Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist (review)

158 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION small pamphlet, An Author to be Lett (1729), influenced Diderot's later work. Diderot's brief review of the Life of Savage is reprinted, with its comment that Johnson's work would have been "délicieux" if it had been a satire. This series of linkages achieves much of what Temmer intended; it finds a common ground for Johnson and Diderot in the cultural world of literary parasitism, and expands our often parochial sense of Johnson's importance into a wider tradition of literary experience. The argument depends, however, on the sort of conventional literary research Temmer seems to disparage, and it ends in comparisons with Nietzsche and Max Scheler which constitute one more "flight of fancy"—like so many in this study, insufficiently developed and never rooted in the actual records of Johnson's difficult thought. Lionel Basney Calvin College James G. Basker. Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist. Newark, N.J.: University of Delaware Press, 1988. 358pp. US$39.50. James G. Basker argues for cessation of twentieth-century attacks upon Smollett 's Critical Review and recognition of the pre-eminence of Smollett as the precursor of modem reviews and critics. The validity of Basker's contention is demonstrated by lucidly presented evidence, assembled in Smollett's favour. Smollett is the embodiment of the eighteenth-century disenchanted, of that century 's reformers and social critics: the role he plays not only in his satirical novels but also in the Critical Review. By the time he had succumbed to illness and had left England, he had reshaped himself into a figure of reason and benevolence, a person similar to his creations, Sir Launcelot and Matthew Bramble , representing, as Basker states, "social responsibility" and providing "care and comfort." Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist is a history that through detail , commentary, and insight reveals the scope of Smollett's contributions and significantly enhances his stature. This is not to say that the work is faultless. It begins deliberately— painstakingly building its evidence, revealing minutely why Smollett created the Critical Review. Its genesis was in Smollett's desire for an Academy that would become the arbiter of standards of language, an attorney for the regulation of the theatre, and a prosecutor of Grub Street excesses. Basker establishes that in Peregrine and in Count Fathom lie the "hints of Smollett's underlying fantasy, to be invested with the power to regulate the literary world" (p. 21). But, once beyond the "Grand Design," the volume changes critical direction and becomes a fascinating study of periodical literature, of writers, of artists, of exceptional individuals either in harmony or in conflict with Smollett. REVIEWS 159 For instance, Basker contrasts Smollett and Johnson. The Young Pretender, as Basker calls Smollett, is a challenge to Johnson, though there was never "all-out warfare" between them. In the skirmishes, however, Smollett triumphs: "That Smollett's journal established itself and flourished for another half century [after 1758], while Johnson's faltered and failed, is one measure of Smollett's achievement in a period that would come to be called 'the Age of Johnson'" (p. 36). Basker's purpose is obviously not to diminish Johnson's stature but to emphasize Smollett's considerable achievement. In a well-reasoned eulogy Basker establishes the basis of Smollett's reputation as a man ahead of his time. Tobias Smollett also illuminates the procedures Smollett imposed for his publication : the insistence upon and establishment of superior standards, and the resolution to avoid editorial censorship—though Smollett insisted upon decorum . Decorum influenced the enlisting of reviewers "whose views he respected and trusted. It was on general principles—religious orthodoxy, political moderation , high standards of criticism and taste—that he sought conformity, not on particular judgments" (p. 58). Versatility and innovation are among Smollett's assets. While retaining both a "Foreign Articles" section and essays upon science and medicine, he introduced art reviews. Smollett, of course, had to contend with reviewing practices: "whether to stress standards and accuracy over generosity and kindness, how to apportion quotation and abstract versus critical analysis, how to balance information and entertainment" (p. 65). Thus Basker suggests the ways in which Smollett anticipated major twentieth-century reviews, such as...