TO THE

DROIT

KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,

THIS WORK

IS, BY ROYAL PERMISSION,

HUMBLY DEDICATED AND INSCRIBED,

BY HIS MAJESTY'S

MOST DUTIFUL, GRATEFUL,

AND OBEDIENT SERVANTS,

THE PUBLISHERS.

PREFACE.

EVERY age has its prevailing fashion, and that of the present is, assuredly, pictorial embellishment-illustration in all its forms and branches. Our most distinguished living poets, and, indeed, writers of every class, seldom now reappear before the world unrecommended by the genius of the painter, and the magic influence of the engraver.

In describing scenery familiar to almost every eye, how little chance has the tourist at home of winning even a passing glance without borrowing some grace from the sister arts! This intimate and still growing union-unlike many other unions political or social, and so agreeable to the taste of the times-seems to derive fresh strength from trial, (the result of advantages mutually derived, and of that golden harvest not unfrequently reaped) merely by the pleasant process of both parties agreeing to confer pleasure upon an enlightened public. Still, in an alliance every way so desirable, and calculated to gratify both the eye and the mind, the Author would fain enter his protest against the glory of letters being esteemed subsidiary to any other design, ranking, as it ought, first and pre-eminent in the march of intellect, as in the records of the human mind. For, without the slightest idea of challenging a controversy with his distinguished collaborateurs, was it not from the diviner thoughts of the Poet that the Painter first drew the fire and energy which emboldened him to follow, and strive to embody, those majestic creations of the muse of Homer, of Dante, and of Milton? Without these inspirations, could a Michael Angelo, or a Flaxman, have exhibited scenes to startle and to rouse the soul?

If sometimes they combine their terrors, at others this new and happy combination of the arts (happily for us, not amenable to the laws) is of a less imposing and more gentle character; and the artist and the author may walk arm-in-arm over the pleasant hills, by the green valleys or the sunny shores, ever ready to catch the Cynthia of the minute,' to take Nature as they find her, in her more joyous, her passionate, her solitary, and her mournful moods. Here, at least, their ambition has wholly been to interpret her language in a simple and faithful manner. Theirs has been less a work of labour than one of love. The Wanderer, in particular, had no view beyond that of amusing the reader by the way-side, leaving the judicious Artists to speak to his eye, and his imagination, in colours bright and manifold as the rainbow.

Light and sketchey as he could make it,-drawn from no small variety of sources, antiquarian, historical, descriptive, and anecdotical -the Author's highest ambition has been, to make his book a pleasant companion, and, like a pleasant companion, to throw a charm over an idle hour-relieve the gloom of some passing moment, a solitary evening, a rainy day, the tedium, in short, incidental to every tourist's path, be he a wayfarer at home, or far away.

He has sought to convey with fidelity his impressions of the noble and picturesque scenery of our British Alps-of the spirit of improvement every where manifested by the people-of their frank bearing, and peculiar traits, with occasional notices of the distinguished characters, -warriors, bards, ornaments of the pulpit, or of the bench,-who may have shed lustre round their native land. Most of all, he could wish to convey some idea of the delight and the advantage to be derived, so near at hand, from an autumnal ramble among the hills and lakes of our ancient British home.