LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 720.-13 MARCH, 1858. 1 1856. From The Quarterly Review. 2. New Editions of Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphry Clinker. London, 1857. TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT was born, say his biographers, in the year 1721, "in the old house of Dalquhurn, near the village of Renton," in the vale of Leven, Dumbartonshire. This is correct, with the exception that the village of Renton did not then exist. The vale of Leven, now the site of a bustling bit of railway, and studded with print-works, bleaching-works, and iron-works, consisted then of parts of the three rural parishes of Bonhill, Cardross, and Dumbarton proper; and the house of Dalquhurn, which was close to the Leven, was in the parish of Cardross. eldest, named Tobias, had gone into the army, 1. The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias where he attained the rank of Captain, and Smollett. Complete in 1 vol. London, died while yet young. Two others, James and George, had taken to the Scottish bar. The youngest, Archibald, remained without a profession. He had married, without his father's consent, a certain Miss Cunningham of Gilbertfield; and, as she had little or no fortune, the old Knight had found it necessary, in forgiving them, to settle his son on the life-rent of the little property or farm of Dalquhurn, near the paternal mansion of Bonhill, with an allowance making up an income of about £300 a-year. Here were born three children—a daughter, named Jane, who was the eldest; and two sons, James and Tobias. Not long after the birth of Tobias, his father died, and the care of the widow and the orphans devolved on the grandfather. For Tobias, as the youngest son of a youngest son, and with uncles, aunts, and cousins standing between him and the fountain-head, the prospect was necessarily none of the best. But it was a time when Scottish houses had peculiar facilities for getting their cadets disposed of, and a Smollett of Dumbartonshire had as good a chance as any. The Smollets were about the most important family in the district. The head of the family was the novelist's grandfather, Sir James Smollet of Bonhill, a descendant of the still older Dumbartonshire Smolletts, whose influence he had inherited and extended. Bred as a lawyer in Edinburgh, he had represented the burgh of Dumbarton in the old Scottish Parliament as early as 1688; having been one of the most active supporters of the Revolution, he had been knighted by William III., and appointed to one of the judgeships of the Commissary or Consistorial Court in Edinburgh; he had continued to sit for Dumbarton in the Scottish Parliament, and had been so zealous a promoter of the proposed union of the kingdoms that in 1707 he was made one of the Commissioners for framing the articles on which the union was based; and, after the measure had been carried, he was the first representative of the Dumbarton district of burghs-i.e. of Dumbarton, Glasgow, Renfrew, and Rutherglen -in the united British Parliament. Now, in his old age, he was living chiefly on his estate of Bonhill, with a goodly number of derivative Smolletts looking to him as their chief. By his marriage with a daughter of Sir Aulay Macaulay of Ardincaple, Bart., he had four sons and two daughters. Of the sons, the LIVING AGE. DCCXX. VOL. XX. 41 Among the first conscious feelings of every young Lowland Scot is the feeling of his Scottish nationality. A fervid amor patriæ, a glowing recollection of Bruce and Wallace as heroes of but one side of the Tweed, and a pugnacious sense of some difference still between the larger population to the south and the smaller to the north of that river, are part of the intellectual outfit of every Scottish boy. Smollett was no exception. Although Wallace had been everywhere in Scotland, nowhere had he been so much as in the country round Dumbarton. How many were the stories of his prowess in that region, of his wanderings with his faithful followers, of his lurking about the grand old castle of Dumbarton itself, where they still showed his sword as a relic! And had not Bruce's residence in his old kingly days been Cardross Castle, and had he not here died and here bequeathed his heart to the Douglas? All this, known to young Smollett through im memorial legend, took the usual effect. |ing, was talking and writing about Buchanan. Grandson as he was of one of the framers of To all this as bearing on Smollett's boyhood, the Union, he had the Wallace-and-Bruce in respect of place, add the recollections inform of the Thistle fever as strongly as either Burns or Scot had it after him; and it was, doubtless, owing to the subsequent tenor of his life that the effects were not so permanent on his constitution and career. volved in the circumstance of the time. Smollett preceded Scott by exactly fifty years. Things which were to Scott matters. of legend, were to Smollett matters of observation. He listened to the talk about the There would be necessary differences, how- Union when it was yet recent and unpopular, ever, between the juvenile Scotticism of a when tough old Scotch lairds in his grandSmollett born in the vale of Leven in 1721, father's hearing would trace all evils under and that of a Burns born in Ayrshire in 1759, the sun to that act of national treachery, and or of a Scott born in Edinburgh in 1771. when the distinction of being "true-born The Vale of Leven had its peculiarities, both Scots" and not "Britoners was yet proudly physical and historical, over