further, let me remind you, of one great fault I was then guilty of; for
though your partiality to me might induce you to overlook it, the public
did not, I mean that of writing when my temper was disturbed, either by
cross incidents I met with upon the road, or disagreeable news which
often followed me from my own country into this. I need not tell a man
of your discernment, in what a different light all objects, whether
animate, or inanimate, appear to those, whose temper is disturbed,
either by ill health, ill treatment, or, what is perhaps more prevalent
than either, the chagrin he may feel at not being rated in the
estimation of others, according to that value he puts upon himself.
Could Dr. Smollett rise from the dead, and sit down in perfect health,
and good temper, and read his travels through France and Italy, he
would probably find most of his anger turned upon himself. But, poor
man! he was ill; and meeting with, what every stranger must expect to
meet at most French inns, want of cleanliness, imposition, and
incivility; he was so much disturbed by those incidents, that to say no
more of the writings of an ingenious and deceased author, his travels
into France, and Italy, are the least entertaining, in my humble
opinion, of all his works. Indeed I have observed that most travellers
fall into one extreme, or the other, and either are all panegyric or all
censure; in which case, all they say cannot be just; for, as all nations
are governed by men, and the bulk of men of all nations live by artifice
of one kind or other, the few men who pass among them, without any
sinister views, cannot avoid feeling, and but few from complaining of
the ill treatment they meet with; not considering one of Swift's shrewd
remarks; _I never_ said he, _knew a man who could not bear the
misfortunes of another perfectly like a Christian_.

Remember therefore, when I tell you how ill I have been treated either
by _Lords_ or _Aubergists_, or how dirtily served by either, it is to