When the final verdict was given, Smollett endeavoured to obtain some consulship abroad, that would have lessened his labours. He was still dependent on his pen for daily bread. Almost despairingly he implored even his political enemies to help him to some means whereby he might demit some portion of his killing work. But his ‘noble’ friends were all deaf. Lord Shelburne was applied to, but stated the consulships at Nice and Leghorn were already promised to some of his own political creatures. One man only stood his friend; one man only, and he an opponent albeit a countryman, did his best for Smollett, but, alas! unavailingly. All honour to David Hume the historian, then Under Secretary of State! In the end the dying novelist was disappointed at all points. He had to go abroad depending on the staff that had supplied him with bread all through the long years until now—and which alone would not now fail him—his pen!
Smollett left England in December 1768, and proceeded to Leghorn via Lucca and Pisa. Here he settled at Monte Nova, a little township situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea. Dr. Armstrong, his friend and countryman, had secured for him a beautiful villa on the outskirts of the village. Here he gradually grew weaker, but was tended with the utmost devotion by his wife, and some of the English families in the neighbourhood. Here, too, he penned the greatest of his novels, the work that for its subtle insight into human nature, its keen and incisive studies of character, its delightful humour, its matchless bonhomie and raciness, takes rank amidst the treasured classics of our literature—the immortal Humphrey Clinker.
But with this exertion the feeble flame of the great novelist’s life slowly flickered out. His work was done, and nobly done. He had carved for himself an imperishable niche in the great Temple of Fame. His last words were spoken to his wife—‘All is well, my dear;’ and on the 21st October 1771, in the 52nd year of his age, Tobias George Smollett laid down the burden of that life which had pressed so wearily upon him, and passed—within the Silence!
He had the pleasure of seeing Humphrey Clinker in its published form a day or two before his death. When the public learned that the hand which so often had delighted them in the past would now delight them no more, a mournful interest was exhibited in his last work. Edition after edition was exhausted. But what booted it to him, then, when the strife and the anguish as well as the exultation born of success were all over? ‘After labour cometh rest, and after strife the guerdon.’ Alas! too late the latter came to cheer him whose life had been one long–drawn–out epic of anguish from the cradle to the grave!
Had Smollett lived four years longer, he would have inherited the estate of Bonhill and an income of £1000 per annum, which in default of him passed to Mrs. Telfer, his sister, and her heirs. O the irony of fate! Alas! the thorn of apprehension which disturbed his dying pillow proved too true a dread. His wife was left in Leghorn in dire penury, until relieved by the charity of friends who were not relatives, and also by the proceeds of a theatrical performance given in her aid after some years by Mr. Graham of Gartmore. An indelible stain is it upon the Telfers and the Smolletts that they should have allowed the widow of their most distinguished relative to die dependent on the charity of strangers. But relatives are proverbially the hardest–hearted of potential benefactors when the day of trouble comes. Poor “Narcissa”! the lines of her life were not cast in pleasant places.
Smollett was interred in the English cemetery at Leghorn, with the blue Mediterranean stretching in front of his last resting–place. Many are the pilgrims that journey to his tomb, and as the years roll on they increase rather than diminish. A plain monument was erected by his wife over the remains, the Latin inscription on which was written by his friend Dr. Armstrong, the poet. At Bonhill, a splendid obelisk, over sixty feet high, was raised on the banks of the Leven, by his cousin James Smollett (a few months before his own death), the inscription being revised and corrected by Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Moore, as the friend of Smollett, has preserved for us the appearance and portrait of the great novelist in the following description: “The person of Dr. Smollett was stout and well proportioned, his countenance engaging, his manner reserved, with a certain air of dignity that seemed to indicate that he was not unconscious of his own powers. He was of a disposition so humane and generous that he was ever ready to serve the unfortunate, and on some occasions to assist them beyond what his circumstances could justify. Though few could penetrate with more acuteness into character, yet none was more apt to overlook misconduct when attended by misfortune. Free from vanity, Smollett had a considerable share of pride and great sensibility; his passions were easily moved, and too impetuous when roused. He could not conceal his contempt of folly, his detestation of fraud, nor refrain from proclaiming his indignation against every instance of oppression. He was of an intrepid, independent, imprudent disposition, equally incapable of deceit and adulation, and more disposed to cultivate the acquaintance of those he could serve than of those who could serve him.”
Such being the character of the man, the key is obtained to the enigma of Smollet’s lack of political and social success. He was of too honest a nature to do the dirty work of the ‘Ministers’ of the time, amongst whom independence of character was rated as a sin of the first magnitude. But in the hearts of the admirers of his literary works, Smollett will also live as one of the greatest of our countrymen—a man whose virtues are yearly becoming recognised in their true light, as readers realise he is one of the world’s great moral teachers, whose lessons are communicated by exhibiting the naked hideousness of vice. And so the star of his fame will shine more and yet more clearly unto the perfect day!