Ellerton & Henderson, Printers, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London.

THE

EXPEDITION

OF

HUMPHRY CLINKER.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

RODERICK RANDOM.

T.G. Smollett

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA

ATORIMMIN

SMOLLET.

TOBIAS SMOLLET, one of the most prolific as well as popular of our novel-writers, was born in the year 1721, at the farm of Dalquhurn on the banks of the Leven, amidst some of the most picturesque scenery of Scotland, to the beauties. of which he afterwards paid an elegant poetical tribute. His father was the fourth son of Sir James Smollet, of Bonhill: he married, without his father's consent, a lady of no fortune; and dying soon after the birth of his youngest son, his family, consisting of two sons and a daughter, were left entirely dependent on the bounty of their grandfather for a subsistence. The eldest, James, went into the army. His regiment was ordered abroad; and the transport in which he was, with part of the troops, was unfortunately lost off the coast of America. He is mentioned as a young man, of great promise, and Dr. Smollet always preserved towards him an affec

tionate remembrance.

Tobias, the subject of this memoir, was put to school at Dumbarton, where it is recorded that the first efforts of his genius were shown in a copy of verses to the memory of Wallace, VOL. XXX.

215329

several of whose adventures took place in the vicinity; for he had always a large share of that national spirit by which his countrymen are generally distinguished. Young Tobias, however, was not always in the heroic mood. Many stories are told of his exploits; and many acts of boyish mischief and frolic recorded in Roderick Random are supposed to be supplied from the memory of his own early years. From Dumbarton he was removed to Glasgow, where he was apprenticed to a surgeon, Mr. John Gordon, and at the same time attended the University lectures of anatomy and medicine. At Glasgow he began to display that vein of humour and propensity to satire which afterwards so strongly distinguished him, at the expense of the circles to which he had access, and even ventured to aim the shafts of his ridicule against some of the graver sort, whose exterior of piety he represented, possibly with truth, as only worn in compliance with the costume of the country. This, as may be supposed, gave great offence.

His grandfather died while he was at Glasgow; and though he had maintained the family in a decent manner while he lived, and would probably have continued so to do, he made little or no provision for them at his death; and Smollet on this event, his apprenticeship being finished, came up to London to seek his fortune. On this oc

casion he was in want of money and recommendations; his friends supplied him very sparingly with the former, but were uncommonly liberal, he used to observe, in the latter article.