with their itineraries, some have no other
purpose than to describe the face of the country; those who sit idle at
home, and are curious to know what is done or suffered in distant
countries, may be informed by one of these wanderers, that on a certain
day he set out early with the caravan, and in the first hour's march
saw, towards the south, a hill covered with trees, then passed over a
stream, which ran northward with a swift course, but which is probably
dry in the summer months; that an hour after he saw something to the
right which looked at a distance like a castle with towers, but which he
discovered afterwards to be a craggy rock; that he then entered a
valley, in which he saw several trees tall and flourishing, watered by a
rivulet not marked in the maps, of which he was not able to learn the
name; that the road afterward grew stony, and the country uneven, where
he observed among the hills many hollows worn by torrents, and was told
that the road was passable only part of the year; that going on they
found the remains of a building, once, perhaps, a fortress to secure the
pass, or to restrain the robbers, of which the present inhabitants can
give no other account than that it is haunted by fairies; that they went
to dine at the foot of a rock, and travelled the rest of the day along
the banks of a river, from which the road turned aside towards evening,
and brought them within sight of a village, which was once a
considerable town, but which afforded them neither good victuals nor
commodious lodging.

Thus he conducts his reader through wet and dry, over rough and smooth,
without incidents, without reflection; and, if he obtains his company
for another day, will dismiss him again at night, equally fatigued with
a like succession of rocks and streams, mountains and ruins.

This is the common style of those sons of enterprise, who visit savage
countries, and range through solitude and desolation; who pass a desert,
and tell that it is sandy; who cross a valley, and find that it is
green. There are others of more delicate sensibility, that visit only
the realms of elegance and softness; that wander through Italian
palaces, and amuse the gentle reader with catalogues of pictures; that
hear masses in magnificent churches, and recount the number of the
pillars or variegations of the pavement. And there are yet others, who,
in disdain of trifles, copy inscriptions elegant and rude, ancient and
modern; and transcrib