CHAPTER IVTHE WEARY TRAGEDY—SHIFTS TO LIVENo sooner had Smollett returned to London than he resumed negotiations with reference to his ill–fated tragedy. Authors are proverbially blind to the true merits of their literary progeny. As each fond father’s geese are swans, so, in the youthful Tobias Smollett’s eyes, fresh from conquest in the matrimonial arena, this decided objection to have anything to do with his play could only result from national antipathy against the Scots. ‘My luckless tragedy is suffering for Bannockburn,’ he remarked on one occasion to Mallet. Our vanity will seize on any reason rather than the right one to save ouramour–propre. Undoubtedly, Rich, Gifford, and Lacy’s treatment of Smollett was far from generous, nor was Garrick wholly free from blame. They should have declined the play at once. Let us take the better view of it, however, and ascribe their action to a mistaken desire to save the peppery Scotsman’s feelings. Better a hundred times if he had received the plain, unvarnished truth about that wretchedly crude production at the outset. A few pangs of wounded vanity, a curse or two at the Southron’s lack of critical insight, and Tobias probably would have buried or burned his MS. and forgotten all about it in another year, while in the long–run his common sense would have come to see the justice of the managerial decision. But for several years after his returnfrom Jamaica his expectations were raised and his hopes excited by vague promises and vaguer hints as to what ‘we will do next year.’ The consequence of all this manœuvring was, that Tobias, with that obstinate national pride characteristic of him, conceived that in some occult way patriotic prestige was bound up in his publishing, by hook or crook, a production so long withheld from a presumably expectant public by Southron jealousy. More follies have been perpetrated under the guise of patriotism than through all the vices combined. Let us detail the finish of a foolish business. AfterRoderick Randomhad rendered him famous, Smollett, imagining that all he wrote or had ever written would be eagerly devoured by an undiscriminating public, publishedThe Regicideby subscription. Ten years afterwards he cursed his indiscretion in no measured terms. The wisdom of thirty became the folly of forty; and some time during the last two years of his life, according to tradition, he committed to the flames two or three dozen copies of the ill–digested tragedy that had entailed on him so much trouble and brought him so little reputation.Meantime, the worthy Tobias was oppressed with the all–absorbing problem wherewithal to live. Rumour credited him with marrying an heiress. Rumour, as usual, lied. If our ex–surgeon’s mate, whose philosophy of life at that period seemed summed up in Horace’s famous injunction, ‘Get money, honestly if you can, but without fail get money,’ expected that in marrying Miss Nancy Lascelles he was purchasing the fee–simple of future years of affluence and ease, never man was more deceived. Let us credit the estimable Tobias, however, with a moral code more elevated than that. Albeit in the years to come Miss Nancy found she had not married a blood–relation of the patient Job’s, and he, that passionate West Indian ‘heiresses’ are not the ideal wives for hard–working literary men, on the whole the marriage was as happy as are three out of every five contracted in this working–day world. But the fortune of Miss Nancy, being invested in sugar plantations and such accessories as are necessary for the efficient production of this necessary staple of food, was, alas! difficult of realisation, and in the end only rolled upon the already heavily–burdened husband a quiverful of lawsuits. It was the old story! The lawyers got the cash, the litigants—the unspeakable pleasure of paying for their law with the object of their law–suit. Thus did Miss Nancy’s fortune disappear!From March 1744, when he returned to London, until January 1748, whenRoderick Randomwas published, Smollett’s movements are involved in obscurity. Only by means of meagre references in his own letters, and chance allusions to him in those of such friends as, in days to come, having carved their names in the Temple of Fame, had, in consequence, the somewhat doubtful honour of having their lives written, are we able to glean aught about his existence at this period. He was only a lad of some three or four–and–twenty years, unknown, friendless, and left to fight the great battle of life for himself. Little wonder is it, then, if, among the half–million inhabitants constituting the population of the British metropolis about the middle of the eighteenth century, the young Scots surgeon felt himself lost—as though he had been cut off from every kindly face and sympathetic voice. He probably was beginning to form those connections with booksellers which led him, before many years were over, to degenerate into a mere money–grubbing hack, not above doing a little literary ‘sweating,’ by obtaining high prices for work which he got executed by his slaves of the quill on terms much lower.But of that in its place. Certain it is that during these four years Smollett must have derived an income, and, what is more, a moderately good income, from some source. His letters prove that. From one addressed to his early friend, Richard Barclay, and dated London, May 22, 1744, we quote the following autobiographical facts:—‘I am this minute happy in yours, which affords me all the satisfaction of hearing from you, without the anxiety naturally flowing from its melancholy occasion, for I was informed of the decease of our late friend by a letter from Mr. Gordon, dated the day after his death. All those (as well as you, my dear Barclay) who knew the intimacy between us must imagine that no stroke of fate could make a deeper impression on my soul than that which severs me for ever from one I so entirely loved, from one who merited universal esteem, and who, had he not been cut off in the very blossom of his being, would have been an ornament to society, the pride and joy of his parents, and a most inestimable jewel to such as were attached to him as we were by the sacred ties of love and friendship.... My weeping muse would fain pay a tribute to his manes, and were I vain enough to think my verse would last, I would perpetuate his friendship and his virtue. I wish I was near you, that I might pour forth my heart before you, and make you judge of its dictates and the several steps I have lately taken, in which case I am confident you and all honest men would acquit my principles, however my prudentials might be condemned. However, I have moved into the house where the late John Douglas, surgeon, died, and you may henceforth direct for Mr. Smollett, surgeon, in Downing Street, West.... Your own,Ts. Smollett.N.B.—Willie Wood, who is just now drinking a glasswith me, offers you his good wishes, and desires you to present his compliments to Miss Betty Bogle.—T. S.’Now, the extracts given above would seem to indicate that Smollett was, in the first place, in somewhat easy circumstances. As Mr. Hannay very justly remarks, houses in Downing Street, West, and glasses of wine for friends, were not to be enjoyed, even in the patriarchal times of last century, without a periodical production of the almighty dollar. Circumstances point to the fact that Smollett took the deceased surgeon’s house with the possible hope of dropping into his practice. But in addition to that very problematic source of income, there must have been some other, and that in some degree at least to be relied upon. Smollett would never have faced the future so gaily with such a millstone round his neck, unless he had clearly seen his way to a sure and steady means of revenue. To our mind, that revenue must either have been yielded by Mrs. Smollett’s property in Kingston, and the ceremony performed there, prior to Smollett’s departure, must have been regarded as a marriage, or his industry in hack work for the booksellers must have been phenomenal. Either alternative presents difficulties. Neither can be accepted without weighty reservations. Best, under all aspects of the case, is it to affirm nothing positively, in the absence at the present time of definite information, which, however, may yet be discovered.The years 1745 and 1746 were stirring years in Britain. The rumours of a great Jacobite invasion of Scotland were rife while the year was young. They increased in number and definiteness as it gradually grew older, until, in August 1745, the intelligence reached London that Prince Charles Edward had actually landed in the Western Highlands. Smollett, though a sentimental Whig and an actual Tory,though, in other words, sympathising with the cause of the downtrodden and the laborious poor, while at the same time he heartily anathematised Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle, and at this time at least extolled the Tory Pitt the elder, was no Jacobite. True it was, his peppery nature was easily aroused by the flagrant and criminal neglect Scotland had received under Walpole’s administration. He was never done denouncing this ‘direct descendant of the impenitent thief’—a phrase afterwards borrowed, with a slight alteration, but without acknowledgment, by Dan O’Connell, and applied, as everybody knows, to Benjamin Disraeli. But however deeply Smollett was attached to his country, it was merely a sentimental attachment, akin to his Whiggery. He would not endanger his neck by ‘going out’ during the Rebellion of the ‘45, but he would have been guilty of a little harmless treason had he met with any kindred spirit with an enthusiasm strong enough to blow his own into flame. An evidence of the interest Smollett took in the Rebellion, and the indignation he felt over the atrocities perpetrated by the Duke of Cumberland on the hapless Highland prisoners that fell into his hands after the battle of Culloden, is found in the following anecdote related by Sir Walter Scott, on the authority of Robert Graham, Esq., of Gartmore, a particular friend and trustee of Smollett:—‘Some gentlemen, having met in a tavern, were amusing themselves before supper with a game at cards, while Smollett, not choosing to play, sat down to write. One of the company, who also was nominated one of his trustees (Gartmore himself), observing his earnestness, and supposing he was writing verses, asked him if it were not so. He accordingly read them the first sketch of his “Tears of Scotland,” consisting only of six stanzas, and on their remarking that the termination of the poem, being toostrongly expressed, might give offence to persons whose political opinions were different, he sat down without reply, and with an air of great indignation subjoined the concluding stanza:—“While the warm blood bedews my veins,And unimpaired remembrance reigns,Resentment of my country’s fateWithin my filial breast shall beat.Yes, spite of thine insulting foe,My sympathising verse shall flow.Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mournThy banished peace, thy laurels torn!”’To which Scott adds: ‘To estimate the generous emotions with which Smollett was actuated on this occasion, it must be remarked that his patriotism was independent of party feeling, as he had been bred up in Whig principles, which were those of his family. Although these appear from his historical works to have been in some degree modified, yet the author continued attached to the principles of the Revolution.’The ‘Tears of Scotland,’ the poem written under the curious circumstances recounted above, was a generous outburst of patriotic indignation in favour of Scotland and the Scots, at a time when such manifestations, owing to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, were liable to be construed, by a Government as truculent and short–sighted as it was venal and corrupt, into treason. Notwithstanding the fact that the ‘Tears of Scotland’ was moderately popular in its day, the powers that were in those days decided to leave the peppery Scot severely alone.At this period it is also that we obtain a pleasant side–light thrown upon Smollett’s life and work from the autobiography of Dr. ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle, the minister ofInveresk, in Midlothian, from 1748 to 1805, who was the friend and associate of nearly all the literary celebrities of the period—Home, Robertson, Blair, Logan, Henry Mackenzie, Lords Kames and Monboddo, etc. Fortunately, he preserved and noted down his impressions of all these great men, though, having done so only in extreme old age, many of the details are incorrectly stated. Dr. Carlyle remarks that with Smollett and one or two more he ‘resorted to a small tavern in the corner of Cockspur Street at the Golden Ball, where we had a frugal supper and a little punch, as the finances of none of the company were in very good order. But we had rich enough conversation on literary subjects, which was enlivened by Smollett’s agreeable stories, which he told with a peculiar grace. Soon after our acquaintance, Smollett showed me his tragedy of “James I. of Scotland,”[3]which he never could bring on the stage. For this the managers could not be blamed, though it soured him against them, and he appealed to the public by printing it; but the public seemed to take part with the managers.’The following incident, detailed by Dr. Carlyle, also manifests Smollett in the light of a Scots patriot:—‘I was in the coffee–house with Smollett when the news of the battle of Culloden arrived, and when London all over was in an uproar of joy. It was then that Jack Stewart, the son of the Provost, behaved in the manner I before mentioned.[4]About nine o’clock I wished to go home to Lyon’s in New Bond Street, as I had promised to sup with him that night, it being the anniversary of his marriage–night,or the birthday of one of his children. I asked Smollett if he was ready to go, as he lived at Mayfair; he said he was, and would conduct me. The mob were so riotous and the squibs so numerous and incessant, that we were glad to go into a narrow entry to put our wigs in our pockets, and to take our swords from our belts, and to walk with them in our hands, as everybody then wore swords; and after cautioning me against speaking a word, lest the mob should discover my country and become insolent, “for John Bull,” said he, “is as haughty and valiant to–night as he was abject and cowardly on the Black Wednesday when the Highlanders were at Derby.” After we got to the head of the Haymarket through incessant fire, the doctor led me by narrow lanes, where we met nobody but a few boys at a pitiful bonfire, who very civilly asked us for sixpence, which I gave them. I saw not Smollett again for some time after, when he showed Smith and me the MS. of his “Tears of Scotland,” which was published not long after, and had such a run of approbation. Smollett, though a Tory, was not a Jacobite, but he had the feelings of a Scotch gentleman on the reported cruelties that were said to be exercised after the battle of Culloden.’Sir Walter Scott, with his wonted charity, endeavours to account for Smollett’s lack of success as a physician. He did not succeed, because his haughty and independent spirit neglected the bypaths which lead to fame in that profession. Another writer ascribes it to his lack of consideration for his female patients, certainly not from want of address or figure, but from a hasty impatience in listening to petty complaints. Perhaps, finally, remarks Scott, Dr. Smollett was too soon discouraged, and abandoned prematurely a profession in which success is proverbially slow.In these circumstances, conscious as he must have been of his own powers, Smollett could only look to his pen for the supply of his daily needs. And it did not disappoint him. In 1748, besides numerous ephemeral compilations for the booksellers, he produced his poetical satireAdvice, a poem in the manner of Juvenal, wherein several of the leading political characters of the day were held up to scorn. Our author certainly did not spare his caustic sarcasm. The consequence was,Advicebecame so popular that he published a sequel, or rather continuation of it, in 1747, under the title ofReproof, both being bound and published together in the succeeding year. When another edition of each was called for, Smollett had made himself talked about and feared, in the hope that the Ministry of the day would see it to their advantage to pension him off with a sinecure office. No such fortune befell him. He had only sown dragon’s teeth, from which enemies sprang up to harass and vex him even to the end of his days.Of the literary merits of the Satires more will be said anon. One quality in them may be noted here, however, and that was the absolute fearlessness wherewith Smollett attacked those in power. His sting was never sheathed out of dread of any man. None were exempt from the lash of his sarcasm, whose wrong–doings came to his knowledge. If the innocent sometimes were involved with the guilty in common condemnation, in most cases the reason was because they continued in association with the politically or morally depraved after being cognisant of their character.The sensation created by these trenchant Satires was great. Literary London recognised that a new writer of great and varied powers had risen. The old generationwas dying out. Swift, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Arbuthnot, Pope, were either dead or had ceased to write. Goldsmith had not yet appeared. Johnson alone held the field; but he was more of a moral censor than a satirist. There was really no satirist of surpassing ability tickling the palate of the public, which dearly loves censure—when directed against other people. The coarse, sledge–hammer caricature of Tom D’Urfey and Tom Brown, though still relished by a few, was gradually giving place to a more refined and incisive, but none the less vitriolic type, wherein Smollett was an acknowledged master.AdviceandReproofare readable yet for the pungency of the sarcasm, united to absolute truth as regards the facts adduced. One does not wonder at the popularity of these pieces. They are thoroughly ‘live’ epigrammatic productions, aglow with human interest, and palpitating with that vigorous, honest, healthy indignation against wrong which awakens a reciprocal feeling in one’s breast across the chasm of a hundred and fifty years. ‘Dost not fear the Government, Smollett’? said a timid friend to him after their publication. ‘Fear the Government?’ was the contemptuous reply of the other. ‘I might if I showed I dreaded them; but no man need fear a Government provided he does not show he fears it.’During the publication of the second part of his Satires, Smollett was joined in London by the lady who became his wife. In 1747 they set up house, and for some months he enjoyed the luxury of his own fireside. Fate was not long to leave him unassailed, but long enough, at least, to give him a taste of that hymeneal heaven which follows the union of two loving hearts—long enough for him to have experienced the sentiments that found expression in the one love–poem he wrote, ‘Ode to Blue–Eyed Ann.’ MissAnne or Nancy Lascelles cannot have been the unresponsive being some of Smollett’s biographers contend, in order to excuse their hero’s ungallant conduct in later years, when every other sentiment was sacrificed to ambition, otherwise she could not have inspired feelings so passionate as these—‘When rolling seasons cease to change,Inconstancy forget to range;When lavish May no more shall bloomNor gardens yield a rich perfume;When Nature from her sphere shall start,I’ll tear my Nanny from my heart.’Smollett seemed to have all an Irishman’s love of a quarrel. He never appeared happier than when he was ‘slangwhanging’ some unfortunate, though it is a hundred to one the fault was on his own side. To be ‘slangwhanged’ in return, however, was altogether another matter. Ridicule cut him to the raw. He had the idea that all the world should submit to his animadversions patiently and uncomplainingly. But if any dared to retaliate, instantly they were dubbed rogues, and fools, and blockheads. An instance of this occurred in his relations with Rich, the theatrical manager. The success ofAdvicehad induced the latter to lend a favourable ear to Smollett’s proposal to write the libretto of an opera calledAlceste, which would have been produced at Covent Garden, Handel being engaged to write the music for it. All went well, and the work was actually in rehearsal, when Rich made some suggestions to Smollett about altering one of the scenes. Immediately the peppery poet was on his dignity. He declined to alter a line. Thereupon Rich, preferring to quarrel with his author rather than offend the public, rejected the piece, to Smollett’s intense chagrin. In vainhis friends begged of him to make some concession to Rich, who seems to have been exceedingly forbearing all through. The poet declined, and thus another chance of bettering his prospects was lost.Handel, on hearing of the transaction, is reported to have remarked, ‘That Scotchman is ein tam fool; I vould have mate his vurk immortal,’ and immediately proceeded to alter the music so as to adapt it to Dryden’s ‘Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day.’ VerilyAlcestewould have been immortal if wedded to those noble harmonies. But it was not to be. The only result was the addition of another group of powerful social personages to his already long list of enemies, for of course Tobias could not refrain from lampooning Rich. ‘O the pity of it!’CHAPTER VRODERICK RANDOMWe reach now the most important period of Smollett’s life. That he had fully realised, long before, the splendid nature of the talents wherewith he was endowed, is more than probable, though he possibly was in doubt as to the precise outlet his genius would make for itself. He had tried tragedy, but had been roughly disillusionised as to his El Dorado being found on the stage. He had neither the power of compression nor the faculty of seizing upon one central idea and making all the others subservient and subordinate thereto, so necessary a qualification in the dramatist. His satire also was a little too ferocious and vitriolic to entirely please the taste of the English–reading public, that was gradually looking askance at the knockdown, sledge–hammer blows of Butler and Swift, and veering round to the more delicate but none the less effective style of Goldsmith, Gay, and Johnson. His poetry, moreover, was not sufficiently generous, either in quantity or quality, to secure for him even a low place in the Temple of Poesie. His genius, therefore, must find some other outlet. What was it to be?In 1740, Samuel Richardson, the father of the English novel, had producedPamela, a work which at once achieved a lasting success. Not that novel–writing was unknown previous to that date, as many writers suppose. The Italiannovelliand the Spanish tales were known in Britain, and had inspired many imitators. While carefully dissociating the pastoral romances like Sidney’sArcadiaor those ‘romances’ proper, or fiction dealing with feudal customs and illustrative of the ‘virtues’ of chivalry, from ‘novels,’ which, in the early signification of the word at least, implied stories descriptive of domestic or everyday life in the period of the writer’s own immediate epoch, many of the stories written by Robert Greene, the dramatist, Thomas Nashe, and Nicolas Breton are novels of English life pure and simple, albeit foreign names may be used. So in Shakespeare all his plays are distinctively English in atmosphere and sympathies, to say nothing of sentiments, although Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, and the like, are selected as the nominal heroes and heroines of the piece. The English novel had long been in existence. The only difference was that the writers did not specialise any period as that wherein the incidents occurred. They preferred to leave themselves free, and to people with the creatures of their fancy that mysteriously delightful era vaguely shadowed forth by ‘long ago’ or ‘once upon a time.’The surpassing virtue of Richardson and his successor Fielding was that they boldly seized upon the time wherein they lived as that which was to form the background of their stories. Their ‘to–day’ was to be painted as faithfully and as fondly as those earlier writers had depicted imaginary epochs. We can scarcely form any idea now of the overwhelming enthusiasm that greeted Richardson’sPamela. For the first time readers saw their own age delineated with a fidelity and withal a fearlessness that had the effect of a supreme moral lesson. Of course, to our ideas of to–day, many of the descriptions in the novels of lastcentury are simply revolting, and would be condemned amongst us as an outrage on good taste. ‘The morals of the young person’ are our nineteenth–century bogey, which ever and anon rises up to scare any luckless novelist who dares to paint life as it really is. Thackeray used to lament that he dared not paint Becky Sharp as she really was, because all the mammas in the British Islands would taboo his work. But midway the eighteenth century they were not so queasy–stomached. They called a spade a spade. If a man went to the devil with wine and women, they took a delight in chronicling the whole process—as a warning to others, be it noted, not like the leprous–minded, neurotic school in our own days, look you, because they wanted to rake in guineas by chronicling a brother’s or a sister’s shame.Pamela, however, effected a higher purpose than merely affording pleasure to eager readers. Its exotic morality and exaggerated sentimentality stirred up into vigorous life the spirit of ridicule latent in the big, manly, kindly, but coarse–fibred nature of Henry Fielding. As a caricature ofPamelahe produced his novel,Joseph Andrews, the hero of which was the brother ofPamela, and was made to exhibit the same exaggerated virtues as had characterised the latter. Fielding’s “skit” became the first great character–novel in the English language, and announced to the world the fact that the greatest master of contemporary literary portraiture that prose literature has yet seen, had appeared.The publication ofClarissa Harlowe, by Richardson, towards the end of 1747, and the announcement made of the appearance of Fielding’sTom Jones, in parts, seem to have raised the question in Smollett’s mind whether he also might not be able to create a gallery of fiction every whit as notable as ‘Pamela,’ or ‘Mr. B——,’ or ‘Parson Adams,’ or‘Lovelace,’ or ‘Sophia Western.’ The flattering results of success in the improvement of the material prospects of both Richardson and Fielding could not but exercise a certain amount of influence on him. In the month of June 1747, as he tells us, he began the composition of a novel of his own time, very diffidently, and with the resolve firmly kept in view, that if the work did not come up to his own expectations, he would remorselessly burn it.He was of too original a caste of genius to sink into the subordinate position of a mere imitator of either Richardson or Fielding. He noted carefully that the former had monopolised the novel of sentiment, as the latter had taken as his own the novel of character. But he also saw that the novel of incident was still unappropriated in English fiction. This department he determined to make his own. Taking theGil Blasof Le Sage as his model, he endeavoured as far as possible to make his tale interesting by the number and variety of the events introduced, feeling assured that the portraiture of character would not be of an inferior type, if only he could draw on his past experiences for material. While by no means a slavish follower of Le Sage, the influence of the great French writer is very perceptible inRoderick Random. There is the same breathless succession of incidents, the same hairbreadth escapes, the same ready ingenuity on the part of the hero in extricating himself from awkward predicaments. In a word, Roderick is but a blood relation ofGil Blas, though his British parentage and rearing have modified some of the eccentricities and peccadilloes that would have scared even the purblind mammas and custodians of national virtue last century.Roderick Randomwas published towards the end of January 1748, having occupied five months in its composition. Its success was instant and extraordinary. TheBritish public recognised that a third had been added to the great masters of fiction—a third whose genius, though inferior in solidity and sublimity to that of either Richardson or Fielding, surpassed both in prodigality and wealth of invention. The first edition of the work did not bear the author’s name, but was published in two small duodecimo volumes by Osborn of Gray’s Inn Lane (the same individual knocked down by Dr. Johnson as a punishment for insolence), the price being six shillings. The interest excited by the book may be imagined when it was attributed by Lady Mary Wortley Montague to Fielding. In a letter to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, as recorded in her works, Lady Mary says: ‘Fielding has really a fund of true humour. I guessedRoderick Randomto be his, though without his name.’ Later on she adds: ‘I cannot thinkFerdinand Fathomwrote by the same hand, it is every way so much below it.’The notices of the novel in any contemporary journals are but meagre. In theGentleman’s Magazineand in theIntelligencer, short criticisms appear noting it as a work ‘full of ingenious descriptions and lively occurrences.’ Several of the other periodicals contented themselves with a mere intimation of its publication. Of puffing and pushing seemingly the work needed little. Its own merits carried it into all circles. Even Samuel Richardson, whose antipathy to Fielding may have inclined him to show favour to any possible rival of the man who had dared to caricature his pet creation, remarked of it in comparison withTom Jones, published some months later, thatRoderick Randomwas written by a good man to show the evils of vice,Tom Jonesby a profligate to render vice more alluring. The infallible judgment of posterity will not confirm the criticism of the narrow–minded old bookseller, who abhorred anythingthat did not directly or indirectly reflect praise on himself. Edition after edition of this the latest success in literature was called for. Smollett’s name was placed on the title–page after the issue of the second edition, and the public then realised that the popular novel was the work of none of the elder writers, as was supposed, but of a young, impecunious surgeon, not yet thirty, who had exhibited a very pretty talent for satire, as the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, the Earls of Bath, Granville, and Cholmondeley, Sir William Yonge, Mr. Pitt, and Rich the theatrical manager, could testify to their cost.Thereupon the town sought to take the young surgeon up and patronise him, only to discover that he was far from being a patronisable party—nay, was somewhat akin to the frozen snake which the countryman, pitying, took up and hid in his bosom to warm it, only to be stung when the reptile recovered vitality. Smollett all his life was too apt to mistake genuine kindness for patronage, and to flash out hasty darts of sarcasm in response to heartfelt wishes to win his friendship. Many of the leading personages of London now sought to benefit him and to show him that they desired to count him among their friends. But Tobias, as already said, was like the fretful porcupine. He had been so long a stranger to disinterested kindness, so long treated as little better than a superfluous atom on the world’s surface, that affability towards him was construed into condescension—a thought which made each particular hair of his sensitive nature to stand on end. Curious though the fact, nevertheless it is true that Smollett’s friendship was in most cases extended to those who differed from him rather than to those who agreed with him, though at the same time he might be bespattering the former with all the terms of reprobation in his somewhat extensive vocabulary of vituperation.AlthoughRoderick Random, coming, as it did, sandwiched in, so to speak, betweenClarissa HarloweandTom Jones, had to pass through a trying fire of literary comparison, it emerged from the ordeal more popular than ever. Readers realised that in him was a writer who was a story–teller pure and simple, whose moral lessons were conveyed rather by implication than by positive precept, and to whom the progress of his story was the prime consideration. The wearisome moralisings of Richardson and the tedious untwistings of motive so characteristic of Fielding were unknown inRoderick Random. The story for the story’s sake was evidently the writer’s aim throughout, and nobly he fulfilled it. By many of our latter–day novelists the imaginative swiftness of Smollett might with advantage be studied.All criticism will be reserved for our closing chapters, but at this point it may not be out of place to state that, although Smollett’s characters are many of them drawnfrom life, it does not follow they are portrayedto the life. By this distinction I would seek to relieve him of the imputation, shameful in many cases beyond a doubt, of having deliberately drawn line for line the portraits of his relatives, of individuals met with on board theCumberland, and other fellow–travellers with whom he had fallen in during his journey along the highway of existence. That suggestions were given to him by the actions of such men as the commander of theCumberland, the staff of surgeons on board, and other personages with whom he came in contact, is perfectly probable. But that he noted through the microscope of his keen faculty of observation, every trait, every moral feature, and registered them on the debit or credit side of each character, I cannot admit, nor would such a course be consistent with the originality of his genius. The settingof incident may in some cases be drawn from his own experience, but that we can in any sense rely on each portrait in his works being a truthful representation of the prototype, that I deny. The assumption is negatived by his own confession with regard to his grandfather, and also by his action with reference to Gordon, his former employer. If the latter were drawn to the life under the character of either Potion or Crab inRoderick Random, as many biographers contend, Smollett completely ate his own words inHumphrey Clinkerwhen he remarked that Gordon ‘was a patriot of a truly noble spirit,’ etc. There is nothing more misleading and at the same time more unfair to an author than to subject him to this sort of literary dissection. No author is without suggestions from without in limning his gallery of characters, but that he draws them wholly from without is as impossible as that a doctor’s diagnosis is based solely on what he observes, or on what is visible to the eye, and not also on what is the result of arguing from the known to the unknown. Captains Oakum and Whiffle, Squire Gawky, and others, are intentionally exaggerated for the purposes of literary effect. If they were drawn from nature, then they would have to be severely condemned as exaggerations.Sir Walter Scott speaks very decidedly on this point inThe Lives of the Novelists and Dramatists: ‘It was generally believed that Smollett painted some of his own early adventures under the veil of fiction; but the public carried the spirit of applying the characters of a work of fiction to living personages much farther than the author intended.’ Dr. Moore, also, while acknowledging that Smollett was not sufficiently careful to prevent such applications of his characters, yet denies that they were portraits of living personages.Smollett now could contemplate the future with hopefulness.Roderick Randomhad achieved a success so extraordinary, that even at that early period in his literary career, the booksellers, or, as they would now be termed, ‘publishers,’ were bespeaking his wares ahead. Taken all in all, Smollett accepted his good fortune with conspicuous moderation. Success did not turn his head. He was not like his characters, Roderick Random or Peregrine Pickle, extravagantly uplifted by prosperity, plunged into despair by adversity. More akin to worthy old Matthew Bramble was he, who, while he took the world at no very high valuation, and was not averse to accepting its smile, yet did not break his heart over its frown.The only foolish action to which he gave way at this period of popularity was the publication by subscription ofThe Regicide. The fame accruing to him from the success of his novel was, he reasoned, a favourable means whereby to enable him to launch his play upon the waters of public opinion. His reputation certainly ensured the sale of his play, but the sale of his play materially affected his reputation. ThatThe Regicidewas not a work of merit Smollett never could be brought to see, until he had criticised for some years the works of others in theCritical Review. Besides, he had sufficient of the old Adam in him that he wished ‘to have his knife’ into the offending theatrical managers, and the ‘great little men,’ as he called them, who had professed to take his play under their patronage. Therefore, whenThe Regicidewas published in 1749, our author prefixed thereto a preface full of gall and vinegar—a piece of spleen, of which, in his later days, he was sincerely ashamed. That preface is not pleasant reading to those who love the genius of Smollett. A vindictive schoolboy in the first flush of resentment against his teacherfor giving him a sound but deserved birching could not have perpetrated anything much worse.In 1750, Smollett and his wife paid a visit to Paris, in order that the popular novelist might collect materials for his new work of fiction. The charms of the gay city, the kindness and consideration shown him by the Parisians, the adulation showered on him by the literary men of the French capital, all coloured Smollett’s estimate of the place and people. ‘To live in Paris,’ he says in one of his letters of the period, ‘is to live in heaven.’ That he saw reason slightly to alter his opinion afterwards, was only to be expected. But the delights of this first visit to Paris remained indelibly impressed on his memory.He met many persons in France whose characters and circumstances afterwards suggested to him some of the most notable personages in his gallery of fiction. For example, Moore, in his memoirs of Smollett, states that the portrait of the Doctor inPeregrine Picklewas drawn in some respects from Dr. Akenside, the well–known poet, author ofThe Pleasures of Imagination, a man of true learning, culture, and high talents, but whose offence, in Smollett’s eyes, was that he had cast some sneering reflections upon Scotland in Smollett’s presence, although, on the other hand, Akenside had studied in Edinburgh, and acknowledged the excellence of its medical school. Pallet the painter, also, was suggested to him, adds Moore, by the coxcombry of an English artist, who used to declaim on the subject ofVirtu, and often used the following expressions, familiar enough to readers of the novel in question—‘Paris is very rich in the arts; London is a Goth, and Westminster a Vandal, compared to Paris.’But the most effective episode drawn by Smollett from his French experiences was, as Anderson says, the story ofthe Scottish Jacobite exiles, banished from their country for their share in the Rebellion of 1745. Readers ofPeregrine Picklewill remember that at Boulogne the hero meets a body of these unfortunates, who daily made a pilgrimage to the seaside to view the white cliffs of Britain, which they were never more to approach. That incident was drawn from life. Mr. Hunter of Burnside was the individual amongst them who is mentioned as having wept bitterly over his misfortune of having involved a beloved wife and three children in misery and distress, and in the impatience of his grief, having cursed his fate with frantic imprecations. Dr. Moore heard Mr. Hunter express himself in this manner to Smollett, and at the same time relate the affecting visit which he and his companions daily made to the seaside when residing at Boulogne. From his visit, then, Smollett drew a wealth of incidents and characteristics, which he was able with surpassing skill to touch up, recolour, magnify, and exaggerate as he saw fit in the interests of his story.At this period, John Home, author ofDouglas, was paying a visit to London in order to try to induce Garrick to accept his tragedy ofAgis. He met Smollett, introduced to him by their mutual friend ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle, and had much pleasant intercourse with him. From the Life[5]of Home by Henry Mackenzie, I extract the following details, as they throw a curious side–light on Smollett’s character. In his letter, dated 6th November 1749, to Carlyle, he remarks: ‘I have seen nobody yet but Smollett, whom I like very well.’ Farther on he adds: ‘I am a good deal disappointed at the mien of the English, which I think but poor. I observed it to Smollett, after having walked atHigh–Mall, who agreed with me.’ Then, a little later, Home writes to ‘Jupiter,’ evidently grateful for some kindnesses shown him by Tobias, in the following terms:—‘Your friend Smollett, who has a thousand good, nay, the best qualities, and whom I love much more than he thinks I do, has got on Sunday last three hundred pounds for hisMask.’ What thisMaskwas it is hard to say, but in all probability it referred to some work which Smollett was executing for Garrick. To theAlcestethe allusion could not refer, nor to theReprisals. The allusion, therefore, must be directed to some cobbling dramatic work, of which Smollett did a great deal for Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Goodman’s Fields.A testimony so independent as this from Home possesses the highest value. To the virtues and excellences of a much misunderstood man it offers a tardy but valuable vindication.Of Smollett, David Hume, who met him somewhat later in life, said: ‘He is like the cocoa–nut, the outside is the worst part of him.’CHAPTER VIPEREGRINE PICKLEANDFERDINAND COUNT FATHOM—DOCTOR OF PHYSICBoth during his stay in Paris, and on his return, Smollett had been working steadily at his new novel, which he had calledThe Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. The title of all his books affords a clue to their character. Incident—vigorous, well described incident, lively, incessant, exhaustless—such was the ‘mode’ of fiction our author had determined to make his own. Hence the titles of his works—The Adventures of Roderick Random,The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle,The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom,The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves,The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker—are genuinely descriptive of his style of writing. He had no patience for the slow analysis of character, or the exhibition of wire–drawn sentiments. His novels were always on the boil. There was no cooling down of the interest permitted, even for a moment. No sooner was the hero done with one incident than another was hard on its trail to overtake him. Ennui and dullness have a bad time of it while one of Smollett’s novels is in course of perusal.In 1750, acting upon the urgent solicitations of his wife, he made a last attempt to establish himself as a physician. Mrs. Smollett did not exactly appreciate a husband who had no profession. Poor Nancy does not seem to havebeen a very suitable yokefellow for our busylitterateur. She had no reverence for literature as such, or for its professors. She had all a woman’s desire for social distinction. But in order to take any position in that society after which this poor little Eve of the eighteenth century panted as eagerly as those of the nineteenth, an indispensable desideratum was that her husband should belong to one of the recognised professions, even although it might be only ‘something in the City’! To hope to settle in London was out of the question. That had been already tried, and had failed. Perhaps the good folks of the city of King Bladud might be more amenable to the recommendations of Dr. Smollett’s skill. Therefore Smollett resolved to settle at Bath, and see whether he could gain a living as a doctor at the great eighteenth century Spa.Before this project could be put into practice, however, medical etiquette demanded he should take a physician’s degree. Hitherto he only had secured a surgeon’s certificate, and that was of little service at Bath. Accordingly, he proceeded to take his degree of M.D., and thereafter had a right to sign himself ‘Dr. Smollett.’ Considerable doubt existed formerly regarding the University whence our author obtained his diploma. Even so late as in Dr. Anderson’s time (1805–1820, the dates of the editions of his book), the question had not been decided. The statement in his Life of Smollett that his diploma was probably obtained from some foreign University, and that ‘the researches which have hitherto been made in the lists of graduates in the Scottish Universities, have not discovered his name,’ led investigators to every other quarter but the right one. All the registers of the foreign medical schools were ransacked in vain. To Sir Walter Scott must be ascribedthe honour of settling the matter once for all, by proving that Smollett was a medical graduate of Aberdeen. Let Sir Walter speak for himself. He says: ‘The late ingenious artist, Mr. H. W. Williams of Edinburgh, tells us in hisTravels, that a friend of his had seen in 1816, at Leghorn, the diploma of Smollett’s doctorate, and that it was an Aberdeen one. The present editor thought it worth while to inquire into this, and Professor Cruikshank has politely forwarded a certificated copy of the diploma, which was granted by the Marischal College of Aberdeen in 1750.’ Accordingly, therefore, for a year or two at least, we must picture the author ofRoderick Randomfeeling the pulses and examining the tongues of patients who, in many cases, were mere valetudinarians, or, on the other hand, feigned themselves ill that they might have an excuse for visiting the gay city of Bath. With that irritating class of patients Smollett would have no patience. He would brusquely expose their petty deceit; and in one case, at least, informed a lady that ‘if she had time to play at being ill, he had not time to play at curing her.’ Such a physician was like a wild buffalo let loose over the conventionalparterresof the sentimental femininity of both sexes. He simply gored with his rude satire the pleasant fictions of lusty but lazy invalids, or scattered to the winds the fond delusions of hypochondriacs, in whom too much old port and high living had induced the demons of dyspepsia. Little wonder is it, then, that Smollett as a physician was as supreme a failure as Oliver Goldsmith. Within two years we find him back in London, cursing his folly in ever having been induced to try an experiment that was doomed to failure from the very outset. Alas, poor little Mrs. Smollett! her dreams of social importance were rudely dispelled. From a brief experience of playing‘the doctor’s dame’ among the good folks of Bath, she had ignominiously to return to London and sink into the obscurity of a lady who cannot even aspire to the credit of having a husband who is ‘something in the City.’ In ‘Narcissa’s’ eyes—for there is little doubt that the character of Narcissa inRoderick Randomwas at least suggested by his wife—her husband’s literary work was worse than degrading. In common with many others of her time, she deemed ‘a man of letters’ to be synonymous with a gentleman who spent one–half his time in the Fleet or the Marshalsea for debt, and the other half in dodging bailiffs from post to pillar for the privilege of enjoying God’s sunshine without the walls of a jail.One piece of work Smollett accomplished before he left Bath. He published a short treatise on the mineral waters of the place under the title,An Essay on the External Use of Water, in a letter to Dr.——, with Particular Remarks on the Present Method of Using the Mineral Waters at Bath in Somersetshire, and a Plan for rendering them more Safe, Agreeable, and Efficacious(4to, 1752). The book is full of sound maxims for the preservation of health. But here and there he cannot resist girding at those who visited the place for no other purpose than to participate in its gaieties, and whose ailments were as fictitious as in many cases was their social standing. This was, of course, a hit at the crowds of sharpers and adventurers of all sorts, male and female, that frequented Bath during its palmy days last century.While at Bath, however, that is, in March 1751,Peregrine Pickle, his second great novel, was published in two volumes duodecimo, the imprint being ‘London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by D. Wilson, at Plato’s Head, near Round Court in the Strand, 1751.’ This implies thatSmollett had found the method more to his advantage to act as his own publisher, than to submit to the extortion of the greedy Shylocks of the press in those days. The race of great publishers, taking a genuine interest in their authors and their work, had yet to arise—that race of which Scott’s friend Constable was one of the earliest examples and the best.The success of the new novel was unparalleled. As Herbert says in his excellent prefatory Life to the Works of Smollett: ‘It was received with such extraordinary avidity that a large impression was quickly sold in England, another was bought up in Ireland, a translation was executed into the French language, and it soon made its appearance in a second edition with an apologeticAdvertisementandTwo Lettersrelating to theMemoirs of a Lady of Quality, sent to the editor by “a Person of Honour.” This first edition is in our day scarce enough, and sufficiently coarse to fetch an enhanced price.’ Edition followed edition of the popular work. If any doubt had previously existed whether Smollett was worthy to take his place beside Richardson and Fielding, none could be urged now. In all contemporary records we find the three bracketed together, as the great fictional trio whose works were at once the delight and the despair of imitators.But although his career was so successful, we must not run away with the idea that Smollett had no enemies—that, in a word, admiration had swallowed up animosity. Alas, no! Human nature is human nature through all. Despite all thefuroreof enthusiasm awakened by the appearance of his great novel, there were not lacking detractors and vilifiers, who, too despicable to attack him openly, snapped at him from under the shield of anonymity.That they were able to do him harm, or at least to cause him keen chagrin and vexation, is made manifest by the tone of sorrow and wounded pride wherewith he speaks in the preface to the second edition ofPeregrine Pickle. In such circumstances it is always best to let the aggrieved party speak for himself without offering any opinion. He says: ‘At lengthPeregrine Picklemakes his appearance in a new edition, in spite of all the art and industry that were used to stifle him in the birth by certain booksellers and others, who were at uncommon pains to misrepresent the work and calumniate the author. The performance was decried as an immoral piece, and a scurrilous libel; the author was charged with having defamed the characters of particular persons to whom he lay under considerable obligations; and some formidable critics declared the book was void of humour, character, and sentiment. These charges, had they been supported by proof, would have certainly damned the writer and all his works; and, even unsupported as they were, had an unfavourable effect with the public. But luckily for him his real character was not unknown; and some readers were determined to judge for themselves, rather than trust implicitly to the allegations of his enemies. He has endeavoured to render the book less unworthy of their acceptance. Divers uninteresting incidents are wholly suppressed. Some humorous scenes he has endeavoured to heighten; and he flatters himself 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 owns with contrition that in one or two instances he gave way too much to the suggestions of personal resentment, and represented characters as they appeared to him at that time through the exaggerating medium of prejudice. Howeverhe may have erred in point of judgment or discretion, he defies the whole world to prove that he was ever guilty of one act of malice, ingratitude, or dishonour. This declaration he may be permitted to make, without incurring the imputation of vanity or presumption, considering the numerous shafts of envy, rancour, and revenge that have lately, both in public and private, been levelled at his reputation.’Along with theAdventuresof Peregrine were bound upMemoirs of a Lady of Quality—a distinct story, sandwiched, as it were, between the two halves of the hero’s life. Clumsy indeed is the fictional skill that permitted such an arrangement. The introduction of theMemoirs, apart altogether from their moral quality, was a constructive error, inasmuch as the thread of interest of the novel is thereby broken. Though Smollett received a handsome sum (£150 one account mentions, £300 another) for granting the favour of their insertion in the novel, he lived to regret most deeply the indiscretion. So notorious was the reputation of the lady, that her infamous character in some people’s estimation condemned the book. The ‘Lady of Quality,’ as is well known, was the unhappy Lady Vane. Her maiden name was Frances Hawes. She was married when little more than a child to Lord William Hamilton, who died shortly afterwards; then to Viscount Vane, who used her with such cruelty that she was driven to accept the protection of the Hon. Sewallis Shirley, son of Robert, first Earl of Ferrers; then that of Lord Berkeley, Lord Robert Bertie, and others. Of course we have only her ladyship’s side of the story. From other sources, however, information is forthcoming that she had been at least as much sinned against as sinning. But although the world may acknowledge thus much, it will never forgive a womanthe breach of her marriage vows, and Lady Vane, although undoubtedly the most beautiful woman of her decade, has passed into a byword of reproach. Dr. Johnson in theVanity of Human Wishesremarks:‘Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring,And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a king.’But undoubtedly the quality which most of all recommendedPeregrine Pickleto the British public was the marvellously true, albeit richly humorous, portraits of our seamen in the persons of Commodore Hawser Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, and Boatswain Tom Pipes. It is questionable, however, if any of those exhibited so much insight into the human heart as that of Lieutenant Bowling inRoderick Random, a noble–spirited man if ever one was created. Smollett has since had many imitators, such as Captain Marryat, Mr. Clark Russell, and others, but none of them have excelled the inimitable wit and humour which invest the sayings and doings of these personages. They have become part and parcel of ourselves. We know them and love them, and they live with us, so to speak, in our daily life.He now took up house in Chelsea, and set himself doggedly and perseveringly to obtain his subsistence as a professional man of letters. From the Government of the day he could look for no favours. The unmerciful manner in which he had lashed the Ministry, says Chambers, precluded all Court patronage, even had it been the fashion of the Court of George II. to extend it. He depended solely on the booksellers for whom he wrought in the various departments of compilations, translations, criticisms, and miscellaneous essays.The next fruit of his genius was one which has never been popular, simply because it describes an utterlyimpossible and repulsive character. In 1753 appearedThe Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. A more depressing and unhealthy work, despite the immense genius displayed in it, could scarcely be conceived. Sir Walter Scott’s analysis of the novel is so admirable that we cannot do better than cite it here in place of any lengthened remarks of our own. ‘It seems to have been written for the purpose of showing how far humour and genius can go in painting a complete picture of human depravity.... To a reader of good disposition and well–regulated mind, the picture of moral depravity presented in the character of Count Fathom is a disgusting pollution of the imagination. To those, on the other hand, who hesitate on the brink of meditated iniquity, it is not safe to detail the arts by which the ingenuity of villainy has triumphed in former instances; and it is well known that the publication of the real account of uncommon crimes, although attended by the public and infamous punishment of the perpetrators, has often had the effect of stimulating others to similar actions.’But if the moral features of Count Fathom are thus repulsive, there can be no question of the supreme art wherewith the developments of such a character are both conceived and executed. The heartless villainy wherewith Fathom executes his devilish schemes are related with a subdued force that is unlike anything else in fiction; while the scene of the ruin of the unfortunate Monimia is one of the most terribly dramatic passages in the English language, comparable only to the terrible remorse scene inMacbeth, or to the great last act in Webster’sDuchess of Malfi. The horror is if anything overstrained. One recoils from it. It leaves an impression on the mind as though human nature were utterly debased and vicious, without a single redeeming trait. The novel once more achieved a great success.Though its weak points were indicated by the critics of the day, their objections had no influence on the popularity of the book.The dedication of the novel can refer to no other individual than himself, because to no other whose friendship he valued would he dare use the language he employs. The work is inscribed to Dr. * * * and his own failings of character are therein inscribed with rare fidelity. ‘Know, then, I can despise your pride while I honour your integrity, and applaud your taste while I am shocked at your ostentation. I have known you trifling, superficial, and obstinate in dispute; meanly jealous and awkwardly reserved; rash and haughty in your resentments; and coarse and lowly in your connections. I have blushed at the weakness of your conversation, and trembled at the errors of your conduct. Yet, as I own you possess certain good qualities which overbalance these defects and distinguish you on this occasion as a person for whom I have the most perfect attachment and esteem, you have no cause to complain of the indelicacy with which your faults are reprehended; and as they are chiefly the excesses of a sanguine disposition and looseness of thought, impatient of caution and control, you may, thus stimulated, watch over your own intemperance and infirmity with redoubled vigilance and consideration; and for the future profit by the severity of my reproof.’ From this, one would gather that Smollett was quite cognisant of his own weakness of temper—a weakness from which many of us suffer, but few of us are quite so honest as to own!The publication ofCount Fathomwas the indirect means of involving Smollett in an unpleasant affair, from which he was not extricated without some trouble. Warmth of temper again! A countryman, Peter Gordon, had got intodifficulties and was brought to the verge of ruin, when Smollett came to his rescue, and, with more humanity than worldly wisdom, became security for him. Presently Gordon took sanctuary within the King’s Bench Prison, and sent defiant and insolent messages to Smollett when the latter appealed to his sense of honour to repay him his losses. This conduct so provoked the choleric Smollett, that on meeting the rascal he soundly caned him. Thereupon the latter raised an action against him in the Court of the King’s Bench, exaggerating the assault into attempted murder. Gordon’s counsel was a lawyer afterwards infamous in many senses, the Hon. Alexander Hume–Campbell, twin brother of Pope’s Earl of Marchmont. He opened the case for his client with a speech full of disgraceful and unwarranted abuse of Smollett. The jury, however, acquitted the latter from any blame in the matter beyond common assault, probably considering in their hearts that Gordon only received what he richly deserved. But Smollett felt keenly the innuendoes cast upon his character by Campbell. He therefore sent to his friend Daniel Mackercher—already familiar to us as the Mr. M—— ofPeregrine Pickle—a long letter addressed to Campbell, expostulating with him upon his conduct, demanding an apology, and in the event of it not being forthcoming, threatening a challenge. The whole action was foolish. Probably Mackercher acted as a wise friend in the matter, by advising him not to send the epistle. At any rate, we hear no more of the matter, and Smollett had relieved his feelings by abusing his enemy—behind his back. Long years afterwards, the letter appeared in theEuropean Magazine. But both the principals were dead!
CHAPTER IVTHE WEARY TRAGEDY—SHIFTS TO LIVENo sooner had Smollett returned to London than he resumed negotiations with reference to his ill–fated tragedy. Authors are proverbially blind to the true merits of their literary progeny. As each fond father’s geese are swans, so, in the youthful Tobias Smollett’s eyes, fresh from conquest in the matrimonial arena, this decided objection to have anything to do with his play could only result from national antipathy against the Scots. ‘My luckless tragedy is suffering for Bannockburn,’ he remarked on one occasion to Mallet. Our vanity will seize on any reason rather than the right one to save ouramour–propre. Undoubtedly, Rich, Gifford, and Lacy’s treatment of Smollett was far from generous, nor was Garrick wholly free from blame. They should have declined the play at once. Let us take the better view of it, however, and ascribe their action to a mistaken desire to save the peppery Scotsman’s feelings. Better a hundred times if he had received the plain, unvarnished truth about that wretchedly crude production at the outset. A few pangs of wounded vanity, a curse or two at the Southron’s lack of critical insight, and Tobias probably would have buried or burned his MS. and forgotten all about it in another year, while in the long–run his common sense would have come to see the justice of the managerial decision. But for several years after his returnfrom Jamaica his expectations were raised and his hopes excited by vague promises and vaguer hints as to what ‘we will do next year.’ The consequence of all this manœuvring was, that Tobias, with that obstinate national pride characteristic of him, conceived that in some occult way patriotic prestige was bound up in his publishing, by hook or crook, a production so long withheld from a presumably expectant public by Southron jealousy. More follies have been perpetrated under the guise of patriotism than through all the vices combined. Let us detail the finish of a foolish business. AfterRoderick Randomhad rendered him famous, Smollett, imagining that all he wrote or had ever written would be eagerly devoured by an undiscriminating public, publishedThe Regicideby subscription. Ten years afterwards he cursed his indiscretion in no measured terms. The wisdom of thirty became the folly of forty; and some time during the last two years of his life, according to tradition, he committed to the flames two or three dozen copies of the ill–digested tragedy that had entailed on him so much trouble and brought him so little reputation.Meantime, the worthy Tobias was oppressed with the all–absorbing problem wherewithal to live. Rumour credited him with marrying an heiress. Rumour, as usual, lied. If our ex–surgeon’s mate, whose philosophy of life at that period seemed summed up in Horace’s famous injunction, ‘Get money, honestly if you can, but without fail get money,’ expected that in marrying Miss Nancy Lascelles he was purchasing the fee–simple of future years of affluence and ease, never man was more deceived. Let us credit the estimable Tobias, however, with a moral code more elevated than that. Albeit in the years to come Miss Nancy found she had not married a blood–relation of the patient Job’s, and he, that passionate West Indian ‘heiresses’ are not the ideal wives for hard–working literary men, on the whole the marriage was as happy as are three out of every five contracted in this working–day world. But the fortune of Miss Nancy, being invested in sugar plantations and such accessories as are necessary for the efficient production of this necessary staple of food, was, alas! difficult of realisation, and in the end only rolled upon the already heavily–burdened husband a quiverful of lawsuits. It was the old story! The lawyers got the cash, the litigants—the unspeakable pleasure of paying for their law with the object of their law–suit. Thus did Miss Nancy’s fortune disappear!From March 1744, when he returned to London, until January 1748, whenRoderick Randomwas published, Smollett’s movements are involved in obscurity. Only by means of meagre references in his own letters, and chance allusions to him in those of such friends as, in days to come, having carved their names in the Temple of Fame, had, in consequence, the somewhat doubtful honour of having their lives written, are we able to glean aught about his existence at this period. He was only a lad of some three or four–and–twenty years, unknown, friendless, and left to fight the great battle of life for himself. Little wonder is it, then, if, among the half–million inhabitants constituting the population of the British metropolis about the middle of the eighteenth century, the young Scots surgeon felt himself lost—as though he had been cut off from every kindly face and sympathetic voice. He probably was beginning to form those connections with booksellers which led him, before many years were over, to degenerate into a mere money–grubbing hack, not above doing a little literary ‘sweating,’ by obtaining high prices for work which he got executed by his slaves of the quill on terms much lower.But of that in its place. Certain it is that during these four years Smollett must have derived an income, and, what is more, a moderately good income, from some source. His letters prove that. From one addressed to his early friend, Richard Barclay, and dated London, May 22, 1744, we quote the following autobiographical facts:—‘I am this minute happy in yours, which affords me all the satisfaction of hearing from you, without the anxiety naturally flowing from its melancholy occasion, for I was informed of the decease of our late friend by a letter from Mr. Gordon, dated the day after his death. All those (as well as you, my dear Barclay) who knew the intimacy between us must imagine that no stroke of fate could make a deeper impression on my soul than that which severs me for ever from one I so entirely loved, from one who merited universal esteem, and who, had he not been cut off in the very blossom of his being, would have been an ornament to society, the pride and joy of his parents, and a most inestimable jewel to such as were attached to him as we were by the sacred ties of love and friendship.... My weeping muse would fain pay a tribute to his manes, and were I vain enough to think my verse would last, I would perpetuate his friendship and his virtue. I wish I was near you, that I might pour forth my heart before you, and make you judge of its dictates and the several steps I have lately taken, in which case I am confident you and all honest men would acquit my principles, however my prudentials might be condemned. However, I have moved into the house where the late John Douglas, surgeon, died, and you may henceforth direct for Mr. Smollett, surgeon, in Downing Street, West.... Your own,Ts. Smollett.N.B.—Willie Wood, who is just now drinking a glasswith me, offers you his good wishes, and desires you to present his compliments to Miss Betty Bogle.