swayed by fear or favour; and where his judgment is influenced, we can see that he was only misled by an honest belief in the truth of his own arguments. At the same time, the Continuation, like Smollett's original History, has the defects incident to hurried composition, and likewise those which naturally attach themselves to contemporary narrative. Smollett had no access to those hidden causes of events

which time brings forth in the slow progress of ages; and his work is chiefly compiled from those documents of a public and general description, which often contain rather the colourable pretexts which statesmen are pleased to assign for their actions, than the real motives themselves. The English history, it is true, suffers less than those of other countries from this restriction of materials; for there are so many eyes upon our public proceedings, and they undergo such sifting discussion, both in and out of Parliament, that the actual motives of those in whose hands government is vested for the time, become speedily suspected, even if they are not actually avowed or unveiled. Upon the whole, with all its faults and deficiencies, it may be long ere we have a better History of Britain, during this latter period, than is to be found in the pages of Smollett.

Upon the accession of George III., and the commencement of Lord Bute's administration, Smollett's pen was employed in the defence of the young monarch's government, in a weekly paper called The Briton, which was soon silenced, and driven out of the field by the celebrated North Briton, conducted by John Wilkes. Smollett had been

on terms of kindness with this distinguished demagogue, and had twice applied to his friendship,— once for the kind purpose of obtaining the dismission of Dr Johnson's black servant, Francis Barber, from the navy, into which he had inconsiderately entered; and again, to mediate betwixt himself and Admiral Knowles, in the matter of the prose

["Johnson's negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been some time at sea, not pressed, as has been sup posed, but with his own consent, it appears, from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq., from Dr Smollett, that his master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He once said, No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned;' and at another time, 'A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.' The letter was as follows:-'Chelsea, 16th March, 1759.-DEAR SIR,—I am again your petitioner, in behalf of that great CHAM of literature, Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag Frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He says the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majesty's service. You know what matter of animosity the said Johnson has against you; and I dare say you desire no better opportunity of resenting it, than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on this occasion, though he and I were never Cater-cousins; and I gave him to understand, that I would make application to my friend Mr Wilkes, who perhaps, by his interest with Dr Hay and Mr Elliot, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say more on the subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring, that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear sir, your affectionate, obliged, humble servant, T. SMOLLETT.'"-CROKER'S Boswell, vol. i., p. 337-8.]

cution. Closer ties than these are readily dissolved before the fire of politics. The friends became political opponents; and Smollett, who had to plead an unpopular cause to unwilling auditors, and who, as a Scotchman, shared deeply and personally in that unpopularity, was compelled to give up The Briton, more, it would seem, from lack of spirit in his patron Lord Bute, to sustain the contest any longer, than from any deficiency of zeal on his own part. So, at least, we may interpret the following passage, in a letter which he wrote from Italy to Caleb Whiteford, in 1770 :

"I hope you will not discontinue your endeavours to represent faction and false patriotism in their true colours, though I believe the ministry little deserves that any man of genius should draw his pen in their defence. They seem to inherit the absurd stoicism of Lord Bute, who set himself up as a pillory, to be pelted by all the blackguards of England, upon the supposition that they would grow tired and leave off. I don't find that your ministers take any pains even to vindicate their moral characters from the foulest imputations; I would never desire a stronger proof of a bad heart, than a total disregard of reputation. A late nobleman, who had been a member of several administrations, owned to me, that one good writer was of more importance to the government than twenty placemen in the House of Commons."

In 1763, Smollett lent his assistance, or at least his name, to a translation of Voltaire's works, and also to a compilation entitled, The Present State of all Nations, containing a Geographical, Natural, Commercial, and Political History of all the Countries of the known World.

About this time, Elizabeth, an amiable and accomplished young person, the only offspring of Smollett's marriage, and to whom her father was

devotedly attached, died in the fifteenth year of her life, leaving her parents overwhelmed with the deepest sorrow.

Ill health aided the effects of grief, and it was under these circumstances that Smollett undertook a journey to France and Italy, in which countries he resided from 1763 to 1766. Soon after his return in 1766, he published his Travels through France and Italy, containing Observations on Character, Customs, Religion, Government, Police, Commerce, Arts, and Antiquities, with a particular Description of the Town, Territory, and Climate of Nice; to which is added, a Register of the Weather, kept during a Residence of Eighteen Months in that City; in 2 vols. 8vo, in the form of letters to his friends in England, from different parts of those countries.

Smollett's Travels are distinguished by acuteness of remark, and shrewdness of expression,by strong sense and pointed humour; but the melancholy state of the author's mind induced him to view all the ordinary objects from which travellers receive pleasure, with cynical contempt. Although so lately a sufferer by the most injurious national prejudices, he failed not to harbour and cherish all those which he himself had formerly adopted against the foreign countries through which he travelled. Nature had either denied Smollett the taste necessary to understand and feel the beauties of art, or else his embittered state of mind had, for the time, entirely deprived him of the power of enjoying them. The harsh censures which he passes on the Venus de Medicis, and upon the

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Pantheon; and the sarcasm with which his criticisms are answered by Sterne, are both well known. Yet, be it said without offence to the memory of that witty and elegant writer, it is more easy to assume, in composition, an air of alternate gaiety and sensibility, than to practise the virtues of generosity and benevolence, which Smollett exercised during his whole life, though often, like his own Matthew Bramble, under the disguise of peevishness and irritability. Sterne's writings show much flourish concerning virtues of which his life is understood to have produced little fruit; the temper of Smollett was

"like a lusty winter,

Frosty, but kindly."

On his return to Britain, in 1766, he visited Scotland for the last time, and had the pleasure of

["The learned Smelfungus," says Sterne, in allusion to Smollett, "travelled from Boulogne to Paris,-from Paris to Rome, and so on;-but he set out with the spleen and jaundice; and every object he passed by was discoloured or distorted. He wrote an account of them; but 'twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings. I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon, he was just coming out of it. "Tis nothing but a huge cock-pit,' said he. I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis,' replied I; 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 popp'd upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home; and a sad tale of sorrowful adventures he had to tell, 'wherein he spoke of moving accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals that each other eat; the Anthropophagi.' He had been flay'd alive, and bedevil'd, and used worse than St Bartholomew at every stage he had come at. I'll tell it," cried Smelfungus, to the world.' You had better tell it,' said I, 'to your physician.'"-Sentimental Journey.]