a scroll
beneath are these letters:--

ECCE MATER
TVA.
1760.

Several old chesnut trees and elms still remain, which once formed
a fine avenue in front of the building, from whence the prospect is
strikingly beautiful. The eye passes over rocks, rugged, broken, and
abrupt towards their summits, crowned and darkened with wood; and the
narrow road winding between the trees, until it loses itself in the
forest, forms a feature very gratifying to the traveller. The solitude
of the place, as I viewed it at the close of day, occasioned mingled
sensations of pleasure and pain. It was impossible to resist the
imposing power of a situation, where every natural object was deeply
tinged with the poetical character, and every remnant of architecture
associated with the romance of religious feeling. I recalled and dwelt
upon various passages of the poets inspired by similar scenes, and
thought of the holy and enthusiastic minds which had here devoted
themselves to the sublimest duties and severest sacrifices of the
altar; and felt, that had I lived in those days, I, perhaps, could
have become an inmate of walls which seem to have been erected
to exclude the evils of life, and to nurture only the enchanting
abstractions of unpolluted virtue and happiness: but the present
day has brought with it a general philosophy and knowledge of human
nature, which lessen the delight of contemplating the calm repose of
such a seclusion, and have taught that these retreats from the world
were not always retreats from vice; that the sacrifices of monkish
privacy were not always those of selfish feelings; and that the
austerities once practised here, as now at La Trappe, might perhaps
arise more frequently from disappointed pride and ambition, than
from the pure feelings of pious resignation. In the overthrow of the
monarchy and that of the priesthood, this venerable pile became the
object of popular vengeance; and had the Revolution done no more than
effected the dissolution of the different orders of monks and nuns,
every reflecting mind must have been pleased: the removal of those
abuses, like the division of landed property into smaller portions,
(whereby the country in general became more cultivated and
productive,) was serviceable to France; and, if any circumstance can
restore permanent tranquillity, it will be the interest which the
different landholders have in the soil and the representative system,
which will serve to check the