narrative, variety of incident, ease of style, graphic description,
and an exquisite eye for the humours, peculiarities, and absurdities
of character and life. In language he is generally careless, but
whenever a great occasion occurs, he rises to meet it, and writes with
dignity, correctness, and power. His sea-characters, such as Bowling,
and his characters of low-life, such as Strap, have never been
excelled. His tone of morals is always low, and often offensively
coarse. In wit, constructiveness, and general style, he is inferior to
Fielding; but surpasses him in interest, ease, variety, and humour,
"Roderick Random" is the most popular and bustling of his tales.
"Peregrine Pickle" is the filthiest and least agreeable; its humours
are forced and exaggerated, and the sea-characters seem caricatures of
those in "Roderick Random;" just as Norna of the Fitful Head, and
Magdalene Graeme, are caricatures of Meg Merriless. "Sir Lancelot
Greaves" is a tissue of trash, redeemed only here and there by traits
of humour. "The Adventures of an Atom" we never read. "Humphrey
Clinker" is the most delightful novel, with the exception of the
Waverley series, in the English language. "Ferdinand, Count Fathom,"
contains much that is disgusting, but parts of it surpass all the rest
in originality and profundity. We refer especially to the description
of the pretended English Squire in Paris, who _bubbles_ the great
_bubbler_ of the tale; to Count Fathom's address to Britain, when he
reaches her shores,--a piece of exquisite mock-heroic irony; to the
narrative of the seduction in the west of England; and to the
matchless robber-scene in the forest,--a passage in which one knows
not whether more to admire the thrilling interest of the incidents, or
the eloquence and power of the language. It is a scene which Scott has
never surpassed, nor, except in the cliff-scene in the "Antiquary,"
and, perhaps, the barn-scene in the "Heart of Midlothian,"
ever equalled.