ABSTRACT
Necessity is the mother of invention in literature as well as in the arts, and the necessity of Tobias Smollett brought him forth in his pre-eminent character of a Novelist. In the year 1753, he published The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, one of those works which seem to have been written for the purpose of showing how far humour and genius can go, in painting a complete picture of human depravity. He has identified his characters, and then fitted them with language, sentiments, and powers of observation, in exact correspondence with their talents, temper, condition, and disposition. Henry Fielding and Smollett were both born in the highest rank of society, both educated to learned professions, yet both obliged to follow miscellaneous literature as the means of subsistence. If Fielding had superior taste, the palm of more brilliancy of genius, more inexhaustible richness of invention, must in justice is awarded to Smollett.
