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SOLD ALSO BY AMYOT, RUE DE LA PAIX; TRUCHY, BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS;
THEOPHILE BARROIS, JUN., RUE RICHELIEU; LIBRAIRIE DES ÉTRANGERS,
BUR NEUVE-SAINT-AUGUSTIN; AND FRENCH AND ENGLISH LIBRARY,

RUE VIVIENNE.

1836.

KE 95963(1),

HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY JUN & 1863

57*97

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THIS distinguished novelist and historian was born in the year 1724, at his father's house of Dalquhoun, which occupied a romantic spot in the vale of Leven, in Dumbartonshire. His father, Archibald, was the youngest son of Sir James Smollett of Bonhill, who filled the office of a commissary or consistorial judge of Edinburgh, and displayed his talents in the Scottish parliament, on many important occasions, as an active and talented politician. The fortune which he amassed and inherited enabled him to provide for his family in a manner befitting their station; but the father of our author, by his marriage with Miss Barbara Cunningham, of Gilbertfield, a lady of taste and elegance, though destitute of fortune, placed himself in a less advantageous situation than was conformable with Sir James's ideas of prudence. The effect was a serious dispute between the father and son; but the former did not suffer his resentment to overcome his affection; and he allowed Archibald to occupy the house and farm of Dalquhoun, situated at a short distance from his own mansion of Bonhill. When the premature death of the young man left his wife and three children to the sole care of Sir James, he performed the office of a parent to them with the most assiduous affection; and Smollett owed to him, not only the means which supported him during his education, but many lessons of wisdom and experience, which, if he sometimes neglected, he never afterwards entirely forgot.

After completing the ordinary routine of school education under the instructions of Mr. John Lowe, the master of the seminary at Dumbarton, and acquiring a competent acquaintance with the Latin classics, Smollett was removed to the university of Glasgow, where he resolved on devoting himself to the study of medicine; and by the advice of his relations, he was articled, at the proper age, to Mr. John Gordon, a gentleman of integrity and benevolence, as well as of eminence in his profession. During this period of his life he not only attended the public lectures of the university, but cultivated his poetical talents with so much success, that he became celebrated as a keen and skilful satirist; but it was not in that department alone that he signalised himself: while in his eighteenth year, he composed a tragedy founded on the assassination of James I. of Scotland, which was afterwards published under the title of "The Regicide,' and esteemed as a piece of considerable merit. Shortly after he entered his nineteenth year, our author sustained a severe loss by the death of his grandfather, who had neglected to provide either for him, his mother, or her other children, by any bequest in his will. Thus left without the means of support, except such as he might be enabled to obtain by his profession or literary talents, the term of his apprenticeship was no Sooner expired than he resolved to visit London, where he hoped to acquire for himself that independence which fortune had denied him it was not,

S.-I.

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