closely followed however by The Tears of Scotland, the spirited protest of a Scot against England's celebration of Culloden, which was almost certainly published in a separate form during the summer of 1746, though we first know it in A Collection of the most esteemed pieces of Poetry that have appeared for several years (London, 1767, 12mo).

Among the other poems we notice the well turned tetrameters of the song

"To fix her, 'twere a task as vain
To combat April drops of rain.”

It is followed by the Burlesque Ode, a savage parody upon Lyttelton's Monody upon the death of his wife-written in 1747, when the good lord's indifferent attitude towards Smollett's firstborn tragedy was still rankling; atoned for fifteen years later, when in the survey of the liberal arts in the Continuation of the Compleat History of England, among other glories of the second George's reign, the partial historian pointed to "the delicate taste, the polished muse and the tender feelings of a Lyttelton." The didactic Odes to Mirth and Sleep are of little account, and it is mainly a personal interest which attaches to the Ode to Blue Eyed Anne, written before 1747, when Smollett married his "Nancy," the daughter of a Jamaica sugar-planter named Lascelles. The fine Ode to Independence was written during Smollett's later years, and not published until after his death. Robert and Andrew Foulis of Glasgow printed it in quarto in 1773, with the title: Ode to Independence, by the late T. Smollett, M.D., with Notes and Observations. It was reprinted both in Glasgow and London. Smollett "strung his harp anew" in 1766 to produce the admirable Ode to Leven Water, which is introduced in the second volume of Humphrey Clinker. The poems, most of which had probably appeared separately, either in magazine or leaflet form, were collected in Plays and Poems written by Tobias Smollett, with memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Author (London, 1777, 8mo).

Of Smollett's two plays, The Regicide, or James the First of Scotland: A Tragedy, after a short spell of travel and adventure, followed by a long period of retirement, was dragged from its unhonoured tomb by the successful"author of Roderick Random” and “printed by subscription for the benefit of the author" in 1749 (price five shillings). In the preface to the first edition, Smollett bitterly complains of the usage this great unknown masterpiece had received at the hands of actors, managers and others-Lyttelton for instance. The British Museum copy is significantly bound up with the tragic masterpieces of Lillo, Cibber and William Shirley. His other play was produced and printed some eight years later as The Reprisal: or the Tars of Old England. A Comedy of Two Acts as performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (London, 1757, 8mo). In writing of it to Garrick, the author spoke of it more

truthfully as a farce; it was indeed a patriotic gallery piece, the success of which was fairly attested by numerous revivals.1

After the plays we have printed the curious sixpenny Narrative (1752) in which, under the impression that he was the aggrieved party, Smollett does his best to bespatter his great rival Fielding; and then comes a document of some historical value, as being the work of an eye witness: An Account of the Expedition against Carthagene in the West Indies, besieged by the English in the year 1741, with "a plan of the harbour of Carthagena," first published in the fifth volume of Smollett's Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages digested in a chronological series (London, 1756, 12m0; reprinted 1766).

This brings us to Smollett's astounding essay in the department of political satire-The History and Adventures of an Atom, by Nathaniel Peacock [i.e. Tobias Smollett]-published in London in two duodecimo volumes ("price five shillings, sewed; six shillings, bound") during the spring of 1769, though it bears the delusive date, 1749. That this postLaputan satire did not altogether fail of its effect may perhaps be deduced from the fact that it was reissued separately in the course of 1769 and again in 1778, 1784 and 1786. In order to escape the "plague of prosecution," "Nathaniel Peacock" took the precaution of placing the channel betwixt himself and the Government of Great Britain before the actual appearance of the two volumes in March. "The folly of the multitude and the knavery of pretenders to patriotism," said the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1769, “are ridiculed in this little work with great spirit and humour; but there is a mixture of indelicacy and indecency, which, though it cannot gratify the lowest imagination, can scarce fail to disgust the coarsest." 2

1 At the first performance at Drury Lane on January 22, 1757, Richard Yates was Oclabber; Johnston, Maclaymore; Usher, Heartley; and Palmer, Brush. It was revived in 1763, and also given in Edinburgh and the provinces. At Drury Lane on April 1, 1771, Robert Baddeley of "cake" notoriety played Champignon, with Moody as Oclabber. On October 21, 1777, it was first given at Covent Garden, with Quick as Block and Wewitzer as Champignon. On April 24, 1793, at the same house, Macready the elder played Oclabber, while Fawcett was Brush; and on April 23, 1801, also at Covent Garden, the great Joseph Munden condescended to the part of Ben Block.