—T. S.’Now, the extracts given above would seem to indicate that Smollett was, in the first place, in somewhat easy circumstances. As Mr. Hannay very justly remarks, houses in Downing Street, West, and glasses of wine for friends, were not to be enjoyed, even in the patriarchal times of last century, without a periodical production of the almighty dollar. Circumstances point to the fact that Smollett took the deceased surgeon’s house with the possible hope of dropping into his practice. But in addition to that very problematic source of income, there must have been some other, and that in some degree at least to be relied upon. Smollett would never have faced the future so gaily with such a millstone round his neck, unless he had clearly seen his way to a sure and steady means of revenue. To our mind, that revenue must either have been yielded by Mrs. Smollett’s property in Kingston, and the ceremony performed there, prior to Smollett’s departure, must have been regarded as a marriage, or his industry in hack work for the booksellers must have been phenomenal. Either alternative presents difficulties. Neither can be accepted without weighty reservations. Best, under all aspects of the case, is it to affirm nothing positively, in the absence at the present time of definite information, which, however, may yet be discovered.The years 1745 and 1746 were stirring years in Britain. The rumours of a great Jacobite invasion of Scotland were rife while the year was young. They increased in number and definiteness as it gradually grew older, until, in August 1745, the intelligence reached London that Prince Charles Edward had actually landed in the Western Highlands. Smollett, though a sentimental Whig and an actual Tory,though, in other words, sympathising with the cause of the downtrodden and the laborious poor, while at the same time he heartily anathematised Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle, and at this time at least extolled the Tory Pitt the elder, was no Jacobite. True it was, his peppery nature was easily aroused by the flagrant and criminal neglect Scotland had received under Walpole’s administration. He was never done denouncing this ‘direct descendant of the impenitent thief’—a phrase afterwards borrowed, with a slight alteration, but without acknowledgment, by Dan O’Connell, and applied, as everybody knows, to Benjamin Disraeli. But however deeply Smollett was attached to his country, it was merely a sentimental attachment, akin to his Whiggery. He would not endanger his neck by ‘going out’ during the Rebellion of the ‘45, but he would have been guilty of a little harmless treason had he met with any kindred spirit with an enthusiasm strong enough to blow his own into flame. An evidence of the interest Smollett took in the Rebellion, and the indignation he felt over the atrocities perpetrated by the Duke of Cumberland on the hapless Highland prisoners that fell into his hands after the battle of Culloden, is found in the following anecdote related by Sir Walter Scott, on the authority of Robert Graham, Esq., of Gartmore, a particular friend and trustee of Smollett:—‘Some gentlemen, having met in a tavern, were amusing themselves before supper with a game at cards, while Smollett, not choosing to play, sat down to write. One of the company, who also was nominated one of his trustees (Gartmore himself), observing his earnestness, and supposing he was writing verses, asked him if it were not so. He accordingly read them the first sketch of his “Tears of Scotland,” consisting only of six stanzas, and on their remarking that the termination of the poem, being toostrongly expressed, might give offence to persons whose political opinions were different, he sat down without reply, and with an air of great indignation subjoined the concluding stanza:—“While the warm blood bedews my veins,And unimpaired remembrance reigns,Resentment of my country’s fateWithin my filial breast shall beat.Yes, spite of thine insulting foe,My sympathising verse shall flow.Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mournThy banished peace, thy laurels torn!”’To which Scott adds: ‘To estimate the generous emotions with which Smollett was actuated on this occasion, it must be remarked that his patriotism was independent of party feeling, as he had been bred up in Whig principles, which were those of his family. Although these appear from his historical works to have been in some degree modified, yet the author continued attached to the principles of the Revolution.’The ‘Tears of Scotland,’ the poem written under the curious circumstances recounted above, was a generous outburst of patriotic indignation in favour of Scotland and the Scots, at a time when such manifestations, owing to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, were liable to be construed, by a Government as truculent and short–sighted as it was venal and corrupt, into treason. Notwithstanding the fact that the ‘Tears of Scotland’ was moderately popular in its day, the powers that were in those days decided to leave the peppery Scot severely alone.At this period it is also that we obtain a pleasant side–light thrown upon Smollett’s life and work from the autobiography of Dr. ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle, the minister ofInveresk, in Midlothian, from 1748 to 1805, who was the friend and associate of nearly all the literary celebrities of the period—Home, Robertson, Blair, Logan, Henry Mackenzie, Lords Kames and Monboddo, etc. Fortunately, he preserved and noted down his impressions of all these great men, though, having done so only in extreme old age, many of the details are incorrectly stated. Dr. Carlyle remarks that with Smollett and one or two more he ‘resorted to a small tavern in the corner of Cockspur Street at the Golden Ball, where we had a frugal supper and a little punch, as the finances of none of the company were in very good order. But we had rich enough conversation on literary subjects, which was enlivened by Smollett’s agreeable stories, which he told with a peculiar grace. Soon after our acquaintance, Smollett showed me his tragedy of “James I. of Scotland,”[3]which he never could bring on the stage. For this the managers could not be blamed, though it soured him against them, and he appealed to the public by printing it; but the public seemed to take part with the managers.’The following incident, detailed by Dr. Carlyle, also manifests Smollett in the light of a Scots patriot:—‘I was in the coffee–house with Smollett when the news of the battle of Culloden arrived, and when London all over was in an uproar of joy. It was then that Jack Stewart, the son of the Provost, behaved in the manner I before mentioned.[4]About nine o’clock I wished to go home to Lyon’s in New Bond Street, as I had promised to sup with him that night, it being the anniversary of his marriage–night,or the birthday of one of his children. I asked Smollett if he was ready to go, as he lived at Mayfair; he said he was, and would conduct me. The mob were so riotous and the squibs so numerous and incessant, that we were glad to go into a narrow entry to put our wigs in our pockets, and to take our swords from our belts, and to walk with them in our hands, as everybody then wore swords; and after cautioning me against speaking a word, lest the mob should discover my country and become insolent, “for John Bull,” said he, “is as haughty and valiant to–night as he was abject and cowardly on the Black Wednesday when the Highlanders were at Derby.” After we got to the head of the Haymarket through incessant fire, the doctor led me by narrow lanes, where we met nobody but a few boys at a pitiful bonfire, who very civilly asked us for sixpence, which I gave them. I saw not Smollett again for some time after, when he showed Smith and me the MS. of his “Tears of Scotland,” which was published not long after, and had such a run of approbation. Smollett, though a Tory, was not a Jacobite, but he had the feelings of a Scotch gentleman on the reported cruelties that were said to be exercised after the battle of Culloden.’Sir Walter Scott, with his wonted charity, endeavours to account for Smollett’s lack of success as a physician. He did not succeed, because his haughty and independent spirit neglected the bypaths which lead to fame in that profession. Another writer ascribes it to his lack of consideration for his female patients, certainly not from want of address or figure, but from a hasty impatience in listening to petty complaints. Perhaps, finally, remarks Scott, Dr. Smollett was too soon discouraged, and abandoned prematurely a profession in which success is proverbially slow.In these circumstances, conscious as he must have been of his own powers, Smollett could only look to his pen for the supply of his daily needs. And it did not disappoint him. In 1748, besides numerous ephemeral compilations for the booksellers, he produced his poetical satireAdvice, a poem in the manner of Juvenal, wherein several of the leading political characters of the day were held up to scorn. Our author certainly did not spare his caustic sarcasm. The consequence was,Advicebecame so popular that he published a sequel, or rather continuation of it, in 1747, under the title ofReproof, both being bound and published together in the succeeding year. When another edition of each was called for, Smollett had made himself talked about and feared, in the hope that the Ministry of the day would see it to their advantage to pension him off with a sinecure office. No such fortune befell him. He had only sown dragon’s teeth, from which enemies sprang up to harass and vex him even to the end of his days.Of the literary merits of the Satires more will be said anon. One quality in them may be noted here, however, and that was the absolute fearlessness wherewith Smollett attacked those in power. His sting was never sheathed out of dread of any man. None were exempt from the lash of his sarcasm, whose wrong–doings came to his knowledge. If the innocent sometimes were involved with the guilty in common condemnation, in most cases the reason was because they continued in association with the politically or morally depraved after being cognisant of their character.The sensation created by these trenchant Satires was great. Literary London recognised that a new writer of great and varied powers had risen. The old generationwas dying out. Swift, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Arbuthnot, Pope, were either dead or had ceased to write. Goldsmith had not yet appeared. Johnson alone held the field; but he was more of a moral censor than a satirist. There was really no satirist of surpassing ability tickling the palate of the public, which dearly loves censure—when directed against other people. The coarse, sledge–hammer caricature of Tom D’Urfey and Tom Brown, though still relished by a few, was gradually giving place to a more refined and incisive, but none the less vitriolic type, wherein Smollett was an acknowledged master.AdviceandReproofare readable yet for the pungency of the sarcasm, united to absolute truth as regards the facts adduced. One does not wonder at the popularity of these pieces. They are thoroughly ‘live’ epigrammatic productions, aglow with human interest, and palpitating with that vigorous, honest, healthy indignation against wrong which awakens a reciprocal feeling in one’s breast across the chasm of a hundred and fifty years. ‘Dost not fear the Government, Smollett’? said a timid friend to him after their publication. ‘Fear the Government?’ was the contemptuous reply of the other. ‘I might if I showed I dreaded them; but no man need fear a Government provided he does not show he fears it.’During the publication of the second part of his Satires, Smollett was joined in London by the lady who became his wife. In 1747 they set up house, and for some months he enjoyed the luxury of his own fireside. Fate was not long to leave him unassailed, but long enough, at least, to give him a taste of that hymeneal heaven which follows the union of two loving hearts—long enough for him to have experienced the sentiments that found expression in the one love–poem he wrote, ‘Ode to Blue–Eyed Ann.’ MissAnne or Nancy Lascelles cannot have been the unresponsive being some of Smollett’s biographers contend, in order to excuse their hero’s ungallant conduct in later years, when every other sentiment was sacrificed to ambition, otherwise she could not have inspired feelings so passionate as these—‘When rolling seasons cease to change,Inconstancy forget to range;When lavish May no more shall bloomNor gardens yield a rich perfume;When Nature from her sphere shall start,I’ll tear my Nanny from my heart.’Smollett seemed to have all an Irishman’s love of a quarrel. He never appeared happier than when he was ‘slangwhanging’ some unfortunate, though it is a hundred to one the fault was on his own side. To be ‘slangwhanged’ in return, however, was altogether another matter. Ridicule cut him to the raw. He had the idea that all the world should submit to his animadversions patiently and uncomplainingly. But if any dared to retaliate, instantly they were dubbed rogues, and fools, and blockheads. An instance of this occurred in his relations with Rich, the theatrical manager. The success ofAdvicehad induced the latter to lend a favourable ear to Smollett’s proposal to write the libretto of an opera calledAlceste, which would have been produced at Covent Garden, Handel being engaged to write the music for it. All went well, and the work was actually in rehearsal, when Rich made some suggestions to Smollett about altering one of the scenes. Immediately the peppery poet was on his dignity. He declined to alter a line. Thereupon Rich, preferring to quarrel with his author rather than offend the public, rejected the piece, to Smollett’s intense chagrin. In vainhis friends begged of him to make some concession to Rich, who seems to have been exceedingly forbearing all through. The poet declined, and thus another chance of bettering his prospects was lost.Handel, on hearing of the transaction, is reported to have remarked, ‘That Scotchman is ein tam fool; I vould have mate his vurk immortal,’ and immediately proceeded to alter the music so as to adapt it to Dryden’s ‘Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day.’ VerilyAlcestewould have been immortal if wedded to those noble harmonies. But it was not to be. The only result was the addition of another group of powerful social personages to his already long list of enemies, for of course Tobias could not refrain from lampooning Rich. ‘O the pity of it!’
THE WEARY TRAGEDY—SHIFTS TO LIVE
No sooner had Smollett returned to London than he resumed negotiations with reference to his ill–fated tragedy. Authors are proverbially blind to the true merits of their literary progeny. As each fond father’s geese are swans, so, in the youthful Tobias Smollett’s eyes, fresh from conquest in the matrimonial arena, this decided objection to have anything to do with his play could only result from national antipathy against the Scots. ‘My luckless tragedy is suffering for Bannockburn,’ he remarked on one occasion to Mallet. Our vanity will seize on any reason rather than the right one to save ouramour–propre. Undoubtedly, Rich, Gifford, and Lacy’s treatment of Smollett was far from generous, nor was Garrick wholly free from blame. They should have declined the play at once. Let us take the better view of it, however, and ascribe their action to a mistaken desire to save the peppery Scotsman’s feelings. Better a hundred times if he had received the plain, unvarnished truth about that wretchedly crude production at the outset. A few pangs of wounded vanity, a curse or two at the Southron’s lack of critical insight, and Tobias probably would have buried or burned his MS. and forgotten all about it in another year, while in the long–run his common sense would have come to see the justice of the managerial decision. But for several years after his returnfrom Jamaica his expectations were raised and his hopes excited by vague promises and vaguer hints as to what ‘we will do next year.’ The consequence of all this manœuvring was, that Tobias, with that obstinate national pride characteristic of him, conceived that in some occult way patriotic prestige was bound up in his publishing, by hook or crook, a production so long withheld from a presumably expectant public by Southron jealousy. More follies have been perpetrated under the guise of patriotism than through all the vices combined. Let us detail the finish of a foolish business. AfterRoderick Randomhad rendered him famous, Smollett, imagining that all he wrote or had ever written would be eagerly devoured by an undiscriminating public, publishedThe Regicideby subscription. Ten years afterwards he cursed his indiscretion in no measured terms. The wisdom of thirty became the folly of forty; and some time during the last two years of his life, according to tradition, he committed to the flames two or three dozen copies of the ill–digested tragedy that had entailed on him so much trouble and brought him so little reputation.
Meantime, the worthy Tobias was oppressed with the all–absorbing problem wherewithal to live. Rumour credited him with marrying an heiress. Rumour, as usual, lied. If our ex–surgeon’s mate, whose philosophy of life at that period seemed summed up in Horace’s famous injunction, ‘Get money, honestly if you can, but without fail get money,’ expected that in marrying Miss Nancy Lascelles he was purchasing the fee–simple of future years of affluence and ease, never man was more deceived. Let us credit the estimable Tobias, however, with a moral code more elevated than that. Albeit in the years to come Miss Nancy found she had not married a blood–relation of the patient Job’s, and he, that passionate West Indian ‘heiresses’ are not the ideal wives for hard–working literary men, on the whole the marriage was as happy as are three out of every five contracted in this working–day world. But the fortune of Miss Nancy, being invested in sugar plantations and such accessories as are necessary for the efficient production of this necessary staple of food, was, alas! difficult of realisation, and in the end only rolled upon the already heavily–burdened husband a quiverful of lawsuits. It was the old story! The lawyers got the cash, the litigants—the unspeakable pleasure of paying for their law with the object of their law–suit. Thus did Miss Nancy’s fortune disappear!
From March 1744, when he returned to London, until January 1748, whenRoderick Randomwas published, Smollett’s movements are involved in obscurity. Only by means of meagre references in his own letters, and chance allusions to him in those of such friends as, in days to come, having carved their names in the Temple of Fame, had, in consequence, the somewhat doubtful honour of having their lives written, are we able to glean aught about his existence at this period. He was only a lad of some three or four–and–twenty years, unknown, friendless, and left to fight the great battle of life for himself. Little wonder is it, then, if, among the half–million inhabitants constituting the population of the British metropolis about the middle of the eighteenth century, the young Scots surgeon felt himself lost—as though he had been cut off from every kindly face and sympathetic voice. He probably was beginning to form those connections with booksellers which led him, before many years were over, to degenerate into a mere money–grubbing hack, not above doing a little literary ‘sweating,’ by obtaining high prices for work which he got executed by his slaves of the quill on terms much lower.But of that in its place. Certain it is that during these four years Smollett must have derived an income, and, what is more, a moderately good income, from some source. His letters prove that. From one addressed to his early friend, Richard Barclay, and dated London, May 22, 1744, we quote the following autobiographical facts:—‘I am this minute happy in yours, which affords me all the satisfaction of hearing from you, without the anxiety naturally flowing from its melancholy occasion, for I was informed of the decease of our late friend by a letter from Mr. Gordon, dated the day after his death. All those (as well as you, my dear Barclay) who knew the intimacy between us must imagine that no stroke of fate could make a deeper impression on my soul than that which severs me for ever from one I so entirely loved, from one who merited universal esteem, and who, had he not been cut off in the very blossom of his being, would have been an ornament to society, the pride and joy of his parents, and a most inestimable jewel to such as were attached to him as we were by the sacred ties of love and friendship.... My weeping muse would fain pay a tribute to his manes, and were I vain enough to think my verse would last, I would perpetuate his friendship and his virtue. I wish I was near you, that I might pour forth my heart before you, and make you judge of its dictates and the several steps I have lately taken, in which case I am confident you and all honest men would acquit my principles, however my prudentials might be condemned. However, I have moved into the house where the late John Douglas, surgeon, died, and you may henceforth direct for Mr. Smollett, surgeon, in Downing Street, West.... Your own,
Ts. Smollett.
N.B.—Willie Wood, who is just now drinking a glasswith me, offers you his good wishes, and desires you to present his compliments to Miss Betty Bogle.—T. S.’
Now, the extracts given above would seem to indicate that Smollett was, in the first place, in somewhat easy circumstances. As Mr. Hannay very justly remarks, houses in Downing Street, West, and glasses of wine for friends, were not to be enjoyed, even in the patriarchal times of last century, without a periodical production of the almighty dollar. Circumstances point to the fact that Smollett took the deceased surgeon’s house with the possible hope of dropping into his practice. But in addition to that very problematic source of income, there must have been some other, and that in some degree at least to be relied upon. Smollett would never have faced the future so gaily with such a millstone round his neck, unless he had clearly seen his way to a sure and steady means of revenue. To our mind, that revenue must either have been yielded by Mrs. Smollett’s property in Kingston, and the ceremony performed there, prior to Smollett’s departure, must have been regarded as a marriage, or his industry in hack work for the booksellers must have been phenomenal. Either alternative presents difficulties. Neither can be accepted without weighty reservations. Best, under all aspects of the case, is it to affirm nothing positively, in the absence at the present time of definite information, which, however, may yet be discovered.
