my piece, which, in consequence of those suggestions, put on a new appearance almost every day, until my occasions called me out of the kingdom." Disappointed in the hopes he had founded on in his theatrical attempt, Smollett accepted the situation of surgeon's mate on board of a ship of the line, in the expedition to Carthagena, in 1741, of which he published a short account in Roderick Random, and a longer narrative in a Compendium of Voyages, published in 1751. But the term of our author's service in the navy was chiefly remarkable from his having acquired, in that brief space, such intimate knowledge of our nautical world, as enabled him to describe sailors with such truth and spirit of delineation, that from that time whoever has undertaken the same task has seemed to copy more from Smollett than from nature. Our author quitted the navy, in disgust alike with the drudgery, and with the despotic discipline, which in those days was qualified by no urbanity on the part of superior officers, and which exposed subordinates in the service to such mortifications, as a haughty spirit like that of Smollett could very ill endure. He left the service in the West Indies, and after a residence of some time in the island of Jamaica, returned to England in 1746. Obscure traces of the vexatious persecutions which he underwent during his service in the navy, may be found in Roderick Random; but the temper of the author was too irritable to encourage our full confidence in the truth of his satire. It was at this time, when, incensed at the brutal severities exercised by the government's troops in the Highlands, to which romantic regions he was a neighbour by birth, Smollett wrote the pathetic, spirited, and patriotic verses entitled The Tears of Caledonia. The late Robert Graham, Esq. of Gartmore, a particular friend and trustee of Smollett, has recorded the manner in which this effusion was poured forth. "Some gentlemen having met at 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 by him one of his trustees," (Gartmore himself,) "observing his earnestness, and supposing he was writing verses, asked him if it was 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 too strongly 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 unimpair'd remembrance reigns, 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; and although these appear from his historical work to have been in some degree modified, yet the author continued attached to the principles of the Revolution. It is also to be remembered, that at the extinction of a civil war, the least appearance of sympathy with the vanquished party is sure to interrupt fairer prospects of preferment than any which opened to Smollett. His feelings for his country's distresses, and his resentment of the injuries she sustained, were as genuine and disinterested as the mode of expressing them is pathetic and spirited. Smollett, on his return from the West Indies, settled in London, and commenced his career as a professional man. He was not successful as a physician, probably because his independent and haughty spirit neglected the by-paths which lead to fame in that profession. One account says, that he failed to render himself agreeable to his female patients, certainly not from want of address or figure, for both were remarkably pleasing, but more probably by a hasty impatience of listening to petty complaints, and a want of sympathy with the lamentations of those who laboured under no real indisposition. It is remarkable, that although very many, perhaps the greatest number of successful medical men, have assumed a despotic authority over their patients after their character was established, few or none have risen to preeminence in practice who used the same want of ceremony in the commencement of their career. Perhaps, however, Dr Smollett was too soon discouraged, and abandoned prematurely a profession in which success is proverbially slow. Smollett, who must have felt his own powers, had naturally recourse to his pen, to supply the deficiencies of an income which his practice did not afford; and besides repeated attempts to get his tragedy acted, he sent forth, in 1746, Advice, and in 1747, Reproof, both poetical satires possessed of considerable merit, but which only influenced the fate of the author, as they increased the number of his personal enemies. Rich, the manager, was particularly satirized in Reproof. Smollett had written for the Covent-Garden theatre an opera called Alceste, which was not acted in consequence of some quarrel betwixt the author and manager, which Smollett thus avenged. About 1747, Smollett was married to Miss Lascelles, a beautiful and accomplished woman, to whom he had become attached in the West Indies. Instead of an expected fortune of L.3000, he gained by this connexion only a lawsuit, and increased the expense of housekeeping, which he was still less able to afford, and was again obliged to have recourse to his literary talents. Necessity is the mother of invention in literature as well as in the arts, and the necessity of Smollett brought him forth in his preeminent character of a Novelist. Roderick Random may be considered as an imitation of Le Sage, as the hero flits through almost every scene of public and private life, recording, as he paints his own adventures, the manners of the times, with all their various shades and diversities of colouring; but forming no connected plot or story, the several parts of which hold connexion with, or bear proportion to, each other. It was the second example of the minor-romance, or English novel. Fielding had shortly before set the example in his Tom Jones, and a rival of almost equal eminence, in 1748, brought forth the Adven tures of Roderick Random; a work which was eagerly received by the public, and brought both reputation and profit to the author. 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 perhaps than the author intended. Gawkey, Crabbe, and Potion,' were assigned to individuals in the West of Scotland; Mrs Smollett was supposed to be Narcissa; the author himself represented Roderick Random (of which there can be little doubt); a bookbinder and barber, the early acquaintances of Smollett, contended for the character of the attached, amiable, simple-hearted Strap; and the two naval officers, under whom 1 [" "Gordon is generally said to have been the original of Potion in Roderick Random. This has been denied by Smollett's biographers; but their conjecture is of no more weight than the tradition which it contradicts. In the characters of a work so compounded of truth and fiction, the author alone could have estimated the personality which he intended, and of that intention he was not probably communicative. The tradition still remaining at Glasgow is, that Smollett was a restive apprentice, and a mischievous stripling. While at the University he cultivated the study of literature, as well as that of medicine, and showed a disposition for poetry, but very often in that bitter vein of satire which he carried so plentifully into the temper of his future years."-CAMPBELL.] 2 ["Mr Lewis, of Chelsea, who died in 1783, used to bind books for, and enjoy the company and conversation of the first literary men of his day; and was generally supposed to have been the original of Strap, in Roderick Random. Mrs Lewis often assured the writer of this article, that her husband denied the assertions of many people, as often as it was mentioned to him; but there is every reason to suppose him to have been the person that Smollett had in view, as they came |