PREFACE. "AH!" respondio Sancho, llorando, "no se muera, Vuestra Merced, senor mio, si no tome mi consejo y viva muchos anos, porque la mayor locura que puede hacer un hombre en esta vida es dexarse morir sui mas ni mas, sin que nadie le mate, ni otras manos le acaben que las de la melancholia." "Ah!" replied Sancho, weeping, "don't die, your honour, but follow my advice, and live many years;— because the silliest thing a man can do in this life is to die without any reason, without being killed by anybody, or finished off by any other hands than Melancholy's." This advice of the faithful Sancho Panza always appeared to me the plainest and best of all the recipes philosophers have prescribed for adversity. Putting it then into practice, instead of pouring forth useless lamentations, or hanging down my head like a weepingwillow, I have acquired the habit, in travelling, of throwing upon paper the observation that, from time to time, new objects awakened in me. In this way I have beguiled a good deal of the leisure of my exile; and fortunate I am, if, by these sketches, I can beguile some moments of the leisure of my countrymen. My book cannot enter into competition with any other; it is but a miscellany like the olla-podrida of the Spaniards, that favourite dish of my favourite Sancho Panza. Let him who wishes to become acquainted with English politics, read M. de Pradt; him who wishes to know the statistics of England, refer to the work of Baron Du pin. Let him who desires to understand the machinery of the admirable administration of justice in England, consult the work of M. Cottu. Let him who wishes to become familiar with English manners, read the elegant descriptions of the American, Washington Irving, in his "Sketch-Book." But let him who does not love science and information well enough to read these; who admires profiles rather than full-lengths; who reads for reading sake, and in the way the journals of the fashions and the opera-books are read, skipping, singing, and yawning— let him, I say, read the following observations of York, 1827.* GIUSEPPE PECCHIO. * The "Observations" were not, however, published till 1831.-TRANSLATOR. CONTENTS. Entry into London-Architecture-Economy of Build- ing-Independence-Habits-Crowded Streets-Ser- |