Travels Through France And Italy - Tobias Smollett (diy ebook reader .TXT) 📗

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Many Pens Have Been Burnished this Year Of Grace For The Purpose

Of Celebrating With Befitting Honour The Second Centenary Of The

Birth Of Henry Fielding; But It Is More Than Doubtful If, When

The Right Date Occurs In march 1921, Anything Like The Same

Alacrity Will Be Shown To Commemorate One Who Was For Many Years,

And By Such Judges As Scott, Hazlitt, And Charles Dickens,

Considered fielding'S Complement And Absolute Co-Equal (To Say

The Least) In literary Achievement. Smollett'S Fame, Indeed,

Seems To Have Fallen Upon An Unprosperous Curve. The Coarseness

Of His Fortunate Rival Is Condoned, While His Is Condemned

Without Appeal. Smollett'S Value Is Assessed without

Discrimination At That Of His Least Worthy Productions, And The

Historical Value Of His Work As A Prime Modeller Of All Kinds Of

New Literary Material Is Overlooked. Consider For A Moment As Not

Wholly Unworthy Of Attention His Mere Versatility As A Man Of

Letters. Apart From Roderick Random And Its Successors, Which

Gave Him A European Fame, He Wrote A Standard History, And A

Standard Version Of Don Quixote (Both Of Which Held Their Ground

Against All Comers For Over A Century). He Created both Satirical

And Romantic Types, He Wrote Two Fine-Spirited lyrics, And

Launched the Best Review And Most Popular Magazine Of His Day. He

Was The Centre Of A Literary Group, The Founder To Some Extent Of

A School Of Professional Writers, Of Which Strange And Novel

Class, After The "Great Cham Of Literature," As He Called dr.

Johnson, He Affords One Of The First Satisfactory Specimens Upon

A Fairly Large Scale. He Is, Indeed, A More Satisfactory, Because

A More Independent, Example Of The New Species Than The Great

Cham Himself. The Late Professor Beljame Has Shown Us How The

Milieu Was Created in which, With No Subvention, Whether From A

Patron, A Theatre, A Political Paymaster, A Prosperous Newspaper

Or A Fashionable Subscription-List, An Independent Writer Of The

Mid-Eighteenth Century, Provided that He Was Competent, Could

Begin To Extort Something More Than A Bare Subsistence From The

Reluctant Coffers Of The London Booksellers. For The Purpose Of

Such A Demonstration No Better Illustration Could Possibly Be

Found, I Think, Than The Career Of Dr. Tobias Smollett. And Yet,

Curiously Enough, In the Collection Of Critical Monographs So

Well Known Under The Generic Title Of "English Men Of Letters"--A

Series, By The Way, Which Includes Nathaniel Hawthorne And Maria

Edgeworth--No Room Or Place Has Hitherto Been Found For Smollett

Any More Than For Ben Jonson, Both Of Them, Surely, Considerable

Men Of Letters In the Very Strictest And Most Representative

Sense Of The Term. Both Jonson And Smollett Were To An Unusual

Extent Centres Of The Literary Life Of Their Time; And If The

Great Ben Had His Tribe Of Imitators And Adulators, Dr. Toby Also

Had His Clan Of Sub-Authors, Delineated for Us By A Master Hand

In The Pages Of Humphry Clinker. To Make Fielding The Centre-Piece

Of A Group Reflecting The Literature Of His Day Would Be An 

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Artistic Impossibility. It Would Be Perfectly Easy In the Case Of

Smollett, Who Was Descried by Critics From Afar As A Colossus

Bestriding The Summit Of The Contemporary Parnassus.

