TO THE:
MANAGERS OF THE LITERARY
REVIEWS.
Gentlemen,
I am an Author, neither for fame (my subject being too common a one to gain it), nor for bread. I do not publish from the persuasion of friends, or to please myself. I write because I think my Guide will be really useful to adventurers, who may follow my steps through Scotland, and to the Lakes of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire; by informing them of those objects which are worthy of notice, and at the same time acquainting them where, and by what means they can get at them in the safest and most comfortable manner. A plan, I believe, never attended to (in the way I have done) by any of my predecessors in Tour writing. I have no wings to soar Parnassus' height;—no talents to tread the wild path of imagination;—but having (as the great Frederick termed it,[1]) a little of "ce gros bon sens qui court les rues;" I am able to relate, in my own fashion, what my eyes have seen.
- ↑ The King of Prussia, talking to a Frenchman, said, "You Frenchmen—you possess imagination; the English, it is said, depth; and we dullness, with ce gros bon sens qui court les rues."
