nature anything but a curmudgeon. On the contrary, he was, if I
interpret him at all aright, a high-minded, open-hearted,
generous type of man. Like a majority, perhaps, of the really
open-handed he shared one trait with the closefisted and even
with the very mean rich. He would rather give away a crown than
be cheated of a farthing. Smollett himself had little of the
traditional Scottish thriftiness about him, but the people among
whom he was going--the Languedocians and Ligurians--were
notorious for their nearness in money matters. The result of all
this could hardly fail to exacerbate Smollett's mood and to
aggravate the testiness which was due primarily to the bitterness
of his struggle with the world, and, secondarily, to the
complaints which that struggle engendered. One capital
consequence, however, and one which specially concerns us, was
that we get this unrivalled picture of the seamy side of foreign
travel--a side rarely presented with anything like Smollett's
skill to the student of the grand siecle of the Grand Tour. The
rubs, the rods, the crosses of the road could, in fact, hardly be
presented to us more graphically or magisterially than they are
in some of these chapters. Like Prior, Fielding, Shenstone, and
Dickens, Smollett was a connoisseur in inns and innkeepers. He
knew good food and he knew good value, and he had a mighty keen
eye for a rogue. There may, it is true, have been something in
his manner which provoked them to exhibit their worst side to
him. It is a common fate with angry men. The trials to which he
was subjected were momentarily very severe, but, as we shall see
in the event, they proved a highly salutary discipline to him.

To sum up, then, Smollett's Travels were written hastily and
vigorously by an expert man of letters. They were written ad