entertainment_; ch. xxv. p. 125.--"The Tyrolese, by the _canal_ of
Ferdinand's finger, and recommendation, sold a pebble for a real
brilliant;" ch. xxxvii. p. 204.--"A young gentleman whose pride was
_indomitable_;" ch. xlvi. p. 242. In one chapter we find ourselves in a
stage-coach, with such a company as Smollett loved to introduce to his
readers.

He was about this time prosecuted in the King's Bench, on a charge of
having intended to assassinate one of his countrymen, whose name was
Peter Gordon. A few blows of the cane, which, after being provoked by
repeated insolence, he had laid across the shoulders of this man,
appeared to be the sole grounds for the accusation, and he was,
therefore, honourably acquitted by the jury. A letter, addressed to the
prosecutor's counsel, who, in Smollett's opinion, by the intemperance of
his invective had abused the freedom of speech allowed on such
occasions, remains to attest the irritability and vehemence of his own
temper. The letter was either not sent, or the lawyer had too much
moderation to make it the subject of another action, the consequences of
which he could have ill borne; for the expense, incurred by the former
suit, was already more than he was able to defray, at a time when
pecuniary losses and disappointments in other quarters were pressing
heavily upon him. A person, for whom he had given security in the sum of
one hundred and eighty pounds, had become a bankrupt, and one remittance
which he looked for from the East Indies, and another of more than a
thousand pounds from Jamaica, failed him. From the extremity to which
these accidents reduced him, he was extricated by the kindness of his
friend, Doctor Macaulay, to which he had been before indebted; and by
the liberality of Provost Drummond, who paid him a hundred pounds for
revising the manuscript of his brother Alexander Drummond's travels
through Germany, Italy, Greece, &c. which were printed in a folio volume