with her son. The better to support his assumed character, he endeavoured to preserve a serious countenance approaching to a frown; but, while his mother's eyes were rivetted on his countenance, he could not refrain from smiling. She immediately sprung from her chair, and throwing her arms around his neck, exclaimed, "Ah, my son! my son! I have found you at last." She afterwards told him that if he had kept his austere looks, and continued to gloom, he might have escaped detection some time longer; "but your old roguish smile," added she, "betrayed you at once." On this occasion Smollett visited his relations and native scenes in Dumbartonshire, and spent two days in Glasgow, amidst his boyish companions. Returning to England, he resumed his literary occupations. He unfortunately became editor of the Critical Review, and an attack in that journal on Admiral Knowles, one of the commanders at Carthagena (which Smollett acknowledged to be his composition), led to a trial for libel; and the author was sentenced to pay a fine of £100, and suffered three months imprisonment. He consoled himself by writing, in prison, his novel of Launcelot Greaves. Another proof of his fertility and industry as an author was afforded by his History of England, written, it is said, in fourteen months. He engaged in political discussion, for which he was ill qualified by temper, and, taking the unpopular side, he was completely vanquished by the truculent satire and abuse of Wilkes. His health was also shattered by close application to his studies, and by private misfortune. In his early days Smollett had married a young West Indian lady, Miss Lascelles, by whom he had a daughter. This only child died at the age of fifteen, and the disconsolate father tried to fly from his grief by a tour through France and Italy. He was absent two amidst gleams of humour and genius, is disfigured by the coarsest prejudices. Sterne has successfully ridiculed this work in his Sentimental Journey. Some of the critical dicta of Smollett are mere ebullitions of spleen. In the famous statue of the Venus de Medici, which enchants the world,' he could see no beauty of feature, and the attitude he considered awkward and out of character! The Pantheon at Rome-that glorious combination of beauty and magnificence' he said looked like a huge cock-pit, open at the top. Sterne said justly, that such declarations should have been reserved for his physician; they could only have sprung from bodily distemper. Yet, be it said,' remarks Sir Walter Scott, without offence to the memory of the witty and elegant 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 course of instruction in the grammar school of Dumbarton, and at the university of Glasgow, Tobias was placed apprentice to a medical prac-years, and published an account of his travels, which, titioner, Mr Gordon, Glasgow. He was nineteen when his term of apprenticeship expired, and, at this early age, his grandfather having died without making any provision for him, the young and sanguine adventurer proceeded to London, his chief dependence being a tragedy, called the Regicide, which he attempted to bring out at the theatres. Foiled in this effort of juvenile ambition, Smollett became surgeon's mate on board an eighty-gun ship, and was present at the ill-planned and disastrous expedition against Carthagena, which he has described with much force in his Roderick Random. He returned to England in 1746, published two satires, Advice and Reproof, and in 1748 gave to the world his novel of Roderick Random.' Peregrine Pickle appeared three years afterwards. Smollett next attempted to practise as a physician, but failed, and, taking a house at Chelsea, devoted himself to literature as a profession. Notwithstanding his facility of composition, his general information and talents, his life was one continual struggle for existence, embittered by personal quarrels, brought on partly by irritability of temper. In 1753, his romance of Ferdinand Count Fathom was published, and in 1755 his translation of Don Quixote. The version of Motteux is now generally preferred to that of our author, though the latter is marked by his characteristic humour and versatility of talent. After he had finished this task, Smollett paid a visit to his native country. His fame had gone before him, and his reception by the literati of Scotland was cordial and flattering. His filial tenderness and affection was also gratified by meeting with his surviving parent. On Smollett's arrival,' says Dr Moore, he was introduced to his mother, with the connivance of Mrs Telfer (his sister) as a gentleman from the West Indies, who was intimately acquainted like a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly.' The native air of the great novelist was more cheering and exhilarating than the genial gales of the south. On his return from Italy he repaired to Scotland, saw once more his affectionate mother, and sojourned a short time with his cousin, Mr Smollett of Bonhill, on the banks of the Leven. "The