thee know, friend' (addressing himself 830 to Adams), 'I shall not learn my duty from such as thee; I know what charity is, better than to give to vagabonds.' 'Besides, if we were inclined, the poor's rate obliges us to 335 give so much charity,' cries the wife. 'Pugh! thou art a fool. Poor's rate! hold thy nonsense,' answered Trulliber; and then, turning to Adams, he told him, 'He would give him 340 nothing.' 'I am sorry,' answered Adams, 'that you do know what charity is, since you practise it no better; I must tell you, if you trust to your knowledge for your justi345 fication, you will find yourself deceived, though you should add faith to it, without good works.' 'Fellow,' cries Trulliber, 'dost thou speak against faith in my house? Get out of my 350 doors; I will no longer remain under the same roof with a wretch who speaks wantonly of faith and the scriptures.' 'Name not the scriptures,' says Adams. 'How! not name the 355 scriptures! Do you disbelieve the scriptures?' cries Trulliber. No, but you do,' answered Adams, 'if I may reason from your practice; for their A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE WORLD AND THE STAGE. [From Tom Jones, Bk. VII, Ch. 1 (1749)] The world hath been often compared to the theatre; and many grave writers, as well as the poets, have considered human life as a great 6 drama, resembling, in almost every particular, those scenical representations which Thespis is first reported to have invented, and which have been since received with so much 10 approbation and delight in all polite countries. This thought hath been carried so far, and is become so general, that some words proper to the theatre, 16 and which were at first metaphoric are ally applied to the world, are now It may seem easy enough to account for all this by reflecting that the theatrical stage is nothing more than a representation, or, as Aristotle 30 calls it, an imitation of what really exists; and hence, perhaps, we might fairly pay a very high compliment to those who by their writings or 35 actions have been so capable of imitating life, as to have their pictures in a manner confounded with, or mistaken for, the originals. But, in reality, we are not so fond 40 of paying compliments to these people, whom we use as children frequently do the instruments of their amusement; and have much more pleasure in hissing and buffeting them than 45 in admiring their excellence. There are many other reasons which have induced us to see this analogy between the world and the stage. Some have considered the larger 50 part of mankind in the light of actors, as personating characters no more their own, and to which in fact they have no better title than the player hath to be in earnest 55 thought the king or emperor whom he represents. Thus the hypocrite may be said to be a player; and indeed the Greeks called them both by one and the same name. 60 The brevity of life hath likewise given occasion to this comparison. So the immortal Shakspere: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 65 And then is heard no more. For which hackneyed quotation I will make the reader amends by a very noble one, which few, I believe, have read. It is taken from a poem 70 called the Deity, published about nine years ago, and long since buried in oblivion; a proof that good books, no more than good men, do always survive the bad. 75 From Thee all human actions take their springs, The rise of empires, and the fall of kings! In all these, however, and in every other similitude of life to the theatre, the resemblance hath been always taken from the stage only. None, 90 as I remember, have at all considered the audience at this great drama. But as Nature often exhibits some of her best performances to a very 95 full house, so will the behaviour of her spectators no less admit the above-mentioned comparison than that of her actors. In this vast theatre of time are seated the friend and 100 the critic; here are claps and shouts, hisses and groans: in short, every thing which was ever seen or heard at the Theatre Royal. Let us examine this in one example: 105 for instance, in the behaviour of the great audience on that scene which Nature was pleased to exhibit in the twelfth chapter of the preceding book, where she introduced Black 110 George running away with 500l. from his friend and benefactor. Those who sat in the world's upper gallery treated that incident, I am well convinced, with their usual 115 vociferation; and every term of scurrilous reproach was most probably vented on that occasion. If we had descended to the next order of spectators, we should have 120 found an equal degree of abhorrence, though less of noise and scurrility; yet here the good women gave Black George to the devil, and many of 126 them expected every minute that the cloven-footed gentleman would fetch his own. The pit, as usual, was no doubt divided: those who delight in heroic 130 virtue and perfect character objected to the producing such instances of villany without punishing them very severely for the sake of example. Some of the author's friends cried, 135 'Look'ee, gentlemen, the man is a villain; but it is nature for all that.' And all the young critics of the age, the clerks, apprentices, etc., called it low, and fell a-groaning. 