But-the history of his troublous travels is drawing to an end.
From Lyons the route is plain through Macon, Chalons, Dijon,
Auxerre, Sells, and Fontainebleau - the whole itinerary almost
exactly anticipates that of Talfourd's Vacation Tour one hundred
and ten years later, except that on the outward journey Talfourd
sailed down the Rhone.
Smollett's old mental grievances and sores have been shifted and
to some extent, let us hope, dissipated by his strenuous
journeyings, and in June 1765, after an absence of two years, he
is once more enabled to write,
"You cannot imagine what pleasure I feel while I survey the white
cliffs of Dover at this distance [from Boulogne]. Not that I am
at all affected by the nescio qua dulcedine natalis soli of
Horace.
"That seems to be a kind of fanaticism, founded on the prejudices
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.
