We must note here, however, in disproof of that jealousy of contemporaries which has been laid to his charge, the following generous estimate of those who were his collaborateurs in some respects, his rivals in others. In the Continuation he thus repairs the hasty judgments of immature years: ‘Akenside and Armstrong excelled in didactic poetry. Candidates for literary fame appeared even in the higher sphere of life, embellished by the nervous style, superior sense, and extensive erudition of a Coke, by the delicate taste, the polished muse, and tender feelings of a Lyttleton. There are also the learned and elegant Robertson, and, above all, the ingenious, penetrating, and comprehensive Hume, whom we rank among the first writers of the age, both as a historian and a philosopher. Johnson, inferior to none in philosophy, philology, poetry, and classical learning, stands foremost as an essayist, justly admired for the dignity, strength, and variety of his style, as well as for the agreeable manner in which he investigates the human heart, tracing every interesting emotion, and opening all the sources of morality!’ And this was the man whom his political opponents accused of never speaking of a man save to depreciate him.
We reach now a period in Smollett’s career which must always give pain to those that are lovers of his genius. Hitherto, though dabbling in politics, and though editing, professedly on the Tory and High Church side, the Critical Review, his sympathies had been so predominatingly literary that he was able to maintain the friendliest of relations with prominent politicians on the Whig side, notably with John Wilkes. Now, in an evil hour, he was prevailed upon to accept a brief on the Tory side by assuming the editorship of the new weekly paper, The Briton, founded for the express purpose of defending the Earl of Bute. That nobleman, who owed his advancement to the favour wherewith he was regarded by George iii.(recently come to the throne), was, on the 29th May 1762, appointed First Lord of the Treasury, and assumed the management of public affairs. Although an able, honourable, and indefatigable Minister, he lacked experience in the discharge of public duties. Besides, the nation was still strongly Whig in its political inclinations. For the monarch, by an arbitrary exercise of his prerogative, thus to override the sentiments of his people and to dismiss their chosen representatives, was both a high–handed and a foolish action. More foolish still was Lord Bute that he permitted himself thus to be made a tool to gratify the king’s jealousy. The consequence was, that the appointment was received all over England with a storm of indignation, and no Ministry was ever more unpopular than that whereof the Earl of Bute was chief.
To stem the tide of adverse criticism, and endeavour to win Englishmen to view more favourably the advent of Lord Bute to power, The Briton was started, and Smollett was chosen as editor, inasmuch as his was the keenest pen on the Tory side. On hearing of the appointment of his friend to the post, John Wilkes, with a generosity that was quite in keeping with many of the actions of that strangely constituted man, remarked that ‘Lord Bute, after having distributed among his adherents all the places under Government, was determined to monopolise the wit also.’ A few days subsequent, the Whigs proposed that, to encounter The Briton, which had gone off with a great flourish of trumpets, as well as with some very bitter political writing, Mr. Wilkes should publish a paper, to be called ‘The Englishman.’ He agreed to the proposal, except that he did not adopt the title recommended, but chose another, that of The North Briton—the first number of which appeared on the 5th June 1762, or exactly a week after The Briton.
Wilkes exhibited great forbearance towards Smollett at the outset. The good–natured demagogue, it is believed, would have been content, like many another pair of friends, to fight strenuously for principles, and avoid personalities; or, if that were impossible, to confine their antagonism to the press alone, leaving the intercourse of friendship unimpaired. But Smollett was not of the stuff whereof great journalists are made. One of the prime qualities is that they should belong to the genus of literary pachydermata. Smollett was not so. He was sensitive to a degree. He imagined slights and insults where none were intended. Within a few days, therefore, of the issue of The North Briton, Smollett took umbrage at something said about The Briton, and retorted angrily with some personalities on Wilkes. Even then the latter would have passed over the ill–natured jibes with a jest. This, however, maddened Smollett more than aught else. He believed Wilkes despised him as an assailant. From that day Smollett devoted himself to the most unsparing personal castigation of Wilkes. The demagogue replied, and presently the two that had been such warm friends could not find terms bitter enough to hurl at one another.
