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

Class Of Delinquents After Much

Experience He Was Bound To Admit The Following Dilemma:--If You

Chide Them For Lingering, They Will Contrive To Delay You The

Longer. If You Chastise Them With Sword, Cane, Cudgel, Or

Horsewhip (He Defines The Correctives, You May Perceive, But

Leaves The Expletives To Our Imagination) They Will Either 

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Disappear Entirely, And Leave You Without Resource, Or They Will

Find Means To Take Vengeance By Overturning Your Carriage. The

Only Course Remaining Would Be To Allow Oneself To Become The

Dupe Of Imposition By Tipping The Postillions An Amount Slightly

In Excess Of The Authorized gratification. He Admits That In

England Once, Between The Devizes And Bristol, He Found This Plan

Productive Of The Happiest Results. It Was Unfortunate That, Upon

This Occasion, The Lack Of Means Or Slenderness Of Margin For

Incidental Expenses Should Have Debarred him From Having Recourse

To A Similar Expedient. For Threepence A Post More, As Smollett

Himself Avows, He Would Probably Have Performed the Journey With

Much Greater Pleasure And Satisfaction. But The Situation Is

Instructive. It Reveals To Us The Disadvantage Under Which The

Novelist Was Continually Labouring, That Of Appearing To Travel

As An English Milord, En Grand Seigneur, And Yet Having at Every

Point To Do It "On The Cheap." He Avoided the Common Conveyance

Or Diligence, And Insisted on Travelling Post And In a Berline;

But He Could Not Bring Himself To Exceed the Five-Sou Pourboire

For The Postillions. He Would Have Meat Upon Maigre Days, Yet

Objected to Paying Double For It. He Held Aloof From The Thirty-Sou

Table D'Hote, And Would Have Been Content To Pay Three Francs

A Head For A Dinner A Part, But His Worst Passions Were Roused

When He Was Asked to Pay Not Three, But Four. Now Smollett

Himself Was Acutely Conscious Of The False Position. He Was By

Nature Anything But A Curmudgeon. On The Contrary, He Was, If I

Interpret Him At All Aright, A High-Minded, Open-Hearted,

Generous Type Of Man. Like A Majority, Perhaps, Of The Really

Open-Handed he Shared one Trait With The Closefisted and Even

With The Very Mean Rich. He Would Rather Give Away A Crown Than

Be Cheated of A Farthing. Smollett Himself Had Little Of The

Traditional Scottish Thriftiness About Him, But The People Among

Whom He Was Going--The Languedocians And Ligurians--Were

Notorious For Their Nearness In money Matters. The Result Of All

This Could Hardly Fail To Exacerbate Smollett'S Mood And To

Aggravate The Testiness Which Was Due Primarily To The Bitterness

Of His Struggle With The World, And, Secondarily, To The

Complaints Which That Struggle Engendered. One Capital

Consequence, However, And One Which Specially Concerns Us, Was

That We Get This Unrivalled picture Of The Seamy Side Of Foreign

Travel--A Side Rarely Presented with Anything Like Smollett'S

Skill To The Student Of The Grand Siecle Of The Grand Tour. The

Rubs, The Rods, The Crosses Of The Road Could, In fact, Hardly Be

Presented to Us More Graphically Or Magisterially Than They Are

In Some Of These Chapters. Like Prior, Fielding, Shenstone, And

Dickens, Smollett Was A Connoisseur In inns And Innkeepers. He

Knew Good Food And He Knew Good Value, And He Had A Mighty Keen

Eye For A Rogue. There May, It Is True, Have Been Something In

His Manner Which Provoked them To Exhibit Their Worst Side To

Him. It Is A Common Fate With Angry Men. The Trials To Which He

Was Subjected were Momentarily Very Severe, But, As We Shall See

In The Event, They Proved a Highly Salutary Discipline To Him.

 

 

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To Sum Up, Then, Smollett's Travels Were Written Hastily And

Vigorously By An Expert Man Of Letters. They Were Written Ad

Vivum, As It Were, Not From Worked-Up Notes Or Embellished

Recollections. They Were Written Expressly For Money Down. They

Were Written Rather En Noir Than Couleur De Rose By An

Experienced, And, We Might Almost Perhaps Say, A Disillusioned

Traveller, And Not By A Naif Or A Niais. The Statement That They

Were To A Certain Extent The Work Of An Invalid Is, Of Course,

True, And Explains Much. The Majority Of His Correspondents Were

Of The Medical Profession, All Of Them Were Members Of A Group

With Whom He Was Very Intimate, And The Letters Were By His

Special Direction To Be Passed Round Among Them. [We Do Not

Know Precisely Who All These Correspondents Of Smollett Were, But

Most Of Them Were Evidently Doctors And Among Them, Without A

Doubt, John Armstrong, William Hunter, George Macaulay, And Above

All John Moore, Himself An Authority On European Travel, Governor

On The Grand Tour Of The Duke Of Hamilton (Son Of "The Beautiful

Duchess"), Author Of Zeluco, And Father Of The Famous Soldier.

