SMOLLETT A ‘SWEATER’—TRAVELS ABROAD—_THE ADVENTURES OF AN
ATOM_—_HUMPHREY CLINKER_—LAST DAYS.
So deeply did grief over the death of his charming young daughter prey
on his health and spirits, that there were for a time grave doubts
whether his reason had not been slightly unsettled. Constitutionally of
a nervously sensitive nature, excessive joy or sorrow had a thoroughly
unhinging effect upon him. He had not the self–command requisite
to look upon grief as one of those ills to which flesh is heir. In
his estimation, everything affecting himself was in the superlative
degree. Never were sorrows so overwhelming as his, he considered, and
oftentimes he seriously mortified people by brusquely breaking in upon
their anguish with the statement that they did not really know what
grief meant in comparison with him.
After Elizabeth’s death, therefore, Smollett, entirely oblivious of
his poor wife’s mental sufferings, seems to have abandoned himself
to an excess of grief that seriously accelerated the progress of the
maladies by which he was afflicted. Though he could not afford to
stop work altogether, he appears from this date to have instituted a
sort of literary factory, where works were turned out by the score.
Smollett’s name was now so popular, that on a title–page it virtually
meant success to the publication. He therefore contracted the habit of
undertaking far more work than any man single–handed could accomplish,
but getting it executed at a reduced rate by those whom he retained in
his employment. He appears to have kept them in food and clothing, and
to have been in the main exceedingly kind to many a struggling author,
who would not otherwise have obtained employment; but one cannot
approve of methods like these, which degrade the noble profession of
‘man of letters’ into that of a literary task–master. Dr. Carlyle gives
a description of Smollett’s relations to what ‘Jupiter’ called his
‘myrmidons,’ which, however, affords a somewhat one–sided picture of
the novelist’s methods, though the date is scarcely correct. Smollett,
although he had employed others to do his work for him when he found
it to be too onerous, did not really institute his ‘literary factory’
until well on in the ‘sixties’ of the eighteenth century, when his
health was beginning to fail. ‘Jupiter’ describes the ‘factory’ as in
full swing in 1758–59. But as the chatty old clerical gossip wrote
his Autobiography after his seventy–ninth year, and as many of his
dates with respect to other matters have been proved incorrect, we
may, without much injustice to the best of Scots unepiscopal bishops,
ascribe to the mental feebleness of age an error which otherwise would
affix a serious stigma on Smollett’s name. Though every _litterateur_
worth the name will reprobate such a blood–sucking method as literary
‘sweating,’ prosecuted though it has been by men to whom we owe so much
as Smollett and Dumas (to say nothing of at least one ‘popular’ author
in our own day who engages in the despicable practice), we would fain
believe, in the former’s case, that it resulted from failing strength,
and from the maddening consciousness of being obliged to leave his
wife, if he died, dependent on strangers.
But let us to ‘Jupiter’:[9] ‘Principal Robertson had never met Smollett
(though he had seen him at the Select Club), and was very desirous
of his acquaintance. By this time the Doctor had retired to Chelsea,
and came seldom to town. Home and I, however, found that he came once
a week to Forrest’s Coffee–house, and sometimes dined there; so we
managed an appointment with him on his day, when he agreed to dine with
us. He was now become a great man, and, being a humorist, was not to be
put out of his way. Home and Robertson and Smith and I met him there,
when he had several of his minions about him, to whom he prescribed
tasks of translation, compilation, or abridgment, which, after he
had seen, he recommended to the booksellers. We dined together, and
Smollett was very brilliant. Having to stay all night, that we might
spend the evening together, he only begged leave to withdraw for an
hour, that he might give audience to his myrmidons. We insisted that
if his business permitted, it should be in the room in which we sat.
The Doctor agreed, and the authors were introduced, to the number
of five, I think, most of whom were soon dismissed. He kept two,
however, to supper, whispering to us that he believed they would amuse
us, which they certainly did, for they were curious characters. We
passed a very pleasant and joyful evening. When we broke up, Robertson
expressed great surprise at Smollett’s polished and agreeable manners,
and the great urbanity of his conversation. He had imagined that a
man’s manners must bear a likeness to his books, and as Smollett had
described so well the characters of ruffians and profligates, that he
must of course resemble them.’
