Travels in France and the British Islands

Preface

The following letters are designed to give a brief account of the writer's peregrinations, during an absence from home of six months, in France and the British Islands. In these times, when between 30,000 and 40,000 of the people of this country annually travel in Europe, the subject discussed cannot be altogether uninteresting to those who prefer, like King David's two hundred men, " to abide by the stuff."

Nothing like originality has been aimed at, and therefore there

has never been any hesitation, because it has been spoken of by

others, to describe a thing worthy of notice. Accuracy, not ori-

« ginality, is what has been sought after. Yet errors have, no

doubt, been fallen into. This, indeed, seems unavoidable. In

the original letters such statistics as could be obtained were

given, those being generally afterwards corrected when copies

were about being made for the press.

It may be remarked that, in relation to places and things,

more has been observed, than as to persons or society. This

resulted mainly from the causes that, after all, the grand charac-

(iii)

IV PREFACE.

teristics of French or British society are not vastly different from those of American, and therefore to discriminate was not very necessary, and that to say much about them would have taken up too much space.

It will only further be said that these traveling epistles would never have been put into the printer's hands, if it had not been that the author has been professionally idle, which has led him to a review of what he had written and put away.

December, 1858.