eccentricities of the sailor. Mankind was certain, in the long
run, to demand heroes more amiable and worthy of respect. Our
inclinations, as Scott says, are with "the open-hearted, good-humoured,
and noble-minded Tom Jones, whose libertinism (one particular omitted) is
perhaps rendered but too amiable by his good qualities." To be sure
Roderick does befriend "a reclaimed street-walker" in her worst need, but
why make her the _confidante_ of the virginal Narcissa? Why reward Strap
with her hand? Fielding decidedly, as Scott insists, "places before us
heroes, and especially heroines, of a much higher as well as more
pleasing character, than Smollett was able to present."

"But the deep and fertile genius of Smollett afforded resources
sufficient to make up for these deficiencies . . . If Fielding had
superior taste, the palm of more brilliancy of genius, more inexhaustible
richness of invention, must in justice be awarded to Smollett. In
comparison with his sphere, that in which Fielding walked was limited . . ."
The second part of Scott's parallel between the men whom he
considered the greatest of our novelists, qualifies the first. Smollett's
invention was not richer than Fielding's, but the sphere in which he
walked, the circle of his experience, was much wider. One division of
life they knew about equally well, the category of rakes, adventurers,
card-sharpers, unhappy authors, people of the stage, and ladies without
reputations, in every degree. There were conditions of higher society,
of English rural society, and of clerical society, which Fielding, by
birth and education, knew much better than Smollett. But Smollett had
the advantage of his early years in Scotland, then as little known as
Japan; with the "nautical multitude," from captain to lobl