London . Andrew Ague-cheek, he had a leg for a galliard,and took good care to show it in private theatricals and fancy balls. Nor docs 332 LONDON. he appear ever to have been anything more. But discomfited political leaderswished for some one to point out to the populace as giving the young King badadvice; and as the Marquis of Bute stood, or seemed to stand, near the throne,they denounced hiin as the terrible intriguer. To heighten the joke, Scotsnationality lired in behalf of a Scots nobleman, and imagined him the fast ofstatesmen. And while the clamour of controversy raged around him, the p
London . Andrew Ague-cheek, he had a leg for a galliard,and took good care to show it in private theatricals and fancy balls. Nor docs 332 LONDON. he appear ever to have been anything more. But discomfited political leaderswished for some one to point out to the populace as giving the young King badadvice; and as the Marquis of Bute stood, or seemed to stand, near the throne,they denounced hiin as the terrible intriguer. To heighten the joke, Scotsnationality lired in behalf of a Scots nobleman, and imagined him the fast ofstatesmen. And while the clamour of controversy raged around him, the poorobject of it, conscious that he was an object of dislike to, and kept at distance by,the King, must have felt, while reading the descriptions of himself by either party,much like the heroine of an old Scotch song— Hecli! quo the wcc wifikie, this is no me. Among those who mingled in the wordy war of politics at that time was asarrant a Scotchman as ever crossed the Tweed—Tobias Smollett. You rarely. [Vr. SmoUctl.: hear mention made either of Fielding or Smollett apart. They are the Castorand Pollux of British literature ; and it would be difficult to decide whether thejustice of this classification be mure strikingly illustrated by the excellence oftheir novels or the execrable trashincss of their plays. They are so closely asso-ciated, that their very diflerenccs are brought out more strikingly by the con-junction. Both were writers for bread, and not very scrupulous, at least on thescore of dignity, as to the literary tasks they undertook. Fielding, however,had higher notions of novel-writing than Smollett. The former regarded itas an art, and sought to give unity and finish to his performances; the latter wassatisfied if he could fill up the number of volumes bargained for with matter thatwould go off, and thus satisfy the bookseller. He eked out HumjihreyClinker by incorporating a tour in Scotland with it; and he eked out Pere-grine Pickle by a still more questionabl
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