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travels through france and italy-第5章

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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;  attendance bad; publicans insolent; and bills extortion;  concluding with the grand climax that there was not a drop of  tolerable malt liquor to be had from London to Dover。 Smollett  finds a good deal to be said for the designation of 〃a den of  thieves〃 as applied to that famous port (where; as a German lady  of much later date once complained; they 〃boot ze Bible in ze  bedroom; but ze devil in ze bill〃; and he grizzles lamentably  over the seven guineas; apart from extras; which he had to pay  for transport in a Folkestone cutter to Boulogne Mouth。

Having once arrived at Boulogne; Smollett settled down regularly  to his work as descriptive reporter; and the letters that he  wrote to his friendly circle at home fall naturally into four  groups。 The first Letters from II。 to V。 describe with Hogarthian  point; prejudice and pungency; the town and people of Boulogne。  The second group; Letters VI。…XII。; deal with the journey from  Boulogne to Nice by way of Paris; Lyon; Nimes; and Montpellier。  The third group; Letters XIII。 …XXIV。; is devoted to a more  detailed and particular delineation of Nice and the Nicois。 The  fourth; Letters XXV。…XLI。; describes the Italian expedition and  the return journey to Boulogne en route for England; where the  party arrive safe home in July 1765。

Smollett's account of Boulogne is excellent reading; it forms an  apt introduction to the narrative of his journey; it familiarises  us with the milieu; and reveals to us in Smollett a man of  experience who is both resolute and capable of getting below the  surface of things。 An English possession for a short period in  the reign of the Great Harry; Boulogne has rarely been less in  touch with England than it was at the time of Smollett's visit。  Even then; however; there were three small colonies;  respectively; of English nuns; English Jesuits; and English  Jacobites。 Apart from these and the English girls in French  seminaries it was estimated ten years after Smollett's sojourn  there that there were twenty…four English families in residence。  The locality has of course always been a haunting place for the  wandering tribes of English。 Many well…known men have lived or  died here both native and English。 Adam Smith must have been  there very soon after Smollett。 So must Dr。 John Moore and  Charles Churchill; one of the enemies provoked by the Briton; who  went to Boulogne to meet his friend Wilkes and died there in  1764。 Philip Thicknesse the traveller and friend of Gainsborough  died there in 1770。 After long search for a place to end his days  in Thomas Campbell bought a house in Boulogne and died there; a  few months later; in 1844。 The house is still to be seen; Rue St。  Jean; within the old walls; it has undergone no change; and in  1900 a marble tablet was put up to record the fact that Campbell  lived and died there。 The other founder of the University of  London; Brougham; by a singular coincidence was also closely  associated with Boulogne。 'Among the occupants of the English  cemetery will be found the names of Sir Harris Nicolas; Basil  Montagu; Smithson Pennant; Sir William Ouseley; Sir William  Hamilton; and Sir C。 M。 Carmichael。 And among other literary  celebrities connected with the place; apart from Dickens (who  gave his impressions of the place in Household Words; November  1854) we should include in a brief list; Charles Lever; Horace  Smith; Wilkie Collins; Mrs。 Henry Wood; Professor York Powell;  the Marquis of Steyne (Lord Seymour); Mrs。 Jordan; Clark Russell;  and Sir Conan Doyle。 There are also memorable associations with  Lola Montes; Heinrich Heine; Becky Sharpe; and above all Colonel  Newcome。 My first care in the place was to discover the rampart  where the Colonel used to parade with little Clive。 Among the  native luminaries are Daunou; Duchenne de Boulogne; one of the  foremost physiologists of the last century; an immediate  predecessor of Charcot in knowledge of the nervous system; Aug。  Mariette; the Egyptologist; Aug。 Angellier; the biographer of  Burns; Sainte…Beuve; Prof。 Morel; and 〃credibly;〃 Godfrey de  Bouillon; of whom Charles Lamb wrote 〃poor old Godfrey; he must  be getting very old now。〃 The great Lesage died here in 1747。'  The antiquaries still dispute about Gessoriacum; Godfrey de  Bouillon; and Charlemagne's Tour。 Smollett is only fair in  justifying for the town; the older portions of which have a  strong medieval suggestion; a standard of comparison slightly  more distinguished than Wapping。 He never lets us forget that he  is a scholar of antiquity; a man of education and a speculative  philosopher。 Hence his references to Celsus and Hippocrates and  his ingenious etymologies of wheatear and samphire; more  ingenious in the second case than sound。 Smollett's field of  observation had been wide and his fund of exact information was  unusually large。 At Edinburgh he had studied medicine under Monro  and John Gordon; in company with such able and distinguished men  as William Hunter; Cullen; Pitcairn; Gregory; and Armstrongand  the two last mentioned were among his present correspondents。 As  naval surgeon at Carthagena he had undergone experience such as  few literary men can claim; and subsequently as compiler;  reviewer; party journalist; historian; translator; statistician;  and lexicographer; he had gained an amount of miscellaneous  information such as falls to the lot of very few minds of his  order of intelligence。 He h
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