HIS JOURNAL OF TRAVELS. 249 



of the delight with which, in their youthful days, they 

 hung over its pages. It was well received by the 

 critics, at home and abroad ; and was favorably noticed 

 in the " Quarterly Review," a journal not disposed to 

 flatter American writers. The Reviewer (in the num- 

 ber for July, 1816) says : " The American traveller 

 brought with him such feelings as become a man of 

 letters and a member of that commonwealth in which 

 all distinctions of country should be forgotten, or 

 remembered only when principles and paramount 

 interests are at stake. His Journal represents Eng- 

 land to the Americans as it is, and exhibits to the 

 English a fair specimen of the real American charac- 

 ter." " Mr. Siliiman is a good representative of the 

 best American character." " England is to them 

 what Italy and Greece are to the classical scholar, 

 what Rome is to the Catholic, and Jerusalem to the 

 Christian world. Almost every hamlet, says Mr. 

 Siliiman, has been the scene of some memorable 

 action, or the birthplace of some distinguished per- 

 son. It is interesting to observe this feeling, and 

 trace its manifestation in a writer who makes no 

 ostentation of his feelings, and who never disfigures 

 his plain and faithful Journal by any affectation of 

 eloquence or of sentiment." More pleasing to Mr. 

 Siliiman than even this praise was a compliment 

 which came to him from a much humbler quarter. 

 Professor Olmsted, on a certain occasion, stopped at 

 a toll-gate and found the toll-keeper, who was also a 

 shoemaker, with Silliman's Travels open before him 

 as he labored on his bench, the most interesting 

 book, he said, that he had ever read. 



This publication served to bring the author into 



