Part 1 (1/2)

The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom

by Tobias Smollett

INTRODUCTION

The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathoiven to the world in 1753 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writing to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, over a year later [January 1st, 1755], remarked that ”my friend Sh I think it flags a little in his last work” Lady Mary was both right and wrong The inventive pohich we commonly think of as Smollett's was the ability to work over his own experience into realistic fiction Of this, Ferdinand Count Fathom shows comparatively little It shows relatively little, too, of Sorous personality, which in his earlier works was present to give life and interest to almost every chapter, were it to describe a street brawl, a ludicrous situation, a whiibbet some enemy This individuality--the peculiar spirit of the author which can be felt rather than described--is present in the dedication of Fathom to Doctor ------, who is no other than Smollett himself, and a candid revelation of his character, by the way, this dedication contains

It is present, too, in the opening chapters, which show, likewise, in the picture of Fatho of the author's peculiar ”talent for invention” Subsequently, however, there is no denying that the S And yet, in a way, Fathom displays more invention than any of the author's novels; it is based far less than any other on personal experience Unfortunately such thorough-going invention was not suited to S as a novel of contemporary manners, Fathom has an interest of its own in that it reveals a new side of its author We think of S storyteller, a rational, unroes with his own oddly-metamorphosed acquaintances and experiences The Smollett of Count Fathom, on the contrary, is rather a forerunner of the roanic tale of adventure out of his own brain Though this is notably less readable than the author's earlier works, still the wonder is that when the man is so far ”off his beat,” he should yet knoell how to e conditions which confront hienius is formed entirely by Random and Pickle and Humphry Clinker, Ferdinand Count Fathom will offer many surprises

The first of these is the coain are action and incident galore, but generally unaccoian hurly-burly, co to conteoes so far towardshis fiction seem real Nor are the characters, for theThere is an apparent exception, to be sure, in the hero's mother, already mentioned, the hardened camp-folloe confidently expect to becoe fashi+on of Smollett's characters But, alas! we have no chance to learn the lady's style of conversation, for the feords that come from her lips are but partially characteristic; we have only too little chance to learn her manners and custo sure with her dagger that all those on the field of battle whom she wishes to rifle are really dead, an officer of the hussars, who has been watching her lucrative progress, unfeelingly puts a brace of bullets into the lady's brain, just as she raises her hand to smite him to the heart Perhaps it is as well that she is thus removed before our disappointnant So far as we es of Count Fatho Aure, 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 seldoly real villain His friend and foil, the noble young Count de Melvil, is no h-o

Neither is the heroine alive, the peerless Moni; the presence of it would a with life, she would be different from Smollett's other heroines The ”second lady” of the h by no means vivified, is yet more real than her sister-in-law

The fact that they are iven us by the personages of Count Fatholy whimsical; it is a surprise to find them in some cases far more distinctly conceived than any of the people in Roderick Randorine Pickle In the second of these,S to understand the use of incident to indicate consistent development of character In Count Fathoh 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 e read that ”his vice and ambition was now quite mortified within him,” the subsequent testimony of Matthew Bramble, Esq, in Hu Yet Fathom up to this point is consistently drawn, and drawn for a purpose:--to show that cold-blooded roguery, though successful for a while, will cohten the effect of his scoundrel, Smollett develops parallel with him the virtuous Count de Melvil The author's scheh not conspicuous for its originality, shows a decided advance in the theory of constructive technique Only, as I have said, Smollett's execution is now defective

”But,” one will naturally ask, ”if Fatho, hurly-burly of Sh well-conceived, are seldohly anireater than ever when the answer is given that, to a large extent, the plotYes, Smollett, hitherto indifferent to structure, has here written a story in which the plot itself, often clues a reader's attention One actually wants to knohether the young Count is ever going to receive consolation for his sorrows and inflict justice on his basely ungrateful pensioner And when, finally, all turns out as it should, one is amazed to find how ned conclusion Not all of them, indeed, nor all of the adventures, are indispensable, but it is manifest at the end that much, which, for the tio's history--is, after all, essential

It has already been said that in Count Fathom Smollett appears to some extent as a romanticist, and this is another fact which lends interest to the book That he had a powerful iination is not a surprise Any one versed in Smollett has already seen it in the remarkable situations which he has put before us in his earlier works These do not indicate, however, that Sination which could excite rorine Pickle, the wonderful situations serve chiefly to aned to excite horror; and one, at least, is eht in the wood between Bar-le-duc and Chalons was no doubt hteenth-century ancestors than it is to us, who have become acquainted with scores of si roreater number which do not Still, even to-day, a reader, with his taste jaded by trashy novels, will be conscious of Smollett's power, and of several thrills, likewise, as he reads about Fathom's experience in the loft in which the beldaht

This situation is melodramatic rather than rohteenth and nineteenth-century literature There is no little in Fathoenuinely romantic in the latter sense Such is the imprisonment of the Countess in the castle-tohence she waves her handkerchief to the young Count, her son and would-be rescuer And especially so is the scene in the church, when Renaldo (the very narave of his lady-love While he aiting for the sexton to open the door, his ”soulound up to the highest pitch of enthusiastic sorrow The uncommon darkness,the solemn silence, and lonely situation of the place, conspired with the occasion of his coes of his fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy expectation, which the whole world could not have persuaded him to disappoint The clock struck twelve, the owl screeched from the ruined battleht of a gli lover to a dreary aisle, and sta lady lies interred'”

We have here such an arave-yard” school of poets--that school of which Professor W L

Phelps calls Young, in his Night Thoughts, the most ”conspicuous exe fun at it The context, however, seems to prove that he was perfectly serious

It is interesting, then, as well as surprising, to find traces of the romantic spirit in his fiction over ten years before Walpole's Castle of Otranto It is also interesting to find so er the connection between him and his nineteenth-century disciple, dickens

Froht that the usual Smollett is always, or almost always, absent from Count Fatho chapters as e ht expect from his pen There are, besides, true Smollett strokes in the scenes in the prison froood deal of the satirical Smollett fun in the description of Fathom's ups and downs, first as the petted beau, and then as the fashi+onable doctor In chronicling the latter meteoric career, Smollett had already observed the peculiarity of his country on in the next century--”the lish peopleto overlook,on their return to the metropolis, all the connexions theytheir residence at any of the medical wells And this social disposition is so scrupulously maintained, that two persons who live in the e, shall, in four-and-twenty hoursthe least token of recognition” And good, too, is the way in which, as Dr Fathooes rapidly down the social hill, hesplendour His chariot was overturned ”with a hideous crash” at such danger to himself, ”that he did not believe he should ever hazard hie” He turned off his enerally impudent, lazy, debauched, or dishonest” To avoid the din of the street, he shi+fted 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 ht have improved, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fatho for itself than any other piece of fiction from Shly interesting as showing the author's rorowth of his constructive technique

G H MAYNADIER

THE ADVENTURES OF FERDINAND COUNT FATHOM

TO DOCTOR ------