of education, which induces a Laplander to place the terrestrial
paradise among the snows of Norway, and a Swiss to prefer the
barren mountains of Soleure to the fruitful plains of Lombardy. I
am attached to my country, because it is the land of liberty,
cleanliness, and convenience; but I love it still more tenderly,
as the scene of all my interesting connections, as the habitation
of my friends, for whose conversation, correspondence, and esteem
I wish alone to live."

For the time being it cannot be doubted that the hardships
Smollett had to undergo on his Italian journey, by sea and land,
and the violent passions by which he was agitated owing to the
conduct of refractory postilions and extortionate innkeepers,
contributed positively to brace up and invigorate his
constitution. He spoke of himself indeed as "mended by ill-treatment"
not unlike Tavernier, the famous traveller,--said to
have been radically cured of the gout by a Turkish aga in Egypt,
who gave him the bastinado because he would not look at the head
of the bashaw of Cairo. But Fizes was right after all in his
swan-prescription, for poor Smollett's cure was anything but a
radical one. His health soon collapsed under the dreary round of
incessant labour at Chelsea. His literary faculty was still
maturing and developing. His genius was mellowing, and a later
work might have eclipsed Clinker. But it was not to be. He had a
severe relapse in the winter. In 1770 he had once more to take
refuge from overwork on the sunny coast he had done so much to
popularize among his countrymen, and it was near Leghorn that he
died on 17th September 1771.

ANNO AETATIS 51.