SMOLLETT, Tobias, whose writings have conferred distinguished honour upon the literature of his country, was descended from a family of considerable antiquity and opulence in the county of Dunbarton. His grandfather, Sir James Smollett of Bonhill, married a daughter of Sir Aulay Macaulay of Ardincaple, and by that lady had four sons, of whom Archibald, the youngest, was the father of the novelist. Archibald, who had been bred to no profession, died at an early age, leaving his family, consisting of a widow and three children, one of whom was an infant daughter, solely dependent on the bounty of his father. Smollett was born in 1721, in the old mansion-house of Dulquhurn, now a ruin. It is situated near the village of Renton, in the parish of Cardross. He was baptized Tobias George. The[7:20:426] valley of the Leven, in which Smollett first saw the light, is surpassed by no other spot in our island, either for the grandeur of its scenery, or for the venerable associations with which it is connected. Nor was the ground which had been dignified by the tread of Wallace, Bruce, Napier, and Buchanan, dishonoured by the steps of Smollett.

From the grammar-school of Dunbarton, in which he had imbibed the rudiments of classical learning, Smollett was transferred to the University of Glasgow, where he prosecuted his more advanced studies with application and success. He was afterwards bound an apprentice to Mr. John Gordon, an eminent medical practitioner in that city. His elder brother James had adopted the profession of arms, an example which he was ambitious of following; but the old knight probably illustrated the advantages of the study of physic by reasoning which it would have been vain to controvert. When the young student had attained his eighteenth year, his grandfather died, without having made any adequate provision for the children of bis youngest son. For this omission, his descendant furnished him with a niche in Roderick Random, more conspicuous than desirable.

The term of his apprenticeship having expired in his nineteenth year, and being now thrown upon his own resources, Smollett proceeded to London, where he attracted the notice of Lord Lyttelton. He had carried with him his tragedy of The Regicide, a juvenile performance of uncommon merit, but indifferently adapted to the purpose of representation. The various efforts which he ineffectually used to bring his play upon the stage, are detailed with indignant prolixity in the preface to that production, which he sent to the press some years afterwards, with a view of heaping confusion upon the lukewarm patronage of Lyttelton, and upon the shuffling evasions of Garrick. The patron and the manager were visited with many other tokens of his displeasure; but he lived to repent of the severe retribution which he had exacted for trivial wrongs, and made honourable mention of both in his History of England.

Thwarted in his expectations of earning fame and profit as a writer for the stage, Smollett was glad to accept the situation of surgeon’s mate on board the Cumberland. That vessel, an eighty-gun ship, belonged to the armament which was bound to the West Indies, to join the fleet under the command of Admiral Vernon. Of the disastrous expedition against Carthagena, Smollett inserted an animated narrative in Roderick Random, and afterwards published a more detailed account in the compendium of Voyages. When the discomfited squadrons returned to Jamaica, he quitted the service in disgust, and fixed his residence on the island. With Miss Lascelles, a fascinating West Indian, he there formed an acquaintance, which afterwards ripened into a matrimonial union. In 1746 he returned to London, which then resounded with acclamations occasioned by the victory at Culloden. With these were mingled some expressions of indignation at the atrocities inflicted by the royal army upon the helpless families of the insurgents. The voice of Smollett swelled the weaker cry, and he produced his pathetic ode, The Tears of Scotland. During the same year was published, Advice, a Satire. His next literary effort was Alceste, an Opera, which he wrote at the suggestion of Mr. Rich of Covent Garden Theatre. In consequence of some dispute with that patentee, the piece was withdrawn, and has never appeared in print. In 1747 he published Reproof, a second part of his former satirical production. The versification of these poems is sufficiently harmonious, and they abound with impetuous invective; but the rage of the satirist is without dignity, and rabid, without being infectious to readers of the present day. About this period he married Miss Lascelles, who was possessed of a small estate in the island of Jamaica; a precarious species of property, from which her husband appears to have derived little or no ultimate benefit.

