INSTRUCTION AND AMUSEMENT. 15 



our observation in space, but which have preceded 

 the present time, and are to be found nowhere but iu 

 the record of the book. 



Thus, by means of books, any man who has ac- 

 cess to the proper ones, and chooses, can combine the 

 whole experience of the world up to the very day, 

 and as far as observation, or knowledge by any 

 other means has been carried, without moving from 

 the same spot. There are many who have not the 

 desire of roaming about to see what is going on, even 

 in the brief period of their own lives, and there are 

 many more who have not the means even if they had 

 the desire. But to all these the book addresses itself 

 with equal readiness and freedom ; and if it be a 

 book of truths, or of science, as we say, whether of 

 facts, or of inferences, or of that happy combination 

 of the two, imbued with that ardour of manner which 

 says imperiously to him who once begins it, " You 

 shall read onward to the end, and after this be more 

 desirous of another," which constitutes what may be 

 called a book of the first class, whatever may be its 

 subject the book speaks all languages. It is true 

 that works which are more immediately descriptive 

 of the place and the day, are confined in their locality, 

 and ephemeral in their duration. They please a 

 certain class of readers that portion which, had they 

 been precluded from the power of reading, would 

 have spent their time in bandying about oral reports 

 of local occurrences. These books cannot, from the 

 very circumstances which give them their ephemeral 

 and local character, be accurately rendered into any 

 language save that in which they are originally 

 written, or duly appreciated by any people save those 

 of whose manners they more immediately treat. 



These last mentioned works are pleasant withal 



