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     GLANCES AT EUROPE:

     IN A

     Series of Letters

     FROM

     GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, ITALY, SWITZERLAND, &c.

     DURING

     THE SUMMER OF 1851.



     INCLUDING NOTICES OF THE

     GREAT EXHIBITION, OR WORLD'S FAIR.



     BY HORACE GREELEY.



     NEW YORK:
     DEWITT & DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS.
     1851.



     ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

     DEWITT & DAVENPORT,

     in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for
     the Southern District of New York.



     _R. Craighead, Printer and Stereotyper,_
     _112 Fulton Street._




NO APOLOGY.


If there be any reader impelled to dip into notes of foreign travel
mainly by a solicitude to perfect his knowledge of the manners and
habits of good society, to which end he is anxious to learn how my Lord
Shuffleton waltzes, what wine Baron Hob-and-nob patronizes, which tints
predominate in Lady Highflyer's dress, and what is the probable color of
the Duchess of Doublehose's garters, he will only waste his time by
looking through this volume. Even if the species of literature he
admires had not already been overdone, I have neither taste nor capacity
for increasing it. It was my fortune sometimes while in Europe to "sit
at good men's feasts," but I brought nothing away from them for the
public, not even the names of my entertainers and their notable guests.
If I had felt at liberty to sketch what struck me as the personal
characteristics of some gentlemen of note or rank whom I met, especially
in England, I do not doubt that the popular interest in those letters
would have been materially heightened. I did not, however, deem myself
authorized to do this. In a few instances, where individuals challenged
observation and criticism by consenting to address public gatherings, I
have spoken of the matter and manner of their speeches and indicated the
impressions they made on me. Beyond this I did not feel authorized to
go, even in the case of public men speaking to the public through
reports for the daily press; while those whom I only met privately or in
the discharge of kindred duties, as Jurors at the Exhibition, I have not
felt at liberty to bring before the public at all. Having thus explained
what will seem to many a lack of piquancy, in the following pages,
implying a privation of social opportunities, I drop the subject.

No one can realize more fully than the writer the utter absence of
literary merit in these Letters. He does not deprecate nor seek to
disarm criticism; he only asks that his sketches be taken for what they
profess and strive to be, and for nothing else. That they are
superficial, their title proclaims; that they were hurriedly written,
with no thought of style nor of enduring interest, all whom they are
likely to interest or to reach must already know. A journalist traveling
in foreign lands, especially those which have been once the homes of his
habitual readers or at least of their ancestors, cannot well refrain
from writing of what he sees and hears; his observations have a value in
the eyes of those readers which will be utterly unrecognized by the
colder public outside of the sympathizing circle. For the habitual
readers of The Tribune especially were these Letters written, and their
original purpose has already been accomplished. Here they would have
rested, but for the unsolicited offer of the publishers to reproduce
them in a book at their own cost and risk, and on terms ensuring a fair
share of any proceeds of their sale to the writer. Such offers from
publishers to authors who have no established reputation as book-makers
are rarely made and even more rarely refused. Therefore, Sir Critic!
whose dog-eared manuscript has circulated from one publisher's drawer to
another until its initial pages are scarcely readable, while the ample
residue retain all their pristine freshness of hue, you are welcome to
your revenge! Your novel may be tedious beyond endurance; your epic a
preposterous waste of once valuable foolscap; but your slashing review
is sure to be widely read and enjoyed.

My aim in writing these Letters was to give a clear and vivid
daguerreotype of the districts I traversed and the incidents which came
under my observation. To this end I endeavored to sec, so far as
practicable, through my own eyes rather than those of others. To this
end, I generally shunned guide-books, even those of the "indispensable"
Murray, and relied mainly for routes and distances on the shilling
hand-book of Bradshaw. That I have been misled into many