CHAPTER IX
SMOLLETT A ‘SWEATER’—TRAVELS ABROAD—THE ADVENTURES OF AN ATOM—HUMPHREY CLINKER—LAST DAYS.
So deeply did grief over the death of his charming young daughter prey on his health and spirits, that there were for a time grave doubts whether his reason had not been slightly unsettled. Constitutionally of a nervously sensitive nature, excessive joy or sorrow had a thoroughly unhinging effect upon him. He had not the self–command requisite to look upon grief as one of those ills to which flesh is heir. In his estimation, everything affecting himself was in the superlative degree. Never were sorrows so overwhelming as his, he considered, and oftentimes he seriously mortified people by brusquely breaking in upon their anguish with the statement that they did not really know what grief meant in comparison with him.
After Elizabeth’s death, therefore, Smollett, entirely oblivious of his poor wife’s mental sufferings, seems to have abandoned himself to an excess of grief that seriously accelerated the progress of the maladies by which he was afflicted. Though he could not afford to stop work altogether, he appears from this date to have instituted a sort of literary factory, where works were turned out by the score. Smollett’s name was now so popular, that on a title–page it virtually meant success to the publication. He therefore contracted the habit of undertaking far more work than any man single–handed could accomplish, but getting it executed at a reduced rate by those whom he retained in his employment. He appears to have kept them in food and clothing, and to have been in the main exceedingly kind to many a struggling author, who would not otherwise have obtained employment; but one cannot approve of methods like these, which degrade the noble profession of ‘man of letters’ into that of a literary task–master. Dr. Carlyle gives a description of Smollett’s relations to what ‘Jupiter’ called his ‘myrmidons,’ which, however, affords a somewhat one–sided picture of the novelist’s methods, though the date is scarcely correct. Smollett, although he had employed others to do his work for him when he found it to be too onerous, did not really institute his ‘literary factory’ until well on in the ‘sixties’ of the eighteenth century, when his health was beginning to fail. ‘Jupiter’ describes the ‘factory’ as in full swing in 1758–59. But as the chatty old clerical gossip wrote his Autobiography after his seventy–ninth year, and as many of his dates with respect to other matters have been proved incorrect, we may, without much injustice to the best of Scots unepiscopal bishops, ascribe to the mental feebleness of age an error which otherwise would affix a serious stigma on Smollett’s name. Though every litterateur worth the name will reprobate such a blood–sucking method as literary ‘sweating,’ prosecuted though it has been by men to whom we owe so much as Smollett and Dumas (to say nothing of at least one ‘popular’ author in our own day who engages in the despicable practice), we would fain believe, in the former’s case, that it resulted from failing strength, and from the maddening consciousness of being obliged to leave his wife, if he died, dependent on strangers.
But let us to ‘Jupiter’:[9] ‘Principal Robertson had never met Smollett (though he had seen him at the Select Club), and was very desirous of his acquaintance. By this time the Doctor had retired to Chelsea, and came seldom to town. Home and I, however, found that he came once a week to Forrest’s Coffee–house, and sometimes dined there; so we managed an appointment with him on his day, when he agreed to dine with us. He was now become a great man, and, being a humorist, was not to be put out of his way. Home and Robertson and Smith and I met him there, when he had several of his minions about him, to whom he prescribed tasks of translation, compilation, or abridgment, which, after he had seen, he recommended to the booksellers. We dined together, and Smollett was very brilliant. Having to stay all night, that we might spend the evening together, he only begged leave to withdraw for an hour, that he might give audience to his myrmidons. We insisted that if his business permitted, it should be in the room in which we sat. The Doctor agreed, and the authors were introduced, to the number of five, I think, most of whom were soon dismissed. He kept two, however, to supper, whispering to us that he believed they would amuse us, which they certainly did, for they were curious characters. We passed a very pleasant and joyful evening. When we broke up, Robertson expressed great surprise at Smollett’s polished and agreeable manners, and the great urbanity of his conversation. He had imagined that a man’s manners must bear a likeness to his books, and as Smollett had described so well the characters of ruffians and profligates, that he must of course resemble them.’
In addition to the pitiful lack of taste and good feeling in making a raree–show of wretchedness, and holding up the misery of the unfortunate authors to a curiosity that was worse than contempt, the whole incident exhibits the characters of Smollett, Carlyle, Robertson, and Home in an exceedingly unfavourable aspect—the first–named as glorifying himself as the Mæcenas of starving Grub Street quill–drivers, the others because they could entertain any other feeling than that of sympathy for honest talent in tatters!