" …it illustrates, in a certain degree, the history and romance of the two Palatine counties, the Author's aim having been to give to particular localities an individuality and freshness, by presenting in an entertaining and popular form the “sites” of remarkable scenes and incidents of bygone days. “England,” says a well-known writer, “is pre-eminently the country (compared with the rest of Europe) in which the monuments that embody historical associations, and link the present with a far-reaching past are most thickly strewn;" and in Lancashire and Cheshire the soil is plentifully studded with the memorials of ancient days, that stand out in refreshing and instructive relief among the crowding evidences of modern power and civilisation—places hallowed by associations and as the homes of those whose memories we would not willingly let die, and scenes that are identified with much of the history, tradition and romance of the centuries that are gone.”
