living and remarkable characters; and the anecdotes respecting the demirep and the man of charity, greatly promoted the instant popularity of Peregrine Pickle.

The extreme license of some of the scenes described in this novel, gave deep offence to the thinking part of the public; and the work, in conformity to their just complaints, was much altered in the second edition. The preliminary advertisement has these words:

"It was the author's duty, as well as his interest, to oblige the public with this edition, which he has endeavoured to render less unworthy of their acceptance, by retrenching the superfluities of the first, reforming its manners, and correcting its expression. Divers uninteresting incidents are wholly suppressed; some humorous scenes he has endeavoured to heighten; and he flatters himself that he has expunged every adventure, phrase, and insinuation, that could be construed by the most delicate reader into a trespass upon the rules of decorum.

"He owns with contrition, that, in one or two instances, he gave way too much to the suggestions of personal resentment, and represented characters, as they appeared to him at the time, through the exaggerated medium of prejudice. But he has in this impression endeavoured to make atonement for these extravagances. Howsoever he may have erred in point of judgment or discretion, he defies the whole world to prove that he was ever guilty of one act of malice, ingratitude, or dishonour. This declaration he may be permitted to make, without incurring the imputation of vanity or presumption, considering the numerous shafts of envy, rancour, and revenge, that have lately, both in public and private, been levelled at his reputation."

In reference to this palinode, we may barely observe, that the passages retrenched in the second edition are, generally speaking, details of frolics in which the author had permitted his turn for humour

greatly to outrun his sense of decency and propriety; and, in this respect, notwithstanding what he himself says in the passage just quoted, the work would have been much improved by a more unsparing application of the pruning knife. Several personal reflections were also omitted, particularly those on Lyttleton and Fielding, whom he had upbraided for his dependence on that statesman's patronage.1

' Lyttleton's celebrated Monody on the Death of his Wife, was ridiculed by a burlesque Ode on the death of my Grandmother, of which the following may be a sufficient specimen: "Where wast thou, wittol Ward, when hapless fate From these weak arms mine aged granam tore;

These pious arms assay'd too late

To drive the dismal phantom from the door.
Could not thy healing drop, illustrious quack,
Could not thy salutary pill prolong her days,
For whom, so oft, to Marybone, alack!
Thy sorrels dragg'd thee through the worst of

&c. &c.

Neither is Smollett more respectful to Lyttleton in his personal character than to his poetical talent. He describes him as "the famous Gosling Scrag, Esq., son and heir of Sir Marmaduke Scrag, who seats himself in the chair of judgment, and gives sentence upon the authors of the age. I should be glad to know upon what pretensions to genius this predomi nance is founded? Do a few flimsy odes, barren epistles, pointless epigrams, and the superstitious suggestions of a halfwitted enthusiast, entitle him to that eminent rank he maintains in the world of letters? or did he acquire the reputation of a wit, by a repetition of trite invectives against a minister, conveyed in a theatrical cadence, accompanied with the most ridiculous gestures, before he believed it was his interest to desert his master, and renounce his party? For my own part, I never perused any of his performances, I never saw him open his mouth in public, I never heard him speak in private conversation, without recollecting and applying these two lines in Pope's Dunciad

Dr Anderson informs us, that, "at this period, Smollett seems to have obtained the degree of Doctor of Physic, probably from a foreign University, and announced himself a candidate for fame and fortune as a physician, by a publication entitled, 'An Essay on the External Use of Water, in a Letter to Dr with particular Remarks upon the present Method of using the Mineral Waters at Bath in Somersetshire, and a plan for rendering them more safe, agreeable, and efficacious; 4to, 1752." The performance advanced his reputation as a man of science and taste, but failed to conduct the physician to professional eminence and wealth. This is the only publication in the line of his profession which is known to have proceeded from his pen." If the Essay was intended to serve as

'Dulness, delighted, eyed the lively dunce,
Remembering she herself was pertness once.'"

Lord Lyttleton's patronage of Fielding is thus contemptuously noticed, in a recommendation to a young author to feed the vanity of Gosling Scrag, Esq. : "I advise Mr Spondy to give him the refusal of this same pastoral; and who knows but he may have the good fortune of being listed in the number of his beef-eaters, in which case he may, in process of time, be provided for in the Customs or Church: and when he is inclined to marry his own cook-maid, his gracious patron may condescend to give the bride away; and may finally settle him in his old age as a trading Westminster Justice."-Peregrine Pickle, Edit. 1751, vol. iv., p. 123.

1 [The late ingenious artist, Mr H. W. Williams of Edinburgh, tells us, in his Travels, that a friend of his had seen, in 1816, at Leghorn, the diploma of Smollett's doctorate, and that it was an Aberdeen one. The present Editor thought it worth while to enquire into this, and Professor Cruikshanks has politely forwarded a certificated copy of the diploma, which was granted by the Marischal College of Aberdeen in June,

an introduction to practice, it was totally unsuccessful. Perhaps Smollett's character as a satirist, and the readiness he had shown to ingraft the peculiarities and history of individuals into works of fiction, were serious obstacles to him in a profession which demands so much confidence as that of a family physician. But it is probable that the author's chief object in the publication was to assist the cause of a particular friend, Mr Cleland, a surgeon at Bath, then engaged in a controversy concerning the use of these celebrated waters.

In the year 1753, Dr Smollett published The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, one of those works which seem to have been written for the purpose of showing how far humour and genius can go, in painting a complete picture of human depravity. Smollett has made his own defence for the loathsome task which he has undertaken.

"Let me not," says he, in the dedication, "be condemned for having chosen my principal character from the purlieus of treachery and fraud, when I declare my purpose is to set him up as a beacon for the benefit of the inexperienced and unwary, who, from the perusal of these memoirs, may learn to avoid the manifold snares with which they are continually surrounded in the paths of life, while those who hesitate on the brink of iniquity may be terrified from plunging into that irremediable gulf, by surveying the deplorable fate of Ferdinand Count Fathom."

But, while we do justice to the author's motives, we are obliged to deny the validity of his reasoning. To a reader of a good disposition and well-regulated mind, the picture of moral depravity presented in the character of Count Fathom is a disgusting pollution of the imagination. To those, on the other hand, who hesitate on the brink of meditated

iniquity, it is not safe to detail the arts by which the ingenuity of villany has triumphed in former instances; and it is well known that the publication of the real account of uncommon crimes, although attended by the public and infamous punishment of the perpetrators, has often had the effect of stimulating others to similar actions. To some unhappy minds, it may occur as a sort of extenuation of the crime which they meditate, that even if they carry their purpose into execution, their guilt will fall far short of what the author has ascribed to his fictitious character; and there are other imaginations so ill regulated, that they catch infection from stories of wickedness, and feel an insane impulse to emulate and to realize the pictures of villany, which are embodied in such narratives as those of Zeluco or Count Fathom.

Condemning, however, the plan and tendency of the work, it is impossible to deny our applause to the wonderful knowledge of life and manners, which is evinced in the tale of Count Fathom, as much as in any of Smollett's works. The horrible adventure in the hut of the robbers, is a tale of natural terror which rises into the sublime; and, though often imitated, has never yet been surpassed, or perhaps equalled. In Count Fathom also is to be found the first candid attempt to do justice to a calumniated race. The benevolent Jew of Cumberland had his prototype in the worthy Israelite, whom Smollett has introduced with very great effect into the history of Fathom.

Shortly after this publication, Smollett's warmth of temper involved him in an unpleasant embar