* * * * *
We love an occasional stroll into the environs of London--_on foot_--and
_alone_. On foot, because we hate the machinery of a coach--and alone,
because we have only our own leisure to consult, and there is no time lost
in "making up minds." On such occasions we have no set object in view, but
we determine to make "good in every thing." A book, great or small, is then
to us a great evil; and putting a map into one's pocket is about as absurd
as Peter Fin's taking Cook's Voyages on his journey to Brighton. We read
the other day of a reviewer who started from Charing Cross with a blue bag
filled with books for his criticship: he read at Camberwell, and he read at
Dulwich--he wrote in the sanded and smoke-dried parlour of the Lion, the
Lamb, or the Fox--and he wrote whilst his steak was grilling at the
_auberge_ at Dulwich--and he went home in a hackney-coach: "Lord how he
went out--Lord how he came in." Another brother talks of rambling in a
secluded village field with Gilbert White's "Natural History of Selborne,"
or the "Journal of a Naturalist," in his hand. All this is very pleasant
and mighty pretty; but it is not true; and we stake our critical character
that neither Gilbert White nor our "Naturalist" did such things, or if they
did, that they were not essential to their writings.
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