Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/165

Rh "With respect to the famous Venus Pontia, commonly called de Medicis, I believe I ought to be entirely silent, or at least conceal my real sentiments, which will otherwise appear equally absurd and presumptuous. It must be want of taste that prevents my feeling that enthusiastic admiration with which others are inspired at sight of this statue. I cannot help thinking there is no beauty in the features of Venus, and that the attitude is awkward and out of character."

"I was much disappointed at sight of the Pantheon, which, after all that has been said of it, looks like a huge cock-pit, open at the top."

These observations upon works of art that had been the subject of universal admiration for centuries, could not be attributed to an original and native want of taste in such a man as Smollett: they must therefore be ascribed altogether to the distempered light which disease threw around eyery object that claimed his attention. The morose style of his "Travels" called forth universal remark; but nothing excited more surprise than what he had said regarding Venus and the Pantheon. His observations upon these subjects drew down upon him the following sarcastic notice from Sterne.

"The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris—from Paris to Rome—and so on; but he set out with the spleen and the jaundice, and every object he passed by was discoloured and distorted. He wrote an account of them, but it was nothing but an account of his miserable feelings; I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon; he was just coming out of it; 'It is nothing but a huge cock-pit,' said he: 'I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus Medicis,' I replied; for, in passing through Florence, I had heard he had fallen foul upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common strumpet, without the least provocation in nature. I popped upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home, and a sad and sorrowful tale of adventures he had to tell, wherein he spoke of moving accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals which each other eat: the Anthropophagi. He had been flayed alive, and bedeviled, and worse used than St Bartholomew, at every stage he had come at. 'I'll tell it,' said Smelfungus, 'to the world.' 'You had better tell it,' said I, 'to your physician.'"

A continental tour having failed to restore health and spirits, he now resolved to try the effect of native air and native scenery. About the beginning of June, 1766, he arrived in Edinburgh, where he passed some time with his mother, who retained, at an advanced age, a strong understanding, and an uncommon share of humour and whom he loved with all the warmth of filial affection. He then proceeded with his sister, Mrs Telfer, and his nephew, a young officer in the army, to Glasgow; whence, after a brief stay, they went, accompanied by Dr Moore, to Cameron, the residence of his cousin, Mr Smollett, of Bonhill, on the banks of Lochlomond. During the whole time of his stay, he was afflicted with severe rheumatic pains, and with a neglected ulcer in his arm, which almost unfitted him for enjoying society. He afterwards commemorated the impressions, and some of the adventures which he experienced in this tour, in his last and best novel, "Humphrey Clinker," which was published in 1771, while he resided in Italy. In the account which he gives in this novel of some branches of Edinburgh society, he had real characters and real customs in his eye. The "Mr M ——," at whose house his characters are represented as having seen a haggis at table, was Mr Mitchelson, a writer to the signet, connected with the family of Sir Walter Scott. The "beautiful Miss E——