He recompenses the Attachment of his Friend; and receives a Letter that reduces him to the Verge of Death and Distraction CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE. Renaldo meets with a living Monument of Justice, and encounters a Personage of some Note in these Memoirs CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO. His Return to England, and Midnight Pilgrimage to Monimia’s Tomb CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE. He renews the Rites of Sorrow, and is entranced CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR. The Mystery unfolded—Another Recognition, which, it is to be hoped, the Reader could not foresee CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE. A retrospective Link, necessary for the Concatenation of these Memoirs CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX. The History draws near a Period CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN. The Longest and the Last ILLUSTRATIONS Titlepage of Part One Frontispiece of Part One He Opened the Repository Titlepage of Part Two Frontispiece of Part Two You Are the Count de Melvil INTRODUCTION The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Smollett’s third novel, was given 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 Smollett . . . has certainly a talent for invention, though I think it flags a little in his last work.” Lady Mary was both right and wrong. The inventive power which 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 Smollett’s vigorous 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 whimsical character, or with venomous prejudice to gibbet 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 Fathom’s mother, something of the author’s peculiar “talent for invention.” Subsequently, however, there is no denying that the Smollett invention and the Smollett spirit both flag. 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 Smollett’s genius. The result is, that while uninteresting 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 Smollett, generally, as a rambling storyteller, a rational, unromantic man of the world, who fills his pages with his own oddly-metamorphosed acquaintances and experiences. The Smollett of Count Fathom, on the contrary, is rather a forerunner of the romantic school, who has