UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 LlI^ILnu^Y
 
 JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN 
 THE NETHERLANDS
 
 JOUBNAIi OF A 
 
 9>0tttr 
 
 IN THE NETHERLANDS 
 
 IN THE AUTUMN OF 
 
 1816 
 
 By ROBERT SOUTHEY 
 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, BIIFFI.IN AND COMPANY 
 
 1902 
 
 145813
 
 Copyright 1902 by Houghton, Mifflin <& Company 
 All rights reserved '
 
 
 Note 
 
 ^% MS, was hought at the SoutJm/ sale 
 at Keswick in 1864", ly a wellrJcnown North 
 Country hanker and antiquarian of the day 
 and is now for the first time published.
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 WAS not among those persons who took 
 the earliest opportunity of going to the con- 
 tinent, when, after having so long been closed 
 to English travellers, it was once more opened 
 upon the overthrow and abdication of Buona- 
 parte. A journey which might have seemed 
 easy from the south of England appeared for- 
 midable when contemplated in Cumberland : 
 moreover, I was wedded to the enjoyments and 
 occupations of domestic life ; and my wishes as 
 well as habits were so disciplined that, except 
 now and then in books, I never incurred any 
 expenditure which could with propriety be 
 fO spared. If a thought of visiting France and 
 ^ Switzerland was ever entertained, it was in the 
 >-, potential mood, and in the paulo-post-futurum 
 < tense. 
 
 ci It happened, however, a few weeks after the 
 
 D battle of Waterloo, that my brother Henry, 
 
 who was just married, asked me to join him in 
 
 [ 1 ]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 a bridal excursion which he was about to make 
 with his wife's mother and sister, older 
 friends of mine than of his. They proposed 
 to go by way of Ostend to Brussels, visit the 
 field of battle, proceed as far as Spa, if time 
 would allow, and take Antwerp on their return. 
 Tempted by this proposal, I prevailed, but not 
 without much persuasion, on my wife to ac- 
 company me and take with us our eldest 
 daughter, then in her twelfth year. The sale 
 of " Roderick," which had been recently pub- 
 lished, was at that time such as fairly justified 
 such an expenditure, and being moreover in 
 some degree bound to celebrate the greatest vic- 
 tory in British history, I persuaded myself that 
 if any person had a valid cause or pretext for 
 visiting the field of Waterloo, it was the Poet 
 Laureate. Henry Koster happened to be with 
 us. Soon after his second residence in Brazil 
 he came to visit me for a few days, and having 
 taken his departure on the top of the stage- 
 coach, was brought back in a few hours with 
 one of the muscles of the thigh split in conse- 
 quence of an overturn. The accident confined 
 him several weeks; he was now thoroughly 
 C 2 ]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 recovered, and easily obtained his father's leave 
 to join a party of Lisbonians. 
 
 Our outset was singularly inauspicious. 
 Some little delay had occurred on my side, and 
 my brother had no time to lose because of his 
 professional engagements and the arrange- 
 ments which he had made for supplying his 
 place during his absence. When we drove up 
 to his door in Queen Anne Street, he was gone. 
 My Uncle, instead of being at Streatham, was 
 at his Hampshire living, and to compleat the 
 series of disappointments, Edith found that her 
 two sisters, Martha and Eliza (the latter hav- 
 ing lately come to London to visit the former), 
 were gone to Ramsgate. She consoled herself 
 with the expectation of seeing them there, from 
 whence we were to embark, but when we ar- 
 rived, behold, on that very morning they had 
 embarked in the steamboat for their return. 
 It was not without great difficulty that I had 
 persuaded her to leave four children, the young- 
 est only three years old, for this excursion. 
 She had left home in ill health and worse spir- 
 its; both worsened during the long journey 
 from Keswick to Eamsgate ; and the best hope 
 [ 3 ]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I now had was that seasickness, with the total 
 and frequent change of air, scene, and circum- 
 stance, would remove what began to appear a 
 very formidable malady.
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 OsTEND, Saturday, 23 Sept. 1815. 
 
 WE left Ramsgate yesterday morning at 
 half after twelve, with so fair and fresh 
 a breeze that the Captain promised us a pas- 
 sage of eight or nine hours, or less, if the wind 
 should hold. It slackened, and we did not 
 arrive at Ostend tiU four the next morning. 
 Sixteen hours, however, cannot be called a bad 
 passage ; the average is from ten to twelve ; 
 my brother and his party were forty-three. 
 The fare is a guinea and a half, and you pro- 
 vide yourself. But there is a system of exac- 
 tion at Eamsgate which is not confined to the 
 Albion Hotel. Dawson, the agent for the 
 packet, seeing my daughter, said that her fare 
 would be sixteen shillings. Captain Aylesbury 
 of the Lord Liverpool, seeing her also, rated 
 her at twenty. I offered to pay him at the 
 time, but he chose rather to receive the money 
 at Ostend, and then demanded by his mate 
 [ 5 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 full price for the child. The plea for this was 
 that she had occupied a whole berth ; but 
 this he knew she must have done, if we were 
 out at night. She suffered a good deal from 
 sickness ; her mother, to whom it might have 
 proved remedial, wholly escaped it. The little 
 food which I took was taken in commendaro 
 for the fishes and faithfidly rendered up to 
 them. 
 
 There came on rain about two in the night, 
 so that I lost the entrance of the harbour, which, 
 tho' of little importance, I am yet sorry that 
 I did not see. We lay close to the quay, and 
 the packet was presently filled with porters, 
 all speaking English, and all contending who 
 should carry the passengers' luggage. An Irish- 
 man belonging to the veteran battalion came 
 among them, but he was treated as an inter- 
 loper, and enough past upon this occasion to 
 show that there was a jealousy between the 
 natives and the garrison. We ended the dis- 
 pute by leaving our trunks on board ; and when 
 we returned for them, gave the preference, 
 as was proper, to the people of the place. 
 At the Custom House we found more despatch 
 [ 6 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 and much more civility than foreigners under 
 like circumstances would meet with in England. 
 My first business, of course, was at the Bank- 
 ers'. The money which I took up there was 
 all in French coin, which it seems is current 
 everywhere. Dieu protege la France is in- 
 scribed around the edge. I observed on a five 
 franc piece bearing date An. XI. Napoleon 
 Empereur on one side, and Repuhlique Franr 
 ^aise on the other; the pieces of later date 
 have Empire Fran^aise^ and the Christian 
 era. 
 
 Had we arrived last night we could not have 
 been lodged at the Cour Imperiale, to which 
 Bedford and Herrier had directed me ; the 
 apartments, they told us there, were all full, 
 owing to the concourse of people returning from 
 the Coronation at Brussels. We were intro- 
 duced to the public room, which is large and 
 wainscotted ; the pannels of a light blue or 
 French grey, with mouldings, and a brown 
 edging ; the framing or interstices tea colour. 
 It has three looking-glasses, two between the 
 three windows, and the third, a tall one, over 
 the chinmey-piece. The floor is boarded, and 
 C 7 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 strewn with sand, an uncomfortable custom. 
 There are large square tables in two corners of 
 the room, another such against the wall oppo- 
 site the windows; and two long tables, each 
 formed of two such, in the middle of the room. 
 These tables are all covered with a green oil- 
 cloth, which is let in, like the cloth or leather 
 of a writing-table. The chairs are inexpensive, 
 and well shaped for ease, with round rush-bot- 
 toms ; the backs are of cherry-tree, and in form 
 not unlike the present fashion of broad-banded 
 dining-chairs in England, but rather more con- 
 cave and lower in the back. A bill of prices 
 is hung up in the room : dinner at the table 
 d'Jhbte^ two francs fifty sous per head ; private 
 dinners from five francs to eighteen ; breakfast 
 two ; apartments from three to nine per day ; 
 bedrooms two : meaning, I suppose, such as are 
 distinct from the sitting-room, the lodging- 
 rooms of those who live at the public table. 
 Wines are from three to ten francs per bottle. 
 Claret is the cheapest upon this list; Bur- 
 gundy d'Enclos de Vegetan the highest priced ; 
 port. Hermitage, and Ehenish of the best 
 quality seven francs each. When I enquired 
 C 8 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 whether Ladies dined at the table d'hZte^ the 
 waiter replied in his English that the biggest 
 persons in the town dined there. This suits us, 
 the dinner being at one, and the vessel for 
 Bruges departing at three : it pleases us, be- 
 cause we shall see more of Flemish manners 
 and customs ; and, moreover, in the present 
 case there is no alternative. 
 
 I went into the court to wash myseK ; the 
 bason was most inconveniently shallow, being 
 just like a small sallad-dish. They brought me 
 soft black soap and a check towel, which I 
 did not perceive to be dirty till I had used it : 
 a bad specimen, this, of Flemish cleanliness ! 
 That my face might undergo its due ablu- 
 tions, I went to the pump; and did not at 
 first discover that it had a cock instead of a 
 common spout, a proof, this, that they can- 
 not afford to waste fresh water. 
 
 The bread is shaped like a ring, as if it 
 had been consecrated to my old Portuguese 
 acquaintance, Our Lady of the round O. 
 They call it pain de trou^ which may properly 
 be Englished "ring-bread"; or we should call 
 them simply " rings," as we speak of twists. 
 
 [ 9 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Edith May saw the baker bringing a number 
 of them on his arm, like so many bracelets. 
 I perceive the reason of this form : the waiter, 
 who is now laying the bread for dinner, cuts 
 the loaf up with more ease and rapidity than 
 he could do were it in any other form. No- 
 thing can be better than the bread ; the but- 
 ter equally excellent, coffee abominable, and 
 no cream. The urn, unlike anything which 
 bears that name in England, but not ugly, if 
 the workmanship had been good or the vessel 
 itself plain. It has large handles and a large, 
 clumsy brass cock ; and there is a wooden tri- 
 pod of unpainted wood for a stand. While we 
 were at breakfast, a man in the street blew a 
 long brazen horn to give notice that the hot 
 bread was ready. 
 
 The town is handsome, if compared with 
 English towns ; the streets clean, straight, and 
 spacious. There was in the morning an Edin- 
 burgh or Lisbon odour, evincing that unfit use 
 was made of the windows. And to this the 
 gutters bore some evidence in their colour. 
 But the maids are so busy with their besoms 
 that little of this remains, and the men who 
 [ 10 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 walk about with pipes in their mouths are nu- 
 merous enough to diffuse a wholesome savour 
 of tobacco through the streets. 
 
 The only bookseller's shop which I could 
 find afforded me nothing better than a school- 
 book, half vocabulary, half grammar, in French 
 and Flemish. 
 
 I led Edith May to a large Calvary at one 
 of the churches ; it stands at the foot of the 
 tower, imder a shallow porch which forms part 
 of the edifice. The image on the cross and the 
 personages kneeling round it are as large as 
 life, and coloured to the life. In front, there 
 is a foreground of stones and skulls ; and 
 under this, which is raised some twenty feet 
 from the ground, is a picture of the souls in 
 Purgatory. 
 
 The churches into which I entered contained 
 little that was interesting; and there were 
 only three or four old women in them at their 
 devotions. In the porch of one there was an 
 inscription to forbid the entranee of dogs. 
 Near the Town-House, which is in the great 
 square or place, there is a tall pillar with an 
 iron at the top, bent like a shepherd's crook. 
 
 [ 11 ]
 
 J O U R N A Ij 
 
 Thinking of the pellourinho in Portuguese 
 towns, I asked if this were used for a gallows, 
 and was told in reply that they never hang at 
 Ostend, and that a large lanthorn was sus- 
 pended from this pillar in winter. The market 
 in this Square, and in a smaller place hard by, 
 is remarkably good. Poultry and rabbits in 
 great abundance, live partridges and quails ; 
 eggs in baskets-full, salt-fish, whiter and cleaner 
 than I had ever before seen it, exposed for sale, 
 and in one corner a heap of wooden shoes upon 
 the ground. It is surprising how commonly 
 English is spoken and understood. We bought 
 some grapes in the market. I took a bunch, 
 and asked hem much^ expecting the language 
 would pass current ; the woman replied four 
 pence a pound, so the money is current also. 
 But she exchanged my shilling as a franc, 
 that is, as ten pence, the rate of exchange in 
 such purchases. Upon our landing, a man 
 presented himself to take our passports and 
 get them approved. When he brought them 
 to the Inn I gave him two francs, and was 
 blamed by some Englishmen for so doing; 
 they said he had volunteered his services merely 
 
 [ 12 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 in the hope of obtaining money, and told me 
 that in all fees and payments I must consider 
 two francs as equal to half a crown in England. 
 I may have given the man a franc more than 
 he expected, but in letting him take the pass- 
 port for ratification, I followed the usual and 
 useful practice. 
 
 Most of the shops have English inscriptions, 
 such as, " Here is sold every all sorts of li- 
 quor." The houses in general are very good; 
 the gable-end to the street, and with corbie- 
 stairs as in Scotland. There is plainly no win- 
 dow-tax here, operating to outward disfigure- 
 ment and inward discomfort ; the windows are 
 many, large, and ornamented with rounded or 
 arched tops. One house I noticed which is 
 painted, the whole front, of a grass green. 
 The women wear large ear-rings ; I saw some 
 with silver necklaces, and one whose kerchief 
 was fastened with a plate of silver large as the 
 plate of brass with my name on the portman- 
 teau. They wear large cloaks ; those of the 
 poorer classes look as if they were made of old 
 bed-linen furniture; and some are of patch- 
 work. 
 
 C 13 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 Among the signs, I remarked at a Tobac- 
 conist's a red cat smoking a pipe ; it was in 
 carving, and larger than life. 
 
 Writing this while the waiter was laying 
 the tables for dinner, I had an opportunity of 
 asking why certain plates were reversed upon 
 the napkins. They are for persons who dine 
 here by the week, and use the same napkin 
 from Sunday to Sunday. Pepper is placed in 
 a separate salver, beside the salt, a sensible 
 custom this. 
 
 Leather is not so much used as in England. 
 I saw a man seated in front of a long, low 
 waggon, driving by a long rope. Where the 
 streets cross, the gutter is covered with wooden 
 doors; it thus offers no obstruction to car- 
 riages, and can be cleaned with ease. There is 
 a Beguinage in this street (Rue de la Cha- 
 pelle), a large building of conventual appear- 
 ance, with a large walled garden. It adjoins 
 the Church with the Calvary. The waiter tells 
 me there are about twenty Beguines, and that 
 strangers are admitted only on Sundays. The 
 large wooden gates are kept close, and forbid 
 even the eye to enter. 
 
 [ 14 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 The dinner at the table d'Jwte was excel- 
 lent. The dishes were handed in thro' a 
 sliding door in the wall. The company con- 
 sisted almost entirely of English, and not of 
 the best sort. There were only two ladies, 
 who, finding no room at the long table, were 
 at a smaller one; so that Edith naturally 
 enough felt uncomfortable, and we withdrew 
 before the dessert. 
 
 Our luggage (surely as little as four trav- 
 ellers of gentle appearance and pretensions ever 
 set forth with) was placed upon a handcart, 
 and away we went to the waterside, where we 
 embarked in a boat which carried us along the 
 harbour to the mouth of the Bruges canal. 
 There were not many ships in the port, yet 
 enough to show, in these still waters and be- 
 tween these level shores, that sort of beauty 
 whereof some great painters have become 
 enamoured. A man was fishing from a boat in 
 the harbour : the net was extended by four 
 long and pliant ribs, like those of an umbrella, 
 and thus suspended from the mast ; and he, 
 winding it up and down by a windlass, managed 
 it alone. It rained while we were in the boat, 
 
 [ 16 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 and when we went on board the Trekschuit, 
 embarking, as 1 suppose, at the very place which 
 the English, in one of Mr. Pitt's expeditions, 
 so absurdly destroyed, and which, when made 
 prisoners, they were very properly compelled 
 to labour in repairing. This was a fact which 
 I did not call to mind without some sense of 
 humiliation. 
 
 The Trekschuit, being flat-bottomed, is much 
 more roomy than would be supposed from its 
 size. The best cabin is somewhat splendidly 
 fitted up with cut crimson plush, a seat cov- 
 ered with the same material running roimd it. 
 There are cabins both at the head and stern, 
 and in the middle a large apartment full of 
 niarket-women returning from Ostend. The 
 confusion of tongues seemed in our ears to re- 
 semble that at Babel ; and the vessel itself was 
 a perfect Ark, which some Flemish Antiquary 
 might prove to be built upon the traditional 
 model of Noah's. It was tantalizing to be 
 kept below by a heavy rain, accompanied by 
 80 much wind that I could not keep a win- 
 dow open without incommoding some of the 
 passengers ; and this I had neither right nor 
 
 [ 16 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 inclination to do. On the lee side there was 
 luckily a pane wanting in the frame, and 
 thro' this scanty aperture Edith May and I 
 spied what we could, as the Ark glided along. 
 The banks are protected with rows of hur- 
 dle or basket-work, five or six in depth we 
 counted, and were told that they were eight 
 or nine thick. I thought I saw rat-holes in 
 the banks. 
 
 There were two Flemings in the cabin with 
 us, well-behaved and sensible men. I learnt 
 from one of them that the Beguines were of 
 two orders, one being bound by irrevocable 
 vows, and that this order had not been re- 
 stored. In the Ramsgate packet was an old 
 lady returning to her native place, Brussels, 
 from which she had been absent eighteen 
 years. She told me that the Beguines lived 
 in community, five or six together, imder the 
 superintendence of an elder sister, for some 
 seven years, after which they lived as they 
 pleased. Beguinages, according to her account, 
 are rather like Almshouses than Convents. 
 
 The rain ceased and we ascended the deck. 
 An iron tUler passes under the state part of 
 [ 17 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 the deck, and rises somewhat in the form of a 
 note of interrogation, or the letter S reversed, 
 (?) thus. The pilot stood with his crupper 
 leaning against the handle, and thus with per- 
 fect nonchalance steered the vessel. It was 
 drawn by four horses, fastened to two ropes ; 
 but we had so fair a wind that their work was 
 easy, and we advanced about five miles an hour. 
 The country, which towards Ostend had little 
 to recommend it, except the cleanliuess of the 
 houses and the appearance of competence and 
 comfort, improved here. There were fewer 
 houses and more trees ; and we soon perceived 
 all the features of the Flemish landscape. 
 Fresh as I am from Derwentwater, I can feel 
 the beauties of this kind of country and under- 
 stand how it should have produced so many 
 painters. It has everything which is soothing 
 and tranquil : still waters, a wide horizon, 
 delicious verdure, fertility, and shade. Trees 
 are not considered injurious to agriculture here, 
 or more probably their value overbalances any 
 injury which they may occasion. The pollard 
 willow often bore no mean resemblance to the 
 cocoa, its light boughs feathering on all sides. 
 
 [ 18 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 Poplar and aspin are more common than elm 
 and oak ; and there are no large trees. Their 
 shade might be detrimental, or the regular cut- 
 ting is lucrative. The cultivation seems to be 
 beautiful, no weeds, no waste : the fields aU in 
 parallelograms of different forms and sizes, 
 and aU with trees along the ditches which di- 
 vide them, giving to the whole country a wood- 
 iness seldom seen in England, and never as 
 accompanying a high state of agricultural im- 
 provement. There is a great proportion of 
 garden land. Woad is grown here, aind much 
 used as a dye in the Bruges manufactures, I 
 believe. All the houses which we past were 
 neat and apparently comfortable; the doors 
 and window-shutters were generally of a bright 
 green. The bridges over this noble canal are 
 so constructed as to wheel round and afford 
 passage for the vessel. 
 
