London, 1755). Lord Woodhouselee, in his ‘Essay on Translation’ (1813), stigmatised the work as a rifacimento of Jervas, and this judgment is substantially confirmed by later critics (cf. Ormsby, Don Quixote, iv. 420; Mr. H. E. Watts, Quixote, i. xxii.). Published at 2l. 10s., and dedicated to ‘Don Ricardo Wall’ [q. v.], it was, however, a commercial success, and was for many years the reigning English version.
In the summer that followed its publication Smollett revisited Scotland. His sister had married, in 1739, Alexander Telfer of Symington, Lanarkshire, who had prospered, and in 1749 bought for 2,062l. the estate of Scotston in Peeblesshire. Thither Smollett's mother had removed in 1759, and thither Tobias now directed his steps. Mrs. Smollett, runs the story, did not recognise her son at first, but he soon betrayed himself by his ‘roguish smile.’ He also revisited Glasgow, and saw his friend Dr. Moore.
Severe labours awaited his return to London. A thriving printer, Archibald Hamilton, who had been compelled to leave Edinburgh owing to his share in the Porteous riot, determined to start a literary periodical in opposition to the ‘Monthly Review’ of Ralph Griffiths [q. v.], and to put Smollett at the head of the syndicate or ‘Society of Gentlemen’ who were to direct it. The first number of ‘The Critical Review,’ as it was called, appeared in February 1756. Its position was established by capable reviews of such works as Birch's ‘History of the Royal Society,’ Voltaire's ‘Pucelle,’ Hume's ‘History,’ Dyer's ‘Fleece,’ Gray's ‘Odes,’ Home's ‘Douglas,’ and Richardson's ‘Clarissa.’ Smollett wrote to explain to the last two authors that he was not personally responsible for the want of cordiality displayed towards them. Other victims were not so placable as Home and Richardson. In December 1759 Smollett unmercifully ridiculed Dr. James Grainger's ‘Tibullus,’ and Grainger, after some deliberation (see an amusing letter to Percy, Nichols, Illustrations, vii. 263), decided on reprisals. These took the form of ‘A Letter to Tobias Smollett, M.D.,’ the sting of which lay in the insultingly familiar appeals to ‘Dr. Toby,’ a name which Smollett detested. A more abusive pamphlet came from the pen of Joseph Reed [q. v.] In April 1761 Smollett criticised the ‘Rosciad’ with a freedom little appreciated by the then unknown author, and Churchill lost no time in retaliating by a savage attack upon Smollett's character and his plays—the productions about which he was most sensitive. Another steady opponent was John Shebbeare [q. v.], who tried to convert his ‘Occasional Critic’ into an engine of systematic abuse of Smollett and his ‘Scotch gentlemen critics.’
Simultaneously with his work upon the ‘Critical Review,’ Smollett was writing his large ‘History of England,’ from the earliest times down to 1748, at the rate of about a century a month. It was primarily a bookseller's venture, designed to take the wind out of the sails of Hume, who had published two volumes on the Stuart period, and was working backwards. In this object, at least, it succeeded when it appeared in four bulky quarto volumes at the close of 1757. Hume wrote ironically of his rival as seated on the historical summit of Parnassus, and warned his publisher, Millar, in April 1758, of the ‘disagreeable’ effects to be anticipated from the ‘extraordinary run on Smollett.’ Less restrained was the wrath of Warburton, who wrote of the ‘vagabond Scot who has presumed to follow Clarendon and Temple’ (Letters to Hurd, p. 278). Smollett states with pride in his preface that he had consulted more than three hundred books in compiling the work; he started, he admits, with a certain bias towards the whig principles in which he had been educated, but this predilection wore off as the work proceeded. He dedicated it, when finished, without permission, to William Pitt (afterwards earl of Chatham), who wrote him a polite letter.
Among the minor tasks of 1756 and 1757, two years during which he undermined his health by excessive application, were the compilation for Dodsley of ‘The Compendium of Voyages,’ in seven volumes (the agreement is among Mr. Alfred Morrison's autographs), and the production of his farce of sea life entitled ‘The Reprisal, or the Tars of Old England,’ which had a moderate success at Drury Lane on 22 Jan. 1757, and was in request for about half a century afterwards as a popular and patriotic piece. Largely owing to the generosity of Garrick, it brought the author a profit of nearly 200l. Smollett did penance for ‘Marmozet’ (his caricature of Garrick in Pickle) by writing a grateful letter, and he soon afterwards passed a high eulogium upon the player in the ‘Critical Review.’ In 1758 Smollett undertook the superintendence of a voluminous ‘Universal History,’ which was to be produced in collaboration. One of his assistants was the veteran Dr. John Campbell (1708–1775) [q. v.], whose books ‘no man can number.’ The work of the lesser members of the confederation required much polishing, and Smollett felt the drudgery keenly. He himself wrote the portions relating to France, Italy, and Germany. About the same time he com-
