Travels Through France And Italy by Tobias Smollett (beautiful books to read .txt) 📖

'To Your Physician.'"

 

 

 

To Counteract The Ill Effects Of "Spleen And Jaundice" And

Exhibit The Spirit Of Genteel Humour And Universal Benevolence In

Which A Man Of Sensibility Encountered the Discomforts Of The

Road, The Incorrigible Parson Laurence Brought Out His Own

Sentimental Journey. Another Effect Of Smollett'S Book Was To

Whet His Own Appetite For Recording The Adventures Of The Open

Road. So That But For Travels Through France And Italy We Might

Have Had Neither A Sentimental Journey Nor A Humphry Clinker. If

All The Admirers Of These Two Books Would But Bestir Themselves

And Look Into The Matter, I Am Sure That Sterne'S Only Too Clever

Assault Would Be Relegated to Its Proper Place And Assessed at

Its Right Value As A Mere Boutade. The Borrowed contempt Of

Horace Walpole And The Coterie Of Superficial Dilettanti, From

Which Smollett'S Book Has Somehow Never Wholly Recovered, Could

Then Easily Be Outflanked and The Travels Might Well Be In

Reasonable Expectation Of Coming By Their Own Again.

 

 

 

 

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In The Meantime Let Us Look A Little More Closely Into The

Special And Somewhat Exceptional Conditions Under Which The

Travel Letters Of Smollett Were Produced. Smollett, As We Have

Seen, Was One Of The First Professional Men Of All Work In

Letters Upon A Considerable Scale Who Subsisted entirely Upon The

Earnings Of His Own Pen. He Had No Extraneous Means Of Support.

He Had Neither Patron, Pension, Property, Nor Endowment,

Inherited or Acquired. Yet He Took Upon Himself The Burden Of A

Large Establishment, He Spent Money Freely, And He Prided himself

Upon The Fact That He, Tobias Smollett, Who Came Up To London

Without A Stiver In his Pocket, Was In ten Years' Time In a

Position To Enact The Part Of Patron Upon A Considerable Scale To

The Crowd Of Inferior Denizens Of Grub Street. Like Most People

Whose Social Ambitions Are In advance Of Their Time, Smollett

Suffered considerably On Account Of These Novel Aspirations Of

His. In the Present Day He Would Have Had His Motor Car And His

House On Hindhead, A Seat In parliament And A Brief From The

Nation To Boot As A Member For Humanity. Voltaire Was The Only

Figure In the Eighteenth Century Even To Approach Such A

Flattering Position, And He Was For Many Years A Refugee From His

Own Land. Smollett Was Energetic And Ambitious Enough To Start In

Rather A Grand Way, With A Large House, A Carriage, Menservants,

And The Rest. His Wife Was A Fine Lady, A "Creole" Beauty Who Had

A Small Dot Of Her Own; But, On The Other Hand, Her Income Was

Very Precarious, And She Herself Somewhat Of A Silly And An

Incapable In the Eyes Of Smollett'S Old Scotch Friends. But To

Maintain Such A Position--To Keep The Bailiffs From The Door From

Year'S End To Year'S End--Was A Truly Herculean Task In days When

A Newspaper "Rate" Of Remuneration Or A Well-Wearing Copyright

Did Not So Much As Exist, And When Reviews Sweated their Writers

At The Rate Of A Guinea Per Sheet Of Thirty-Two Pages. Smollett

Was Continually Having Recourse To Loans. He Produced the Eight

(Or Six Or Seven) Hundred a Year He Required by Sheer Hard

Writing, Turning Out His History Of England, His Voltaire, And

His Universal History By Means Of Long Spells Of Almost Incessant

Labour At Ruinous Cost To His Health. On The Top Of All This

Cruel Compiling He Undertook To Run A Review (The Critical), A

Magazine (The British), And A Weekly Political Organ (The

Briton). A Charge Of Defamation For A Paragraph In the Nature Of

What Would Now Be Considered a Very Mild And Pertinent Piece Of

Public Criticism Against A Faineant Admiral Led to Imprisonment

In The King'S Bench Prison, Plus A Fine Of £100. Then Came A

Quarrel With An Old Friend, Wilkes--Not The Least Vexatious

Result Of That Forlorn Championship Of Bute'S Government In the

Briton. And Finally, In part, Obviously, As A Consequence Of All

This Nervous Breakdown, A Succession Of Severe Catarrhs,

Premonitory In his Case Of Consumption, The Serious Illness Of

The Wife He Adored, And The Death Of His Darling, The "Little

Boss" Of Former Years, Now On The Verge Of Womanhood. To A Man Of

His Extraordinarily Strong Affections Such A Series Of Ills Was

Too Overwhelming. He Resolved to Break Up His Establishment At

Chelsea, And To Seek A Remedy In flight From Present Evils To A 

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Foreign Residence. Dickens Went To Hibernate On The Riviera Upon

A Somewhat Similar Pretext, Though Fortunately Without The Same

Cause, As Far As His Health Was Concerned.

 

 

 

Now Note Another Very Characteristic Feature Of These Travel

Letters. Smollett Went Abroad Not For Pleasure, But Virtually Of

Necessity. Not Only Were Circumstances At Home Proving Rather Too

Much For Him, But Also, Like Stevenson, He Was Specifically

"Ordered south" By His Physicians, And He Went With The

Deliberate Intention Of Making as Much Money As Possible Out Of

His Travel Papers. In his Case He Wrote Long Letters On The Spot

To His Medical And Other Friends At Home. When He Got Back In the

Summer Of 1765 One Of His First Cares Was To Put The Letters

Together. It Had Always Been His Intention Carefully To Revise

Them For The Press. But When He Got Back To London He Found So

Many Other Tasks Awaiting Him That Were So Far More Pressing,

That This Part Of His Purpose Was But Very Imperfectly Carried

Out. The Letters Appeared pretty Much As He Wrote Them. Their

Social And Documentary Value Is Thereby Considerably Enhanced,

For They Were Nearly All Written Close Down To The Facts. The

Original Intention Had Been To Go To Montpellier, Which Was

Still, I Suppose, The Most Popular Health Resort In southern

Europe. The Peace Of 1763 Opened the Way. And This Brings Us To

Another Feature Of Distinction In regard To Smollett'S Travels.

