Squire in Paris, who bubbles the great bubbler of the tale; to Count Fathom’s address to Britain, when he reaches her shores,—­a piece of exquisite mock-heroic irony; to the narrative of the seduction in the west of England; and to the matchless robber-scene in the forest,—­a passage in which one knows not whether more to admire the thrilling interest of the incidents, or the eloquence and power of the language.  It is a scene which Scott has never surpassed, nor, except in the cliff-scene in the “Antiquary,” and, perhaps, the barn-scene in the “Heart of Midlothian,” ever equalled.

Smollett’s poetry need not detain us long.  In his twin satires, “Advice” and “Reproof,” you see rather the will to wound than the power to strike.  There are neither the burnished compression, and polished, pointed malice of Pope, nor the gigantic force and vehement fury of Churchill.  His “Tears of Scotland” is not thoroughly finished, but has some delicate and beautiful strokes.  “Leven Water” is sweet and murmuring as that stream itself.  His “Ode to Independence,” as we have said elsewhere, “should have been written by Burns.  How that poet’s lips must have watered, as he repeated the line—­

‘Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,’

and remembered he was not their author!  He said he would have given ten pounds to have written ’Donochthead’—­he would have given ten times ten, if, poor fellow! he had had them, to have written the ’Ode to Independence’—­although, in his ‘Vision of Liberty,’ he has matched Smollett on his own ground.”  Grander lines than the one we have quoted above, and than the following—­

“A goddess violated brought thee forth,”

are not to be found in literature.  Round this last one, the whole ode seems to turn as on a pivot, and it alone had been sufficient to stamp Smollett a man of lofty poetic genius.

SMOLLETT’S POEMS

ADVICE:  A SATIRE.

——­Sed podice levi
Caeduntur tumidae, medico ridente, mariscae. 
O proceres! censore opus est, an haruspice nobis?

JUVENAL.

——­Nam quis
Peccandi finem posuit sibi? quando recepit
Ejectum semel atterita de fronte ruborem?

Ibid.

POET.

Enough, enough; all this we knew before;
’Tis infamous, I grant it, to be poor: 
And who, so much to sense and glory lost,
Will hug the curse that not one joy can boast? 
From the pale hag, oh! could I once break loose,
Divorced, all hell should not re-tie the noose! 
Not with more care shall H—­ avoid his wife,
Nor Cope[1] fly swifter, lashing for his life,
Than I to leave the meagre fiend behind.

  FRIEND.