Chapter I: Preface: To the Illustrated Edition of Gray Days and Gold

_This book, containing description of my Gray Days in England and Scotland, has, in a miniature form, passed through several editions, and it has been received by the public with exceptional sympathy and abundant practical favour. Its publishers are, therefore, encouraged to present it in a more opulent style, and with the embellishment of pictorial illustrations. Its success,--and indeed the success which has attended all my books,--is deeply gratifying to me, the more so that I did not expect it. My sketches of travel were the unpremeditated creations of genial impulse, and I did not suppose that they would endure beyond the hour. If I had anticipated the remarkably cordial approbation which has been accorded to my humble studies of British scenery and life, I should have tried to make them better, and, especially, I should have taken scrupulous care to verify every date and every historic statement set forth in my text. That precaution, at first, I did not invariably take, but as my mood was that of contemplation and reverie, so my method was that of the dreamer, who drifts carelessly from one beautiful thing to another, uttering simply whatever comes into his thoughts. In preparing the text for this edition of _Gray Days_, however, and also in preparing the text of _Shakespeare's England_ for the pictorial edition, I have carefully revised my sketches, and have made a studious and conscientious endeavour to correct every mistake and to remove every defect. The chapters on Clopton and Devizes have been considerably augmented, and the record of Shakespearean affairs at Stratford-upon-Avon has been continued to the present time. A heedless error in my chapter on Worcester, respecting the Shakespeare marriage bond, has been rectified, and in various ways the narrative has been made more authentic, the historical embellishment more complete, and, perhaps, the style more flexible and more concise._

_Eight of the papers in this volume relate to Scotland. My first visit to that romantic country was made in 1888, and was limited to the lowlands, but since that time I have had the privilege of making several highland rambles, and, in particular, of passing thoughtful days in the lovely island of Iona,--one of the most interesting places in Europe,--and those readers who may care to keep me company beyond the limits of this work will find memorials of those wanderings and that experience in my later books, called _Old Shrines and Ivy_ and _Brown Heath and Blue Bells_._

_W. W._

JULY 15, 1896.