to permit Acton to exchange into the Neapolitan service, and
reorganize the navy of the southern kingdom. This actually came
to pass, and, moreover, Acton played his cards so well that he
soon engrossed the ministries of War and Finance, and after the
death of Caracciolo, the elder, also that of Foreign Affairs. Sir
William Hamilton had a high opinion of the" General," soon to
become Field-Marshal. He took a strong part in resistance to
revolutionary propaganda, caused to be built the ships which
assisted Nelson in 1795, and proved himself one of the most
capable bureaucrats of the time. But the French proved too
strong, and Napoleon was the cause of his disgrace in 1804. In
that year, by special dispensation from the Pope, he married his
niece, and retired to Palermo, where he died on 12th August
1811.]

Let loose in the Uffizi Gallery Smollett shocked his sensitive
contemporaries by his freedom from those sham ecstasies which
have too often dogged the footsteps of the virtuosi. Like Scott
or Mark Twain at a later date Smollett was perfectly ready to
admire anything he could understand; but he expressly disclaims
pretensions to the nice discernment and delicate sensibility of
the connoisseur. He would never have asked to be left alone with
the Venus de Medicis as a modern art-critic is related to have
asked to be left alone with the Venus of Rokeby. He would have
been at a loss to understand the state of mind of the eminent
actor who thought the situation demanded that he should be
positively bereft of breath at first sight of the Apollo
Belvedere, and panting to regain it, convulsively clutched at the
arm of his companion, with difficulty articulating, "I breathe."
Smollett refused to be hypnotized by the famous Venus discovered