_RODERICK RANDOM_
We reach now the most important period of Smollett’s life. That he
had fully realised, long before, the splendid nature of the talents
wherewith he was endowed, is more than probable, though he possibly
was in doubt as to the precise outlet his genius would make for
itself. He had tried tragedy, but had been roughly disillusionised
as to his El Dorado being found on the stage. He had neither the
power of compression nor the faculty of seizing upon one central
idea and making all the others subservient and subordinate thereto,
so necessary a qualification in the dramatist. His satire also was a
little too ferocious and vitriolic to entirely please the taste of
the English–reading public, that was gradually looking askance at the
knockdown, sledge–hammer blows of Butler and Swift, and veering round
to the more delicate but none the less effective style of Goldsmith,
Gay, and Johnson. His poetry, moreover, was not sufficiently generous,
either in quantity or quality, to secure for him even a low place in
the Temple of Poesie. His genius, therefore, must find some other
outlet. What was it to be?
In 1740, Samuel Richardson, the father of the English novel, had
produced _Pamela_, a work which at once achieved a lasting success. Not
that novel–writing was unknown previous to that date, as many writers
suppose. The Italian _novelli_ and the Spanish tales were known in
Britain, and had inspired many imitators. While carefully dissociating
the pastoral romances like Sidney’s _Arcadia_ or those ‘romances’
proper, or fiction dealing with feudal customs and illustrative of the
‘virtues’ of chivalry, from ‘novels,’ which, in the early signification
of the word at least, implied stories descriptive of domestic or
everyday life in the period of the writer’s own immediate epoch,
many of the stories written by Robert Greene, the dramatist, Thomas
Nashe, and Nicolas Breton are novels of English life pure and simple,
albeit foreign names may be used. So in Shakespeare all his plays are
distinctively English in atmosphere and sympathies, to say nothing of
sentiments, although Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra,
and the like, are selected as the nominal heroes and heroines of
the piece. The English novel had long been in existence. The only
difference was that the writers did not specialise any period as that
wherein the incidents occurred. They preferred to leave themselves
free, and to people with the creatures of their fancy that mysteriously
delightful era vaguely shadowed forth by ‘long ago’ or ‘once upon a
time.’
The surpassing virtue of Richardson and his successor Fielding was
that they boldly seized upon the time wherein they lived as that which
was to form the background of their stories. Their ‘to–day’ was to
be painted as faithfully and as fondly as those earlier writers had
depicted imaginary epochs. We can scarcely form any idea now of the
overwhelming enthusiasm that greeted Richardson’s _Pamela_. For the
first time readers saw their own age delineated with a fidelity and
withal a fearlessness that had the effect of a supreme moral lesson. Of
course, to our ideas of to–day, many of the descriptions in the novels
of last century are simply revolting, and would be condemned amongst
us as an outrage on good taste. ‘The morals of the young person’ are
our nineteenth–century bogey, which ever and anon rises up to scare any
luckless novelist who dares to paint life as it really is. Thackeray
used to lament that he dared not paint Becky Sharp as she really was,
because all the mammas in the British Islands would taboo his work. But
midway the eighteenth century they were not so queasy–stomached. They
called a spade a spade. If a man went to the devil with wine and women,
they took a delight in chronicling the whole process—as a warning
to others, be it noted, not like the leprous–minded, neurotic school
in our own days, look you, because they wanted to rake in guineas by
chronicling a brother’s or a sister’s shame.
_Pamela_, however, effected a higher purpose than merely affording
pleasure to eager readers. Its exotic morality and exaggerated
sentimentality stirred up into vigorous life the spirit of ridicule
latent in the big, manly, kindly, but coarse–fibred nature of Henry
Fielding. As a caricature of _Pamela_ he produced his novel, _Joseph
Andrews_, the hero of which was the brother of _Pamela_, and was made
to exhibit the same exaggerated virtues as had characterised the
latter. Fielding’s “skit” became the first great character–novel in the
English language, and announced to the world the fact that the greatest
master of contemporary literary portraiture that prose literature has
yet seen, had appeared.
The publication of _Clarissa Harlowe_, by Richardson, towards the end
of 1747, and the announcement made of the appearance of Fielding’s
_Tom Jones_, in parts, seem to have raised the question in Smollett’s
mind whether he also might not be able to create a gallery of fiction
every whit as notable as ‘Pamela,’ or ‘Mr. B——,’ or ‘Parson Adams,’
or ‘Lovelace,’ or ‘Sophia Western.’ The flattering results of success
in the improvement of the material prospects of both Richardson and
Fielding could not but exercise a certain amount of influence on him.
