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Smollett, there is a strongly individual satiric bias: less of that largeness which sees the world from an unimplicated coign of vantage, whence the open-eyed, wise-minded spectator finds it a comedy breeding laughter under thoughtful brows. We seem to be getting not so much scenes of life as an author's setting of the scene for his own private reasons.
This section of the story is almost as breathless as Smollett.... In the general firmness of touch, and sureness of historic portrayal, the book deserves high praise."
Smollett is often violent, Fielding never: there is an impression of cosmopolitanism in the former a wider survey of life, if only on the surface, is given in his books. Like the American Cooper, he drew upon his own experiences for his picture of the navy; and like a later American, Dr. Holmes, was a physician who could speak by the card of that side of life.
The house was by this time somewhat cleared of smoke, and we saw at a glance the price we had paid for victory. Hunter lay beside his loophole, stunned; Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move again; while right in the center the squire was supporting the captain, one as pale as the other. "The captain's wounded," said Mr. Trelawney. "Have they run?" asked Mr. Smollett.
We must take some cognizance, in special, of writers like Smollett and Sterne and Goldsmith potent names, evoking some of the pleasantest memories open to one who browses in the rich meadow lands of English literature. The popularity of Richardson and Fielding showed itself in a hearty public welcome: and also in that sincerest form of flattery, imitation.
"Why, by the powers," cried Long John, "if we do, we'll miss the morning tide!" "My orders!" said the captain shortly. "You may go below, my man. Hands will want supper." "Aye, aye, sir," answered the cook, and touching his forelock, he disappeared at once in the direction of his galley. "That's a good man, captain," said the doctor. "Very likely, sir," replied Captain Smollett.
In the present series, Goldsmith, Smollett, and Johnson himself, if his Rasselas entitle him to rank in the number, are among the most distinguished in this species of writing, of whom modern Europe can boast. To these, if there be added the names of De Foe, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne, not to mention living authors, we may produce such a phalanx as scarcely any other nation can equal.
Consider the novel that most recent form of Art! Did not the age which followed Fielding lament the treachery of authors to the Picaresque tradition, complaining that they were not as Fielding and Smollett were? Be sure they did. Very slowly and in spite of opposition did the novel attain in this country the fulness of that biographical form achieved under Thackeray.
And this matter becomes very important when we consider the position which works of fiction have attained in the present century. In the days of Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Heywood, Fielding, or Smollett, coarseness of thought and language was so general that it naturally had a prominent place in novels.
His borrowed plumage and his imitation of Rabelais' style apart, Sterne had originality, a gift at all times rare, and always, perhaps, becoming rarer. As a humorist, he is to be classed with Fielding and Smollett, but as a novelist, his position in the history of fiction is separate and unique. "Tristram Shandy" has all the elements of a novel except the plot. The author has no story to tell.
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