 

 

 

Whatever There May Be Of Truth In these Observations Upon The

Eclipse Of A Once Magical Name Applies With Double Force To That

One Of All Smollett'S Books Which Has Sunk Farthest In popular

Disesteem. Modern Editors Have Gone To The Length Of

Excommunicating Smollett'S Travels Altogether From The Fellowship

Of His Collective Works.  Critic Has Followed critic In

Denouncing The Book As That Of A "Splenetic" Invalid. And Yet It

Is A Book For Which All English Readers Have Cause To Be

Grateful, Not Only As A Document On Smollett And His Times, Not

Only As Being In a Sense The Raison D'Etre Of The Sentimental

Journey, And The Precursor In a Very Special Sense Of Humphry

Clinker, But Also As Being Intrinsically An Uncommonly Readable

Book, And Even, I Venture To Assert, In many Respects One Of

Smollett'S Best. Portions Of The Work Exhibit Literary Quality Of

A High Order: As A Whole It Represents A Valuable Because A

Rather Uncommon View, And As A Literary Record Of Travel It Is

Distinguished by A Very Exceptional Veracity.

 

 

 

I Am Not Prepared to Define The Differentia Of A Really First-Rate

Book Of Travel. Sympathy Is Important; But Not Indispensable,

Or Smollett Would Be Ruled out Of Court At Once. Scientific

Knowledge, Keen Observation, Or Intuitive Power Of Discrimination

Go Far. To Enlist Our Curiosity Or Enthusiasm Or To Excite Our

Wonder Are Even Stronger Recommendations. Charm Of Personal

Manner, Power Of Will, Anthropological Interest, Self-Effacement

In View Of Some Great Objects--All These Qualities Have Made

Travel-Books Live. One Knows Pretty Nearly The Books That One Is

Prepared to Re-Read In this Department Of Literature. Marco Polo,

Herodotus, A Few Sections In hakluyt, Dampier And Defoe, The

Early Travellers In palestine, Commodore Byron'S Travels, Curzon

And Lane, Doughty'S Arabia Deserta, Mungo Park, Dubois,

Livingstone'S Missionary Travels, Something Of Borrow (Fact Or

Fable), Hudson And Cunninghame Graham, Bent, Bates And Wallace,

The Crossing Of Greenland, Eothen, The Meanderings Of Modestine,

The Path To Rome, And All, Or Almost All, Of E. F. Knight. I Have

Run Through Most Of Them At One Breath, And The Sum Total Would

Not Bend A Moderately Stout Bookshelf. How Many High-Sounding

Works On The Other Hand, Are Already Worse Than Dead, Or, Should

We Say, Better Dead? The Case Of Smollett'S Travels, There Is

Good Reason To Hope, Is Only One Of Suspended animation.

 

 

 

To Come To Surer Ground, It Is A Fact Worth Noting That Each Of

The Four Great Prose Masters Of The Third Quarter Of The

Eighteenth Century Tried his Hand At A Personal Record Of Travel. 

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Fielding Came First In 1754 With His Journal Of A Voyage To

Lisbon. Twelve Years Later Was Published smollett'S Travels

Through France And Italy. Then, In 1768, Sterne'S Sentimental

Journey; Followed in 1775 By Johnson'S Journey To The Hebrides.

