Well May He Have Expatiated Upon The Total Lack
Of Taste Among The Inhabitants!
In dealing with the trade,
revenue, and other administrative details Smollett shows himself
the expert compiler and statistician a London journalist in large
practice credits himself with becoming by the mere exercise of
his vocation.
In dealing with the patois of the country he
reveals the curiosity of the trained scholar and linguist.
Climate had always been one of his hobbies, and on learning that
none of the local practitioners was in a position to exact a
larger fee than sixpence from his patients (quantum mutatus the
Nice physician of 1907!) he felt that he owed it to himself to
make this the subject of an independent investigation. He kept a
register of the weather during the whole of his stay, and his
remarks upon the subject are still of historical interest,
although with Teysseire's minutely exact Monograph on the
Climatology of Nice (1881) at his disposal and innumerable
commentaries thereon by specialists, the inquirer of to-day would
hardly go to Smollett for his data. Then, as now, it is curious
to find the rumour current that the climate of Nice was sadly
deteriorating. "Nothing to what it was before the war!" as the
grumbler from the South was once betrayed into saying of the
August moon. Smollett's esprit chagrin was nonplussed at first to
find material for complaint against a climate in which he admits
that there was less rain and less wind than in any other part of
the world that he knew.
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