Rambles in Northumberland and on the Scottish Border
RAMBLES IN NORTHUMBERLAND AND ON THE SCOTTISH BORDER WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO CHAPTER I. Of Foreign travel, its advantages and its disadvantages, much may be said on both sides ; but of Home travel, " of journeying through the land to which a man owes his birth, education, and means of living, " the pleasures and advantages are at once so obvious and direct, that to enter into a long dissertation to prove them, would be like a logical argument to demonstrate that health is a blessing, and a contented mind a possession above all price. To a man who feels them, no argument can make the impression deeper or more vivid ; and to him who does not, no process of reasoning can convey that full and perfect conviction which is the result of feeling. Lord Eldon, in 1771, then John Scott, of University College, Oxford, wrote an Essay, " On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Foreign travel" which was ho- noured with a prize ; and judging from his Loidship's own practice " for he has never been out of Britain " we may conclude that in his mind the disadrantages were preponderant. It is perfectly useless to recommend travellings either at home or abroad, to a person in whom ill-temper and discontent are chronic diseases of the mind. Such unhappy persons ought to keep themselves dose at home since to extend their circuit would be only to increase their liability to anaoyance. At some second rate inn they might not have silver forks ; a lefl-legged fellow of a waiter might be officiously annoying ; fOling a glass of ale unasked, bringing in a wet newspaper, carrying luggage to a wrong room, or daring to suggest places in the neighbourhood worth seeing without his counsel being required, for all which high offences the peevish tourist, professedly a man of liberal sentiments and an abolitionist, would, if he had his own way, send the offender for a month to the tread-mill.
[Show full text]