o, give
some account of his early history, from the day of his birth up to the
point where the true narrative commences, and then send him upon his
travels. Usually it was thought necessary to have a Sancho to act as
background to Don Quixote; thus Crusoe is given his Man Friday, Tom
Jones his Mr. Partridge, and Roderick Random his Strap; but this was
not always done, for both Gulliver and the hero of the _Sentimental
Journey_ set out on their journeyings unaccompanied. The story which
grew out of such a method usually consisted of a series of plots,
anecdotes, and incidents linked together only by the characters, and
governed by no unifying purpose which made each one a necessary and
ascending step toward a prearranged climax. These early novels are
often books of descriptive travel rather than novels in the modern
sense; the sole connection between their first incident and their last
being the long road which lies between them, and has been traversed
in the continual company of the same leading characters. Many of the
chapters, taken apart from their context, are short-story themes
badly handled. Some of them are mere interpolations introduced on
the flimsiest of excuses, which arrest the progress of the main
narrative--_i.e_., the travel--and give the author an opportunity to
use up some spare material which he does not know what to do with.
Such are "The Man of the Hill," in _Tom Jones_; "The History of
Melopoyn the Playwright" in _Roderick Random_; the "Memoirs of a Lady
of Quality," occupying fifty-three thousand words, in _Peregrine
Pickle_; "The Philosophic Vagabond," in the _Vicar of Wakefield_;
and "Wandering Willie's Tale," in _Redgauntlet_. The reason why
the eighteenth-century novelist did not know what to do with these
materials was, in certain cases, that he had discovered a true
short-story theme and was perplexed by it. He knew that it was
good--his artist's instinct made him aware of that; but somehow, to
his great bewilderment and annoyance, it refused to be expanded. So,
in order that it might not be entirely lost to him, he tied the little
boat on behind the great schooner of his main narration, and set them
afloat together.

By the modern reader, whether of the short-story or the novel,
the lack of atmosphere and of immediateness in eighteenth-century
prose-fiction is particularly felt. There is no use made of
landscapes, moods, and the phenomena of nature; the story happens
at almost any season