In the year 1748, appeared The Adventures of Roderick Random. Fielding had already evinced himself a noble follower of Cervantes, and Smollett now stood forth, a no less worthy disciple of Le Sage. It must be owned that in this, and in all the other novels of Smollett, humour frequently appears in very loose attire. These scenes, however, like sheet-lightning, are alarming, but perfectly innocuous. The solemn depravity of Rousseau is more dangerous than the ludicrous indecorum of Smollett. In 1749, The Regicide was published by subscription. During the same year Smollett took the degree of M.D., in what University has not been ascertained. In 1750 he went to Paris, where he is supposed to have occupied himself in composing The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, which were published in 1751. This admirable novel is disfigured by the introduction of an impertinent episode, in which are detailed, with unrelenting minuteness, the tedious intrigues of Lady Vane; who is said to have rewarded Smollett handsomely for the drudgery of compiling that durable record of her infamy. To compensate for this blemish, and for some rash sallies of humour, Peregrine Pickle is an absolute mine of character and adventure. The entertainment prepared by the learned physician, in the manner of the ancients, is perhaps the most irresistible piece of pleasantry that was ever devised by a ludicrous fancy. In his heroes and heroines, Smollett is not happy. For Random we have no respect; for Pickle we have no esteem; and Narcissa and Emilia are only the objects of appetite. Since the days of Tom Bowling and the Commodore, we have seen many sailors in print, who display an accurate and profound knowledge of technical minutiae; but their humour, if they have any, will not pass muster ashore, the medium through which it is conveyed being to uninstructed ears a mere succession of unintelligible gibberish. And these modem tars have all a striking family likeness to each other, with the exception of some sentimental rope-haulers of the American school, who are evidently monsters of the imagination. But each of Smollett’s seamen, though drawn to the life, exhibits the strongest idiosyncrasy of character, and converses in a dialect which can be readily understood by those who have never seen a ship.^[1. The incident of Tom Pipes’s concealing in his shoe his master’s letter to Emilia, it is curious to trace to the following passage in Ovid’s Art of Love; which has not escaped the laborious research of Hugo, De prima Scribendi Origine, p. 154. Cum possit solea chartas celare ligatae, Et vincto blandas sub pede ferre nous. ]

The next production of Smollett’s pen was “An Essay on the External Use of Water, in a letter to Dr.—; with particular remarks upon the present method of using the Mineral Waters at Bath, in Somersetshire; and a plan for rendering them more safe, agreeable, and efficacious.” 1752, 4to. At the period of this publication, Smollett resided at Bath, where he solicited professional employment; but the reputation of the satirist effectually marred the prospects of the physician. Despairing of success in bis profession, Dr. Smollett now hired a house at Chelsea, where he entirely devoted himself to literary pursuits. The first fruits of his retirement were, The Adventures of Ferdinand count Fathom, which appeared in 1753. The author’s object in this production is, to set up the principal character “as a beacon for the benefit of the inexperienced and unwary.” This personage is as much below, as one of Richardson’s heroes is above, the standard of general nature. Few men are so virtuous or depraved as to have much sympathy with either; and it may very reasonably be ques [7:20:427]tioned, whether any one was ever allured to virtue by viewing the unattainable perfections of Grandison, or deterred from vice by contemplating the superlative villany of Fathom. Besides, a picture of insipid excellence is at least harmless; but there is a moral insanity about some men, which leads them not only to delight in, but sometimes to emulate the achievements of fictitious desperadoes. The most striking passage in this novel, is the adventure in the forest, which creates terror as strong as the convulsions of laughter which reward the exploits of Trunnion and his myrmidons.

But although master of the passions of others, Smollett’s own were under very indifferent control. A wretch, called Peter Gordon, whom he had maintained for a series of years, and in support of whose credit he had been prevailed upon to indorse notes, suddenly withdrew into the verge of the court, where, by means of insulting letters and messages, he provoked his benefactor to chastise him in such manner as to furnish grounds for an action of damages. The Hon. Alexander Hume Campbell, who was counsel for the plaintiff, having opened the proceedings with much gratuitous insolence towards the defendant and his witnesses, Smollett addressed a letter to that barrister, couched in very indignant and sarcastic terms, which afterwards found its way into the fifth volume of the European Magazine. This infamous prosecution terminated in the discomfiture of Gordon, but the issue of Smollett’s dispute with Campbell is involved in obscurity. In the beginning of the year 1755, Smollett published his translation of Don Quixote, which was executed amid the anxiety of pecuniary embarrassment, and for which he had been paid by advance. This version is infinitely more spirited and elegant than that of his immediate predecessor Jarvis. But if Smollett has surpassed Motteux in maintaining the solemn fatuity of the knight, he is less happy in rendering the proverbial humour of the squire; for the corresponding phrases in English had already been appropriated, and he was reduced to the necessity of alteration, when there was no room for improvement. After the publication of Don Quixote, Smollett paid a visit to his native country. Upon his return to England, he undertook the superintendence of the Critical Review. The editorship of that journal involved him in a thousand vexatious disputes with persons who were utterly unworthy of being promoted to the rank of his antagonists. A contemptuous critique on the Rosciad, of which he was entirely innocent, provoked the spleen of Churchill, whose brief career was a perpetual crusade against genius and virtue, and whose coarse and rancorous effusions are now consigned to merited oblivion; for posterity has not realized the hopes of an undying name, so confidently expressed by the reverend bard, who proposed to annihilate the reputation of Pope, and who launched his slight javelins at the massy buckler of Johnson.