In the month of June 1747, as he tells us, he began the composition of
a novel of his own time, very diffidently, and with the resolve firmly
kept in view, that if the work did not come up to his own expectations,
he would remorselessly burn it.
He was of too original a caste of genius to sink into the subordinate
position of a mere imitator of either Richardson or Fielding. He noted
carefully that the former had monopolised the novel of sentiment, as
the latter had taken as his own the novel of character. But he also
saw that the novel of incident was still unappropriated in English
fiction. This department he determined to make his own. Taking the
_Gil Blas_ of Le Sage as his model, he endeavoured as far as possible
to make his tale interesting by the number and variety of the events
introduced, feeling assured that the portraiture of character would not
be of an inferior type, if only he could draw on his past experiences
for material. While by no means a slavish follower of Le Sage, the
influence of the great French writer is very perceptible in _Roderick
Random_. There is the same breathless succession of incidents, the same
hairbreadth escapes, the same ready ingenuity on the part of the hero
in extricating himself from awkward predicaments. In a word, Roderick
is but a blood relation of _Gil Blas_, though his British parentage and
rearing have modified some of the eccentricities and peccadilloes that
would have scared even the purblind mammas and custodians of national
virtue last century.
_Roderick Random_ was published towards the end of January 1748, having
occupied five months in its composition. Its success was instant and
extraordinary. The British public recognised that a third had been
added to the great masters of fiction—a third whose genius, though
inferior in solidity and sublimity to that of either Richardson or
Fielding, surpassed both in prodigality and wealth of invention. The
first edition of the work did not bear the author’s name, but was
published in two small duodecimo volumes by Osborn of Gray’s Inn Lane
(the same individual knocked down by Dr. Johnson as a punishment for
insolence), the price being six shillings. The interest excited by
the book may be imagined when it was attributed by Lady Mary Wortley
Montague to Fielding. In a letter to her daughter, the Countess of
Bute, as recorded in her works, Lady Mary says: ‘Fielding has really
a fund of true humour. I guessed _Roderick Random_ to be his, though
without his name.’ Later on she adds: ‘I cannot think _Ferdinand
Fathom_ wrote by the same hand, it is every way so much below it.’
The notices of the novel in any contemporary journals are but meagre.
In the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ and in the _Intelligencer_, short
criticisms appear noting it as a work ‘full of ingenious descriptions
and lively occurrences.’ Several of the other periodicals contented
themselves with a mere intimation of its publication. Of puffing and
pushing seemingly the work needed little. Its own merits carried it
into all circles. Even Samuel Richardson, whose antipathy to Fielding
may have inclined him to show favour to any possible rival of the
man who had dared to caricature his pet creation, remarked of it
in comparison with _Tom Jones_, published some months later, that
_Roderick Random_ was written by a good man to show the evils of
vice, _Tom Jones_ by a profligate to render vice more alluring. The
infallible judgment of posterity will not confirm the criticism of
the narrow–minded old bookseller, who abhorred anything that did not
directly or indirectly reflect praise on himself. Edition after edition
of this the latest success in literature was called for. Smollett’s
name was placed on the title–page after the issue of the second
edition, and the public then realised that the popular novel was the
work of none of the elder writers, as was supposed, but of a young,
impecunious surgeon, not yet thirty, who had exhibited a very pretty
talent for satire, as the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, the Earls of
Bath, Granville, and Cholmondeley, Sir William Yonge, Mr. Pitt, and
Rich the theatrical manager, could testify to their cost.
Thereupon the town sought to take the young surgeon up and patronise
him, only to discover that he was far from being a patronisable
party—nay, was somewhat akin to the frozen snake which the countryman,
pitying, took up and hid in his bosom to warm it, only to be stung when
the reptile recovered vitality. Smollett all his life was too apt to
mistake genuine kindness for patronage, and to flash out hasty darts
of sarcasm in response to heartfelt wishes to win his friendship. Many
of the leading personages of London now sought to benefit him and
to show him that they desired to count him among their friends. But
Tobias, as already said, was like the fretful porcupine. He had been so
long a stranger to disinterested kindness, so long treated as little
better than a superfluous atom on the world’s surface, that affability
towards him was construed into condescension—a thought which made each
particular hair of his sensitive nature to stand on end. Curious though
the fact, nevertheless it is true that Smollett’s friendship was in
most cases extended to those who differed from him rather than to those
who agreed with him, though at the same time he might be bespattering
the former with all the terms of reprobation in his somewhat extensive
vocabulary of vituperation.
