Smollett

Smollett, TOBIAS GEORGE, the younger grandson of a Scotch legal laird, was born at Dalquhurn, Dumbartonshire, in 1721, and brought up, amidst some hardships, for the medical profession. His grandfather, dying, left him penniless at the age of eighteen, and he came up to London with his tragedy The Regicide, but took the post of surgeon's mate in the navy, serving until 1746, when he resolved to seek a livelihood in literature. His first ventures, Advice and Reproof, two satirical poems, found a publisher, but his plays were rejected, and he and his wife, a dowerless West Indian girl, were reduced to cruel straits. Under these circumstances he wrote Roderick Random, which appeared in 1748, and at once brought its author into note, being full of the rollicking, somewhat cynical, humour then in vogue through Fielding's masterpieces. Peregrine Pickle followed three years later, and proved an equal success, though inferior as a literary production. Ferdinand, Count Fathom, a repulsive but more cleverly-constructed story, was published in 1753, and then for a time Smollett contented himself with hack-work, such as his translation of Don Quixote, his Compendium of Voyages, History of England, and Present State of All Nations. He engaged, too, in political controversy on the Tory side, and produced The Reprisals, a farce intended to stimulate hostility towards France. His health now broke down just as he had returned to romance in Sir Lancelot Greaves, and in 1763 he went abroad, coming back to publish his travels in 1766. The Adventures of an Atom, inspired by disappointed hopes, was produced in 1769, when his state compelled him to seek a change at Monte Novo, near Leghorn. Here in his sick room he composed Humphrey Clinker, in many respects his most attractive novel, and here he died in October, 1771.