Europe Books

IN TOWN.   t is London, of a bright sultry August day, when the flags seem scorching to the feet, and the sun beats down fiercely. It has yet a certain inviting attraction. There is a general air of bustle, and the provincial, trundled along in his cab, his trunks over his head, looks out with a certain awe and sense of delight, noting, as he skirts the Park, the gay colours glistening among the dusty... more...

I Out of eighty or ninety days that we passed in Switzerland there must have been at least ten that were fair, not counting the forenoons before it began to rain, and the afternoons when it cleared up. They said that it was an unusually rainy autumn, and we could well believe it; yet I suspect that it rains a good deal in that little corner of the Canton Vaud even when the autumn is only usually rainy.... more...

PrefacePrefaceThe notes presented in this volume were gathered, as will easily be perceived, a number of years ago and on an expectation not at that time answered by the event, and were then published in the United States. The expectation had been that they should accompany a series of drawings, and they themselves were altogether governed by the pictorial spirit. They made, and they make in appearing... more...

CHAPTER I. IN PERSPECTIVE. "In fortune's empire blindly thus we go;We wander after pathless destiny,Whose dark resorts since prudence cannot know,In vain it would provide for what shall be." A trip to the Pyrenees is not in the Grand Tour. It is not even in any southerly extension of the Grand Tour. A proposition to exploit them meets a dubious reception. Pictures arise of desolate gorges;... more...

PREFACE. The Author of the following Observations, made during , will doubtless be allowed to possess but a moderate degree of literary ambition. He has not qualified himself, by foreign travels, to transport his readers above the clouds, on the Andes, the Alps, or the ; to alarm them by descriptions of Earthquakes, or Eruptions; or to astonish them by accounts of tremendous Chasms, Caverns, and... more...

RESIDENCE LETTER I. Influence of the late Revolution in France.—General Lafayette—Sketch of his Private Life.—My visits to him.—His opinion of Louis XVI.—Mr. Morris and Mr. Crawford.—Duplicity of Louis XVIII.—Charles X.—Marie Antoinette.—Legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux.—Discovery of the Plot of 1822.—Lafayette's conduct on that occasion.—A negro Spy.—General... more...

VENICE 1896        In 1805 the second floor of the Palazzo Dandolo, situated in the Calle delle Razze, and fronting on to the Riva degli Schiavoni, was bought by a certain Dal Niel, sur-named Danieli, from a member of the families of Michiel and Bernardo, into whose hands it had come, partly by inheritance and partly by marriages. The new proprietor converted it into an hotel, giving it his own... more...

PREFATORY NOTE In 1845 Richard Ford published his Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain and Readers at Home [2 Vols. 8vo.], a work which still commands attention, and the compilation of which is said to have occupied its author for more than sixteen years.  In conformity with the wish of Ford (who had himself favourably reviewed The Bible in Spain) Borrow undertook to produce a study of the Hand-Book for... more...

INTRODUCTION. Arthur Young was born in 1741, the son of a clergyman, at Bradfield, in Suffolk.  He was apprenticed to a merchant at Lynn, but his activity of mind caused him to be busy over many questions of the day.  He wrote when he was seventeen a pamphlet on American politics, for which a publisher paid him with ten pounds’ worth of books.  He started a periodical, which ran to six numbers. ... more...

CHAP. I. I had long been desirous of visiting the Continent, but the long continuance of the war, and the little prospect which lately appeared of its termination, seemed to afford no chance for the accomplishment of my wish. At a period, however, when that arbitrary power, which had so long held in subjection the other nations of the Continent, sought to overthrow the only monarch who dared to oppose... more...