ter part of the ground here trodden, yet continues to be
untrodden ground to the public. I am not acquainted with any publication
which embraces all the objects here described; nor can I bring myself to
think that a perusal of the first and third volumes may not be unattended
with gratification of a peculiar description, to the lovers of antiquities
and picturesque beauties. The second volume is rather the exclusive
province of the Bibliographer. In retracing the steps here marked out, I
will not be hypocrite enough to dissemble a sort of triumphant feeling
which accompanies a retrospection of the time, labour, and money devoted..
in doing justice, according to my means, to the attractions and worth of
the Countries which these pages describe. Every such effort is, in its way,
a NATIONAL effort. Every such attempt unites, in stronger bonds, the
reciprocities of a generous feeling between rival Nations; and if my reward
has not been in _wealth_, it has been in the hearty commendation of the
enlightened and the good: "Mea me virtute involvo."[16]

I cannot boast of the commendatory strains of public Journals in my own
country. No intellectual steam-engine has been put in motion to manufacture
a review of unqualified approbation of the Work now submitted to the public
eye--at an expense, commensurate with the ordinary means of purchase. With
the exception of an indirect and laudatory notice of it, in the immortal
pages of the Author of Waverley, of the Sketch book, and of Reginald
Dalton, this Tour has had to fight its way under the splendour of its own
banners, and in the strength of its own cause. The previous Edition is now
a scarce and a costly book. Its Successor has enough to recommend it, even
to the most fastidious collector, from the elegance of its type and
decorations, and from the reasonableness of its price; but the highest
ambition of its author is, that it may be a part of the furniture of every
Circulating Library in the Kingdom. If he were not conscious that GOOD
would result from its perusal, he would not venture upon such an avowal.
"FELIX FAUSTUMQUE SIT!"

[1] M. Crapelet is of course speaking of the PREVIOUS edition of the Tour.
He continues thus: "M. Dibdin, dans son voyage en France, a visite nos
departemens de l'ouest et de l'est, toutes leurs principales villes,
presque tous les lieux remarquables par les antiquites, par les
monumens, par les beautes du site, ou par les souvenirs h