married a West Indian lady, Miss Lascelles ; their only child died at the age of fifteen, and the disconsolate father tried to fly from his grief by a tour through France and Italy. He was absent two years, and published his Travels through France and Italy (1766), which, with gleams of humour and insight, shows plenty of prejudice and of paradox. Sterne ridiculed this work, and its author as Smelfungus, in his Sentimental Journey. In the famous statue of the Venus de Medici, 'which enchants the world,' Smollett could see no beauty of feature, and the attitude he considered awkward and out of character. Modern taste, as it happens, rather justifies him than his amazed critics in this. He laments that 'the labours of painting should have been so much employed on the shocking subjects of the martyrology.' The Pantheon at Rome-that 'glorious combination of beauty and magnificence'-he said, looked like a huge cockpit open at the top. Sterne said that such declarations should have been reserved for his physician; they could only have sprung from bodily distemper. 'Yet be it said,' remarks Sir Walter Scott, 'without offence to the memory of the witty and elegant Sterne, it is more easy to assume, in composition, an air of alternate gaiety and sensibility, than to practise the virtues of generosity and benevolence, which Smollett exercised during his whole life, though often, like his own Matthew Bramble, under the disguise of peevishness and irritability. Sterne's writings shew much flourish concerning virtues of which his life is understood to have produced little fruit; the temper of Smollett was “like a lusty winter, frosty, but kindly." And it should be noted that though the Travels are occupied to a tedious extent with denunciations of the dirt and discomfort of French and Italian hotels, and of the extortions and various misdemeanours of the French and Italian innkeepers and postillions-exhibitions of spleen due no doubt partly to ill-health-Smollett made very many shrewd observations. He kept a careful record of the daily variations of temperature and weather at Nice for more than a year, recognised long before Lord Brougham the special merits of Cannes, and, describing in the reign of Louis XV. the miseries of the French people and the extortions to which they were subjected, foretold very clearly the likelihood of the coming cataclysm. On his return to England he published a political satire, The Adventures of an Atom (1769), in which he attacked his former patron, Lord Bute, and also the Earl of Chatham. His conduct as a politician was guided more by personal feelings than public principles, and neglect or seeming ingratitude provoked a burst of indignation. He was no longer able to contend with the 'sea of troubles' that encompassed him, and in 1770 he again went abroad in quest of health. His friends endeavoured in vain to procure him an appointment as consul at some Mediterranean port, and he settled in a cottage near Leghorn. Here, in weakness and suffering, he wrote his Humphry Clinker, last and most original of all his novels. He had just heard of the success of Humphry before his death (21st. October 1771). It was six years after the publication of Joseph Andrews, and before Tom Jones had been produced, that Smollett appeared as novelist. He had adopted Le Sage as his model, but his characters, his scenes, his opinions and prejudices, were all eminently British. From first to last he improved in taste and judgment; but his invention, his native humour, and his knowledge of life and character are as conspicuous in Roderick Random as in any of his works; Tom Bowling is his most perfect sea-character. The adventures of Roderick are no doubt largely autobiographical, with a fair element of absurd exaggeration. 'His novels are recollections of his own adventures,' Thackeray judges; 'his characters drawn, as I should think, from personages with whom he had become acquainted in his own career of life. . . . He did not invent much, as I fancy, but had the keenest perceptive faculty, and described what he saw with wonderful relish and delightful broad humour.' In Roderick Random scene follows scene with astonishing rapidity: at one time his hero basks in prosperity, at another he is plunged in utter destitution. He is led into different countries, and into the society of wits, sharpers, courtiers, courtesans, and men of all grades. In this tour of the world and of human life, the reader is amazed at the careless profusion, the inexhaustible humour, of an author who pours out his materials with such prodigality and facility. There is no elaboration of character, no careful preparation of incidents, no unity of design; and there is a plentiful use of extravagant caricature instead of realistic presentation. Roderick Random is hurried on without fixed or definite purpose; and though there is a dash of generosity and good-humour in his character, he is equally conspicuous for unconscionable libertinism and mischievousness. There is even utter meanness in his conduct toward his humble friend Strap. Smollett's grossness is indefensible; and in his estimate of women he falls far below Richardson and Fielding. Roderick Random must be enjoyed for its broad humour and comic incidents, which, even when most farcical, are seldom quite impossible and almost never tiresome. As history, no less than fiction, its pictures of eighteenthcentury life in the British navy are simply priceless. Peregrine Pickle is formed of the same materials, cast in a larger mould. The