"That seems to be a kind of fanaticism, founded on the prejudices
of education, which induces a Laplander to place the terrestrial
paradise among the snows of Norway, and a Swiss to prefer the
barren mountains of Soleure to the fruitful plains of Lombardy. I
am attached to my country, because it is the land of liberty,
cleanliness, and convenience; but I love it still more tenderly,
as the scene of all my interesting connections, as the habitation
of my friends, for whose conversation, correspondence, and esteem
I wish alone to live."
For the time being it cannot be doubted that the hardships
Smollett had to undergo on his Italian journey, by sea and land,
and the violent passions by which he was agitated owing to the
conduct of refractory postilions and extortionate innkeepers,
contributed positively to brace up and invigorate his
constitution. He spoke of himself indeed as "mended by ill-treatment"
not unlike Tavernier, the famous traveller, - said to
have been radically cured of the gout by a Turkish aga in Egypt,
who gave him the bastinado because he would not look at the head
of the bashaw of Cairo. But Fizes was right after all in his
swan-prescription, for poor Smollett's cure was anything but a
radical one. His health soon collapsed under the dreary round of
incessant labour at Chelsea. His literary faculty was still
maturing and developing. His genius was mellowing, and a later
work might have eclipsed Clinker. But it was not to be. He had a
severe relapse in the winter. In 1770 he had once more to take
refuge from overwork on the sunny coast he had done so much to
popularize among his countrymen, and it was near Leghorn that he
died on 17th September 1771.
ANNO AETATIS 51.
EHEV! QVAM PROCVL A PATRIA!
PROPE LIBVRNI PORTVM, IN ITALIA
JACET SEPVLTVS.
THOMAS SECCOMBE. ACTON, May 1907.
LETTER I
BOULOGNE SUR MER, June 23, 1763.
DEAR SIR, - You laid your commands upon me at parting, to
communicate from time to time the observations I should make in
the course of my travels and it was an injunction I received with
pleasure. In gratifying your curiosity, I shall find some
amusement to beguile the tedious hours, which, without some such
employment, would be rendered insupportable by distemper and
disquiet.
You knew, and pitied my situation, traduced by malice, persecuted
by faction, abandoned by false patrons, and overwhelmed by the
sense of a domestic calamity, which it was not in the power of
fortune to repair.
You know with what eagerness I fled from my country as a scene of
illiberal dispute, and incredible infatuation, where a few
worthless incendiaries had, by dint of perfidious calumnies and
atrocious abuse, kindled up a flame which threatened all the
horrors of civil dissension.
