y. Ansard,
allow me to state that you are a greenhorn. I will make this mountain
of difficulties vanish and melt away like snow before the powerful rays
of the sun. You are told to write what you have never seen; but if you
have not, others have, which will serve your purpose just as well. To
detail events which have never occurred--invent them, they will be more
amusing. Describe views, etcetera, of which you are ignorant--so are
most of your readers; but have we not the art of engraving to assist
you? To travel post in your arm-chair--a very pleasant and a very
profitable way of travelling, as you have not to pay for the horses and
postilions, and are not knocked to pieces by continental roads. Depend
upon it, the best travels are those written at home, by those who have
never put their foot into the Calais packet-boat.

_Ansard_. To me this is all a mystery. I certainly must be a
greenhorn, as you observe.

_Barnstaple_. Why, Ansard, my dear fellow, with a book of roads and a
gazetteer, I would write a more amusing book of travels than one half
which are now foisted on the public. All you have to do is to fill up
the chinks.

_Ansard_. All I want to do is to fill up the chinks in my stomach,
Barnstaple; for, between you and me, times are rather queer.

_Barnstaple_. You shall do it, if you will follow my advice. I taught
you how to write a fashionable novel; it will be hard, indeed, if I
cannot send you up the Rhine. One little expense must be incurred--you
must subscribe a quarter to a circulating library, for I wish that what
you do should be well done.

_Ansard_. Barnstaple, I will subscribe to--anything.

_Barnstaple_. Well, then, since you are so reasonable, I will proceed.
You must wade through all the various "Journeys on the Rhine", "Two
Months on the Rhine", "Autumns on the Rhine," etcetera, which you can
collect. This you will find the most tiresome part of your task.
Select one as your guide, one who has a reputation; follow his course,
not exactly--that I will explain afterwards--and agree with him in every
thing, generally speaking. Praise his exactitude and fidelity, and
occasionally quote him; this is but fair; after you rob a man (and I
intend you shall rifle him most completely), it is but decent to give
him kind words. All others you must abuse, contradict, and depreciate.
Now, there is a great advantage in so doing: in the first place, you
make the best writer your friend