hero is as unscrupulous as Roderick Random, and is more deliberately profligate. Scott calls him 'the savage and ferocious Pickle,' and denounces his 'low and ungentlemanlike tone;' but in the second work the comic powers of the author are more variously displayed. Scenes and incidents are multiplied with kaleidoscopic profusion. The want of decent drapery is too apparent. Smollett never had much regard for the minor morals or proprieties of life; but where shall we find a more entertaining gallery of portraits-some of them doubtless contemptible and revolting-or a series of more laughable incidents? The oneeyed naval veteran, Commodore Trunnion, is an eccentric drawn in Smollett's extravagant vein, who keeps garrison in his house as on board ship, and makes his servants sleep in hammocks and turn out to watch. Yet in his death he is almost convincing. The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality -a true tale (of Lady Vane), for inserting which Smollett was bribed by a sum of money-mark the most humiliating episode in the novelist's record. But Ferdinand Count Fathom is more in the style of a romance—the portraiture of a complete villain, proceeding step by step to rob his benefactors and pillage mankind. His adventures at gamblingtables and hotels, and his exploits as a physician, afford scope for the author's satirical genius. the most powerful passages in the novel are those which recount Ferdinand's seduction of Celinda, the story of Monimia, and the description of the tempest in the forest, from which he took shelter in a robber's hut. Some of the incidents are related with the intensity and power of a tragic poet. There is a vein of fantastic sentimentality in the means by which Fathom works on Celinda's superstitious fears and timidity by means of an Æolian harp. The strings,' says Smollett, with inflated rhetoric, no sooner felt the impression of the balmy zephyr, than they began to pour forth a stream of melody, more ravishingly delightful than the song of Philomel, the warbling brook, and all the concert of the wood.' Few readers of Peregrine Pickle can forget the touching allusion to the Scottish Jacobites at Boulogne, 'exiled from their native homes in consequence of their adherence to an unfortunate and ruined cause,' who went daily to the seaside in order to indulge their longing eyes with a prospect of the white cliffs of Albion, which they could never more approach. Sir Launcelot Greaves is a rather poor sort of travesty of Don Quixote, in which the preposterousness of the plot is sometimes relieved by the humour of some of the characters and conversations. Captain Crowe, in especial, is no unworthy comrade of Trunnion and Bowling. Butler's Presbyterian knight going 'a-colonelling' is ridiculous enough; but the chivalry of Sir Launcelot and his attendant outrages all sense and probability. An eighteenth century knighterrant in cap-à-pie armour redressing the wrongs of estimable men and maidens defrauded of their rights, unjustly shut up in debtors' prisons and madhouses, and sharing in their misadventures, is even at the best hopelessly incredible. Humphry Clinker (so spelt by Smollett) is, on the whole, the most natural and entertaining of all the novels of Smollett, and is replete with grave, caustic, and humorous observation. Matthew Bramble is Smollett himself grown old, turned somewhat cynical through experience of the world, but vastly improved in taste. He probably caught the idea, as he took some of the incidents of the family tour, from Anstey's New Bath Guide; but the staple of the work is emphatically his own. In the light sketching of scenery, the quick succession of incidents, the romance of Lismahago's adventures among the American Indians, and the humour of the serving-men and maids, Smollett seems to come into closer competition with Le Sage or Cervantes than in any of his other works. The conversion of Humphry may have been suggested by Anstey, but the bad spelling of Tabitha and Mrs Winifred Jenkins is an original device of Smollett, which aids in the subordinate effects of the domestic drama, and has been industriously exploited by later humourists—as has the 'derangement of epitaphs' which not seldom crops up in Smollett. Thackeray thought Uncle Bowling in Roderick Random as good a character as Squire Western himself; and Humphry Clinker he pronounced 'the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing began.' Smollett wrote English almost like an Englishman; his peculiarities are mainly those of the period. His diction is plain and undistinguished, but lucid and vigorous. Professor Minto roundly declared that Smollett's influence (which may be traced in Marryat, Thackeray, and Dickens) was greater than that of Fielding. But in spite of some attempts, such as Scott's, to exalt him, Smollett must be ranked far below Richardson, Fielding, or Sterne; see Mr Dobson's criticism above at page 8. The prose extracts, except the first, which is from Humphry Clinker, are all from Peregrine Pickle. Sir Walter Scott praised the fine commencement of his Ode on Independence, 'Lord of the lionheart and eagle eye;' but in its succession of strophes and antistrophes, the mythological characters (Liberty, Disdain, Old Time, the hermit Wisdom, Fair Freedom, Oppression, and the like) become wearisome. Ode to Leven Water. Pure stream, in whose transparent wave The wretched owner sees afar What boots it, then, in every clime, The rural pipe and merry lay O baneful cause, O fatal morn, The pious mother, doomed to death, While the warm blood bedews my veins, And unimpaired remembrance reigns, Mr Morgan's Manner. While he was thus discoursing to me, we heard a voice on the cockpit ladder pronounce, with great vehemence, in a strange dialect, "The devil and his dam blow me from the top of Mounchdenny, if I go to him before there is something in my pelly; let his nose be as yellow as saffron, or as plue as a pell, look you, or green as a leek, 'tis all one.' To this declaration somebody answered, So it seems my poor messmate must part his cable for want of a little assistance. His fore-topsail is loose already; and besides, the doctor ordered you to overhaul him; but I see you don't mind what your master says.'