James Smollett

“ Genealogies are wearisome. Readers who desire to trace the family of the Smolletts back to the sixteenth century can do so with advantage in the Lives of Moore, Herbert, and Chambers. Our purpose is with the novelist himself, not with his ancestors to the fourth and fifth generations. Suffice it to say that Tobias George Smollett was the son of Archibald, fourth son of Sir James Smollett of Bonhill, a Dumbartonshire estate situated amidst the romantic scenery of the Vale of Leven, and in the vicinity of the queen of Scottish lakes, Loch Lomond. ”

“ James's; and, as he played pretty high, and made a parade of his ready money, he was soon recognised by divers persons of consequence, who cordially welcomed him to England, on pretence of believing he had been abroad, and with great complacency repeated their former professions of friendship. Though this was a certain way of retaining the favour of those worthies, while his finances continued to flourish, and his payments were prompt, he knew the weakness of his funds too well, to think they could bear the vicissitudes of play ”

“ In 1767 he published his "Adventures of an Atom,"—a political romance, displaying, under Japanese names, the different parties of Great Britain. A recurrence of ill health drove him back to Italy in 1770. At Monte Nuovo, near Leghorn, he wrote his delightful "Humphrey Clinker." This was his last work. He died at Leghorn on the 21st October 1771, in the fifty-first year of his age. His widow erected a plain monument to his memory, with an inscription by Dr Armstrong. In 1774 a Tuscan monument was erected on the banks of the Leven by his cousin, James Smollett, Esq., of Bonhill. ”

“ And this social disposition is so scrupulously maintained, that two persons who live in the most intimate correspondence at Bath or Tunbridge, shall, in four-and-twenty hours . . . meet in St. James's Park, without betraying the least token of recognition." And good, too, is the way in which, as Dr. Fathom goes rapidly down the social hill, he makes excuses for his declining splendour. His chariot was overturned "with a hideous crash" at such danger to himself, "that he did not believe he should ever hazard himself again in any sort of wheel carriage." ”

“ Of Sir James's four sons, the eldest, Tobias, went into the army and died young; the second, James, and the third, George, were both called to the Scottish bar. Sir James's estates passed to the issue of his second son, James, and when that failed, in 1738, to another grandson, James, the son of George Smollett, the third son. Sir James's youngest son, Archibald (the novelist's father) , though he remained without a profession, took the step of marrying, without his father's consent, Barbara, daughter of Robert Cunningham of Gilbertfield. ”

“ The Jacobites had been very attentive to the progress of dissatisfaction in England, which they fomented with their usual assiduity. The late declaration of king James had been couched in such imperious terms as gave offence even to some of those who favoured his interest. The earl of Middleton therefore, in the beginning of the year, repaired to St. Germain’s and obtained another, which contained the promise of a general pardon without exception, and every other concession that a British subject could demand of his sovereign. ”

“ These addresses being drawn up with the concurrence of both houses, a bill was brought in to recognize the king’s title, to express their abhorence of the usurpation by the prince of Orange, as well as of the defection of the English. Next day James published a declaration, complaining of the calumnies which his enemies had spread to his prejudice; expatiating upon his own impartiality in preferring his protestant subjects; his care in protecting them from their enemies, in redressing their grievances, and in granting liberty of conscience ”

“ To such a degree arose Smollett’s enthusiasm on this subject, that, ere he had quitted Dumbarton School, he wrote verses to the memory of the Scottish champion.’
But schooldays could not last for ever. Besides, the young Tobias ere long lost interest in the Dumbarton Grammar School. John Love had been translated to Edinburgh, and a new pedagogue had arisen who knew not Tobias. Accordingly, the lad began to plague his mother to allow him to become a soldier like his elder brother James. ”

“ Certain individuals, whose zeal for James overshot their discretion, formed a design to seize the person of king William, and convey him to France, or put him to death in case of resistance. They had sent emissaries to the court of St. Germain’s to demand a commission for this purpose, which was refused. The earl of Aylesbury, lord Montgomery, son to the marquis of Powis, sir John Fenwick, sir John Friend, captain Charnock, captain Porter, and one Mr. Goodman, were the first contrivers of this project. ”