The years 1745 and 1746 were stirring years in Britain. The rumours of a great Jacobite invasion of Scotland were rife while the year was young. They increased in number and definiteness as it gradually grew older, until, in August 1745, the intelligence reached London that Prince Charles Edward had actually landed in the Western Highlands. Smollett, though a sentimental Whig and an actual Tory,though, in other words, sympathising with the cause of the downtrodden and the laborious poor, while at the same time he heartily anathematised Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle, and at this time at least extolled the Tory Pitt the elder, was no Jacobite. True it was, his peppery nature was easily aroused by the flagrant and criminal neglect Scotland had received under Walpole’s administration. He was never done denouncing this ‘direct descendant of the impenitent thief’—a phrase afterwards borrowed, with a slight alteration, but without acknowledgment, by Dan O’Connell, and applied, as everybody knows, to Benjamin Disraeli. But however deeply Smollett was attached to his country, it was merely a sentimental attachment, akin to his Whiggery. He would not endanger his neck by ‘going out’ during the Rebellion of the ‘45, but he would have been guilty of a little harmless treason had he met with any kindred spirit with an enthusiasm strong enough to blow his own into flame. An evidence of the interest Smollett took in the Rebellion, and the indignation he felt over the atrocities perpetrated by the Duke of Cumberland on the hapless Highland prisoners that fell into his hands after the battle of Culloden, is found in the following anecdote related by Sir Walter Scott, on the authority of Robert Graham, Esq., of Gartmore, a particular friend and trustee of Smollett:—‘Some gentlemen, having met in a tavern, were amusing themselves before supper with a game at cards, while Smollett, not choosing to play, sat down to write. One of the company, who also was nominated one of his trustees (Gartmore himself), observing his earnestness, and supposing he was writing verses, asked him if it were not so. He accordingly read them the first sketch of his “Tears of Scotland,” consisting only of six stanzas, and on their remarking that the termination of the poem, being toostrongly expressed, might give offence to persons whose political opinions were different, he sat down without reply, and with an air of great indignation subjoined the concluding stanza:—
“While the warm blood bedews my veins,And unimpaired remembrance reigns,Resentment of my country’s fateWithin my filial breast shall beat.Yes, spite of thine insulting foe,My sympathising verse shall flow.Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mournThy banished peace, thy laurels torn!”’
To which Scott adds: ‘To estimate the generous emotions with which Smollett was actuated on this occasion, it must be remarked that his patriotism was independent of party feeling, as he had been bred up in Whig principles, which were those of his family. Although these appear from his historical works to have been in some degree modified, yet the author continued attached to the principles of the Revolution.’
The ‘Tears of Scotland,’ the poem written under the curious circumstances recounted above, was a generous outburst of patriotic indignation in favour of Scotland and the Scots, at a time when such manifestations, owing to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, were liable to be construed, by a Government as truculent and short–sighted as it was venal and corrupt, into treason. Notwithstanding the fact that the ‘Tears of Scotland’ was moderately popular in its day, the powers that were in those days decided to leave the peppery Scot severely alone.
At this period it is also that we obtain a pleasant side–light thrown upon Smollett’s life and work from the autobiography of Dr. ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle, the minister ofInveresk, in Midlothian, from 1748 to 1805, who was the friend and associate of nearly all the literary celebrities of the period—Home, Robertson, Blair, Logan, Henry Mackenzie, Lords Kames and Monboddo, etc. Fortunately, he preserved and noted down his impressions of all these great men, though, having done so only in extreme old age, many of the details are incorrectly stated. Dr. Carlyle remarks that with Smollett and one or two more he ‘resorted to a small tavern in the corner of Cockspur Street at the Golden Ball, where we had a frugal supper and a little punch, as the finances of none of the company were in very good order. But we had rich enough conversation on literary subjects, which was enlivened by Smollett’s agreeable stories, which he told with a peculiar grace. Soon after our acquaintance, Smollett showed me his tragedy of “James I. of Scotland,”[3]which he never could bring on the stage. For this the managers could not be blamed, though it soured him against them, and he appealed to the public by printing it; but the public seemed to take part with the managers.’
The following incident, detailed by Dr. Carlyle, also manifests Smollett in the light of a Scots patriot:—‘I was in the coffee–house with Smollett when the news of the battle of Culloden arrived, and when London all over was in an uproar of joy. It was then that Jack Stewart, the son of the Provost, behaved in the manner I before mentioned.[4]About nine o’clock I wished to go home to Lyon’s in New Bond Street, as I had promised to sup with him that night, it being the anniversary of his marriage–night,or the birthday of one of his children. I asked Smollett if he was ready to go, as he lived at Mayfair; he said he was, and would conduct me. The mob were so riotous and the squibs so numerous and incessant, that we were glad to go into a narrow entry to put our wigs in our pockets, and to take our swords from our belts, and to walk with them in our hands, as everybody then wore swords; and after cautioning me against speaking a word, lest the mob should discover my country and become insolent, “for John Bull,” said he, “is as haughty and valiant to–night as he was abject and cowardly on the Black Wednesday when the Highlanders were at Derby.” After we got to the head of the Haymarket through incessant fire, the doctor led me by narrow lanes, where we met nobody but a few boys at a pitiful bonfire, who very civilly asked us for sixpence, which I gave them. I saw not Smollett again for some time after, when he showed Smith and me the MS. of his “Tears of Scotland,” which was published not long after, and had such a run of approbation. Smollett, though a Tory, was not a Jacobite, but he had the feelings of a Scotch gentleman on the reported cruelties that were said to be exercised after the battle of Culloden.’
Sir Walter Scott, with his wonted charity, endeavours to account for Smollett’s lack of success as a physician. He did not succeed, because his haughty and independent spirit neglected the bypaths which lead to fame in that profession. Another writer ascribes it to his lack of consideration for his female patients, certainly not from want of address or figure, but from a hasty impatience in listening to petty complaints. Perhaps, finally, remarks Scott, Dr. Smollett was too soon discouraged, and abandoned prematurely a profession in which success is proverbially slow.
In these circumstances, conscious as he must have been of his own powers, Smollett could only look to his pen for the supply of his daily needs. And it did not disappoint him. In 1748, besides numerous ephemeral compilations for the booksellers, he produced his poetical satireAdvice, a poem in the manner of Juvenal, wherein several of the leading political characters of the day were held up to scorn. Our author certainly did not spare his caustic sarcasm. The consequence was,Advicebecame so popular that he published a sequel, or rather continuation of it, in 1747, under the title ofReproof, both being bound and published together in the succeeding year. When another edition of each was called for, Smollett had made himself talked about and feared, in the hope that the Ministry of the day would see it to their advantage to pension him off with a sinecure office. No such fortune befell him. He had only sown dragon’s teeth, from which enemies sprang up to harass and vex him even to the end of his days.
Of the literary merits of the Satires more will be said anon. One quality in them may be noted here, however, and that was the absolute fearlessness wherewith Smollett attacked those in power. His sting was never sheathed out of dread of any man. None were exempt from the lash of his sarcasm, whose wrong–doings came to his knowledge. If the innocent sometimes were involved with the guilty in common condemnation, in most cases the reason was because they continued in association with the politically or morally depraved after being cognisant of their character.
The sensation created by these trenchant Satires was great. Literary London recognised that a new writer of great and varied powers had risen. The old generationwas dying out. Swift, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Arbuthnot, Pope, were either dead or had ceased to write. Goldsmith had not yet appeared. Johnson alone held the field; but he was more of a moral censor than a satirist. There was really no satirist of surpassing ability tickling the palate of the public, which dearly loves censure—when directed against other people. The coarse, sledge–hammer caricature of Tom D’Urfey and Tom Brown, though still relished by a few, was gradually giving place to a more refined and incisive, but none the less vitriolic type, wherein Smollett was an acknowledged master.AdviceandReproofare readable yet for the pungency of the sarcasm, united to absolute truth as regards the facts adduced. One does not wonder at the popularity of these pieces. They are thoroughly ‘live’ epigrammatic productions, aglow with human interest, and palpitating with that vigorous, honest, healthy indignation against wrong which awakens a reciprocal feeling in one’s breast across the chasm of a hundred and fifty years. ‘Dost not fear the Government, Smollett’? said a timid friend to him after their publication. ‘Fear the Government?’ was the contemptuous reply of the other. ‘I might if I showed I dreaded them; but no man need fear a Government provided he does not show he fears it.’
During the publication of the second part of his Satires, Smollett was joined in London by the lady who became his wife. In 1747 they set up house, and for some months he enjoyed the luxury of his own fireside. Fate was not long to leave him unassailed, but long enough, at least, to give him a taste of that hymeneal heaven which follows the union of two loving hearts—long enough for him to have experienced the sentiments that found expression in the one love–poem he wrote, ‘Ode to Blue–Eyed Ann.’ MissAnne or Nancy Lascelles cannot have been the unresponsive being some of Smollett’s biographers contend, in order to excuse their hero’s ungallant conduct in later years, when every other sentiment was sacrificed to ambition, otherwise she could not have inspired feelings so passionate as these—
‘When rolling seasons cease to change,Inconstancy forget to range;When lavish May no more shall bloomNor gardens yield a rich perfume;When Nature from her sphere shall start,I’ll tear my Nanny from my heart.’
Smollett seemed to have all an Irishman’s love of a quarrel. He never appeared happier than when he was ‘slangwhanging’ some unfortunate, though it is a hundred to one the fault was on his own side. To be ‘slangwhanged’ in return, however, was altogether another matter. Ridicule cut him to the raw. He had the idea that all the world should submit to his animadversions patiently and uncomplainingly. But if any dared to retaliate, instantly they were dubbed rogues, and fools, and blockheads. An instance of this occurred in his relations with Rich, the theatrical manager. The success ofAdvicehad induced the latter to lend a favourable ear to Smollett’s proposal to write the libretto of an opera calledAlceste, which would have been produced at Covent Garden, Handel being engaged to write the music for it. All went well, and the work was actually in rehearsal, when Rich made some suggestions to Smollett about altering one of the scenes. Immediately the peppery poet was on his dignity. He declined to alter a line. Thereupon Rich, preferring to quarrel with his author rather than offend the public, rejected the piece, to Smollett’s intense chagrin. In vainhis friends begged of him to make some concession to Rich, who seems to have been exceedingly forbearing all through. The poet declined, and thus another chance of bettering his prospects was lost.
Handel, on hearing of the transaction, is reported to have remarked, ‘That Scotchman is ein tam fool; I vould have mate his vurk immortal,’ and immediately proceeded to alter the music so as to adapt it to Dryden’s ‘Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day.’ VerilyAlcestewould have been immortal if wedded to those noble harmonies. But it was not to be. The only result was the addition of another group of powerful social personages to his already long list of enemies, for of course Tobias could not refrain from lampooning Rich. ‘O the pity of it!’
CHAPTER VRODERICK RANDOMWe reach now the most important period of Smollett’s life. That he had fully realised, long before, the splendid nature of the talents wherewith he was endowed, is more than probable, though he possibly was in doubt as to the precise outlet his genius would make for itself. He had tried tragedy, but had been roughly disillusionised as to his El Dorado being found on the stage. He had neither the power of compression nor the faculty of seizing upon one central idea and making all the others subservient and subordinate thereto, so necessary a qualification in the dramatist. His satire also was a little too ferocious and vitriolic to entirely please the taste of the English–reading public, that was gradually looking askance at the knockdown, sledge–hammer blows of Butler and Swift, and veering round to the more delicate but none the less effective style of Goldsmith, Gay, and Johnson. His poetry, moreover, was not sufficiently generous, either in quantity or quality, to secure for him even a low place in the Temple of Poesie. His genius, therefore, must find some other outlet. What was it to be?In 1740, Samuel Richardson, the father of the English novel, had producedPamela, a work which at once achieved a lasting success. Not that novel–writing was unknown previous to that date, as many writers suppose. The Italiannovelliand the Spanish tales were known in Britain, and had inspired many imitators. While carefully dissociating the pastoral romances like Sidney’sArcadiaor those ‘romances’ proper, or fiction dealing with feudal customs and illustrative of the ‘virtues’ of chivalry, from ‘novels,’ which, in the early signification of the word at least, implied stories descriptive of domestic or everyday life in the period of the writer’s own immediate epoch, many of the stories written by Robert Greene, the dramatist, Thomas Nashe, and Nicolas Breton are novels of English life pure and simple, albeit foreign names may be used. So in Shakespeare all his plays are distinctively English in atmosphere and sympathies, to say nothing of sentiments, although Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, and the like, are selected as the nominal heroes and heroines of the piece. The English novel had long been in existence. The only difference was that the writers did not specialise any period as that wherein the incidents occurred. They preferred to leave themselves free, and to people with the creatures of their fancy that mysteriously delightful era vaguely shadowed forth by ‘long ago’ or ‘once upon a time.’The surpassing virtue of Richardson and his successor Fielding was that they boldly seized upon the time wherein they lived as that which was to form the background of their stories. Their ‘to–day’ was to be painted as faithfully and as fondly as those earlier writers had depicted imaginary epochs. We can scarcely form any idea now of the overwhelming enthusiasm that greeted Richardson’sPamela. For the first time readers saw their own age delineated with a fidelity and withal a fearlessness that had the effect of a supreme moral lesson. Of course, to our ideas of to–day, many of the descriptions in the novels of lastcentury are simply revolting, and would be condemned amongst us as an outrage on good taste. ‘The morals of the young person’ are our nineteenth–century bogey, which ever and anon rises up to scare any luckless novelist who dares to paint life as it really is. Thackeray used to lament that he dared not paint Becky Sharp as she really was, because all the mammas in the British Islands would taboo his work. But midway the eighteenth century they were not so queasy–stomached. They called a spade a spade. If a man went to the devil with wine and women, they took a delight in chronicling the whole process—as a warning to others, be it noted, not like the leprous–minded, neurotic school in our own days, look you, because they wanted to rake in guineas by chronicling a brother’s or a sister’s shame.Pamela, however, effected a higher purpose than merely affording pleasure to eager readers. Its exotic morality and exaggerated sentimentality stirred up into vigorous life the spirit of ridicule latent in the big, manly, kindly, but coarse–fibred nature of Henry Fielding. As a caricature ofPamelahe produced his novel,Joseph Andrews, the hero of which was the brother ofPamela, and was made to exhibit the same exaggerated virtues as had characterised the latter. Fielding’s “skit” became the first great character–novel in the English language, and announced to the world the fact that the greatest master of contemporary literary portraiture that prose literature has yet seen, had appeared.The publication ofClarissa Harlowe, by Richardson, towards the end of 1747, and the announcement made of the appearance of Fielding’sTom Jones, in parts, seem to have raised the question in Smollett’s mind whether he also might not be able to create a gallery of fiction every whit as notable as ‘Pamela,’ or ‘Mr. B——,’ or ‘Parson Adams,’ or‘Lovelace,’ or ‘Sophia Western.’ The flattering results of success in the improvement of the material prospects of both Richardson and Fielding could not but exercise a certain amount of influence on him. In the month of June 1747, as he tells us, he began the composition of a novel of his own time, very diffidently, and with the resolve firmly kept in view, that if the work did not come up to his own expectations, he would remorselessly burn it.He was of too original a caste of genius to sink into the subordinate position of a mere imitator of either Richardson or Fielding. He noted carefully that the former had monopolised the novel of sentiment, as the latter had taken as his own the novel of character. But he also saw that the novel of incident was still unappropriated in English fiction. This department he determined to make his own. Taking theGil Blasof Le Sage as his model, he endeavoured as far as possible to make his tale interesting by the number and variety of the events introduced, feeling assured that the portraiture of character would not be of an inferior type, if only he could draw on his past experiences for material. While by no means a slavish follower of Le Sage, the influence of the great French writer is very perceptible inRoderick Random. There is the same breathless succession of incidents, the same hairbreadth escapes, the same ready ingenuity on the part of the hero in extricating himself from awkward predicaments. In a word, Roderick is but a blood relation ofGil Blas, though his British parentage and rearing have modified some of the eccentricities and peccadilloes that would have scared even the purblind mammas and custodians of national virtue last century.Roderick Randomwas published towards the end of January 1748, having occupied five months in its composition. Its success was instant and extraordinary. TheBritish public recognised that a third had been added to the great masters of fiction—a third whose genius, though inferior in solidity and sublimity to that of either Richardson or Fielding, surpassed both in prodigality and wealth of invention. The first edition of the work did not bear the author’s name, but was published in two small duodecimo volumes by Osborn of Gray’s Inn Lane (the same individual knocked down by Dr. Johnson as a punishment for insolence), the price being six shillings. The interest excited by the book may be imagined when it was attributed by Lady Mary Wortley Montague to Fielding. In a letter to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, as recorded in her works, Lady Mary says: ‘Fielding has really a fund of true humour. I guessedRoderick Randomto be his, though without his name.’ Later on she adds: ‘I cannot thinkFerdinand Fathomwrote by the same hand, it is every way so much below it.’The notices of the novel in any contemporary journals are but meagre. In theGentleman’s Magazineand in theIntelligencer, short criticisms appear noting it as a work ‘full of ingenious descriptions and lively occurrences.’ Several of the other periodicals contented themselves with a mere intimation of its publication. Of puffing and pushing seemingly the work needed little. Its own merits carried it into all circles. Even Samuel Richardson, whose antipathy to Fielding may have inclined him to show favour to any possible rival of the man who had dared to caricature his pet creation, remarked of it in comparison withTom Jones, published some months later, thatRoderick Randomwas written by a good man to show the evils of vice,Tom Jonesby a profligate to render vice more alluring. The infallible judgment of posterity will not confirm the criticism of the narrow–minded old bookseller, who abhorred anythingthat did not directly or indirectly reflect praise on himself. Edition after edition of this the latest success in literature was called for. Smollett’s name was placed on the title–page after the issue of the second edition, and the public then realised that the popular novel was the work of none of the elder writers, as was supposed, but of a young, impecunious surgeon, not yet thirty, who had exhibited a very pretty talent for satire, as the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, the Earls of Bath, Granville, and Cholmondeley, Sir William Yonge, Mr. Pitt, and Rich the theatrical manager, could testify to their cost.Thereupon the town sought to take the young surgeon up and patronise him, only to discover that he was far from being a patronisable party—nay, was somewhat akin to the frozen snake which the countryman, pitying, took up and hid in his bosom to warm it, only to be stung when the reptile recovered vitality. Smollett all his life was too apt to mistake genuine kindness for patronage, and to flash out hasty darts of sarcasm in response to heartfelt wishes to win his friendship. Many of the leading personages of London now sought to benefit him and to show him that they desired to count him among their friends. But Tobias, as already said, was like the fretful porcupine. He had been so long a stranger to disinterested kindness, so long treated as little better than a superfluous atom on the world’s surface, that affability towards him was construed into condescension—a thought which made each particular hair of his sensitive nature to stand on end. Curious though the fact, nevertheless it is true that Smollett’s friendship was in most cases extended to those who differed from him rather than to those who agreed with him, though at the same time he might be bespattering the former with all the terms of reprobation in his somewhat extensive vocabulary of vituperation.AlthoughRoderick Random, coming, as it did, sandwiched in, so to speak, betweenClarissa HarloweandTom Jones, had to pass through a trying fire of literary comparison, it emerged from the ordeal more popular than ever. Readers realised that in him was a writer who was a story–teller pure and simple, whose moral lessons were conveyed rather by implication than by positive precept, and to whom the progress of his story was the prime consideration. The wearisome moralisings of Richardson and the tedious untwistings of motive so characteristic of Fielding were unknown inRoderick Random. The story for the story’s sake was evidently the writer’s aim throughout, and nobly he fulfilled it. By many of our latter–day novelists the imaginative swiftness of Smollett might with advantage be studied.All criticism will be reserved for our closing chapters, but at this point it may not be out of place to state that, although Smollett’s characters are many of them drawnfrom life, it does not follow they are portrayedto the life. By this distinction I would seek to relieve him of the imputation, shameful in many cases beyond a doubt, of having deliberately drawn line for line the portraits of his relatives, of individuals met with on board theCumberland, and other fellow–travellers with whom he had fallen in during his journey along the highway of existence. That suggestions were given to him by the actions of such men as the commander of theCumberland, the staff of surgeons on board, and other personages with whom he came in contact, is perfectly probable. But that he noted through the microscope of his keen faculty of observation, every trait, every moral feature, and registered them on the debit or credit side of each character, I cannot admit, nor would such a course be consistent with the originality of his genius. The settingof incident may in some cases be drawn from his own experience, but that we can in any sense rely on each portrait in his works being a truthful representation of the prototype, that I deny. The assumption is negatived by his own confession with regard to his grandfather, and also by his action with reference to Gordon, his former employer. If the latter were drawn to the life under the character of either Potion or Crab inRoderick Random, as many biographers contend, Smollett completely ate his own words inHumphrey Clinkerwhen he remarked that Gordon ‘was a patriot of a truly noble spirit,’ etc. There is nothing more misleading and at the same time more unfair to an author than to subject him to this sort of literary dissection. No author is without suggestions from without in limning his gallery of characters, but that he draws them wholly from without is as impossible as that a doctor’s diagnosis is based solely on what he observes, or on what is visible to the eye, and not also on what is the result of arguing from the known to the unknown. Captains Oakum and Whiffle, Squire Gawky, and others, are intentionally exaggerated for the purposes of literary effect. If they were drawn from nature, then they would have to be severely condemned as exaggerations.Sir Walter Scott speaks very decidedly on this point inThe Lives of the Novelists and Dramatists: ‘It was generally believed that Smollett painted some of his own early adventures under the veil of fiction; but the public carried the spirit of applying the characters of a work of fiction to living personages much farther than the author intended.’ Dr. Moore, also, while acknowledging that Smollett was not sufficiently careful to prevent such applications of his characters, yet denies that they were portraits of living personages.Smollett now could contemplate the future with hopefulness.Roderick Randomhad achieved a success so extraordinary, that even at that early period in his literary career, the booksellers, or, as they would now be termed, ‘publishers,’ were bespeaking his wares ahead. Taken all in all, Smollett accepted his good fortune with conspicuous moderation. Success did not turn his head. He was not like his characters, Roderick Random or Peregrine Pickle, extravagantly uplifted by prosperity, plunged into despair by adversity. More akin to worthy old Matthew Bramble was he, who, while he took the world at no very high valuation, and was not averse to accepting its smile, yet did not break his heart over its frown.The only foolish action to which he gave way at this period of popularity was the publication by subscription ofThe Regicide. The fame accruing to him from the success of his novel was, he reasoned, a favourable means whereby to enable him to launch his play upon the waters of public opinion. His reputation certainly ensured the sale of his play, but the sale of his play materially affected his reputation. ThatThe Regicidewas not a work of merit Smollett never could be brought to see, until he had criticised for some years the works of others in theCritical Review. Besides, he had sufficient of the old Adam in him that he wished ‘to have his knife’ into the offending theatrical managers, and the ‘great little men,’ as he called them, who had professed to take his play under their patronage. Therefore, whenThe Regicidewas published in 1749, our author prefixed thereto a preface full of gall and vinegar—a piece of spleen, of which, in his later days, he was sincerely ashamed. That preface is not pleasant reading to those who love the genius of Smollett. A vindictive schoolboy in the first flush of resentment against his teacherfor giving him a sound but deserved birching could not have perpetrated anything much worse.In 1750, Smollett and his wife paid a visit to Paris, in order that the popular novelist might collect materials for his new work of fiction. The charms of the gay city, the kindness and consideration shown him by the Parisians, the adulation showered on him by the literary men of the French capital, all coloured Smollett’s estimate of the place and people. ‘To live in Paris,’ he says in one of his letters of the period, ‘is to live in heaven.’ That he saw reason slightly to alter his opinion afterwards, was only to be expected. But the delights of this first visit to Paris remained indelibly impressed on his memory.He met many persons in France whose characters and circumstances afterwards suggested to him some of the most notable personages in his gallery of fiction. For example, Moore, in his memoirs of Smollett, states that the portrait of the Doctor inPeregrine Picklewas drawn in some respects from Dr. Akenside, the well–known poet, author ofThe Pleasures of Imagination, a man of true learning, culture, and high talents, but whose offence, in Smollett’s eyes, was that he had cast some sneering reflections upon Scotland in Smollett’s presence, although, on the other hand, Akenside had studied in Edinburgh, and acknowledged the excellence of its medical school. Pallet the painter, also, was suggested to him, adds Moore, by the coxcombry of an English artist, who used to declaim on the subject ofVirtu, and often used the following expressions, familiar enough to readers of the novel in question—‘Paris is very rich in the arts; London is a Goth, and Westminster a Vandal, compared to Paris.’But the most effective episode drawn by Smollett from his French experiences was, as Anderson says, the story ofthe Scottish Jacobite exiles, banished from their country for their share in the Rebellion of 1745. Readers ofPeregrine Picklewill remember that at Boulogne the hero meets a body of these unfortunates, who daily made a pilgrimage to the seaside to view the white cliffs of Britain, which they were never more to approach. That incident was drawn from life. Mr. Hunter of Burnside was the individual amongst them who is mentioned as having wept bitterly over his misfortune of having involved a beloved wife and three children in misery and distress, and in the impatience of his grief, having cursed his fate with frantic imprecations. Dr. Moore heard Mr. Hunter express himself in this manner to Smollett, and at the same time relate the affecting visit which he and his companions daily made to the seaside when residing at Boulogne. From his visit, then, Smollett drew a wealth of incidents and characteristics, which he was able with surpassing skill to touch up, recolour, magnify, and exaggerate as he saw fit in the interests of his story.At this period, John Home, author ofDouglas, was paying a visit to London in order to try to induce Garrick to accept his tragedy ofAgis. He met Smollett, introduced to him by their mutual friend ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle, and had much pleasant intercourse with him. From the Life[5]of Home by Henry Mackenzie, I extract the following details, as they throw a curious side–light on Smollett’s character. In his letter, dated 6th November 1749, to Carlyle, he remarks: ‘I have seen nobody yet but Smollett, whom I like very well.’ Farther on he adds: ‘I am a good deal disappointed at the mien of the English, which I think but poor. I observed it to Smollett, after having walked atHigh–Mall, who agreed with me.’ Then, a little later, Home writes to ‘Jupiter,’ evidently grateful for some kindnesses shown him by Tobias, in the following terms:—‘Your friend Smollett, who has a thousand good, nay, the best qualities, and whom I love much more than he thinks I do, has got on Sunday last three hundred pounds for hisMask.’ What thisMaskwas it is hard to say, but in all probability it referred to some work which Smollett was executing for Garrick. To theAlcestethe allusion could not refer, nor to theReprisals. The allusion, therefore, must be directed to some cobbling dramatic work, of which Smollett did a great deal for Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Goodman’s Fields.A testimony so independent as this from Home possesses the highest value. To the virtues and excellences of a much misunderstood man it offers a tardy but valuable vindication.Of Smollett, David Hume, who met him somewhat later in life, said: ‘He is like the cocoa–nut, the outside is the worst part of him.’
RODERICK RANDOM
We reach now the most important period of Smollett’s life. That he had fully realised, long before, the splendid nature of the talents wherewith he was endowed, is more than probable, though he possibly was in doubt as to the precise outlet his genius would make for itself. He had tried tragedy, but had been roughly disillusionised as to his El Dorado being found on the stage. He had neither the power of compression nor the faculty of seizing upon one central idea and making all the others subservient and subordinate thereto, so necessary a qualification in the dramatist. His satire also was a little too ferocious and vitriolic to entirely please the taste of the English–reading public, that was gradually looking askance at the knockdown, sledge–hammer blows of Butler and Swift, and veering round to the more delicate but none the less effective style of Goldsmith, Gay, and Johnson. His poetry, moreover, was not sufficiently generous, either in quantity or quality, to secure for him even a low place in the Temple of Poesie. His genius, therefore, must find some other outlet. What was it to be?
In 1740, Samuel Richardson, the father of the English novel, had producedPamela, a work which at once achieved a lasting success. Not that novel–writing was unknown previous to that date, as many writers suppose. The Italiannovelliand the Spanish tales were known in Britain, and had inspired many imitators. While carefully dissociating the pastoral romances like Sidney’sArcadiaor those ‘romances’ proper, or fiction dealing with feudal customs and illustrative of the ‘virtues’ of chivalry, from ‘novels,’ which, in the early signification of the word at least, implied stories descriptive of domestic or everyday life in the period of the writer’s own immediate epoch, many of the stories written by Robert Greene, the dramatist, Thomas Nashe, and Nicolas Breton are novels of English life pure and simple, albeit foreign names may be used. So in Shakespeare all his plays are distinctively English in atmosphere and sympathies, to say nothing of sentiments, although Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, and the like, are selected as the nominal heroes and heroines of the piece. The English novel had long been in existence. The only difference was that the writers did not specialise any period as that wherein the incidents occurred. They preferred to leave themselves free, and to people with the creatures of their fancy that mysteriously delightful era vaguely shadowed forth by ‘long ago’ or ‘once upon a time.’
The surpassing virtue of Richardson and his successor Fielding was that they boldly seized upon the time wherein they lived as that which was to form the background of their stories. Their ‘to–day’ was to be painted as faithfully and as fondly as those earlier writers had depicted imaginary epochs. We can scarcely form any idea now of the overwhelming enthusiasm that greeted Richardson’sPamela. For the first time readers saw their own age delineated with a fidelity and withal a fearlessness that had the effect of a supreme moral lesson. Of course, to our ideas of to–day, many of the descriptions in the novels of lastcentury are simply revolting, and would be condemned amongst us as an outrage on good taste. ‘The morals of the young person’ are our nineteenth–century bogey, which ever and anon rises up to scare any luckless novelist who dares to paint life as it really is. Thackeray used to lament that he dared not paint Becky Sharp as she really was, because all the mammas in the British Islands would taboo his work. But midway the eighteenth century they were not so queasy–stomached. They called a spade a spade. If a man went to the devil with wine and women, they took a delight in chronicling the whole process—as a warning to others, be it noted, not like the leprous–minded, neurotic school in our own days, look you, because they wanted to rake in guineas by chronicling a brother’s or a sister’s shame.
Pamela, however, effected a higher purpose than merely affording pleasure to eager readers. Its exotic morality and exaggerated sentimentality stirred up into vigorous life the spirit of ridicule latent in the big, manly, kindly, but coarse–fibred nature of Henry Fielding. As a caricature ofPamelahe produced his novel,Joseph Andrews, the hero of which was the brother ofPamela, and was made to exhibit the same exaggerated virtues as had characterised the latter. Fielding’s “skit” became the first great character–novel in the English language, and announced to the world the fact that the greatest master of contemporary literary portraiture that prose literature has yet seen, had appeared.
The publication ofClarissa Harlowe, by Richardson, towards the end of 1747, and the announcement made of the appearance of Fielding’sTom Jones, in parts, seem to have raised the question in Smollett’s mind whether he also might not be able to create a gallery of fiction every whit as notable as ‘Pamela,’ or ‘Mr. B——,’ or ‘Parson Adams,’ or‘Lovelace,’ or ‘Sophia Western.’ The flattering results of success in the improvement of the material prospects of both Richardson and Fielding could not but exercise a certain amount of influence on him. In the month of June 1747, as he tells us, he began the composition of a novel of his own time, very diffidently, and with the resolve firmly kept in view, that if the work did not come up to his own expectations, he would remorselessly burn it.
He was of too original a caste of genius to sink into the subordinate position of a mere imitator of either Richardson or Fielding. He noted carefully that the former had monopolised the novel of sentiment, as the latter had taken as his own the novel of character. But he also saw that the novel of incident was still unappropriated in English fiction. This department he determined to make his own. Taking theGil Blasof Le Sage as his model, he endeavoured as far as possible to make his tale interesting by the number and variety of the events introduced, feeling assured that the portraiture of character would not be of an inferior type, if only he could draw on his past experiences for material. While by no means a slavish follower of Le Sage, the influence of the great French writer is very perceptible inRoderick Random. There is the same breathless succession of incidents, the same hairbreadth escapes, the same ready ingenuity on the part of the hero in extricating himself from awkward predicaments. In a word, Roderick is but a blood relation ofGil Blas, though his British parentage and rearing have modified some of the eccentricities and peccadilloes that would have scared even the purblind mammas and custodians of national virtue last century.
Roderick Randomwas published towards the end of January 1748, having occupied five months in its composition. Its success was instant and extraordinary. TheBritish public recognised that a third had been added to the great masters of fiction—a third whose genius, though inferior in solidity and sublimity to that of either Richardson or Fielding, surpassed both in prodigality and wealth of invention. The first edition of the work did not bear the author’s name, but was published in two small duodecimo volumes by Osborn of Gray’s Inn Lane (the same individual knocked down by Dr. Johnson as a punishment for insolence), the price being six shillings. The interest excited by the book may be imagined when it was attributed by Lady Mary Wortley Montague to Fielding. In a letter to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, as recorded in her works, Lady Mary says: ‘Fielding has really a fund of true humour. I guessedRoderick Randomto be his, though without his name.’ Later on she adds: ‘I cannot thinkFerdinand Fathomwrote by the same hand, it is every way so much below it.’
The notices of the novel in any contemporary journals are but meagre. In theGentleman’s Magazineand in theIntelligencer, short criticisms appear noting it as a work ‘full of ingenious descriptions and lively occurrences.’ Several of the other periodicals contented themselves with a mere intimation of its publication. Of puffing and pushing seemingly the work needed little. Its own merits carried it into all circles. Even Samuel Richardson, whose antipathy to Fielding may have inclined him to show favour to any possible rival of the man who had dared to caricature his pet creation, remarked of it in comparison withTom Jones, published some months later, thatRoderick Randomwas written by a good man to show the evils of vice,Tom Jonesby a profligate to render vice more alluring. The infallible judgment of posterity will not confirm the criticism of the narrow–minded old bookseller, who abhorred anythingthat did not directly or indirectly reflect praise on himself. Edition after edition of this the latest success in literature was called for. Smollett’s name was placed on the title–page after the issue of the second edition, and the public then realised that the popular novel was the work of none of the elder writers, as was supposed, but of a young, impecunious surgeon, not yet thirty, who had exhibited a very pretty talent for satire, as the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, the Earls of Bath, Granville, and Cholmondeley, Sir William Yonge, Mr. Pitt, and Rich the theatrical manager, could testify to their cost.
Thereupon the town sought to take the young surgeon up and patronise him, only to discover that he was far from being a patronisable party—nay, was somewhat akin to the frozen snake which the countryman, pitying, took up and hid in his bosom to warm it, only to be stung when the reptile recovered vitality. Smollett all his life was too apt to mistake genuine kindness for patronage, and to flash out hasty darts of sarcasm in response to heartfelt wishes to win his friendship. Many of the leading personages of London now sought to benefit him and to show him that they desired to count him among their friends. But Tobias, as already said, was like the fretful porcupine. He had been so long a stranger to disinterested kindness, so long treated as little better than a superfluous atom on the world’s surface, that affability towards him was construed into condescension—a thought which made each particular hair of his sensitive nature to stand on end. Curious though the fact, nevertheless it is true that Smollett’s friendship was in most cases extended to those who differed from him rather than to those who agreed with him, though at the same time he might be bespattering the former with all the terms of reprobation in his somewhat extensive vocabulary of vituperation.
AlthoughRoderick Random, coming, as it did, sandwiched in, so to speak, betweenClarissa HarloweandTom Jones, had to pass through a trying fire of literary comparison, it emerged from the ordeal more popular than ever. Readers realised that in him was a writer who was a story–teller pure and simple, whose moral lessons were conveyed rather by implication than by positive precept, and to whom the progress of his story was the prime consideration. The wearisome moralisings of Richardson and the tedious untwistings of motive so characteristic of Fielding were unknown inRoderick Random. The story for the story’s sake was evidently the writer’s aim throughout, and nobly he fulfilled it. By many of our latter–day novelists the imaginative swiftness of Smollett might with advantage be studied.
All criticism will be reserved for our closing chapters, but at this point it may not be out of place to state that, although Smollett’s characters are many of them drawnfrom life, it does not follow they are portrayedto the life. By this distinction I would seek to relieve him of the imputation, shameful in many cases beyond a doubt, of having deliberately drawn line for line the portraits of his relatives, of individuals met with on board theCumberland, and other fellow–travellers with whom he had fallen in during his journey along the highway of existence. That suggestions were given to him by the actions of such men as the commander of theCumberland, the staff of surgeons on board, and other personages with whom he came in contact, is perfectly probable. But that he noted through the microscope of his keen faculty of observation, every trait, every moral feature, and registered them on the debit or credit side of each character, I cannot admit, nor would such a course be consistent with the originality of his genius. The settingof incident may in some cases be drawn from his own experience, but that we can in any sense rely on each portrait in his works being a truthful representation of the prototype, that I deny. The assumption is negatived by his own confession with regard to his grandfather, and also by his action with reference to Gordon, his former employer. If the latter were drawn to the life under the character of either Potion or Crab inRoderick Random, as many biographers contend, Smollett completely ate his own words inHumphrey Clinkerwhen he remarked that Gordon ‘was a patriot of a truly noble spirit,’ etc. There is nothing more misleading and at the same time more unfair to an author than to subject him to this sort of literary dissection. No author is without suggestions from without in limning his gallery of characters, but that he draws them wholly from without is as impossible as that a doctor’s diagnosis is based solely on what he observes, or on what is visible to the eye, and not also on what is the result of arguing from the known to the unknown. Captains Oakum and Whiffle, Squire Gawky, and others, are intentionally exaggerated for the purposes of literary effect. If they were drawn from nature, then they would have to be severely condemned as exaggerations.