140 As for the boxes, they behaved with their accustomed politeness. Most of them were attending to something else. Some of those few who regarded the scene at all, declared he was a 145 bad kind of man; while others refused to give their opinion, till they had heard that of the best judges. Now we, who are admitted behind the scenes of this great theatre of 150 nature (and no author ought to write anything besides dictionaries and spelling-books who hath not this privilege), can censure the action without conceiving any absolute de155 testation of the person whom perhaps Nature may not have designed to act an ill part in all her dramas; for in this instance life most exactly resembles the stage, since it is often 160 the same person who represents the villain and the hero; and he who engages your admiration to-day, will probably attract your contempt tomorrow. As Garrick, whom I regard 165 in tragedy to be the greatest genius the world hath ever produced, sometimes condescends to play the fool, so did Scipio the Great and Lælius the Wise, according to Horace, many 170 years ago; nay, Cicero reports them to have been 'incredibly childish.' These, it is true, played the fool, like my friend Garrick, in jest only; but several eminent characters have, in numberless instances of their lives, 175 played the fool egregiously in earnest, so far as to render it a matter of some doubt whether their wisdom or folly was predominant; or whether they were better entitled to the 180 applause or censure, the admiration or contempt, the love or hatred, of mankind. Those persons, indeed, who have passed any time behind the scenes 185 of this great theatre, and are thoroughly acquainted not only with the several disguises which are there put on, but also with the fantastic and capricious behaviour of the Passions, 190 who are the managers and directors of this theatre (for as to Reason, the patentee, he is known to be a very idle fellow, and seldom to exert himself), may most probably have 195 learned to understand the famous nil admirari of Horace, or, in the English phrase, to stare at nothing. A single bad act no more constitutes a villain in life than a single 200 bad part on the stage. The passions, like the managers of a playhouse, often force men upon parts without consulting their judgment, and sometimes without any regard to their 205 talents. Thus the man, as well as the player, may condemn what he himself acts; nay, it is common to see vice sit as awkwardly on some men, as the character of Iago would 210 on the honest face of Mr. William Mills. Upon the whole, then, the man of candour and of true understanding is never hasty to condemn. He can 215 censure an imperfection, or even a vice, without rage against the guilty party. In a word, they are the same folly, the same childishness, the same ill-breeding, and the same ill-nature 220 which raise all the clamours and uproars both in life and on the stage. The worst of men generally have the words rogue and villain most in their mouths, as the lowest 225 of all wretches are the aptest to cry out 'low' in the pit. TOBIAS SMOLLETT. TOBIA born of a gentle Scottish family at Dalquhurn, near Dumbarton. He studied medicine, and for some years (1740-1744) was a naval surgeon in the English fleet, then operating in the West Indies, whence he brought home as his wife a creole beauty. He settled as a surgeon in London, but more and more abandoned medicine for literature. From 1748 onwards he produced, in rapid succession, a series of loosely constructed novels of incident, written on the pattern of the picaresque romance of Le Sage, whose Gil Blas (1715) he translated in 1749. In this manner he has told us the adventures of Roderick Random (1748), Peregrine Pickle (1751), Count Fathom (1753), and Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762, a weak imitation of Don Quixote, which he had translated in 1755). From 1756-1767 he was the editor of several periodicals, and simultaneously compiled his superficial, but very popular History of England, which appeared in 9 vols. from 1757-1765. Under the heavy pressure of his multifarious literary work his health broke down, and compelled him to stay for nearly two years in Italy, of which he gave an unsympathetic account in his Travels through France and Italy (1766). Finally, in 1769, he settled down altogether in a villa at Monte Nero near Leghorn, where he wrote his last and best novel, The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (1771). He died there soon after its publication, and was buried in the English cemetery at Leghorn. Smollett's forte lies in the drawing of eccentric