if it be not distinguished by any remarkable strength or elegance, is at least free and unaffected. The imitations of Horace are often happy: that addressed to Lord Bathurst, particularly towards the latter part, is perhaps the best. Of the original jeux d'esprits, the verses occasioned by the Marriage and Game Acts, both passed the same session, have, I think, most merit. The Fable of Jotham, or the Borough Hunters, does not make up by ingenuity for what it wants in reverence. In the Fakeer, a tale professedly borrowed from Voltaire, the story takes a less humorous turn than as it is told in the extracts from Pere Le Comte's memoirs in the preface. FOOTNOTE [1] In 1752 appeared his Dialogue between a Member and his Servant. The Intruder in 1754; and the Fakeer in 1756.--_MS. addition_. ED. * * * * * TOBIAS SMOLLETT. Tobias Smollett was born in the parish of Cardross, in Dumbartonshire, in the year 1721. His father, Archibald, a Scotch gentleman of small fortune, was the youngest son of Sir James Smollett, who was knighted on King William's accession, represented the borough of Dumbarton in the last Scotch Parliament, and was of weight enough to be chosen one of the commissioners for framing the treaty of union between the two countries. On his return from Leyden, where it was then the custom for young Scotchmen to complete their education, Archibald married Barbara, the daughter of Mr. Cunningham, of Gilbertfield, near Glasgow; and died soon after the birth of our poet, leaving him, with another son and a daughter, dependent on the bounty of their grandfather. The place of Smollett's nativity was endeared to him by its natural beauties; insomuch that, when he had an opportunity of comparing it with foreign countries, he preferred the neighbouring lake of Loch Lomond to those most celebrated in Switzerland and Italy. Being placed at the school of Dumbarton, which was conducted by John Love, a man of some distinction as a scholar, he is said to have exercised his poetical talents in writing satires on the other boys, and in panegyrising his heroic countryman Wallace. From hence, at the usual age, he was removed to Glasgow; and there making choice of the study of medicine, was apprenticed to Mr. John Gordon, a chirurgeon, who afterwards took out a diploma, and practised as a physician. His irresistible propensity to burlesque did not suffer the peculiarities of this man, whom he has represented under the character of Potion, in Roderick Random, to escape him. He made some amends for the indignity, by introducing honourable mention of the name of Dr. Gordon in the last of his novels. A more overt act of contumacy to his superiors, into which his vivacity hurried him, trifling as it may appear, is so characteristic, that I cannot leave it untold. A lad, who was apprenticed to a neighbouring chirurgeon, and with whom he had been engaged in frolic on a winter's