he found absolutely
necessary to give him a chance of employment . . . A walking physician
was considered as an obscure pedlar." A chariot, Smollett insists, was
necessary to "every raw surgeon"; while Bob Sawyer's expedient of "being
called from church" was already _vieux jeu_, in the way of advertisement.
Such things had been "injudiciously hackneyed." In this passage of
Fathom's adventures, Smollett proclaims his insight into methods of
getting practice. A physician must ingratiate himself with apothecaries
and ladies' maids, or "acquire interest enough" to have an infirmary
erected "by the voluntary subscriptions of his friends." Here Smollett
denounces hospitals, which "encourage the vulgar to be idle and
dissolute, by opening an asylum to them and their families, from the
diseases of poverty and intemperance." This is odd morality for one who
suffered from "the base indifference of mankind." He ought to have known
that poverty is not a vice for which the poor are to be blamed; and that
intemperance is not the only other cause of their diseases. Perhaps the
unfeeling passage is a mere paradox in the style of his own Lismahago.

With or without a chariot, it is probable that Tobias had not an
insinuating style, or "a good bedside manner"; friends to support a
hospital for his renown he had none; but, somehow, he could live in May
Fair, and, in 1746, could meet Dr. Carlyle and Stewart, son of the
Provost of Edinburgh, and other Scots, at the Golden Ball in Cockspur
Street. There they were enjoying "a frugal supper and a little punch,"
when the news of Culloden arrived. Carlyle had been a Whig volunteer:
he, probably, was happy enough; but Stewart, whose father was in prison,
grew pale, and left the room. Smollett and Carlyle then walked home
through secluded streets, and were silent, lest their speech should
bewray them for Scots. "John Bull," quoth Smollett, "is as haughty and
valiant to-day, as he was abject and cowardly on the Black Wednesday when
the Highlanders were at Derby."

"Weep, Caledonia, weep!" he had written in his tragedy. Now he wrote
"Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn." Scott has quoted, from Graham of
Gartmore, the story of Smollett's writing verses, while Gartmore and
others were playing cards. He read them what he had written, "The Tears
of Scotland," and added the last verse on the spot, when warned that his
opinions might give offence.

"Yes, spite of thine insulting foe,
M