and above what kept up by all who had had the luck to draw appertained to it more or less in common breath before the fatal year. Some of these with the rest of Scotland. In point of natural" true-born Scots" could entertain him with beauty few districts could come up to it. reminiscences extending back to the reigns There was the Vale itself, as yet innocent of of the last male Stuarts, ere yet Britain had steam or chemicals, a perfect bit of Lowland to seek her kings among wee German solitude, through which, under moist but lardies." Jacobitism was rife about him; genial skies, the sheep-bell tinkled, while the the memory of the '15 was fresh; ever and angler pursued his craft. Followed south- anon there were rumors of a new insurrecwards, this Vale led to the open splendors of tion brewing among the clans; and even at the Clyde, the indented coasts of which, once the Commissary's own table, when the punch seen flashing in the sunlight from Dumbarton went round after the claret, some grim LowCastle, the eye never forgets; and, followed land kinsman or some hot Highland chief northwards, it led to the matchless Loch might drink the King's health, passing his Lomond, the lower beauties of which, where glass over the water. Rob Roy, known only the wooded islets seem to swim on its placid to Scott by description, might have been surface, are but a gradual promise of the seen by Smollett. It was six years before sterner grandeurs of its upper and narrower Smollett was born indeed, that Mr. Francis shores. A Lowland Scot himself, though Osbaldistone and Mr. Nicol Jarvie had paid with a spice of Highland blood, the boy was Rob their ever memorable visit; but Rob thus on the confines of the southern Gaelic was still alive and hearty about his place of region, or rather in the midst of it. He Inversnaid; and it was not till Smollett was could hear Gaelic spoken or preached in his a lad of seventeen, and had sailed up and immediate neighborhood, and a brief excur- down the Loch many a time, that Rob's piper sion on the Lake took him into the very struck up his last march and his bones were heart of the Macgregors and the Macfarlanes, laid to rest in the braes of Balquhidder. where nothing but Gaelic would pass, and where the wild Celtic customs were still untouched. Or if, returning from occasional contact with the Gaels, he betook himself to such associations of more intellectual interest as his own Lowland part of Dumbartonshire afforded, was there not the fact that it had given birth to Scotland's greatest scholar? The tradition was that the grammar-school of Dumbarton, where Smollett received his first classical education, was that where Buchanan had received his two centuries before; and the master of the school in Smolett's days was a certain Mr. John Love, whose main occupation in life, besides teach Readers of Smollett will know that we are not attaching too much importance to the circumstances of his Scottish breeding. Not only are his writings full of Scottish characters, Scottish allusions, and Scottish humors, but the very last exercises of his pen both in prose and in verse were in loving celebration of the scenes of his boyhood. "I have seen," he says, "the Lago di Gardo, Albano, De Vico, Bolsena, and Geneva, and, upon my honor, I prefer Loch Lomond to them all." And so in his "Ode to Leven Water: " "On Leven's banks while free to rove I envied not the happiest swain This was the re-awakened patriotism of Campbells and others, whose names are the elderly Scot revisiting his native place identified to this day with the commerce of after long absence. Before, however, he had quitted those scenes, the amor Scotia had begun to show itself in the same literary guise. At the grammar-school of Dumbartonshire he was known as a writer of verses on local subjects. Like every other Scottish boy of a scribbling turn, he had resolved to write a poem of which Wallace should be the hero; and when he gave up that theme as too ambitious, it was over the pages of Buchanan's History that he meditated the drama which he actually wrote on the story of the murder of the Scottish king James I. at Perth. Glasgow, were availing themselves of the new opportunities afforded by the Union to Scottish enterprise, and acquiring, by their mingled thrift and sagacity, what were considered colossal fortunes. These "tobacco princes," as they were called, were the aristocracy of Glasgow. On the Plainstanes, where they walked daily in their scarlet cloaks, curled wigs, and cocked hats, with gold-headed canes in their hands, all others made way for them with reverence. Inferior to these were the "weaver-bodies," and other members of the trade-corporations, many of whom were substantial citizens. Distinct Smollett's desire was to go into the army, from both, and yet mingling with both, as a but here he was thwarted by the old knight, kind of intellectual element, was a little knot who had already got a commission for the of College-professors, medical men, and elder brother James. When he was about clergymen. The Professor of Moral Philosfifteen years of age, Tobias was sent to ophy at that time in the University was the Glasgow to attend the University, and qualify metaphysician Hutcheson. The Professor of himself for some profession. Chance rather Mathematics, and one of the eccentricities of than deliberation determined that this pro- the town, was Robert Simson, the editor of fession should be physic; and from about Euclid. Among the younger medical men 1736 to 1739 Smollett was one of some hun- were William