A TOUR IN SWEDEN IN 1838; COMPRISING OBSERVATIONS ON THE MORAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMICAL STATE OF THE SWEDISH NATION. BY SAMUEL LAING, ESQ. = AUTHOR OF "A JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY." LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1839. PREFAСЕ. THE future historian will probably complain that the English travellers of the present generation, while they lavish the highest talents on descriptions of personal feelings or adventures, of romantic natural scenery, of striking objects in the sciences or fine arts, have left few of the more humble facts or observations, from which he can appreciate and describe the advance of society, in different countries, towards a higher condition in morals, laws, good government, physical well-being, and civilisation. Yet the calm which we have been enjoying for nearly a quarter of a century, after that storm of the French revolution which shook the world, is perhaps the most important period that has occurred in the history of the human race. New powers, it may be said, have been granted to man during this period-new intellectual power, by the general diffusion of knowledge through the press - new physical power, by the general application of steam to machinery and movement. The changes which these mighty agencies are rapidly |