re,
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
evening, was receiving a severe reprimand from his master for quitting
the shop; and having alleged in his excuse, that he had been hit by a
snow-ball, and had gone out in pursuit of the person who had thrown it,
was listening to the taunts of his master, on the improbability of such
a story. "How long," said the son of Aesculapius, with the confident air
of one fearless of contradiction, "might I stand here, and such a thing
not happen to me?" whe