SMOLLETT AS HISTORIAN AND CRITIC
A hundred and thirty years ago, if one had been asked to name the six
great historians then alive, Smollett with marked unanimity would have
been mentioned amongst the first. In fact, Hume, Robertson, and he were
then reckoned as the illustrious triumvirate of Scots whose genius,
in default of others native born, had been consecrated to the task of
lauding for bread and fame the annals of the land whose glories were
supposed to be to them so distasteful. The Union of the countries was
not yet sufficiently remote to have borne as its fruit that harvest
of commercial, political, and agricultural benefits that have accrued
to both lands as its result. The jealousy wherewith Scotsmen were
regarded in England was a legacy from the days when the subjugation of
the territory north of Tweed was a standing item in English foreign
policy, from the reign of that greatly misjudged monarch, Edward I.
(Longshanks), to the days of the fourth of his name, who recognised
the younger brother of James III., the exiled Duke of Albany, as
King of Scots under the title of Alexander IV., on condition that he
acknowledged Edward as lord paramount and feudal superior.
The school of historians represented by Rapin, Oldmixon, Tindal,
Carte, and Hooke, honest, hard–working investigators, but without any
sense of method or proportion in classifying or arranging materials,
and vigorous anti–Scots, was alarmed by the success attending the
publication of Hume’s _History of England_ in 1754–61, Principal
Robertson’s _History of Scotland_ in 1758–59, and Smollett’s _History
of England_ in 1758. When the Continuation by the last–named appeared
in 1762, it was exposed, as we have seen, to a perfect broadside of
misrepresentation and unjust reflections, prompted by the historians
above–named and their booksellers, whose literary property seemed to
them to be endangered. That some of the criticisms were just, and
founded upon the discovery of genuine errors and blemishes in the
history, cannot be denied. But, on the other hand, three–fourths of the
allegations were baseless, because proceeding from spleen, and not from
genuine enthusiasm in the cause of historic truth.
For example, the objections urged by the friends and supporters of
Rapin’s History were that Smollett was too hurried in his survey, that
he took too many facts on trust, that he was unfair in his critical
estimates of eminent personages, and finally, that his style was one
better adapted for the novel than for historical compositions. To these
allegations the friends of Oldmixon added that he permitted party
prejudice to colour all his judgments. In replying to such charges we
virtually analyse Smollett’s merits as a historian. A double duty is
therefore discharged by so doing.
Smollett as a historian might say with Horace, and assuredly with
truth, ‘_Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri_—a slavish disciple
of the tenets of no master am I.’ Though unstinted in his praise
of Hume’s calm, lucid survey, of his careful generalisations and
eminently comprehensive method, though likewise a generous admirer of
Robertson’s brilliant word–pictures and glowingly eloquent narrative,
wherein the long dead seemed to live again, he had his own ideal of
the writing of history, and it savoured rather of Tacitus than of
Thucydides. His method consisted in presenting a series of great
outstanding events covering the entire period under notice, and round
these to group the subordinate occurrences either resulting from or
happening contemporaneously with them. He was a firm believer in the
doctrine that political freedom and commercial honesty are the two
great bulwarks of any State. Though a Tory in name, he was in reality
more of a philosophical Whig, rather a champion of the rights of the
people than a lover and defender of aristocracies, oligarchies, and
monopolies. ‘That country only is truly prosperous that is in the
highest sense free, and that country alone is free where a hierarchy
of knowledge governs, uninfluenced by faction and undisturbed by
prejudice,’ he wrote in the _Critical Review_. The sentiments are
somewhat vague and indefinite, but they show that he was striving to
emancipate himself from the leading–strings of party prejudice.
Although the fact is beyond doubt that Smollett’s historical works
were written exceedingly rapidly, on the other hand, we must remember
that the rapidity of production merely applied to the mechanical work
of transcribing what had been already carefully thought out. Like Dr.
Johnson, Smollett was possessed of a most retentive memory. He rarely
committed any of his works to paper until he had thoroughly thought
them out in his mind, and had tested them over and over again in that
searching alembic. In neither case, therefore, was the _composition_
hurried. All that was done was to expedite its transcription.
Smollett’s historical judgments, in place of being hastily formed,
were the result of patient study and thought. On this point we have
the evidence of Wilkes, who, in one of his epigrams, more forcible
than delicate, remarked that Smollett travailed over the birth of his
historical judgments so much that he (Wilkes) had often to play the
part of the critical midwife.
The next charge, that Smollett was too prone to take his information at
second hand, cannot be altogether controverted, though it was not yet
the custom of historians to betake themselves to the MS. repositories
of the country for their materials. More mutual reliance was placed
by historians on each other’s _bonâ fides_ and faculty of critical
selection than seems to be the case now. But we have it on his own
assurance that he consulted over three hundred authorities for his
facts. That number may be small compared with those eight hundred names
which Buckle prints at the commencement of his noble and imperishable
_History of Civilisation in England_, but in Smollett’s day the number
of his references was considered phenomenal. He greatly surpassed Hume
in the range and appropriateness of his references, and rather prided
himself on the collateral evidences of facts which he was able to
adduce from his miscellaneous reading. That Smollett was consciously
unfair in his judgment of any character in his historical works cannot
be credited. He was too warm a friend of truth to be seduced into
wilfully distorting the plain and straightforward deductions from
ascertained facts. That he may have been misled I do not deny, that
his political predilections may have led him insensibly to colour
his judgments at times with the jaundice of partisanship, is quite
possible, yet that such was done deliberately, no student of Smollett’s
character for a moment will credit. Many of his political opponents
were castigated, it is true, so were many of his political friends;
but, on the other hand, the fact is to be taken into account that many
of his bitterest enemies obtained a just and impartial criticism from
Smollett when such was denied to them by many of the writers numbered
among their own friends. Finally, that his style was more adapted to
the treatment of imaginative themes than of sober historical narrative,
was a charge that might have some weight in the middle decades of last
century. It can have none now. No special style is distinctively to be
employed in historical composition. It affords scope for all. True it
is that Echard and his school, in the early decades of the eighteenth
century, contended that history should be written in a style of sober
commonplace altogether divested of ornament, as thereby the judgment
was not likely to be led astray. But such nonsensical reservations
have long since been relegated to the limbo of exploded theories,
and in historical composition the brilliancy of a Macaulay and of
an Alison finds a place as well as the sober sense of a Hallam or a
Stubbs; the picturesqueness of a Froude, as well as the earnest vigour
and tireless industry of a Freeman. Smollett’s style, so nervous,
pointed, and epigrammatic, so full of strength and beauty as well
as of scintillating sparkle, was somewhat of a surprise in his day.
Hume’s easy, flowing, pithy Saxon, and Robertson’s stately splendour,
had both carried the honours in historical composition to the grey
metropolis of the North. The fact that another Scot, albeit resident
in London, should repeat the success, and in some respects excel both,
was the most crushing blow the elder school of history had received.
Thenceforward we hear nothing of them. Rapin and Oldmixon slumbered
with the spiders on the remotest shelves of the great libraries. Their
day was past. A new school of British historians had arisen.
Smollett’s historical works, his _History of England_, his
_Continuation of the History of England_, his _Histories of France,
Italy, and Germany_, are characterised by the following sterling
qualities:—a felicity of method whereby the narrative flows on easily
and consecutively from beginning to end, and whereby, through its
division into chapters, representing definite epochs, one is able
to discover with ease any specific point that may be desired; an
exhibition of the principles whereon just and equitable government
should proceed, namely, that of a limited monarchy; a judicious
subordination of the less to the more important events in the
narrative; short, pithy, but eminently fair and appreciative criticisms
of all the more outstanding personages in the country under treatment,
and a convincing testimony borne to the axiom that only by national
virtue and the conservation of national honour can any nation either
reach greatness or retain it. If Smollett did not possess Hume’s power
of reaching back to first principles in tracing the evolution of a
country’s greatness, or Robertson’s stimulating eloquence that fired
the heart with noble sentiments, he had the virtue, scarcely less
valuable, of keeping more closely to his theme than either of them,
and of producing works that read like a romance. If Hume were the
superior in what may be styled the philosophy of history, if Robertson
in picturesqueness and eloquence, Smollett was the better narrator of
the circumstances and facts as they actually occurred. In many respects
he resembles Diderot, and the analogy is not lessened when we compare
the private lives of the two men. To Smollett history was only of value
insomuch as we are able to read the present by the key of the past,
and to influence the future by avoiding the mistakes of the past and
present. Smollett was a patriot in the broad catholic signification of
the word. He had no sympathy with the patriotism that is synonymous
with national or racial selfishness. More crimes have stained the
annals of humanity under the guise of patriotism than can be atoned
for by cycles of penitence. To Smollett the soul of patriotism was
summed up in sinking the name of Scot in the generic one of Briton,
and in endeavouring to stamp out that pitiful provincialism that
considered one’s love of country to be best manifested in perpetuating
quarrels whereon the mildew of centuries had settled. Smollett in his
historical works showed himself a truer patriot than that. Though a
leal–hearted Scot, he was likewise a magnanimous–spirited Briton, ready
to judge as he would wish to be judged. Writing of the Union of 1707,
he remarks in his Continuation: ‘The majority of both nations believed
that the treaty would produce violent convulsions, or, at best, prove
ineffectual. But we now see it has been attended with none of the
calamities that were prognosticated, that it quietly took effect, and
answered all the purposes for which it was intended. Hence we may learn
that many great difficulties are surmounted because they are not seen
by those who direct the execution of any great project; and that many
great schemes which theory deems impracticable will yet succeed in the
experiment.’
