LS

DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the nineteenth day of January, in the forty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, of the said District, hath deposited in this Office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit:

"A Journal of Travels in England, Holland and Scotland, and of two passages over the Atlantic, in the years 1805 and 1806; with considerable additions, principally from the original Manuscripts of the author. Third edition, in three volumes."

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned."

CHAS. A. INGERSOLL, Clerk of the District of Connecticut.

A true copy of Record, examined and sealed by me,

CHAS. A. INGERSOLL,

Clerk of the District of Connecticut.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION-1810.

THE Trustees of Yale College, in the autumn of 1804, appropriated a sum of money, for the enlargement of their library, and philosophical and chemical apparatus; and, they determined on sending an agent to Europe, for the purpose of making the contemplated collections. I was commissioned to execute this trust, and was allowed to avail myself of such opportunities as might occur, for acquiring information, especially in chemistry, which it was my duty to teach, in the institution with which I am connected. Such were my principal objects, in Europe, and, to these the greater part of my time was necessarily devoted.

At the request of the brother to whom the following pages are addressed, I commenced a journal, which was continued, from the first, without a single day's omission, till my return. Instead of filling my letters with descriptions of what I saw, I constantly made my journal the depository of my observations and thoughts, and it was transmitted to America, in numbers, at convenient intervals.

I wrote at the time, and on the spot, and was rarely a day behind my date; my information was derived almost wholly from personal observation, and conversation. Beyond the itineraries and guides of the country, I had little leisure to consult books, and none at all to copy or amend what I had written: and I felt the less disposition to do it as I was writing to a brother, who, in the communication of the journal, was restricted to a small circle of friends.

Of course, I wrote with a degree of freedom which made it unpleasant to me to learn, that it had been found impossible to confine the manuscripts within the limits prescribed, and when I returned, I was informed that they had been perused by many of my acquaintance, and their friends. It now became impossible for me to refuse the loan of them to others, and, in this way, their existence be

came so generally known, that their publication was talked of as a matter of course. I uniformly declined to listen to any proposition on the subject, as it had been my determination, from the first, to withhold the work from the press.

But, a good while after my return, an application was made to me, under circumstances so peculiar, that I was compelled to take it into consideration. After perusing the manuscripts, with reference to this object, consulting literary friends, and deliberating, a long time, I consented, not without much anxiety, to attempt the difficult task of preparing them for publication. It was difficult, because the public, not my friends, were now to be my judges, and because it was scarcely possible to preserve the spirit and freedom which had interested the latter, without violating the decorum which was due to the former, and to many respectable individuals, whose names appeared in my journal.

With a design to preserve this medium, the whole has been written anew. Additions, omissions, and alterations have been made, but they have been as few as possible, and it has undergone so little mutation, either in form or substance, that the spirit and character of the work remain essentially unchanged; how far it has been rendered more fit for the public eye, those, who have perused the original volumes, during a period of more than three years that have elapsed, since their completion, will be best able to judge.

Perhaps, I ought to apologize for interweaving in the journal, so much of my own personal history, and for introducing so many of my own remarks and reflections, but, these things were so combined with the very tissue of the work, that it would have been impossible to withdraw them, without destroying, completely, the texture of the fabric.

The apology implied, in this simple unvarnished tale, I am sensible, is very trite, and by many will be regarded as inadmissible.

However this may be, I have discharged a duty by telling the truth; what I have said will be believed in my native State, where the principal facts are well known. BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, Yale College, (Connecticut) August 28, 1809.

TEN years have elapsed since the first edition of this book appeared; eight since the second; four since that edition was so far exhausted, that a third was called for, and three since the present was determined on. The reason of this delay is to be found in the fact, that I could never, before a very recent period, command the time which was requisite, to revise and enlarge the work.Those who have done me the honour to purchase the former editions, will, of course, demand a reason, for the enlargement of this. It may well be supposed, that a book of travels, (unlike one of science, where discoveries and improvements may be made,) is, in its very nature, incapable of improvement, unless the author, has indeed. travelled again, over the same ground. There is, however, one other supposition. The author may not have communicated all the observations which he actually made and recorded, or mustered all the recollections which he actually possessed. This was, precisely my condition. The original manuscript journal was more extensive, than the copy which was written off for the press, and even that copy was considerably fuller than what was actually published. The reason of the first retrenchment was, diffidence of the success of the work, especially of one so much in detail, and so constantly blended with personal narrative; of the second, that the publisher, who had a pecuniary interest in the undertaking, (influenced by I know not whose opinion of the manuscript,) shrunk from the publication of it, even as then prepared, and urged me to reduce it, so that it might appear in one volume. Very much in opposition to my own wishes, I complied, to a certain extent, and cut out entire subjects, and parts of

subjects, wherever it appeared they could best be spared. After all, the production, thus compressed and curtailed, appeared (without my privity, and contrary to my expectations,) in two volumes. The reception which it met with, from my countrymen (which I beg leave to acknowledge with gratitude) caused me to regret, that any part of the prepared manuscript had been suppressed, and evinced, that the fears of my publisher, and the opinion of his adviser were, equally, groundless. Indeed, if authority were to be the criterion, I conceived myself to have passed that ordeal with sufficient solemnity, for, the manuscript was submitted to the successive criticisms of a number of literary friends, among whom were accomplished scholars, and persons of much delicacy of taste, and it is no more than truth to say, that their suggestions were, almost invariably, respected; for I assumed it as a general principle, that what has struck an intelligent and candid adviser as wrong, will of course strike many others in the

same manner.

An illustrious literary friend, (now no more) originally advised me strongly, to the publication of the whole Journal, as written in Europe and on the ocean, (with only a very few omissions and alterations,) and this advice he strenuously renewed, when the second edition was published. It was not however till the present edition was determined on, that I made up my mind to revise the work, with a view to its enlargement. With this view, I have re-inserted the matter which was prepared for the first edition, and afterwards suppressed: I have carefully re-perused the original manuscripts, and have drawn from them a variety of facts and remarks, which have not appeared in the former editions; and from my own recollections, which are generally very distinct, regarding the incidents of this tour, I have derived not a few things, of which my manuscripts contained only slight notices, or none at all; but, many of which, I have been accustomed to state in conversation with my friends. I have, in fact, during the weeks that this revisal has occupied me, trayelled the tour anew; the thread of association has aided memory, in bringing up numerous events and circumstan