vowal of ill temper at the time deprives our entertainment
of the unamiable tinge of which it would otherwise have partaken. "The
truth is, I was that day more than usually peevish, from the bad
weather as well as from the dread of a fit of asthma, with which I was
threatened. And I daresay my appearance seemed as uncouth to him as his
travelling dress appeared to me. I had a grey, mourning frock under a
wide greatcoat, a bob-wig without powder, a very large laced hat, and a
meagre, wrinkled, discontented countenance."

From Lyons the traveller secured a return berline going back to Avignon
with three mules and a voiturier named Joseph. Joseph, though he turned
out to be an ex-criminal, proved himself the one Frenchman upon whose
fidelity and good service Smollett could look back with unfeigned
satisfaction. The sight of a skeleton dangling from a gibbet near
Valence surprised from this droll knave an ejaculation and a story,
from which it appeared only too evident that he had been first the
comrade and then the executioner of one of the most notorious brigands
of the century. The story as told by Smollett does not wholly agree
with the best authenticated particulars. The Dick Turpin of eighteenth
century France, Mandrin has engendered almost as many fables as his
English congener. [See Maignien's Bibliographie des Ecrits relatifs a
Mandrin.] As far as I have been able to discover, the great freebooter
was born at St. Etienne in May 1724. His father having been killed in a
coining affair, Mandrin swore to revenge him. He deserted from the army
accordingly, and got together a gang of contrebandiers, at the head of
which his career in Savoy and Dauphine almost resembles that of one of
the famous guerilla chieftains described in Hardman's Peninsular Scenes
and Sketches. Captured eventually, owing to the treachery of a comrade,
he was put to death on the wheel at Valence on 26th May 1755. Five
comrades were thrown into jail with him; and one of these obtained his
pardon on condition of acting as Mandrin's executioner. Alas, poor
Joseph!

Three experiences Smollett had at this season which may well fall to
the lot of road-farers in France right down to the present day. He was
poisoned with garlic, surfeited with demi-roasted small birds, and
astonished at the solid fare of the poorest looking travellers. The
summer weather, romantic scenery, and occasional picnics, which
Smollett would have liked to repeat every summer unde