Each Of The Four--In Which Beneath The Apparel Of The Man Of

Letters We Can Discern Respectively The Characteristics Of Police

Magistrate, Surgeon, Confessor, And Moralist--Enjoyed a Fair

Amount Of Popularity In its Day. Fielding'S Journal Had Perhaps

The Least Immediate Success Of The Four. Sterne'S Journey

Unquestionably Had The Most. The Tenant Of "Shandy Hall," As Was

Customary In the First Heyday Of "Anglomania," Went To Paris To

Ratify His Successes, And The Resounding Triumph Of His

Naughtiness There, By A Reflex Action, Secured the Vote Of

London. Posterity Has Fully Sanctioned this Particular "Judicium

Paridis." The Sentimental Journey Is A Book Sui Generis, And In

The Reliable Kind Of Popularity, Which Takes Concrete Form In

Successive Reprints, It Has Far Eclipsed its Eighteenth-Century

Rivals. The Fine Literary Aroma Which Pervades Every Line Of This

Small Masterpiece Is Not The Predominant Characteristic Of The

Great Cham'S Journey. Nevertheless, And In spite Of The Malignity

Of The "Ossianite" Press, It Fully Justified the Assumption Of

The Booksellers That It Would Prove A "Sound" Book. It Is Full

Of Sensible Observations, And Is Written In johnson'S Most

Scholarly, Balanced, And Dignified style. Few Can Read It Without

A Sense Of Being Repaid, If Only By The Portentous Sentence In

Which The Author Celebrates His Arrival At The Shores Of Loch

Ness, Where He Reposes Upon "A Bank Such As A Writer Of Romance

Might Have Delighted to Feign," And Reflects That A "Uniformity

Of Barrenness Can Afford Very Little Amusement To The Traveller;

That It Is Easy To Sit At Home And Conceive Rocks And Heath And

Waterfalls; And That These Journeys Are Useless Labours, Which

Neither Impregnate The Imagination Nor Enlarge The

Understanding." Fielding'S Contribution To Geography Has Far Less

Solidity And Importance, But It Discovers To Not A Few Readers An

Unfeigned charm That Is Not To Be Found In the Pages Of Either

Sterne Or Johnson. A Thoughtless Fragment Suffices To Show The

Writer In his True Colours As One Of The Most Delightful Fellows

In Our Literature, And To Convey Just Unmistakably To All Good

Men And True The Rare And Priceless Sense Of Human Fellowship.

 

 

 

There Remain The Travels Through France And Italy, By T.

Smollett, M.D., And Though These May Not Exhibit The Marmoreal

Glamour Of Johnson, Or The Intimate Fascination Of Fielding, Or

The Essential Literary Quality Which Permeates The Subtle

Dialogue And Artful Vignette Of Sterne, Yet I Shall Endeavour To

Show, Not Without Some Hope Of Success Among The Fair-Minded,

That The Travels Before Us Are Fully Deserving Of A Place, And

That Not The Least Significant, In the Quartette.

 

 

 

The Temporary Eclipse Of Their Fame I Attribute, First To The 

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Studious Depreciation Of Sterne And Walpole, And Secondly To A

Refinement Of Snobbishness On The Part Of The Travelling Crowd,

Who Have An Uneasy Consciousness That To Listen To Common Sense,

Such As Smollett'S, In matters Of Connoisseurship, Is Tantamount

To Confessing Oneself A Galilean Of The Outermost Court. In this

Connection, Too, The Itinerant Divine Gave The Travelling Doctor

A Very Nasty Fall. Meeting The Latter At Turin, Just As Smollett

Was About To Turn His Face Homewards, In march 1765, Sterne Wrote

Of Him, In the Famous Journey Of 1768, Thus:

 

 

 

"The Learned smelfungus Travelled from Boulogne To Paris, From

Paris To Rome, And So On, But He Set Out With The Spleen And

Jaundice, And Every Object He Passed by Was Discoloured or

Distorted. He Wrote An Account Of Them, But 'Twas Nothing But The

Account Of His Miserable Feelings." "I Met Smelfungus," He Wrote

Later On, "In The Grand Portico Of The Pantheon--He Was Just

Coming Out Of It. ''Tis Nothing But A Huge Cockpit,' Said He--'I

Wish You Had Said Nothing Worse Of The Venus De Medici,' Replied

I--For In passing Through Florence, I Had Heard He Had Fallen

Foul Upon The Goddess, And Used her Worse Than A Common Strumpet,

Without The Least Provocation In nature. I Popp'D Upon Smelfungus

Again At Turin, In his Return Home, And A Sad Tale Of Sorrowful

Adventures Had He To Tell, 'Wherein He Spoke Of Moving accidents

By Flood And Field, And Of The Cannibals Which Each Other Eat,

The Anthropophagi'; He Had Been Flayed alive, And Bedevil'D, And

Used worse Than St. Bartholomew, At Every Stage He Had Come At.

'I'Ll Tell It,' Cried smelfungus, 'To The World.' 'You Had Better

Tell It,' Said I,