NOTES OF A JOURNEY TO RICHMOND.

(A PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.)

I AM acquainted with a member of the Traveller's club; an excellent man, gentle, courageous, honest, but as migratory as the swallow. His name is -a secret. The communications which he makes to literary and scientific publications, have appended to them the word "Philo-Vagabundus,”—nothing more. Be he ever so learned —ever so profound — though he unrip the mysteries from Mid-Afric or the Gold Coast, or exhibit conspiracies ripening in the strong-holds of Rajpootana - all comes under that one simple appellative. My friend, as he has one name, has also one axiom"Man was made to travel!" He himself is fifty-four years of age, of which he has travelled fifty.

I have mentioned these few particulars, because it was at the instance of this gentleman, that I first took flight from London, some two moons ago. I was bred, like a house sparrow, just underneath the chimneypots of our house; and, after living there almost forty years, it is possible that I might have collected a few prejudices. My friend insisted that I had; and recommended-travel; his invariable remedy. We often debated this matter over together. If the argument

commenced towards the conclusion of a bowl of punch, it was sure to be the fore-runner of a fresh supply. We were well matched: he had the most words, and I the better logic. He had seen half the world; - Half? — he had seen the whole world; whilst I had never abandoned the sweet smoke of my dear native city. Yetlike the horse of the mill, who performs his countless rounds over the same small humble circle, I had trod my ground well. I could, however, make no impression upon my traveller; and, I need scarcely say, his slight missiles had as little effect upon me. I made it a point of honour, indeed, to return his inflexibility with interest. I was impervious,nulli penetrabilis Philo-Vagabundo. It is true, that I was instigated by my friend's observations to take the very serious journey which I have done; but, I believe, from my soul, that the principal motive which influenced me, was the hope of refuting his opinions.

The observations of inveterate travellers have always appeared to me to bear a strong likeness-filial or fraternal-to each other. For many years, I was perplexed at this. I consulted one or two eminent divines - a mathematician- a poor scholar · - a philosopher – and other individuals, in vain. One attributed their common qualities to the fact of each having performed, in the first instance, a multitude of eccentric curves; as every voyager necessarily does, being borne, up and down, over the undulating ocean: another referred it. to the variation of the atmospheric pressure upon the brain, when men visited the higher regions of the

an error.

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globe a third talked about "specific gravity:" a fourth of " oxygen," nitrogen," and " gaseous influences;" and others puzzled themselves and me, by running over all the technicalities of science, and concluded by propping up, with dog-latin and awful gibberish, those observations and opinions which plain English was insufficient to support. At last, I became convinced, that to attribute the effects (the causes of which I was enquiring after) to travel, was altogether The truth is, that men who travel resemble each other, in the main, before they set out. What wonder then that their after-thoughts should be alike? There is the same uncomfortable, discontented, harum-scarum character in all—the same irritability of body—the same laziness of the intellect. The philosopher, properly so called, does not desire to travel. He can think at home. The materials for thought are ample in any country. It is only those who are dying of ennuiwho are void of imagination—who cannot project a thought-whose brains, in short, are barren and destitute of the active principle of thinking, that require to have objects multiplied a thousand-fold before their sluggish ideas can be stimulated into birth. The meditative man is never a traveller; (he is sedentary

- sedet æternumque sedebit.) However quickly and shrewdly we may observe, it is pretty certain that we cannot meditate at full gallop.-O that a clear-headed, honest-minded, stay-at-home man could be enabled, by any process, (short of journeying or voyaging,) to see the world and give us his ideas of men and things! I

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would venture a para, that he would not employ all his time in measuring churches-in telling us, for the fiftieth time, that Michael Angelo was a great painter-or that he and Bramante (surpassing Sysiphus) rolled up the huge cupola to the top of Saint Peter's great church. We should have fewer larcenies from the guide-books -fewer raptures about Tivoli or Terni. We should have no tawdry critisims, no dull slander, nor ancient jests. We should escape stanzas from Lord Byron, and hexameters from Virgil. Above all, we should be spared those ambitious tirades and sentimentalities, where writers seem laboring to huddle into one overwhelming mass, all the living languages of the civilized world; but where in fact the unfortunate reader can too often distinguish little beyond the simple fact, that the aggregate is bad; unless, indeed, as is the case occasionally, when something more than usually detestable predominates—some hideous smack, of bad French, or vulgar Italian-which extinguishes all previous doubts as to where the scribbler is most ignorant, and sets the question at rest for ever.

I was proceeding much after this fashion one day at dinner, with my friend the traveller, when he interrupted me with—

“You, who are a 'sedentary' man, as you term it, had better treat us with a few of your own opinions. But you have travelled, I am afraid," continued he, hesitatingly." Let me see: You have crossed the New Road (your Rubicon) — you have been heard of in Saint George's fields (O fortunate agricola !)-You have

coasted the basin in the Green-park-you have even been on the edge of Hammersmith-"

"That was an accident," said I—" a mistake—a—” "Spare your excuses," replied my friend; "I acquit you of intentional sin. You had no more design of emigrating from the city, than the blow-ball has, when some frightful urchin (Boreas juvenalis), swelling out his cheeks, cries 'What's o'clock?' and puffs its white head into air!- Nevertheless, I think, for the sake of your country-of the rising generation—that a man of your talents—”

"Say no more," returned I, (the devil prompting me-the devil Vanity)-"Say no more. I will travel -a little."

"Well said," replied my friend; "we will drink success to your voyage. This Madeira is twenty years old."

"It is excellent," sighed I. "I shall get none such out of London. And these little-nameless-trifleshow delicious they are!"

They are excellent, but not nameless. They are called Maids of Honour.' They are, moreover, made -not in London-but at Richmond."

Richmond!" I echoed.

I have read of the place. There is a hill there, I believe, which is not without its renown. I think I will venture upon Richmond." "Well," returned my friend, smiling, "you may try a flight thither, before you determine between Syria and the Niger."

....The result of all this was, that I made my will