And so, in spite of an excellent conception, Fathom, as I have said, is unreal.
After all his villainies, which he perpetrates without any apparent qualms of conscience, it is incredible that he should honestly repent of his crimes.

We are much inclined to doubt when we read that "his vice and ambition was now quite mortified within him," the subsequent testimony of Matthew Bramble, Esq., in Humphry Clinker, to the contrary, notwithstanding.

Yet Fathom up to this point is consistently drawn, and drawn for a purpose:--to show that cold-blooded roguery, though successful for a while, will come to grief in the end.

To heighten the effect of his scoundrel, Smollett develops parallel with him the virtuous Count de Melvil.

The author's scheme of thus using one character as the foil of another, though not conspicuous for its originality, shows a decided advance in the theory of constructive technique.