In 1757, Smollett published a popular compilation, entitled A Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages. 7 vols. 12mo. During the same year was performed and printed The Reprisal, a comedy in two acts. The characters in this piece are strongly marked, and the dialogue is extremely spirited, but the situations are conceived with little dramatic artifice; a species of knowledge which often enables the humble retainer of a playhouse to concoct a drama, which shall be admirably well adapted for the stage, and yet prove not more entertaining in the closet than a book of arithmetic. In the same year was published the “Complete History of England, deduced from the Descent of Julius Caesar to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, containing the transactions of one thousand three hundred and three years.” 4 vols. 4to. This surprising effort of industry and genius, is said to have been begun and completed in the course of fourteen months. If not the most accurate and philosophical of historians, Smollett yields to few in the unaffected elegance of his style, and in the graceful animation of his narrative. He had been bred a Whig, and whatever were the motives that led to the political tergiversation which is manifested in this work, it would be uncharitable to suppose that they were those of self-interest; a consideration which does not seem to have influenced any one action of his life.

In 1759, an article appeared in the Critical Review, animadverting in strong terms upon the conduct of Admiral Knowles, who had written a pamphlet to vindicate himself from the popular odium which attached to his character, in consequence of his share in a secret expedition to the French coast, which was planned and miscarried in 1757.^[2. The offensive words were, “He is an admiral without conduct, an engineer without knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without veracity.” Knowles was one of the heroes of Carthagena, at which memorable expedition be commanded the Weymouth, of 60 guns. ] The admiral having commenced a prosecution against the printer, of which the avowed object was to induce the writer to declare himself, and give him satisfaction of another kind, Smollett, in this dilemma, solicited the good offices of his friend Wilkes, whose rhetoric made no impression on the incensed commander. At this juncture, Smollett stepped boldly forth, and proclaimed himself the author of the obnoxious article, offering the aggrieved party any satisfaction that he might desire. Upon this declaration, the magnanimous flag-officer immediately withdrew his action against the printer, and entered a fresh suit against the reviewer. The result of the action was, that Smollett was fined one hundred pounds, and sentenced to three months imprisonment in the King’s Bench.

To cheer the gloom of his confinement, this indefatigable writer employed himself in composing The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, which first appeared in the British Magazine for 1760 and 1761, and was published in a separate form in 1762. The eye of criticism has always looked coldly upon this performance. Although it is one of those works, of which the execution must be admitted to surpass the conception, the story of the modem Don Quixote is no such incredible figment as it has been pronounced. Sir Launcelot Greaves is represented as a person of diseased understanding; and who shall set bounds to the vagaries of insanity? Nor does Captain Crowe appear to act out of character, in becoming a candidate for the honours of chivalry. For that original is in a state of happy ignorance concerning all terrestrial affairs; and the profession of a knight-errant appears to his unsophisticated understanding to be as lawful a calling as that of a tide-waiter; and it is one which is not at all discordant with the headlong courage and extravagant generosity of a British seaman.

To the modern part of Universal History, which was begun in 1759, and completed in 1764, Smollett contributed the histories of France, Italy, and Germany. In 1761 had appeared the first number of his continuation of the History of England, which he finished in 1765; the narrative comprehending the transactions down to that period.

