attentive perusal and candid investigation, the Editor confidently hopes
that his labours may bear a fair comparison with any similar publication
that has yet been brought forward.

In the short Prospectus of this work, formerly submitted to the public, a
very general enunciation only, of the heads of the intended plan, was
attempted; as that was then deemed sufficient to convey a distinct idea of
the nature, arrangement, and distribution of the proposed work. Unavoidable
circumstances still necessarily preclude the possibility, or the propriety
rather, of attempting to give a more full and complete developement of the
divisions and subdivisions of the systematic arrangement which is to be
pursued, and which circumstances may require some elucidation.

An extensive and minutely arranged plan was carefully devised and extended
by the Editor, before one word of the work was written or compiled, after
an attentive examination of every accessible former collection; That plan
has been since anxiously reconsidered, corrected, altered, and extended, in
the progress of the work, as additional materials occurred: yet the Editor
considers that the final and public adoption of his plan, in a positively
fixed and pledged systematic form, any farther than has been already
conveyed in the Prospectus, would have the effect to preclude the availment
of those new views of the subject which are continually afforded by
additional materials, in every progressive step of preparation for the
press. The number of books of voyages and travels, as well general as
particular, is extremely great; and, even if the whole were at once before
the Editor, it would too much distract his attention from the division or
department in which he is engaged for the time, to attempt studying and
abstracting every subdivision at once. The grand divisions, however, which
have been already indicated in the Prospectus, and the general principles
of the plan, which are there explained, are intended to be adhered to; as