ance; your epic a
preposterous waste of once valuable foolscap; but your slashing review
is sure to be widely read and enjoyed.

My aim in writing these Letters was to give a clear and vivid
daguerreotype of the districts I traversed and the incidents which came
under my observation. To this end I endeavored to sec, so far as
practicable, through my own eyes rather than those of others. To this
end, I generally shunned guide-books, even those of the "indispensable"
Murray, and relied mainly for routes and distances on the shilling
hand-book of Bradshaw. That I have been misled into many inaccuracies
and some gross blunders as to noted edifices, works of art, &c., is
quite probable; but that I have truthfully though hastily indicated the
topography, rural aspects, agricultural adaptations and more obvious
social characteristics of the countries I traversed, I am nevertheless
confident. I made a point of penning my impressions of each day's
journey within the succeeding twenty-four hours if practicable, for I
found that even a day's postponement impaired the distinctness of my
recollections of the ever-varying panorama of hill and dale, moor and
mountain, with long, level or undulating stretches of intermingled
woods, grain, grass, &c., &c. I trust the picture I have attempted to
give of out-door life in Western Europe, the workers in its fields and
the clusters in its streets, will be recognized by competent judges as
substantially correct.

The opinions expressed with respect to national characteristics or
aptitude will of course appear crude and rash to those who regard them
as based exclusively on the few days' personal observation in which they
may seem to have originated. To those who regard them as grounded in
some knowledge of history and of the present political and social
condition of those nations, corrected and modified indeed by the
personal observation aforesaid, their crudity and audacity will be
somewhat less astounding. No one will doubt that other travelers in
Europe have been far better qualified to observe and to judge than I
was, yet I see and think, and am not forbidden to speak. We know already
how Europe appears in the eyes of the learned and wise; but if some
Nepaulese Embassador or vagrant Camanche were to publish his "first
impressions" of Great Britain or Italy, should we utterly refuse to open
it because Baird or Thackeray could give us more accurate information on
that identical theme? Woul