-Here he was interrupted with, 'Splutter and oons! you lousy tog, who do you call my master? get you gone to the doctor, and tell him my birth, and education, and my abilities, and moreover, my behaviour is as good as his, or any shentleman's (no disparagement to him) in the whole world. Got pless my soul! does he think, or conceive, or imagine, that I am a horse, or an ass, or a goat, to trudge backwards and forwards, and upwards and downwards, and by sea and by land, at his will and pleasures? Go your ways, you rapscallion, and tell doctor Atkins that I desire and request that he will give a look upon the tying man, and order something for him if he be dead or alive, and I will see him take it by-and-by, when my craving stomach is satisfied, look you.' At this, the other went away, saying, that if they would serve him so when he was dying, by G-d he would be foul of them in the other world. Here Mr Thomson let me know that the person we heard was Mr Morgan, the first mate, who was just come on board from the hospital, whither he had attended some of the sick in the morning. At the same time I saw him come into the birth. He was a short, thick man, with a face garnished with pimples, a snub nose turned up at the end, an excessive wide mouth, and little fiery eyes, surrounded with skin puckered up in innumerable wrinkles. My friend immediately made him acquainted with my case; when he regarded me with a very lofty look, but without speaking, set down a bundle he had in his hand, and approached the cupboard, which when he had opened, he exclaimed, in a great passion, 'Cot is my life! all the pork is gone, as I am a Christian!' Thomson then gave him to understand that as I had been brought on board half famished, he could do no less than entertain me with what was in the locker; and the rather, as he had bid the steward enter me in the mess. Whether this disappointment made Mr Morgan more peevish than usual, or he really thought himself too little regarded by his fellow-mate, I know not, but after some pause he went on in this manner. Mr Thomson, perhaps you do not use me with all the good-manners, and complaisance, and respect, look you, that becomes you, because you have not vouchsafed to advise with me in this affair. I have, in my time, look you, been a man of some weight and substance, and consideration, and have kept house and home, and paid scot and lot, and the king's taxes; ay, and maintained a family to boot. And moreover, also, I am your senior, and your elder, and your petter, Mr Thomson.''My elder I'll allow you to be, but not my better,' cried Thomson, with some heat. 'Cot is my saviour, and witness too,' said Morgan, with great vehemence, that I am more elder, and therefore more petter by many years than you.' Fearing this dispute might be attended with some bad consequence, I interposed and told Mr Morgan I was very sorry for having been the occasion of any difference between him and the second mate; and that, rather than cause the least breach in their good understanding, I would eat my allowance by myself, or seek admission to some other company. But Thomson, with more spirit than discretion, as I thought, insisted upon my remaining where he had appointed me: and observed that no man possessed of generosity and compassion would have any objection to it, considering my birth and talents, and the misfortunes I had of late so unjustly undergone. This was touching Mr Morgan on the right key, who protested with great earnestness that he had no objection to my being received in the mess; but only complained that the ceremony of asking his consent was not observed. 'As for a shentleman in distress,' said he, shaking me by the hand, 'I lofe him as I lofe my own powels: for, Cot help me! I have had vexations enough upon my own pack.' (From Roderick Random, I. xxv.) The Death of Commodore Trunnion. About four o'clock in the morning our hero arrived at the garrison [Commodore Trunnion's house was fitted up as a fortress, with ditch, drawbridge, and courtyard with artillery], where he found his generous uncle in extremity, supported in bed by Julia on one side and Lieutenant Hatchway on the other, whilst Mr Jolter administered spiritual consolation, and between whiles comforted Mrs Trunnion, who, with her maid, sat by the fire, weeping with great decorum: the physician having just taken the last fee, and retired after pronouncing the fatal prognostic. Though the Commodore's speech was interrupted by a violent hiccup, he still retained the use of his senses; and when Peregrine approached, stretched out his hand, with manifest signs of satisfaction. The young gentleman, whose heart overflowed with gratitude and affection, could not behold such a spectacle unmoved; so that the Commodore perceiving his disorder, made a last effort of strength, and consoled