in matters of criticism, as where he retracts his censure of Raphael's
Parnassus in Letter XXXIII. 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. The second
volume, which affords admirable specimens of Smollett's neatly written
marginalia, has been exhibited in a show-case in the King's Library.

The corrections that Smollett purposed to make in the Travels are now
for the second time embodied in a printed edition of the text. At the
same time the text has been collated with the original edition of 1766,
and the whole has been carefully revised. The old spelling has been, as
far as possible, restored. Smollett was punctilious in such matters,
and what with his histories, his translations, his periodicals, and his
other compilations, he probably revised more proof-matter for press
than any other writer of his time. His practice as regards orthography
is, therefore, of some interest as representing what was in all
probability deemed to be the most enlightened convention of the day.