 We reached Bruges a little before dusk ; its 
 towers, as we approached, were seen very finely 
 over this sort of country. A crowd gathered 
 round us upon our landing ; and a fellow of- 
 fered to take us and our lugguage for two 
 francs to the Eleur de Bled, whither Bedford 
 
 C 1 3
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 had recommended me. The carriage proved to 
 be a cabriolet, on which the driver most incom- 
 modiously and not very decently sits close be- 
 fore the persons whom he drives. Into this 
 vehicle the two Ediths were put, and Koster 
 and I trotted beside them to the Hotel. Upon 
 my presenting a five franc piece for change, 
 the man offered me two, claiming the third 
 partly as a gratuity, partly for the luggage. I 
 resisted, and even in my embarrassed French 
 put him in some degree to shame, maintaining 
 that it was at my pleasure to give or withhold 
 the third franc, a bargain having been made 
 for two. But whether I saved my credit or 
 not, I lost my money. 
 
 The apartment to which we were shown was 
 a bedchamber in the tower, to which we as- 
 cended by a winding flight of stone stairs. I 
 asked if there was no sitting-room, and we were 
 then introduced into the public hall. Here 
 we immediately recognized a party who had 
 come over in the same packet, and had left 
 Ostend in the morning, travelling by land. 
 They were sitting at their dessert after a late 
 dinner, and, happening to be the only persons 
 [ 20 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 in the room, greeted us as acquaintance. The 
 only previous intercourse we had had was at 
 Ostend, where, while we were breakfasting in 
 separate parties, the Lady happened to hear me 
 say, as I was writing my journal, that for the 
 first time in my life I had forgotten to provide 
 myself with blotting-paper ; upon which she 
 rose and requested that she might supply me. 
 Nothing farther had passed. But they had 
 seen my name when I signed it upon leaving 
 the packet ; and some of those hooks and eyes 
 were now presently found out by which any 
 two persons of a certain sphere, in so small a 
 country as England, can hitch on an acquaint- 
 ance. Mrs. Vardon, the Lady in question, has 
 a sister who is married to my old schoolfellow 
 and Oxford acquaintance, George Maule ; and 
 Knox is tutor to her sons at Westminster, and 
 past the last holydays at her house, which is 
 at Greenwich, and is called Crawley, belonging 
 to an extensive iron concern. Mr. Vardon and 
 their daughter are of the party ; IVIisa Foreman, 
 niece to the widow of my poor old friend, 
 Charles Collins; and Mr. Nash, a deformed 
 man, of uncommonly winning manners. He is 
 [ 21 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 an artist, and has returned from India with a 
 liver complaint. 
 
 The Vardons had been at Bruges last year, 
 and on their arrival now had been welcomed by 
 the people of the hotel as old acquaintance. 
 Thro' their introduction, and the good hu- 
 mour of the Flemish character, we were pre- 
 sently at home in the house, and as the evening 
 was cool, and our feet somewhat damp, we got 
 into the kitchen. No painter ever had a richer 
 subject than this admirably characteristic 
 scene affords. We stood in a large open 
 chimney, something shallower than those in 
 old farmhouses. Here large brazen fountains 
 were boiling over a wood fire on the hearth ; 
 and teal or pigeons were roasting in a cylin- 
 der (like a candle-box) against a fire in the 
 wall on the right. Behind was a row of stoves 
 with charcoal fires, where the process of stew- 
 ing was going on. A dresser in the middle. 
 The roof had its black rafters. A board with 
 nails and figures is against the wall, where 
 each inmate when he goes out hangs the key 
 of his apartment, under its correspondent 
 number, the key having the number of the 
 [ 22 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 door on a brass plate attached to the handle : 
 the host is then responsible for all which is 
 entrusted to his care. 
 
 So much business, so much cooking, and so 
 much good nature I never saw in one place 
 before. We were all there. The Landlady, a 
 compleat Flemish figure, fat and good tem- 
 pered, with that familiarity which we want in 
 England, shewed us her children, and pro- 
 duced a chalk drawing which her son Louis 
 Souriez (a boy only eight years old, who stud- 
 ies at the School of Design) had just finished 
 for his father's birthday. It was a head of St. 
 Peter; for a student of ripe years it would 
 have been a fine production, and for one so 
 young, Mr. Nash pronounced it almost mirac- 
 ulous. The Landlady might indeed well be 
 proud of her family; I have seldom seen a 
 finer. Annette, the eldest, reminded me pain- 
 fully of what Nancy Tonkin was, so exceed- 
 ingly strong was the likeness, both in size, 
 features, and expression. Tho' not more than 
 fourteen, she keeps the accounts of the house, 
 a business which too probably may cost her 
 her health, for she can rarely sit down to 
 [ 23 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 it till after midnight. The youngest, about 
 three years old, a little bigger than my Isabel, 
 is a beautiful creature ; and all have the same 
 beauty and the same inteUigent cast of coun- 
 tenance. The work of preparing supper for 
 the public table went on while we were seeing 
 the drawings and playing with the child ; no 
 person was disturbed, or hindered in their 
 business ; and it was evident that our presence 
 seemed rather to give pleasure than otherwise. 
 An English cook would have driven us out 
 with the ladle ; or indeed we should as soon 
 have exposed ourselves to the yard-mastiff's 
 teeth as to her tongue. 
 
 The supper was excellent. Beer is placed 
 on the table in half-gallon decanters. The 
 custom here seems to be that the first course 
 should consist of white meats, the second of 
 brown. The porcelain is coarse and thick. 
 
 Sunday, 24 Sept. 
 
 UnRrNG the night the dog got into the fowl- 
 house and killed thirteen fowls; but no loss 
 was sustained, for they served for dinner and 
 supper just as well. The mode of cookery here 
 E 24 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 makes any mutilation or disfigurement of no 
 consequence. 
 
 Our beds were like the pictures in Quarles' 
 " Emblems," and as these are originally Flem- 
 ish, the fashion has not been altered during the 
 last two hundred years. There are no bedposts, 
 and the curtains, which are from twelve to fif- 
 teen feet high, fall sloping in a tent-like shape 
 from a sort of canopy suspended from the 
 ceiling. They are of brown Holland, or some- 
 thing resembling it. The bedstead is a kind 
 of box, rather more than a foot deep, filled 
 with a straw mattrass, upon which the other 
 mattrasses are laid as usual. And the bolster 
 is half as large as the bed, a most uneasy 
 fashion for those who have not been used to it. 
 
 At breakfast boiling milk was brought with 
 the tea. Cream appears not to be in use. The 
 bread and butter are the best possible, but 
 the butter is not presented in so neat a form 
 as it is in the west of England ; it seems to be 
 scooped from the pot with a fluted spoon. The 
 urn is heated by charcoal in its bottom, where 
 there are holes to admit the air. 
 
 We went to the Cathedral with Annette 
 [ 25 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 for our guide. The outside is imposing for its 
 magnitude rather than for its architecture; 
 within, tho' it has been injured by white- 
 washing, it is exceedingly fine. Large stone 
 images of Apostles and Saints (of a better 
 colour) are placed one against each pillar, 
 about halfway up, not in niches, but standing 
 out upon a Gothic pedestal, so that the whole 
 figure comes forward. Before each a large gilt 
 candlestick branches out from the column be- 
 low, but these were not lighted. The church, 
 notwithstanding its great size, was well filled, 
 and certainly by a devout congregation. Many 
 had chairs, and many were kneeling. While 
 the great body of the assembly were attend- 
 ing High Mass, others were offering their lat- 
 eral devotions at particular altars, of which 
 (as usual) the Church is full. The organ is 
 exceedingly powerful. The service seemed in 
 truth to 01 the Church, there was nothing 
 cold and meagre. The eye and the ear were 
 satisfied ; the incense dehghted another sense ; 
 and my prayer for I also prayed was that 
 it might please God to enlighten this people in 
 his own good time ; and that they might not 
 [ 26 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 (as too surely we have done) pluck up the 
 flower with the weed, the wheat with the tares. 
 After Mass, the Belgian soldiers marched in 
 by beat of drum to a Mass of their own. 
 Never did I hear anything so dizzying, so ter- 
 rific, so terrible as the sound, no fife or 
 other instrument to attemper it. It could not 
 be imitated in a theatre, for no theatre could 
 give the dreadful reverberation which the 
 arches here produced on every side. Two men 
 with axes stood near the altar, and the sol- 
 diers, who were drawn up in military order, 
 shouldered, presented arms, and grounded, at 
 the Elevation. Mr. Nash was almost over- 
 powered by the stunning sound, and he was 
 shocked at the military display, which to his 
 feelings was thus irreverently introduced. It 
 impressed me differently, and I felt what such 
 a ceremony woiJd be worth in a besieged town. 
 
 This day fortnight we were at the little 
 Chapel of St. John's, so wildly situated on 
 the fell between the Vale of St. John's and 
 Nathdale. What a contrast, both between the 
 places of worship and the service I 
 
 Kobbed as this Cathedral has been of its 
 [ 27 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 riches, it was not apparent to the eye that any- 
 thing was wanting in its proud display ; yet 
 the lamps, candlesticks, censers, etc., were once 
 of accordant splendour. The monuments and 
 the pictures might delight and employ anti- 
 quaries and artists for many days. There is a 
 picture of St. Barbara's martyrdom, by a pupil 
 of David, who took his sister for the Saint and 
 a butcher for the murderer, he might with 
 perfect propriety have taken his master in 
 that character. It is of no great merit; but 
 St. Barbara, or Holy Barbara as an English or 
 Irish Catholic who volimteered some informa- 
 tion concerning her to me in the Church called 
 her, seems to be in great fashion at Bruges. 
 I bought her Litany in Flemish from a nice 
 old woman who sold such things in the Church. 
 She had also waxen legs, arms, etc., for sale, 
 and plenty of such offerings were hanging up 
 in proof of the popular devotion. St. Barbara 
 is the advocate here against sudden death, and 
 her Litany says nothing about her virtue as a 
 conductor in a thunder-storm. Printed notifica- 
 tions of recent deaths are affixed to the Church 
 doors, requesting prayers for the deceased. 
 [ 28 3
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 Over some of the tombs on the outside there 
 are crucifixes large as life. One family burial- 
 place, Annette told us, was immediately op- 
 posite the house of the family to which it 
 belongs. 
 
 We went next to the Church of Notre Dame, 
 which is finer than the Cathedral externally, 
 but less impressive within. Here we were 
 shown the tombs of Charles the Bold and 
 Marie, his daughter, by the very man who, 
 during the Revolution, saved them from de- 
 struction, at the imminent hazard of his life. 
 Several writers have related the fact, but with- 
 out mentioning his name, which is not to their 
 own credit. He wrote it, at my request, in my 
 memorandum-book, Pierre De Zitter. This 
 interesting person is a man of singular benig- 
 nant countenance, with dark eyes, tall, and 
 rather thin. He took the tombs to pieces dur- 
 ing the night, and buried them. For this he was 
 proscribed, and a reward of two thousand francs 
 set upon his head, but he fled into Holland. 
 Buonaparte, after his marriage into the Aus- 
 trian family, gave him one thousand, and ex- 
 pended ten in ornamenting the chapel wherein 
 [ 29 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 they had been replaced. But it has not been 
 fitted up with any taste or feeling. The roof 
 is blue, with stars of gold, and the windows of 
 stained glass, poor of their kind. The monu- 
 ments themselves are rather costly than beau- 
 tiful, gilt brass ramifications upon a black 
 touchstone ground, bearing emblazoned shields. 
 But few tombs are more interesting for the 
 thoughts and recollections which they call forth. 
 Louis XV., upon seeing them in 1745, ex- 
 claimed: "Behold the cradle of all former 
 wars ! " 
 
 Mr. Nash pointed out to me, in one of the 
 pubUc buildings, a figure of Justice, with 
 wolves lying peaceably on one side and sheep 
 on the other, and with a plumb-line instead of 
 a balance in her hand, a better emblem, the 
 balance being so easily deranged. The image 
 of Justice over the entrance to Dublin Castle 
 always had the scales unequal, but Mr. Kich- 
 man sent a man to make holes in them, and 
 let the rain-water out. 
 
 The Town-House and the adjoining Chapel 
 of the Holy Blood must have been very fine 
 before the former was mutilated and the latter 
 [ 30 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 destroyed by the rabble, when the revolution- 
 ary madness was at its height. A little turret 
 which remains is singularly picturesque. But 
 the whole city is one series of pictures. All 
 the houses are decorated on the outside ; all 
 have an air of undilapidated antiquity ; little 
 or nothing has been added ; but in the do- 
 mestic buUdings there is as little appearance 
 of demolition or decay. Everything was well 
 biult, and is well preserved. In those houses 
 which are not faced with brick, the prevailing 
 colour seems to be white with green windows, 
 a combination which is very pleasing. The 
 bricks for the ornamental parts are made in 
 moulds to the form required, and they have 
 taken a good weather stain. The ornamental 
 parts of every house and the abundance of 
 large windows show that wealth abounded when 
 they were built ; and however wealth may have 
 declined, the habitations are still light, airy, 
 chearful, spacious, commodious, as human dwell- 
 ings ought to be. The general impression is 
 something such as Oxford and Cambridge pro- 
 duce, only Bruges carries you back more en- 
 tirely to former times. Mrs. Vardon happily 
 [ 31 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 said you might expect to see heads set in the 
 ruffs of Elizabeth's day looking out of such 
 windows. The whole city is in keeping; and 
 it has one especial charm which heightens all 
 the rest ; as there are no appearances of great 
 opulence, so are there none of squalid poverty ; 
 poor houses there are, but no wretched ones, 
 no sties of filth and brutality and misery; 
 poor people, but none of those objects who 
 make you shudder and tremble for a society 
 in the bosom of which such wretches are mul- 
 tiplied. All are well housed, all sufficiently, 
 even when meanly clothed. There is an almost 
 universal appearance of competence, in a de- 
 gree which I have never seen elsewhere. And 
 the inhabitants are a handsome race. 
 
 We went up the singular tower of that 
 edifice which forms one side of the great 
 square. People live in it, whose business it is 
 to give the alarm in case of fire. I should 
 have copied a poem in Flemish, which is in 
 the upper room, wherein Turris loquitur^ if 
 some parts had not been effaced. The chimes 
 played while we were there, but the noise of 
 the machinery, though perhaps hardly audible 
 [ 32 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 below and certainly not heard at some little 
 distance, completely overpowered the music. 
 There are two bells here so large that to my 
 remembrance Tom of Lincoln does not appear 
 larger. The tower is equally remarkable for 
 its height and construction. It seems origi- 
 nally to have ended at less than a third of its 
 present elevation. From thence a second stage 
 is carried up in the same square form, and from 
 the second a third, which is either octagonal 
 or polygonal, and appears to be top-heavy, as 
 if it widened towards the summit. 
 
 At the comer of the house, which is now 
 the Academy of Design, there is a very gro- 
 tesque figure, the size of life ; it is a white 
 bear, in boots, standing upright, with the col- 
 lar of some order round his neck, a shield on 
 his breast, and an inscription underneath, 
 written in the fashion of that most provoking 
 absurdity, the chronogram, thus : 
 
 1417 
 T ' LUYster LYCK 
 toUrnoY. genootsChap 
 Van Den Witten Weir 
 WIert VernleUWt 
 In De poorters Logle 
 
 [ 33 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 I believe this means that the illustrious 
 Tourney fellowship of the White Bear has 
 been renewed, and holds its meetings in the 
 porter's lodge. The date is not worth decy- 
 phering, nor perhaps, if I had understood 
 the words while I was copying them, should I 
 have thought them worth the trouble of copy- 
 ing, especially as a crowd of boys got round 
 me. The portrait of Van Eyck is within, the 
 supposed inventor of painting in oil. He was 
 buried at Bruges, and his epitaph is now placed 
 under his picture. 
 
 Hie jacet exiinia clarus virtute Joannes, 
 
 In qao pictur^e gratia mira fuit. 
 Spirantes formas, et hnmum florentibus herbis 
 
 Pinxit, et ad vivum qnodlibet egit opus 
 Quippe illi Phidias et cedeve dabat Appelles 
 
 Arta quoque inferior cui Polycretus erat. 
 Ipse est qui primus docnit miscere colores, 
 
 Hos oleo ezprimere et reddere perpetuos 
 Pictores stupuere vivum, stupuere vapertum 
 
 Quo perseverans est sine fine color. 
 Crudeles igitur, crndeles dicite Parcas, 
 
 Quse tantum nobis eripnere vivum. 
 Actum sit lacrymis, incommutabile fatum 
 
 Yivat ut in coelis ssepe precare Deum. 
 
 HoC ita restaUraVIT aCaDeMIse zeLUs. 
 34 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 The pictures in this Academy are of little 
 value. 
 
 At the table d^hZte we met Mr. and Mrs. 
 Locker. He had been Lord Exmouth's secre- 
 tary, and called on me last year soon after his 
 marriage with this Lady (a daughter of Jona- 
 than Bouchers), the beauty of Cimiberland. 
 Locker, by the testimony of all who know 
 him, is a very accomplished, excellent, and 
 obliging man. He recognised Nash as an Li- 
 dian acquaintance, and showed us a book full 
 of sketches which equally proved his industry 
 and skiU. His advice was that we should pro- 
 ceed from Waterloo to Namur, and so along 
 the Meuse to Liege, and he especially recom- 
 mended that we should on no account omit 
 seeing the quarries at Maestricht. He has a 
 sister in a Nimnery here, where she has pro- 
 fessed. 
 
 We met the boys of the Lyceum ; they have 
 a dress much like the bluecoat boys. 
 
 Monday, 25 S^t. 
 
 yJUEi biU amounted to sixty-four francs. 
 After breakfast we embarked for Ghent in 
 C 35 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 a Trekschuit, which has obtained the repu- 
 tation of being both the best and cheapest 
 public conveyance in the world. The scene at 
 the point of embarkation, by the iron gates at 
 the end of the canal, was delightfid for any 
 one who has a painter 's eye. Vast numbers 
 of people were arriving, many in carriages of 
 sundry odd forms; the most remarkable of 
 these vehicles was made entirely of black 
 leather, having a hole at which to creep in 
 and out, instead of a door. It was of vener- 
 able antiquity. An English chariot which we 
 took on board was some nuisance by the room 
 which it occupied, and the persons to whom it 
 belonged were no addition to the society of 
 the passengers. There was a bloody hand on 
 the arms. They were said to be Mr. Peel and 
 Sir Charles Saxton, on their duelling expedi- 
 tion, and so they proved to be, though I did 
 not recollect the latter, neither did he recog- 
 nise me. They sate either in the carriage or 
 on the box the greater part of the day, and 
 when they alighted they kept at the head of 
 the vessel, aloof from everybody. 
 