“ This officer, at the head of fifteen hundred men, advanced into the shire of Murray, in hopes of being joined by other malcontents; but he was surprised and routed by sir Thomas Livingstone, while major Ferguson destroyed the places they possessed in the Isle of Mull; so that the highlanders were obliged to retire and conceal themselves among their hills and fastnesses. The friends of James, despairing of doing any thing effectual for his service in the field, converted all their attention to the proceedings in parliament ”

“ Such acknowledgments of the dramatic potentialities in prose fiction were, however, unusual. The romances were modelled on the epic (Fielding, in fact, describes Joseph Andrews in his Preface as a 'comic Romance') ; and the picaresque mode in which Smollett wrote had no obviously dramatic qualities. Richardson's advocacy of the novel in which action is presented rather than retailed seems, indeed, curiously modern: it is something Henry James would certainly have understood and approved.
In formulating his own theory of fiction Richardson had Fielding very much in mind. ”

“ They voted thirty thousand seamen, and resolved that ten thousand troops should be transported from Ireland to Holland, as the auxiliaries stipulated in the treaty of 1677 with the states-general. The funds were constituted of a land-tax, certain duties on merchandise, and a weekly deduction from the excise, so as to bring down the civil list to six hundred thousand pounds, as the duke of Gloucester was dead, and James’ queen refused her allowance. They passed a bill for taking away all privileges of parliament in legal prosecutions during the intermediate prorogations ”

“ Dealing with an outstanding event in early Scottish history, an event that afforded scope for considerable diversity of opinion as to the nobility or otherwise of the motives actuating the murderers of James I., the drama could have been made a great psychological and ethical study in the hands of a stronger writer. But as Smollett was neither a Cowley nor a Milton, able to produce verse at thirteen and sixteen worthy to be compared with the work of men twenty years their seniors, The Regicide is but a sorry production. ”

“ Tobias had passed his medical examinations, but he rather trusted in his MS. tragedy, “The Regicide.” Tragical were its results for the author. Inspired by George Buchanan’s Latin history of Scotland, Smollett had produced a play, in blank verse, on the murder of James I. That a boy, even a Scottish boy, should have an overweening passion for this unlucky piece, that he should expect by such a work to climb a step on fortune’s ladder, is nowadays amazing. For ten years he clung to it, modified it, polished, improved it, and then published it in 1749, after the success of “Roderick Random.” ”

“ We seem to be reading a play of Dekker’s or Greene’s, so very elementary is the stagecraft displayed in contriving exits and entrances for the personages. The characters are all more or less wooden. They talk in stilted, high–flown language, such as a boy of nineteen would suppose the courtiers of a monarch like James I. to employ. They never for a moment descend from their stilts; and even in dying, Dunbar and Eleonora declaim to the audience in rounded and rhetorical periods. ”

“ The house and premises were extensive, and well suited for the residence of a person of rank. There are few men of real genius who have written more voluminously than Dr. Smollett. His entertaining novels are so well known that it seems almost unnecessary to mention Roderick Random, the Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Ferdinand Count Fathom, and Sir Launcelot Greaves, the Expedition of Humphry Clinker, &c.
He was bred to the medical profession, and in the early part of his life served as a surgeon in the navy. ”

“ Pungent observation allied to a vigorous prose, emancipated to a rare degree from provincialism or archaism, were perhaps the first of Smollett's qualifications as a novelist. Such coherence as his novels have owes more to accidental accumulation than to constructive design. The wealth of amusing incident, the rapidly moving crowd of amusing and eccentric figures, atones for a good many defects. Smollett's peculiar coarseness and ferocity were gradually eliminated from English fiction, but from Tom Jones right down to Great Expectations his work was regularly ransacked for humour. ”

