Page images
PDF
EPUB

rate estimate; for in each of them he has presented, and sometimes under various points of view, the leading features of his own character, without disguising the most unfavourable of them. Nay, there is room to believe, that he rather exaggerated than softened that cynical turn of temper, which was the principal fault of his disposition, and which engaged him in so many quarrels. It is remarkable, that all his heroes, from Roderick Random downward, possess a haughty, fierce irritability of disposition, until the same features appear softened, and rendered venerable by age and philosophy, in Matthew Bramble. The sports in which they most delight are those which are attended with disgrace, mental pain, and bodily mischief to others; and their humanity is never represented as interrupting the course of their frolics. We know not that Smollett had any other marked failing, save that which he himself has so often and so liberally acknowledged. When unseduced by his satirical propensities, he was kind, generous, and humane to others; bold, upright, and independent in his own character; stooped to no patron, sued for no favour, but honestly and honourably maintained himself on his literary labours; when, if he was occasionally employed in work which was beneath his talents, the disgrace must remain with those who saved not such a genius from the degrading drudgery of compiling and translating. He was a doating father, and an affectionate husband; and the warm zeal with which his memory was cherished by his surviving friends, showed clearly the reliance which they placed upon his regard. Even his

resentments, though often hastily adopted, and incautiously expressed, were neither ungenerous nor enduring. He was open to conviction, and ready to make both acknowledgment and allowance when he had done injustice to others, willing also to forgive and to be reconciled when he had received it at their hand.

The

Churchill,' and other satirists, falsely ascribe to Smollett the mean passion of literary envy, to which his nature was totally a stranger. manner in which he mentions Fielding and Richardson in the account of the literature of the century, shows how much he understood, and how liberally he praised, the merit of those, who, in the view of the world, must have been regarded as his immediate rivals. "The genius of Cervantes," in his generous expression, was transfused into the novels of Fielding, who painted the characters, and ridiculed the follies of life, with equal strength,

[ocr errors]

1 The article upon The Rosciad, in the Critical Review, (that fertile mother of all the dissensions in which Smollett was engaged,) was so severe as to call forth the bard's bitter resentment, in the 2d edition; where, ascribing the offensive article to Smollett, in which he was mistaken, he thus apostrophizes him:

"Whence could arise this mighty critic spleen,
The Muse a trifler, and her theme so mean?
What had I done, that angry heav'n should send
The bitterest foe where most I wish'd a friend?
Oft hath my tongue been wanton at thy name,
And hail'd the honours of thy matchless fame.
For me let hoary Fielding bite the ground,
So nobler Pickle stand superbly bound;
From Livy's temples tear th' historic crown,

Which, with more justice, blooms upon thine own," &c.

A poet of inferior note, author of a poem called The Race, has brought the same charge against Smollett, in still coarser terms.

humour, and propriety;"-a passage which we record with pleasure, as a proof that the disagreement which existed betwixt Smollett and Fielding did not prevent his estimating with justice, and recording in suitable terms, the merits of the Father of the English Novel. His historian, with equal candour, proceeds to tell his reader, that "the laudable aim of enlisting the passions on the side of virtue was successfully pursued by Richardson, in his Pamela, Clarissa, and Grandison, a species of writing equally new and extraordinary, where, mingled with much superfluity and impertinence, we find a sublime system of ethics, an amazing knowledge and command of human nature."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

1 [Dr Moore thus sums up his account of Smollett :"The person of Dr Smollett was stout and well proportioned, his countenance engaging, his manner reserved, with a certain air of dignity that seemed to indicate that he was not unconscious of his own powers. He was of a disposition so humane and generous, that he was ever ready to serve the unfortunate, and on some occasions to assist them beyond what his circumstances could justify. Though few could penetrate with more acuteness into character, yet none was more apt to overlook misconduct when attended with misfortune.

"He lived in an hospitable manner, but he despised that hospitality which is founded on ostentation, which entertains only those whose situations in life flatters the vanity of the entertainer, or such as can make returns of the same kind; that hospitality which keeps a debtor and creditor account of dinners. Smollett invited to his plain but plentiful table, the persons whose characters he esteemed, in whose conversation he delighted; and many for no other reason, than because they stood in need of his countenance and protection.

"As nothing was more abhorrent to his nature than pertness or intrusion, few things could render him more indignant than a cold reception. To this, however, he imagined he had sometimes been exposed on his applications in favour

In leaving Smollett's personal for his literary character, it is impossible not to consider the latter as contrasted with that of his eminent contemporary, Fielding. It is true, that such comparisons, though recommended by the example of Plutarch, are not in general the best mode of estimating individual merit. But, in the present case, the contemporary existence, the private history, accomplishments, talents, pursuits, and, unfortunately, the fates of these two great authors, are so closely allied, that it is scarce possible to name the one without exciting recollections of the other. Fielding and Smollett were both born in the highest rank of society, both educated to learned professions, yet both obliged to follow miscellaneous

of others; for himself he never made an application to any great man in his life.

"Free from vanity, Smollett had a considerable share of pride, and great sensibility; his passions were easily moved, and too often impetuous when roused; he could not conceal his contempt of folly, his detestation of fraud, nor refrain from proclaiming his indignation against every instance of oppression.

"Though Smollett possessed a versatility of style in writing, which he could accommodate to every character, he had no suppleness in his conduct. His learning, diligence, and natural acuteness, would have rendered him eminent in the science of medicine, had he persevered in that profession; other parts of his character were ill suited for augmenting his practice. He could neither stoop to impose on credulity, nor humour caprice.

"He was of an intrepid, independent, imprudent disposition; equally incapable of deceit and adulation, and more disposed to cultivate the acquaintance of those he could serve than of those who could serve him. What wonder that a man of his character was not what is called successful in life!"]

Both were

literature as the means of subsistence. confined, during their lives, by the narrowness of their circumstances,-both united a humorous cynicism with generosity and good-nature, both died of the diseases incident to a sedentary life, and to literary labour, and both drew their last breath in a foreign land, to which they retreated under the adverse circumstances of a decayed constitution, and an exhausted fortune.

Their studies were no less similar than their lives. They both wrote for the stage, and neither of them successfully. They both meddled in politics, and never obtained effectual patronage; they both wrote travels, in which they showed that their good-humour was wasted under the sufferings of their disease; and to conclude, they were both so eminently successful as novelists, that no other English author of that class has a right to be mentioned in the same breath with Fielding and Smollett.

If we compare the works of these two great masters yet more closely, we may assign to Fielding, with little hesitation, the praise of a higher and a purer taste than was shown by his rival; more elegance of composition and expression; a nearer approach to the grave irony of Swift and Cervantes; a great deal more address or felicity in the conduct of his story; and, finally, a power of describing amiable and virtuous characters, and of placing before us heroes, and especially heroines, of a much higher as well as more pleasing character than Smollett was able to present.

Thus the art and felicity with which the story

« PreviousContinue »