Cullen and William Hunter, dreds of youths who fluttered about the the future chiefs of British medicine, though cloisters of Glasgow College. After he had as yet unknown to fame. Half of the probegun to attend the medical classes he was fessors were clergymen, and, if any of the apprenticed to a Mr. John Gordon, then a others had his doubts about Calvinism, he well-known surgeon in the town. kept them to himself. The whole social economy of the place was rigid, frugal, and methodical. The wealthiest citizens, with few exceptions, lived not in separate houses, but in floors having but one sitting-room for the whole family; and such a thing as a private carriage was unknown in the town. The master of every respectable household was its king and priest, seldom spoken to by his children or servants, and never without awe. In the morning he went to his shop or counting-house; he returned in the middle of the day to dinner; the afternoon was again spent in business; and only in the evenings did he relax and take his pleasure. The habit then was for the seniors to meet in taverns while the women-folks and young folks had their tea; but punctually at nine o'clock the steps of the good man was again heard at his own threshold, and all was hushed for family-worship and supper. وو Smollett's three years of Glasgow studentship were but an extension of his acquaintance with Scottish life and its humors. To conceive what Glasgow was at that time is almost beyond the powers of an Englishman. "Can you direct me the nearest way to a town in your country of Scotland called Glasgow?" asks young Osbaldistone, before he leaves England, of Andrew Fairservice. "A town ca'd Glasgow?" echoes the indignant Andrew; "Glasgow's a ceety, man; and, under Andrew's guidance, the adventurer and the reader enter Glasgow together. Defoe corroborates Andrew's description, speaking of Glasgow in 1727 as "the emporium of the west of Scotland for its commerce and riches," and, "in a word, one of the cleanliest, most beautiful, and best built cities in Great Britain." And yet, then, and for ten years later, the population was not over 17,000. But it was the time of the rise of the West India trade, when the Glassfords and Dunlops and Cunninghams and As regards the Presbyterian decorum of the place, we greatly fear Smollett was one of the rebels. Among the various traits of 66 mystery, as there was no circulating library in Glasgow till 1753. his Scottish nativity, at all events, which he carried with him to the end of his life, we do not find the faintest symptom of attach- The cause, or one of the causes of Smolment to Scottish ecclesiastical forms. There lett's leaving Scotland, was his grandfather's can be no doubt, at any rate, that, in the matter death. The old knight died in 1739; what of conduct, he had generally his name on the property he had was left to his lawyer-sons, black books, and that he was a ringleader in James and George, or to their sisters; and college riots and all sorts of mischief. Mr. there was no provision for the widow and Gordon, it is said, would take his part children of his deceased son, Archibald. As against less charitable judges, and when any Smollett's elder brother was already in the of his neighbors spoke to him of the superior army, and as his sister was either married steadiness of their apprentices, he would an- or just about to be married to a Mr. Telfer, a swer that it might be all very true, but he gentleman of some property in Lanarkshire, preferred his own bubbly-nosed callant wi' it was chiefly his own prospects that were the stane in his pouch." Before his appren- affected. He set out on the then difficult ticeship was over he flattered himself that journey of four hundred miles to London, he was a very good-looking fellow and a taking with him a small sum of money and a favorite with the ladies. Now, too, as his very large assortment of letters of introducfriend Dr. Moore expresses it," he began tion. "Whether his relations," says Dr. to direct the edge of his boyish satire against Moore, "intended to compensate for the such green and scanty shoots of affectation scantiness of the one by their profusion in and ridicule as the soil produced," and he the other, is uncertain; but he has been, especially attacked Glasgow in its two main often heard to declare that their liberality in characteristics-its commercial or money- the last article was prodigious." making pride, and its religious zeal and strictness. It is a singular fact that most of the Scottish literary men of the last century, from Allan Ramsay downwards, were in this position of antagonism to the Presbyterianism of their country. It is only in later days that there have been remarkable specimens of Scottish literary genius, not only a tragedy in manuscript; and it must have in sympathy with the national religious been worse still when there was some shadow feeling, but even inspired and inflamed by it. of a chance of getting a tragedy acted, and But there were graver parts in Smollett's when, consequently, the ordinary form of a character than mere love of frolic. What he young writer's ambition was to be introduced makes Roderick Random say of his diligence to the manager of a theatre. Smollett, it at college is true of himself: "In the space seems, began his literary experience in this of three years I understood Greek very well, way. "As early as the year 1739," he says, was pretty far advanced in mathematics, and "my play was taken into the protection of no stranger to moral and natural philosophy; one