 The Trekschuit has a canopy at the stem, 
 [ 36 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 somewhat of a bell shape, which must certainly 
 impede its way when going against the wind ; 
 on the top of this is a painted plume of feath- 
 ers. There are two cabins below, and between 
 them kitchens, commodities (the word is a 
 commodious one), and Heaven knows what be- 
 side. It was full of passengers, of whom a 
 great proportion were English. The Vardons 
 were there. A half-caste man, travelling with 
 a lady whom I supposed to be his wife for the 
 time being, contrived to enter into conversa- 
 tion with me, and let me know that he had 
 been a pupil of Tilbrooke's at Cambridge. 
 He was a well-informed person ; and I agreed 
 with him perfectly upon the injustice with 
 which men of his colour are treated, and the 
 gross impolicy. He was the jfirst, he said, who 
 had been allowed to practise at the bar ; this 
 must mean the Indian bar, for I know of no 
 law or custom which could prevent him from 
 practising in England. (I afterwards learnt 
 from Wordsworth that his name is Eton.) 
 Edward Blore was there, a young artist of 
 great promise ; he had been fellow-passenger 
 with us from Ramsgate : and Ensign Sargent, 
 [ 37 ] 
 
 CIO
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 son of an Irish member, for Waterford, I 
 believe. This gentleman told us an Irish anec- 
 dote quite worthy of preservation. A man 
 was brought before his father for having been 
 one of the most active persons in a terrible 
 riot, taken in the fact. Nevertheless, he pro- 
 tested he was as innocent as the babe unborn. 
 As he was passing that way, he said, thinking 
 of nothing at all, he saw a number of people 
 fighting, upon which he grasped his shillelah 
 and ran among them, saying, " God grant that 
 I may take the right side ! " and this was all 
 the share he had in it, being perfectly innocent 
 of any concern in the quarrel, and indeed not 
 knowing what it was. 
 
 One passenger, hearing me erpress an opin- 
 ion in favour of the East India Missionaries, 
 made up to me and let me know that he was a 
 Bible Society man from Ratcliffe Highway. I 
 believe another day would have made us ac- 
 quainted with the history of everybody on 
 board. 
 
 The scene where we embarked was very 
 beautiful : garden cultivation and country- 
 houses, that is, suburban retreats, a swan 
 C 38 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 plying about the Trekschuit and looking as 
 usual to be fed by the passengers, the water 
 alive with fish, water-lilies (a rare sight on nav- 
 igable waters, but these are perfectly still, and 
 the canal is of such an age that Nature has 
 made it compleatly her own), and Bruges 
 with its majestic towers to compleat the pic- 
 ture. The weather, too, was as joyous as heart 
 could wish. We started at forty minutes after 
 nine, nine being the stated hour. The wind was 
 against us, and the rate of towing from three 
 miles an hour to three and a half. The coun- 
 try for some distance had the same character 
 of fertility, industry, and beauty, but at length 
 we got between high banks which obstructed 
 all view, except of the long straight line before 
 and behind, generally bordered with willows. 
 No corn or hay in stacks, all I suppose being 
 housed ; many stacks of brushwood, in such 
 quantity, indeed, as to explain how the trees are 
 kept down in their growth ; very few cattle, 
 and what there are seemed to be tethered, be- 
 cause of the want of hedges ; very few sheep, 
 and scarcely any swine. I am inclined to think 
 that there are no field-paths from village to 
 [ 39 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 village, or house to house ; perhaps the ditches 
 and rigid economy of ground will not allow of 
 them. But here and there straight narrow 
 lanes between lines of willows have a charm 
 of their own, such as I have felt near Oxford ; 
 and such as the Willow Walk between Tothill 
 Fields and Chelsea may have had when Aaron 
 Hill expatiated upon the rural beauties there- 
 abouts. There was something very singular in 
 the silence and solitude of the landscape, for 
 though the agriculture proved the existence of 
 an ample and active population, we saw very 
 few people, and none whatever in the fields, 
 only a few stray travellers. 
 
 It proved to be a Kermis^ or fair day. In 
 one place a party of women were seated before 
 the door, playing cards in the sun ; and in a 
 village by which we passed there were booths 
 for drink and gingerbread, and music and 
 dancing in the houses. In some parts, where 
 the banks are high and the course of the canal 
 not straight, pleasing landscapes, tho' very 
 confined, are formed by the slope of the dam, a 
 cottage or two on the top, and the trees. The 
 dam is often, perhaps generally, made in two 
 C 40 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 shelves or steps, like the first and second of a 
 Mexican Cu, and there are frequent arches 
 under it to communicate with ditches on the 
 other side, sometimes, but I think not always, 
 with sluices. When we met another vessel, 
 or wanted to have a bridge wheeled roimd for 
 our passage, the man at the helm either blew 
 a pocket whistle, or rung a bell, or set up a 
 Flemish halloo. 
 
 We had an excellent dinner, included in the 
 fare of five francs a head. 
 
 Passed some barges laden with the most of- 
 fensive of all manure, for nothing, it seems, 
 from which profit can be extracted, is wasted 
 in Flanders. Before I discovered whence the 
 intolerable stench proceeded, the Flemish gold- 
 finders were greatly amused at seeing me hold 
 my nose. We went by some good country- 
 houses with ornamented grounds ; they are 
 generally white with green windows. Two of 
 these villas were shut up. The country near 
 Ghent is less beautiful than about Bruges ; 
 but the towers indicated the former wealth 
 and dignity of the city which we were ap- 
 proaching. 
 
 [ 41 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 When we reached the quay it was crowded 
 with spectators, some thousands certainly 
 had assembled, as if all the idle part of the 
 population regarded the arrival of the Trek- 
 schuit as a sight, and were waiting for it. Mr. 
 Vardon, who knew what a scene of confusion 
 would be occasioned by the rush of boys and 
 porters contending for luggage, arranged the 
 commissariat part of the business well. I car- 
 ried off the ladies in a coach, and the baggage 
 followed upon a hand-cart, he and Koster con- 
 ducting it. It was about seven o'clock when 
 we reached the Hotel de Flandres. Most of 
 the English passengers learnt where we were 
 going and followed us, but few of them could 
 obtain room. Mrs. Vardon had been here be- 
 fore and knew the landlady, so that she secured 
 beds for our united party. The public room is 
 gaily fitted up with paper representing East 
 Indian scenery, and good of its kind ; a sort of 
 panorama, which reminded Mr. Nash of the 
 country wherein he had spent so many years. 
 Supt at the table d^hbte^ where some fine peo- 
 ple, women as well as men, came after the 
 play. 
 
 [ 42 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 Tuesday^ 26 S&pt. 
 
 Xhe King of France's suite were at this 
 hotel. The Landlord spoke of the King's apathy 
 in a manner which implied much indignation, 
 though he expressed none. " He ate well and 
 drank well," were his words, "while every- 
 thing was at stake." When the officer arrived 
 with tidings of the victory, the King was 
 asleep, and his attendants said that he must 
 
 not be disturbed ; but Lord , who brought 
 
 the news, insisted upon seeing him immediately. 
 The Prince of Orange has won the hearts of 
 the people by the part he bore at Waterloo. 
 He is a brave gar9on, they say, and they 
 frankly add that they care not how soon his 
 father may please to die and make way for 
 him. A boy here was quite shocked when Mrs. 
 Vardon, forming her opinion from a portrait, 
 observed that the Prince was like his Mother. 
 Ah^ non^ Madame, elle est si vilaine, elle est si 
 laide ! He could not bear that his hero should 
 not be thought beautiful as well as brave. His 
 wound teUs greatly in his favour. The wish here 
 is that he may marry an English Princess, not 
 C 43 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 a Eussian as is now talked of. Our Landlord 
 says that they can never do enough for the 
 English. This place was in the utmost alarm 
 on the sixteenth, and the two succeeding days. 
 He had sent off part of his property, and 
 had packed up all he could for removal, being 
 certain that if the French were victorious, 
 his house would be marked for pillage. Fear 
 made his wife so ill that she took to her bed, 
 and he says that if the allies had been defeated, 
 he is sure she would have died. Even the joy 
 of security did not restore her at once, and 
 when the wounded were brought here, she sate 
 the whole day bolstered up in bed, tearing 
 linen for bandages and scraping lint. Wine and 
 water for the wounded was mixed in the street 
 by pailf uUs. Lord Uxbridge was lodged in an 
 adjoining house, where he could be quieter 
 than in this, and his food was taken from 
 hence. 
 
 Ghent, tho' a fine city, is far less impres- 
 sive than Bruges, a great part being more mod- 
 em, and all that is modem proportionately 
 in worse taste. The Cathedral is not such an 
 edifice as might be expected in a place of such 
 [ 44 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 antiquity and ancient opulence ; the tower is 
 not remarkable, and the body of the building 
 was built in a mean age, the former one hav- 
 ing been destroyed by lightning in 1641. The 
 crypt, however, is curious ; this is as old as 
 the days of Charlemagne, and service is still 
 performed in its chapels ; but there is a cer- 
 tain air of neglect, as well as of dampness, 
 there, which it is melancholy to observe. The 
 pulpit is a fine thing, with marble statues 
 about it, and a marble tree with a gilt serpent 
 twisted about its branches, more probably re- 
 presenting the brazen serpent, I think, than 
 the tempter. An antiquary would find much 
 to interest him in the pictures in the crypt. 
 The most remarkable is that of a Bishop, on 
 his knees, reading these words, "It is ap- 
 pointed to all men to die," upon a scroll which 
 Death is presenting to him. The skeleton, I 
 know not why, is gilt, the rest of the monu- 
 ment being marble. Our cicerone told us that 
 this Bishop was put to death at Madrid about 
 the year 1660, and that the intention of the 
 artist was to express that he resigned himself 
 to his fate there as willingly as if it had been 
 [ 46 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 in his own country. I believe the history as 
 Kttle as the explanation.^ 
 
 The Church of St. James, here called St. 
 Jacob, struck us as an immense building, more 
 important in size than St. Bavon's, which is 
 the Cathedral ; but upon entering, it appears 
 smaller than we had expected to find it. Per- 
 haps this deception may be accoimted for by 
 the want of any decoration without and the 
 profusion of it within. 
 
 I should not have guessed, after walking 
 over the town, that the bridges were so nu- 
 merous; they are, however, more than three 
 hundred, and the city, by its rivers and canals, 
 is divided into six and twenty islands. The 
 bridges are all of wood, and add nothing to 
 the beauty of the place; but it seems they 
 have added freely to the insecurity of the in- 
 
 ^ The truth is that the sculptor borrowed the conception 
 from the monument of Cardinal Erardus a Marca, who 
 died 1538, and was buried in St. Lambert's at Lidge, of 
 which place he was Bishop. " Yisitur inibi statna ejus 
 enea, ad viynm (ut volnnt) afformata, et genibus nixa ; cui 
 adstat imago Mortis, sic ut fieri solet expressa, cum brcTis- 
 simo isto sed scito admodum epitaphio : Erardus a Marca, 
 mortem habens prss oculis, vivus posuit." 
 
 C 46 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 habitants, and that in a frightful manner. It 
 has been a recent practice for villains to 
 stretch ropes across them in the dusk of the 
 evening, and tripping up the passengers by 
 this means, rob and murder them and throw 
 their bodies into the water. On this account, 
 last year centinels were ordered to be stationed 
 at the bridges, but we saw none, and the city 
 is ill-hghted. In this respect, therefore, the 
 police is bad, and yet no city stands in need 
 of a more vigilant one, morals here being so 
 abominably depraved. There are at the time 
 nine hundred and forty persons in the house of 
 correction. The doors of the theatre are beset 
 by boys in the regular exercise of their busi- 
 ness as pimps. One of these young wretches 
 accosted Mr. Vardon last year, and ojffered to 
 conduct him to his sister ; he had introduced 
 eleven English gentlemen to her, he said, and 
 they had all been tres content with her. These 
 imps of the Devil will sometimes make other 
 propositions, for which an Englishman in his 
 own country, if he did not deliver them over 
 to justice, would send them as far on the road 
 to the Devil as a kick would carry them. 
 [ 47 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 I observed in many houses reflecting cam- 
 eras fixed to the windows of the first floor, a 
 pretty device for bringing the moving picture 
 of the street into the apartment. This, I be- 
 lieve, is very usual in these parts. The farri- 
 ers have an iron bar, to which the horse's leg 
 is fastened when it is shod. Others have a 
 more formidable apparatus, a frame before 
 the door, into which the horse enters, and, be- 
 ing confined there as in a cage, is unable to 
 move in any direction. The horses are remark- 
 ably large and fine ; it was not without reason 
 that the Flanders mares had their reputation 
 in former times. Few creatures seem to be 
 exempt from labour here: the dogs are com- 
 monly employed In draught, and the poor 
 things labour with a willingness of exertion 
 which I was sorry to see overtasked sometimes, 
 and often not well applied. Four very large 
 bulldogs, abreast, were drawing a butcher's 
 cart, and one cart I saw drawn by a goat. In 
 general, they use long, low, trough-shaped 
 carts, which rattle along the streets like can- 
 non. 
 
 I picked up an Italian poem upon the tak- 
 C 48 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 ing of Constantinople by the Latins, " L' Im- 
 perio Vendicato," by Antonio Caraccio, Barone 
 di Corano. But Ghent is a bad place for find- 
 ing books ; excepting new French publications, 
 it is surprising, considering the size and wealth 
 and old importance of the city, how few are 
 to be found. Some, however, I bought of the 
 first bookseller there, G. de Busscher et fils, 
 Place de la Calandre : very obliging persons. 
 They live in a house which, if it were in Lon- 
 don, would be thought a desirable residence 
 for one of the fiirst nobility, and they pre- 
 sented us grapes from the garden. Here I saw 
 some music called "The Battle of Waterloo." 
 The battle of Waterloo set to music ! I could 
 not help observing to M. de Busscher that the 
 music which had been heard upon the field 
 was of a very different kind. Mrs. Vardon 
 gave Edith May a very beautiful book of Dutch 
 costumes, which are exceedingly picturesque. 
 There was a fine copy of Houbraken's " Lives 
 of the Painters," on which I laid hands, but 
 resigned it to Mr. Nash, who, as an artist, was 
 better entitled to become the possessor. With 
 what I purchased, these were sufficient to 
 [ 49 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 make up a small package, which the bookseller 
 will consign to Longmans' care. 
 
 The Hanoverians are not liked here. Hano- 
 vauriens, they are called. But the Prussians 
 are abominated ; we hear of nothing but their 
 insolence and brutality, their conduct to- 
 wards women is said to have been even worse 
 than that of the French. This it is, to make 
 nations military ! 
 
 Our Landlord took us to his garden, which 
 is in the town. It was full of excellent fruit, 
 but withal so damp as to strike one with an 
 aguish feeling. Here he had a summer-house, 
 fitted up with a sofa and some English prints, 
 and he thought this place a little Eden. The 
 delight which these people and their neigh- 
 bours, the Dutch, take in such gardens and 
 pleasure-houses is a pleasing part of their 
 national character. 
 
 We went to the play in the evening. The 
 piece was called " Azemia, or, the Savages." 
 The principal female character was drest in 
 a petticoat which did not reach the knees, and 
 close-fitting, flesh-colour drawers; even upon 
 our opera-stage, this would not have been en- 
 [ 60 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 dured. The house was very ill lit ; the scen- 
 ery bad and dirty. The music was said to be 
 good. I did not stay long, but leaving the 
 party there, returned to the hotel, and sate 
 down to my journal, till they came home to 
 the tahle d'hZte. We had dined at it, and were 
 therefore quite ready for supper. 
 
 Wednesday, 27 Sept. 
 
 W E ascended the Belfrey in which Eoland 
 the great bell hangs. The tower does not form 
 part of a church, but there is a prison for 
 debtors connected with it. I do not remember 
 any one in which the ascent is more pictur- 
 esque. The stone steps are so worn away by 
 long use that they are now faced with iron, 
 and much care is required in descending lest 
 the foot should hitch in these iron frames, 
 where a fall would be terribly serious. In ond 
 place near the top there is a long, low, straight 
 flight of stone steps, than which nothing more 
 dungeonish can be imagined. This tower, 
 though not the highest in Ghent, is the most re- 
 markable object there, and it commands the 
 whole panorama. The great beU Eoland is said 
 [ 51 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 to weigh eleven thousand pounds. Roland's 
 horn I suspect could not have been heard so far. 
 The carillons are above it, in a place to which 
 you climb by an ascent more resembling lad- 
 ders than stairs. I delight in chimes and 
 quarter-boys, they are good-natured, chearful, 
 accommodating devices ; proofs that neither 
 poverty nor parcimony were prevailing when 
 they were set up. When Christ Church, Bris- 
 tol (in which I was christened), was rebuilt, 
 my Father, who was churchwarden that year, 
 used his utmost endeavours to preserve the 
 quarter-boys, and offered to subscribe for their 
 re-establishment; he had known them more 
 than twenty years, and missed them like old 
 acquaintance. But the saving spirit prevailed, 
 and they who have since been born in that 
 parish have one recollection the less to attach 
 them to it. On the top of the Belf rey are four 
 little round towers, one at each corner, each 
 ending in a point with its gilt vane. The 
 Dragon on the summit is said to have been sent 
 by Count Baldwin 9th, from Constantinople. 
 
 The Stadthouse, which is near this tower, 
 is a large, stately pile, at the corner of two 
 [ 62 ]
 
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 streets, but the one front has been modern- 
 ized, about a century (I suppose) ago, in a 
 sort of Grecian style, which accords miserably 
 with the more characteristic and picturesque 
 architecture of the original building. It is so 
 surrounded with houses that there is no obtain- 
 ing a good view of it from any point. 
 
 I found a very intelligent young man at the 
 public Ubrary, evidently poor and studious, in 
 dirty but scholar-like costume. Upon my en- 
 quiring how I could procure a set of the " Acta 
 Sanctorum " (which was one object of my jour- 
 ney), he proposed to exchange a set and other 
 duplicates in that collection for English works 
 which were wanting there. To this I gladly 
 assented, looked out several great works im- 
 portant to my pursuits, and was referred to 
 M. Venhulten at Brussels, as the person who, 
 when the Mayor should have given his consent, 
 would have power to conclude the arrange- 
 ment. The young librarian showed me with 
 great satisfaction a passage in the "Acta" where 
 Napoleon occurs as the name of a Devil. It 
 is in the life of S. Lita. The library is a fine 
 collection, containing, no doubt, all that has 
 C 63 ]
 
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 been saved from the wreck of so many convents. 
 The place in which it is kept was formerly 
 a church (St. Anne's). Indeed, the organ is 
 still there ; and there are many pictures in 
 imitation of bas-relief, which they resemble so 
 perfectly as to produce a provoking deception. 
 There were such in the great Church, on each 
 side the quire, the first I had ever seen. For 
 painting to imitate sculpture is certainly a 
 perversion of the art ; but if a man so igno- 
 rant in matters of art may have an opinion 
 upon the subject, I think these imitations show 
 that much more may be done in bas-relief 
 than has ever been attempted. This is a 
 favourite notion of Miss Barker's, and now I 
 can understand what she means by it. 
 
 But the most interesting object in Ghent to 
 me, and indeed the most remarkable, is the 
 Beguinage, which is the principal establish- 
 ment of the order, and very much the largest. 
 It is at one end of the city, and entirely en- 
 closed, being indeed a little town or world of 
 itself. You enter thro' a gateway, where there 
 is a statue of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the 
 patroness of the institution. The space en- 
 C 64 ]
 
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 closed cannot be less than the area of the 
 whole town of Keswick ; but the Beguinage 
 itself is unlike almshouse, college, village, or 
 town. It is a collection of contiguous houses 
 of different sizes, each with a small garden in 
 front, and a high, well-built brick wall enclos- 
 ing them all. Upon every door is the name, 
 not of the inhabitants, but of the Saint under 
 whose protection the house is placed ; but 
 there is no opening in the door through which 
 anything can be seen. There are several 
 streets thus built, with houses on both sides ; 
 the silence and solitude of such streets may 
 easily be imagined, and the effect is very sin- 
 gular upon coming from the busy streets of 
 Ghent. You seem to be in a different world. 
 There is a large church within the enclosure ; 
 a burying-groimd in which there are no monu- 
 ments ; a branch from one of the many rivers 
 or canals wherewith Ghent is intersected, in 
 which the washing of the community is per- 
 formed, from a large boat ; and a large piece 
 of ground planted with trees where the clothes 
 are dried. 
 
