The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

116 TOBIAS SMOLLETT
this performance enabled him to appear in clean linen, and he is
now going about soliciting subscriptions for his Poems; but his
breeches are not yet in the most decent order.
Dick certainly deserves some countenance for his intrepidity
and perseverance—It is not in the power of disappointment, nor
even of damnation, to drive him to despair—After some unsuccess-
ful essays in the way of poetry, he commenced brandy-merchant,
and I believe his whole stock ran out through his own bowels;
then he consorted with a milk-woman, who kept a cellar in Petty
France: but he could not make his quarters good; he was dis-
lodged and driven up stairs into the kennel by a corporal in the
second regiment of footguards—He was afterwards the laureat of
Blackfriars, from whence there was a natural transition to the
Fleet—As he had formerly miscarried in panegyric, he now turned
his thoughts to satire, and really seems to have some talent for
abuse. If he can hold out till the meeting of the parliament, and be
prepared for another charge, in all probability Dick will mount
the pillory, or obtain a pension, in either of which events his fortune
will be made—Mean while he has acquired some degree of con-
sideration with the respectable writers of the age; and as I have
subscribed for his works, he did me the favour t’other night to
introduce me to a society of those geniuses; but I found them
exceedingly formal and reserved—They seemed afraid and jealous
of one another, and sat in a state of mutual repulsion, like so many
particles of vapour, each surrounded by its own electrified atmo-
sphere. Dick, who has more vivacity than judgment, tried more
than once to enliven the conversation; sometimes making an effort
at wit, sometimes letting off a pun, and sometimes discharging a
conundrum; nay, at length he started a dispute upon the hackneyed
comparison betwixt blank verse and rhyme, and the professors
opened with great clamour; but, instead of keeping to the subject,
they launched out into tedious dissertations on the poetry of the
antients; and one of them, who had been a school-master, displayed
his whole knowledge of prosody, gleaned from Disputer and
Ruddiman. At last, I ventured to say, I did not see how the sub-
ject in question could be at all elucidated by the practice of the
antients, who certainly had neither blank verse nor rhyme in their
poems, which were measured by feet, whereas ours are reckoned
by the number of syllables—This remark seemed to give umbrage
to the pedant, who forthwith involved himself in a cloud of Greek