writers
who in their turn essay to hold the mirror up to Nature, must always
produce such a result. But while the mind of man is capable of enjoying
the most fortunate combinations of genius and fancy, the most faithful
expositions of the springs of action, the most ludicrous and the most
pathetic representations of human conduct, the writings of Fielding and
Smollett will be read and their memories kept green. Undeterred by those
coarsenesses of language and occasional grossnesses of detail (which
were often less their own fault than that of the age) that frequently
disfigure the pages of "Amelia" and "Roderick Random," men will always
be found to yield their whole attention to the story, and to recognize
in every line the touches of the master's hand.

Were any needed, stronger proof of the truth of this proposition could
not be given than is afforded by the zeal with which the greatest
novelists since their day have turned aside to contemplate and to
chronicle the career of this immortal pair, whose names, notwithstanding
the dissimilarity of genius and style, seem destined to be as eternally
coupled together as those of the twin sons of Leda. To the rescue
from oblivion of their personal histories, a host of biographers have
appeared, scattered over the whole period that has elapsed since their
deaths to the present time. The first life that appeared of Tobias
George Smollett came from the hands of his friend and companion, the
celebrated Dr. Moore, himself a novel-writer of no mean fame. To him
succeeded Anderson; who in turn was followed by Sir Walter Scott, the
fruits of whose unrivalled capacity for obtaining information are before
the world in the form of a most delightful memoir. So that when
Roscoe, at a later date, took up the same theme, he found that the
investigations of his predecessors had left him little more to do than
to make selections or abridgments, and to arrange what new matter he
had come into possession of. One would have thought that with all these
labors the public appetite should have been satisfied,--that everything
apt to be heard with interest of and about Smollett had been said. So
far from this being the case, however, it was but a few years ago, that,
as we all recollect, the brilliant pen of Thackeray was brought to bear
on the same subject, and the great humorist of this generation employed
his talents worthily in illustrating the genius of a past age.
"'Humphrey Clinker,'" says he,