ot come into comparison with
"Perry" at all, and he would doubtless have been most willing and
able--competent physically as well as morally--to administer the proper
punishment to that young ruffian by drubbing him within an inch of his
life.

These, no doubt, are grave drawbacks: but the racy fun of the book
almost atones for them: and the exaltation of the naval element of
_Roderick_ which one finds here in Trunnion and Hatchway and Pipes
carries the balance quite to the other side. This is the case even
without, but much more with, the taking into account of Smollett's usual
irregular and almost irrelevant _bonuses_, such as the dinner after the
fashion of the ancients and the rest. No: _Peregrine Pickle_ can never
be thrown to the wolves, even to the most respectable and moral of these
animals in the most imposing as well as ravening of attitudes. English
Literature cannot do without it.

Without _Ferdinand Count Fathom_ (1753) many people have thought that
English Literature could do perfectly well: and without going quite so
far, one may acknowledge that perhaps a shift could be made. The idea of
re-transferring the method (in the first place at any rate) to foreign
parts was not a bad one, and it may be observed that by far the best
portion of _Fathom_ is thus occupied. Not a few of these opening
passages are excellent: and Fathom's mother, if not a person, is an
excellent type: it is probable that the writer knew the kind well. But
his unhappy tendency to enter for the same stakes as his great
forerunners makes it almost impossible not to compare _Ferdinand Fathom_
with _Jonathan Wild_: and the effect is very damaging to the Count. Much
of the book is dull: and Fathom's conversation is (to adopt a cant word)
extremely unconvincing. The fact seems to be that Smollett had run his
picaresque vein dry, as far as it connected itself with mere rascality
of various kinds, and he did well to close it. He had published three
novels in five years: he waited seven before his next, and then eleven
more before his last.

A qualified apology has been hinted above for _Sir Launcelot Greaves_.
It is undoubtedly evidence of the greatness of _Don Quixote_ that there
should have been so many direct imitations of it by persons of genius
and talent: but this particular instance is unfortunate to the verge of
the preposterous, if not over it. The eighteenth century was indeed
almost the capital time of English eccentricity: and i