the least--cannot fail, whenever it is printed, to attract
attention, to excite general interest and secure a permanent hold in
every decent library in the kingdom.

Time cannot stale an Itinerary. _Iter, Via, Actus_ are words of pith
and moment. Stage-coaches, express trains, motor-cars, have written,
or are now writing, their eventful histories over the face of these
islands; but, whatever changes they have made or are destined to make,
they have left untouched the mystery of the road, although for the
moment the latest comer may seem injuriously to have affected its
majesty.

The Itinerist alone among authors is always sure of an audience. No
matter where, no matter when, he has but to tell us how he footed it
and what he saw by the wayside, and we must listen. How can we help
it? Two hundred years ago, it may be, this Itinerist came through our
village, passed by the wall of our homestead, climbed our familiar
hill, and went on his way; it is perhaps but two lines and a half he
can afford to give us, but what lines they are! How different with
sermons, poems, and novels! On each of these is the stamp of the
author's age; sentiments, fashions, thoughts, faiths, phraseology, all
worn out--cold, dirty grate, where once there was a blazing fire.
Cheerlessness personified! Leland's anti-Papal treatise in forty-five
chapters remains in learned custody--a manuscript; a publisher it will
never find. We still have Papists and anti-Papists; in this case the
fire still blazes, but the grates are of an entirely different
construction. Leland's treatise is out of date. But his _Itinerary_ in
nine volumes, a favourite book throughout the eighteenth century,
which has graced many a bookseller's catalogue for the last hundred
years, and seldom without eliciting a purchaser--Leland's _Itinerary_
is to-day being reprinted under the most able editorship. The charm of
the road is irresistible. The _Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful
book, with a great tradition behind it and a future still before it;
but it has not escaped the ravages of time, and I would, now, at all
events, gladly exchange it for Oliver Goldsmith's _Itinerary through
Germany with a Flute_!

Vain authors, publisher's men, may write as they like about
_Shakespeare's_ country, or _Scott's_ country, or _Carlyle's_ country,
or _Crockett's_ country, but--

'Oh, good gigantic smile of the brown old earth!'

the land laughs at the delusions of the men who hurri