In addition to the pitiful lack of taste and good feeling in making
a raree–show of wretchedness, and holding up the misery of the
unfortunate authors to a curiosity that was worse than contempt,
the whole incident exhibits the characters of Smollett, Carlyle,
Robertson, and Home in an exceedingly unfavourable aspect—the
first–named as glorifying himself as the Mæcenas of starving Grub
Street quill–drivers, the others because they could entertain any other
feeling than that of sympathy for honest talent in tatters!
In June 1763, Smollett’s health and spirits became alike so
unsatisfactory that his medical adviser informed Mrs. Smollett that
change of air was the only chance for him. His sorrow was preying on
his vitality. As that was low enough at any time, the prospect was
grave indeed! Alas, poor Nancy! She pled with her obdurate husband for
many a week before he consented to wind up his numberless projects in
England and go abroad. His creditors also seem to have behaved with
commendable consideration. Perhaps the fact that a small legacy of
£1200 left to Mrs. Smollett by one of her relatives, and which, with
true wifelike generosity, she at once applied to the relief of her
unfortunate husband, may have facilitated matters. That he left England
with arrangements made whereby his ‘myrmidons’ were to forward their
‘copy’ to him, whithersoever he might be, goes without the saying.
The booksellers, also—Newbery, Baldwin, Dodsley, Cave (jr.), and
others—all exhibited a willingness to assist the man who had done so
much for them. But therein they did no more than their duty.
For nearly three years Smollett and his wife remained abroad,
travelling in France and Italy, but allocating a portion of every
day to the discharge of those tasks which kept the chariot rolling.
When he returned to England in 1766, he published, as the fruit of
his trip, _Travels through France and Italy: containing Observations
on Character, Customs, Religion, Government, Police, Commerce, Arts,
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 there_. In 2 vols. 8vo. The book
takes the form of letters written by Smollett to friends at home; and
in the first letter he remarks: ‘In gratifying your curiosity I shall
find some amusement to beguile the tedious hours, which without some
employment would be rendered insupportable by distemper and disquiet.’
The spirit wherein Smollett went on tour is perceptible in the
following passage: ‘I am traduced by malice, persecuted by faction, and
overwhelmed by the sense of a domestic calamity which it was not in the
power of fortune to repair.’
Travelling and brooding do not accord well together, if one is to
receive any pleasure from the scenes passed through. As Dr. Anderson
charitably puts it: ‘His letters afford a melancholy proof of the
influence of bodily pain over the best disposition.’ Letters written
under such circumstances should never have been published. In the
exquisite scenery through which he passed, in the objects of interest
in the galleries and museums, he appears only to have discovered
subjects whereupon his bitter, acidulous humour could expend
itself. Dr. Moore well observes: ‘Those who are disgusted with such
descriptions are not the only people to whom Smollett gave offence:
he exposed himself also to the reprehension of the whole class of
connoisseurs, the real as well as the far more numerous body of
pretenders to that science. For example, what is one to think of a man
who likened the snow–clad glories of the Alps to frosted sugar; who
said of the famous Venus de Medicis, that has awakened the admiration
of ages, “I cannot help thinking there is no beauty in the features
of Venus, and that the attitude is awkward and out of character”; and
who remarked of the Pantheon, “I was much disappointed at sight of the
Pantheon, which, after all that has been said of it, looks like a huge
cockpit open at the top”?’
The chastisement came, but from the one man who, of all others, should
have remained silent—a man whose whole life was a pitiful epitome
of those faults he sought to reprehend in Smollett—Laurence Sterne.
Jealousy, of course, was the motive. The author of _Tristram Shandy_
could never forgive the fact that the public preferred _Peregrine
Pickle_ to the prurient puerilities of Uncle Toby. Sterne did not take
into consideration, moreover, the state of Smollett’s health, and how
it would colour every estimate he formed of men, manners, and things.
