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mercial importance, it still carries on manufactures to a considerable extent.

Belgium is remarkable for the splendor of its municipal edifices; and the noble Town-House of this city, which forms one side of the magnificent oblong called the Grande Place, and rears its beautiful gothic steeple to the height of three hundred and sixty feet, has been the pride of Brussels for three or four centuries. After dark, the time was curiously indicated by the illumination of the single existing hour on the surface of the clock, smaller figures being used for the minutes.

The church of St. Gudule is truly magnificent: its rich and beautiful storied windows, some of which are commemorative of Charles V.; its statues; its sepulchral monuments; its altars; its numerous chapels, of which several are quite gorgeous; and its ornaments in general, render it exceedingly striking. The pulpit is the finest in all the Netherlands, and is a most extraordinary work; it is less massy than that at Mechlin, but far more exquisite and costly; and if the sermons preached in it bear any analogy to the rostrum from which they are delivered, they must indeed be of no common order. It is a wonderful piece of carving, in oak, representing the banishment of our first parents from Eden by an angel with a flaming sword: death appears behind; and the serpent is seen coiled round the tree of knowledge:-above, under a canopy sustained by two angelic figures, are the Virgin, and the child Jesus, who crushes the serpent's head. The morning on which our perambulations led us to this temple of Romish splendor, happened to be that of a great festival; and the church was hung with festoons of flowers, and many beautiful pieces of tapestry; high mass had commenced with great pomp, to the sound of triumphant music, and the 'full-voiced choir;' and a great number of priests, in their mantles of embroidery and gold, and in all the paraphernalia of Rome, were officiating, amidst a profusion of tapers, and those clouds of incense which strongly remind the Protestant of the derogation which the church of Rome casts on Him whose intercession is so beautifully alluded to in the Revelation, as the much incense that is offered, with the prayers of all saints, before the throne.*

On looking at the hand-bills that were put up in the church, it appeared that this was one of the fifteen days of the jubilee of two hundred and fifty years, designed to commemorate the re-establishment of the Catholic religion, in 1585, after the troubles of the Low Countries; and the translation of the miraculous host, 'le très-Saint Sacrement de Miracle, which had been concealed to preserve it from the Iconoclasts. This event was celebrated by plenary indulgences, for certain

* Rev. viii.

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specified good works; and by the sermons of various priests, one of which was delivered after mass was over, with a simplicity and fervor of manner that was very interesting: it consisted of an exhortation to self-denial, but it was the selfdenial of meritorious monkery and penance: and it was painful to think that a numerous and listening auditory should have no means of hearing a clear exposition of the way of salvation.

The Protestant religion, though rigorously opposed, had spread considerably in the Netherlands during the reign of Charles V.; and under the yoke of Philip II. his son, the encroachments of the Spaniards on the liberties of the people, and the terror of that tribunal which was no other than the inquisition without the name, produced a civil war, which desolated the country for many years. The murder of William, Prince of Orange, by an emissary of Spain, in 1584, did not prevent the emancipation of the Batavian provinces from going forward; but, in the southern states, the cause of Spain, and of that fierce and bloody Romanism which had emerged from the halls of her Inquisition, to desolate Christendom, prevailed in 1585, by the submission of the principal cities to Philip, and, among them, Brussels, where it was a part of the conditions, that the Protestants should restore the churches which they had previously appropriated to their own use: it was to celebrate this event that the present festival was held.

It is no violation of charity to remark, that in the Catholic countries the bulk of the people commonly evince an extreme degree of ignorance; and it is easy to perceive how the aphorism that ignorance is the mother of devotion,' though most fallacious in itself, may have been pronounced, by scepticism, over the follies of superstition. I asked a woman who was corning away from kneeling at a shrine in St. Gudule's, what shrine or tomb it was? The poor woman seemed quite at a loss, and replied, Monsieur, je ne saurais vous dire; demandez à Monsieur, pointing to a military-looking personage, who, in these Catholic cathedrals, marches about, furnished either with a halbert or a sword, and frequently with a cocked-hat on his head.-The summary way in which even the priests frequently perform their private devotions in the churches, borders hard upon the ludicrous. At one place, while looking at an image of the Virgin, we suddenly heard a peculiar rush behind us, which caused us to turn round: it was a very comely and well-conditioned priest, who, en passant, had fallen upon his knees, in the twinkling of an eye, and had as suddenly proceeded on his course across the cathedral. It is not uncommon to see a priest taking a pinch of snuff on his knees, in the church.

There are several other fine churches in Brussels. In Notre

Dame de la Chapelle, the large organ, and the beautiful pulpit, strike every beholder. The Corinthian portico of St. Jacques is a handsome ornament to the fine area of the Place Royale; and in the interior we noticed the elegance of the organ, and the beautiful form of the tabernacle for holding the host. In these, and the other churches the Catholic religion has laid its usual embargo on the fine arts; and numerous paintings, statues, and monuments, unite to throw around its errors the charm of whatever is beautiful and imposing in the labors of the pencil and the chisel. During the revolutionary conflict between the Dutch and the Belgian troops, the Place Royale was one of the principal scenes of action, and some of the sumptuous buildings in the square were perforated through and through with cannon-balls. The Park, which is close by the Place Royale, is the most delightful part of this fine city, and is surrounded by splendid edifices; among which are the Royal Palace, and that of the Prince of Orange; and on the opposite side, is the Palace of the StatesGeneral, or Parliament-house, occupying the centre of a magnificent street, which forms, on the north-eastern end of the Park, a noble façade. The garden of the Park combines in some nieasure the symmetry of the French with the ease and variety of the English style, and is ornamented with fountains, basins, and statues of admirable sculpture, while the deep umbrageous foliage of some parts furnishes a grateful shelter from the heat of a July sun. An incident which occurred here, shows how easily princes may acquire popularity. Peter the Great, when at Brussels, in 1717, sat down to regale himself with wine, on the margin of one of the basins: this circumstance has been commemorated by an inscription, in which it is said, Petrus Alexiowitz, Czar Moscowia, aquam hujus fontis nobilitavit, libato vino! Had Peter not been a reformer, rather than a saint, surely this basin might have served all the churches in Brussels with holy water.

