ΤΟ WILLIAM SALTE, ESQ. DEAR SIR, IN sending you this hasty sketch of our short but agreeable excursion, I merely fulfil my engagement. Should your friends derive any amusement from the perusal, to you only their thanks are due, for without your injunction I should not have committed my remarks to writing. Whatever is erroneous, or frivolous, must be wholly attributed to me: but among my foibles include not the vanity of my supposing, that the following pages can aspire to the rank of a regular composition. My chief purpose in the publication is attained, in thus expressing the value that I set on your friendship, and the respect which I feel for your character. POULTRY, 4th April, 1805. Believe me, dear sir, Most sincerely yours, J. MAWMAN. Low Sept. 27, 1995 TO THE READER. An ancient writer is said to have given us a true criterion to judge of a good book, "when the author has said all he ought, nothing but what he ought, and every thing as he ought." 66 66 If you expect so much excellence from the following pages, composed almost wholly from hasty memoranda, written during the rapid motion of a chaise on a journey more of business than of pleasure, you will be disappointed: should you find, joined to it's other imperfections, a want of interest (for it aspires no higher, than to amuse) you are here furnished with a hint to prevent it's being tiresome. A great talker, flattering himself that he displayed much wisdom to a Grecian philosopher, said, "Are you not astonished?" 66 Yes," replied the sage; "but what asto"nishes me is, that any man should use his "ears to listen to you, who can employ his legs to escape from you." 66 |