 Our appearance here, and the evident curi- 
 [ 65 ]
 
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 osity with which we were perambulating a 
 place seldom visited by strangers, attracted 
 notice, and we were at length courteously ac- 
 costed by a sister who proved to be the second 
 personage in the community. She showed us 
 the interior, and gave us such explanations as 
 we desired. It is curious that she seemed to 
 know nothing of the origin of the order, nor by 
 whom it was founded, nor could she refer to any 
 book containing either its history or its rule. 
 
 According to this Lady, there are about six 
 thousand Beguines in Brabant and Flanders, in 
 which countries they are confined : there are six 
 hundred and twenty resident in the Beguinage. 
 They were rich before the Revolution ; then in 
 the general spoliation their lands were taken 
 from them, and they were commanded to lay 
 aside their distinctive dress ; but this mandate 
 was only obeyed in part, because public opinion 
 was strongly in their favour, and they were of 
 such manifest utility to all ranks that very few 
 were disposed to injure them. They receive 
 the sick who come to them for succour, and 
 they support as well as attend them as long as 
 the case requires ; they go out also to nurse 
 
 [ 66 ]
 
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 the sick where their services are requested. 
 They are bound by no vow, and M. Devolder 
 (this was the name of our obliging informant) 
 assured us with an air of becoming pride that 
 no instance of a Beguine leaving the estab- 
 lishment had ever been known. The reason is 
 obvious : the institution is in itself reasonable 
 and useful as well as religious ; no person is 
 compelled to enter it, because there is no clau- 
 sure, and no person could be compelled to stay, 
 and I suppose their members are generally, 
 if not wholly, filled up by women who, when 
 their youth is gone by, seek a retirement, or 
 need an asylum from the world. M. Devolder 
 herself entered after the death of her husband. 
 The property which a Beguine brings with her 
 reverts to her heirs-at-law. 
 
 During the Revolution the Church of the 
 Beguinage was sold as confiscated religious 
 property. The sale was a mere trick, or in 
 English phrase, a job, to accommodate some 
 partizan of the ruling demagogues with ready 
 money. Such a man bought it for a nominal 
 price, and in the course of two or three weeks 
 sold it for three hundred louis d'ors to M. 
 [ 67 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 Devolder and another sister, who then made it 
 over to the Community. 
 
 The sisters dine in the Refectory if they 
 please, but any one who prefers it may have 
 dinner sent from thence to her own apartments. 
 We were taken into three of these chambers ; 
 they were small and furnished with little more 
 than necessary comforts, but these comforts 
 they had, and they were remarkably clean. In 
 one, a sister who had been bedridden many 
 years was sitting up in her bed knitting ; we 
 were introduced into her chamber, because M. 
 Devolder said it amused her to see visitors, 
 tho' she could not converse with us, for she 
 spoke no French. Two sisters were spinning 
 in another chamber ; one of them was eighty- 
 three years of age, the other eighty-five. 
 
 I might have learnt more, if my tongue and 
 my ears had not been the most anti-Gallican 
 in the world, and the Flemish-French of M. 
 Devolder, who was little accustomed to speak 
 in any other language than her own, was not 
 always intelligible to Mrs. Vardon, for she in- 
 terpreted when I failed to understand, or to 
 make myself understood. 
 
 [ 68 ]
 
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 The dress of the Beguines is not inconven- 
 ient, but it is abominably ugly, as the habits 
 of every female order are, I believe, without 
 exception. 
 
 Except for its Beguinage, Ghent is a place 
 which I shall remember with less pleasure than 
 Bruges. There is a greater show of business, 
 but a much greater appearance of poverty. 
 The city is not so clean, there is an odour of 
 Lisbon or Edinburgh about it, tho' the filth 
 is speedily removed, the gardens, I suppose, re- 
 quiring a constant supply of manure, and thus 
 consuming all that can be obtained. It was so 
 in London two centuries ago. Here, too, the 
 gutters are in part bridged over with wooden 
 doors for the convenience of passing and 
 cleaning. 
 
 The cabinet-work here is solid and good; 
 they stain wood very beautifully. What is 
 used in the more expensive furniture they call 
 Acajou, and say they get it from Spain. If this 
 be its proper name, it must come from Cuba, 
 and the tree has an additional value, which I 
 was not aware of. It would in that case be 
 perhaps the most valuable tree in the world, 
 C 59 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 considering its fruit, its nut, its oil, and its 
 power of flourishing upon the driest soil. But 
 I doubt its being the same tree. 
 
 I should have been tempted at Ghent by 
 some oysters of excellent physiognomy, for 
 there is a physiognomy in oysters ; but the 
 Landlord told us that they had lately appeared 
 to possess some poisonous quality ; for no per- 
 son had eaten them without experiencing some 
 iU eiSects. 
 
 Thursday, 28 Sept. 
 
 JL E8TERDAT was a K&rmis. I could not pre- 
 cisely learn the meaning of this word ; it is not 
 exactly a fair, but it is something of the same 
 kind. Women of the middle and higher ranks 
 were walking the town in holyday costmne, and 
 at night parties of men paraded the streets, 
 singing, to the annoyance of those who went to 
 bed at a reasonable hour. 
 
 Our wish was to have gone from hence to 
 Antwerp. The passage of the Scheldt at Tete 
 du Flandres was an obstacle. Mrs. Vardon 
 told us the boats were very inconvenient, and 
 we might have to wait on this side an indefi- 
 C 60 ]
 
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 nite time at a miserable place. I was then for 
 going round by land; but to this the coach- 
 men who were consulted objected. They said 
 there was no chaussee, and the deeps and roads 
 were impassable. An Englishman, in the pre- 
 sent state of the roads, which are neither too 
 wet nor too dry, would prefer the side to the 
 paved way. However, there is no contesting 
 these points in a foreign country, hardly indeed 
 in one's own. Mr. Vardon therefore hired two 
 carriages for forty-five francs to carry our con- 
 joined parties (eleven in number, including 
 his man and maid servant), with their baggage, 
 to Brussels, a distance of thirty miles. This 
 appeared very reasonable when compared with 
 expence of posting in England ; nevertheless, 
 we were afterwards assured that Mr. V. had 
 been greatly imposed on. 
 
 It was the hop harvest, and in every house, 
 or before the door, whole families were busy in 
 stripping them, making a cheerful scene. Hay- 
 making also (the aftermath) was going on, and 
 we now saw haystacks, none of which we had 
 observed before. Flax is cultivated here, 
 for oiL Some of the villages have a green, as 
 [ 61 3
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 in England; even Flemish economy allowing 
 this little wholesome and useful remains of 
 the common, which the all-grasping spirit of 
 enclosures is destroying in England. Every 
 house seems to have its small plot of tobacco. 
 Both the sense of comfort and the diffusion of 
 it certainly appear to be much more general 
 than with us. A blacksmith was eating grapes 
 from the vine which covered his house. The 
 roadside trees have all their lower branches 
 lopt, and thus they admit more air to the road 
 than finds its way through an English hedge. 
 The villages which we passed are not by the 
 roadside, but at convenient distance from it. 
 The country much of the same character, and 
 still no cattle, till we came to the little town 
 of Alost, where we dined, faring badly in a 
 bad inn. 
 
 The name of this place occurs in history 
 often enough to make it interesting. The town- 
 house bears this motto, with the date in the 
 middle, iVec spe, 1200, nee metu^ but it must 
 not be supposed that the building is six hun- 
 dred years old. The church is remarkable 
 for having an open gallery over the great win- 
 [ 62 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 dov; neither Mr. Nash nor I had ever seen 
 anything like it. The Dender runs thro' the 
 town. 
 
 There was a well-contrived basket at the inn, 
 with partitions for small glasses. The best 
 thing they produced was some small creamy 
 cheeses, very good of their kind. They come 
 from Enghien ; the Priests, we were told, re- 
 ceive them in exchange for Agnus Deis and 
 such things, and supply the inns with them. 
 It is not the first time that I have been bene- 
 fitted by this sort of connection between the 
 Priest and the Innkeeper. We should often 
 have fared badly in Portugal if the Estalajor 
 deiro had not had some game of the Curate's 
 shooting to dispose of. As soon as we left 
 Alost, the character of the country changed ; 
 we entered upon a grazing district, and saw 
 plenty of cattle. The trees also were much 
 larger. This is a land of wells, but of bad 
 water, at least since our landing the Ladies 
 had met with none that was good, till in the 
 large village of Assche, between Alost and 
 Brussels, it was presented them in very long 
 glasses of curious form, as a delicacy, after 
 [ 63 ]
 
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 some sweet cakes. These cakes, for which it 
 seems Assche is renowned, are made at the sign 
 of the Negro by Judocus de Bisschop, next 
 door to the Bull's Head Inn, and described 
 in his hand-bills by the deformed appellation 
 of Suyker-koekkenSf which latter word I think 
 must belong to the language called by the 
 poet Randolph croakation^ and never written 
 except by Aristophanes. Gateaux-sucres is 
 the French version thereof. But the cakes 
 are good cakes, worthy to be eaten and com- 
 mended. 
 
 By the bye, I can make nothing of the 
 Christian name Judocus. Mynheer de Bisschop 
 here Frenchifies it by Josse, which, whether it 
 be Joseph or Joshua, required a farther inter- 
 pretation. But Vondel's name is written some- 
 times Judocus and sometimes Joost, and Joost 
 is certainly Justus. 
 
 We past, at some distance on our left, the 
 extensive ruins of Afflighem, one of the largest 
 and finest monasteries in Brabant, and cele- 
 brated for its rich library even in a country 
 famous for such richness. Large hewn stones 
 from the ruin were lying by the roadside. 
 [ 64 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 This destruction was one of the acts of revo- 
 lutionary madness. The driver told us that 
 before its demolition, which he seemed to lar 
 ment with proper feeling, it had given employ- 
 ment to fifty families. We heard little of the 
 revolutionary havoc committed in the Low 
 Countries ; the bloodier enormities in France 
 occasioned them to be overlooked. But I have 
 already seen enough to convince me that great 
 and irreparable mischief has been done, quite 
 as much as in England at the time of the 
 Reformation, and of the same kind. And here 
 it has been pure mischief, without any accom- 
 panying good. 
 
 Upon this stage we were annoyed by chil- 
 dren begging most importunately by the way- 
 side, wherever there was what the Netherland- 
 ers call a montagne. They sung in a monotonous 
 strain these words, half French, half English, 
 " Vive I'Angleterre ! Dis for Napoleon', " and 
 then the finger was significantly passed across 
 the throat. I suspect this has come into use 
 since the battle. Some whistled the tune, ac- 
 companying it with the same gesture. Others 
 tumbled like vagabonds of a like description 
 C 65 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 in England, and others hopt along in imitation 
 of frogs. 
 
 It was dusk before we reached Brussels ; this 
 was unlucky, as it prevented us from seeing 
 the approach. Our passports were taken at 
 the gates ; in so courteous a manner, that it 
 would have reconciled us to a measure of police 
 more troublesome and less reasonable. The 
 Emperor Alexander was here, and the city 
 illuminated in consequence. We drove to the 
 Hotel de Flandres, in the Place de Roi, ad- 
 joining the Park. 
 
 Friday y 29 Sept. 
 
 OuE first business was at the Police Office, 
 where the people were less courteous than 
 they had been at any former place, in propor- 
 tion as they have more business; he must 
 be unreasonable who complains of short and 
 pithy manners, necessarily arising from this 
 cause. Here I ascertained that my brother 
 and his party had gone to Antwerp on their 
 way home instead of proceeding to Spa, as 
 they had talked of doing. All hope of falling 
 in with them was therefore at an end. We 
 [ 66 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 fairly joined company, therefore, with the fel- 
 low-travellers whom chance had given us and 
 whom choice approved; and it was settled 
 that we should go on from Waterloo to Namur, 
 Spa, and Aix-la-Chapelle, and return to Brus- 
 sels by way of Maestricht and Louvain. 
 
 I had read in the Brussels Gtiide or Petit 
 Necessaire that Anderlecht butter or pistolets 
 made the breakfasts in that city excellent. 
 Upon this I asked the waiter what these pis- 
 tols were, and he replied by pointing with a 
 smile to some little long rolls upon the break- 
 fast-table. We had also the Anderlecht but- 
 ter, which is not better than what we have 
 found along the whole way, because the butter 
 everywhere is as good as it can be. I had 
 been told that we should meet with good coffee 
 on the Continent ; it is about as good as you 
 usually find it in England, that is to say, 
 detestable to a Lisbonian's palate, more like 
 the rinsings of the pot than what he has been 
 accustomed to. Tea evidently is not used in 
 these countries. We had been advised to take 
 some with us, but as cream is never to be had, 
 it proved of little use. 
 
 [ 67 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 We staid at Brussels four days; this was 
 longer than we intended or desired, but be- 
 cause the Emperor and the Prussian Prince 
 were there, carriages were not to be procured. 
 I had thus ample time to look after books and 
 see what was to be seen. 
 
 Brussels has been too much modernised, too 
 much Frenchified in all respects. As a speci- 
 men of the leprous filthiness with which the 
 French have infected these countries, I saw 
 some toys in a shop window, representing men 
 with their loins ungirt, in the attitude of the 
 Deus CacaturienSj each with a piece of yel- 
 low metal, like a sham coin, inserted behind. 
 The persons who exhibit such things as these 
 for sale deserve the pillory, or the whipping- 
 post, the very mob in England would not 
 tolerate them. And where these are exposed, 
 it may easily be guessed what sort of ware is 
 to be found within. Indeed, I am told that 
 such damnable abominations as were manufac- 
 tured by the French prisoners during the war 
 are always upon sale here. The Flemings and 
 Brabanters have caught this sort of corrup- 
 tion. It does not belong to their national char- 
 C 68 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 acter, which must essentially be the same as that 
 of the Dutch. What difference there is can 
 only be such as their different religions have 
 induced, and it would be a very interesting en- 
 quiry to trace this, for one who was sufficiently 
 acquainted with the respective countries. 
 
 Of course I enquired for the Manneke, as 
 the most notorious, if not the most famous 
 piece of sculpture of modem times, and one 
 which the populace value as if it were the 
 Palladium of Brussels. The execution is so 
 admirable that one can hardly forgive the 
 artist for the design, and yet the figure is far 
 too infantine and innocent to be deemed offen- 
 sive. It might probably provoke the cogni- 
 zance of a Society for the Suppression of Vice ; 
 but for myself, certainly I should not indict 
 it as contra honos mores. I remember OUvier 
 de la Marche speaks of such an image at an 
 entertainment given by Philip the Good : it 
 made rose-water. The best manners, there- 
 fore, in that age were not offended by it. I 
 do not know when the Manneke was made. 
 The sculptor may have had this very descrip- 
 tion of the Chroniclers in mind, or, which is 
 [ 69 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 still more likely, may have intended a good- 
 natured satire upon the absurd taste so com- 
 monly displayed in fountains, of which Brus- 
 sels abounds in examples. For instance, here 
 is a half-length human figure, with the water 
 flowing from his mouth ; and others where the 
 figure is female, and it spouts from both 
 breasts. The Manneke may be considered as 
 a fair burlesque of such preposterous devices. 
 
 Madrid is the city for handsome foimtains. 
 The only fine one here is in the Place de 
 Sablon. And the fijiest monuments are in the 
 Church de Sablon. 
 
 Richard Carbonell, the poor feUow who was 
 wounded at Waterloo, and for whom I brought 
 a letter from his parents at Keswick, died on 
 the 14th of August. In going to the hospital 
 to enquire for him, I saw some waggons full of 
 wounded men, who had been taken out for 
 air, a most melancholy sight. Some were 
 lying upon straw, pale, emaciated, and with 
 the utmost languor and listlessness in their 
 appearance ; others in a rapid state of conva- 
 lescence, erect and seeming to have no feeling 
 or concern for their companions. This I par- 
 [ 70 ]
 
 J O U R N A Ii 
 
 ticularly noticed in a load of Frenchmen whom 
 I followed for some time. They were in white 
 flannel dresses, and it was gratifying to see 
 (however ill this accursed race deserve it ! ) 
 that they were as well taken care of as if they 
 had been our own countrymen. The manage- 
 ment of the hospital appeared to be excellent. 
 My errand there was soon accomplished : the 
 books were turned to and my enquiry answered 
 in less time than it has taken me to describe 
 what I saw there. I have no recollection of 
 the poor fellow himself, but it would have 
 gratified me if I could have sent home a dif- 
 ferent account to his parents. I had never 
 before seen the real face of war so closely; 
 and God knows I a deplorable sight it is. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Miller of the Inniskillen 
 Dragoons is in our hotel, lying in his bed, 
 miserably wounded. His thigh was broken by 
 a grape-shot, and splinters and the rags which 
 were driven into the flesh prevent the woimd 
 from healing. By desire of his servant, who 
 seems most faithfully attached to his master, 
 we visited him. He is a remarkably fine-look- 
 ing man, and bears up with wonderful spirit ; 
 [ 71 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 and in this he has his best chance ; for the 
 surgeon considers his recovery as extremely 
 difficult. I saw the ball which had been ex- 
 tracted ; it was not smaller than a walnut, 
 and very ragged, as if the mould in which it 
 was cast had not been fairly closed. He was 
 wounded near La Haye Sainte towards the 
 close of the action, and at a time, he says, when 
 he thought the day was going ill with the Eng- 
 lish. But he had been hurt before he was thus 
 disabled. Leading on his men to charge a solid 
 square, he thought they appeared to funk, and 
 was afraid they might turn back ; upon which 
 he pushed on a little too far before them, for 
 an example, and was thrown from his horse 
 with two bayonet wounds. These, however, 
 were slight, and when the men did their duty 
 in saving him, he had some sticking-plaister, 
 he said, put on, and returned to the field. The 
 question now is whether nature can hold out 
 till the wound suppurates and expels all the 
 extraneous substances which now prevent its 
 healing. ^ 
 
 * Mrs. Vardon met him at Bmges, twelve months after- 
 wards, on his way to England, only just then able to bear 
 
 [ 72 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 The Great Square is the finest thing of its 
 kind I have yet seen. The Stadthouse, which 
 forms one side, is truly a magnificent building, 
 but the roof, which rises very high, with a long, 
 straight, unrelieved outline and a great num- 
 ber of unomamented garret windows, does not 
 accord with the richness of the structure in all 
 other parts. These Town-houses are indeed 
 splendid edifices, and show what the spirit and 
 wealth of these provinces must have been in their 
 better days. To complain that there is nothing 
 within which corresponds with the magnificence 
 of their exterior would be finding fault with 
 them for being what they are. It is only in ec- 
 clesiastical buildings that the impression which 
 the external grandeur makes upon the mind 
 can be heightened when we enter. Westminster 
 Hall indeed is an exception. At the back of 
 tJie building there is a row of gigantic gilt 
 arms projecting from the wall, each holding 
 what, for want of a more appropriate word, I 
 must call a candlestick, for a torch. The effect 
 would be very grand if the arm did not, in 
 
 the removal and luing cratches, but in a fair way of re- 
 covery. 
 
