PREFACE. ONE of my publishers, who takes pleasure in reading the proofs of the books he delivers, disapproves of my entitling mine a “Tour,” &c. affirming that it bears more analogy to Madame de Staël's "Germany," than to the numerous "Tours" published yearly in France and Switzerland. He would have therefore preferred the substitution of " England and Scotland" for the title I have chosen. No one is more willing to acknowledge than myself, that it is a Bookseller's especial province to be au fait in the construction of titles,—an act of more utility than is usually supposed; but I was alive to the hazard of causing dangerous comparisons; I, therefore, adhered pertinaciously to my first opinion. I am, moreover, bound to confess, that in order to get the better of the timidity I felt in offering to the public my sketches of English literature, I |