poignant. So far as we may judge from the other personages of Count
Fathom, even this interesting Amazon would sooner or later have turned
into a wooden figure, with a label giving the necessary information as to
her character.

Such certainly is her son, Fathom, the hero of the book. Because he is
placarded, "Shrewd villain of monstrous inhumanity," we are fain to
accept him for what his creator intended; but seldom in word or deed is
he a convincingly real villain. His friend and foil, the noble young
Count de Melvil, is no more alive than he; and equally wooden are Joshua,
the high-minded, saint-like Jew, and that tedious, foolish Don Diego.
Neither is the heroine alive, the peerless Monimia, but then, in her
case, want of vitality is not surprising; the presence of it would amaze
us. If she were a woman throbbing with life, she would be different from
Smollett's other heroines. The "second lady" of the melodrama,
Mademoiselle de Melvil, though by no means vivified, is yet more real
than her sister-in-law.

The fact that they are mostly inanimate figures is not the only surprise
given us by the personages of Count Fathom. It is a surprise to find few
of them strikingly whimsical; it is a surprise to find them in some cases
far more distinctly conceived than any of the people in Roderick Random
or Peregrine Pickle. In the second of these, we saw Smollett beginning
to understand the use of incident to indicate consistent development of
character. In Count Fathom, he seems fully to understand this principle
of art, though he has not learned to apply it successfully. And so, in
spite of an excellent conception, Fathom, as I have said, is unreal.
After all his villainies, which he perpetrates without any apparent
qualms of conscience, it is incredible that he should honestly repent of
his crimes. We are much inclined to doubt when we read that "his vice