But Smollett was not a match for Wilkes. The former was scrupulously careful in alleging nothing against his opponent but what he could prove. The latter fought with characteristic unscrupulousness. A matter of no moment to him was it whether a charge were true or false, provided it served the purpose of galling his adversary. Wilkes was absolutely impervious to abuse and vilification. He gloried in his indifference to all social restrictions and customs. The publication to the world of his debaucheries and lack of principle only extorted a horse–laugh from him. With all his generosity and faithful devotion to the cause of popular freedom, Wilkes was a man of absolutely no principle. He sneered at his family relations, was one of Sir Francis Dashwood’s Medmenham ‘Cistercians,’ who sought to outbid the ‘Hellfire’ and ‘Devil’s Own’ Clubs in abandoned wickedness and impiety. And yet this was the man who was capable of the most splendid sacrifice in the cause of national liberty. His abilities would have carried him to fame in any career. M. Louis Blanc states that many of his sayings are still repeated and admired in France as are those of Sydney Smith among us. Mr. J. Bowles Daly[8] relates that his wit was so constantly at his command, that wagers have been gained that from the time he quitted his house till he reached Guildhall, no one could address him or leave him without a smile or a hearty laugh. His bright conversation charmed away the prejudice of such a Tory as Dr. Johnson, fascinated Hannah More, and won over the gloomy Lord Mansfield, who said, ‘Mr. Wilkes is the pleasantest companion, the politest gentleman, and the best scholar I know.’
This, then, was the man who was selected to do battle with Smollett and to demolish the Ministry of Lord Bute. Certainly the latter had given Wilkes ample handle for assailing him by selecting as his Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Sandwich, one of the dissolute Medmenham monks, a man glaringly deficient in ability, and so utterly incompetent in finance as to cause the wits of the time to describe him as ‘a Chancellor of the Exchequer to whom a sum of five figures was an impenetrable mystery.’ The first sentence of The North Briton has often been copied and adopted as the motto of succeeding journals: ‘The liberty of the press is the birthright of the Briton, and is justly esteemed the firmest bulwark of the liberties of this country.’ The aim of Wilkes’ paper was to vilify Scotland, because Lord Bute, being a Scotsman, had wormed himself into the favour of the king. Not a very elevated principle, certainly, but quite characteristic of the low morale of the period, when personal pique was elevated into the domain of principle. His abuse of Scotland was quite of a piece with his political profligacy on every other point than national liberty. ‘He would have sold his soul to the devil for £1000 could he have induced his Satanic majesty to have invested in so worthless a commodity,’ said one of his own friends. As a specimen of the journalism wherewith Wilkes fought the battle of popular liberties, take the following paragraph, to pen which nowadays not the neediest penny–a–liner of gutter–journalism would stoop, notwithstanding the jealousy of Scotland and the Scots which still exists. Playing on the popular jealousy of Scotland, Wilkes went on to say that ‘The river Tweed is the line of demarcation between all that is noble and all that is base; south of the river is all honour, virtue, patriotism—north of it is nothing but lying, malice, meanness, and slavery. Scotland is a treeless, flowerless land, formed out of the refuse of the universe, and inhabited by the very bastards of creation; where famine has fixed her chosen throne; where a scant population, gaunt with hunger and hideous with dirt, spend their wretched days in brooding over the fallen fortunes of their native dynasty, and in watching with mingled envy and hatred the mighty nation that subdued them.’
This was the type of writing which Smollett strove to meet with pithy argument and epigrammatic smartness. No wonder it produced little effect, and less wonder is there that, after fighting the battle of the Ministry for nearly a year, he threw the task up in disgust (12th February 1763). Lord Bute had not given him the support he had a right to expect; and the Minister’s own fall followed hard upon the cessation of The Briton, namely, on the 8th April of the same year. Writing to Caleb Whiteford, a friend, some time after, he remarked: ‘The Ministry little deserve that any man of genius should draw his pen in their defence. They inherit the absurd stoicism of Lord Bute, who set himself up as a pillory to be pelted by all the blackguards of England, upon the supposition that they would grow tired and leave off.’
Back once more to hack–work was our weary, brain–worn veteran. So pressing were his needs that he had to condescend to tasks beneath them. He translated and edited the works of Voltaire, and compiled a publication entitled The Present State of all Nations, containing a geographical, natural, commercial, and political history of all the countries of the known world. Fancy Smollett engaged on such a task! Let us hope that only his name was given, not his labour. Next year we know his work became so great that he had to hire others to do portions of it for him. In a word, he became a literary ‘sweater.’
Alas! in this same year, 1763, when his own health was failing so rapidly, one of the links binding him most strongly to earth was severed. His daughter Elizabeth, a beautiful girl of some fifteen or sixteen years of age, and amiable and accomplished as well, was taken from him by death—the saddest of all deaths, consumption. Henceforth he was to tread the Valley of the Shadow alone. Even more than his wife, Elizabeth had been able to sympathise with her father’s feelings and to soothe his irritation. The light of his life had verily gone out!
But still no rest! Sorrow, however deep, must not check the pen that is fighting for daily bread. ‘I am writing with a breaking heart,’ he says in one letter. ‘I would wish to be beside her, were the wish not cowardly so long as poor Nancy is unprovided for.’ Brave, suffering heart! The end is nearing for you, though you know it not. Seven more years of increasing labour, and also of increasing anguish and suffering, and then—‘He giveth His beloved sleep!’