and yet it has a much more modern air with it; but this may be accounted for from the circumstance that Smollett was quite a young man at the time, whereas Fielding's manner must have been formed long before. The style of Roderick Random' is more easy and flowing than that of Tom Jones; the incidents follow one another more rapidly (though, it must be confessed, they never come in such a throng, or are brought out with the same dramatic effect;) the humour is broader, and as effectual. and there is very nearly, if not quite, an equal interest excited by the story What, then, is it that gives the superiority to Fielding? It is the superior insight into the springs of human character, and the constant developement of that character through every change of circumstance. Smollett's humour often arises from the situation of the persons, or the peculiarity of the it external appearance; as, from Roderick Randora's carroty locks, which hung down over his shoulders like a pound of candles, ot Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that follow from it. There is a tone of vulgarity about all his productions. The incidents frequently resemble detached anecdotes taken from a newspaper or magazine; and, like those in Gil Blas,' might happen to a hundred other characters. He exhibits the rubenlous accidents and reverses to which human life is liable, not "the stuff" of which it is composed He seldom probes to he quick, or penetrates beyond the surface; and, there fore, he leaves no stings in the minds of his readers, and in this respect is far less interesting than Filding His novels always enliven, and never tire us; we take them up with pleasure, and lay them down without any strong feeling of regret We look on and laugh, as spectators of a highly amusing scene, without el wing in with the combatants, or being made parties in the event We read Roderick Rand m' as an entertaining story, for the par ticular accidents and modes of life which it describes have ceased to exist, but we regard 'Tom Jones' as a real history, because the author never stops short of these essential prin- pies which he at the bottoru of all our actions, and in which we seek an immediate interest - dus ef in cute Smollett excels must as the lively earicaturist Felling as the exact painter and pre found metaphysician I am far from maintaining that this

count applies uniformly to the productions of these two writers; but I think that, as far as they essentially differ, what I have 'Roderick Ranstated is the general distinction between them.

dom' is the purest of Smollett's novels: I mean in point of style and description. Most of the incidents and characters are supposed to have been taken from the events of his own life; and are, therefore, truer to nature. There is a rude conception of generosity in some of his characters, of which Fielding seems to have been incapable, his amiable persons being merely goodnatured. It is owing to this that Strap is superior to Partridge; as there is a heartiness and warmth of feeling in some of the scenes between Lieutenant Bowling and his nephew, which is beyond Fielding's power of impassioned writing. The whole of the scene on ship-board is a most admirable and striking picture, and, I imagine, very little if at all exaggerated, though the interest it excites is of a very unpleasant kind, because the irritation and resistance to petty oppression can be of no avail. The picture of the little profligate French friar, who was Roderick's travelling companion, and of whom he always kept to the windward, is one of Smollett's most masterly sketches"Peregrine Pickle' is no great favourite of mine, and 'Launcelot Greaves' was not worthy of the genius of the author.

Humphry Clinker' and 'Count Fathom' are both equally admirable in their way. Perhaps the former is the most pleasant gossiping novel that was ever written; that which gives the most pleasure with the least effort to the reader. It is quite as amusing as going the journey could have been; and we have just as good an idea of what happened on the road as if we had been of the party. phry Clinker himself is exquisite; and his sweetheart, Winifred Jenkins, not much behind him. Matthew Bramble, though not altogether original, is excellently supported, and seems to have been the prototype of Sir Anthony Absolute in the Rivals.' But Lismahago is the flower of the flock. His tenaciousness in argument is not so delightful as the relaxation of his logical severity, when he finds his fortune mellowing in the wintry smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This is the best preserved, and most severe of all Smollett's characters. The resemblance to Don Quixote' is only just

enough to make it interesting to the critical reader, without giving offence to anybody else. The indecency and filth in this novel are what must be allowed to all Smollett's wrtings. The subject and characters in 'Count Fathom' are, in general, exceedingly disgusting: the story is also spun out to a degree of tediousness in the serious and sentimental parts: bat there is more power of writing occasionally shown in it than in any of his works. I need only refer to the fine and bitter irony of the Count's address to the country of his ancestors on his landing in England; to the robber scene in the forest, which has never been surpassed; to the Parisian swindler who perso nates a raw English country squire (Western is tame in the comparison :) and to the story of the seduction in the west of England. It would be difficult to point out, in any author, passiges written with more force and mastery than these.

