(...)"Yielding to that opinion, I resolved to undertake a description of the condition of Wales, and to present to Englishmen an estimate of the character of the people of that country, as influenced by language, social position, religious worship, and education. The work has been often interrupted by the claims of duty; and has been resumed at distant intervals, when leisure and opportunity for the task could be insured: circumstances which are not mentioned in order to deprecate that criticism to which all are amenable who seek to influence public opinion, but to account for those deficiencies which are inseparable from undertakings executed under such disadvantages(...)".