norous names" which Miss Tabitha
Bramble so much admired: "that Obadiah was an adventitious appellation,
derived from his great-grandfather, who had been one of the original
Covenanters; but Lismahago was the family surname, taken from a place
in Scotland, so called." Now we are not very well versed in Scottish
topography; but we well recollect, that in Dean Swift's "Memoirs of
Captain John Creichton," who was a noted Cavalier in the reigns of
Charles II., James II., and William III., and had borne an active part
in the persecution of "the puir hill-folk," there is mention made of the
name of Stobo. The Captain dwells with no little satisfaction upon the
manner in which, after he had been so thoroughly outwitted by Mass David
Williamson,--the Covenanting minister, who played Achilles among the
women at my Lady Cherrytree's,--he succeeded in circumventing and taking
prisoner "a notorious rebel, one Adam Stobow, a farmer in Fife near
Culross." And later in the same book occurs a very characteristic
passage:--"_Having drunk hard one night_, I dreamed that I had found
Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel, in one of the five farmers'
houses on a mountain in the shire of Clydesdale and parish of Lismahago,
within eight miles of Hamilton, a place I was well acquainted with."
Lest the marvellous fulfilment of Creichton's dream should induce other
seekers to have resort to a like self-preparation, we will merely add,
that the village of Hamilton is hard by the castle of the Duke of that
name, to whose family we have already seen Smollett was under some
obligations, and that it is described in the same pages with Lismahago.
It is not improbable, therefore, that, being at Hamilton, the novelist's
attention may have been attracted to "Creichton's Memoirs," which treat
of the adjacent districts, and that the mention of Stobo's name therein
may have suggested to his mind its connection with Lismahago. Certainly
there was no antecedent work to "Humphrey Clinker," in which, as we may
believe, either of these names finds a place, save this of Creichton;
and as, throughout the whole series of letters, Smollett does not
profess to avoid the introduction of actual persons and events, often
even with no pretence of disguise, we need not hesitate to think that
he would make no difficulty of turning the eccentricities of a half-pay
officer to some useful account.

[Footnote A: Some amusing particulars concerning Stobo may be found also
in