Of the literary merits of the Satires more will be said anon. One quality in them may be noted here, however, and that was the absolute fearlessness wherewith Smollett attacked those in power. His sting was never sheathed out of dread of any man. None were exempt from the lash of his sarcasm, whose wrong–doings came to his knowledge. If the innocent sometimes were involved with the guilty in common condemnation, in most cases the reason was because they continued in association with the politically or morally depraved after being cognisant of their character.
The sensation created by these trenchant Satires was great. Literary London recognised that a new writer of great and varied powers had risen. The old generation was dying out. Swift, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Arbuthnot, Pope, were either dead or had ceased to write. Goldsmith had not yet appeared. Johnson alone held the field; but he was more of a moral censor than a satirist. There was really no satirist of surpassing ability tickling the palate of the public, which dearly loves censure—when directed against other people. The coarse, sledge–hammer caricature of Tom D’Urfey and Tom Brown, though still relished by a few, was gradually giving place to a more refined and incisive, but none the less vitriolic type, wherein Smollett was an acknowledged master. Advice and Reproof are readable yet for the pungency of the sarcasm, united to absolute truth as regards the facts adduced. One does not wonder at the popularity of these pieces. They are thoroughly ‘live’ epigrammatic productions, aglow with human interest, and palpitating with that vigorous, honest, healthy indignation against wrong which awakens a reciprocal feeling in one’s breast across the chasm of a hundred and fifty years. ‘Dost not fear the Government, Smollett’? said a timid friend to him after their publication. ‘Fear the Government?’ was the contemptuous reply of the other. ‘I might if I showed I dreaded them; but no man need fear a Government provided he does not show he fears it.’
During the publication of the second part of his Satires, Smollett was joined in London by the lady who became his wife. In 1747 they set up house, and for some months he enjoyed the luxury of his own fireside. Fate was not long to leave him unassailed, but long enough, at least, to give him a taste of that hymeneal heaven which follows the union of two loving hearts—long enough for him to have experienced the sentiments that found expression in the one love–poem he wrote, ‘Ode to Blue–Eyed Ann.’ Miss Anne or Nancy Lascelles cannot have been the unresponsive being some of Smollett’s biographers contend, in order to excuse their hero’s ungallant conduct in later years, when every other sentiment was sacrificed to ambition, otherwise she could not have inspired feelings so passionate as these—
‘When rolling seasons cease to change,
Inconstancy forget to range;
When lavish May no more shall bloom
Nor gardens yield a rich perfume;
When Nature from her sphere shall start,
I’ll tear my Nanny from my heart.’
Smollett seemed to have all an Irishman’s love of a quarrel. He never appeared happier than when he was ‘slangwhanging’ some unfortunate, though it is a hundred to one the fault was on his own side. To be ‘slangwhanged’ in return, however, was altogether another matter. Ridicule cut him to the raw. He had the idea that all the world should submit to his animadversions patiently and uncomplainingly. But if any dared to retaliate, instantly they were dubbed rogues, and fools, and blockheads. An instance of this occurred in his relations with Rich, the theatrical manager. The success of Advice had induced the latter to lend a favourable ear to Smollett’s proposal to write the libretto of an opera called Alceste, which would have been produced at Covent Garden, Handel being engaged to write the music for it. All went well, and the work was actually in rehearsal, when Rich made some suggestions to Smollett about altering one of the scenes. Immediately the peppery poet was on his dignity. He declined to alter a line. Thereupon Rich, preferring to quarrel with his author rather than offend the public, rejected the piece, to Smollett’s intense chagrin. In vain his friends begged of him to make some concession to Rich, who seems to have been exceedingly forbearing all through. The poet declined, and thus another chance of bettering his prospects was lost.
Handel, on hearing of the transaction, is reported to have remarked, ‘That Scotchman is ein tam fool; I vould have mate his vurk immortal,’ and immediately proceeded to alter the music so as to adapt it to Dryden’s ‘Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day.’ Verily Alceste would have been immortal if wedded to those noble harmonies. But it was not to be. The only result was the addition of another group of powerful social personages to his already long list of enemies, for of course Tobias could not refrain from lampooning Rich. ‘O the pity of it!’
CHAPTER V
RODERICK RANDOM