him in these words: 'Swab the spray from your bowsprit, my good lad, and coil up your spirits. You must not let the toplifts of your heart give way because you see me ready to go down at these years. Many a better man has foundered before he has made half my way; thof I trust, by the mercy of God, I shall be sure in port, in a most blessed riding; for my good friend Jolter hath overhauled the journal of my sins, and by the observation he hath taken of the state of my soul, I hope I shall happily conclude my voyage, and be brought up in the latitude of heaven. Here has been a doctor that wanted to stow me choke full of physic; but when a man's hour is come, what signifies his taking his departure with a 'pothecary's shop in his hold? These fellows come alongside dying men, like the messengers of the Admiralty with sailing orders; but I told him as how I could slip my cable without his direction or assistance, and so he hauled off in dudgeon. This cursed hiccup makes such a ripple in the current of my speech that mayhap you don't understand what I say. Now, while the sucker of my windpipe will go, I would willingly mention a few things which I hope you will set down in the log-book of your remembrance when I am stiff, d'ye see.. There's your aunt sitting whimpering by the fire; I desire you will keep her tight, warm, and easy in her old age: she's an honest heart in her own way, and, thof she goes a little crank and humoursome by being often overstowed with Nantz and religion, she has been a faithful shipmate to me. Jack Hatchway, you know the trim of her as well as e'er a man in England, and I believe she has a kindness for you, whereby if you two grapple in the way of matrimony when I am gone, I do suppose that my godson, for love of me, will allow you to live in the garrison all the days of your life. I need not talk of Pipes, because I know you'll do for him without any recommendation; the fellow has sailed with me in many a hard gale, and I'll warrant him as stout a seaman as ever set face to the weather. But I hope you'll take care of the rest of the crew, and not disrate them after I am dead in favour of new followers. . . . Shun going to law as you would shun the devil, and look upon all attorneys as devouring sharks or ravenous fish of prey. As soon as the breath is out of my body, let minute-guns be fired, till I am safe underground. I would also be buried in the red jacket I had on when I boarded and took the Renummy. Let my pistols, cutlass, and pocket-compass be laid in the coffin along with me. Let me be carried to the grave by my own men, rigged in the black caps and white shirts which my barge's crew were wont to wear; and they must keep a good look-out that none of your pilfering rascallions may come and heave me up again for the lucre of what they can get, until the carcass is belayed by a tombstone. As for the motto or what you call it, I leave that to you and Mr Jolter, who are scholars, but I do desire that it may not be engraved in the Greek or Latin lingos, and much less in the French, which I abominate, but in plain English, that when the angel comes to pipe all hands at the great day, he may know that I am a British man, and speak to me in my mother-tongue. And now, I have no more to say, but God in heaven have mercy upon my soul, and send you all fair weather where soever you are bound.' . . ... His last moments, however, were not so near as they imagined. He began to doze, and enjoyed small intervals of ease till next day in the afternoon; during which remissions he was heard to pour forth many pious ejaculations, expressing his hope that for all the heavy cargo of his sins, he should be able to surmount the puttock-shrouds of despair, and get aloft to the cross-trees of God's good favour. At last his voice sank so low as not to be distinguished; and having lain about an hour almost without any perceptible sign of life, he gave up the ghost with a groan. (From Peregrine Pickle.) Hatchway's Epitaph on Commodore Trunnion. Here lies, foundered in a fathom and a half, the shell of Hawser Trunnion, formerly commander of a squadron in his Majesty's service, who broached to at 5 P.M. Oct. x. in the year of his age threescore and nineteen. He kept his guns always loaded, and his tackle ready manned, and never showed his poop to the enemy, except when he took her in tow; but his shot being expended, his match burnt out, and his upper works decayed, he was Bath as seen by Mr Bramble. You must know, I find nothing but disappointment at Bath, which is so altered, that I can scarce believe it is the same place that I frequented about thirty years ago. Methinks I hear you say,-'Altered it is, without all doubt; but then it is altered for the better; a truth which, perhaps, you would own without hesitation, if you yourself was not altered for the worse.' The reflection may, for aught I know, be just. The inconveniences which I overlooked in the heyday of health, will naturally strike with exaggerated impression on the irritable nerves of an invalid, surprised by premature old age, and shattered with long suffering-But I believe you will not deny that this place, which Nature and Providence seem to have intended as a resource from distemper and disquiet, is become the very centre of racket and dissipation. Instead of that peace, tranquillity, and ease, so necessary to those who labour under bad health, weak nerves, and irregular spirits; here we have nothing but noise, tumult, and hurry, with the fatigue and slavery of maintaining a