o well known for
analysis. The family of Matthew Bramble, Esq., are on their travels,
with his nephew and niece, young Melford and Lydia Melford, with Miss
Jenkins, and the squire's tart, greedy, and amorous old maid of a sister,
Tabitha Bramble. This lady's persistent amours and mean avarice scarcely
strike modern readers as amusing. Smollett gave aspects of his own
character in the choleric, kind, benevolent Matthew Bramble, and in the
patriotic and paradoxical Lieutenant Lismahago. Bramble, a gouty
invalid, is as full of medical abominations as Smollett himself, as ready
to fight, and as generous and open-handed. Probably the author shared
Lismahago's contempt of trade, his dislike of the Union (1707), his fiery
independence (yet he _does_ marry Tabitha!), and those opinions in which
Lismahago heralds some of the social notions of Mr. Ruskin.

Melford is an honourable kind of "walking gentleman"; Lydia, though
enamoured, is modest and dignified; Clinker is a worthy son of Bramble,
with abundant good humour, and a pleasing vein of Wesleyan Methodism. But
the grotesque spelling, rural vanity, and _naivete_ of Winifred Jenkins,
with her affection for her kitten, make her the most delightful of this
wandering company. After beholding the humours and partaking of the
waters of Bath, they follow Smollett's own Scottish tour, and each
character gives his picture of the country which Smollett had left at its
lowest ebb of industry and comfort, and found so much more prosperous.
The book is a mine for the historian of manners and customs: the novel-
reader finds Count Fathom metamorphosed into Mr. Grieve, an exemplary
apothecary, "a sincere convert to virtue," and "unaffectedly pious."

Apparently a wave of good-nature came over Smollett: he forgave
everybody, his own relations even, and he reclaimed his villain. A
patron might have played with him. He mellowed in Scotland: Matthew
there became less tart, and more tolerant; an actual English Matthew
would have behaved quite otherwise. "Humphrey Clinker" is an astonishing
book, as the work of an exiled, poor, and dying man. None of his works
leaves so admirable an impression of Smollett's virtues: none has so few
of his less amiable qualities.

With the cadet of Bonhill, outworn with living, and with labour, died the
burly, brawling, picturesque old English novel of humour and of the road.
We have nothing notable in this manner, before the arrival of Mr.
Pickwick.