The last in the world was the author of _Tristram Shandy_ to have sat
as moral or æsthetic critic on Smollett. How the mighty sledge–hammer
of contempt wielded by Sir Walter Scott crushed the unfeeling, though
far from radically ill–natured critic! Sterne wrote: ‘The learned
Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, from Paris to Rome, and so
on, but he set out with the spleen and the jaundice, and every object
he passed by was discoloured and distorted. He wrote an account of
them, but it was nothing but an account of his miserable feelings. I
met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon. He was just coming
out of it. “It is nothing but a huge cockpit,” said he. “I wish you had
said nothing worse of the Venus 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 popped upon Smelfungus again in 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
which each other eat, the Anthropophagi.” He had been flayed alive and
bedeviled, and worse used than Saint Bartholomew at every stage he had
come at. “I’ll tell it,” said Smelfungus, “to the world.” “You had
better tell it,” said I, “to your physician.”’ Now, though Smollett
deserved castigation for inflicting his miseries on the public and
ridiculing many of their most cherished ideals at a time when he was
mentally unfit to judge, the passage cited above is not the manner in
which such literary punishment should be given. Thereupon says Sir
Walter: ‘Be it said without offence to the memory of that witty and
elegant writer (Sterne), 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.”’
Alas! not long now was the worn tenement of the great novelist to hold
his fiery spirit. After 1766 the end was known to be only a question
of a year or two at most. Manfully and nobly did he receive the
intelligence. There was no repining at the hardness of his lot. ‘My
poor Nancy; let me make the best use of the time for her.’ Constant
rheumatism, and the pain arising from a neglected ulcer which had
developed into a chronic sore, had so drained his strength that there
was no recovering the lost ground. A premature break–up of the system,
rather than the positive disease of consumption, numbered his days.
Soon after returning home from the Continent, he repaired to Scotland
to visit his aged mother. Affecting in the last degree was that visit.
To both the knowledge was present that never more on earth would they
meet. The old lady, with that keen insight into the future which often
distinguishes the aged, said, ‘We’ll no’ be long parted, any way. If
you go first, I’ll be close on your heels: if I lead the way, ye’ll no’
be far behind me, I’m thinking.’ And so it proved. Though in Scotland
he enjoyed a partial restoration to health that cheered some of his
friends, his mother knew better. ‘The last flicker of the candle is aye
the brightest,’ she said. While in Scotland he visited, with his sister
Mrs. Telfer and his biographer Dr. Moore, the Smolletts of Bonhill,
where he received a warm welcome from his cousin, who pressed him to
stay there for some months and get his health thoroughly established.
But the treadmill in London was waiting for its victim. In the
beginning of 1767 he returned to London, having sojourned at Bath
for a time with Mrs. Smollett. Once more he was back tugging at the
oar, doing odd work for the _Critical Review_, compiling travels,
translating from French, Spanish, or Latin sundry books of merely
ephemeral interest. Then he contributed to the periodical literature of
the day—anything, in fact, to keep that wolf from the door which every
year seemed to approach nearer and yet nearer.
Only two more works of any moment was he to live to accomplish—one,
an indifferent production judged by his own high standard—the other,
like the dying cygnet’s song in Grecian fable—the greatest and the
last! In 1769 appeared _The History and Adventures of an Atom_, in 2
vols. 12mo. This is a politico–social satire, wherein are represented
the several leaders of political parties from 1754 till the dissolution
of Lord Chatham’s administration in 1762, but under the thin veil of
Japanese names. George III. was consumed with the fallacy that he
was the first statesman in the Europe of his day. His experiments
in diplomacy nearly brought Britain to ruin. Had he not bullied and
badgered the elder Pitt into resignation, America would have been
to–day an integral part of the Empire, which would have feared no
rival from pole to pole. But such was not to be. Besides, out of the
blundering of the honest but short–sighted monarch the liberties of
the English people were to be evolved. _The History of an Atom_ was
successful, but is to–day the portion of Smollett’s writings with which
we could most comfortably dispense. It is a satire, or intended for
such, but accommodates itself to none of the known rules of any school
of satiric writing. Neither to Swift, Arbuthnot, Steele, nor Butler
does it exhibit affinity.
Towards the middle of 1768 the fact became evident to all, that if
Smollett’s life was to be preserved, he must henceforth live far from
the bitter winters of England. To leave his fatherland he was not
sorry. Faction had embittered his existence during the past few years,
and faction was jealously to pursue him with its malice even to the
end. His only political friends neglected him who had fought so well
and indefatigably for them. The Earl of Bute with but little exertion
could have placed Smollett at once beyond the necessity of such killing
labour. But the Butes, then, were proverbially notorious for their
callousness and their ingratitude.
