Quixote," and in English to "Robinson Crusoe." In other words,
his type, however much he departs from it, is the picturesque
story of adventure. He announced, in fact, on his title-page
that he wrote "in imitation of the manner of Cervantes."

Again, his was a genius for comedy, where Richardson, as we have
seen, was a psychologist. The cleansing effect of wholesome
laughter and an outdoor gust of hale west wind is offered by
him, and with it go the rude, coarse things to be found in
Nature who is nevertheless in her influence so salutary, so
necessary, in truth, to our intellectual and moral health. Here
then was a sort of fiction at many removes from the slow,
analytic studies of Richardson: buoyant, objective, giving far
more play to action and incident, uniting in most agreeable
proportions the twin interests of character and event. The very
title of this first book is significant. We are invited to be
present at a delineation of two men,--but these men are
displayed in a series of adventures. Unquestionably, the
psychology is simpler, cruder, more elementary than that of
Richardson. Dr. Johnson, who much preferred the author of
"Pamela" to the author of "Tom Jones" and said so in the
hammer-and-tongs style for which he is famous, declared to Bozzy
that "there is all the difference in the world between characters
of nature and characters of manners: and there is the difference
between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson.
Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be
understood by a more superficial observer than characters of
nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human
heart."