Fair Italy, the land of song and cradle of the Arts, has been so often written about, and so well described both in prose and in verse, that I feel there is a presumption in my attempting to say anything fresh of that classic land, its art treasures, and its glorious past. But within the last few years a new Italy has sprung into existence—the dream of Cavour has been realized; and, contrary to all predictions, she has evinced a union and... more...

THE CITY Just as the five cities of Colchester, Lincoln, York, Gloucester, and St. Albans, stand on the sites and in some fragmentary measure bear the names of five Roman municipalities, so Isca Dumnoniorum, now Exeter, appears to have been a cantonal capital developed out of one of the great market centres of the Celtic tribes, and as such it was the most westerly of the larger Romano-British towns. The legendary history of the place, both... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Yonder lies our ... village—Art and Grace are less and less:Science grows and Beauty dwindles—roofs of slated hideousness! —LOCKSLEY HALL, SIXTY YEARS AFTER Those who love with a deep reverence the work of their forefathers, whether because of the character and beauty of their handiwork, or from the historical associations which are indissolubly connected with it, cannot but regard with pain and... more...

The American transatlantic tourist, after a week or more spent upon the ocean, is usually glad to again see the land. After skirting the bold Irish coast, and peeping into the pretty cove of Cork, with Queenstown in the background, and passing the rocky headlands of Wales, the steamer that brings him from America carefully enters the Mersey River. The shores are low but picturesque as the tourist moves along the estuary between the coasts of... more...

THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. If it is only by an effort that we appreciate the valour of Columbus in the XV century, his secret doubts, his temerity, how much fainter is our conception of the heroism of the early Mediterranean navigators. Steam has destroyed for us the awful majesty of distance, and we can never realise the immensity of this “great Sea” to the ancients. To Virgil the adventures of the “pious Æneas” were... more...

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF EDWARD STANLEY THE letters which are collected in this volume were written from abroad during the opening years of the nineteenth century, at three different periods: after the Peace of Amiens in 1802 and 1803, after the Peace of Paris in 1814, and in the year following Waterloo, June, 1816. The writer, Edward Stanley, was for thirty-three years an active country clergyman, and for twelve years more a no less active... more...

My readers, would you like to go abroad, for just an hour or so, With little friends of different ages? Look at them in these pictured pages— Brothers and sisters you can see,—all children of one family. Their father, too, you here will find, and good Miss Earle, their teacher kind. Three years ago their Mother died, and ever since has Father tried To give his children in the Spring some tour, or... more...

CHAPTER I THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS   No project could have been less foreseen than was ours of wintering in France, though it must be confessed that for several months our thoughts had constantly strayed across the Channel. For the Boy was at school at Versailles, banished there by our desire to fulfil a parental duty. The time of separation had dragged tardily past, until one foggy December morning we awoke to the glad consciousness... more...

PREFACE. During a stay of three years and a half in Germany and France, sometimes at work, sometimes tramping through the country, the Author collected a number of facts and stray notes, which he has endeavoured in these pages to present to the public in a readable shape. Of the twenty-eight chapters contained in the volume, sixteen originally appeared in “Household Words.”  They are entitled The German Workman; Hamburg to... 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.  He wrote novels. ... more...