of those little fellows who are sometimes logic I made no account of; but, above all called great men; and, like other orphans, things, I valued myself on a taste in the neglected accordingly. Stung with resentbelles lettres, and a talent for poetry which ment, which I mistook for contempt, I rehad already produced some pieces that met solved to punish this barbarous indifference, with a very favorable reception." Among and actually discarded my patron; consoling these pieces is to be included his tragedy of myself with the barren praise of a few asso"The Regicide," which was finished in some ciates, who &c." The patron here alluded to shape before he had passed his nineteenth is said to have been Lord Lyttelton, then, year. Puerile as this effort undoubtedly is, Mr. Lyttelton, and Secretary to the Prince of the fact that he should have written so long Wales; and, if so, Smollett's introduction to a piece at so early an age shows that the lit- him may have been through Mallet, his erary propensity was strong in him, and under-secretary, or Thomson, his friend. As that he was cultivating it by assiduous read- the tragedy is preserved, we can judge for ing. Where he got books is something of a ourselves how far Mr. Lyttelton was to be It is not clear that, when Smollett went to London, his intentions were merely those of a literary adventurer. But, having "The Regicide" in his pocket, how could he resist having a dip into the world of letters? Even now it is one of the minor miseries of life to be in the vicinity of a young man who has blamed. The account which Smollett gives | too, that for a while he resided in the island case, he was back in England and his name removed from the Navy Books by the early part of 1744. This is proved by a letter dated "London, May 22, 1744," addressed to a friend in Scotland, and at the close of which he says, "I am confident that 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." Smollett was still busy with his tragedy, when "his occasions called him out of the kingdom." In other words, his friends had procured him an appointment as surgeon's mate on board a king's ship. A youth of eighteen, whose only known qualification was that he had been a surgeon's apprentice in Glasgow, could hardly have expected any thing better. Indeed, if the descriptions in Roderick Random" of that gentleman's difficulties at the Navy Office and at Surgeons' If this is to be interpreted as meaning Hall are at all a record of Smollett's own that Smollett had then quitted the navy and experience, it was not without some trouble settled in London in quest of private practhat his friends got him the appointment. tice as a surgeon, we may guess in what reIt was a time, moreover, of some commotion spects his "prudentials" might be liable to in the naval service. Walpole, whose long criticism. The war with Spain had by this ministry had hitherto been studiously pacific, time been engulfed in the much larger war had been obliged (1739) to declare war of the Austrian succession, in which Great against Spain. The war was to be conducted Britain took part with Maria Theresa against chiefly in the West Indian seas and along the the alliance of the German Emperor, and coasts of Spanish America, where there were France, Spain, Poland, Sardinia, and Naples. ships to be captured and settlements to be On the eve of the war, Walpole had resigned attacked, and a brilliant beginning had (1742); but, as the Hanoverian interests of already been made by the taking of Porto- George II. were involved, and as the war bello by Admiral Vernon. was popular, it was carried on with spirit, levies of British troops being raised for it, and George himself crossing the sea to show his German pluck at Dettingen (1743). In a war of such dimensions there were of course, unusual opportunities for promotion; and it so happened that the political changes which accompanied it were of a kind that might have been favorable to Smollett's interests. One of the chiefs of the new government, and, till 1745, the sole minister for Scotland, was the Marquis of Tweeddale; and his Secretary was the astute Scotchman, Andrew Mitchell, afterwards Sir Andrew Mitchell and British-Ambassador Plenipotentiary at the Court of Frederic the Great of Prussia. If we may judge from numerous letters to Mitchell which we have seen in manuscript, he was supposed by his countrymen north of the Tweed to be all but omnipotent in procuring berths for them; and among those who wrote to him "at my Lord Tweeddale's office at Whitehall" was James Smollett the younger of Bonhill, all Smollett's biographers embark him as surgeon's mate in 1739, and they do not restore him to England till 1746. We know for certain that he served in the disastrous Carthagena Expedition of 1741. He was surgeon's mate on board one of the largest ships of the squadron which sailed from the Isle of Wight in October, 1740, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Chaloner Ógle, to join Admiral Vernon's squadron in the West Indies; and he was in this ship during the whole of the operations of the combined fleet and the land-forces against Carthagena in the following March and April, including the terrible bombardment of the Fort of Bocca Chica. When the enterprise was abandoned, the fleet retired to Jamaica, whence part of it returned to England, while part remained for farther service in the West Indian seas. Smollet was with the last portion; and he seems to have cruised about the West Indies for the better part of 1741, if not longer. It is certain, |