There is a funny thing in this guide-book. "There also resides Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, the author of 'Proverbial Philosophy,' etc. He has eulogized the scene around as follows." Then come two pages of Tupper. I naturally looked to see the name of the author of the book, but none was given. Such modesty! But the case is a clear one, for who but Tupper would quote Tupper! "Sir," said Johnson to Bossy, "Sir, I never did the man an injury in my life, and yet he would persist in reading his tragedy to me." Here's the concluding quotation from the guide-book of Guildford, and the Scribe promises not to quote much more from any similar source. Cobbett says that in Albury Park he saw some plants of the "American cranberry, which not only grow here, but bear fruit, and therefore it is clear that they may be cultivated with great ease in this country."
Potatoes, tomatoes, and cranberries--look at the great blessings America has bestowed upon the "author of her being;" and what won't grow in the rain and fog of the old home, doesn't she grow for her and send over by every steamer, from canvas-back ducks to Newtown pippins! Thackeray was right in saying one night, when some friends were disposed to criticise America, "Ah! well, gentlemen, much can be pardoned to a country which produces the canvas-back duck." At dinner-tables in England, nowadays, to the usual grace, "O Lord! for what we are about to receive make us truly thankful," should be added, "and render us truly grateful to our big son Jonathan, God bless him!"
One could settle down at the White Lion in Guildford, and spend a month, at least, visiting every day fresh objects of interest, and I have no doubt becoming day by day more charmed with the life he was leading. In every direction historical scenes, crowded full of instructive stories of the past, invite us: and yet to-morrow morning the horn will sound, and we shall be off, reluctantly saying to ourselves, we must return some day when we have leisure, and wander in and around, absorb and moralize. This rapid survey is only to show us what we can do hereafter. A summer to each county would not be too much, and here are eight hundred miles from sea to firth to be rushed over in seven weeks. Guildford, farewell!--on "to fresh woods and pastures new."