Sir Walter Scott speaks very decidedly on this point inThe Lives of the Novelists and Dramatists: ‘It was generally believed that Smollett painted some of his own early adventures under the veil of fiction; but the public carried the spirit of applying the characters of a work of fiction to living personages much farther than the author intended.’ Dr. Moore, also, while acknowledging that Smollett was not sufficiently careful to prevent such applications of his characters, yet denies that they were portraits of living personages.
Smollett now could contemplate the future with hopefulness.Roderick Randomhad achieved a success so extraordinary, that even at that early period in his literary career, the booksellers, or, as they would now be termed, ‘publishers,’ were bespeaking his wares ahead. Taken all in all, Smollett accepted his good fortune with conspicuous moderation. Success did not turn his head. He was not like his characters, Roderick Random or Peregrine Pickle, extravagantly uplifted by prosperity, plunged into despair by adversity. More akin to worthy old Matthew Bramble was he, who, while he took the world at no very high valuation, and was not averse to accepting its smile, yet did not break his heart over its frown.
The only foolish action to which he gave way at this period of popularity was the publication by subscription ofThe Regicide. The fame accruing to him from the success of his novel was, he reasoned, a favourable means whereby to enable him to launch his play upon the waters of public opinion. His reputation certainly ensured the sale of his play, but the sale of his play materially affected his reputation. ThatThe Regicidewas not a work of merit Smollett never could be brought to see, until he had criticised for some years the works of others in theCritical Review. Besides, he had sufficient of the old Adam in him that he wished ‘to have his knife’ into the offending theatrical managers, and the ‘great little men,’ as he called them, who had professed to take his play under their patronage. Therefore, whenThe Regicidewas published in 1749, our author prefixed thereto a preface full of gall and vinegar—a piece of spleen, of which, in his later days, he was sincerely ashamed. That preface is not pleasant reading to those who love the genius of Smollett. A vindictive schoolboy in the first flush of resentment against his teacherfor giving him a sound but deserved birching could not have perpetrated anything much worse.
In 1750, Smollett and his wife paid a visit to Paris, in order that the popular novelist might collect materials for his new work of fiction. The charms of the gay city, the kindness and consideration shown him by the Parisians, the adulation showered on him by the literary men of the French capital, all coloured Smollett’s estimate of the place and people. ‘To live in Paris,’ he says in one of his letters of the period, ‘is to live in heaven.’ That he saw reason slightly to alter his opinion afterwards, was only to be expected. But the delights of this first visit to Paris remained indelibly impressed on his memory.
He met many persons in France whose characters and circumstances afterwards suggested to him some of the most notable personages in his gallery of fiction. For example, Moore, in his memoirs of Smollett, states that the portrait of the Doctor inPeregrine Picklewas drawn in some respects from Dr. Akenside, the well–known poet, author ofThe Pleasures of Imagination, a man of true learning, culture, and high talents, but whose offence, in Smollett’s eyes, was that he had cast some sneering reflections upon Scotland in Smollett’s presence, although, on the other hand, Akenside had studied in Edinburgh, and acknowledged the excellence of its medical school. Pallet the painter, also, was suggested to him, adds Moore, by the coxcombry of an English artist, who used to declaim on the subject ofVirtu, and often used the following expressions, familiar enough to readers of the novel in question—‘Paris is very rich in the arts; London is a Goth, and Westminster a Vandal, compared to Paris.’
But the most effective episode drawn by Smollett from his French experiences was, as Anderson says, the story ofthe Scottish Jacobite exiles, banished from their country for their share in the Rebellion of 1745. Readers ofPeregrine Picklewill remember that at Boulogne the hero meets a body of these unfortunates, who daily made a pilgrimage to the seaside to view the white cliffs of Britain, which they were never more to approach. That incident was drawn from life. Mr. Hunter of Burnside was the individual amongst them who is mentioned as having wept bitterly over his misfortune of having involved a beloved wife and three children in misery and distress, and in the impatience of his grief, having cursed his fate with frantic imprecations. Dr. Moore heard Mr. Hunter express himself in this manner to Smollett, and at the same time relate the affecting visit which he and his companions daily made to the seaside when residing at Boulogne. From his visit, then, Smollett drew a wealth of incidents and characteristics, which he was able with surpassing skill to touch up, recolour, magnify, and exaggerate as he saw fit in the interests of his story.
At this period, John Home, author ofDouglas, was paying a visit to London in order to try to induce Garrick to accept his tragedy ofAgis. He met Smollett, introduced to him by their mutual friend ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle, and had much pleasant intercourse with him. From the Life[5]of Home by Henry Mackenzie, I extract the following details, as they throw a curious side–light on Smollett’s character. In his letter, dated 6th November 1749, to Carlyle, he remarks: ‘I have seen nobody yet but Smollett, whom I like very well.’ Farther on he adds: ‘I am a good deal disappointed at the mien of the English, which I think but poor. I observed it to Smollett, after having walked atHigh–Mall, who agreed with me.’ Then, a little later, Home writes to ‘Jupiter,’ evidently grateful for some kindnesses shown him by Tobias, in the following terms:—‘Your friend Smollett, who has a thousand good, nay, the best qualities, and whom I love much more than he thinks I do, has got on Sunday last three hundred pounds for hisMask.’ What thisMaskwas it is hard to say, but in all probability it referred to some work which Smollett was executing for Garrick. To theAlcestethe allusion could not refer, nor to theReprisals. The allusion, therefore, must be directed to some cobbling dramatic work, of which Smollett did a great deal for Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Goodman’s Fields.
A testimony so independent as this from Home possesses the highest value. To the virtues and excellences of a much misunderstood man it offers a tardy but valuable vindication.
Of Smollett, David Hume, who met him somewhat later in life, said: ‘He is like the cocoa–nut, the outside is the worst part of him.’
CHAPTER VIPEREGRINE PICKLEANDFERDINAND COUNT FATHOM—DOCTOR OF PHYSICBoth during his stay in Paris, and on his return, Smollett had been working steadily at his new novel, which he had calledThe Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. The title of all his books affords a clue to their character. Incident—vigorous, well described incident, lively, incessant, exhaustless—such was the ‘mode’ of fiction our author had determined to make his own. Hence the titles of his works—The Adventures of Roderick Random,The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle,The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom,The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves,The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker—are genuinely descriptive of his style of writing. He had no patience for the slow analysis of character, or the exhibition of wire–drawn sentiments. His novels were always on the boil. There was no cooling down of the interest permitted, even for a moment. No sooner was the hero done with one incident than another was hard on its trail to overtake him. Ennui and dullness have a bad time of it while one of Smollett’s novels is in course of perusal.In 1750, acting upon the urgent solicitations of his wife, he made a last attempt to establish himself as a physician. Mrs. Smollett did not exactly appreciate a husband who had no profession. Poor Nancy does not seem to havebeen a very suitable yokefellow for our busylitterateur. She had no reverence for literature as such, or for its professors. She had all a woman’s desire for social distinction. But in order to take any position in that society after which this poor little Eve of the eighteenth century panted as eagerly as those of the nineteenth, an indispensable desideratum was that her husband should belong to one of the recognised professions, even although it might be only ‘something in the City’! To hope to settle in London was out of the question. That had been already tried, and had failed. Perhaps the good folks of the city of King Bladud might be more amenable to the recommendations of Dr. Smollett’s skill. Therefore Smollett resolved to settle at Bath, and see whether he could gain a living as a doctor at the great eighteenth century Spa.Before this project could be put into practice, however, medical etiquette demanded he should take a physician’s degree. Hitherto he only had secured a surgeon’s certificate, and that was of little service at Bath. Accordingly, he proceeded to take his degree of M.D., and thereafter had a right to sign himself ‘Dr. Smollett.’ Considerable doubt existed formerly regarding the University whence our author obtained his diploma. Even so late as in Dr. Anderson’s time (1805–1820, the dates of the editions of his book), the question had not been decided. The statement in his Life of Smollett that his diploma was probably obtained from some foreign University, and that ‘the researches which have hitherto been made in the lists of graduates in the Scottish Universities, have not discovered his name,’ led investigators to every other quarter but the right one. All the registers of the foreign medical schools were ransacked in vain. To Sir Walter Scott must be ascribedthe honour of settling the matter once for all, by proving that Smollett was a medical graduate of Aberdeen. Let Sir Walter speak for himself. He says: ‘The late ingenious artist, Mr. H. W. Williams of Edinburgh, tells us in hisTravels, that a friend of his had seen in 1816, at Leghorn, the diploma of Smollett’s doctorate, and that it was an Aberdeen one. The present editor thought it worth while to inquire into this, and Professor Cruikshank has politely forwarded a certificated copy of the diploma, which was granted by the Marischal College of Aberdeen in 1750.’ Accordingly, therefore, for a year or two at least, we must picture the author ofRoderick Randomfeeling the pulses and examining the tongues of patients who, in many cases, were mere valetudinarians, or, on the other hand, feigned themselves ill that they might have an excuse for visiting the gay city of Bath. With that irritating class of patients Smollett would have no patience. He would brusquely expose their petty deceit; and in one case, at least, informed a lady that ‘if she had time to play at being ill, he had not time to play at curing her.’ Such a physician was like a wild buffalo let loose over the conventionalparterresof the sentimental femininity of both sexes. He simply gored with his rude satire the pleasant fictions of lusty but lazy invalids, or scattered to the winds the fond delusions of hypochondriacs, in whom too much old port and high living had induced the demons of dyspepsia. Little wonder is it, then, that Smollett as a physician was as supreme a failure as Oliver Goldsmith. Within two years we find him back in London, cursing his folly in ever having been induced to try an experiment that was doomed to failure from the very outset. Alas, poor little Mrs. Smollett! her dreams of social importance were rudely dispelled. From a brief experience of playing‘the doctor’s dame’ among the good folks of Bath, she had ignominiously to return to London and sink into the obscurity of a lady who cannot even aspire to the credit of having a husband who is ‘something in the City.’ In ‘Narcissa’s’ eyes—for there is little doubt that the character of Narcissa inRoderick Randomwas at least suggested by his wife—her husband’s literary work was worse than degrading. In common with many others of her time, she deemed ‘a man of letters’ to be synonymous with a gentleman who spent one–half his time in the Fleet or the Marshalsea for debt, and the other half in dodging bailiffs from post to pillar for the privilege of enjoying God’s sunshine without the walls of a jail.One piece of work Smollett accomplished before he left Bath. He published a short treatise on the mineral waters of the place under the title,An Essay on the External Use of Water, in a letter to Dr.——, with Particular Remarks on the Present Method of Using the Mineral Waters at Bath in Somersetshire, and a Plan for rendering them more Safe, Agreeable, and Efficacious(4to, 1752). The book is full of sound maxims for the preservation of health. But here and there he cannot resist girding at those who visited the place for no other purpose than to participate in its gaieties, and whose ailments were as fictitious as in many cases was their social standing. This was, of course, a hit at the crowds of sharpers and adventurers of all sorts, male and female, that frequented Bath during its palmy days last century.While at Bath, however, that is, in March 1751,Peregrine Pickle, his second great novel, was published in two volumes duodecimo, the imprint being ‘London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by D. Wilson, at Plato’s Head, near Round Court in the Strand, 1751.’ This implies thatSmollett had found the method more to his advantage to act as his own publisher, than to submit to the extortion of the greedy Shylocks of the press in those days. The race of great publishers, taking a genuine interest in their authors and their work, had yet to arise—that race of which Scott’s friend Constable was one of the earliest examples and the best.The success of the new novel was unparalleled. As Herbert says in his excellent prefatory Life to the Works of Smollett: ‘It was received with such extraordinary avidity that a large impression was quickly sold in England, another was bought up in Ireland, a translation was executed into the French language, and it soon made its appearance in a second edition with an apologeticAdvertisementandTwo Lettersrelating to theMemoirs of a Lady of Quality, sent to the editor by “a Person of Honour.” This first edition is in our day scarce enough, and sufficiently coarse to fetch an enhanced price.’ Edition followed edition of the popular work. If any doubt had previously existed whether Smollett was worthy to take his place beside Richardson and Fielding, none could be urged now. In all contemporary records we find the three bracketed together, as the great fictional trio whose works were at once the delight and the despair of imitators.But although his career was so successful, we must not run away with the idea that Smollett had no enemies—that, in a word, admiration had swallowed up animosity. Alas, no! Human nature is human nature through all. Despite all thefuroreof enthusiasm awakened by the appearance of his great novel, there were not lacking detractors and vilifiers, who, too despicable to attack him openly, snapped at him from under the shield of anonymity.That they were able to do him harm, or at least to cause him keen chagrin and vexation, is made manifest by the tone of sorrow and wounded pride wherewith he speaks in the preface to the second edition ofPeregrine Pickle. In such circumstances it is always best to let the aggrieved party speak for himself without offering any opinion. He says: ‘At lengthPeregrine Picklemakes his appearance in a new edition, in spite of all the art and industry that were used to stifle him in the birth by certain booksellers and others, who were at uncommon pains to misrepresent the work and calumniate the author. The performance was decried as an immoral piece, and a scurrilous libel; the author was charged with having defamed the characters of particular persons to whom he lay under considerable obligations; and some formidable critics declared the book was void of humour, character, and sentiment. These charges, had they been supported by proof, would have certainly damned the writer and all his works; and, even unsupported as they were, had an unfavourable effect with the public. But luckily for him his real character was not unknown; and some readers were determined to judge for themselves, rather than trust implicitly to the allegations of his enemies. He has endeavoured to render the book less unworthy of their acceptance. Divers uninteresting incidents are wholly suppressed. Some humorous scenes he has endeavoured to heighten; and he flatters himself 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 owns with contrition that in one or two instances he gave way too much to the suggestions of personal resentment, and represented characters as they appeared to him at that time through the exaggerating medium of prejudice. Howeverhe may have erred in point of judgment or discretion, he defies the whole world to prove that he was ever guilty of one act of malice, ingratitude, or dishonour. This declaration he may be permitted to make, without incurring the imputation of vanity or presumption, considering the numerous shafts of envy, rancour, and revenge that have lately, both in public and private, been levelled at his reputation.’Along with theAdventuresof Peregrine were bound upMemoirs of a Lady of Quality—a distinct story, sandwiched, as it were, between the two halves of the hero’s life. Clumsy indeed is the fictional skill that permitted such an arrangement. The introduction of theMemoirs, apart altogether from their moral quality, was a constructive error, inasmuch as the thread of interest of the novel is thereby broken. Though Smollett received a handsome sum (£150 one account mentions, £300 another) for granting the favour of their insertion in the novel, he lived to regret most deeply the indiscretion. So notorious was the reputation of the lady, that her infamous character in some people’s estimation condemned the book. The ‘Lady of Quality,’ as is well known, was the unhappy Lady Vane. Her maiden name was Frances Hawes. She was married when little more than a child to Lord William Hamilton, who died shortly afterwards; then to Viscount Vane, who used her with such cruelty that she was driven to accept the protection of the Hon. Sewallis Shirley, son of Robert, first Earl of Ferrers; then that of Lord Berkeley, Lord Robert Bertie, and others. Of course we have only her ladyship’s side of the story. From other sources, however, information is forthcoming that she had been at least as much sinned against as sinning. But although the world may acknowledge thus much, it will never forgive a womanthe breach of her marriage vows, and Lady Vane, although undoubtedly the most beautiful woman of her decade, has passed into a byword of reproach. Dr. Johnson in theVanity of Human Wishesremarks:‘Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring,And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a king.’But undoubtedly the quality which most of all recommendedPeregrine Pickleto the British public was the marvellously true, albeit richly humorous, portraits of our seamen in the persons of Commodore Hawser Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, and Boatswain Tom Pipes. It is questionable, however, if any of those exhibited so much insight into the human heart as that of Lieutenant Bowling inRoderick Random, a noble–spirited man if ever one was created. Smollett has since had many imitators, such as Captain Marryat, Mr. Clark Russell, and others, but none of them have excelled the inimitable wit and humour which invest the sayings and doings of these personages. They have become part and parcel of ourselves. We know them and love them, and they live with us, so to speak, in our daily life.He now took up house in Chelsea, and set himself doggedly and perseveringly to obtain his subsistence as a professional man of letters. From the Government of the day he could look for no favours. The unmerciful manner in which he had lashed the Ministry, says Chambers, precluded all Court patronage, even had it been the fashion of the Court of George II. to extend it. He depended solely on the booksellers for whom he wrought in the various departments of compilations, translations, criticisms, and miscellaneous essays.The next fruit of his genius was one which has never been popular, simply because it describes an utterlyimpossible and repulsive character. In 1753 appearedThe Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. A more depressing and unhealthy work, despite the immense genius displayed in it, could scarcely be conceived. Sir Walter Scott’s analysis of the novel is so admirable that we cannot do better than cite it here in place of any lengthened remarks of our own. ‘It seems to have been written for the purpose of showing how far humour and genius can go in painting a complete picture of human depravity.... To a reader of good disposition and well–regulated mind, the picture of moral depravity presented in the character of Count Fathom is a disgusting pollution of the imagination. To those, on the other hand, who hesitate on the brink of meditated iniquity, it is not safe to detail the arts by which the ingenuity of villainy has triumphed in former instances; and it is well known that the publication of the real account of uncommon crimes, although attended by the public and infamous punishment of the perpetrators, has often had the effect of stimulating others to similar actions.’But if the moral features of Count Fathom are thus repulsive, there can be no question of the supreme art wherewith the developments of such a character are both conceived and executed. The heartless villainy wherewith Fathom executes his devilish schemes are related with a subdued force that is unlike anything else in fiction; while the scene of the ruin of the unfortunate Monimia is one of the most terribly dramatic passages in the English language, comparable only to the terrible remorse scene inMacbeth, or to the great last act in Webster’sDuchess of Malfi. The horror is if anything overstrained. One recoils from it. It leaves an impression on the mind as though human nature were utterly debased and vicious, without a single redeeming trait. The novel once more achieved a great success.Though its weak points were indicated by the critics of the day, their objections had no influence on the popularity of the book.The dedication of the novel can refer to no other individual than himself, because to no other whose friendship he valued would he dare use the language he employs. The work is inscribed to Dr. * * * and his own failings of character are therein inscribed with rare fidelity. ‘Know, then, I can despise your pride while I honour your integrity, and applaud your taste while I am shocked at your ostentation. I have known you trifling, superficial, and obstinate in dispute; meanly jealous and awkwardly reserved; rash and haughty in your resentments; and coarse and lowly in your connections. I have blushed at the weakness of your conversation, and trembled at the errors of your conduct. Yet, as I own you possess certain good qualities which overbalance these defects and distinguish you on this occasion as a person for whom I have the most perfect attachment and esteem, you have no cause to complain of the indelicacy with which your faults are reprehended; and as they are chiefly the excesses of a sanguine disposition and looseness of thought, impatient of caution and control, you may, thus stimulated, watch over your own intemperance and infirmity with redoubled vigilance and consideration; and for the future profit by the severity of my reproof.’ From this, one would gather that Smollett was quite cognisant of his own weakness of temper—a weakness from which many of us suffer, but few of us are quite so honest as to own!The publication ofCount Fathomwas the indirect means of involving Smollett in an unpleasant affair, from which he was not extricated without some trouble. Warmth of temper again! A countryman, Peter Gordon, had got intodifficulties and was brought to the verge of ruin, when Smollett came to his rescue, and, with more humanity than worldly wisdom, became security for him. Presently Gordon took sanctuary within the King’s Bench Prison, and sent defiant and insolent messages to Smollett when the latter appealed to his sense of honour to repay him his losses. This conduct so provoked the choleric Smollett, that on meeting the rascal he soundly caned him. Thereupon the latter raised an action against him in the Court of the King’s Bench, exaggerating the assault into attempted murder. Gordon’s counsel was a lawyer afterwards infamous in many senses, the Hon. Alexander Hume–Campbell, twin brother of Pope’s Earl of Marchmont. He opened the case for his client with a speech full of disgraceful and unwarranted abuse of Smollett. The jury, however, acquitted the latter from any blame in the matter beyond common assault, probably considering in their hearts that Gordon only received what he richly deserved. But Smollett felt keenly the innuendoes cast upon his character by Campbell. He therefore sent to his friend Daniel Mackercher—already familiar to us as the Mr. M—— ofPeregrine Pickle—a long letter addressed to Campbell, expostulating with him upon his conduct, demanding an apology, and in the event of it not being forthcoming, threatening a challenge. The whole action was foolish. Probably Mackercher acted as a wise friend in the matter, by advising him not to send the epistle. At any rate, we hear no more of the matter, and Smollett had relieved his feelings by abusing his enemy—behind his back. Long years afterwards, the letter appeared in theEuropean Magazine. But both the principals were dead!
