The Author offers the following book as a continuation, in a more generally accessible form, of the Series of Memoirs of Industrial Men introduced in his Lives of the Engineers. While preparing that work he frequently came across the tracks of celebrated inventors, mechanics, and iron-workers-the founders, in a great measure, of the modern industry of Britain-whose labours seemed to him well worthy of being traced out and placed on record, and the more so as their lives presented many points of curious and original interest. Having been encouraged to prosecute the subject by offers of...

I have had pleasure in editing this travel diary, not only because it is the work of my youngest son, but also because it contains the results of a good deal of adventure travel under novel aspects, as seen by young, fresh, and observant eyes.

My attention was first called to the works of the poet Jasmin by the eulogistic articles which appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes, by De Mazade, Nodier, Villemain, and other well-known reviewers. I afterwards read the articles by Sainte-Beuve, perhaps the finest critic of French literature, on the life and history of Jasmin, in his 'Portraits Contemporains' as well as his admirable article on the same subject, in the 'Causeries du Lundi.'