"The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle," published in 1751, is
the second of Smollett's novels. It was written under more
congenial circumstances than "Roderick Random," although it is
admitted that the hero is by no means a moral improvement on
his predecessor. Sir Walter Scott describes him as "the savage
and ferocious Pickle, who, besides his gross and base
brutality towards Emilia, besides his ingratitude towards his
uncle, and the savage propensity which he shows in the
pleasure he takes to torment others by practical jokes,
exhibits a low and un-gentlemanlike way of thinking, only one
degree higher than that of Roderick Random." But the real
interest of the story lies not so much in the adventures of
Peregrine, as in the character of the old Commodore Trunnion.
Thackeray declared Trunnion to be equal to Fielding's Squire
Weston. If in "Peregrine Pickle" Smollett occasionally
exhibits a tendency to secure variety by extravagant
caricature, it is certain that in none of his works, and in
none of those of any of his contemporaries, does a richer and
more various crowd of personalities appear--a crowd at once
quaint and amusing, disgusting and contemptible.
_I.--Peregrine's Parentage_
In a certain county of England, bounded on one side by the sea, and at
the distance of 100 miles from the metropolis, lived Gamaliel Pickle,
Esq., the son of a London merchant, who, from small beginnings, had
acquired a plentiful fortune. On the death of his father, Mr. Pickle
exerted all his capacity in business; but, encumbered by a certain
indolence and sluggishness that prevailed over every interested
consideration, he found himself at the end of fifteen years five
thousand pounds worse than he was when he first took possession of his
father's effects. Convinced by the admonitions of his only sister, Miss
Grizzle, then in the thirtieth year of her maidenhood, he withdrew his
money from the trade, and removed to a house in the country, which his
father built near the seaside.
Here, then, Mr. Pickle fixed his habitation for life in the six and
thirtieth year of his age; and before he had been three months settled,
the indefatigable zeal of Miss Grizzle had arranged a match for her
brother with a fair Miss Appleby, daughter of a gentleman who lived in
the next parish.
The following letter was transmitted to Miss Appleby by her brother: