therefore this "damnation in wholesale" with scorn and contempt: and hasten
to impress the reader with a more favourable opinion of my Norman
translator. He _will_ have it that

"the English Traveller's imagination is lively and ardent--and his
spirit, that of raillery and lightness. He examines as he runs along;
that is to say, he does not give himself time to examine; he examines
ill; he deceives himself; and he subjects his readers to be deceived
with him. He traverses, at a hard trot, one of the most ancient towns
in France; puts his head out of his carriage window--and boldly
decides that the town is of the time of Francis I."![9] p. xviij.

There is pleasantry, and perhaps some little truth, in this vein of
observation; and it had been better, perhaps, for the credit of the good
taste and gentleman-like feeling of Mons. Licquet, if he had uniformly
maintained his character in these respects. I have however, in the
subsequent pages,[10] occasionally grappled with my annotator in proving
the fallacy, or the want of charity, of many of his animadversions: and the
reader probably may not be displeased, if, by way of "avant propos," I
indulge him here with a specimen of them--taken from his preface. M.
Licquet says, that I "create scenes; arrange a drama; trace characters;
imagine a dialogue, frequently in French--and in what French--gracious
God!--in assigning to postilions a ridiculous language, and to men of the
world the language of postilions." These be sharp words:[11] but what does
the Reader imagine may be the probable "result" of the English Traveller's
inadvertencies?... A result, ("gracious Heaven!") very little anticipated
by the author. Let him ponder well upon the awful language which ensues.
"What (says M. Licquet) will quickly be the result, with us, of such
indiscretions as those of which M. Dibdin is guilty? The necessity of
SHUTTING OUR PORTS, or at least of placing a GUARD UPON OUR LIPS!" There is