to France and Italy for two years; and on his return, in 1766,
published two volumes of Travels--full of querulous and captious
remarks--for which Sterne satirised him, under the name of Smelfungus.
The same year he again visited Scotland. In 1767 he published his
"Adventures of an Atom,"--a political romance, displaying, under
Japanese names, the different parties of Great Britain. A recurrence
of ill health drove him back to Italy in 1770. At Monte Nuovo, near
Leghorn, he wrote his delightful "Humphrey Clinker." This was his last
work. He died at Leghorn on the 21st October 1771, in the fifty-first
year of his age. His widow erected a plain monument to his memory,
with an inscription by Dr Armstrong. In 1774 a Tuscan monument was
erected on the banks of the Leven by his cousin, James Smollett, Esq.,
of Bonhill. As his wife was left in poor circumstances, the tragedy of
"Venice Preserved" was acted at Edinburgh for her benefit, and the
money remitted to Italy.

Smollett, for variety of powers, and indefatigable industry, has
seldom been surpassed. He was a politician, a poet, a physician, a
historian, a translator, a writer of travels, a dramatist, a novelist,
a writer on medical subjects, and a miscellaneous author. It is only,
however, as a novelist and a poet that he has any claims to the
admiration of posterity. His history survives solely because it is
usually bound up with Hume's. His translation of "Don Quixote" has
been eclipsed by after and more accurate versions. His "Tour to Italy"
is a succession of asthmatic gasps and groans. His "Regicide", and
other plays, are entirely forgotten. So also are his critical,
medical, political, and miscellaneous effusions.

In fiction he is undoubtedly a great original. He had no model, and
has had no imitator. His qualities as a novel-writer are rapidity of