Smollett's Old Chum, Dr. W. Smellie, Died 5th March 1763.] In The

Circumstances (Bearing In Mind That It Was His Original Intention

To Prune The Letters Considerably Before Publication) It Was Only

Natural That He Should Say A Good Deal About The State Of His

Health. His Letters Would Have Been Unsatisfying To These Good

People Had He Not Referred Frequently And At Some Length To His

Spirits And To His Symptoms, An Improvement In Which Was The

Primary Object Of His Journey And His Two Years' Sojourn In The

South. Readers Who Linger Over The Diary Of Fielding's Dropsy And

Mrs. Fielding's Toothache Are Inconsistent In Denouncing The

Luxury Of Detail With Which Smollett Discusses The Matter Of His

Imposthume.

 

 

 

What I Claim For The Present Work Is That, In The First

Place, To Any One Interested In Smollett's Personality It

Supplies An Unrivalled Key. It Is, Moreover, The Work Of A

Scholar, An Observer Of Human Nature, And, By Election, A

Satirist Of No Mean Order. It Gives Us Some Characteristic Social

Vignettes, Some Portraits Of The Road Of An Unsurpassed Freshness

And Clearness. It Contains Some Historical And Geographical

Observations Worthy Of One Of The Shrewdest And Most Sagacious

Publicists Of The Day. It Is Interesting To The Etymologist For

The Important Share It Has Taken In Naturalising Useful Foreign

Words Into Our Speech. It Includes (As We Shall Have Occasion To

Observe) A Respectable Quantum Of Wisdom Fit To Become

Proverbial, And Several Passages Of Admirable Literary Quality.

In Point Of Date (1763-65) It Is Fortunate, For The Writer Just

Escaped Being One Of A Crowd. On The Whole, I Maintain That It Is

More Than Equal In Interest To The Journey To The Hebrides, And

That It Deserves A Very Considerable Proportion Of The Praise

That Has Hitherto Been Lavished Too Indiscriminately Upon The

Voyage To Lisbon. On The Force Of This Claim The Reader Is

Invited To Constitute Himself Judge After A Fair Perusal Of The

Following Pages. I Shall Attempt Only To Point The Way To A 

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Satisfactory Verdict, No Longer In The Spirit Of An Advocate, But

By Means Of A Few Illustrations And, More Occasionally,

Amplifications Of What Smollett Has To Tell Us.

 

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As Was The Case With Fielding Many Years Earlier, Smollett Was

Almost Broken Down With Sedentary Toil, When Early In June 1763

With His Wife, Two Young Ladies ("The Two Girls") To Whom She

Acted As Chaperon, And A Faithful Servant Of Twelve Years'

Standing, Who In The Spirit Of A Scots Retainer Of The Olden Time

Refused To Leave His Master (A Good Testimonial This, By The Way,

To A Temper Usually Accredited With Such A Splenetic Sourness),

He Crossed The Straits Of Dover To See What A Change Of Climate

And Surroundings Could Do For Him.

 

 

 

On Other Grounds Than Those Of Health He Was Glad To Shake The

Dust Of Britain From His Feet. He Speaks Himself Of Being

Traduced By Malice, Persecuted By Faction, Abandoned By False

Patrons, Complaints Which Will Remind The Reader, Perhaps, Of

George Borrow's "Jeremiad," To The Effect That He Had Been

Beslavered By The Venomous Foam Of Every Sycophantic Lacquey And

Unscrupulous Renegade In The Three Kingdoms. But Smollett's

Griefs Were More Serious Than What An Unkind Reviewer Could

Inflict. He Had Been Fined And Imprisoned For Defamation. He Had

Been Grossly Caricatured As A Creature Of Bute, The North British

Favourite Of George Iii., Whose Tenure Of The Premiership

Occasioned Riots And Almost Excited A Revolution In The

Metropolis. Yet After Incurring All This Unpopularity At A Time

When The Populace Of London Was More Inflamed Against Scotsmen

Than It Has Ever Been Before Or Since, And Having Laboured

Severely At A Paper In The Ministerial Interest And Thereby

Aroused The Enmity Of His Old Friend John Wilkes, Smollett Had

Been Unceremoniously Thrown Over By His Own Chief, Lord Bute, On

The Ground That His Paper Did More To Invite Attack Than To Repel

It. Lastly, He And His Wife Had Suffered A Cruel Bereavement In

The Loss Of Their Only Child, And It Was Partly To Supply A

Change From The Scene Of This Abiding Sorrow, That The Present

Journey Was Undertaken.

 

 

 

The First Stages And Incidents Of The Expedition Were Not Exactly

Propitious. The Dover Road Was A Byword For Its Charges; The Via

Alba Might Have Been Paved With The Silver Wrung From Reluctant

And Indignant Passengers. Smollett Characterized The Chambers As

Cold And Comfortless, The Beds As "Paultry" (With "Frowsy," A

Favourite Word), The Cookery As Execrable, Wine Poison,