Fourthly, And These Are Of The Greatest Importance, Come
Some Very Interesting Additional Notes Upon The Buildings Of
Pisa, Upon Sir John Hawkwood's Tomb At Florence, And Upon The
Congenial Though Recondite Subject Of Antique Roman Hygiene.
[Cf.
The Dinner in the manner of the Ancients in Peregrine Pickle,
(xliv.) and Letters IX. to XL in Humphry Clinker.]
After Smollett's death his books were for the most part sold for
the benefit of his widow. No use was made of his corrigenda. For
twenty years or so the Travels were esteemed and referred to, but
as time went on, owing to the sneers of the fine gentlemen of
letters, such as Walpole and Sterne, they were by degrees
disparaged and fell more or less into neglect. They were
reprinted, it is true, either in collective editions of Smollett
or in various collections of travels; [For instance in Baldwin's
edition of 1778; in the 17th vol. of Mayor's Collection of
Voyages and Travels, published by Richard Phillips in twenty-eight
vols., 1809; and in an abbreviated form in John Hamilton
Moore's New and Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels
(folio, Vol. 11. 938-970).] but they were not edited with any
care, and as is inevitable in such cases errors crept in,
blunders were repeated, and the text slightly but gradually
deteriorated. In the last century Smollett's own copy of the
Travels bearing the manuscript corrections that he had made in
1770, was discovered in the possession of the Telfer family and
eventually came into the British Museum.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 25 of 535
Words from 6591 to 6847
of 143308
