" Smollett was a physician, and had the
pitifulness of his profession; though we see how casually he makes Random
touch on his own unwonted benevolence.
People had not begun to know the extent of their own brutality in the
slave trade, but Smollett probably did know it. If a curious prophetic
letter attributed to him, and published more than twenty years after his
death, be genuine; he had the strongest opinions about this form of
commercial enterprise. But he did not wear his heart on his sleeve,
where he wore his irritable nervous system. It is probable enough that
he felt for the victims of poverty, neglect, and oppression (despite his
remarks on hospitals) as keenly as Dickens. We might regard his
offensively ungrateful Roderick as a purely dramatic exhibition of a
young man, if his other heroes were not as bad, or worse; if their few
redeeming qualities were not stuck on in patches; and if he had omitted
his remark about Roderick's "modest merit." On the other hand, the good
side of Matthew Bramble seems to be drawn from Smollett's own character,
and, if that be the case, he can have had little sympathy with his own
humorous Barry Lyndons. Scott and Thackeray leaned to the favourable
view: Smollett, his nervous system apart, was manly and kindly.
As regards plot, "Roderick Random" is a mere string of picturesque
adventures. It is at the opposite pole from "Tom Jones" in the matter of
construction.
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