vivum, as it were, not from worked-up notes or embellished
recollections. They were written expressly for money down. They
were written rather en noir than couleur de rose by an
experienced, and, we might almost perhaps say, a disillusioned
traveller, and not by a naif or a niais. The statement that they
were to a certain extent the work of an invalid is, of course,
true, and explains much. The majority of his correspondents were
of the medical profession, all of them were members of a group
with whom he was very intimate, and the letters were by his
special direction to be passed round among them. [We do not
know precisely who all these correspondents of Smollett were, but
most of them were evidently doctors and among them, without a
doubt, John Armstrong, William Hunter, George Macaulay, and above
all John Moore, himself an authority on European travel, Governor
on the Grand Tour of the Duke of Hamilton (Son of "the beautiful
Duchess"), author of Zeluco, and father of the famous soldier.
Smollett's old chum, Dr. W. Smellie, died 5th March 1763.] In the
circumstances (bearing in mind that it was his original intention
to prune the letters considerably before publication) it was only
natural that he should say a good deal about the state of his
health. His letters would have been unsatisfying to these good
people had he not referred frequently and at some length to his
spirits and to his symptoms, an improvement in which was the
primary object of his journey and his two years' sojourn in the
South. Readers who linger over the diary of Fielding's dropsy and
Mrs. Fielding's toothache are inconsistent in denouncing the
luxury of detail with which Smollett discusses the matter of his
imposthume.

What I claim for the present work is that, in the first