“ Smollett, for variety of powers, and indefatigable industry, has seldom been surpassed. He was a politician, a poet, a physician, a historian, a translator, a writer of travels, a dramatist, a novelist, a writer on medical subjects, and a miscellaneous author. It is only, however, as a novelist and a poet that he has any claims to the admiration of posterity. ”

“ The handsome terms in which he alludes in the last volume to some of his old enemies and rivals—such as Akenside and Fielding, Lyttelton, Robertson, and Hume—may be taken as a sign that some at least of his animosities had been softened by the lapse of years. The work as a whole ‘is not more confused and inaccurate than such hasty productions unavoidably must be’ (Robert Anderson) . Meanwhile, in 1762, Smollett undertook the editorship of the ‘Briton,’ which was called into existence by the need of defending the tory minister, Lord Bute. ”

“ From Nice he sailed in a felucca to Genoa, and thence visited Rome and other Italian cities, returning to England through France in June 1765. Early next year he published his ‘Travels’ in the form of letters sent home from Boulogne, Paris, Nice, and other places along his route. The book is replete with learning and with sound and often very acute observation, but Smollett, who in England saw in Durham and York minsters ‘gloomy and depressing piles,’ took an even more jaundiced view of what he saw abroad. ”

“ Smollett, perhaps one of the most popular authors by profession that ever wrote, furnishes a sad instance of the insufficiency of even the greatest literary favour, in the times in which he wrote, to procure those temporal comforts on which the happiness of life so much depends. ”

“ They are fierce, foul-mouthed, and pointless. But Smollett was poor, and he was angry; he had the examples of Pope and Swift before him; which, as far as truculence went, he could imitate. Above all, it was then the fixed belief of men of letters that some peer or other ought to aid and support them; and, as no peer did support Smollett, obviously they were “varnished ruffians.” He erred as he would not err now, for times, and ways of going wrong, are changed. But, at best, how different are his angry couplets from the lofty melancholy of Johnson’s satires! ”

“ A period of adverse fortune followed, broken, however, in 1748 by the publication of "The Adventures of Roderick Random." Two years later Smollett obtained his M.D. degree, and for a number of years combined medical work with literature. In 1756 he was made editor of the "Critical Review," a post which resulted in a fine of £100 and three months' imprisonment for a libel on Admiral Knowles. He died on October 21, 1771. Smollett wrote altogether five novels and a number of historical works and records of travel. It is impossible to overestimate his influence on novel-writing. ”

“ This lady thought that Fielding did not know what sorry fellows his Tom Jones and Captain Booth were. Not near so sorry as Peregine Pickle were they, for this gentleman is a far more atrocious ruffian than Roderick Random.
None the less “Peregrine” is Smollett’s greatest work. Nothing is so rich in variety of character, scene, and adventure. We are carried along by the swift and copious volume of the current, carried into very queer places, and into the oddest miscellaneous company, but we cannot escape from Smollett’s vigorous grasp. ”

“ Be not conzarned, honoured sir, vor I’se take it on mai laife to let yaw knaw wheare we be zettled, if zobe I can vind where you loadge in Loondon. The man zays yaw may put it in the pooblic prints. I houp the bareheir will be honest enuff to deliver this scrowl; and that your honour will pardon Your umbil servant to command, DOROTHY COWSLIP.”
“P. S.—Please my kaind sarvice to laayer Clarke. Squire Darnel’s man is very civil vor sartain; but I’ave no thoughts on him I’ll assure yaw. Marry hap, worse ware may have a better chap, as the zaying goes.” ”

“ Once run to earth someone whom George had failed to trace, and his reputation was secure.
To outshine one of the best men then at work was a high game to try for, but Smollett was trying no less.
Not long after, I met Miles again in Oxford-street. He told me that Smollett had scored again, and that George had missed a find he had made pretty sure of.
I pooh-poohed the whole thing.
"Chance, all chance. Fine thing for Smollett, more luck than good management, no doubt," I said, feeling rather nettled, I own. "Wait a bit; you will see which is the best man of the two." ”