Some critics have urged that Smollett might have taken a broader view
of the sources and progress of national expansion and development.
Minto rather off–handedly designates his style as ‘fluent and loose,
possessing a careless vigour where the subject is naturally exciting,’
and concluding with the words, ‘the history _is said_ to be full
of errors and inconsistencies.’[11] Now, this last clause is taken
word for word from Chambers’s _Cyclopedia of English Literature_,
who took it from Angus’s _English Literature_, who borrowed it from
Macaulay, who annexed it from the _Edinburgh Review_, which journal had
originally adopted it with alterations from Smollett’s own prefatory
remarks in the first edition of the book. How many of these authors had
read the history for themselves, to see if it really contained such
errors and inconsistencies? Criticism conducted on that mutual–trust
principle is very convenient for the critic; is it quite fair to
the author? Now, anyone who faithfully reads Smollett’s _History of
England_ and its _Continuation_ will not discover a larger percentage
of either errors or inconsistencies than appear in the works of his
contemporary historians, Tytler, Hume, and Robertson. Smollett is as
distinguishingly fair and impartial as it was possible for one to be,
influenced so profoundly by his environment as were all the historians
of the eighteenth century. The mind of literary Europe was already
tinged by that spiritual unrest and moral callousness that was to
induce the new birth of the French Revolution.
As a literary critic, during his tenure of the editorial chair of
the _Critical Review_, Smollett’s judgments were frequently called
in question, especially in the case of Dr. Grainger, the translator
of _Tibullus_ and of the Greek dramatists, and author of the _Ode to
Solitude_; Shebbeare, a well–known political writer of the period,
whose seditious utterances had been chastised; Home, the author of
_Douglas_, and Wilkie of the _Epigoniad_. Now, in nearly all the cases
wherein exception was taken to the articles, these were not written by
Smollett. But even as regards those of his own composition that have
been complained of, careful perusal alike of the volume criticised
and of the critique evince Smollett to have been as just and fair
in the circumstances as he could well be. For example, the opinion
he formed of Churchill’s Poems was that in which the British public
within thirty years was to acquiesce,—nay, is that which to–day is the
prevailing literary verdict upon these once popular works. Smollett
unfortunately left his contributors a perfectly free hand. Many of
them were men of no principle, who permitted private grudges to colour
their critical estimate of literary works produced by those with whom
they had some quarrel or disagreement. Smollett was to blame for not
exercising his editorial scissors more freely on the verdicts of his
_collaborateurs_. His own opinions of current literature were expressed
with a fairness leaving little to be desired. Though not a Sainte Beuve
in critical appreciation of the work of others, though his verdicts
never possessed the keen spiritual and emotional insight of the famous
_Causeries du Lundi_ in the Paris _Constitutional_, still they are the
fair, honest, outspoken opinions of a man who, as Morton said of Knox,
‘never feared the face of man,’ and therefore would not be biassed by
favour or fear. Dr. Johnson was at the same time criticising literature
in his new _Literary Magazine_. Interesting it is to compare the two
opinions on the books they dealt with. Smollett’s style is well–nigh
as distinguishable as Johnson’s among his fellow–contributors. If the
decrees of ‘the Great Cham of Literature’[12] are more authoritative,
they are but little more incisive and searching than those of
the author of _Roderick Random_. The former had a more extensive
vocabulary, the latter was the more consummate literary critic. Wit,
humour, pathos, and epigram were all at the service of Smollett, and
though, in depth of thought and soaring sublimity of reasoning powers,
the author of the _Rambler_ excelled his contemporary, in the lighter
graces of style Smollett was the better of the two. Though he had not
Johnson’s Jove–like power of driving home a truth, he frequently
persuaded, by his calm and lucid logic, where the thunder of the Great
Cham only repelled. If blame be his, then, with regard to the exercise
of his critical authority, it was due more to sins of omission than of
commission, more to believing that others were actuated by the same
high ideals in criticism as himself. In reading some of the numbers
of the _Critical Review_ for the purposes of this biography, nothing
struck me more in those papers that were plainly from the pen of
Smollett, than the power he possessed of placing himself at the point
of view assumed by the writer of the work under criticism, so that he
might be thoroughly _en rapport_ with the author’s sympathies. How few
critics have either the inclination or the ability to do likewise!