erdinand Count
Fathom is less interesting for itself than any other piece of fiction
from Smollett's pen. For a student of Smollett, however, it is highly
interesting as showing the author's romantic, melodramatic tendencies,
and the growth of his constructive technique.

G. H. MAYNADIER

THE ADVENTURES OF FERDINAND COUNT FATHOM

TO DOCTOR ------

You and I, my good friend, have often deliberated on the difficulty of
writing such a dedication as might gratify the self-complacency of a
patron, without exposing the author to the ridicule or censure of the
public; and I think we generally agreed that the task was altogether
impracticable.--Indeed, this was one of the few subjects on which we have
always thought in the same manner. For, notwithstanding that deference
and regard which we mutually pay to each other, certain it is, we have
often differed, according to the predominancy of those different
passions, which frequently warp the opinion, and perplex the
understanding of the most judicious.

In dedication, as in poetry, there is no medium; for, if any one of the
human virtues be omitted in the enumeration of the patron's good
qualities, the whole address is construed into an affront, and the writer
has the mortification to find his praise prostituted to very little
purpose.

On the other hand, should he yield to the transports of gratitude or
affection, which is always apt to exaggerate, and produce no more than
the genuine effusions of his heart, the world will make no allowance for
the warmth of his passion, but ascribe the praise he bestows to
interested views and sordid adulation.

Sometimes too, dazzled by the tinsel of a character which he has no
opportunity to investigate, he pours forth the homage of his admiration
upon some false Maecenas, whose future conduct gives the lie to his
eulogium, and involves him in shame and confusion of face. Such was the
fate of a late ingenious author [the Author of the "Seasons"], who was so
often put to the blush for the undeserved incense he had offered in the
heat of an enthusiastic disposition, misled by popular applause, that he
had resolved to retract, in his last will, all the encomiums which he had
thus prematurely bestowed, and stigmatise the unworthy by name--a
laudable scheme of poetical justice, the execution of which was fatally
prevented by untimely death.

Whatever may have been the fate of other dedicators, I, for my own part,
si