water of Leven,' he observes in his Humphry Clinker, though nothing near so considerable as the Clyde, is much more transparent, pastoral, 47 and delightful. This charming stream is the outlet of Loch Lomond, and through a track of four miles pursues its winding course over a bed of pebbles, till it joins the Firth of Clyde at Dumbarton. On this spot stands the castle formerly called Alcluyd, and washed by these two rivers on all sides except a narrow isthmus, which at every spring-tide is overflowed; the whole is a great curiosity, from the quality and form of the rock, as from the nature of its situation. A very little above the source of the Leven, on the lake, stands the house of Cameron, belonging to Mr Smollett (the late commissary), so embosomed in oak wood, that we did not perceive it till we were within fifty yards of the door. The lake approaches on one side to within six or seven yards of the windows. It might have been placed on a higher site, which would have afforded a more extensive prospect, and a drier atmosphere; but this imperfection is not chargeable on the present proprietor, who purchased it ready built, rather than be at the trouble of repairing his own family house of Bonhill, which stands two miles hence, on the Leven, so surrounded with plantations, that it used to be known by the name of the Mavis (or Thrush) Nest. Above the house is a romantic glen, or cleft of a mountain, covered with hanging woods, having at the bottom a stream of fine water, that forms a number of cascades in its descent to join the Leven, so that the scene is quite enchanting. I have seen the Lago di Gardi, Albano di Vico, Bolsena and Geneva, and I prefer Loch Lomond to them all-a preference which is certainly owing to the verdant islands that seem to float upon its surface, affording the most enchanting objects of repose to the excursive view. Nor are the banks destitute of beauties which can partake of the sublime. On this side they display a sweet variety of woodland, corn field, and pasture, with several agreeable villas, emerging as it were out of the lake, till at some distance the prospect terminates in huge mountains, covered with heath, which, being in the bloom, affords a very rich covering of purple. Everything here is romantic beyond imagination. This country is justly styled the Arcadia of Scotland; I do not doubt but it may vie with Arcadia in everything but climate. I am sure it excels it in verdure, wood, and water.' in a cottage which Dr Armstrong, then abroad, engaged for him in the neighbourhood of Leghorn. The warm and genial climate seems to have awakened his fancy, and breathed a temporary animation into his debilitated frame. He here wrote his Humphry Clinker, the most rich, varied, and agreeable of all his novels. Like Fielding, Smollett was destined to die in a foreign country. He had just committed his novel to the public, when he expired, on the 21st of October 1771, aged 51. Had he lived a few years longer, he would have inherited, as heir of entail, the estate of Bonhill, worth about £1000 a-year. His widow erected a plain monument over his remains at Leghorn, and his relations, who had neglected him in his days of suffering and distress, raised a cenotaph to his memory on the banks of the Leven. The prose works of Smollett will hereafter be noticed. He wrote no poem of any length; but it is evident he could have excelled in verse had he cultivated his talents, and enjoyed a life of greater ease and competence. Sir Walter Scott has praised the fine mythological commencement of his Ode; and few readers of taste or feeling are unacquainted with his lines on Leven Water, the picturesque scene of his early days. The latter were first published in Humphry Clinker,' after the above prose description of the same landscape, scarcely less poetical. When soured by misfortune, by party conflicts, and the wasting effects of disease, the generous heart and warm sensibilities of Smollett seem to have kindled at the recollection of his youth, and at the rural life and manners of his native country. Ode to Independence. Strophe. Thy spirit, Independence, let me share, Antistrophe. All who have traversed the banks of the Leven, The Saxon prince in horror fled, The curlew screamed, the tritons blew The light he saw in Albion's happy plains, He flourished bold and sinewy as his sire; Antistrophe. Accomplished thus, he winged his way, And warm with patriot thought the aspiring soul. Those spires that gild the Adriatic wave, Fair Freedom's temple, where he marked her grave. Won from the skirts of Neptune's wide domain. Which ascertained the sacred rights of man. Strophe. Arabia's scorching sands he crossed, To Freedom's adamantine shrine; And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast! He snatched from under fell Oppression's wing, Ne'er paid that homage which my heart denies. Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread, In Fortune's car behold that minion ride, Antistrophe. Nature I'll court in her sequestered haunts, Ode to Leven-Water. On Leven's banks, while free to rove, I envied not the happiest swain Pure stream, in whose transparent wave Still on thy banks so gaily green, The Tears of Scotland. [Written on the barbarities committed in the Highlands by order of the Duke of Cumberland, after the battle of Culloden, 1746. Smollett was then a surgeon's mate, newly returned from service abroad. It is said that he originally finished the poem in six stanzas; when, some one representing that such a diatribe against government might injure his prospects, he sat down and added the still more pointed invective of the seventh stanza.] Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn The wretched owner sees afar What boots it, then, in every clime, The rural pipe and merry lay No more shall cheer the happy day: JOHN ARMSTRONG. JOHN ARMSTRONG, the friend of Thomson, of Mallet, Wilkes, and other public and literary characters of that period, is now only known as the author of a didactic poem, the Art of Preserving Health, which is but little read. Armstrong was son of the minister of Castleton, a pastoral parish in Roxburghshire. He studied medicine in Edinburgh, and took his degree of M.D. in 1732. He repaired to London, and became known by the publication of several fugitive pieces and medical essays. A very objectionable poem, the Economy of Love, gave promise of poetical powers, but marred his practice as a physician. In 1744 appeared his *Art of Preserving Health,' which was followed by two other poems, Benevolence and Taste, and a volume of prose essays, the latter indifferent enough. In 1760 he was appointed physician to the forces in Germany; and on the peace in 1763, he returned to London, where he practised, but with little success, till his death, September 7, 1779, in the 70th year of his age. Armstrong seems to have been an indolent and splenetic, but kind-hearted manshrewd, caustic, and careful (he left £3000, saved out of a small income), yet warmly attached to his friends. His portrait in the 'Castle of Indolence' is in Thomson's happiest manner :- With him was sometimes joined in silent walk To groves of pine and broad o'ershadowing oak; Nor ever uttered word, save when first shone Warton has praised the Art of Preserving Health' for its classical correctness and closeness of style, and its numberless poetical images. In general, however, it is stiff and laboured, with occasional passages of tumid extravagance; and the images are not unfrequently echoes of those of Thomson and other poets. The subject required the aid of ornament, for scientific rules are in general bad themes for poetry, and few men are ignorant of the true philosophy of life, however they may deviate from it in practice. That health is to be preserved by temperance, exercise, and cheerful recreation, is a truth familiar to all from infancy. Armstrong, however, was no ascetic philosopher. His motto is, take the good the gods provide you,' but take it in moderation. When you smooth The brows of care, indulge your festive vein But most too passive, when the blood runs low, Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves A pleasing phrenzy buoys the lightened soul, But soon your heaven is gone: a heavier gloom All who have witnessed or felt the inspiriting effects Our fathers talked Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene: Now, the fact we believe is, that in this country there are more good days in the year than in any other country in Europe. A few extracts from the Art of Preserving Health' are subjoined. The ast, which is certainly the most energetic passage the whole poem, describes the 'sweating sickness' which scourged England Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field. Is the second, Armstrong introduces an apostrophe to his native stream, which perhaps suggested the re felicitous ode of Smollett to Leven Water. It at unworthy of remark, that the poet entirely overlooks the store of romantic association and baad-poetry pertaining to Liddisdale, which a mightier than he, in the next age, brought so procatly before the notice of the world. [Wrecks and Mutations of Time.] [Recommendation of Angling.] But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale The eager trout, and with the slender line The struggling panting prey, while vernal clouds And from the deeps called forth the wanton swarms. [Pestilence of the Fifteenth Century.] Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field; First through the shoulders, or whatever part What does not fade? The tower that long had stood The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil, by the slow but sure destroyer Time, Yangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base, And finty pyramids and walls of brass wed. The Babylonian spires are sunk; I the great Father, through the lifeless gloom, Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain, The restless arteries with rapid blood Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly At last a heavy pain oppressed the head, |