brown, I can only say for them, they are all my own--I have never
"cabbaged from any man's cloth." And now to abjure decimals, and talk
like a unit of humanity: if you would know the exact distance between
any two towns abroad--the best mode of reaching your destination--the
most comfortable hotel to stop at, when you have got there--who built
the cathedral--who painted the altar-piece--who demolished the town
in the year fifteen hundred and--fiddlestick--then take into your
confidence the immortal John Murray, he can tell you all these, and
much more; how many kreutzers make a groschen, how many groschen make
a gulden, reconciling you to all the difficulties of travel by historic
associations, memoirs of people who lived before the flood, and learned
dissertations on the etymology of the name of the town, which all your
ingenuity can't teach you how to pronounce.

Well, it's a fine thing, to be sure, when your carriage breaks down in
a _chaussee_, with holes large enough to bury a dog--it's a great
satisfaction to know, that some ten thousand years previous, this place,
that seems for all the world like a mountain torrent, was a Roman way.
If the inn you sleep in, be infested with every annoyance to which inns
are liable--all that long catalogue of evils, from boors to bugs--never
mind, there's sure to be some delightful story of a bloody murder
connected with its annals, which will amply repay you for all your
suffering.

And now, in sober seriousness, what literary fame equals John Murray's?
What portmanteau, with two shirts and a night-cap, hasn't got one
"Hand-book?" What Englishman issues forth at morn, without one beneath
his arm? How naturally, does he compare the voluble statement of his
_valet-de-place_, with the testimony of the book. Does he not carry
it with him to church, where, if the sermon be slow, he can read a
description of the building? Is it not his guide at _table-d'hote_,
teaching him, when to eat, and where to abstain? Does he look upon a
building, a statue, a picture, an old cabinet, or a manuscript, with
whose eyes does he see it? With John Murray's to be sure! Let John tell
him, this town is famous for its mushrooms, why he'll eat them, till he
becomes half a fungus himself; let him hear that it is celebrated for
its lace manufactory, or its iron work--its painting on glass, or its
wigs; straightway he buys up all he can find, only to discover, on
reaching home, that a London shopkeeper ca