--to him who to his other
merits may add, if he pleases, that of being the first critic. Most
especially let us not be carping and questioning as to the how far, or
what precisely, we are to set down for _true_. It is all true--it is all
fiction; the artist cannot choose but see things in an artistical form;
what ought not to be there drops from his field of vision. We are not
poring through a microscope, or through a telescope, to discover new
truths; we are looking at the old landscape through coloured glasses,
blue, or black, or roseate, as the occasion may require. And here let us
note a favourable contrast between our dramatic tourist, bold in
conception, free in execution, and those compatriots of our own, authors
and authoresses, who write travels merely because they are artists in
ink, yet without any adequate notion of the duties and privileges of
such an artist.

When a writer has got a name, the first rational use to make of the
charming possession is to get astride of it, as a witch upon her
broomstick, and whisk and scamper over half the kingdoms of the earth.
Talk of bills of exchange!--letters of credit!--we can put our name to a
whole book, and it will pass--it _will_ pass. The idea is good--quite
worthy of our commercial genius--and to us its origin, we believe, is
due; but here, as in so many other cases, the Frenchman has given the
idea its full development. Keeping steadily in view the object of his
book, which is--first, amusement--secondly, amusement--thirdly,
amusement; he adapts his means consistently to his end. Does he want a
dialogue?--he writes one: a story?--he invents one: a description?--he
takes his hint from nature, and is grateful--the more grateful, because
he knows that a hint to the wise is sufficient. It is the description
only which the reader will be concerned with; what has he to do with the
object? That is the merely traveller's affair. Now, your English
tourists have always a residue of scruple about them which balks their
genius. Not satisfied with pleasing, they aspire to be believed; are
almost angry if their anecdote is not credited; content themselves with
adding graces, giving a turn, trimming and decorating--cannot build a
structure boldly from the bare earth. This necessity of finding a
certain straw for their bricks, which must be picked up by the roadside,
not only impedes the work of authorship, but must add greatly to their
personal discomfort throughout the whole o