tter
to him from Lord March, which he had had the ill-fortune to mislay.
George has put him up for the club, it appears, in conjunction with
March, and no doubt these three lambs will fleece each other. Meanwhile,
my pacified savage sat down with us, and _buried the hatchet_ in another
bowl of punch, for which these gentlemen must call. Heaven help us! 'Tis
eleven o'clock, and here comes Bedson with my gruel!

H. W.

FOOTNOTES:

[112] There is an amicable dispute among Thackerayans whether this or
the imitation-_Spectator_ paper in _Esmond_ is the more wonderful of
their joint kind. To facilitate this comparison the letter part (for
there is one) of that paper will be given here under Thackeray's own
name.

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT (1721-1771)

Smollett's reputation has been of course always mainly,
indeed almost wholly, that of a novelist, though his
miscellaneous work is of no small merit. But that he wrote
his best novel _in_ letters and that perhaps it is one of
the best so written, has been mentioned. His _Travels_ are
also of the letter-kind--especially of the
ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we
have not much. But the following has always seemed to the
present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic
example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly
temper, and his command of phrase ("great Cham of
literature" has, as we say now, "stuck") both appear in it:
and the matter is interesting. We have, so far as I
remember, no record of any interview between Johnson and
Smollett, though they must have met. They were both Tories,
and Johnson wrote in the _Critical Review_ which Smollett
edited. But Johnson's gibes at Scotland are not likely to
have conciliated Smollett: and there was just that
combination of likeness and difference between the two men
which (especially as the one was as typically English as the
other was Scotch) generates incompatibility. How
victoriously Wilkes got over Johnson's personal dislike to
him all readers of Boswell know: and it is one of the most
amusing passages in the book. On this occasion, too, he did
what was asked of him. "Frank" had not been _pressed_, but
had joined for some reason of his own. However, he accepted
his discharge and returned to his master, staying till that
master's death.

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