282 
In November 1787, Sir James returned to his na- 
tive country ; andin 1793 he published his “Sketch 
of a Tour on the Continent,” in three volumes, 
octavo*. 
His enthusiastic admiration of whatever he saw 
beautiful in nature and excellent in art, for which 
he appears to have possessed an intuitive discrimi- 
nation, renders his “Sketch of a Tour on the Con- 
tinent ” one of the most engaging narratives of the 
kind which has come from the press. It attracted 
the approbation of every one who took it up; yet 
by a fatality often attending what is excellent, it 
appears to be less known than it deserves. There 
is something very romantic in the description of 
his approach to Genoa. . 
“Traversing,” he says, “majestic cliffs among 
groves of olive- and carob-trees, and thickets of 
oleander and myrtle, 
‘*T felt as free as nature first made man, 
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.’ ” 
His entrance by the gate of St. Thomas, walking 
alone into the Strada Balbi, to the palace of the 
father of his friend the Marquis Ippolito Durazzo, 
—his kind, yet magnificent reception, the state in 
* The author's father left the following observation upon this 
work, in his common-place book. 
“A Sketch ofa Tour on the Continent in the Years 1786 and 
1787, by James Edward Smith, M.D., F.R.S., Member of the 
Royal Academies of Turin, Upsal, Stockholm, Lisbon, &c. &c. 
President of the Linnzean Society.” In 3 volumes. 
“JT must leave the world to judge of the merits of this work 
of my most dearly beloved son ; it is for me to contemplate them 
with a tender father’s partiality in silence.” 