Although _Roderick Random_, coming, as it did, sandwiched in, so to
speak, between _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Tom Jones_, had to pass through
a trying fire of literary comparison, it emerged from the ordeal more
popular than ever. Readers realised that in him was a writer who was a
story–teller pure and simple, whose moral lessons were conveyed rather
by implication than by positive precept, and to whom the progress of
his story was the prime consideration. The wearisome moralisings of
Richardson and the tedious untwistings of motive so characteristic of
Fielding were unknown in _Roderick Random_. The story for the story’s
sake was evidently the writer’s aim throughout, and nobly he fulfilled
it. By many of our latter–day novelists the imaginative swiftness of
Smollett might with advantage be studied.
All criticism will be reserved for our closing chapters, but at this
point it may not be out of place to state that, although Smollett’s
characters are many of them drawn _from life_, it does not follow
they are portrayed _to the life_. By this distinction I would seek
to relieve him of the imputation, shameful in many cases beyond a
doubt, of having deliberately drawn line for line the portraits of his
relatives, of individuals met with on board the _Cumberland_, and other
fellow–travellers with whom he had fallen in during his journey along
the highway of existence. That suggestions were given to him by the
actions of such men as the commander of the _Cumberland_, the staff of
surgeons on board, and other personages with whom he came in contact,
is perfectly probable. But that he noted through the microscope of his
keen faculty of observation, every trait, every moral feature, and
registered them on the debit or credit side of each character, I cannot
admit, nor would such a course be consistent with the originality of
his genius. The setting of incident may in some cases be drawn from
his own experience, but that we can in any sense rely on each portrait
in his works being a truthful representation of the prototype, that I
deny. The assumption is negatived by his own confession with regard
to his grandfather, and also by his action with reference to Gordon,
his former employer. If the latter were drawn to the life under the
character of either Potion or Crab in _Roderick Random_, as many
biographers contend, Smollett completely ate his own words in _Humphrey
Clinker_ when he remarked that Gordon ‘was a patriot of a truly noble
spirit,’ etc. There is nothing more misleading and at the same time
more unfair to an author than to subject him to this sort of literary
dissection. No author is without suggestions from without in limning
his gallery of characters, but that he draws them wholly from without
is as impossible as that a doctor’s diagnosis is based solely on what
he observes, or on what is visible to the eye, and not also on what is
the result of arguing from the known to the unknown. Captains Oakum and
Whiffle, Squire Gawky, and others, are intentionally exaggerated for
the purposes of literary effect. If they were drawn from nature, then
they would have to be severely condemned as exaggerations.
Sir Walter Scott speaks very decidedly on this point in _The Lives of
the Novelists and Dramatists_: ‘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 than the author intended.’
Dr. Moore, also, while acknowledging that Smollett was not sufficiently
careful to prevent such applications of his characters, yet denies that
they were portraits of living personages.
Smollett now could contemplate the future with hopefulness. _Roderick
Random_ had achieved a success so extraordinary, that even at that
early period in his literary career, the booksellers, or, as they would
now be termed, ‘publishers,’ were bespeaking his wares ahead. Taken all
in all, Smollett accepted his good fortune with conspicuous moderation.
Success did not turn his head. He was not like his characters, Roderick
Random or Peregrine Pickle, extravagantly uplifted by prosperity,
plunged into despair by adversity. More akin to worthy old Matthew
Bramble was he, who, while he took the world at no very high valuation,
and was not averse to accepting its smile, yet did not break his heart
over its frown.
The only foolish action to which he gave way at this period of
popularity was the publication by subscription of _The Regicide_. The
fame accruing to him from the success of his novel was, he reasoned,
a favourable means whereby to enable him to launch his play upon the
waters of public opinion. His reputation certainly ensured the sale of
his play, but the sale of his play materially affected his reputation.
