A testimony so independent as this from Home possesses the highest value. To the virtues and excellences of a much misunderstood man it offers a tardy but valuable vindication.
Of Smollett, David Hume, who met him somewhat later in life, said: ‘He is like the cocoa–nut, the outside is the worst part of him.’
CHAPTER VI
PEREGRINE PICKLE AND FERDINAND COUNT FATHOM—DOCTOR OF PHYSIC
Both during his stay in Paris, and on his return, Smollett had been working steadily at his new novel, which he had called The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. The title of all his books affords a clue to their character. Incident—vigorous, well described incident, lively, incessant, exhaustless—such was the ‘mode’ of fiction our author had determined to make his own. Hence the titles of his works—The Adventures of Roderick Random, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker—are genuinely descriptive of his style of writing. He had no patience for the slow analysis of character, or the exhibition of wire–drawn sentiments. His novels were always on the boil. There was no cooling down of the interest permitted, even for a moment. No sooner was the hero done with one incident than another was hard on its trail to overtake him. Ennui and dullness have a bad time of it while one of Smollett’s novels is in course of perusal.
In 1750, acting upon the urgent solicitations of his wife, he made a last attempt to establish himself as a physician. Mrs. Smollett did not exactly appreciate a husband who had no profession. Poor Nancy does not seem to have been a very suitable yokefellow for our busy litterateur. She had no reverence for literature as such, or for its professors. She had all a woman’s desire for social distinction. But in order to take any position in that society after which this poor little Eve of the eighteenth century panted as eagerly as those of the nineteenth, an indispensable desideratum was that her husband should belong to one of the recognised professions, even although it might be only ‘something in the City’! To hope to settle in London was out of the question. That had been already tried, and had failed. Perhaps the good folks of the city of King Bladud might be more amenable to the recommendations of Dr. Smollett’s skill. Therefore Smollett resolved to settle at Bath, and see whether he could gain a living as a doctor at the great eighteenth century Spa.
Before this project could be put into practice, however, medical etiquette demanded he should take a physician’s degree. Hitherto he only had secured a surgeon’s certificate, and that was of little service at Bath. Accordingly, he proceeded to take his degree of M.D., and thereafter had a right to sign himself ‘Dr. Smollett.’ Considerable doubt existed formerly regarding the University whence our author obtained his diploma. Even so late as in Dr. Anderson’s time (1805–1820, the dates of the editions of his book), the question had not been decided. The statement in his Life of Smollett that his diploma was probably obtained from some foreign University, and that ‘the researches which have hitherto been made in the lists of graduates in the Scottish Universities, have not discovered his name,’ led investigators to every other quarter but the right one. All the registers of the foreign medical schools were ransacked in vain. To Sir Walter Scott must be ascribed the honour of settling the matter once for all, by proving that Smollett was a medical graduate of Aberdeen. Let Sir Walter speak for himself. He says: ‘The late ingenious artist, Mr. H. W. Williams of Edinburgh, tells us in his Travels, that a friend of his had seen in 1816, at Leghorn, the diploma of Smollett’s doctorate, and that it was an Aberdeen one. The present editor thought it worth while to inquire into this, and Professor Cruikshank has politely forwarded a certificated copy of the diploma, which was granted by the Marischal College of Aberdeen in 1750.’ Accordingly, therefore, for a year or two at least, we must picture the author of Roderick Random feeling the pulses and examining the tongues of patients who, in many cases, were mere valetudinarians, or, on the other hand, feigned themselves ill that they might have an excuse for visiting the gay city of Bath. With that irritating class of patients Smollett would have no patience. He would brusquely expose their petty deceit; and in one case, at least, informed a lady that ‘if she had time to play at being ill, he had not time to play at curing her.’ Such a physician was like a wild buffalo let loose over the conventional parterres of the sentimental femininity of both sexes. He simply gored with his rude satire the pleasant fictions of lusty but lazy invalids, or scattered to the winds the fond delusions of hypochondriacs, in whom too much old port and high living had induced the demons of dyspepsia. Little wonder is it, then, that Smollett as a physician was as supreme a failure as Oliver Goldsmith. Within two years we find him back in London, cursing his folly in ever having been induced to try an experiment that was doomed to failure from the very outset. Alas, poor little Mrs. Smollett! her dreams of social importance were rudely dispelled. From a brief experience of playing ‘the doctor’s dame’ among the good folks of Bath, she had ignominiously to return to London and sink into the obscurity of a lady who cannot even aspire to the credit of having a husband who is ‘something in the City.’ In ‘Narcissa’s’ eyes—for there is little doubt that the character of Narcissa in Roderick Random was at least suggested by his wife—her husband’s literary work was worse than degrading. In common with many others of her time, she deemed ‘a man of letters’ to be synonymous with a gentleman who spent one–half his time in the Fleet or the Marshalsea for debt, and the other half in dodging bailiffs from post to pillar for the privilege of enjoying God’s sunshine without the walls of a jail.
One piece of work Smollett accomplished before he left Bath. He published a short treatise on the mineral waters of the place under the title, An Essay on the External Use of Water, in a letter to Dr.——, with Particular Remarks on the Present Method of Using the Mineral Waters at Bath in Somersetshire, and a Plan for rendering them more Safe, Agreeable, and Efficacious (4to, 1752). The book is full of sound maxims for the preservation of health. But here and there he cannot resist girding at those who visited the place for no other purpose than to participate in its gaieties, and whose ailments were as fictitious as in many cases was their social standing. This was, of course, a hit at the crowds of sharpers and adventurers of all sorts, male and female, that frequented Bath during its palmy days last century.