ated Tobias. His new novel was but a fainter echo of his old
novels, a panorama of scoundrelism, with the melodramatic fortunes of the
virtuous Monimia for a foil. If read to-day, it is read as a sketch of
manners, or want of manners. The scene in which the bumpkin squire rooks
the accomplished Fathom at hazard, in Paris, is prettily conceived, and
Smollett's indignation at the British system of pews in church is
edifying. But when Monimia appears to her lover as he weeps at her tomb,
and proves to be no phantom, but a "warm and substantial" Monimia,
capable of being "dished up," like any other Smollettian heroine, the
reader is sensibly annoyed. Tobias as _un romantique_ is absolutely too
absurd; "not here, oh Tobias, are haunts meet for thee."

Smollett's next novel, "Sir Launcelot Greaves," was not published till
1761, after it had appeared in numbers, in _The British Magazine_. This
was a sixpenny serial, published by Newbery. The years between 1753 and
1760 had been occupied by Smollett in quarrelling, getting imprisoned for
libel, editing the _Critical Review_, writing his "History of England,"
translating (or adapting old translations of) "Don Quixote," and driving
a team of literary hacks, whose labours he superintended, and to whom he
gave a weekly dinner. These exploits are described by Dr. Carlyle, and
by Smollett himself, in "Humphrey Clinker." He did not treat his vassals
with much courtesy or consideration; but then they expected no such
treatment. We have no right to talk of his doings as "a blood-sucking
method, literary sweating," like a recent biographer of Smollett. Not to
speak of the oddly mixed metaphor, we do not know what Smollett's
relations to his retainers really were. As an editor he had to see his
contributors. The work of others he may have recommended, as "reader" to
publishers. Others may have made transcripts for him, or translations.
That Smollett "sweated" men, or sucked their blood, or both, seems a
crude way of saying that he found them employment. Nobody says that
Johnson "sweated" the persons who helped him in compiling his Dictionary;
or that Mr. Jowett "sweated" the friends and pupils who aided him in his
translation of Plato. Authors have a perfect right to procure literary
assistance, especially in learned books, if they pay for it, and
acknowledge their debt to their allies. On the second point, Smollett
was probably not in advance of his age.

"Sir Launcelot