ny useful account of the social state of the
country, or furnish the most valuable of all information--that
relating to the institutions, the welfare, and the happiness of man.
Statistics form almost an indispensable part of every book of travels
which professes to communicate information; but mere statistics are
little better than unmeaning figures, if the generalizing and
philosophical mind is wanting, which, from previous acquaintance with
the subjects on which they bear, and the conclusions which it is of
importance to deduce from them, knows what is to be selected and what
laid aside from the mass. Science, to the highest class of travellers,
is an addition of the utmost moment; as it alone can render their
observations of use to that most exalted of all objects, an extension
of the boundaries of knowledge, and an enlarged acquaintance with the
laws of nature. The soul of a poet is indispensable to form the most
interesting species of travels--a mind, and still more a heart,
capable of appreciating the grand and the beautiful in Art and in
Nature. The eye of a painter and the hand of a draughtsman are equally
important to enable him to observe with accuracy the really
interesting features of external things, and convey, by faithful and
graphic description, a correct impression of what he has seen, to the
mind of the reader. Such are the qualifications necessary for a really
great traveller. It may be too much to hope to find these ever united
in one individual; but the combination of the majority of them is
indispensable to distinction or lasting fame in this branch of
literature.

Compare these necessary and indispensable qualifications for a great
traveller, with those which really belong to our young men who are
sent forth from our universities or academies into the world, and take
upon themselves to communicate what they have seen to others. Does the
youth come from Oxford? His head is full of Homer and Virgil, Horace
and AEschylus: he could tell you all the amours of Mars and Venus, of
Jupiter and Leda; he could rival, Orpheus or Pindar in the melody of
his Greek verses, and Cicero or Livy in the correctness of his Latin
prose; but as, unfortunately, he has to write neither about gods nor
goddesses, but mere mortals, and neither in Greek verse nor Latin
verse, but good English prose, he is utterly at a loss alike for
thought and expression. He neither knows what to communicate, nor is
he master of the languag