Page:The grand tour in the eighteenth century by Mead, William Edward.djvu/140

 that. On the Continent the fires of the Reformation and of the counter-Reformation had well-nigh burned out, so that the average Protestant might go where he pleased and do about as he pleased. But English Catholics were rare in the eighteenth century, and English travelers in France and Italy not unnaturally viewed with ill-concealed disdain the ceremonies and pictures and images and relics that they regarded as childish or heathenish. One traveler remarks on the old masters that "almost all their paintings are of the same strain, to promote idolatry and superstition of some kind or other." And a few pages later he says: "Sometimes a priest or friar of their society gives them a detail of nonsense in praise of that saint, and of the piety of their institution, and such like, which they call a sermon. We have heard some of these fulsome discourses, and have been much surprised at the feigned raptures of the preacher, and the amazing ignorance and simplicity of the hearers."

Like Sharp, the novelist Smollett embodied his experiences on the Continent in a well-known work. Smollett has the querulous and petulant tone of a nervous invalid, who sees everything through jaundiced eyes and makes sweeping assertions based upon an occasional unpleasant experience. In no case is it safe to allow him the final word in judging any part of the Continent, though his keen eye and marvelous descriptive faculty enable him to picture individual facts and scenes with great accuracy. One might easily gather from his pages a choice collection of vituperative adjectives, usually in the superlative degree, for he taxes the resources of the language to express his disgust at the treatment he received from scoundrels of every sort. Smollett had, indeed, one long series of quarrels with carriage drivers, innkeepers, and servants in his journey through France and Italy. Some of these squabbles were unquestionably due to annoying exactions and petty knavery, but, as he confesses himself, a small additional outlay would have enabled him to avoid most of them.