During the last century travelling was the prerogative of the wealthy alone. The spirit of enterprise which leads to the examination of the institutions and the inner life of foreign countries was not general. The journey itself was marked with so much discomfort that it required no little love of adventure to face the ordeal. There was also the insular prejudice against the continent and what is still called foreign manners. Men of ancient families and of large ancestral acres frequently, during a long life, were known not to have extended their visits beyond the county town of their shire. The grand tour of the continent, it is true, was a portion of the education of the sons of noblemen and of men of large fortune, but it was enjoyed by few others. It was not simply a matter of money which imposed a limit to the number. Leisure was equally necessary for its enjoyment, and men in busy life could not give the time required. To pass from one locality to another, separated by long distances, even in England itself, was a matter of expense; and, although in their day the mail coach and the post chaise achieved wonders in the then standard of rapid movement, it was only the possessors of assured and ample means who could use those conveyances to any extent for a pleasure tour. The wide influences which steam applied to motion, exercised upon life in all its forms was rapidly felt. When we consider the shortness of the period within which these changes have arisen, we recognise additional ground for astonishment, that in so limited a period so much has been done to mould us to a new condition of being. All the important departures from our old theories and habits have taken place within this century. It was but a few years beyond this limit when Johnson expressed the belief that one of the happinesses of life was to be whirled rapidly along in a post chaise. Only a few years previously, in 1762, Brindley commenced his first canals which, if they did not admit of speed, permitted intercommunication along their line, until the very traffic which they created led to the establishment of railways, in one sense, to supplant them.