He keeps the reader's attention even when he offends his taste. He
impaired the literary merit of "Perigrine Pickle," but at the same time
added to its dissolute character and its immediate popularity by the
forced insertion of the licentious "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." Now
a serious blemish, these memoirs formed at the time an added attraction
to the book. They were eagerly read as the authentic account of Lady
Vane, a notorious woman of rank, and were furnished to Smollett by
herself, in the hope, fully gratified, that her infamous career might
be known to future generations.[180]
That the standard of public taste was rising, would appear from the
fact that in the second edition of "Perigrine Pickle," Smollett found
it advisable to "reform the manners and correct the expression" of the
first; but when "he flatters himself that he has expunged every
adventure, phrase, and insinuation that could be construed by the most
delicate reader into a trespass upon the rules of decorum," he does not
give a high idea of the standard of the "most delicate reader." But
Smollett has left an account of his own views regarding the moral
effect of the pictures of vice and degradation which his works contain,
and that account is a striking statement of contemporary feeling upon
the subject:
The same principle by which we rejoice at the remuneration of
merit, will teach us to relish the disgrace and discomfiture of
vice, which is always an example of extensive use and influence,
because it leaves a deep impression of terror upon the minds of
those who were not confirmed in the pursuit of morality and virtue,
and, while the balance wavers, enables the right scale to
preponderate.
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