and his courage steady; the battle over, he could do
justice to the enemy with whom he had been so fiercely engaged, and give a
not unfriendly grasp to the hand that had mauled him. He is like one of
those Scotch cadets, of whom history gives us so many examples, and whom,
with a national fidelity, the great Scotch novelist has painted so
charmingly. Of gentle birth(148) and narrow means, going out from his
northern home to win his fortune in the world, and to fight his way, armed
with courage, hunger, and keen wits. His crest is a shattered oak-tree,
with green leaves yet springing from it. On his ancient coat-of-arms there
is a lion and a horn; this shield of his was battered and dinted in a
hundred fights and brawls,(149) through which the stout Scotchman bore it
courageously. You see somehow that he is a gentleman, through all his
battling and struggling, his poverty, his hard-fought successes, and his
defeats. His novels are recollections of his own adventures; his
characters drawn, as I should think, from personages with whom he became
acquainted in his own career of life. Strange companions he must have had;
queer acquaintances he made in the Glasgow College--in the country
apothecary's shop; in the gun-room of the man-of-war where he served as
surgeon, and in the hard life on shore, where the sturdy adventurer
struggled for fortune. He did not invent much, as I fancy, but had the
keenest perceptive faculty, and described what he saw with wonderful
relish and delightful broad humour. I think Uncle Bowling, in _Roderick
Random_, is as good a character as Squire Western himself; and Mr. Morgan,
the Welsh apothecary, is as pleasant as Dr. Caius. What man who has made
his inestimable acquaintance--what novel-reader who loves Don Quixote and
Major Dalgetty--will refuse his most cordial acknowledgements to the
admirable Lieutenant Lismahago? The novel of _Humphry Clinker_ is, I do
think, the most laughable story that has ever been written since the
goodly art of novel-writing began. Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble
must keep Englishmen on the grin for ages yet to come; and in their
letters and the story of their loves there is a perpetual fount of
sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible as Bladud's well.

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Fielding, too, has described, though with a greater hand, the characters
and scenes which he knew and saw. He had more than ordinary opportunities
for becoming