 [ 73 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 the worst imaginable taste, come out of the 
 mouth of a huge face ! 
 
 Not far from hence, according to the direc- 
 tion given me by the Librarian at Ghent, I 
 found Verbeyst the bookseller, a very singular 
 and striking man. A more thorough sloven 
 I never saw, and seldom or never a man with 
 a better and finer countenance. Frequent as 
 were my visits to him, I never happened to 
 see him entirely drest ; sometimes he was with- 
 out neckcloth, sometimes without stockings. 
 His house, from the ground floor to the garret, 
 is full of books, beyond all comparison the 
 largest collection of foreign works I ever saw 
 exposed to sale, a sight which made me wish 
 that I had plenty of money at command. Here 
 was what had been saved from the wreck of 
 many a convent library, but what a destruction 
 has been made ! Verbeyst, who loves books as 
 dearly as I do, spoke of it with proper feeling. 
 They had been brought to him in such quanti- 
 ties that, not having where to stow them, after 
 filling his own house and a church also, he had 
 been obliged to sell more than an hundred thou- 
 sand weight for waste paper, for which use he 
 C 74 ]
 
 J O U R N A Ij 
 
 once sent ofE five and twenty waggon-loads at 
 one time ! He related this with as much vex- 
 ation as it gave me to hear it, for Verbeyst 
 is no ordinary bookseller ; he has a thorough 
 love of books, and told me would not exchange 
 the pleasure which he finds in reading for any 
 advantages of wealth or station. I dealt with 
 him largely, considering my slender means. 
 Artzema's great work, with the continuation, 
 was among my purchases, eleven folios, a 
 huge mass of materials quite indispensable for 
 any one who would write upon the history of 
 the seventeenth century. Here, too, I found 
 the Jesuit Pierre du Jarvie's history of the 
 progress of Christianity in the Portuguese 
 conquests, the original French, in three small 
 quartos. I had long been in search of this 
 book, which is very scarce, and very important 
 to my pursuits, as supplying so far as it goes, 
 better than any other work, the want of a series 
 of the Annual Relations. 
 
 I went to see the French cannon which had 
 
 been taken at Waterloo. They were in an open 
 
 place on the banks of the river, under the care 
 
 of a single centinel, who was pacing quietly be- 
 
 [ 76 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 side them ; for they had now ceased to be an 
 object of public curiosity, and few travellers 
 thought of enquiring for them, or took the trou- 
 ble to search them out. There were one hun- 
 dred and thirty-three pieces, all of brass, some 
 bearing the mark of the Republic, others of 
 Louis, others of Buonaparte. Many had a 
 name stamped on them, such as Le Cousen^ 
 Le Furet. I remember in my early boyhood a 
 Bristol privateer of some celebrity during the 
 American War, which in a like spirit was 
 called the Hornet. Proceeding from this place 
 to the canal, we then ascended the ramparts 
 and walked upon them half round the city, and 
 thus obtained a good prospect of the whole. 
 
 Our quarters were at the Hotel de Flandres 
 in the Place de Roi, a handsome square on the 
 top of the hill, very handsome indeed of its 
 kind, but it is such a square as might as well 
 be in London, or Paris, or BerHn. The build- 
 ings have nothing about them to characterise 
 their country, and in this respect, therefore, 
 they ill supply the place of the Palace which 
 was burnt there in 1731. The Hotel is as good 
 as could be desired, and of course sufficiently 
 [ 76 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 expensive. Our sitting-room was on the lowest 
 floor, unluckily ; not so much because this put 
 us to the trouble of ascending seventy-two stairs 
 to the bedroom, as because it exposed us to the 
 street, and we were beset in consequence by a 
 class of persons quite as importunate as beg- 
 gars, and whom there are stronger reasons for 
 discouraging. While we were at breakfast, 
 nosegays of the sweetest flowers, nicely ax- 
 ranged for a Lady's dress, were thrown in at 
 the window. After dinner we were serenaded 
 by musicians and female singers, who were bet- 
 ter performers than are found in our provincial 
 theatres. One day an itinerant juggler set up 
 his portable table in front of our apartment, 
 and began to exhibit his tricks for our amuse- 
 ment and that of the crowd, but he was by no 
 means expert in his art. 
 
 All this is rather French than Flemish, and 
 indeed this is in very many respects a Frenchi- 
 fied city. The modern part is said to resemble 
 Paris, and the Park is altogether French, with 
 its straight walks and statues and fountains, 
 and shade enough to afford a convenient cover 
 for a profligate people. The town is overrun 
 [ 77 ]
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 with splendid carriages ; and these, as was no- 
 toriously the case in France, are driven with- 
 out caution or remorse, as if the coachman 
 wished to terrify or even to run over the foot- 
 passengers, a practice the more dangerous 
 because the streets are not flagged. Near the 
 entrance of the public library we stept aside 
 to look at some statues, which had been 
 used at some late spectacle (probably the in- 
 auguration) and then laid by. The drapery 
 appeared so remarkably good that it induced 
 us to examine them, and it was not tiU we saw 
 one comer of a robe move with the wind as 
 we approached that we discovered them to be 
 actually drest in coarse linen, which had after- 
 wards been white-limed and thus stiffened to 
 resemble stone. This was truly French, 
 the shift and the cleverness, the imposing ap- 
 pearance, and the intrinsic, disgusting mean- 
 ness. 
 
 The Cathedral stands weU, but none of the 
 Cathedrals which I have seen in these coun- 
 tries are to be compared with our own for 
 their external beauty, nor even with some of 
 the fine parochial churches in Lincohishire and 
 [ 78 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 in the west of England. The pulpit here is 
 the most beautiful I ever saw ; it is the work 
 of Henry Verbouggen of Antwerp, who made 
 it in 1699 for the Jesuits' Church at Louvain, 
 and on the suppression of that order the Em- 
 perors presented it to this Cathedral. This was 
 probably done in honour of St. Gudule ; but it 
 is surely an act of great injustice thus to rob 
 one city of one of its noblest ornaments to 
 enrich another. 
 
 While we were at Brussels, the Emperor 
 Alexander and the Prussian Princes arrived, 
 so that Edith May saw a live Emperor. Hav- 
 ing letters to write and more than enough to 
 employ me, I did not join the crowd which had 
 collected to behold these great personages, but 
 contented myself with just going into the Park 
 to look at the illuminations at the Palace. On 
 the following night the Alle Verte was illumi- 
 nated, and three large vessels also, which pro- 
 duced a striking effect as they moved upon the 
 canal. 
 
 "We went to see M. De Burtin's pictures, a 
 choice and celebrated collection, but nothing 
 in his possession is half so extraordinary as 
 [ 79 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 himself. The Queen and the Prussian Princes 
 had been just before us, so that he was in half 
 dress, having on an embroidered white sattin 
 waistcoat over which he had a magnificent 
 flowered dressing-gown. Have you seen my 
 Book ? was his first question, a critical cata- 
 logue of his own collection, with a prelimi- 
 nary treatise upon painting, in two large octavo 
 volumes, which he, albeit S. C. R. M.^ a Consil. 
 Gen. Belg., etc., etc., sells himself to whoever 
 pleases to buy it. We humbly acknowledged 
 that we had not. " What ! " he exclaimed, " not 
 seen it ? " and then he told us what an excellent 
 book it was, and how much we had to leam, 
 and what a pleasure we had to come, for it 
 was as delightful as it was instructive. It was 
 as entertaining as a novel, he assured us ; it 
 taught everything concerning pictures which 
 could be known ; it was such a book that it 
 could be read a thousand years hence with 
 enthusiasm ; it was already famous at Oxford 
 and Cambridge ; the language was so pure 
 that French masters preferred it to any other 
 work for their pupils. An English lady who 
 never had handled a brush till she read that 
 80 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 book leamt to paint by studying it, came to 
 Brussels from a feeling of gratitude to thank 
 him, and painted his portrait, which he accord- 
 ingly showed us, in a night-cap and the iden- 
 tical rohe de chambre wherein he stood be- 
 fore us. 
 
 It was well that I had prudence enough to 
 caution my companions against ever saying 
 anything in English which they would not like 
 the persons present to understand. Sorely, as 
 it proved, should we have been ashamed if 
 this man's extraordinary figure, more extraor- 
 dinary countenance (he was truly an ill-fa- 
 voured rogue), and most extraordinary conver- 
 sation had tempted us to any such remarks as 
 every one was strongly inclined to make, for 
 the old fox, who had pretended not to under- 
 stand English, began to speak it just as we 
 were going away. As it was, we left him in 
 good humour, for both Nash and I bought his 
 book, and perhaps the most remarkable part 
 of the adventure is that really the book is a 
 very good one, probably the best which has 
 been written of its kind. 
 
 I pretend to no knowledge of pictures. But 
 [ 81 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 I will venture to say that what he shows as 
 Michel Angelo's was never painted by that 
 master. He has prefixed an engraving of it to 
 his second volume. 
 
 While we were at the Hotel, an English 
 family arrived there, on their return from 
 Italy. According to the account which their 
 servants spread, robbers are so numerous in 
 that country that they had waited at one place 
 till fourteen carriages were collected ; even 
 this caravan was stopt ; but the banditti hesi- 
 tated about attacking them ; a parley ensued, 
 which ended in the travellers hiring these 
 robbers to escort them the rest of the stage, 
 by which means they were protected from a 
 second attack. 
 
 Mr. Vardon is acquainted with a very intel- 
 ligent German merchant in this city, a native 
 of the Duchy of Berg, Engelbert Werth by 
 name. He tells us that the Prussian Command- 
 ant at Paris has been murdered, that the 
 destruction of Paris must be expected as an 
 inevitable consequence, that Alexander upon 
 this intelligence had set off hastily for France, 
 and that this was the reason why he had not 
 [ 82 3
 
 J O U B X A L 
 
 been at the theatre on the preceding evening, 
 according to the notice which had been given 
 in the bills. It had been said in the morn- 
 ing that the manager had been sent to prison 
 for having deceived the public by announcing 
 his intended presence, not being authorized so 
 to do. This, however, woidd have implied a 
 degree of despotism which certainly does not 
 exist in Belgium. As for the news, I have 
 lived long enough in a country where the news- 
 papers are of no value to know how little 
 credit is due to the reports which spring up 
 wherever authentic intelligence is wanting. 
 The slightest enquiry sufficed to show that 
 this formidable tale rested on no authority, 
 and the old saying about the month of March 
 might be applied to it : it came in like a Lion 
 and went out like a Lamb. 
 
 Mr. Werth drew a plan of the battle which he 
 explained with remarkable clearness, and which 
 he has promised to draw out fairly, and send 
 after me to Spa. Yet I doubt the accuracy of 
 his statement in one point, and upon another 
 there is indubitable proof that he is wrong. 
 He says that the English were driven from 
 C 83 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Hougomont, certainly they were not ; great 
 part of the buildings were destroyed, but the 
 French never could effect an entrance. He 
 says that Buonaparte lost the battle by send- 
 ing Vandamme with twenty-two thousand men 
 against Waure in the evening, when he con- 
 sidered the field as decisively his own, and that 
 Bulow took advantage of this fatal error. 
 Now, unless I am grieviously mistaken, Van- 
 damme was despatched under Grouchy the 
 preceding day. A useful lesson this, if I had 
 needed one, to teach me with what caution the 
 hearsay relations even of intelligent men are 
 to be received. He was upon the field five 
 days after the action, with Henry Bedford's 
 friend, Hercules Sharp. They found the house 
 at Papelot full of wounded Prussians, who had 
 literally been forgotten. Falling in with a 
 party of Prussian soldiers, they stated the fact 
 and intreated them to go and assist their coun- 
 trymen ; the answer was that this was the for- 
 tune of war ; they had received orders whither 
 to march, and could not deviate from them. 
 This indeed was true; nor was there any 
 assistance which it was in their power to have 
 C 84 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 afforded. Mr. Werth and his companion then 
 applied to the Mayor of some neighbouring 
 place ; but he had already more wounded 
 than he could find room to lodge, or persons 
 to attend. 
 
 Tuesday, 3 Oct. 
 
 AjEFT Brussels after an early breakfast and 
 went thro' the Forest of Soigny to Waterloo. 
 The forest is for the most part a close planta- 
 tion, approaching so close to the road as to 
 shade it and prevent it from drying. There 
 are wells in all the villages, and almost at 
 every house ; they are generally under a shed, 
 perfectly secured against any accident from 
 carelessness, and with a wheel over which the 
 rope passes. The church at Waterloo is a 
 singular and not unhandsome building, con- 
 sidering its size and materials, with a dome. 
 It is some distance from thence thro' the 
 Forest to the scene of action, which com- 
 mences at Mont St. Jean. Wo neglected to 
 mark the distance, and now differ about it, 
 some saying scarcely one mile, others extend- 
 ing it to three, to which latter opinion I more 
 [ 86 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 nearly incline, but the difference shows how 
 little a vague estimate is to be trusted. Upon 
 leaving the forest you come upon an open 
 country, and at the village of Mont St. Jean 
 (where you may look in vain for anything like 
 a moimt) we saw the first direct mark of the 
 battle, a large curbstone at a barn door, 
 cracked and splintered by a cannon-ball. Here 
 we were surrounded by men in their blue 
 frocks and caps, contending who should be 
 our guide. Luckily, the one was successful 
 whom I should have selected for his striking 
 countenance and manner ; and a better choice 
 could not have been made. He led us along 
 the road toward La Haye Sainte. The enemy 
 never could pass a cross-road leading from 
 Wavre to Braine le lend, which crosses the 
 chaussee between Mont St. Jean and La Haye 
 Sainte. Here the Highlanders were posted. 
 *' O my God ! " the man exclaimed, " how well 
 they fought, those Scotchmen, those men 
 without breeches ! how they fought ! If they 
 had not fought so well, Brussels and Waterloo 
 would have been taken and Mont St. Jean 
 burnt ! " This was always the btirthen of his 
 C 86 ]
 
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 song. Mont St. Jean was the dwelling-place, 
 and his fate as well as that of Europe de- 
 pended upon the issue of the battle. 
 
 While we were surveying this ground, 
 where the Scotch and the Inniskillens may 
 almost be said to have decided the fate of the 
 day, two officers, not in regimentals, came up. 
 I think they were Prussians. Koster supposed 
 them to be English. They asked the guide in 
 French where the Emperor was during the 
 battle, but he, in his plain, honest sense of right 
 and wrong, did not understand that they 
 meant Buonaparte by that appellation, till 
 they explained. "When he pointed to the wood 
 and said : " There it was that the fifteen thou- 
 sand Prussians came out," one of them an- 
 swered in the most supercilious manner imagi- 
 nable, " Trente-deux, s'il vous plait ! " moving 
 his moustachios to a sardonic smile. 
 
 The farmhouse at La Haye Sainte is well 
 represented in the panoramic print. The house 
 here and the stables had been full of wounded 
 and the yard full of dead. It suffered some- 
 thing, but not much, and having changed its 
 tenant since the battle, the holes in the wall 
 [ 87 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 have been repaired. La Belle Alliance is on 
 the chaussee, in a line with this house, but we 
 left the road here, and turning to the right, 
 crost the fields to Hougomont. 
 
 Let me endeavour to describe the scene. It 
 is a wide, open country, in which the most con- 
 spicuous object is the Church of Braine le 
 leud. Standing on the chaussee by Mont St. 
 Jean and looking to the field of battle, the 
 forest is behind you ; Papelot and Frechemont 
 on its skirts to the left ; La Haye Sainte, and 
 farther on La Belle Alliance, both straight 
 forward, on the high-road; the Observatory 
 to the right at a greater distance, upon what 
 we are told is the highest ground in the Low 
 Countries; Hougomont farther to the right, 
 but less remote ; Braine le leud more to the 
 right still, and more distant, and thus looking 
 round to the Forest of Soigny you compleat the 
 circle. The ground would not appear strong 
 to a person ignorant of the art of war. But 
 there are dips and swells like those on our 
 South Downs and Wiltshire hills (tho' the 
 inequality is considerably less), which in wet 
 weather and in this heavy soil would give great 
 I 88 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 advantage to the troops defending the ascent. 
 I suppose Lord Wellmgton looked to two ad- 
 vantages: the fair open field of battle, and 
 the security which the forest afforded his rear. 
 
 The observatory is still upon the ground, 
 and the people here all agree in saying it was 
 erected by the English. 
 
 Hougomont was a gentleman's residence, 
 and a fine one, with chapel, pigeon-house, 
 outbuildings, extensive gardens, orchard, and 
 grove. This is the only picturesque point in 
 the whole field, and it is highly so, a sort 
 of oasis or wood-island, having that beauty 
 which a well-planted spot possesses in a bare 
 and open country. There are avenues and cov- 
 ered walks in the garden ; at the end of that 
 which faces the middle of the terrace before 
 the house (where the ascent is by a few steps), 
 a vile picture is placed upon a little eminence, 
 representing another avenue, with a summer- 
 house at the end. In a country which abounds 
 with fine pictures, such an instance of abom- 
 inable taste was not to have been looked for. 
 
 Lord Wellington was here on the 17th, 
 asking the names of all the places round, the 
 [ 89 ].
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 distances, etc. When he went away, he said 
 to the Gardener that if he did not occupy this 
 point the next day, the French would. In 
 consequence of what Mr. Werth had said, I 
 asked the Gardener if the French had at any 
 time obtained possession of the place, and he 
 assured me that they had not. 
 
 The garden wall, toward the grove, where 
 the hottest attack was made, is substantially 
 built of brick, nine feet high, and supported 
 with buttresses. Our men made holes in it for 
 musketry ; they broke the buttresses halfway 
 down, and then laid planks along the trim- 
 cated tops, so as to form a rampart, or rather 
 platform ; and when any of the French who 
 attempted to scale the wall reached the top, 
 they bayonetted them from below. On the 
 skirts of the grove, a little way from the 
 entrance of the house, the bodies of six hun- 
 dred French had been burnt, and the remains 
 buried. A hole like a rabbit's burrow had 
 been made in this heap ; and the guide raked 
 it with a stick, to prove the truth of his 
 story, tho ' no one would have disputed it. He 
 scraped out some ashes and the calcined bone 
 E 90 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 of a finger before we could make him desist ; 
 and a perceptible smell of ammonia came from 
 the burnt animal remains which he disturbed. 
 We had seen the place by La Haye Sainte 
 (near a tree) where General Picton fell. Here 
 the spot was pointed out where Major Howard 
 was knied ; and in the garden the place where 
 an officer, by name Crawford (I think), had 
 been buried, till his father came from Ireland 
 and removed the body. In one place the wall 
 of the house for about five feet in a perpen- 
 dicular line was covered with blood; some 
 poor fellow must have been knocked to pieces 
 against it by a cannon-ball. 
 
 A painter might have found many pleasing 
 subjects here before the battle ; the ruins now 
 would afford him some of a very different 
 kind. Beneath these ruins, our wounded, who 
 had been carried into the house, were at once 
 crushed and buried. Part of the house still 
 remains habitable, and to this the Gardener's 
 wife and children have returned. The Chapel 
 was only half ruined. There is a crucifix in 
 it, large as life, which escaped any injury from 
 the shot, but had been mutilated by some of 
 t 91 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 our men. When I expressed my regret at 
 this, the Gardener said it was ill done, but he 
 said it mildly, and without any apparent feel- 
 ing of anger or indignation. Perhaps the 
 British character never was so highly esteemed 
 in any part of the world as it is at this time 
 in this country. I have heard no other in- 
 stance of misconduct in our troops, tho' I made 
 the enquiry; and the people seem as much 
 conciliated by their good discipline and inof- 
 fensive deportment as they are astonished and 
 awed by their courage. The pigeon-house 
 escaped all injury ; as soon as the action be- 
 gan, the pigeons took flight, to the forest, 
 no doubt ; and two or three days afterwards, 
 when they saw that the mischief was over, they 
 came back again. 
 