Every one who visits this metropolis, goes to see the palace of the Prince of Orange, which is uninhabited, and remains exactly in the state in which it was at his last visit in 1830, when he came to Brussels in hope of quelling the insurrection. It is remarkable for its splendor and costly ornament, and forms no mean item in the loss which the House of Nassau has suffered by the revolution. Visitors slide, rather than walk, in cloth slippers, over a suite of thirteen or fourteen superb apartments, the floors of which are of beautifully inlaid wood, and of the highest polish, being as smooth as glass. Several of the rooms are lined with marble, and rich satin hangings; and the whole suite is furnished in the most costly manner. Magnificent candelabras, ornaments of lapis-lazuli and marble, rich and splendid articles of upholstery, and some

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valuable presents from Russia, all of which are in the most perfect state of preservation, attest the wealth, taste, and connections of the late owner of this princely residence; who built it, we understood, a few years before the revolution, from his own private resources, for himself and his Russian princess. There are some good paintings, and among others, a very fine one of the Emperor Nicholas; who is here represented as a very elegant young man, and extremely different from the impressions we should be apt to form in England of the despotic Czar, who has so tyrannically crushed the poor Poles, and endeavored to exterminate from among them the very name of national freedom. Before the Belgian revolution, the royal family and the court were accustomed to reside alternately at Brussels and at the Hague; the States-general were also holden, by turns, at each place.

The Palace of the States-General is a very handsome and commodious edifice, with an Ionic portico, and worthy to be the seat of a nation's government. Spacious staircases lead to the chambers: that of the peers is small, but richly fitted up; and that of the deputies, in which the throne is placed, is much larger, and extremely elegant. One of the private rooms contains a painting of the battle of Waterloo, and the wounding of the Prince of Orange; there is also a much finer picture of the battle of Nieuport, in which Prince Maurice, son of the murdered William of Orange, obtained a signal victory, in 1600, over Albert of Austria, who had married the Infanta of Spain, and received the promise of the sovereignty of the Netherlands from her father Philip II. A few years afterwards, Spain was compelled to acknowledge the independence of the Northern Provinces.

The Museum, which is in the former palace of the governors of Belgium, under the Austrian dominion, was closed; but some of us had seen it on a former visit: it contains a valuable collection of Flemish paintings, and some sculptures: there is also a library of one hundred thousand volumes, and a cabinet of natural history, in which may be seen some curious relics of the ancient times of the Netherlands; also a collection of philosophical and agricultural instruments, and various kinds of models.

On the 20th of November 1834, a University was instituted at Brussels, with the title of L'Université Libre de Belgique, which is designed to furnish an education in all the branches that are preparatory to any of the professions. At present the lectures are delivered in some apartments of the TownHall; but I was informed by one of the professors that they are in hopes of having a new edifice expressly for the object, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Park, and to harmonize with the style of building which prevails in that elegant and

attractive part of the city. In this University there are five faculties, namely-philosophy and letters; natural and mathe matical sciences; law; political and administrative sciences and medicine. The council is chosen by the subscribers, and composed of eleven members, in whom the government of the institution is vested. The professors are about twenty-five in number, besides agrégés, or additional teachers: at seventy years of age, or after twenty years of service, they are to become emeriti, and to be entitled to a pension for the remainder of their lives. The students are admitted at sixteen years old, but exceptions may occur in favor of those who have not attained that age. A fee of registration, of the amount of fifteen francs, is paid annually by each student; and the sum of two hundred francs, or about eight pounds, annually paid, admits to all the courses of any one faculty:-fifty additional francs, entitle the student to add one or more courses, in other faculties. Prizes are annually distributed for excellence. In the foundation of this free institution, may be traced the progress of public opinion in Belgium, with regard to popery. The Catholic University, recently established, by the Belgic bishops, at Mechlin, is entirely exclusive: all the functionaries must be Roman Catholics, and must take an oath of obedience to the Episcopal body.

LETTER III.

Road through the forest of Soignies-Waterloo-Carnage at this and the preceding battles-Road to Namur-country near the city-Its situation-Churches, including the Cathedral-Heights-Sunday FairFête de la Sainte Vierge-Historical sketch, from the Roman Invasion -Battle between Cæsar and the Nervii-Frankish Dominion - Dependence on the Empire-Petty States-House of Burgundy-Spanish connection and dominion-Charles V.-Philip II.-William of Nassau-Cruel persecutions-Atrocities of Alva-Union of Utrecht Assassination of William-Ancient opulence of the Cities of Brabant and Flanders-Archduke Albert-Louis XIV. and the Triple Alliance-War of the Spanish succession-Peace of Utrecht-Austrian dominion-Incorporation with France--United Kingdom of the Netherlands-Leopold of Saxe Coburg, first King of the Belgians.

MY DEAR FRIEND: The Namur road led us to Waterloo through part of the ancient Arduenna, mentioned by Cæsar, -now the forest of Soignies. The village church is an affecting spectacle, its walls being lined with marble slabs, to the memory of the officers who tell on the melancholy field of Britain's glory. At Mont St. Jean, a small hamlet, upwards

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