f every man of common understanding were to put
down the daily thoughts and occurrences of his life, candidly and
unaffectedly as he experienced them, he must necessarily produce
something of interest to his fellow men, and make a book, which,
though not enlivened by wit, dignified by profundity of reasoning, nor
valuable by extent of research, yet no man perhaps should throw aside
with either weariness or disgust.

Whether I shall prove fortunate enough not to excite these sensations
in such readers as may honour my book with a perusal, I fear to
conjecture. But it was my good fortune, during a season of uncommon
beauty, to make a tour through some of the most interesting parts of
France, and to meet with persons who, from situation and talents,
were highly calculated to give my journey every charm of society and
information. The natural face of the country through which I passed
was peculiarly beautiful: I could scarcely move a step without
some novelty of picturesque enchantment, and had the most perfect
opportunities of contemplating Nature in all her varied poetry, from
the grand and terrible graces of savage sublimity, to the soft and
playful loveliness of cultivated luxuriance. There was scarcely a
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 i