In the summer of 1794, subsequent to the publication of “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” Mrs. Radcliffe accompanied her husband on a tour through Holland and the western frontier of Germany, returning down the Rhine. This was the first and only occasion, on which she quitted England; though the vividness of her descriptions of Italy, Switzerland and the south of France, in which her scenes are principally laid, induced a general belief, that she had visited those countries. So strongly was this conviction impressed on the public mind, that a recent traveller of celebrity referred to her descriptions as derived from personal observation; and it was asserted in the “Edinburgh Review” for May 1823, that she accompanied her husband to Italy, when he was attached to one of the British Embassies, and that “it was on that occasion she imbibed the taste for picturesque scenery, and the obscure and wild superstitions of mouldering castles, of which she has made so beautiful a use in her romances.” After their return from the Continent, Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe made a tour to the English Lakes, and were highly gratified by the excursion. On these journeys, Mrs. Radcliffe almost invariably employed snatches of time at the inns where she rested, in committing to paper the impressions and events of the day, which she could afterwards review at leisure—a happy mode of prolonging those vivid pleasures of life, for which she had a fine relish. Such a habit, when it does not become too frequently introspective, or “sickly o’er” our enjoyments with “the pale cast of thought,” tends to impart a unity to our intellectual being. It enables us to live over again the unbroken line of existence; to gather up the precious drops of happiness, that they be not lost; and, in the last moments of feeling and thought, to find “a glass which shows us many more.” After Mrs. Radcliffe’s return, she was prevailed on to give to her notes a regular form, and to publish them in a quarto volume, which met with a favourable reception. The subsequent excursions of Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe were of less extent, and chiefly directed to the southern coast of England. Always once, and generally twice in the year, they took a journey through some beautiful or interesting country, limiting themselves to no particular course, but enjoying the perfect freedom, which was most agreeable to their tastes. Mrs. Radcliffe continued her little diary of these pleasant rovings, but without the slightest idea of publication, from which she generally shrunk as an evil. Some specimen of these journals are now first presented to the reader, which will exhibit her mind in its undress—show her feelings as they were undisguised—and display her tact of observation and descriptive power, as existing simply for her own gratification. She always travelled with a considerable number of books, and generally wrote, while Mr. Radcliffe derived amusement from reading them.