beast." As to characterization, if a
genius for it means the creation of figures which linger in the
familiar memory of mankind, Smollett must perforce be granted
the faculty; here in his first book are Tom Bowling and Strap--to
name two--the one (like Richardson's Lovelace) naming a type:
the other standing for the country innocent, the meek fidus
Achates, both as good as anything of the same class in Fielding.
The Welsh mate, Mr. Morgan, for another of the sailor sort, is
also excellent. The judgment may be eccentric, but for myself
the character parts in Smollett's dramas seem for variety and
vividness often superior to those of Fielding. The humor at its
best is very telling. The portraits, or caricatures, of living
folk added to the story's immediate vogue, but injure it as a
permanent contribution to fiction.

A fair idea of the nature of the attractions offered (and at the
same time a clear indication of the sort of fiction manufactured
by the doughty doctor) may be gleaned from the following
precis--Smollett's own--of Chapter XXXVIII: "I get up and crawl
into a barn where I am in danger of perishing through the fear of
the country people. Their inhumanity. I am succored by a reputed
witch. Her story. Her advice. She recommends me as a valet to a
single lady whose character she explains." This promises pretty
fair reading: of course, we wish to read on and to learn more of
that single lady and the hero's relation to her. Such a motive,
which might be called, "The Mistakes of a Night," with details
too crude and physical to allow of discussion, is often
overworked by Smollett (as, in truth, it is by Fielding, to
modern taste): the eighteenth century had not yet given up the
call of the Beast in its fiction--an element of bawdry was still
welcome in the print offered reputable folk.

The style of Smollett in his first fiction, and in general, has
marked dramatic flavor: his is a gift of forthright phrase, a
plain, vernacular smack characterizes his diction. To go back to
him now is to be surprised perhaps at the racy vigor of so
faulty a writer and novelist. A page or so of Smollett, after a
course in present-day popular fiction, reads very much like a
piece of literature. In this respect, he seems full of flavor,
distinctly of the major breed: there is an effect of passing
from attenuated parlor tricks into the open, when you take him
up. Here, you can but feel, is a masculine man of letters, even
if it is h