LETTERS FROM EUROPE, COMPRISING THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR THROUGH IRELAND, ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, ITALY, AND IN THE YEARS 1825, '26, AND '27. BY N. H. CARTER. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY G. & C. CARVILL, 108 BROADWAY. 1827. 192 from the day of embarkation at Sandy Hook, on the 8th of June, 1825, till the author's return thither, on the 6th of May, 1827. It was his invariable practice to bear about with him a pocket memorandum, and to note at the moment whatever attracted attention. Many of his scrawls in crayon convey a tolerable idea, to what degree the ship or boat was tossing upon the waves, or what was the roughness of the road, over which the coach was hurrying, at the time the entries were made. The substance of these memoranda was at the first pause, transcribed into a diary, in a more legible form; and from the latter, the sketches were drawn, with such references to books, for the correction of facts and dates, as time and opportunity enabled him to make. It is not a little remarkable, that in travelling a distance of fifteen or twenty thousand miles, in all possible modes, both by land and water; in an exposure of trunks to custom-house officers and servants at hotels; and in the risks of mails and packets, not a line of the original notes, nor of letters transmitted across the Atlantic, has been lost or obliterated. But notwithstanding such unwearied industry in collecting materials, and such singular good fortune in preserving them, the author cannot even hope to have escaped the common lot of tourists, in falling into numerous errors. It would indeed be next to a miracle, if such a volume of matter, gathered from ten thousand different sources, did not contain many blunders. Citations have sometimes been made from memory, without the facilities at hand of turning to the passages. In a word, it would be endless to enumerate the chances of inaccuracy; and no exemption is claimed, except from intentional misrepresentation, and misstatements arising from sheer indolence. It might be urged in extenuation of defects, whatever they may be found to be, that the tour was not contemplated, till a fortnight before the day of embarkation-a circumstance |