TKIALS AND MISERIES. 



21 



slender remunerations, in the last 

 stage of life, sufficient to convey 

 him to a cheap country and a re- 

 storative air on the Continent. 

 Smollett gradually perishing in a 

 foreign land, neglected by an ad- 

 miring public, and without fresh 

 resources from the booksellers, who 

 were receiving the income of his 

 works threw out his injured feel- 

 ings in the character of Bramble ; 

 the warm generosity of his temper, 

 but not his genius, seemed fleeting 

 with his breath. Yet when Smol- 

 let died, and his widow in a foreign 

 land was raising a plain monument 

 over his dust, her love and her 

 piety but " made the little less." 

 She perished in friendless solitude ! 

 Yet Smollett dead soon an orna- 

 mented column it raised at the 

 place of his birth, while the grave 

 of the author seemed to multiply 

 the editions of his works. There 

 are indeed grateful feelings in the 

 public at large for a favourite 

 author ; but the awful testimony of 

 those feelings by its gradual pro- 

 gress, must appear beyond the 

 grave! They visit the column 

 consecrated by his name, and his 

 features are most loved, most vene- 

 rated, in the bust. (Disraeli's Ca- 

 lamities.) 



DE LOLME. 



I do not know an example in 

 our literary history that so loudly 

 accuses our tardy and phlegmatic 

 feeling respecting authors, as the 

 treatment De Lolme experienced 

 in this country. His book on our 

 constitution still enters into the 

 studies of an English patriot, and 

 is not the worse for flattering and 

 elevating the imagination, painting 



everything beautiful, to encourage 

 our love as well as our reverence 

 for the most perfect system of go- 

 vernments. It was a noble as well 

 as an ingenious eifort in a foreigner 

 but could not obtain even indi- 

 vidual patronage. The fact is mor- 

 tifying to record, that the author, 

 who wanted every aid, received 

 less encouragement than if he had 

 solicited subscriptions for a raving 

 novel, or an idle poem. De Lolme 

 was compelled to traffic with book- 

 sellers for this work; and, as he 

 was a theoretical rather than a 

 practical politician, he was a bad 

 trader, and acquired the smallest 

 remuneration. He lived, in the 

 country to which he had rendered 

 a national service, in extreme ob- 

 scurity and decay ; and the walls 

 of the Fleet too often inclosed the 

 English Montesquieu. He never 

 appears to have received a solitary 

 attention (except from the hand of 

 literary charity, having been more 

 than once relieved by the Literary 

 Fund), and became so disgusted 

 with authorship, that he preferred 

 silently to endure its poverty, 

 rather than its other vexations. 

 He ceased almost to write. Of De 

 Lolme I have heard little recorded, 

 but his high-mindedness ; a strong 

 sense that he stood degraded .be- 

 neath that rank in society which 

 his book entitled him to enjoy. 

 The cloud of poverty that covered 

 him, only veiled without conceal- 

 ing its object; with the manners 

 and dress of a decayed gentleman, 

 he still showed the few who met 

 him, that he cherished a spirit 

 perpetually at variance with the 

 adversity of his circumstances. 

 (D'Israeli.) 