 The Prince of Orange has promised to re- 
 pair all the damage which has been done here. 
 The present owner of Hougomont is a noble- 
 man, who resides far off, and wishes to sell 
 this property. One should think that he would 
 now rather pride himself upon possessing it. 
 We met his tenant, a respectable farmer in 
 appearance, in a cart. 
 
 C 92 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 In the orchard, which is a large one (not 
 less than four acres), and in the grove and 
 garden, many trees have had their branches 
 carried away or broken, and their trunks 
 wounded ; but except in these marks, neither 
 the grounds or garden bore any vestiges of 
 war ; the flowers were in blossom and the fruit 
 on the trees. Indeed, over the whole field, 
 poppies and pansies were in bloom ; you saw 
 them where the footsteps of the cavalry were 
 still uneffaced ; and in some parts upon the very 
 graves. I know not whether it were more mel- 
 ancholy or conciliatory to observe how soon 
 these lower creatures of nature recovered from 
 the havoc which had been committed here. 
 Between Hougomont and La Haye Sainte, 
 where the Prince of Orange was wounded, 
 two thousand bodies are buried. Hats, from 
 all which the lace has been stript, caps, 
 shoes, belts, and such things are still lying 
 about in great niunbers ; but crows and vul- 
 tures are not so active after a battle as the 
 followers of an army. "When Mr. Werth 
 visited the field and saw it in its recent hor- 
 rors, all the dead horses were lying on their 
 [ 93 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 backs, with their feet stiff up in the air in the 
 attitude wherein they had been placed by those 
 who came for their shoes ! One of our coach- 
 men, who was there two days after the action, 
 observed that it was more shocking to see the 
 wounded horses then the wounded men, be- 
 cause, poor things, they had no will of their 
 own, or knowledge why they were thus tor- 
 mented. Colonel Miller in like manner spoke 
 with shuddering of the horses nmning about 
 on three legs, and bleeding to death ; but these 
 are thoughts with which a soldier must not 
 trust himself, and he endeavoured to cover 
 the feeling which it gave him with a forced 
 laugh. 
 
 Edith and her mother each picked up a 
 flint and a musquet-ball ; but relics of this 
 kind have been diligently gleaned for sale. I 
 bought a French pistol and two ornaments of 
 the French infantry cap (like the leaden or 
 tin ornaments of a coffin) for six francs, and 
 an artillery badge with a grape-shot for one. 
 Some of our party bought swords and other 
 ornaments at about the same rate ; the weapons 
 so cheap as to render the supposition that they 
 
 C M 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 had been bought up at Brussels and brought 
 hither for sale perfectly absurd. A boy on the 
 preceding day had found a double Napoleon 
 wrapt in paper ; our guide told us this more 
 than once, and as often stopt to look among 
 the stubble or grass in hope of the like good 
 luck. He said also that an English General 
 who was woimded near La Haye Sainte had 
 hid in the sand-bank a bag containing two 
 hundred Napoleons, which had never been 
 found; it may well be supposed how much 
 search this idle story has occasioned. The 
 people, he said, had suffered so much by the 
 destruction of their crops that they were all 
 ruined ; but they had since been made rich by 
 the English. Well, indeed, has it been for 
 them that the field of Waterloo is within such 
 easy reach of England. 
 
 The Prussians are as much detested here 
 as the English are popular. The people give 
 them their due as soldiers, and say that they 
 came in time, for the English could not much 
 longer have supported such a conflict ; an easy 
 error this, for persons who understood no- 
 thing of what was going on, except their own 
 
 [ 95 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 danger. But the behaviour of the Prussians 
 toward the inhabitants is represented as abom- 
 inable, nothing but insolence, violence, and 
 rapine. They threatened to kill our guide's 
 father, an old man about seventy years of age, 
 for not giving them what he had not to give. 
 This guide was a man whose coimtenance, 
 manner, and gestures were singularly impres- 
 sive. His exclamations of astonishment at the 
 courage of the allies were as passionate as they 
 were frequent. " All fought well," he said. 
 " The French were like mad dogs ; they raved 
 and even foamed with fury when they were told 
 to remember Jena and Wagram. The allies all 
 fought well ; and the English I O mon Dieu I 
 how they fought ! but especially the Scotchmen, 
 those men without breeches, had it not been 
 for them Mont St. Jean would have been 
 burnt!" To him it was evident that the preser- 
 vation of Mont St. Jean was the great object of 
 the victory. He was very angry that Waterloo 
 should give name to the battle. " Call it Hou- 
 gomont," he said ; " call it La Belle Alliance, 
 or La Haye Sainte, or Papelot, or Mont St. 
 Jean, anything but Waterloo ! " " When I 
 [ 96 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 told him that I would give it its proper name 
 in England, he seemed perfectly delighted, and 
 again and again entreated me to remember this 
 promise, and set the people in England right. 
 Misnamed the battle certainly has been ; but 
 Waterloo is a word so well suited to English 
 ears that it must needs prevail. 
 
 A wounded Frenchman, who was placed 
 under the surgeon's care at Mont St. Jean, had 
 his arm amputated ; as soon as the operation 
 was over he asked for the arm, and taking the 
 dead hand in the living one, waved it over his 
 head and cried, " Vive Napoleon ! " When the 
 Guide told us this anecdote, he said he would 
 have killed him if he had been present, for 
 such a man was not fit to live. I was silent 
 at this, knowing that if I attempted in my 
 villainous French to modify his zeal, I should 
 only have disturbed a just and natural feeling. 
 For the feelings of this honest Brabanter were 
 all straightforward; he took them as they 
 came, and troubled himself with none of those 
 sophistries which make the worse appear the 
 better reason ; the road from his heart to his 
 lips was short, and on a right line. More than 
 C 97 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 once he exclaimed about the blood which had 
 been shed, crying out, " And all for one man ! 
 ce coquin / " very anxious he was to be 
 assured that we had the tyrant safe , but he 
 repeatedly said it would have been better to 
 have put him to death; that this ought to 
 have been done, and that he himself would 
 gladly, with his own hand, have performed 
 that act of justice. And then he told us how 
 his house had been filled with wounded men ; 
 that it was nothing but sawing off legs, and 
 sawing off arms, " mon Dieuf and all 
 for one man ! Why did not you put him to 
 death?" In this proper feeling it always 
 ended. It was eight days before all the 
 wounded were removed to Brussels. 
 
 I was glad to hear him speak with enthusi- 
 asm of the Prince of Orange, whose wound has 
 been worth something, and has given him a 
 place in the opinion of the people which may 
 in no slight degree tend to establish an inse- 
 cure crown. But mischievous spirits are at 
 work here. The people here asked us if it were 
 true that there was to be no more Mass. We 
 assured them that this was an abominable 
 [ 98 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 falsehood, circulated for wicked purposes, and 
 that the intention was for every man to wor- 
 ship in his own way, leaving the old estab- 
 lished religion of the country untouched. They 
 believed us, and said that this was as it ought 
 to be. They were not French, they said ; they 
 never had been French ; they were Brabant- 
 ers ; and now they belonged to Holland. No, 
 I replied, you do not belong to Holland, Hol- 
 land rather belongs to you ; for the seat of 
 Government is with you, and you are the 
 richer and better part. Singly you were each 
 too weak ; together you will be strong enough 
 to stand. They observed that they were more 
 English than French; I answered that they 
 and the English were children of one stock ; 
 nations of the same family, who by inclination 
 and interest ought to be allies and friends. 
 This conversation past while we were cross- 
 ing the open fields from Hougomont to La 
 Belle Alliance, whither the two carriages had 
 proceeded along the high-road. 
 
 La Belle Alliance, where Bliicher and the 
 Duke of Wellington met after the victory, is 
 a poor farmhouse, almost as much worse than 
 
 [ W ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 La Haye Sainte as that dwelling of a sub- 
 stantial yeoman is inferior to the Chateau de 
 Hougomont. Since the action it has been 
 converted into a public house, the owners hav- 
 ing wisely profited by the opportunity which 
 Fortune offered them. On the Sunday before 
 our visit, the Emperor Alexander dined there, 
 and threw Napoleons among the people, 
 whereby he purchased much popularity at small 
 cost. The woman of the house was near the 
 hour of her delivery, when the approach of 
 the two armies drove her into the woods ; she 
 has since had twins. There is a well behind 
 the house ; twice I dropt stones into it, and 
 each time distinctly counted twelve before the 
 sound reached the water. The water is said 
 to be good; but it was not clear enough in 
 the bucket for me to be induced to taste it. 
 Behind the wall, near a ruined outhouse, a 
 Frenchman is buried in a dimghiU, and the 
 bone of one leg with the shoe on is lying 
 above ground, as if it had been carried off by 
 the shot which killed him, and left out when 
 he was buried, either from negligence, or per- 
 haps as a sight! Here we had bread and 
 [ 100 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 cheese, wine and fruit. The cheese, called 
 Bullets from their size and shape, rich and 
 good, tho' very odorous and strong. From 
 hence to Genap is two short leagues, over an 
 open and uninteresting country. We past by 
 the remains of a few houses which it was said 
 the enemy had burnt in their retreat. Burnt 
 the houses certainly had been, but the French 
 when they retreated were in too much haste 
 to lose any time in making bonfires by the 
 way. The mischief had probably been done 
 before the action. 
 
 Genap is a poor town, about the size of 
 Keswick. We were in an Inn called Le Roy 
 d'Espagne, from which appellation it may be 
 inferred that the house was an Inn before 
 the Succession War. But whatever may be 
 its age, it has now become a memorable place. 
 Wellington had his headquarters here on the 
 17th, Buonaparte on the 18th, Bliicher on the 
 19th. And to this house it was that the Duke 
 of Brunswick's body was brought, and laid on 
 a table in the room opposite to that which we 
 occupied. They told us that the Duke of Wel- 
 lington embraced the body, which is not very 
 
 [ 101 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 likely, and that he wept over it and called 
 the Duke his friend and his brother in arms. 
 But these things are not according to the Eng- 
 lish character nor to that of the individual. 
 The Brunswick oJBficers knelt round the body, 
 and vowed vengeance. General Duhesme was 
 cut down by a Brunswicker at the Inn-door, 
 where the sabre has left some of its marks on 
 the side posts, and the blood-stains are not 
 yet effaced. For fuller justice, the stroke 
 should have come from a Catalan hand. It 
 was in this town, too, that the Comte de Loban, 
 General Mouton, became a lost mutton. 
 There are bullet-holes over our parlour fire- 
 place, in our bedroom cieling, and thro ' our 
 bedroom door. The Prussians were not in 
 a humour that night for making prisoners ; and 
 there had been fighting in the houses as well 
 as in the street. 
 
 The Inn is much better than would be found 
 in England in so mean and inconsiderable a 
 place. We had a comfortable wood fire. Here 
 I should think coal must be the cheaper fuel ; 
 but there is probably a prejudice against it, or 
 a pride in using the cleaner materials, as there 
 [ 102 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 long continued to be in London. The kitchen 
 range was peculiar and excellently convenient. 
 A round brazen stone holds the fire nearly in 
 the middle of the room ; and the funnel, which 
 conmiunicates with the wall, is broad enough 
 for large dishes to stand on, along its whole 
 length, and has under it in one place a sort of 
 square oven, or cupboard, suspended, for what 
 is here called roasting. The fireplace in the 
 bedroom was unlike anything I had seen of the 
 kind ; it is circular and concave, like an oven, 
 and at the bottom of this circle is a small, 
 square grate with perpendicular bars. Our 
 sitting-room is papered with a French paper, 
 containing little landscapes in good taste, and 
 a very rich border. The lower part was cov- 
 ered with a singular pattern, of tea and coffee 
 services set out upon a table. 
 
 Wednesday f 4 Oct. 
 
 W E had a dismal night ; not from the re- 
 collections of the day, or the feelings which 
 the house itself excited with its buUet-holes 
 and blood-stains, and marks of the sabre, 
 we were fatigued enough to have slept soundly 
 [ 103 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 in spite of all this. But all night long we 
 were disturbed by the almost continual passing 
 of heavy coal waggons, rattling like fire engines 
 in London, only with a slower and heavier 
 sound. The whole artillery of an army could 
 not more effectually have prevented sleep ; and 
 by way of lighter music in the intervals, we 
 had the cracking of the whips (every crack 
 loud as a pistol shot) of all the posts who 
 pass thro ' this town to or from Brussels. The 
 coachman told us yesterday that this was an 
 assez honne auherge ; but this morning he 
 asked us if we had slept? and then told us 
 that nobody ever slept at Genap ; it was im- 
 possible to sleep there, because of the coal 
 waggons and the posts. 
 
 There is a Raven in the yard here, fitfty years 
 old the first which Edith May had ever 
 seen, except in the air. The coachman tells 
 us we shall see one at Maestricht which has 
 been there an hundred and ten years. The 
 fellow here put his head thro ' the bars of 
 his house as if inviting me to caress him. I 
 scratched his head, much to his satisfaction 
 as it appeared, for about a minute ; and then 
 [ 104 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 the rascal made a stroke at my hand, which I 
 was lucky enough to avoid. 
 
 Mr. Nash and I walked thro' the town. In 
 one of the shops we saw the common mouse- 
 trap of the country, which is even simpler in 
 its construction than ours; flour is used as 
 the bait, and it is so placed that in getting at 
 it the mouse brings down a broad block of 
 wood which crushes him. I asked the price of 
 a showy handkerchief, intending to buy it as 
 a curiosity for good old Mrs. Wilson ; the wo- 
 man in the shop absurdly supposed that I 
 could not possibly mean to purchase it, and 
 therefore said that the price was ten francs, 
 the probable value being two ; so she disap- 
 pointed me, and lost a customer. 
 
 At the end of the town is the bridge where 
 Buonaparte was so long impeded in his flight ; 
 so insignificant a one it is that, but for this 
 circimistance, we should have past it with- 
 out notice, and perhaps hardly have known 
 that a bridge was there. The Dyle is a mere 
 ditch, the water being at this time scarcely 
 sole-deep, and the width not above ten or 
 twelve feet. We were told that the mills had 
 [ 106 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 now drawn off the water, and that it was full 
 at the time of the battle. But however full it 
 might be, it never could impede any men who 
 were flying for their lives, if they could find 
 the way to its banks. Some houses come close 
 to it, near the bridge, both on the right and 
 left, and thus it was that the difficulty was 
 occasioned. 
 
 The best point of view for this little town 
 is looking back upon it, a little while after 
 you have crost the bridge. Not that it is 
 anywhere picturesque, but being a memorable 
 place on other accounts, as well as for its rela- 
 tion with these late events, it is desirable that 
 we should have views of it; and in this 
 direction there is a church which comes in 
 weU. 
 
 A straight and uninteresting league of paved 
 road brought us to Les Quatre Bras, or what 
 in English we should call the Cross Koads. 
 This having been the scene of so severe a con- 
 test, I thought it worth while to copy what 
 the directing post bears, close to the house 
 into which the Duke of Brunswick was first 
 carried : 
 
 [ 106 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 3/4 de pt* ver St. Doules 
 2/4 de p* ver Genappe 
 2/4 de p*e ver Marbais 
 2/6 de p* ver Frasne 
 
 Tliis house is at the farthest comer, on the 
 right hand. Its owner, a fat and jolly Bra- 
 banter, kept close in the stable during the action, 
 tiU the balls came in so fast that he thought it 
 prudent to seek some safer place. This man re- 
 membered the last time the English were here, 
 and remembered it with some pride and plea- 
 sure ; for the Duke of York slept in this house, 
 upon the owner's bed, and gave him a louis 
 d'or for the inconvenience to which he had 
 been put. Nothing had been taken from him, 
 for the Duke's people brought their food, and 
 thus they left a good report behind them, 
 much better than the Prussians have left at 
 this time ; for here and at Genappe, heartily 
 as the French are hated, the Prussians are 
 spoken of with equal bitterness, ^perhaps with 
 more, because they came in the character of 
 friends, and acted as rapaciously as enemies. 
 
 We were told of a French Officer who would 
 have been taken prisoner here if he had not 
 C 107 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 provided himself with a white cockade in his 
 pocket, and attempted to put it on when for- 
 tune failed him on the three-coloured side : 
 when this was perceived he was cut down as a 
 fellow who was true to neither party ; a con- 
 clusion which, tho' natural enough in hot 
 blood, would but ill bear revision ; for it seems 
 much more probable that he was sincerely at- 
 tached to the Bourbon cause, and meant to 
 take the first opportunity of joining it. 
 
 Our jolly Brabanter expatiated in praise of 
 the Prince of Orange ; and here (as at Mont 
 St. Jean) his youth was accounted among his 
 merits so handsome he was and so brave ! 
 " Oh, he fought like a Devil on horseback." 
 But when he spoke of the Duke of Welling- 
 ton he said, " Sacre Dieu 1 What a man 
 is that I " and putting [his finger to his eye, 
 " He sees everywhere." Here, too, we found 
 the same disposition to claim afiinity with the 
 English. 
 
 The place where the Scotch suffered so se- 
 verely is just at the opposite comer, and there 
 are the most graves too hastily made. In one 
 the bare ribs of a skeleton were exposed ; dogs 
 [ 108 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 or swine I believe had opened it. Mrs. Var- 
 don's maid, Mary, and William, their man, 
 saw another in which the worms were at work ; 
 they wished to persuade themselves that it was 
 the body of a horse which had been thus negli- 
 gently covered ; for myself I turned away, not 
 chusing wilfully to look upon these loathsome 
 features of mortality. The Duke of Bruns- 
 wick fell a little in advance of these graves. 
 The rage, the absolute rabies^ of the French 
 in this action had made a deep impression 
 upon our friend; they curst the English 
 while they were fighting, and curst the pre- 
 cision with which their grape-shot were fired, 
 which, the man said, was neither too high nor 
 too low, but struck right in the middle. 
 
 The great Golgotha is opposite this man's 
 house. At the comer diagonally opposite to 
 his dwelling is a bam bearing many marks of 
 cannon-shot. Nothing was offered for sale 
 here; the Waterlooers not going beyond La 
 Belle Alliance. 
 
 Here we left the Charleroy road, and struck 
 to the left. Koster, Mr. Vardon, and I walked 
 on. Caps, shoes, etc., were lying by the way- 
 [ 109 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 side, and there were patches of bare earth 
 which we did not immediately recognise as so 
 many graves, common or solitary. One was 
 open, and the greater part of a skeleton ex- 
 posed; this seems to have excited a proper 
 feeling, and many of the nearest graves were 
 secured by heaps of stones from the animals 
 which had uncovered it. 
 
 The coimtry became more hilly and varied. 
 About three mUes from the Cross Roads, the 
 greater part having been a gradual ascent, we 
 came to a village, where from the Church 
 Tower Buonaparte, as we were informed, di- 
 rected the attack upon the Prussians. Here, 
 by advice of the peasants, we left the car- 
 riages which were to proceed to Sombref , and 
 wait for us at a house which they called Sa- 
 lade, imless that were the name of the person 
 who keeps it, one of the coachmen saying that 
 if we should not be satisfied with our enter- 
 tainment there, we might cut off his head. 
 
