been considered witty to spell 'grace' 'grease,' and 'Bible' 'byebill,' can only be explained by the indiscriminate hostility of the earlier assailants of Enthusiasm. Upon this, as well as upon a particularly evil-smelling taint of coarseness which, to the honour of the author's contemporaries, was fully recognized in his own day as offensive, it is needless now to dwell. But there is an aspect of 'Humphry Clinker' which has been somewhat neglected—namely, its topographical side; and from the fact that Smollett, in the initial pages, describes it as 'Letters upon Travels,' it is clear that he himself admitted this characteristic of his work. When he wrote it at Leghorn in 1770, he was using his gamut of personages mainly to revive, from different points of view, the impressions he had received in his last visits to Bath, to London, and to certain towns in his native North. We are told by Chambers that his pictures of life at these places were all accepted by his relatives as personal records; and though some of the first reviews condemned him for wasting time on descriptions of what every one then knew by heart, we are not likely to insist upon that criticism now, when nearly a century and a quarter of change has lent to those descriptions all the charm-the fatal charm-of the remote and the half-forgotten. For this reason we propose to run rapidly through Humphry Clinker,' selecting for reproduction chiefly such passages as deal with actual localities. The reader will only require to be reminded that the persons of the drama are the Welsh 'squire, Matthew Bramble (a bourru bienfaisant who has many characteristics of the author himself); Mrs. Tabitha Bramble, his sister (an old maid); his niece and nephew, Lydia and Jerry Melford; and the two servants, Humphry Clinker and Winifred Jenkins. When we first make acquaintance with the little party they have arrived from Gloucester at Clifton, whence they repair to the Hot Well at Bristol. Their different ways of regarding things are already accentuated. Mr. Bramble poohpoohs the nymph of Bristol spring' as purveying nothing but a little salt, and calcareous earth,' while on the boasted Clifton Downs he discovers only the demon of vapours and perpetual drizzle. To his niece Liddy, on the contrary, everything looks rose-coloured. The Downs, with the furze in full blossom (it was late April), are delightful; the waters are most agreeable ('so pure, so mild, so charmingly mawkish !'); and the ships and boats going up and down the Avon under the windows of the Pump-room make an enchanting variety of moving pictures.' But the spring season is beginning at Bath; and they migrate to that place, taking a first floor in the South Parade, so as to be near the waters and out of the rumble of the carriages. The lodgings, however, are themselves noisy, besides being too close to the noisy bells of the Abbey Church, which ring for all new comers (who pay the fee of half-a-guinea). Mr. Bramble has no sooner settled down comfortably than they begin to peal in honour of Mr. Bullock, an eminent cowkeeper of Tottenham, who had just arrived at Bath, to drink the waters for indigestion.' These, with other annoyances, lead them to quit the Parade precipitately for Milsom Street ('Milshamstreet,' Mr. Bramble calls it), which then had not long been built. Here at five guineas a week they get a small house. For Miss Melford, Bath is even more fascinating than Bristol. The bells, the waits, the cotillons, the balls and concerts in the Pump-room, are all equally entrancing to the fresh schoolgirl nature but recently emancipated from Mrs. Jermyn's finishing Academy at Gloucester. They are no sooner settled in their lodgings than the party is visited by the Master of the Ceremonies a pretty little gentleman, so sweet, so fine, so civil, and polite, that in our country [Miss Melford's] he might pass for the prince of Wales.' 'He talks so charmingly, both in verse and prose, that you would be delighted to hear him discourse; for you must know he is a great writer, and has got five tragedies ready for the stage.' This personage, whose name is afterwards given, was Beau Nash's successor, Samuel Derrick, only one of whose dramatic efforts-a translation from the French of Frederick of Prussia-appears, by the 'Biographia Dramatica,' to have attained the honours of print. Derrick, as might be expected, does himself the pleasure of dining with Mr. Bramble, and next day escorts the ladies round the Circus, the Square [Queen's Square], the Parades, and the 'new buildings,' the last, no doubt, including the Royal Crescent of the younger Wood, then in course of construction.' In the letter which gives these particulars Miss Liddy proceeds to describe a Bath day as it 1 Derrick was dead when Humphry Clinker' was written, having departed this life in March, 1769. According to Boswell, Johnson had a kindness for the little man, which did not extend to commendation of his very moderate literary abilities. In fact, it was concerning Derrick and another that the Doctor uttered his forcible, if somewhat unsavoury, obiter dictum as to the futility of discussing questions of precedence between infinitesimal insects. ... The appeared to the Young Person of the period. 'At eight in the morning,' says she, 'we go in dishabille to the Pump-room; which is crowded like a Welsh fair; and there you see the highest quality, and the lowest trades folks, jostling each other, without ceremony, hail-fellow well-met! Right under the Pump-room windows is the King's Bath; a huge cistern, where you see the patients up to their necks in hot water. ladies wear jackets and petticoats of brown linen [flannel?], with chip hats, in which they fix their handkerchiefs to wipe the sweat from their faces; but, truly, whether it is owing to the steam that surrounds them, or the heat of the water, or the nature of the dress, or to all these causes together, they look so flushed, and so frightful, that I always turn my eyes another way.'' [It must be conceded that Mrs. Tabitha Bramble, notwithstanding the extenuating attractions of a special 1 Here is the same scene under the broader handling of Smollett's forerunner, Anstey of the New Bath Guide "'Twas a glorious Sight to behold the Fair Sex |