Upon the accession of George III., Smollett appeared in the character of a political partisan, and drew his pen in defence of the administration of Lord Bute, in a weekly paper, entitled The Briton. But being speedily tired of protecting from obloquy a minister who was indifferent to public opinion, he retired from the strife, leaving his antagonist, The North Briton, master of the field. This contest terminated an intimacy of long standing between Smollett and Wilkes. Notwithstanding his inferiority in talents, that demagogue had some decided advantages over[7:20:428] his opponent. Wilkes was a cool political pugilist, who gathered courage from the applauses of the mob; while Smollett was greeted with a general burst of popular execration, which worked him into a phrensy that deprived him of his strength.

Smollett’s name stands in the title-page of a translation of the works of Voltaire, and also in that of a compilation, entitled The Present State of all Nations. These works, to which he contributed sparingly, were published in 1763. In that year he sustained an irreparable loss in the death of his only child, a daughter named Elizabeth, who had attained the fifteenth year of her age. This calamity threw an impenetrable gloom over the brief remainder of his life. In the hope of dissipating his own grief and that of his wife, by change of scene, he passed over into France; in which country, and in Italy, he resided for two years. In 1766, he published his Travels through France and Italy. This production displays his usual acuteness of observation, and felicity of expression, but he appears to have contemplated every object through the distorted medium of disease and lacerated feelings. Sterne, who had met the bereaved father abroad, took an opportunity of exulting over the infirmities of rival genius in his Sentimental Journey.

In 1766, Smollett visited Scotland for the last time. At this period, he was a martyr to asthma and rheumatic pains, and afflicted with a virulent ulcer on his arm. In the following year, while residing at Bath, he enjoyed a short tatet vol of convalescence, during which he wrote The Adventures of an Atom. In this political romance, he has blended, with greater dexterity than judgment, the reckless jollity of Rabelais with the withering sarcasm of Swift. With much wit and humour, this production betrays great physical indelicacy, a latent ferocity of sentiment, and an unqualified abhorrence of the lower order of the community, which is far from edifying. It may here be remarked, that the learning which is scattered through the fictitious narratives of Smollett, would, with proper management, make a most imposing show in works of much graver pretensions. Neither does he ever, like Fielding, hover on the verge of pedantry; nor resort to the disingenuous artifice of dazzling unlettered eyes with borrowed erudition, like Sterne, who had cool effrontery enough to express his sovereign contempt of literary larceny, in the unacknowledged words of Burton.^[3. See Scott’s Biographical Memoirs of eminent Novelists, vol. i. p. 294. ] ’

After the publication of this romance, Smollett’s complaints returned with increased violence, and his medical friends declared that his only chance of life lay in a more salubrious climate. To the great he never applied in vain, for he never applied at all. His friends however made some fruitless efforts to interest the ministry in his behalf. But from Smollett was sternly withheld that bounty which has often, before and since, been lavished with a prodigal hand upon the most worthless and foolish of mankind. With a constitution worn to the dregs in the service of iterature, and with a purse which had been emptied in the lap of indigence, Smollett proceeded to Italy in 1770.

The last, and perhaps the best of all his works, was The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, published in 1771. Each character in the galaxy of originals which are there pourtrayed, may submit without apprehension to Ben Jonson’s test of humour:
When some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour.

Having bequeathed this legacy to the public, Smollett died at Monte Nero, a village in the neighbourhood of Leghorn, on the 21st of October 1771, in the fifty-first year of his age. A monument was erected to his memory by his widow, and a cenotaph on the banks of the Leven by his cousin, Mr. Smollett of Bonhill.

To a handsome person, and an address at once dignified and engaging, Smollett added colloquial powers of the highest order. His irascible passions were strong, but his social affections were not less so. If it is remembered that his personal and political prejudices were intense, let it not be forgotten that zealous friendship and ardent patriotism were among the number. He was improvident, for bis hand was only closed to the necessities of others when he had nothing to bestow. He was a man of undaunted resolution, and lofty independence of mind. He was vindictive, but not implacable, and melted at the first appearance of contrition in those who had injured him. He was jealous of his fame, his sole possession, but he envied that of no other man, whether deserved or otherwise. Of Smollett, as an author, it may be truly said, that of the many different kinds of composition which he has attempted, there is none to which he has not communicated peculiar graces; nor can we hesitate for a moment in adding his name to the scanty list of those who have extended the limits of intellectual enjoyment.^[4. • For more circumstantial details of the life of Smollett, the reader is referred to the narratives of Dr. Anderson and Dr. Moore. ]