My First Care In The Place Was To Discover The Rampart
Where The Colonel Used To Parade With Little Clive.
Among the
native luminaries are Daunou, Duchenne de Boulogne, one of the
foremost physiologists of the last century, an immediate
predecessor of Charcot in knowledge of the nervous system, Aug.
Mariette, the Egyptologist, Aug. Angellier, the biographer of
Burns, Sainte-Beuve, Prof. Morel, and "credibly," Godfrey de
Bouillon, of whom Charles Lamb wrote "poor old Godfrey, he must
be getting very old now." The great Lesage died here in 1747.]
The antiquaries still dispute about Gessoriacum, Godfrey de
Bouillon, and Charlemagne's Tour. Smollett is only fair in
justifying for the town, the older portions of which have a
strong medieval suggestion, a standard of comparison slightly
more distinguished than Wapping. He never lets us forget that he
is a scholar of antiquity, a man of education and a speculative
philosopher. Hence his references to Celsus and Hippocrates and
his ingenious etymologies of wheatear and samphire, more
ingenious in the second case than sound. Smollett's field of
observation had been wide and his fund of exact information was
unusually large. At Edinburgh he had studied medicine under Monro
and John Gordon, in company with such able and distinguished men
as William Hunter, Cullen, Pitcairn, Gregory, and Armstrong - and
the two last mentioned were among his present correspondents. As
naval surgeon at Carthagena he had undergone experience such as
few literary men can claim, and subsequently as compiler,
reviewer, party journalist, historian, translator, statistician,
and lexicographer, he had gained an amount of miscellaneous
information such as falls to the lot of very few minds of his
order of intelligence. He had recently directed the compilation
of a large Universal Geography or Gazetteer, the Carton or Vivien
de St. Martin if those days - hence his glib references to the
manners and customs of Laplanders, Caffres, Kamskatchans, and
other recondite types of breeding. His imaginative faculty was
under the control of an exceptionally strong and retentive
memory. One may venture to say, indeed, without danger of
exaggeration that his testimonials as regards habitual accuracy
of statement have seldom been exceeded. Despite the doctor's
unflattering portraits of Frenchmen, M. Babeau admits that his
book is one written by an observer of facts, and a man whose
statements, whenever they can be tested, are for the most part
"singularly exact." Mr. W. J. Prouse, whose knowledge of the
Riviera district is perhaps almost unequalled out of France,
makes this very remarkable statement. "After reading all that
has been written by very clever people about Nice in modern
times, one would probably find that for exact precision of
statement, Smollett was still the most trustworthy guide," a view
which is strikingly borne out by Mr. E. Schuyler, who further
points out Smollett's shrewd foresight in regard to the
possibilities of the Cornice road, and of Cannes and San Remo as
sanatoria." Frankly there is nothing to be seen which he does
not recognise." And even higher testimonies have been paid to
Smollett's topographical accuracy by recent historians of Nice
and its neighbourhood.
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