Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/252

our countrymen for any length of time, it is believed that the generality of those who are at present emigrating from Britain adventure for the first time to a foreign land, and consequently, that their minds are in a state of higher excitement,—their impressions stronger,—and their recollections more vivid,—than will be found to be the case in the same persons in after years. That much valuable information has been collected no one can doubt, from what is already known and published and that much more is sleeping in journals, soon to be thrown aside and forgotten, may easily be credited. Want of leisure, and the opportunity of cultivating those studies, which enable an author to appear before the world with credit to himself and pleasure to his readers, must frequently deter those who are otherwise both able and wiling to add something to the stock of general information, from attempting to benefit those who may afterwards pursue a similar course.

Whoever contributes to the extension of knowledge, or the diffusion of the means by which it is either communicated or acquired, confers an obligation on society, and deserves well of mankind. I would therefore recommend, as a measure well worthy of your attention, to collect the notes, or journals, of such of your friends and acquaintances, as have recently visited, or may be now visiting, the Continent; as it is probable, that in most of them, though written without an idea of their ever being exposed to the public eye, there may be found occasional sources of amusement and information.

Having recently travelled, though somewhat too rapidly, through some parts of the Continent, I feel inclined to follow up the example of the "View-Hunter," by furnishing you with a few brief sketches of some of the countries through which I passed. They remain entirely in the form in which they were drawn up at the time, and I have, at present, neither leisure nor inclination to revise them. My leisure is interrupted by the fulfilment of higher duties, and my inclination somewhat damped, by reflecting on the death of a most amiable young man, with whom I travelled in the capacity of tutor, find whose bad health was the mournful of my quitting, for a time, my native country. Whatever additions, therefore, might now be made to my travelling memoranda, would be of a nature painful to myself, and not in anywise gratifying to your readers. I mention this circumstance, to account, in some degree, for the unconnected and desultory nature of the following pages.

We are at last safe at Rotterdam, after a long and boisterous passage. I must confess I left Hamburgh with regret, although my heart is not bound to it by many dear ties, and I have, moreover, the prospect of visiting countries entirely new to me, some of which I have long been anxious to see, and, till lately, without a hope of my wish being ever accomplished. When one leaves a place where they have been happy, a feeling of sorrow is experienced similar to that at bidding farewell to an old friend. There is a melancholy pleasure in retracing the happy moments we have spent with each, and a kind of foreboding that perhaps we may never meet again; but should I live a hundred years I shall never forget the kindness of Mr M. and his interesting family.

Rotterdam is a pleasant and cheerful town; at least, every one who is fortunate enough to enjoy fine weather, and who lodges in the Boomjies, must think so. The name last mentioned, which is not sufficiently beautiful to require repetition, is that of the main street, and a very fine one it is. It consists of a single row of handsome houses, many of them very large and elegant, built by the side of a broad navigable branch of the rivr Meuse, which is here affected by the tide, and enlivened by the constant going up and coming down of numberless vessels from all countries, and of every shape and size. Between the houses and the river side, there is a