intimate correspondence at Bath or Tunbridge, shall, in four-and-twenty
hours . . . meet in St. James's Park, without betraying the least
token of recognition." And good, too, is the way in which, as Dr. Fathom
goes rapidly down the social hill, he makes excuses for his declining
splendour. His chariot was overturned "with a hideous crash" at such
danger to himself, "that he did not believe he should ever hazard himself
again in any sort of wheel carriage." He turned off his men for maids,
because "men servants are generally impudent, lazy, debauched, or
dishonest." To avoid the din of the street, he shifted his lodgings into
a quiet, obscure court. And so forth and so on, in the true Smollett
vein.

But, after all, such of the old sparks are struck only occasionally.
Apart from its plot, which not a few nineteenth-century writers of
detective-stories might have improved, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count
Fathom is less interesting for itself than any other piece of fiction
from Smollett's pen. For a student of Smollett, however, it is highly
interesting as showing the author's romantic, melodramatic tendencies,
and the growth of his constructive technique.

G. H. MAYNADIER






THE ADVENTURES OF FERDINAND COUNT FATHOM