"This smile our hero received full in his eyes, and was immediately staggered with its force. He then began to see the designs of the enemy, and indeed to feel their success. A parley now was set on foot between the parties, during which the artful fair so slily and imperceptibly carried on her attack, that she had almost subdued the heart of our hero before she again repaired to acts of hostility. To confess the truth, I am afraid Mr. Jones maintained a kind of Dutch defence, and treacherously delivered up the garrison without duly weighing his allegiance to the fair Sophia." It has generally been the custom to couple the name of Smollett with that of Fielding, but the former has scarcely any claim to be regarded as a humorist, except such as is largely due to the use of gross indelicacy and coarse caricature. He first attempted poetry, and wrote two dull satires "Advice" and "Reproof." His "Ode to Mirth," is somewhat sprightly, but of his songs the following is a favourable specimen:-- "From the man whom I love, though my heart I disguise, I will freely describe the wretch I despise, And if he has sense but to balance a straw He will sure take the hint from the picture I draw. "A wit without sense, without fancy, a beau, Like a parrot he chatters, and struts like a crow; A peacock in pride, in grimace a baboon, In courage a hind, in conceit a gascon. "As a vulture rapacious, in falsehood a fox, Inconstant as waves, and unfeeling as rocks, As a tiger ferocious, perverse as a hog, In mischief an ape, and in fawning a dog. "In a word, to sum up all his talents together, His heart is of lead, and his brain is of feather, Yet if he has sense to balance a straw He will sure take the hint from the picture I draw." Although Smollett indulged in great coarseness, I doubt whether he has anything more humorous in his writings than the above lines. Sir Walter Scott formed a more just opinion of him than some later critics. He says:-- "Smollett's humour arises from the situation of the persons, or the peculiarity of their external appearance, as Roderick Random's carroty locks, which hung down over his shoulders like a pound of candles; or Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that follow it. There is a tone of vulgarity about all his productions." Smollett was born in Dumbartonshire in 1721. He became a surgeon, and for six or seven years was employed in the Navy in that capacity. This may account for the strong flavour of brine and tar in the best of his works--his sea sketches have a considerable amount of character in them--sometimes rather too much. His liberal use of nautical language is exhibited when Lieutenant Hatchway is going away,