The canvas was soon stretched for a display of fresh follies: and the
result was, his Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, in 1751. The success he
had attained in exhibiting the characters of seamen led him to a
repetition of similar delineations. But though drawn in the same broad
style of humour, and, if possible, discriminated by a yet stronger hand,
the actors do not excite so keen an interest on shore as in their proper
element. The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, the substance of which was
communicated by the woman herself, whose story they relate, quickened
the curiosity of his readers at the time, and a considerable sum which
he received for the insertion of them augmented the profits which he
derived from a large impression of the work. But they form a very
disagreeable interruption in the main business of the narrative. The
pedantic physician was intended for a representation of Akenside, who
had probably too much dignity to notice the affront, for which some
reparation was made by a compliment to his talents for didactic poetry,
in our author's History of England.

On his return (in 1749) he took his degree of Doctor in Medicine, and
settled himself at Chelsea[1], where he resided till 1763. The next
effort of his pen, 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, &c. (in 1752) was directed to
views of professional advancement. In his profession, however, he did
not succeed; and meeting with no encouragement in any other quarter, he
devoted himself henceforward to the service of the booksellers. More
novels, translation, historical compilation, ephemeral criticism, were
the multifarious employments which they laid on him. Nothing that he
afterwards produced quite came up to the raciness of his first
performances. In 1753, he published the Adventures of Ferdinand Count
Fathom. In the dedication of this novel he left a blank after the word
Doctor, which may probably be supplied with the name of Armstrong. From
certain phrases that occur in the more serious parts, I should
conjecture them to be hastily translated from another language. Some of
these shall be laid before the reader, that he may judge for himself. "A
solemn profession, on which she _reposed herself with_ the most implicit
confidence and faith;" ch. xii. (v. 4. p. 54, of Dr. Anderson's
edition.)--"Our hero would have made his retreat thro