Roderick Random was followed, in 1751, by _Peregrine Pickle_, a book in similar taste, but the characters in which are even more striking. The forms of Commodore Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, Pipes the boatswain, and Ap Morgan the choleric Welsh surgeon, are as familiar to us now as at the first.
Smollett had now retired to Chelsea, where his facile pen was still hard at work. In 1753 appeared his _Ferdinand Count Fathom_, the portraiture of a complete villain, corresponding in character with Fielding's _Jonathan Wild_, but with a better moral.
About this time he translated _Don Quixote_; and although his version is still published, it is by no means true to the idiom of the language, nor to the higher purpose of Cervantes.
Passing by his _Complete History of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages_, we come to his _History of England from the Descent of Julius Cæsar to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748_. It is not a profound work; but it is so currently written, that, in lieu of better, the latter portion was taken to supplement Hume; as a work of less merit than either, that of Bissett was added in the later editions to supplement Smollett and Hume. For this history he is said to have received £2000.
In 1762 he issued _The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves_, who, with his attendant, _Captain Crowe_, goes forth, in the style of Don Quixote and Sancho, to _do_ the world. Smollett's forte was in the broadly humorous, and this is all that redeems this work from utter absurdity.
HUMPHREY CLINKER.--His last work of any importance, and perhaps his best, is _The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, described in a series of letters descriptive of this amusing imaginative journey. Mrs. Winifred, Tabitha, and, best of all, Lismahago, are rare characters, and in all respects, except its vulgarity, it was the prototype of Hood's exquisite _Up the Rhine_.
From the year 1756, Smollett edited, at intervals, various periodicals, and wrote what he thought very good poetry, now forgotten,--an _Ode to Independence_, after the Greek manner of strophe and antistrophe, not wanting in a noble spirit; and _The Tears of Scotland_, written on the occasion of the Duke of Cumberland's barbarities, in 1746, after the battle of Culloden: