time and study to it. With these alternatives at hand one might
pass with credit through any famous continental collection.
Smollett aspired to more independence of thought and opinion,
though we perceive at every turn how completely the Protestant
prejudice of his "moment" and "milieu" had obtained dominion over
him. To his perception monks do not chant or intone, they bawl
and bellow their litanies. Flagellants are hired peasants who pad
themselves to repletion with women's bodices. The image of the
Virgin Mary is bejewelled, hooped, painted, patched, curled, and
frizzled in the very extremity of the fashion. No particular
attention is paid by the mob to the Crucified One, but as soon as
his lady-mother appeared on the shoulders of four lusty friars
the whole populace fall upon their knees in the dirt. We have
some characteristic criticism and observation of the Florentine
nobles, the opera, the improvisatori, [For details as to the
eighteenth-century improvisatore and commedia delle arte the
reader is referred to Symonds's Carlo Gozzi. See also the Travel
Papers of Mrs. Piozzi; Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann, and
Doran's Mann and Manners at the Court of Florence. (Vide Appendix
A, p. 345)] the buildings, and the cicisbei. Smollett nearly
always gives substantial value to his notes, however casual, for
he has an historian's eye, and knows the symptoms for which the
inquirer who comes after is likely to make inquisition.

Smollett's observations upon the state of Florence in Letters
XXVII and XXVIII are by no means devoid of value. The direct rule
of the Medici had come to an end in 1737, and Tuscany (which with
the exception of the interlude of 1798-1814 remained in Austrian
hands down to 1860) was in 1764 governed by the Prince de Craon,
viceroy of the Empress Maria Theresa. Florence was, indeed, on