2 It must be admitted that as a votary of the nymph Cloacina Smollett has had few, if any, rivals in the realms of English literature. To the "Cloacinean" materials collected by the industry of Sir John Harington he could easily have added corroborative detail sufficient for a fresh Metamorphosis of Ajax. No less characteristic of the author of the Travels and the future creator of Humphrey Clinker are the digressory dissertations on trunk-hose (p. 273), on magic (p. 326), on surnames (p. 347), and on the etiquette of kicking and being kicked (p. 378). Of Smollett's learned dogmatism no better example could be given than his remarks upon historians on pp. 263-4.

The Monthly Review concurs with the Gentleman's Magazine in taking the somewhat singular view that the satire is not "pernicious" in its influence, because it is so thoroughly "disgusting"; but qualified though it be by much nastiness and obscenity, the Monthly fully admits the spirit, humour, and satirical power of the piece.1

The Critical Review as might be expected is more lavish in laudatory phrases, though when it goes on to describe the satire as “uniting the happy extravagance of Rabelais to the splendid humour of Swift," one may perhaps be permitted to suspect that it is allowing its judgement to be influenced in some degree by a spirit of loyalty to a former editor. Rude and coarse the lampoon admittedly was; yet it passed (as we have seen) through five editions in less than a score years, and the receipts from it must have nobly answered Smollett's immediate purpose in providing the funds for that second journey to the South of Europe which the state of his health rendered necessary. During the eclipse of Smollett's fame which set in during the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century, the Adventures of an Atom, like the Travels through France and Italy, fell into an unmerited neglect; its original reputation sank into a twilight obscurity. From this state it well deserves to be rescued, whether we consider its historical and documentary interest or its literary value, as a peculiar type of political satire.

In a man whose frankness of speech had already led to a term of imprisonment, one cannot but admire the amazing boldness with which Smollett launches his diatribes against the conspicuous magnates of the period. The chief objects of his railing are the Hanoverian policy of George II ("Got-hama-baba"), the undignified wire-pulling and chicanery of Newcastle ("Fika-kaka”), and the transcendental egotism of the elder William Pitt ("Orator Taycho"). But the extremely unflattering portrait of his old patron, Lord Bute (“Yak Strot"), shows that Smollett's emancipation from the shackles of political partizanship was singularly complete. He attacks many

of the prominent military and naval commanders of the day under the most transparent disguises. He depicts the fickleness of the sovereign London mob in a succession of figures so offensive that even Swift might have' shrunk from them, and he distributes the scourings of his contempt with an even handed impartiality between the two great historical parties (the "Shits" and the "Sheits”).

1 Both Monthly and Critical give copious extracts.

The Dairo, or King of Japan, is represented as being degraded by a kind of fetishism, the mysteries of Kio, or Fakku-basi, the ritual of the White Horse, a superstition which causes the kings of his dynasty to prefer the dirty little farm of Yesso (Hanover) above all the empire of Japan.

