He may so far underlie the charge of error of judgment, but nothing worse.

Unluckily the "Lady Vane" insertion was, to a practical certainty, a commercial not an artistic transaction: and both here and elsewhere Smollett carried his already large licence to the extent of something like positive pornography.

He is in fact one of the few writers of real eminence who have been forced to Bowdlerise themselves.

Further, there would be more excuse for the most offensive part of _Peregrine_ if it were not half plagiarism of the main situations of _Pamela_ and _Clarissa_: if Smollett had not deprived his hero of all the excuses which, even in the view of some of the most respectable characters of _Pamela_, attached to the conduct of Mr.B.; and if he had not vulgarised Lovelace out of any possible attribution of "regality," except of being what the time would have called King of the Black Guard.

As for Tom Jones, he does not come into comparison with "Perry" at all, and he would doubtless have been most willing and able--competent physically as well as morally--to administer the proper punishment to that young ruffian by drubbing him within an inch of his life.
These, no doubt, are grave drawbacks: but the racy fun of the book almost atones for them: and the exaltation of the naval element of _Roderick_ which one finds here in Trunnion and Hatchway and Pipes carries the balance quite to the other side.