Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/270

SMO the Dumbarton district of burghs, and head of an old and influential family, seated on the banks of Loch Lomond. The father of Tobias died not long after the birth of his famous son; and the care of the widow and of three orphan children, of whom the future novelist was the youngest, devolved upon the grandfather. Tobias was educated at the grammar-school of Dumbarton, where he was known as a writer of verses on local subjects. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Glasgow to attend the university, and having made choice of the medical profession, was apprenticed to a Mr. John Gardner, then a well-known surgeon in that city. Smollett was at this time remarkable for the somewhat incongruous combination of literary taste with a fondness for boisterous sports, and was a ringleader in college riots, and all sorts of mischief. He exhibited a talent for poetry especially of a satirical kind, and wrote a tragedy, called "The Regicide," before he had passed his nineteenth year. On the death of his grandfather in 1737, Smollett was thrown on his own resources, and quitted Glasgow for London, taking with him his tragedy in manuscript, a small sum of money, and a great number of letters of introduction. Through the influence of his friends he obtained an appointment as surgeon's mate on board the Cumberland, 80-gun ship, sent in October, 1740, under the command of Rear-admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle to join Admiral Vernon's squadron in the West Indies, and was present during the unsuccessful operations against Carthagena in the following year. When the enterprise was abandoned, the ship in which Smollett served remained for farther service in the West Indian seas. He resided for some time in the island of Jamaica, and appears to have returned to England early in 1744. On quitting the navy, in his twenty-third year, he settled in London as a surgeon. He seems to have taken a deep interest in political affairs; and, roused by the treatment which his native country had received on the suppression of the rebellion of 1745, he gave vent to his indignation at the butcheries of the duke of Cumberland in his well-known poem entitled "The Tears of Scotland." Soon after, he published his political poems, "Adna" and "The Reproof," in which he satirized the Pelham ministry, but apparently without attracting much notice either from the government or the public. In 1747 he married a Miss Lascelles, a Creole beauty, with whom he had become acquainted during his residence in Jamaica; and in the following year began his career as a novelist by the publication of "Roderick Random," of which the hero in the main is the author himself. Its success was immediate and decided; and availing himself of the celebrity which this work had gained him, he published in 1749 his long neglected tragedy of "The Regicide," which, to his great indignation, had hitherto been treated with neglect both by patrons and managers. But their unfavourable verdict has certainly not been reversed by the public. The favourable reception of "Roderick Random" did not induce Smollett at once to abandon the hope of success in the medical profession; and having obtained in 1750 the degree of M.D. from Marischal college, Aberdeen, he published about the same time "An Essay on the External Use of Water, with remarks upon the Method of Using the Mineral Waters at Bath," in which he appears to have advocated opinions resembling those of modern hydropathists. By and by, however, Smollett turned his thoughts wholly to literature, and in 1751 published his "Peregrine Pickle," the materials for which had in part been collected during a trip that he made to Paris in the autumn of the previous year. The caricatures which he introduced into this work of Akenside, Fielding, Lord Lyttleton, and other well-known persons, raised a storm of opposition against this performance, which was virulently denounced as an immoral and scurrilous libel. But, probably to some extent in consequence of this abuse, the novel met with a very rapid sale both in England and Scotland, and was soon translated into French. In 1753 appeared Smollett's third novel, "The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom," which, notwithstanding its repulsive subject, contains some of the most striking passages that the author ever wrote. He appears to have also at this time done a good deal of miscellaneous work for the booksellers, and in 1755 he published by subscription his translation of Don Quixote, which cost him many months of severe and exhausting labour, and regarding the merits of which public opinion was greatly divided. As soon as this work was completed, Smollett took an opportunity of revisiting his native country, from which he had been absent sixteen years. He spent several months among his relations and friends, and received a most cordial welcome from Adam Smith and the other eminent men who filled the chairs of the Glasgow university. On his return from Scotland he became one of the "Society of Gentlemen" who conducted the new literary journal, the Critical Review, the first number of which appeared in January, 1756; and was soon regarded by the public as its responsible editor. In the course of the same year he edited for Dodsley, in seven volumes, 12mo, a Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages, digested in a chronological series, inserting in the collection several contributions of his own. In the following year he published a new edition of "Peregrine Pickle," in which various personal and offensive passages were retrenched, and the whole was carefully revised and corrected. About the same time he wrote the "Reprisal, or Tars of Old England," a comedy in two acts, which was performed at Drury Lane with considerable success. Shortly before this he had undertaken the Herculean task of supplying the want of a complete and continuous "History of Great Britain;" and after fourteen months of severe labour, he gave the result to the world, in five quarto volumes, under the title of "The Complete History of England, from the Descent of Julius Cæsar to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, containing the Transactions of one thousand eight hundred and three years." This work makes no pretensions to originality or depth of research; but it is entitled to the merit of being a clear, succinct, well-written, and useful narrative of public events. It was received with great favour by the public, and met with a large circulation. His connection with the Critical Review had from the outset exposed him to great discomfort, and had involved him in numerous squabbles with irritable authors whose writings had been criticized with severity by Smollett or his coadjutors. He now suffered still more severely from his connection with this journal, and in 1759 was prosecuted by Admiral Knowles for libel, was fined £100, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment in the king's bench. During his confinement he wrote his "Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves," a kind of travestie of Don Quixote, which was published in parts in a new publication called the British Magazine, which he started at this time in conjunction with Goldsmith. He also wrote at this period considerable portions of the "Modern Universal History." The accession of George III. had now taken place, and had been followed by the resignation of Pitt, the modification of the government, and the premiership of Bute. A most violent clamour arose against the Scotch favourite; his countrymen as a body became involved in his unpopularity; and unfortunately for Smollett, he established at this juncture a weekly newspaper called the Briton, which became the most prominent party organ of the Bute ministry. He was in consequence involved in the virulent political contest carried on with Wilkes and Churchill, and both as a Scotchman and a ministerialist, was loaded with calumny and abuse. He was hard at work too on the "Continuation of the History of England," a translation of the works of Voltaire in 27 vols., and a compilation entitled "The Present State of all Nations." Under such an accumulation of labour his health and spirits gave way, and the death of his only child at this period completely prostrated him. He discontinued his newspaper; and "traduced," as he said, "by malice, persecuted by faction, abandoned by false patrons, and overwhelmed by the sense of a domestic calamity which it was not in the power of fortune to repair," he quitted England in June, 1763, and spent the succeeding two years on the continent, principally at Nice. He returned in 1765, and in the following year published as the fruit of his absence "Travels through France and Italy," in 2 vols., which is regarded as one of his best works. After a few months' residence in London his consumptive symptoms returned; and by way of change he undertook another and last visit to his native country in the summer of 1766. He was received with great distinction by the brilliant writers who then adorned the Scottish metropolis, and has embodied his recollections of this visit in his latest and in some respects best work. In 1769 he published his now forgotten work, "The History and Adventures of an Atom." Early in the following year he quitted England never to return, and took up his residence in the neighbourhood of Leghorn. Here he composed his last work, "The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker," which was published in London in 1771. A few months later (October 21st) the author died in the fifty-first year of his age. A monument was erected to his memory by his