town or village where I arrived which romance or history, religion or
politics, had not invested and adorned with every interest of mental
association. Under such impressions, and with such opportunities, it
was scarcely possible to resist recording something of what I saw and
felt; and if the publication of my hasty record be an error, it
will be deemed by my friends, I hope, a pardonable one. My book
can scarcely demand the serious attention of the critic; nor could
criticism well expect a better style from one whose profession is
seldom supposed to allow much leisure to acquire nicety in the arts of
composition. I claim no other merit for my Notes than having followed
the advice (of Gray, I believe) that ten words put down at the moment
upon the spot, are worth a whole cart load of recollections. I have
not sought to add to their attraction (if they should possess any) by
the embellishments of my invention, or the graces of my periods--the
decorative artifices of execution can never give value to falsehood,
and truth needs them not. A simple landscape, simply described from
nature, has always a charm above the most high-finished compositions
of mere fancy; and, like a moderate painting from the same source,
still imparts a feeling of reality. I hope, therefore, I shall be
excused for attempting some description, slight and unskilful as it
may be, of places and scenery where the human mind has exhibited
some of its most curious and powerful features, and which awaken
reflections of the deepest interest--I allude particularly to the
monastery of _La Trappe_, and to the country of _La Vendée_. The
former had dwelt among the earliest impressions of youth, with
something like the wild and wonderful force of a romantic tale; and I
was anxious to become an eye-witness of what had so long been one of
the most powerful objects of my imagination. The gloomy and almost
inaccessible situation chosen by this strange fraternity for
their convent--their rigid separation from human intercourse--the