PEREGRINE PICKLEANDFERDINAND COUNT FATHOM—DOCTOR OF PHYSIC
Both during his stay in Paris, and on his return, Smollett had been working steadily at his new novel, which he had calledThe Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. The title of all his books affords a clue to their character. Incident—vigorous, well described incident, lively, incessant, exhaustless—such was the ‘mode’ of fiction our author had determined to make his own. Hence the titles of his works—The Adventures of Roderick Random,The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle,The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom,The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves,The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker—are genuinely descriptive of his style of writing. He had no patience for the slow analysis of character, or the exhibition of wire–drawn sentiments. His novels were always on the boil. There was no cooling down of the interest permitted, even for a moment. No sooner was the hero done with one incident than another was hard on its trail to overtake him. Ennui and dullness have a bad time of it while one of Smollett’s novels is in course of perusal.
In 1750, acting upon the urgent solicitations of his wife, he made a last attempt to establish himself as a physician. Mrs. Smollett did not exactly appreciate a husband who had no profession. Poor Nancy does not seem to havebeen a very suitable yokefellow for our busylitterateur. She had no reverence for literature as such, or for its professors. She had all a woman’s desire for social distinction. But in order to take any position in that society after which this poor little Eve of the eighteenth century panted as eagerly as those of the nineteenth, an indispensable desideratum was that her husband should belong to one of the recognised professions, even although it might be only ‘something in the City’! To hope to settle in London was out of the question. That had been already tried, and had failed. Perhaps the good folks of the city of King Bladud might be more amenable to the recommendations of Dr. Smollett’s skill. Therefore Smollett resolved to settle at Bath, and see whether he could gain a living as a doctor at the great eighteenth century Spa.
Before this project could be put into practice, however, medical etiquette demanded he should take a physician’s degree. Hitherto he only had secured a surgeon’s certificate, and that was of little service at Bath. Accordingly, he proceeded to take his degree of M.D., and thereafter had a right to sign himself ‘Dr. Smollett.’ Considerable doubt existed formerly regarding the University whence our author obtained his diploma. Even so late as in Dr. Anderson’s time (1805–1820, the dates of the editions of his book), the question had not been decided. The statement in his Life of Smollett that his diploma was probably obtained from some foreign University, and that ‘the researches which have hitherto been made in the lists of graduates in the Scottish Universities, have not discovered his name,’ led investigators to every other quarter but the right one. All the registers of the foreign medical schools were ransacked in vain. To Sir Walter Scott must be ascribedthe honour of settling the matter once for all, by proving that Smollett was a medical graduate of Aberdeen. Let Sir Walter speak for himself. He says: ‘The late ingenious artist, Mr. H. W. Williams of Edinburgh, tells us in hisTravels, that a friend of his had seen in 1816, at Leghorn, the diploma of Smollett’s doctorate, and that it was an Aberdeen one. The present editor thought it worth while to inquire into this, and Professor Cruikshank has politely forwarded a certificated copy of the diploma, which was granted by the Marischal College of Aberdeen in 1750.’ Accordingly, therefore, for a year or two at least, we must picture the author ofRoderick Randomfeeling the pulses and examining the tongues of patients who, in many cases, were mere valetudinarians, or, on the other hand, feigned themselves ill that they might have an excuse for visiting the gay city of Bath. With that irritating class of patients Smollett would have no patience. He would brusquely expose their petty deceit; and in one case, at least, informed a lady that ‘if she had time to play at being ill, he had not time to play at curing her.’ Such a physician was like a wild buffalo let loose over the conventionalparterresof the sentimental femininity of both sexes. He simply gored with his rude satire the pleasant fictions of lusty but lazy invalids, or scattered to the winds the fond delusions of hypochondriacs, in whom too much old port and high living had induced the demons of dyspepsia. Little wonder is it, then, that Smollett as a physician was as supreme a failure as Oliver Goldsmith. Within two years we find him back in London, cursing his folly in ever having been induced to try an experiment that was doomed to failure from the very outset. Alas, poor little Mrs. Smollett! her dreams of social importance were rudely dispelled. From a brief experience of playing‘the doctor’s dame’ among the good folks of Bath, she had ignominiously to return to London and sink into the obscurity of a lady who cannot even aspire to the credit of having a husband who is ‘something in the City.’ In ‘Narcissa’s’ eyes—for there is little doubt that the character of Narcissa inRoderick Randomwas at least suggested by his wife—her husband’s literary work was worse than degrading. In common with many others of her time, she deemed ‘a man of letters’ to be synonymous with a gentleman who spent one–half his time in the Fleet or the Marshalsea for debt, and the other half in dodging bailiffs from post to pillar for the privilege of enjoying God’s sunshine without the walls of a jail.
One piece of work Smollett accomplished before he left Bath. He published a short treatise on the mineral waters of the place under the title,An Essay on the External Use of Water, in a letter to Dr.——, with Particular Remarks on the Present Method of Using the Mineral Waters at Bath in Somersetshire, and a Plan for rendering them more Safe, Agreeable, and Efficacious(4to, 1752). The book is full of sound maxims for the preservation of health. But here and there he cannot resist girding at those who visited the place for no other purpose than to participate in its gaieties, and whose ailments were as fictitious as in many cases was their social standing. This was, of course, a hit at the crowds of sharpers and adventurers of all sorts, male and female, that frequented Bath during its palmy days last century.
While at Bath, however, that is, in March 1751,Peregrine Pickle, his second great novel, was published in two volumes duodecimo, the imprint being ‘London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by D. Wilson, at Plato’s Head, near Round Court in the Strand, 1751.’ This implies thatSmollett had found the method more to his advantage to act as his own publisher, than to submit to the extortion of the greedy Shylocks of the press in those days. The race of great publishers, taking a genuine interest in their authors and their work, had yet to arise—that race of which Scott’s friend Constable was one of the earliest examples and the best.
The success of the new novel was unparalleled. As Herbert says in his excellent prefatory Life to the Works of Smollett: ‘It was received with such extraordinary avidity that a large impression was quickly sold in England, another was bought up in Ireland, a translation was executed into the French language, and it soon made its appearance in a second edition with an apologeticAdvertisementandTwo Lettersrelating to theMemoirs of a Lady of Quality, sent to the editor by “a Person of Honour.” This first edition is in our day scarce enough, and sufficiently coarse to fetch an enhanced price.’ Edition followed edition of the popular work. If any doubt had previously existed whether Smollett was worthy to take his place beside Richardson and Fielding, none could be urged now. In all contemporary records we find the three bracketed together, as the great fictional trio whose works were at once the delight and the despair of imitators.
But although his career was so successful, we must not run away with the idea that Smollett had no enemies—that, in a word, admiration had swallowed up animosity. Alas, no! Human nature is human nature through all. Despite all thefuroreof enthusiasm awakened by the appearance of his great novel, there were not lacking detractors and vilifiers, who, too despicable to attack him openly, snapped at him from under the shield of anonymity.That they were able to do him harm, or at least to cause him keen chagrin and vexation, is made manifest by the tone of sorrow and wounded pride wherewith he speaks in the preface to the second edition ofPeregrine Pickle. In such circumstances it is always best to let the aggrieved party speak for himself without offering any opinion. He says: ‘At lengthPeregrine Picklemakes his appearance in a new edition, in spite of all the art and industry that were used to stifle him in the birth by certain booksellers and others, who were at uncommon pains to misrepresent the work and calumniate the author. The performance was decried as an immoral piece, and a scurrilous libel; the author was charged with having defamed the characters of particular persons to whom he lay under considerable obligations; and some formidable critics declared the book was void of humour, character, and sentiment. These charges, had they been supported by proof, would have certainly damned the writer and all his works; and, even unsupported as they were, had an unfavourable effect with the public. But luckily for him his real character was not unknown; and some readers were determined to judge for themselves, rather than trust implicitly to the allegations of his enemies. He has endeavoured to render the book less unworthy of their acceptance. Divers uninteresting incidents are wholly suppressed. Some humorous scenes he has endeavoured to heighten; and he flatters himself 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 owns with contrition that in one or two instances he gave way too much to the suggestions of personal resentment, and represented characters as they appeared to him at that time through the exaggerating medium of prejudice. Howeverhe may have erred in point of judgment or discretion, he defies the whole world to prove that he was ever guilty of one act of malice, ingratitude, or dishonour. This declaration he may be permitted to make, without incurring the imputation of vanity or presumption, considering the numerous shafts of envy, rancour, and revenge that have lately, both in public and private, been levelled at his reputation.’
Along with theAdventuresof Peregrine were bound upMemoirs of a Lady of Quality—a distinct story, sandwiched, as it were, between the two halves of the hero’s life. Clumsy indeed is the fictional skill that permitted such an arrangement. The introduction of theMemoirs, apart altogether from their moral quality, was a constructive error, inasmuch as the thread of interest of the novel is thereby broken. Though Smollett received a handsome sum (£150 one account mentions, £300 another) for granting the favour of their insertion in the novel, he lived to regret most deeply the indiscretion. So notorious was the reputation of the lady, that her infamous character in some people’s estimation condemned the book. The ‘Lady of Quality,’ as is well known, was the unhappy Lady Vane. Her maiden name was Frances Hawes. She was married when little more than a child to Lord William Hamilton, who died shortly afterwards; then to Viscount Vane, who used her with such cruelty that she was driven to accept the protection of the Hon. Sewallis Shirley, son of Robert, first Earl of Ferrers; then that of Lord Berkeley, Lord Robert Bertie, and others. Of course we have only her ladyship’s side of the story. From other sources, however, information is forthcoming that she had been at least as much sinned against as sinning. But although the world may acknowledge thus much, it will never forgive a womanthe breach of her marriage vows, and Lady Vane, although undoubtedly the most beautiful woman of her decade, has passed into a byword of reproach. Dr. Johnson in theVanity of Human Wishesremarks:
‘Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring,And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a king.’
But undoubtedly the quality which most of all recommendedPeregrine Pickleto the British public was the marvellously true, albeit richly humorous, portraits of our seamen in the persons of Commodore Hawser Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, and Boatswain Tom Pipes. It is questionable, however, if any of those exhibited so much insight into the human heart as that of Lieutenant Bowling inRoderick Random, a noble–spirited man if ever one was created. Smollett has since had many imitators, such as Captain Marryat, Mr. Clark Russell, and others, but none of them have excelled the inimitable wit and humour which invest the sayings and doings of these personages. They have become part and parcel of ourselves. We know them and love them, and they live with us, so to speak, in our daily life.
He now took up house in Chelsea, and set himself doggedly and perseveringly to obtain his subsistence as a professional man of letters. From the Government of the day he could look for no favours. The unmerciful manner in which he had lashed the Ministry, says Chambers, precluded all Court patronage, even had it been the fashion of the Court of George II. to extend it. He depended solely on the booksellers for whom he wrought in the various departments of compilations, translations, criticisms, and miscellaneous essays.
The next fruit of his genius was one which has never been popular, simply because it describes an utterlyimpossible and repulsive character. In 1753 appearedThe Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. A more depressing and unhealthy work, despite the immense genius displayed in it, could scarcely be conceived. Sir Walter Scott’s analysis of the novel is so admirable that we cannot do better than cite it here in place of any lengthened remarks of our own. ‘It seems to have been written for the purpose of showing how far humour and genius can go in painting a complete picture of human depravity.... To a reader of good disposition and well–regulated mind, the picture of moral depravity presented in the character of Count Fathom is a disgusting pollution of the imagination. To those, on the other hand, who hesitate on the brink of meditated iniquity, it is not safe to detail the arts by which the ingenuity of villainy has triumphed in former instances; and it is well known that the publication of the real account of uncommon crimes, although attended by the public and infamous punishment of the perpetrators, has often had the effect of stimulating others to similar actions.’
But if the moral features of Count Fathom are thus repulsive, there can be no question of the supreme art wherewith the developments of such a character are both conceived and executed. The heartless villainy wherewith Fathom executes his devilish schemes are related with a subdued force that is unlike anything else in fiction; while the scene of the ruin of the unfortunate Monimia is one of the most terribly dramatic passages in the English language, comparable only to the terrible remorse scene inMacbeth, or to the great last act in Webster’sDuchess of Malfi. The horror is if anything overstrained. One recoils from it. It leaves an impression on the mind as though human nature were utterly debased and vicious, without a single redeeming trait. The novel once more achieved a great success.Though its weak points were indicated by the critics of the day, their objections had no influence on the popularity of the book.
The dedication of the novel can refer to no other individual than himself, because to no other whose friendship he valued would he dare use the language he employs. The work is inscribed to Dr. * * * and his own failings of character are therein inscribed with rare fidelity. ‘Know, then, I can despise your pride while I honour your integrity, and applaud your taste while I am shocked at your ostentation. I have known you trifling, superficial, and obstinate in dispute; meanly jealous and awkwardly reserved; rash and haughty in your resentments; and coarse and lowly in your connections. I have blushed at the weakness of your conversation, and trembled at the errors of your conduct. Yet, as I own you possess certain good qualities which overbalance these defects and distinguish you on this occasion as a person for whom I have the most perfect attachment and esteem, you have no cause to complain of the indelicacy with which your faults are reprehended; and as they are chiefly the excesses of a sanguine disposition and looseness of thought, impatient of caution and control, you may, thus stimulated, watch over your own intemperance and infirmity with redoubled vigilance and consideration; and for the future profit by the severity of my reproof.’ From this, one would gather that Smollett was quite cognisant of his own weakness of temper—a weakness from which many of us suffer, but few of us are quite so honest as to own!
The publication ofCount Fathomwas the indirect means of involving Smollett in an unpleasant affair, from which he was not extricated without some trouble. Warmth of temper again! A countryman, Peter Gordon, had got intodifficulties and was brought to the verge of ruin, when Smollett came to his rescue, and, with more humanity than worldly wisdom, became security for him. Presently Gordon took sanctuary within the King’s Bench Prison, and sent defiant and insolent messages to Smollett when the latter appealed to his sense of honour to repay him his losses. This conduct so provoked the choleric Smollett, that on meeting the rascal he soundly caned him. Thereupon the latter raised an action against him in the Court of the King’s Bench, exaggerating the assault into attempted murder. Gordon’s counsel was a lawyer afterwards infamous in many senses, the Hon. Alexander Hume–Campbell, twin brother of Pope’s Earl of Marchmont. He opened the case for his client with a speech full of disgraceful and unwarranted abuse of Smollett. The jury, however, acquitted the latter from any blame in the matter beyond common assault, probably considering in their hearts that Gordon only received what he richly deserved. But Smollett felt keenly the innuendoes cast upon his character by Campbell. He therefore sent to his friend Daniel Mackercher—already familiar to us as the Mr. M—— ofPeregrine Pickle—a long letter addressed to Campbell, expostulating with him upon his conduct, demanding an apology, and in the event of it not being forthcoming, threatening a challenge. The whole action was foolish. Probably Mackercher acted as a wise friend in the matter, by advising him not to send the epistle. At any rate, we hear no more of the matter, and Smollett had relieved his feelings by abusing his enemy—behind his back. Long years afterwards, the letter appeared in theEuropean Magazine. But both the principals were dead!