At Foligno, where Goethe also, in his travels a score of years or
so later, had an amusing adventure, Smollett was put into a room
recently occupied by a wild beast (bestia), but the bestia turned
out on investigation to be no more or no less than an "English
heretic." The food was so filthy that it might have turned the
stomach of a muleteer; their coach was nearly shattered to
pieces; frozen with cold and nearly devoured by rats. Mrs.
Smollett wept in silence with horror and fatigue; and the bugs
gave the Doctor a whooping-cough. If Smollett anticipated a
violent death from exhaustion and chagrin in consequence of these
tortures he was completely disappointed. His health was never
better,--so much so that he felt constrained in fairness to drink
to the health of the Roman banker who had recommended this
nefarious route. [See the Doctor's remarks at the end of Letter
XXXV.] By Florence and Lerici he retraced his steps to Nice early
in 1765, and then after a brief jaunt to Turin (where he met
Sterne) and back by the Col di Tende, he turned his face
definitely homewards. The journey home confirmed his liking for
Pisa, and gives an opening for an amusing description of the
Britisher abroad (Letter XXXV). We can almost overhear Thackeray,
or the author of Eothen, touching this same topic in Letter XLI.
"When two natives of any other country chance to meet abroad,
they run into each other's embrace like old friends, even though
they have never heard of one another till that moment; whereas
two Englishmen in the same situation maintain a mutual reserve
and diffidence, and keep without the sphere of each other's
attraction, like two bodies endowed with a repulsive power."
Letter XXXVI gives opportunity for some discerning remarks on
French taxation. Having given the French king a bit of excellent
advice (that he should abolish the fermiers generaux), Smollett