poet sunk in profound, but not silent, slumber. From such
absurdities as these, or of the enthusiast who went into raptures
about the head of the Elgin Ilissos (which is unfortunately a
headless trunk), we are happily spared in the pages of Smollett.
In him complete absence of gush is accompanied by an independent
judgement, for which it may quite safely be claimed that good
taste is in the ascendant in the majority of cases.

From Florence Smollett set out in October 1764 for Siena, a
distance of forty-two miles, in a good travelling coach; he slept
there, and next day, seven and a half miles farther on, at Boon
Convento, hard by Montepulciano, now justly celebrated for its
wine, he had the amusing adventure with the hostler which gave
occasion for his vivid portrait of an Italian uffiziale, and also
to that irresistible impulse to cane the insolent hostler, from
the ill consequences of which he was only saved by the
underling's precipitate flight. The night was spent at
Radicofani, five and twenty miles farther on. A clever postilion
diversified the route to Viterbo, another forty-three miles. The
party was now within sixteen leagues, or ten hours, of Rome. The
road from Radicofani was notoriously bad all the way, but
Smollett was too excited or too impatient to pay much attention
to it. "You may guess what I felt at first sight of the city of
Rome."

"When you arrive at Rome," he says later, in somewhat more
accustomed vein, "you receive cards from all your country folk in
that city. They expect to have the visit returned next day, when
they give orders not to be at home, and you never speak to one
another in the sequel. This is a refinement in hospitality and