Smollett's poetry need not detain us long. In his twin satires,
"Advice" and "Reproof," you see rather the will to wound than the
power to strike. There are neither the burnished compression, and
polished, pointed malice of Pope, nor the gigantic force and vehement
fury of Churchill. His "Tears of Scotland" is not thoroughly finished,
but has some delicate and beautiful strokes. "Leven Water" is sweet
and murmuring as that stream itself. His "Ode to Independence," as we
have said elsewhere, "should have been written by Burns. How that
poet's lips must have watered, as he repeated the line--

'Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,'

and remembered he was not their author! He said he would
have given ten pounds to have written 'Donochthead'--he
would have given ten times ten, if, poor fellow! he had had
them, to have written the 'Ode to Independence'--although,
in his 'Vision of Liberty,' he has matched Smollett on his
own ground." Grander lines than the one we have quoted above,
and than the following--

"A goddess violated brought thee forth,"

are not to be found in literature. Round this last one, the whole ode
seems to turn as on a pivot, and it alone had been sufficient to stamp
Smollett a man of lofty poetic genius.


SMOLLETT'S POEMS