ceremonial, more stiff, formal, and oppressive than the etiquette of a German elector. A national hospital it may be; but one would imagine that none but lunatics are admitted; and, truly, I will give you leave to call me so, if I stay much longer at Bath-But I shall take another opportunity to explain my sentiments at greater length on this subject—I was impatient to see the boasted improvements in architecture, for which the upper parts of the town have been so much celebrated, and t'other day I made a circuit of all the new buildings. The square, though irregular, is on the whole pretty well laid out, spacious, open, and airy; and in my opinion by far the most wholesome and agreeable situation in Bath, especially the upper side of it; but the avenues to it are mean, dirty, dangerous, and indirect. Its communication with the baths is through the yard of an inn, where the poor trembling valetudinarian is carried in a chair, betwixt the heels of a double row of horses, wincing under the curry-combs of grooms and postillions, over and above the hazard of being obstructed, or overturned by the carriages which are continually making their exit or their entrance. I suppose, after some chairmen shall have been maimed, and a few lives lost by those accidents, the corporation will think in earnest about providing a more safe and commodious passage. The circus is a pretty bauble, contrived for show, and looks like Vespasian's amphitheatre turned outside in. If we consider it in point of magnificence, the great number of small doors belonging to the separate houses, the inconsiderable height of the different orders, the affected ornaments of the architrave, which are both childish and misplaced, and the areas projecting into the street, surrounded with iron rails, destroy a good part of its effect upon the eye; and perhaps we shall find it still more defective, if we view it in the light of convenience. The figure of each separate dwelling house, being the segment of a circle, must spoil the symmetry of the rooms, by contracting them towards the street windows, and leaving a larger sweep in the space behind. If, instead of the areas and iron rails, which seem to be of very little use, there had been a corridore with arcades all round, as in Coventgarden, the appearance of the whole would have been more magnificent and striking; those arcades would have afforded an agreeable covered walk, and sheltered the poor chairmen and their carriages from the rain, which is here almost perpetual. At present, the chairs stand soaking in the open street, from morning to night, till they become so many boxes of wet leather, for the benefit of the gouty and rheumatic, who are transported in them from place to place. Indeed, this is a shocking inconvenience that extends over the whole city; and I am persuaded it produces infinite mischief to the delicate and infirm even the close chairs contrived for the sick, by standing in the open air, have their freeze linings impregnated, like so many sponges, with the moisture of the atmosphere; and those cases of cold vapour must give a charming check to the perspiration of a patient, piping hot from the bath, with all his pores wide open. (From Humphry Clinker.) Lieutenant Lismahago. There is no hold by which an Englishman is sooner taken than that of compassion.-We were immediately interested in behalf of this veteran.-Even Tabby's heart was melted; but our pity was warmed with indignation when we learned that in the course of two sanguinary wars he had been wounded, maimed, mutilated, taken, and enslaved, without ever having attained a higher rank than that of lieutenant.-My uncle's eyes gleamed, and his nether lip quivered, while he exclaimed, 'I vow to God, sir, your case is a reproach to the service. The injustice you have met with is so flagrant.' 'I must crave your pardon, sir,' cried the other, interrupting him, 'I complain of no injustice.—I purchased an ensigncy thirty years ago; and in the course of service rose to be a lieutenant, according to my seniority.'—' But in such a length of time,' resumed the squire,' you must have seen a great many young officers put over your head.'— 'Nevertheless,' said he, 'I have no cause to murmur.— They bought their preferment with their money.—I had no money to carry to market-that was my misfortune; but nobody was to blame.'-'What! no friend to advance a sum of money?' said Mr Bramble. Perhaps I might have borrowed money for the purchase of a company,' answered the other; but that loan must have been refunded; and I did not choose to encumber myself with the debt of a thousand pounds, to be paid from an income of ten shillings a-day.' 'So you have spent the best part of your life,' cried Mr Bramble, 'your youth, your blood, and your constitution, amidst the dangers, the difficulties, the horrors, and hardIships of war, for the consideration of three or four shillings a-day-a consideration-' 'Sir,' replied the Scot, with great warmth, 'you are the man that does me injustice, if you say or think I have been actuated by any such paltry consideration.—I am a gentleman; and entered the service as other gentlemen do, with such hopes and sentiments as honourable ambition inspires. If I have not been lucky in the lottery of life, so neither do I think myself unfortunate.-I owe no man a farthing; I can always command a clean shirt, a mutton chop, and a truss of straw; and, when I die, I shall leave effects sufficient to defray the expense of my burial.' My uncle assured him he had no intention to give |