It is not a very difficult undertaking to class Fielding er Smollett-the one as an observer of the characters of human life, the other as a describer of its various eccentricities Bat it is by no means so easy to dispose of Richardson, who was neither an observer of the one nor a describer of the other, bat who seemed to spin his materials entirely out of his own bran, as if there had been nothing existing in the world beyond the little room in which he sat writing There is an artificial reali ty about his works which is nowhere else to be met with They have the romantic air of a pure fiction, with the literal minute ness of a common diary The author had the strongest matter of-fact imagination that ever existed, and wrote the oddest mixture of poetry and prose He does not appear to have taken advan vantage of anything in actual nature f... our end of his works to the other; and yet, throughout all his works, voluminous as they are (and this, to be sure, is one reason why they are w )--he sets about describing every object and transaction, as if the whole had been given in on evidence by an eye-witness. This kind of high finishing from imagination is an anomaly in the history of human genius; and certainly nothing so fine was ever produced by the same accumulation of minute parts. There is not the least distraction, the least forgetfulness of the endevery circumstance is made to tell. I cannot agree that this

exactness of detail produces heaviness; on the contrary, it gives an appearance of truth, and a positive interest to the story; and we listen with the same attention as we should to the particulars of a confidential communication. I at one time used to think some parts of Sir Charles Grandison rather trifling and tedious, especially the long description of Miss Harriet Byron's weddingclothes, till I was told of two young ladies who had severally copied out the whole of that very description for their own private gratification. After that I could not blame the author.

The effect of reading this work is like an increase of kindred. You find yourself all of a sudden introduced into the midst of a large family, with aunts and cousins to the third and fourth generation, and grandmothers both by the father's and mother's side; and a very odd set of people they are, but people whose real existence and personal identity you can no more dispute than your own senses, for you see and hear all that they do or say. What is still more extraordinary, all this extreme elaborateness in working out the story seems to have cost the author nothing; for, it is said, that the published works are mere abridgments. I have heard (though this I suspect must be a pleasant exaggeration) that Sir Charles Grandison was originally written in eight-and-twenty volumes.

Pamela is the first of Richardson's productions, and the very child of his brain. Taking the general idea of the character of a modest and beautiful country girl, and of the ordinary situation in which she is placed, he makes out all the rest, even to the smallest circumstance, by the mere force of a reasoning imagination. It would seem as if a step lost, would be as fatal here as in a mathematical demonstration. The developement of the character is the most simple, and comes the nearest to nature that it can do, without being the same thing. The interest of the story increases with the dawn of understanding and reflection in the heroine: her sentiments gradually expand themselves, like opening flowers. She writes better every time, and acquires a confidence in herself, just as a girl would do, in writing such letters in such circumstances; and yet it is certain that no girl would write such letters in such circumstances. What I mean is this-Richardson's nature is always the nature

G

of sentiment and reflection, not of impulse or situation. He furnishes his characters, on every occasion, with the presence of mind of the author. He makes them act, not as they would from the impulse of the moment, but as they might upon retiection, and upon a careful review of every motive and circumstance in their situation. They regularly sit down to write letters: and if the business of life consisted in letter-writing, and was carried on by the post (like a Spanish game at chess) human nature would be what Richardson represents it. A actual objects and feelings are blunted and deadened by being presented through a medium which may be true to reason, but is false in nature. He confounds his own point of view with that of the immediate actors in the scene; and hence presents you with a conventional and factitious nature, instead of that which is real. Dr. Johnson seems to have preferred this truth of reflection to the truth of nature, when he said that there was more knowledge of the human heart in a page of Richardson, than in all Fielding Fielding, however, saw more of the prastical results, and understood the principles as well; but he had not the same power of speculating upon their possible resilts, and combining them in certain ideal forms of passion and imagination, which was Richardson's real excellence

It must be observed, however, that it is this mutual good understanding and comparing of notes between the author and the persons he describes, his infinite circumspection, his exact process of ratiocination and calculation, which gives such an appearance of col·lness and formality to most of his characters, --which makes prudes of his women and coxcombs of his men Everything is too conscious in his works Everything is distinetly brought home to the mind of the actors in the scene, which is a fault undoubtedly but then, it must be confessed, everything is brought home in its full force to the mind of the reader also and we feel the same interest in the story as if i were our own Can anything be more beautiful or more affecting than Pamela's reproaches to her "lumpish heart." when she is sent away from her master's at her own req jest its hightness when she is sent for back, the joy which the conviction of the sincerity of his love diffuses in her heart, like the