 The young man who now guided us had been 
 carried with his father before Buonaparte to 
 give intelligence. He led us to the village of 
 Brie or St. Brie, near which, according to his 
 
 [ no ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 account, the bloodiest part of the action had 
 been carried on, by the windmill of St. Amand. 
 Graves enough were visible to show that the 
 slaughter there had been very great ; and we 
 were told stories of the wounded, which in- 
 stead of repeating I would gladly, if it were 
 possible, forget. All the houses here were 
 filled with wounded, and there was no medical 
 aid. Many beggars beset us, but nothing was 
 offered for sale. Caps, shoes, and French 
 cards were lying about the ploughed fields; 
 for here as on the other scene of battle the 
 surface of the earth had lost all other traces 
 of the tragedy, almost, it might be said, as 
 compleatly and as soon as the sea loses all ves- 
 tiges of a tempest in which whole fleets are 
 wrecked. From St. Amand to Ligny is nearly 
 a mile, and the intermediate space, an open 
 field, is well manured with the dead. Accord- 
 ing to the guide's account the French lost more 
 than the Prussians ; and the carnage on both 
 sides was enormous. The rivulet, as it is called, 
 nms from St. Amand to Ligny ; it is too in- 
 significant a stream to have any name upon 
 the spot, tho' a stream it is. In many places 
 
 [ 111 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 a child might step across it, and I think it was 
 nowhere ancle-deep. But the battle was fought 
 in a wet season ; and the guide observed that 
 the Prussians might have derived some ad- 
 vantage from the water-course if they had be- 
 stowed a little labour in widening it. You cross 
 it by a bridge near the Castle, which, as you 
 advance in this direction, is at the extremity 
 of the village, on the right hand. The Castle 
 is a very picturesque object, with a moat and 
 bridge. It was in ruins before the battle, but 
 bears marks of having been fitted up as a resi- 
 dence some century ago, when the long avenue 
 was planted. In one of the older rooms there 
 is a circular opening in the middle, like the 
 mouth of a mattamore ; but this was the en- 
 trance of a dungeon. The court had been 
 converted into a farmyard, with substantial 
 buildings round it; the whole of these were 
 burnt during the conflict, and the live stock 
 perished in the flames ! In front of the village 
 on this side, which is to say at the back of 
 the street, are large quarries of granite, from 
 whence fine blocks used to be sent in great 
 quantities for the public buildings at Paris; 
 
 [ 112 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 many are now lying there for which there is 
 no market. A great many houses have been 
 burnt ; they are all built of stone, but unhap- 
 pily were covered with thatch. The people 
 here all agree that the Prussians would have 
 kept their ground if they had not been burnt 
 out. They were busily at work, at almost 
 every house, in repairing the mischief which 
 had been done. Ligny is a pretty village, and 
 before its disasters must have borne a general 
 appearance of substantial comfort. 
 
 We had walked a long while on a hot day, 
 and cast longing eyes upon the grapes and 
 pears which were growing against the houses 
 that had escaped destruction. Our guide, at 
 our desire, entered one, and requested that 
 the owner would have the kindness to sell a 
 little fruit to some strangers. We were im- 
 mediately invited in, and the mistress of the 
 house, an old lady, meanly drest, received us 
 in her kitchen, with a native politeness and 
 genuine hospitality which I cannot praise more 
 than it deserves. Grapes and pears were 
 brought, and coffee offered us. Her name 
 sounded like Le Brun, but even in our own 
 
 C 113 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 language it is not easy to ascertain names by 
 merely hearing them. Buonaparte had been 
 in her house after the battle, and she and her 
 family were in the cellar. Tho ' the house 
 had escaped, she had suffered greatly, Van- 
 damme, more siro, having pillaged the whole 
 place. This General, according to every ac- 
 count, is one of the vilest wretches in the 
 French army. The Prussians are not disliked 
 here, for an obvious reason : their behaviour 
 in action had excited admiration, and their 
 sufferings had excited compassion ; their de- 
 portment in peace there had been no oppor- 
 tunity of observing. The French were cor- 
 dially execrated, and Buonaparte was spoken 
 of as the worst of criminals. Our guide won- 
 dered and regretted that he had not been put 
 to death, and declared that he would willingly 
 kill him with his own hand. I am fully per- 
 suaded that the execution of that Tyrant woidd 
 have been the most useful act of justice that 
 ever was performed. 
 
 In this kitchen where we were so hospitably 
 entertained, all payment in any shape being 
 refused, fire-balls were used, composed of 
 [ 114 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 clay and finely pounded coal. The common 
 dress of the men is a short blue smock frock, 
 girt roimd the waist j it is clean and commodi- 
 ous, and looks well. 
 
 Our Guide asked the same questions as his 
 predecessor concerning the state of religion 
 under the new government, and expressed 
 great confidence in the young Prince because 
 he had lived so much in England, a country 
 of which the people here evidently think as 
 they ought to do. Everything, he said, had 
 been reviving here, before Buonaparte returned 
 from Elbe. His father had taken the barriere 
 at that time, and now, when everything was at 
 a stand, the Government in consideration had 
 remitted a quarter's payment, and he had no 
 doubt this indidgence would be extended if 
 the times did not mend. He spoke very reason- 
 ably of the loss which had been sustained ; it 
 fell heavy where it fell ; but it had only been 
 partial. The greater part of the coxmtry had 
 not suffered anything; and if an additional 
 contribution were levied upon the whole de- 
 partment to relieve the sufferers, it would fall 
 lightly upon all. 
 
 C 115 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 "We were told that the Prussians call Bliicher 
 Le Guidon^ the Banner, because he is always 
 at their head, and in the hottest fire. 
 
 Wells are numerous here, and indeed all 
 the way from Brussels ; their number is a sure 
 indication of wealth; they would not be so 
 frequent and so near each other, unless the 
 inhabitants could well afford to sink them. 
 
 We walked across the fields to Sombref, 
 about a mile and a half, half an hour's walk 
 at a brisk Lady's pace, following the course 
 of the brook. We went thro' the village, 
 and on a hill on the other side came to the 
 miberge^ which was kept by the niece of the 
 old Lady to whom we felt ourselves so much 
 obliged. The mistress was a newly married 
 woman, of seven or eight and twenty, of strik- 
 ing countenance and manners. Such a viUage 
 in England would have afforded nothing better 
 than alehouse fare. The house here was not 
 better than a respectable alehouse, but it sup- 
 plied us with a good dinner, good wine (bet- 
 ter, indeed, than we had foimd at Brussels), 
 and a good dessert. For this, however, we were 
 charged dearly fifty-four francs. We were 
 
 [ 116 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 nine in number, besides two servants and two 
 guides. Everywhere abroad Englishmen are 
 made to pay for the wealth of their country, 
 and here we fared so well, and were served 
 with such cheerful alacrity, that we were not 
 disposed to complain. 
 
 Proceeding towards Namur, we past a very 
 large waggon made of basket-work. Saint boxes 
 are frequent in this country ; I call them so 
 because they are shaped like watch boxes. The 
 Saint is generally a little doll in a niche, be- 
 hind a glass and a grate. The field pigs which 
 we have seen are lean and lank as greyhounds, 
 miserable-looking wretches. Considering how 
 easily pigs are fed, it is difficult to understand 
 how these people contrive to starve them, 
 unless they themselves eat what would go to 
 the pigs in England. 
 
 Beyond Sombref there is a fine chateau to 
 the right, seated among woods, with a stream 
 at the bottom, but too far from the road to be 
 seen distinctly. A pretty village lies on the 
 road, where this stream crosses it, and close 
 by the bridge is a Chateau on the left, with 
 fine grounds. The female inhabitants were at 
 
 [ 117 ]
 
 J O U K N A li 
 
 the windows, looking at us with as much curi- 
 osity as we felt towards them. 
 
 Evening closed in before we reached Namur, 
 and thus we lost the approach to that city. 
 The lamps here are suspended across to the 
 street, according to the French custom. After 
 driving thro ' streets of no very inviting 
 appearance, we stopt at the Hotel d'Hars- 
 camp. The outside is the gable end of a large 
 house without windows, and the gates were 
 shut ; this had a doleful appearance while 
 the questions respecting beds were going on ; 
 the conference, however, ended in having the 
 gates opened, and we then drove thrb ' one 
 large court into another. There was only light 
 enough for seeing a church tower close at 
 hand, which had a very picturesque appearance 
 in the obscurity. A boy waylaid me at the 
 door of the house and proffered his services 
 as a pimp, such are the manners of these 
 countries ! but if such offers were always 
 answered with an admonitory malediction by 
 foreigners, they would certainly not so fre- 
 quently be made. We were ushered into an 
 excellent room, the paper represented a 
 [ 118 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 landscape of the country, with quite a scenic 
 effect ; and as some person was singing in an 
 adjoining room, the intermediate door being 
 open, Edith May observed that it was like be- 
 ing at a play. The room has some singularly 
 handsome pieces of furniture, of the wood 
 which they call Acajou, and which resembles 
 the very finest mahogany, with white marble 
 tops. A carpet cloth for the table, and the 
 room itself was carpeted, the only one which 
 we foimd thus covered during our whole jour- 
 ney. 
 
 Thursday, 5 Oct. 
 
 JLhis house had been the residence of a 
 Lady of rank and large possessions, who be- 
 queathed it to some charitable institution, and 
 by that institution it is let for an Hotel. The 
 house is a fine one twenty-five stairs in one 
 flight lead to the first floor, twenty-three to 
 the second. The court which we first entered 
 is full of orange-trees and other ornamental 
 shrubs, having nasturcians between them, 
 which are now in profuse blossom, hanging 
 from vase to vase. There is a canary bird hero 
 
 [ 119 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 so tame that it flies about the court, and goes 
 about on the head of one of the waiters, and 
 pitches familiarly upon any person's shoulder ; 
 thus it did to Edith May, and thus we were 
 told it had done to the Duke of Wellington, 
 who was exceedingly pleased at this mark of 
 confidence. 
 
 The wash-hand-basons here are called dishes, 
 and we had proof that they are used for both 
 purposes ; one of the Ladies asking for a second 
 bason was told that the sallad should be taken 
 out of it for her. The same sort of beds we 
 have found everywhere, except at Bruges. 
 They are placed against the wall sideways, 
 and a half circle of iron is fixed in the wall 
 at a great height for the curtains. The bed- 
 room floors are uncarpeted and unclean ; the 
 doors and locks everywhere clumsy, almost as 
 clumsy as in Portugal. We were annoyed all 
 night by the clocks and church bells ; the nine 
 o'clock bell seemed close at our ears, and a 
 more dolorous sound I never remember to 
 have heard. I told the waiter in the morning 
 that this cloches was a bad neighbour ; and he 
 smiled and agreed with me. 
 [ 120 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 Before the rest of the party made their ap- 
 pearance, one of our coachmen led me to the 
 bridge, as if impatient that I should see some 
 of the fine parts of the city. There is a 
 bridge over the Sambre, some fifty yards above 
 the point where it falls into the Meuse; here, 
 looking up the river, the view is most singu- 
 lar. It is confined for some distance between 
 the back part of some old streets, and from 
 every house an apparatus for fishing was sus- 
 pended, such as we saw at Ostend and at Brus- 
 sels. A mill of some kind stretches half across 
 the stream ; and farther, on the left, are the 
 heights with the ruins of the Castle. My 
 guide, leaving those ruins for a second visit 
 when the whole party should be collected, took 
 me round the heights on the town side to the 
 walk by the Meuse, and the bridge ; a less 
 singular but much finer view; the heights, 
 the ruins, and the course of the river beyond, 
 between gardens and villas, forming a pros- 
 pect of extraordinary richness and beauty. 
 He told me that some of those gardens were 
 places where parties went in summer. 
 
 After breakfast we took a Commissionaire 
 [ 121 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 as they call the porters and lacquies in this 
 country, and he led us up the heights, on the 
 side of the Sambre, under the ruins of the 
 Castle. Thence we had an admirable view of 
 the junction of the rivers, the city, and the 
 vale down which the Sambre flows. Having 
 reached the summit, we had then a view of 
 the bridge and the Meuse. The rich autumnal 
 tints of the wild part of the landscape inmie- 
 diately on the right (towards Dinant) blended 
 most beautifully with the darker green of the 
 cultivated groves and gardens, which reached 
 to the skirts of this unreclaimed ground. The 
 heights on which we stood, with a river on both 
 sides, reminded us a little of Durham ; the 
 Meuse above the bridge, a little of the Thames 
 at Richmond, tho ' it wanted (especially on 
 the farther bank) the luxuriant foliage which 
 makes the view from Richmond Hill unequalled 
 in its kind. An islet in the Meuse much re- 
 sembles that in the Thames which fronts you 
 from Richmond HUl, and on which I have so 
 often wished to see a grove of poplars, as the 
 only improvement (and a very great one it 
 would be) of which that scene is capable. 
 
 [ 122 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 We returned along the summit thro' the 
 ruins, where an artist might find employment 
 for many days. This must certainly have 
 been one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. 
 There is a large open cistern, which seems to 
 have been formed by blowing up the rock, 
 and thus enlarging a natural hollow : you de- 
 scend by some fifteen or twenty steps ; the 
 water is green, and probably has no other 
 source than the ruins. How different from 
 that delightful mountain cistern of the purest 
 water, in the Moorish Castle at Cintra. A 
 few habitations have been run up among the 
 ruins. The excavations, arches, walls, towers, 
 and frequent steps make this a most pictur- 
 esque place. But in descending into the town 
 there was work for the scavenger as well as 
 the artist ; all the perfumes of Arabia could 
 not have prevailed over the stench which pro- 
 ceeded from its defilements. 
 
 I should think this fortress could only have 
 been reduced by famine. 
 
 This is the first place which we have seen 
 in a fine situation ; but the situation and the 
 ruins are all that Namur can boast. The City 
 [ 123 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 itself is without beauty of any kind. The 
 Low Country stile of building does not extend 
 so far, the houses are totally unornamented, 
 and the Churches have neither the charm of 
 antiquity nor of magnificence. It is a manu- 
 facturing town, chiefly of cutlery, and of 
 course both the place and the people are 
 dirty. I bought " Valentine and Orson," and 
 " Les Quatre Fils d'Aymon," both printed at 
 Lisle in close type and on coarse paper, for 
 popular sale. Here and at Brussels a deer's 
 foot is sometimes used as the handle of a bell ; 
 and the Apothecaries have usually a stag's 
 horns over their door. 
 
 We left Namur by the direct road to France, 
 over the bridge ; but presently turned to the 
 left, eastward, and kept along the banks of 
 the river. The road for six leagues to Huy is 
 one of the most beautiful that I ever trav- 
 elled ; that from Longtown to Langholme is 
 not more so ; that from Ambleside to Kes- 
 wick, scarcely, if at all. It is foolish to com- 
 pare things so different, and yet the folly is so 
 natural that I am as prone to it as if I did 
 not know it to be foolish. The Meuse in its 
 [ 124 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 ordinary width seems something wider than 
 the Thames at Richmond, but it varies more 
 both in breadth and depth. At Namur we 
 saw a horse in the middle of the river, towing 
 a vessel against the stream, and the barge 
 which plies with passengers from that city to 
 Liege is in like manner drawn in the water, 
 where the course of the road or of the stream 
 does not allow the animal to perform his work 
 on dry ground. A second beast was on board 
 to relieve its comrade ; for it is severe work, 
 and we were told that the animals thus em- 
 ployed were soon worn out. It is difficult 
 work also for the rider, for the bed of the 
 river is full of holes, and therefore great skill 
 and great experience are necessary for the 
 dangerous task of driving. This is the reason 
 why only one horse is used, even in drawing 
 against the stream ; tho' four are allowed to 
 the Trekschuits on the Flemish canals. It 
 may be hoped for mercy's sake that steam- 
 boats will soon be introduced here. 
 
 The road lies along the right bank, under 
 rocks which from the number of kilns I sup- 
 pose to be limestone. The villages are very 
 [ 125 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 numerous and mostly very beautiful. The 
 crags are sufficiently high for a painter, and 
 more varied in their forms than any which I 
 can remember to have seen elsewhere. In 
 some places they jutted out like buttresses, 
 in others rose like spires and pinnacles and 
 the chimneys of ruined buildings. They were 
 most richly adorned with brushwood, and with 
 a small-leaved ivy, and with another creeper 
 which I believe is the nightshade. The views 
 of Namur were strikingly picturesque, and 
 they varied every minute till we lost sight of 
 it. Perhaps the finest is between two and 
 three miles off, where the city appears behind 
 a bend of the Meuse, and that fine river forms 
 the foreground. Some houses were pointed 
 out to us on the left bank, which were partly 
 excavated in the rock, one remarkable one 
 with hanging gardens, where there was an 
 archway under one of the terraces, leading 
 into the excavations, and in that archway a 
 cascade. 
 
 Many Prussian troops passed us. The 
 coachman seldom failed to say " more thieves " 
 when he saw them coming. The Gendarmes 
 C 126 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 are not in better repute ; honest as a Gerh- 
 darme is the worst that can be said of a man. 
 The Prussian waggons usually carried a spare 
 wheel in case of accidents. They embargo 
 the carts of the country without ceremony 
 and without compensation. 
 
 We halted at Ardenne, a place once famous 
 for its convent of female Canons, the most 
 aristocratic estabUshment of its kind. It was 
 near a fabric of coarse porcelain that the horses 
 baited, and we drank the only bottle of wine 
 which the house could supply, wishing there 
 had been more, for it was good. We had 
 brought fruit with us, and devoured bread and 
 butter and the excellent Limburg cheese, here 
 called Herve, which has the richness of Stilton 
 with the flavour of Gruyere. They brought us 
 Gruyere also, which we have seen everywhere, 
 and which, I conclude, is made everywhere, as 
 being the most approved kind. Many people 
 were employed m making fire-balls ; they trod 
 the miicture, and the balls were drying by the 
 roadside. 
 