That _The Regicide_ was not a work of merit Smollett never could be
brought to see, until he had criticised for some years the works of
others in the _Critical Review_. Besides, he had sufficient of the
old Adam in him that he wished ‘to have his knife’ into the offending
theatrical managers, and the ‘great little men,’ as he called them,
who had professed to take his play under their patronage. Therefore,
when _The Regicide_ was published in 1749, our author prefixed thereto
a preface full of gall and vinegar—a piece of spleen, of which, in
his later days, he was sincerely ashamed. That preface is not pleasant
reading to those who love the genius of Smollett. A vindictive
schoolboy in the first flush of resentment against his teacher for
giving him a sound but deserved birching could not have perpetrated
anything much worse.
In 1750, Smollett and his wife paid a visit to Paris, in order that the
popular novelist might collect materials for his new work of fiction.
The charms of the gay city, the kindness and consideration shown him
by the Parisians, the adulation showered on him by the literary men
of the French capital, all coloured Smollett’s estimate of the place
and people. ‘To live in Paris,’ he says in one of his letters of the
period, ‘is to live in heaven.’ That he saw reason slightly to alter
his opinion afterwards, was only to be expected. But the delights of
this first visit to Paris remained indelibly impressed on his memory.
He met many persons in France whose characters and circumstances
afterwards suggested to him some of the most notable personages in his
gallery of fiction. For example, Moore, in his memoirs of Smollett,
states that the portrait of the Doctor in _Peregrine Pickle_ was drawn
in some respects from Dr. Akenside, the well–known poet, author of
_The Pleasures of Imagination_, a man of true learning, culture, and
high talents, but whose offence, in Smollett’s eyes, was that he had
cast some sneering reflections upon Scotland in Smollett’s presence,
although, on the other hand, Akenside had studied in Edinburgh, and
acknowledged the excellence of its medical school. Pallet the painter,
also, was suggested to him, adds Moore, by the coxcombry of an English
artist, who used to declaim on the subject of _Virtu_, and often used
the following expressions, familiar enough to readers of the novel
in question—‘Paris is very rich in the arts; London is a Goth, and
Westminster a Vandal, compared to Paris.’
But the most effective episode drawn by Smollett from his French
experiences was, as Anderson says, the story of the Scottish Jacobite
exiles, banished from their country for their share in the Rebellion of
1745. Readers of _Peregrine Pickle_ will remember that at Boulogne the
hero meets a body of these unfortunates, who daily made a pilgrimage
to the seaside to view the white cliffs of Britain, which they were
never more to approach. That incident was drawn from life. Mr. Hunter
of Burnside was the individual amongst them who is mentioned as having
wept bitterly over his misfortune of having involved a beloved wife
and three children in misery and distress, and in the impatience of
his grief, having cursed his fate with frantic imprecations. Dr. Moore
heard Mr. Hunter express himself in this manner to Smollett, and at
the same time relate the affecting visit which he and his companions
daily made to the seaside when residing at Boulogne. From his visit,
then, Smollett drew a wealth of incidents and characteristics, which
he was able with surpassing skill to touch up, recolour, magnify, and
exaggerate as he saw fit in the interests of his story.
At this period, John Home, author of _Douglas_, was paying a visit
to London in order to try to induce Garrick to accept his tragedy of
_Agis_. He met Smollett, introduced to him by their mutual friend
‘Jupiter’ Carlyle, and had much pleasant intercourse with him. From the
Life[5] of Home by Henry Mackenzie, I extract the following details, as
they throw a curious side–light on Smollett’s character. In his letter,
dated 6th November 1749, to Carlyle, he remarks: ‘I have seen nobody
yet but Smollett, whom I like very well.’ Farther on he adds: ‘I am a
good deal disappointed at the mien of the English, which I think but
poor. I observed it to Smollett, after having walked at High–Mall,
who agreed with me.’ Then, a little later, Home writes to ‘Jupiter,’
evidently grateful for some kindnesses shown him by Tobias, in the
following terms:—‘Your friend Smollett, who has a thousand good, nay,
the best qualities, and whom I love much more than he thinks I do, has
got on Sunday last three hundred pounds for his _Mask_.’ What this
_Mask_ was it is hard to say, but in all probability it referred to
some work which Smollett was executing for Garrick. To the _Alceste_
the allusion could not refer, nor to the _Reprisals_. The allusion,
therefore, must be directed to some cobbling dramatic work, of which
Smollett did a great deal for Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Goodman’s
Fields.
A testimony so independent as this from Home possesses the highest
value. To the virtues and excellences of a much misunderstood man it
offers a tardy but valuable vindication.
Of Smollett, David Hume, who met him somewhat later in life, said: ‘He
is like the cocoa–nut, the outside is the worst part of him.’