"Le voyager me semble un exercise profitable: l'ame y a une continuelle ex-
ercitation, à remarquer les choses incognües et nouvelles; et je ne sçache pas
meilleure escole à façonner la vie que de luy proposer incessamment la diversité
de tant d'autres fantasies et usances, et luy faire gouter une si perpetuelle varieté
de formes de nostre nature."-Essais de Montaigne, liv. 3, chap. ix.

SECOND EDITION.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.

1841.

DEDICATION

то

THE QUE E N.

MADAM,

It is with mingled feelings of anxiety and gratitude that I avail myself of Your Majesty's gracious permission to inscribe to you the following Narrative. It pretends to no other merit than that of truth; and its most ambitious object will be obtained, if it be found to afford any useful or interesting information, and thus to beguile a leisure hour stolen from Your Majesty's more grave and weighty occupations.

It has been customary to clothe a dedication in the language of panegyric: I will not presume to follow the tempting precedent. Your Majesty's qualities will be attested by an Empire, and be recorded by History. Nevertheless, I trust I may

venture, unblamed, to express, on this occasion, my earnest desire, and my heartfelt prayer, that your reign may be long and happy, and that Britain may hereafter look back with regret and with pride on a Sovereign, who blended the wisdom and energy of Queen Elizabeth with the more winning and attractive attributes of her sex.