Typical Briton, Perfervid Protestant Of Britain'S Most Protestant

Period, And Insular Enrage Though He Doubtless Was, Smollett Had

Knocked about The World A Good Deal And Had Also Seen Something

Of The Continent Of Europe. He Was Not Prepared to See Everything

Couleur De Rose Now. His Was Quite Unlike The Frame Of Mind Of

The Ordinary Holiday-Seeker, Who, Partly From A Voluntary

Optimism, And Partly From The Change Of Food And Habit, The

Exhilaration Caused by Novel Surroundings, And Timidity At The

Unaccustomed sounds He Hears In his Ears, Is Determined to Be

Pleased with Everything. Very Temperamental Was Smollett, And His

Frame Of Mind At The Time Was That Of One Determined to Be

Pleased with Nothing. We Know Little Enough About Smollett

Intime. Only The Other Day I Learned that The Majority Of So-

Called smollett Portraits Are Not Presentments Of The Novelist At

All, But Ingeniously Altered plates Of George Washington. An

Interesting Confirmation Of This Is To Be Found In the Recently

Published letters Of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe To Robert

Chambers. "Smollett Wore Black Cloaths--A Tall Man--And Extreamly

Handsome. No Picture Of Him Is Known To Be Extant--All That Have

Been Foisted on The Public As Such His Relations Disclaim--This I

Know From My Aunt Mrs. Smollett, Who Was The Wife Of His Nephew,

And Resided with Him At Bath." But One Thing We Do Know, And In

These Same Letters, If Confirmation Had Been Needed, We Observe

The Statement Repeated, Namely, That Smollett Was Very Peevish. A

Sardonic, Satirical, And Indeed decidedly Gloomy Mood Or Temper

Had Become So Habitual In him As To Transform The Man. Originally

Gay And Debonnair, His Native Character Had Been So Overlaid That

When He First Returned to Scotland In 1755 His Own Mother Could 

Part 2 Pg 7

Not Recognise Him Until He "Gave Over Glooming" And Put On His

Old Bright Smile. [A Pleasant Story Of The Doctor'S Mother Is

Given In the Same Letters To R. Chambers (1904). She Is Described

As An Ill-Natured-Looking Woman With A High Nose, But Not A Bad

Temper, And Very Fond Of The Cards. One Evening an Edinburgh

Bailie (Who Was A Tallow Chandler) Paid Her A Visit. "Come Awa',

Bailie," Said She, "And Tak' A Trick At The Cards." "Troth Madam,

I Hae Nae Siller!" "Then Let Us Play For A Pound Of Candles."]

His Was Certainly A Nervous, Irritable, And Rather Censorious

Temper. Like Mr. Brattle, In the Vicar Of Bulhampton, He Was

Thinking always Of The Evil Things That Had Been Done To Him.

With The Pawky And Philosophic Scots Of His Own Day (Robertson,

Hume, Adam Smith, And "Jupiter" Carlyle) He Had Little In common,

But With The Sour And Mistrustful James Mill Or The Cross And

Querulous Carlyle Of A Later Date He Had, It Seems To Me, A Good

Deal. What, However, We Attribute In their Case To Bile Or Liver,

A Consecrated usage Prescribes That We Must, In the Case Of

Smollett, Accredit More Particularly To The Spleen. Whether

Dyspeptic Or "Splenetic," This Was Not The Sort Of Man To See

Things Through A Veil Of Pleasant Self-Generated illusion. He

Felt Under No Obligation Whatever To Regard The Grand Tour As A

Privilege Of Social Distinction, Or Its Discomforts As Things To

Be Discreetly Ignored in relating His Experience To The Stay-At-Home

Public. He Was Not The Sort Of Man That The Tourist Agencies

Of To-Day Would Select To Frame Their Advertisements. As An

Advocatus Diaboli On The Subject Of Travel He Would Have Done

Well Enough. And Yet We Must Not Infer That The Magic Of Travel

Is Altogether Eliminated from His Pages. This Is By No Means The

Case: Witness His Intense Enthusiasm At Nimes, On Sight Of The

Maison Carree Or The Pont Du Gard; The Passage Describing His

Entry Into The Eternal City; [Ours "Was The Road By Which So Many

Heroes Returned with Conquest To Their Country, By Which So Many

Kings Were Led captive To Rome, And By Which The Ambassadors Of

So Many Kingdoms And States Approached the Seat Of Empire, To

Deprecate The Wrath, To Sollicit The Friendship, Or Sue For The

Protection Of The Roman People."] Or The Enviable Account Of The

Alfresco Meals Which The Party Discussed in their Coach As

Described in letter Viii.

 

 

 

As To Whether Smollett And His Party Of Five Were Exceptionally

Unfortunate In their Road-Faring Experiences Must Be Left An Open

Question At The Tribunal Of Public Opinion. In cold Blood, In one

Of His Later Letters, He Summarised his Continental Experience

After This Wise: Inns, Cold, Damp, Dark, Dismal, Dirty; Landlords

Equally Disobliging and Rapacious; Servants Awkward, Sluttish,

And Slothful; Postillions Lazy, Lounging, Greedy, And

Impertinent. With This Last