14 Travelling Particularities. [JAN. 



You know it is not so much the object of these letters to supply you 

 with a mere travelling manual, as it is to afford you the kind and 

 quantity of information which is only to be acquired by a more or 

 less protracted residence in the places to which they refer. The former 

 (such as they are) may be got at every bookseller's shop, in every 

 town, in every country of Europe; each of the thousand and one 

 being not only the best extant, but moreover absolutely perfect in 

 its kind, and already at its " thirtieth edition !" But the sort of infor- 

 mation you seek, and which I am anxious to supply 'yon with, is still a 

 desideratum, and I have just been considering whether, being intended 

 for your permanent, and not merely momentary, use, it should include a 

 comparative estimate of the different inns and hotels, in the various places 

 to be described. At first, I thought these should be passed over, as mat- 

 ters interesting to the mere traveller alone ; but they form so important 

 and characteristic a feature of every noticeable place, that you could assu- 

 redly gain no complete and satisfactory impressions from any descriptions 

 which should exclude them : to say nothing of this being, above all other 

 particulars, that in which the ordinary guides and vade-mecums fail- 

 probably because it is of all others the most important for ordinary tra- 

 vellers to be informed of. For example, opening as good a Guide 

 through France as I have ever met with, (dated 1827,) and turning to 

 the first three considerable towns that occur, I find myself guided as 

 follows, in regard to the choice of hotels : (Calais.) " Hotels de Bourbon 

 bains considerables pres du port : La noblesse Anglaise and Fran- 

 9aise descend dans cet hotel. Dessin un des plus beaux du royaume, et 

 peut-etre de 1'Europe entiere; Quillacq 011 y trouve reimis tous les 

 genres d'agrement." (Dunkerque.J " Hotels du Chapeau Rouge du 

 Nord." (St. Omer.) "Hotels d'Angleterre 1'ancienne Poste." The 

 natural and necessary inference from this is, that the hotels here named are 

 at any rate the only ones that can safely be recommended to the traveller 

 and, from any thing that appears to the contrary, they are literally the 

 only ones. But how is the truth ? Why thus, that the three hotels 

 named at Calais, are the only ones that should be studiously avoided by 

 all, who, if they do not travel in their own equipages, w r ould avoid paying 

 extravagantly for being treated with neglect ; and that of those named 

 at St. Omer and Dunkerque, one is the very worst in the place, and 

 two of the others have no existence at all ! while, in the three places, 

 more than a dozen have been left un-named, every one of which called 

 for a brief estimate, in a work addressing itself to as many different classes 

 of readers, each of whom must be supposed to be seeking a "guide" to 

 that particular resting place, best suited to his means, habits, and incli- 

 nations. All this has made me determine to give you a comparative esti- 

 mate of every hotel I can find of course stopping short of those mere 

 cabarets where " on loge a pied " only : not pretending to settle (as the 

 guide makers do) which are suitable to their readers, but furnishing you 

 with the means of judging of that for yourself. 



Dessin's (in the rue Royale) is undoubtedly entitled to rank as the 

 first hotel in Calais but as certainly not the best, the latter title being due 

 rather to those which supply you with all that Dessin's can, and in as 

 complete a manner, and are content to do so without exacting an extra- 

 vagant price for it. Dessin's is a very capital establishment of its kind, 

 though certainly not answerable to its reputation, as one of the finest in 

 Europe. It mav have been so, but it is not now. Like the " Sentimental 



