OF A TOUR IN ICELAND, IN THE SUMMER OF 1809. BY WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER, F. R. S. AND L.S., AND FELLOW OF THE WERNERIAN SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, Rees, orme, AND BROWN, AND JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET; By J. Keymer, Yarmouth. 1813. 2 vols. 809644-154 ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONORABLE SIR JOSEPH BANKS, BART., K. B., PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, &c., &c., &c. MY DEAR SIR, I FEEL a peculiar propriety in dedicating this little work to you, and, unworthy as it is in itself of the honor of being sent into the world under the sanction of a name like I yours, trust that you will not refuse to accept it as a proof of the esteem and respect of the author. I have two particular reasons for being anxious it should thus appear: the one, the one, because it is right that the earliest efforts of my pen should be inscribed to him, who, by proposing and facilitating my Tour to Iceland, first gave that pen the opportunity of being employed; the other, because it is chiefly in obedience to your advice that I now lay before the public what was originally written for the perusal only of my personal friends. These friends have, indeed, done me the kindness to receive this book in a manner the most gratifying to me; but the partiality of friends is proverbial, and in the public I must expect to meet with less favorable judges: the apprehension, therefore, which I cannot but feel of their criticism at my first appearance before them, makes me desirous to shield myself under the authority of a man, to whose judgment they are accustomed to pay the same deference that I do. As a farther reason for the change of my intention, I must be allowed to alledge the circumstance, that I found my own withholding this book would not prevent its actual publication; different parts of it having already appeared in periodical works, which have announced their intention of continuing similar extracts; and I consequently considered it more respectful to the public, if not due to myself, that, such as it is, they should have the opportunity of perusing it entire, instead of having it forced upon their attention in garbled extracts. I have the honor to be, MY DEAR SIR, Your obliged friend, |