characters, of which he has added to the permanent store of English literature such wonderful types as the misanthropical Mr. Crabtree, the two seamen Lieutenant Bowling and Commodore Trunnion (all in Roderick Random), the irritable, but good-hearted Squire Bramble, and the pedantic, disputatious Lieutenant Lismahago (in Humphrey Clinker). As the oil-paintings and engravings of William Hogarth (1697-1764), so also the satirical word-pictures which Smollett gives us of English social life (then at its lowest standard), are remarkable for their unwinking realism, the impression of which is unnecessarily intensified by an extreme roughness of tone and coarseness of language. Smollett's humour is of the broad kind afterwards cultivated by Dickens. In two ways he was a pioneer of English fiction: he wrote the first English sea-novel (Roderick Random), and first introduced the delineation of national types. RODERICK RANDOM'S JOURNEY TO LONDON. There is no such convenience as a waggon in this country, and my finances were too weak to support the expense of hiring a horse; I 5 determined therefore to set out with the carriers, who transport goods from one place to another on horseback; and this scheme I accordingly put in execution on the first day of 10 November 1739, sitting upon a packsaddle between two baskets, one of which contained my goods in a knap sack. But, by the time we arrived The hostler of the inn at which we put up, understanding I was bound for London, advised me to take my passage in a collier, which 20 25 would be both cheap and expeditious, and withal much easier than to walk upwards of three hundred miles through deep roads in the wintertime; a journey which he believed I 30 had not strength enough to perform. I was almost persuaded to take his advice, when, one day, stepping into a barber's shop to be shaved, the young man, while he lathered my 85 face, accosted me thus: 'Sir, I presume you are a Scotchman.' I answered in the affirmative. 'Pray,' continued he, 'from what part of Scotland?' I no sooner told him 40 than he discovered great emotion, and not confining his operation to my chin and upper lip, besmeared my whole face with great agitation. I was so offended at his profusion, 45 that, starting up, I asked him what the devil he meant by using me so? He begged pardon, telling me his joy at meeting with a countryman had occasioned some confusion in 50 him, and craved my name. But when I declared my name was Random, he exclaimed in a rapture, 'How, Rory Random?" "The same,' I replied, looking at him with aston56 ishment. 'What,' cried he, 'don't you know your old school - fellow, Hugh Strap?' At that instant recollecting his face, I flew into his arms, and in the transport of my 60 joy, gave him back one half of the suds he had so lavishly bestowed on my countenance, so that we made a very ludicrous appearance, and furnished a great deal of mirth for 65 his master and shopmates, who were witnesses of this scene. When our mutual caresses were over, I sat down again to be shaved; but the poor fellow's nerves were so discom70 posed by this unexpected meeting, that his hand could scarcely hold the razor, with which, nevertheless, he found means to cut me in three places in as many strokes. His master, perceiving his disorder, bade 75 another supply his place, and after the operation was performed, gave Strap leave to pass the rest of the day with me. We retired immediately to my lodgings, where, calling 80 for some beer, I desired to be informed of his adventures, which contained nothing more than that, his master dying before his time was out, he had come to Newcastle about 85 a year ago in expectation of journeywork, along with three young fellows of his acquaintance, who worked in the keels; that he had the good fortune of being employed by a very 90 civil master, with whom he intended to stay till the spring, at which time he proposed to go to London, where he did not doubt of finding encouragement. When I communicated 95 to him my situation and design, he did not approve of my taking a passage by sea, by reason of the danger of a winter voyage, which is very hazardous along that coast, as 100 well as the precariousness of the wind, which might possibly detain me a great while to the no small detriment of my fortune; whereas, if I would venture by land, he would 106 bear me company, carry my baggage all the way, and, if we should be fatigued before we could perform the journey, it would be no hard matter for us to find on the road either 110 returning horses, or waggons, of which we might take the advantage for a very trifling expense. I was SO ravished at this proposal, that I embraced him affectionately, and assured 115 him he might command my purse to the last farthing; but he gave me to understand he had saved money sufficient to answer his own occasions, and that he had a friend in London, 120 who would soon introduce him into business in that capital, and might |