When the final verdict was given, Smollett endeavoured to obtain some
consulship abroad, that would have lessened his labours. He was still
dependent on his pen for daily bread. Almost despairingly he implored
even his political enemies to help him to some means whereby he might
demit some portion of his killing work. But his ‘noble’ friends were
all deaf. Lord Shelburne was applied to, but stated the consulships at
Nice and Leghorn were already promised to some of his own political
creatures. One man only stood his friend; one man only, and he an
opponent albeit a countryman, did his best for Smollett, but, alas!
unavailingly. All honour to David Hume the historian, then Under
Secretary of State! In the end the dying novelist was disappointed
at all points. He had to go abroad depending on the staff that had
supplied him with bread all through the long years until now—and which
alone would not now fail him—his pen!
Smollett left England in December 1768, and proceeded to Leghorn _via_
Lucca and Pisa. Here he settled at Monte Nova, a little township
situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea. Dr. Armstrong,
his friend and countryman, had secured for him a beautiful villa on the
outskirts of the village. Here he gradually grew weaker, but was tended
with the utmost devotion by his wife, and some of the English families
in the neighbourhood. Here, too, he penned the greatest of his novels,
the work that for its subtle insight into human nature, its keen and
incisive studies of character, its delightful humour, its matchless
_bonhomie_ and raciness, takes rank amidst the treasured classics of
our literature—the immortal _Humphrey Clinker_.
But with this exertion the feeble flame of the great novelist’s life
slowly flickered out. His work was done, and nobly done. He had carved
for himself an imperishable niche in the great Temple of Fame. His last
words were spoken to his wife—‘All is well, my dear;’ and on the 21st
October 1771, in the 52nd year of his age, Tobias George Smollett laid
down the burden of that life which had pressed so wearily upon him, and
passed—within the Silence!
He had the pleasure of seeing _Humphrey Clinker_ in its published form
a day or two before his death. When the public learned that the hand
which so often had delighted them in the past would now delight them
no more, a mournful interest was exhibited in his last work. Edition
after edition was exhausted. But what booted it to him, then, when the
strife and the anguish as well as the exultation born of success were
all over? ‘After labour cometh rest, and after strife the guerdon.’
Alas! too late the latter came to cheer him whose life had been one
long–drawn–out epic of anguish from the cradle to the grave!
Had Smollett lived four years longer, he would have inherited the
estate of Bonhill and an income of £1000 per annum, which in default of
him passed to Mrs. Telfer, his sister, and her heirs. O the irony of
fate! Alas! the thorn of apprehension which disturbed his dying pillow
proved too true a dread. His wife was left in Leghorn in dire penury,
until relieved by the charity of friends who were _not_ relatives, and
also by the proceeds of a theatrical performance given in her aid after
some years by Mr. Graham of Gartmore. An indelible stain is it upon
the Telfers and the Smolletts that they should have allowed the widow
of their most distinguished relative to die dependent on the charity
of strangers. But relatives are proverbially the hardest–hearted of
potential benefactors when the day of trouble comes. Poor “Narcissa”!
the lines of her life were not cast in pleasant places.
Smollett was interred in the English cemetery at Leghorn, with the blue
Mediterranean stretching in front of his last resting–place. Many are
the pilgrims that journey to his tomb, and as the years roll on they
increase rather than diminish. A plain monument was erected by his wife
over the remains, the Latin inscription on which was written by his
friend Dr. Armstrong, the poet. At Bonhill, a splendid obelisk, over
sixty feet high, was raised on the banks of the Leven, by his cousin
James Smollett (a few months before his own death), the inscription
being revised and corrected by Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Moore, as the friend of Smollett, has preserved for us the
appearance and portrait of the great novelist in the following
description: “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 by misfortune.
Free from vanity, Smollett had a considerable share of pride and great
sensibility; his passions were easily moved, and too 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. 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.”
Such being the character of the man, the key is obtained to the enigma
of Smollet’s lack of political and social success. He was of too
honest a nature to do the dirty work of the ‘Ministers’ of the time,
amongst whom independence of character was rated as a sin of the first
magnitude. But in the hearts of the admirers of his literary works,
Smollett will also live as one of the greatest of our countrymen—a man
whose virtues are yearly becoming recognised in their true light, as
readers realise he is one of the world’s great moral teachers, whose
lessons are communicated by exhibiting the naked hideousness of vice.
And so the star of his fame will shine more and yet more clearly unto
the perfect day!