A collection of essays and travel sketches that surveys major English picture-galleries, provides descriptive tours of notable paintings, and records impressions from journeys through France and Italy. The author combines close visual analysis and judgments of individual works with practical commentary for visitors, reflections on taste and connoisseurship, and a pointed criticism of Marriage a-la-mode. Recurring themes include the emotional and intellectual effects of originals versus prints, the responsibilities of criticism, and how artworks engage moral and aesthetic sensibilities. The tone alternates between enthusiastic admiration, learned observation, and conversational digression.