The lakes of England [by G. Tattersall].

PREFACE.

THE adding another to the already numberless "Guides to the English Lakes," will undoubtedly at first sight be deemed an act of temerity, or, at best, of but questionable expediency. It is a path which has been so completely beaten by his predecessors, as to leave but little hope of novelty to the pilgrim who follows in their track. The descriptive genius of the poet, the research of the antiquarian, and the master-hand of the painter, have each in turn been exercised to illustrate this favoured region; and with such success, as would seem to leave but little to be gleaned by any subsequent tourist. Yet, many and various as have been their labours, and exhausted as every species of description and delineation may appear,-behold! another cockle-shell embarked upon the tide of public favour, her every hope of prosperity chartered in novelty -in novelty at once of design as of execution.

Time must shew whether the novelty of design at which I have aimed—that of rendering a Guide-book at once intelligible and useful to those for whose especial edification it is intended-be attained or not; this, however, cannot but be allowed to be a most desirable novelty.

"Without the pencil," says Mr. West, a clever and observant traveller, nothing is to be described with precision; and even then, that pencil ought to be in the very hand of the writer, ready to supply with outlines every thing that his pen cannot express by words." True; but in my humble opinion, for the purposes of description, with reference to the pointing out of a scene to which the beholder is a perfect stranger, all the powers of language will fall short of a faithful effort of the pencil. Such was the conviction arising from my own experience as a stranger; and in the results of that conviction will be found my second novelty, of execution.

Here are my main stays; here my chief hopes of support. Fail these, I go the way of all dismissed and superannuated Guides.

The method which I have endeavoured to pursue in the following pages, is that of intro

ducing the reader to those "fair scenes," of which the drawings, by their references, must then explain the component features. In furtherance of this object, the directions with regard to the various routes and roads are most scrupulously correct and concise; yet, at the same time, more fully treated than in any former work on the same subject. A Map has also been added to the already numerous illustrations, drawn and corrected from actual experience, and comprising every latest alteration in, or deviation from the roads.

The Illustrations, which form so important a feature in this little work, are etched on steel, by Mr. W. F. Topham, from original drawings by the Author. Merit as drawings they cannot claim; but as sketches, they will be found at once faithful and characteristic.

With these few remarks the author launches his little bark, trusting to the forgiveness of an indulgent reader for the errors of an inexperienced seamanship, and hoping for that kind favour which it will ever be his highest ambition to deserve.

London, April 15, 1836.