About this time he translated Don Quixote; and although his version is still published, it is by no means true to the idiom of the language, nor to the higher purpose of Cervantes.
Passing by his Complete History of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages, we come to his History of England from the Descent of Julius Cæsar to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748. It is not a profound work; but it is so currently written, that, in lieu of better, the latter portion was taken to supplement Hume; as a work of less merit than either, that of Bissett was added in the later editions to supplement Smollett and Hume. For this history he is said to have received £2000.
In 1762 he issued The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, who, with his attendant, Captain Crowe, goes forth, in the style of Don Quixote and Sancho, to do the world. Smollett's forte was in the broadly humorous, and this is all that redeems this work from utter absurdity.
Humphrey Clinker.—His last work of any importance, and perhaps his best, is The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, described in a series of letters descriptive of this amusing imaginative journey. Mrs. Winifred, Tabitha, and, best of all, Lismahago, are rare characters, and in all respects, except its vulgarity, it was the prototype of Hood's exquisite Up the Rhine.
From the year 1756, Smollett edited, at intervals, various periodicals, and wrote what he thought very good poetry, now forgotten,—an Ode to Independence, after the Greek manner of strophe and antistrophe, not wanting in a noble spirit; and The Tears of Scotland, written on the occasion of the Duke of Cumberland's barbarities, in 1746, after the battle of Culloden:
Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valor long renowned,
Lie slaughtered on thy native ground.
Smollett died abroad on the 21st of October, 1771. His health entirely broken, he had gone to Italy, and taken a cottage near Leghorn: a slight resuscitation was the consequence, and he had something in prospect to live for: he was the heir-at-law to the estate of Bonhill, worth £1000 per annum; but the remorseless archer would not wait for his fortune.
Chapter XXVIII.
Sterne, Goldsmith, and Mackenzie.
[The Subjective School]. [Sterne]—[Sermons]. [Tristram Shandy]. [Sentimental Journey]. [Oliver Goldsmith]. [Poems]—[The Vicar]. [Histories, and Other Works]. [Mackenzie]. [The Man of Feeling].