industry were equally exerted at home, we might find in the tablets of
Nature and Art, within our daily reach, inexhaustible sources of
inquiry and contemplation. We are on every side surrounded by
interesting objects; but, in nature, as in morals, we are apt to
contemn self-knowledge, to look abroad rather than at home, and to
study others instead of ourselves. Like the French Encyclopaedists, we
forget our own Paris; or, like editors of newspapers, we seek for
novelties in every quarter of the world, losing sight of the superior
interests of our immediate vicinity.

These observations may perhaps serve as a sufficient apology for the
narrative which follows:--existing notions, the love of the sublime,
and the predilections above described, render it necessary for a
_home_ tourist to present himself before the public with modesty. The
readers of voyages round the whole world, and of travels into
unexplored regions of Africa and America, will scarcely be persuaded
to tolerate a narrative of an excursion which began at nine in the
morning and ended at six in the afternoon of the same day! Yet such,
truly, are the _Travels_ which afford the materials of the present
narrative; they were excited by a fine morning in the latter days of
April, and their scene was the high-road lying between #London# and
#Kew#, on the banks of the Thames.

With no guide besides a map of the country round the metropolis, and
no settled purpose beyond what the weather might govern, I strolled
towards St. James's Park. In proceeding between the walls from Spring
Gardens, I found the lame and the blind taking their periodical
stations on each side of the passage.--I paused a few minutes to see
them approach one after another as to a regular calling; or as players
to take their stations and _enact_ their settled parts in this drama.
One, a fellow, who had a withered leg, approached his post with a
cheerful air; but he had no sooner seated himself, and stripped it
bare, than he began such hideous moans as in a few minutes attracted
several donations. Another, a blind woman, was brought to her post by
a little boy, who carelessly leading her against the step of a door,
she petulantly gave him a smart box of the ear, and exclaimed, "D----n
you, you rascal, can't you mind what you're about;"--and then, leaning
her back to the wall, in the same breath, she began to chaunt a
_hymn_, which soon brought contributions from many pious passengers.

The s