is fate to play second fiddle to Fielding.

Smollett's initial story was a pronounced success with the
public--and he aired an arrogant joy and pooh-poohed
insignificant rivals like Fielding. His hand was against every
man's when it came to the question of literary prowess; and like
many authors before and since, one of his first acts upon the
kind reception of "Roderick Random," was to get published his
worthless blank-verse tragedy, "The Regicide," which, refused by
Garrick, had till then languished in manuscript and was an ugly
duckling beloved of its maker. Then came Novel number two, "The
Adventures of Peregrine Pickle," three years after the first: an
unequal book, best at its beginning and end, full of violence,
not on the whole such good art-work as the earlier fiction, yet
very fine in spots and containing such additional sea-dogs as
Commodore Trunnion and Lieutenant Hatchway, whose presence makes
one forgive much. The original preface contained a scurrilous
reference to Fielding, against whom he printed a diatribe in a
pamphlet dated the next year. The hero of the story, a handsome
ne'er-do-well who has money and position to start the world
with, encounters plenty of adventure in England and out of it,
by land and sea. There is an episodic book, "Memoirs, supposed
to be written by a lady of quality," and really giving the
checkered career of Lady Vane, a fast gentlewoman of the time,
done for pay at her request, which is illustrative of the loose
state of fictional art in its unrelated, lugged-in character:
and as well of eighteenth century morals in its drastic details.
We have seen that Fielding was frankly episodic in handling a
story; Smollett goes him one better: as may most notoriously be
seen also in the unmentionable Miss Williams' story in "Roderick
Random"--in fact, throughout his novels. Pickle, to put it
mildly, is not an admirable young man. An author's conception of
his hero is always in some sort a give-away: it expresses his
ideals; that Smollett's are sufficiently low-pitched, may be
seen here. Plainly, to, he likes Peregrine, and not so much
excuses his failings as overlooks them entirely.

After a two years' interval came "The Adventures of Ferdinand,
Count Fathom," which was not liked by his contemporaries and is
now seen to be definitely the poorest of the quartette. It is
enough to say of it that Fathom is an unmitigable scoundrel and
the story, mixed romance and melodrama, offers the