Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert: Travels in upper and lower Egypt (Band 1) (London, 1807)

translator's preface. vii

gination for a revelation from heaven ; and like
the baseless fabric of a vision leaves not a wreck be-
hind.

Both the writer and the warrior have conveyed
a most useful lesson to mankind : it is, to regard
with a jealous eye, a people, who, under every
form of government, still aim at domineering.
Whether they go forth in travelling parties or in
armed hosts; whether they cultivate science or
till the ground; whether they plant the tree of
liberty or unfurl the bloody flag, the Frenchman
never loses sight of his motto, Extollenda est Gallia.
He has got liberty and fraternity in his mouth,
but mark, he has got a rod in his hand, and Flan-
ders, Holland, Switzerland, a great part of Ger-
many, and almost all Italy, have felt it to be a rod
of iron.

These Travels, and the political and com-
mercial views which they unfold, are peculiarly
interesting to Great Britain at this crisis. I
thought it a duty which I owed to my country to
lay them before the Public without delay, and, to

a 4. keep