LETTER XXIX. RAMSGATE. MY DEAR I have just landed at this place, and though nearly three hundred miles from Liverpool, I already feel at home. I rejoice to be once more in a land where I am not a foreigner-where there is no need of a passport, nor further dread of custom-house officers-and where the mind is relieved from the painful consciousness of being ever under the observance of a watchful police-in the midst of a people, who, a few months ago, were our mortal enemies, and who may, for ought I can tell, become so again. From the constant exhibition of a passport, and the observance of all those precautionary arrangements, to which, in a foreign land, one is obliged to conform, I have felt all along like a prisoner at large; and am of opinion that an Englishman ought to travel abroad, and submit to be examined, and have his name, and country, and profession, and destination, &c. all recorded for the inspection of the police at every town he passes,fully to appreciate and enjoy the freedom of his native land. I left our party at Brussels on Thursday evening, and came by the diligence to Ghent, and from thence by the barge to Bruges aud Ostend.--Having an hour to spare at Ghent, I repaired to the cathedral. It is a spacious and venerable structure, simply majestic in the style of its archi-tecture, and with little decoration but its paintings, which are esteemed remarkably fine. The pulpit is supported by a mass of exquisite marble sculpture, representing a man, starting as from a dream at the call of the gospel, which is personified by a dignified figure, with a bible open on his bosom, at those words, to which he is significantly pointing, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." The guide at the cathedral was a very civil, intelligent, and complaisant sort of a fellow. He paid a compliment to my French, according to custom, at the expense of truth-and reminded me of a waiter in Paris, who said, in answer to a question put to him by an Englishman, "You speak excellent French, sir, but, pardon me, I cannot understand you." At Ostend I had the happiness to meet with Admiral F― and Mr. C—, with whom I joined in the hire of a boat to carry us immediately over to England. We have had rather a rough and tedious passage. We sailed from Ostend yesterday morning at four, and did not arrive here till one o'clock to-day. We had a very unpleasant altercation with the custom-house officers at Ostend, owing to our having gone on board the packet at midnight, a circumstance which they construed into a clandestine departure, but to which we were led altogether by the suggestions of the captain. For my part, I must confess, I did not much like the idea of leaving the country under such an imputation. We were obliged, however, quietly to submit to the re-examination of our trunks, and were not a little pleased when these troublesome visitors took their final leave. But all the little inconveniences of the tour are now forgotten, in gratitude to the kind providence which has protected me, and in the pleasure which the review of it does, and will long afford. I do not regret that I have seen a little of other countries, for I have thereby learned to prize more highly the privileges of my own. I have, indeed, witnessed much to interest and please me, both in the works of God and man.But I have also seen some things to grieve and to disgust me and nothing that has tended, in the least, to weaken my attachment to my native land. I trust that I am not so censurably absorbed in the love of my own country, that I can allow no excellence to any other. But, certainly, I have seen no people more happy-no towns and cities more prosperous, than those of England. And if I have passed, in some places, edifices more magnificent, and bolder scenery than any she can boast; yet no where have I beheld such neatness and comfort, as, in many of her districts, distinguish the dwellings of the peasantry-nor such noble institutions for the instruction of the ignorant, and the relief of the distressed. But, it is in her religious advantages, chiefly, that Britain surpasses every other land. It is by her sublime and hallowed associations for the diffusion of knowledge, and the promulgation of the gospel through a benighted world, that she is most of all dignified and adorned. This it is that has made her the wonder and admiration of the globe. Long may she continue to advance in this glorious cause, unappalled by the gigantic forms of misery and vice, that meet her in her benevolent career, and heedless of the scoffs of infidelity that pursue her, as she passes on. Amid the repose which mankind once more enjoy, let it be hers to cultivate the arts of peace. Let it be hers to proclaim in this joyous ubilee of the world, the acceptable year of the Lord. Let her pour the balm of the gospel into the wounds of bleeding nations. Let her plant the tree of life in every soil, that suffering kingdoms may repose beneath its shade, and feel the |