Among the flings at Lord Bute is one in which the author describes him as a Maecenas seeking out obscure merit upon his succession to office in order to reward it according to its deserts. This affords a fine opportunity for a hit at his successful competitors in the scramble for a government pension. “All his researches proved so unsuccessful that not above four or five men of genius could be found in the whole empire of Japan (England), and these were gratified with pensions of about 100 obans each. One was a secularized bonze from Ximo (John Home), another a malcontent poet of Niphon (Dr. Johnson), a third a reformed comedian of Xicoco (Thomas Sheridan), a fourth an empyric who had outlived his practice (this could scarcely be Kennicot), and a fifth a decayed apothecary who was bard, quack, author, chemist, philosopher, and simpler by profession (Shebbeare). The portrait of Pitt as the "Orator Taycho," a demagogue of the calibre of Cleon,1 whose skill in humouring the brute-beast legion (the mob), is only equalled by the prodigious good luck which attends the craziest of his foreign adventures is well balanced by the savage delineation of the unscrupulous Brut-an-tiffi (Frederic the Great) - both portraits being equally far removed from the conventional outlines of history and biography, though neither of them seem to have appeared so extravagant to contemporaries as they do to us. Smollett was, perhaps, right in as far as many of Pitt's greatest effects were to a large extent undesigned. An attack was planned upon Martinique, and resulted in the capture of Guadeloupe (p. 356). Chatham aimed at shattering the French power in distant corners of the globe, but the decisive blow was of necessity aimed at a vital part. It was Hawke's great victory in Quiberon Bay, on November 20, 1759, which was, as Mahan points out, the Trafalgar of the war, and which inevitably involved the ultimate loss of France's early colonial empire. And fully abreast with its importance was the brilliance of this achievement, for nothing could have surpassed the daring with which the British admiral forced his way into a harbour "lined with reefs, which the navigator rarely sees without fright and never passes without emotion." Chatham was, nevertheless, in Smollett's despite, what Dr. Johnson called him in 1778, a "dictator”: he possessed the power of putting the State in motion; he was the chooser of instruments, the enforcer of the victorious maxim, "Go for the enemy wherever you can find him." He was, in fact, if not the organizer of victory, the "animatore,” the inspirer of England's most honourable war. Smollett's remarkable portrait of the "freebooter" Frederic (p. 298) is more impartial, and in some respects could hardly be bettered; though it certainly errs as to

1 Of Cleon, at any rate, as depicted by Thucydides, and as popularly conceived. See pp. 294, 366.

the measureless character of Frederic's ambition. Having judged the possession of Silesia to be essential to the welfare of his country, Frederic simply seized it by an act of rapine, and his subsequent ambition was confined to retaining it by main force. This he succeeded in doing, thereby in the eyes of history both justifying his deed and proving that his ambition was of an essentially manageable character. But Smollett saw all these transactions with the vision, not of history, but of local prejudice, and it must be conceded that what he saw he tried to depict without fear or favour and with a terseness and a trenchancy that deserve unqualified praise. The frankness of the author's comments upon the tragedy of Admiral Byng (“Bihn Goh"), or upon the imbecility of his old enemy, Admiral Knowles ("Seluon"), upon the brutality of Cumberland ("Fatzman Quamba-cun-dono "), the heartlessness of Mansfield (Mura-clami), or the incompetence of Anson ("Ninkom-poo-po"), are no less worthy of our admiration. Yet he has no faith in the opposition, and his contempt for Bedford (Gottomio), and his faction is not more whole-hearted than that with which he regards John Wilkes (Jan-ki-Dtzin). Smollett is clearly a political Ishmael, who has severed his ties with all parties, and regards them all alike with the sour impartiality and clear-eyed contempt of a worn out and embittered pamphleteer.

Making the necessary deductions, the satire is full of historical interest, but this interest is obviously dependent in a large degree upon the possession of a fairly full and accurate key to the characters. This we are now able, it is believed, for the first time to supply, although a few of the lesser characters still remain unidentified and a considerable amount of work remains to be done in elucidating some minor obscurities.1

As in the previous case of volume XI, containing the Travels,' all the pieces in volume XII have been collated with the original editions, and especial care has been taken to try and provide a satisfactory text of

1 A number of the characters it is true were identified in a cautious way by contemporary critics, from whom few of the innuendoes could have been hid. A rough key was also printed by William Davis in his Second Journey round the Library of a Bibliomaniac (1825), but this is very incomplete and still more inexact. The labour of evolving the key appended to the present reprint has been great, more especially in view of the neglect with which the military history of the period has been treated by modern historians. Of contemporary accounts the details of the various campaigns in the Annual Registers have been most useful. With these may be compared The General History of the Late War, by John Entick (5 vols. 1763, 4th ed. corrected 1779).

2 Readers interested in the Travels are referred to some critical observations on this work by the present writer, supplementing the Bibliographical Note" prefixed to vol. XI in the Cornhill Magazine, August, 1901.