great Ben had his tribe of imitators and adulators, Dr. Toby also
had his clan of sub-authors, delineated for us by a master hand
in the pages of Humphry Clinker. To make Fielding the centre-piece
of a group reflecting the literature of his day would be an
artistic impossibility. It would be perfectly easy in the case of
Smollett, who was descried by critics from afar as a Colossus
bestriding the summit of the contemporary Parnassus.

Whatever there may be of truth in these observations upon the
eclipse of a once magical name applies with double force to that
one of all Smollett's books which has sunk farthest in popular
disesteem. Modern editors have gone to the length of
excommunicating Smollett's Travels altogether from the fellowship
of his Collective Works. Critic has followed critic in
denouncing the book as that of a "splenetic" invalid. And yet it
is a book for which all English readers have cause to be
grateful, not only as a document on Smollett and his times, not
only as being in a sense the raison d'etre of the Sentimental
Journey, and the precursor in a very special sense of Humphry
Clinker, but also as being intrinsically an uncommonly readable
book, and even, I venture to assert, in many respects one of
Smollett's best. Portions of the work exhibit literary quality of
a high order: as a whole it represents a valuable because a
rather uncommon view, and as a literary record of travel it is
distinguished by a very exceptional veracity.

I am not prepared to define the differentia of a really first-rate
book of travel. Sympathy is important; but not indispensable,
or Smollett would be ruled out of court at once. Scientific
knowledge, keen observation, or intuitive power of discrimination