 We were now entering upon a land of vine- 
 yards. The approach to Huy is imcommonly 
 [ 127 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 striking, a handsome and very large old 
 church on the right bank, with hanging gar- 
 dens near it, and a high hill impending above ; 
 a bridge of several arches over the Meuse, and 
 on the other side gardens and old brick build- 
 ings, apparently convents, coming so close to 
 the water as to produce somewhat of the effect 
 of Hindoo scenery, such as it appears in prints. 
 Having secured quarters in the best auberge 
 the place afforded, we crost the bridge, and 
 endeavoured to reach the river side, above the 
 town, that we might get a good view of the 
 bridge and the church. But we found our- 
 selves in a labyrinth of narrow lanes between 
 high walls, and among buildings in various 
 stages of decay and ruin, the work of the revo- 
 lution. Huy itself is full of manufacturers, 
 but this suburb, which had been the residence 
 of the Religioners and the wealthy, is now 
 a complete Necropolis, a place of desolation, a 
 deserted city. I never saw anything like it, 
 anything that impressed me so mournfully, 
 the desolation being recent enough to pro- 
 duce this effect. In one church, which seemed 
 to be entirely forsaken, were many old monu- 
 
 C 128 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 ments built into the outer wall, with rude bas- 
 reliefs, and inscriptions, mostly of the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Mr. Vardon and Edith, having advanced a 
 little before us, looked into the courtyard of a 
 large building, which proved to be inhabited ; 
 and they were met by two gentlemen. Mr. 
 V. asked if it were a public building, and was 
 answered by one of them with some hauteur 
 that it was his house. Mr. V. then begged his 
 pardon, and apologised for having trespassed, 
 saying he was a stranger. The gentleman 
 upon this demanded in the same offended 
 manner if they were Germans? Being told 
 that we were English, his tone inunediately 
 changed, and he invited us in. By this time 
 we were come up. The person with whom we 
 thus had fallen in was a man rather above the 
 middle stature, thin, pale, and with a melan- 
 choly countenance ; grey eyes with a slight 
 cast, which was not perceptible at first sight, 
 and a few marks of the smallpox. His age 
 was forty-five, and his name as written by 
 himself in my journal in a remarkably strong, 
 legible hand, F. J. Onwerx. He is a native 
 
 C 129 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 of Liege. He introduced us into a room fur- 
 nished with good French prints, and with some 
 French books lying about it. In an instant 
 he uncorked two bottles of white wine, which 
 he called Comet, of the vintage of 1811, upon 
 which the comet was supposed to have pro- 
 duced a beneficial effect. "We assured him 
 that tho' it was five o'clock we had not dined, 
 and that dinner was then preparing for us at 
 the inn, but excuses were of no avail : a 
 brimming glass for each was poured out and 
 drank ; it was scarcely swallowed before the 
 bumpers were replenished, and pressed upon 
 us, as if this form of hospitality were necessary 
 toward persons of our country ; we could not 
 refuse without the probability of appearing 
 discourteous, and thus Ladies and aU were 
 obliged to drink a second and a third bumper, 
 emptying both bottles. 
 
 M. Onwerx then led us into his garden, a 
 beautiful spot extending to the river, where the 
 bank was walled. There was a frankness and 
 a decided manly manner about him which were 
 very interesting. He told us that he had been 
 a widower fifteen years, and that there was no 
 [ 130 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 happiness in this world for him. Having been 
 bom and bred in a Catholic country, the dis- 
 gust with which that system of villainous and 
 impudent imposture filled him has fatally made 
 him regard everything beyond this world as 
 doubtful. He spoke with bitter severity of 
 the Prussians, and said they were worse than 
 the French : he had offered money to be ex- 
 empted from having soldiers quartered upon 
 him ; they had taken it, and quartered men 
 upon him nevertheless. And those men had 
 plundered without mercy or shame, even to 
 drawing out screws from the floor. He exe- 
 crated Buonaparte, who had been there, in this 
 house, and had treated him with insolence ; but 
 he added, " I am not a man to crouch before 
 him, and I answered him manfully." This his 
 companion, who was a much older man, told us 
 also, and said that Buonaparte altered his man- 
 ner when he discovered the character of the 
 person with whom he was speaking. He com- 
 plained of the manner in which his country 
 had been treated : they had been a free and 
 an independent and a happy people, he said, 
 and they were transferred now to a foreigner, 
 
 [ 131 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 like so many cattle. The policy of England, 
 he said, was horrible : not because it had made 
 these countries a province of England, but be- 
 cause we had let Buonaparte loose from Elba. 
 We perceived that the treaty of Paris was too 
 advantageous for France ; that in a few years 
 she would rival our manufactures, or exceed 
 them, and become dangerous, if not too powerful 
 for us ; and therefore we had let this ferocious 
 beast loose. Miserably as I express myself in 
 French, I endeavoured to show him how impos- 
 sible this was ; but the most solemn assevera- 
 tions could make no impression upon him, so 
 thoroughly was he persuaded of the absurd no- 
 tion ; and I was really sorry for this, finding 
 him a man of strong feeling and strong sense. 
 
 M. Onwerx has two daughters, whom we 
 did not see. The firing at Waterloo, he told 
 us, was heard distinctly here, and made the 
 house shake. This might easily be; but he 
 added, what is very remarkable, that a friend 
 whose veracity he could not doubt, assured him 
 it had in like manner been perceived at Amiens, 
 forty-three leagues from the field. 
 
 He promised to call on us to-morrow after 
 
 C 132 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 breakfast, and walk with us to a beautiful place 
 up the little river Hoyoux, where his father- 
 in-law, M. Delloye, had a manufactory oifer- 
 blanc, which I suppose is tin. He himself 
 manufactures soap, and, I believe, paper. 
 
 Our inn is curiously situated, being literally 
 upon the Hoyoux, which runs imder the court- 
 yard, and presently passes under an odd bridge 
 of one arch ; the arch of course is true, but the 
 ascent is so steep, continuing up to the bridge, 
 that for more than half the way it is by a flight 
 of steps. A few yards only beyond, this little 
 river falls into the Meuse, close by the bridge. 
 The fireplace in oui* apartment is a singular 
 one ; a perpendicular grate, with flues to the 
 right and left, a broad marble slab over it, and 
 over this an oval window looking to the bridge, 
 the flues passing on both sides of the window. 
 This was more beautiful than convenient, for 
 the chimney smoked. The frame of the fire- 
 place is brass, above it a line of tiles, and then 
 the broad marble chimney-piece. 
 
 The women here carry a basket with a back 
 like that of a chair, but made of close wicker- 
 work. The back rises above the bearer's head, 
 
 [ 133 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 who carries it back to back. The basket is 
 something in this shape, ^, so that when the 
 lower part is full, vegetables or whatever else 
 it contains may be piled up to a great height, 
 the bearer naturally stooping in proportion to 
 the weight of the load. It is supported by a 
 strap across the shoulders. This basket is so 
 convenient for those who, like Issachar, bow 
 their shoulders to bear, that it is used far and 
 wide over the continent. 
 
 We are at the best of two Inns, the sign of 
 the Helmet, but Huy is a place at which few 
 travellers stop, the distance between Namur 
 and Liege being but a short journey. We 
 found, however, good fare, good wine, and very 
 civil treatment. 
 
 Friday, 6 Oct. 
 
 v/UR rest was disturbed by various noises. A 
 horseman stopt at the door after midnight, and 
 he and his horse, the one calling and the other 
 stamping, as if the horse understood and sec- 
 onded the impatience of the rider, reminded 
 me of the Ghost on horseback in the ballad of 
 Lenore. Prussian troops also were marching 
 [ 134 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 thro' ; among them I saw some lancers in the 
 morning, with little red flags near the lance 
 point. The church bells were very loud, fre- 
 quent, and troublesome ; this annoyance alone 
 would have told us that we were in a Catholic 
 country. Pewter is in use here for the wash- 
 cum-sallad hasons, and for certain other uten- 
 sils. I slept under a patchwork quilt ; this 
 sort of industrious economy is probably found 
 wherever printed calicoes are worn. 
 
 They brought us grapes and Gruyere cheese 
 at breakfast. The butter was marked with the 
 I. H. S., a mark of devotion I believe, not 
 the initials of the vendor. M. Onwerx called 
 at the time appointed, and took us first to the 
 Church, under an arch which has some curi- 
 ous old sculpture representing the Nativity. 
 The great tower, having been much injured to- 
 wards the bottom by lightning a few years ago, 
 was propt, while the lower part was repaired, 
 and in fact rebuilt, a work of extraordinary 
 skill. This induced me to tell him of Mr. 
 Edgeworth's exploit, who built a cast-iron 
 steeple on the ground, and raised it in one 
 piece. I found the names of Edgeworth and 
 C 135 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 his daughter well known, and their connection 
 with Switzerland. 
 
 The part of the town thro' which we past 
 is very picturesque from the number of bridges 
 and ruins ; the latter are more probably the 
 work of revolution than of war, tho' of war 
 Huy in former times has had its full share. 
 M. Delloyes' house is about three miles dis- 
 tant, up the valley, and a more truly delicious 
 valley (could all vestiges of manufactures be 
 removed) I have seldom seen. Beautiful it 
 must indeed be to obtain this praise from one 
 who resides at Keswick and has past a sum- 
 mer at Cintra. The hills on either side I guess 
 to be about as high as the Hatteril Hills (or 
 Black Mountain) at Lautony. A few years 
 ago they were clothed with wood, but the 
 forges have stript them. However, the im- 
 derwood is springing up, and the valley is so 
 rich that we scarcely felt the devastation of 
 the hills as an injury. There are many com- 
 fortable cottages, which M. Onwerx with evi- 
 dent pleasure told us belonged to little land- 
 holders. The vale is beautifully green ; it 
 abounds with orchards ; large walnut and horse- 
 [ 136 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 chestnut trees are growing in the fields ; and 
 the little river, before it reaches the works 
 which block and defile the latter part of its 
 channel, reminded me of our Cumberland 
 streams in the quiet part of their course, 
 where they flow along level ground. The vale, 
 he said, continued thus beautiful for some 
 twelve miles to its head. The waiter at the 
 inn had told us that the sources of the river 
 at that distance were well worth visiting. 
 
 The mother-in-law of M. Onwerx had been 
 educated in an English Nunnery at Liege, but 
 long disuse had made her unwilling or unable 
 to speak English, tho' she still understood it. 
 They gave us cakes and Muscat wine. The 
 house had all marks of comfort and elegance 
 and opulence about it; none of ostentation. 
 The garden was well laid out ; that is, nothing 
 had been done there to injure nature. A round 
 basin of water, with a spouting fountain in 
 the middle, is not to be complained of ; they 
 who object to the sight of art thus poorly and 
 feebly employed may look another way, and 
 be pleased with the soimd. 
 
 M. Delloyes' works are upon a great scale. 
 [ 137 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 I was asked if we had any wheels so large in 
 England ; and these were large enough to jus- 
 tify the question from one who had never been 
 there. This is the first manufactory of tin 
 which was established in these parts, and Buo- 
 naparte had given money towards setting it 
 up. The rest of the family I found had none 
 of that just and well-founded detestation of 
 this tyrant which M. Onwerx exprest. One 
 of the Ladies was silent when I said that he 
 ought to have been put to death ; another ob- 
 served to Mrs. Vardon that he had done much 
 good as well as much evil. 
 
 The conversation which I had with M. On- 
 werx upon this walk was very interesting. 
 Liege, he said, had been a free country. The 
 Prince Bishop was elective ; it was a dignity 
 to which any man might aspire. There were 
 two and twenty towns in the Bishoprick, each 
 sending its deputy to preserve the charter of 
 their freedom, for such a charter they had, 
 like our Magna Charta, many centuries old. 
 He himself, if he had been aggrieved by the 
 Prince Bishop, might have brought an action 
 against him, and obtained redress. There were 
 
 [ 138 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 no delays of justice ; a cause was decided in 
 twenty-four hours, or in thirty-six at the far- 
 thest. Now, there was no such thing as justice. 
 Before the Revolution they had only been too 
 happy. He was a man who had entered into 
 the first feelings of the Revolution with all the 
 ardour of youth, and bitterly lamented its ex- 
 cesses and its consequences. What he now de- 
 sired was the restoration of the old system, that 
 is, that Liege should again be free and indepen- 
 dent under its old institutions ; for it was his 
 opinion that small states were those in which the 
 people had been happiest, and wherein there was 
 most encouragement for literature and the 
 arts. He admired the English, but adhered to 
 his persuasion that they had purposely let 
 Buonaparte loose, else, he said, why had not 
 the man been punished who suffered him to 
 escape? A dreadful vengeance, he thought, 
 would overtake the Prussians. They were retal- 
 iating what they had suffered, and this would 
 draw on more retaliation, evil producing evil. 
 But he did not disguise his hope that they 
 might be driven out of France. They had be- 
 haved with excessive insolence at M. Delloyes'. 
 [ 139 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 The best things which the house afforded had 
 been set before them, and they said the wine 
 might be good enough to wash their feet in, 
 but not to drink. 
 
 We parted with much good-will toward each 
 other, and having a copy of " Roderick," which 
 I meant to have carried to Manheim for my 
 Uncle's friend M. Osserwald, if we had pro- 
 ceeded so far, I left it with him. 
 
 We set off from Huy at noon, well pleased 
 with our adventures there, erost the bridge, 
 and proceeded along the left bank of the river. 
 More beautiful scenes than those of yesterday 
 had been promised us; they were less so, but still 
 it is a fine and interesting country. The views 
 of Huy are very striking, tho' inferior to those 
 on the other approach. Red cliffs the red- 
 dest I ever saw ; broken rocks, with creepers in 
 great luxuriance, and many picturesque build- 
 ings. The river frequently forms islands in its 
 course. The vale widened as we advanced, los- 
 ing thereby in beauty. We past almost under 
 a very remarkable chateau, a large square build- 
 ing upon the brow of a rock which is precipitous 
 on three sides, and the garden-wall appeared 
 [ 140 ]
 
 J O U R N A ly 
 
 as if it were on the very brink of the preci- 
 pice. At a village near we halted, and had 
 good bread, cheese, butter, and wine, all good 
 things, and which seem in these countries 
 everywhere to be good in their kind. Here and 
 everywhere we heard the same complaint of the 
 Prussians. Indeed, we saw something of their 
 insolence upon this stage ; for we met a party 
 of their soldiers, a carriage with two gentle- 
 men and ladies of the country had come up 
 with them, and these Prussians would not allow 
 them to drive by, but insisted upon their fol- 
 lowing patiently and waiting upon their foot 
 pace. 
 
 As we approached Liege we saw nothing 
 but filth and poverty, and the City itself pre- 
 sented nothing inviting in its appearance. The 
 Cathedral was destroyed by the Revolutionists, 
 in their brutal love of destruction. We had 
 been recommended from Namur to the Aigle 
 Noir, an Inn not in a good situation, and suf- 
 ficiently uninviting in its external. Some dis- 
 comfort was apprehended, and some discontent 
 exprest, when we were shown into the public 
 room, where there was one man at dinner, and 
 
 [ 141 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 a strong odour of tobacco. They told us we 
 should soon have the room to ourselves, and 
 that the folding-doors between it and the bar 
 should be shut to secure our privacy. Pre- 
 sently, however, another person came in to din- 
 ner. I saw now that the bar part of the room 
 would fall to our lot, and calling there for pen, 
 ink, and paper, sate down and wrote to John 
 May, while a woman servant washed the 
 hearth and made a fire for us. The chimney- 
 piece was tiled; the hearth tessellated with 
 little bricks about two inches long and half an 
 inch wide ; a brazen plate, like a waiter, on an 
 iron stem, was the screen. By the time I had 
 finished my letter the table was spread, and 
 we had an excellent dinner, with good wine. 
 
 Saturday, 7 Oct. 
 
 Jln all the inns we have found a want of 
 cleanhness in the bedroom floors and a want 
 of bedside carpets. Here we had cigars laid 
 upon the bedroom table being I suppose as 
 necessary for a German as his night-cap. 
 
 The windows in Liege and its vicinity are 
 mostly square and small. The city displays 
 
 [ 1^ ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 an appearance of activity and trade, tho' its 
 population has been diminished by the loss of 
 15,000 inhabitants since the revolution. It 
 still contains 50,000. In passing thro' the 
 suburbs yesterday we observed that a very 
 great number of the houses were to be let. 
 The Commissionaire who guided me when I 
 went to put my letter in the Post Office said 
 that Buonaparte has many partizans here. 
 The Post Office is inconveniently situated at 
 one end of the city instead of in the middle : 
 to avoid a long circuit in getting there we 
 crost the nearly dry channel of one of the 
 many branches with which the place is inter- 
 sected by the Meuse, a boat being laid across 
 the channel, and reaching from one bank to 
 the other, and for the use of this sort of 
 bridge a small copper coin was paid. Among 
 the signs I noticed that of the S. Esprit at a 
 cabaret : the Catholicks appear not to be sen- 
 sible of any irreverence in the use of such 
 names and symbols. Except at Bristol fair 
 I never saw so much gingerbread in any one 
 day as in going thro' this city ; it must surely 
 be commonly in use as food, not merely as 
 
 C 143 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 a luxury for children. The wetness of the 
 morning prevented our party from going over 
 this dirty city ; but we had driven thro' great 
 part of it the preceding evening, and my walk 
 to the Post Office showed me more. Beggars 
 have become more numerous since we entered 
 the Pais de Liege. There is neither Flemish 
 comfort here nor Flemish cleanliness : both 
 have been lessening all the way from Bruges, 
 and both have now disappeared. A few old 
 and poor persons wear very broad beaver hats, 
 the last remains of old costvune. The houses 
 about the place are generally of a deep red 
 colour. 
 
 One roguery I must notice, not as peculiar 
 to Liege, for we have observed it everywhere. 
 The bottles are manufactured in so rascally a 
 shape that the bulging bottom defrauds you 
 nearly of one third of what the bottle appears 
 to hold. 
 
 As we looked back upon Liege, the hop- 
 poles which were very numerous in the adjoin- 
 ing country, and were now pitched together as 
 thickly as the tents of an army, combined in 
 a most singular manner with the steeples. A 
 [ 144 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 mile or two off we crost the narrowest bridge 
 which I ever saw for carriages, over a stream, 
 which, coming from an opposite direction to 
 the Meuse, falls into it, close by this bridge. 
 From thence we ascended a very long, straight, 
 paved road, which was a tremendous pull for 
 the horses. The country here is beautiful, re- 
 minding me of the Monmouthshire scenery, 
 not in the mountainous but hilly parts of that 
 fine county; and the weather, tho' the rain 
 sometimes melted into mist and the mist some- 
 times dissolved in rain, did not materially ob- 
 scure the prospect at any time. Near the city 
 the roadside beggars were very numerous ; 
 one man, who was placed in a chair beside the 
 way to excite charity, gave me a painful idea 
 of the demoniacks in Scripture. Women 
 were threshing in the bam ; they use a flail 
 shorter than the English one, especially in the 
 striking part. A man was picking up manure 
 from the road, in a basket, a proof, at 
 least, that nothing is allowed to be lost here. 
 The road is for the most part hUly, and some- 
 times it passes over the first wastes or com- 
 mons that we have seen. 
 
 [ 145 J
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 We halted at Theux, at a wretched house, 
 where the only room in which we could be re- 
 ceived was wet. The floor was composed of 
 bricks, laid in large square pannels within a 
 black framing, no doubt, of that black mar- 
 ble for which this place is celebrated ; it is 
 said to be the finest in Europe, and to take a 
 polish as fine as glass. There were marks of 
 antiquity about the house ; some fragments 
 which had been built upon on the chimney 
 bore the date of 1592, and a fragment in the 
 yard that of 1565. "We had excellent bread 
 and butter here, and the fine Herve cheese 
 upon which we dined heartily and himgrily, not 
 knowing that we were scarcely six miles from 
 Spa. Going out of the town you come to a 
 building with this inscription, Wauxhall cham- 
 petre. About a quarter of a mile off is a 
 castle on the left, appearing like a square of 
 brick-work without any loopholes. It shows 
 well, with a brook and bridge and village in 
 the foreground, and we had seen it at a con- 
 siderable distance. The country all the way to 
 Spa is very pleasing, still of the tamer Mon- 
 mouthshire character, heights covered with 
 
 C 14 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 brushwood, and streams of clear water, much 
 that is soothing and picturesque, nothing that 
 approaches to sublimity. 
 
 We found at the Hotel de Prince d'Orange 
 all the accommodation to be expected at a 
 place of fashionable resort, a fine spacious 
 apartment, a chandelier in the middle, a noble 
 wood fire, tables with marble slabs, and old 
 screens of the oldest fashion, large and incon- 
 venient; the hearth tessellated as at Liege; 
 good beds, but here and everywhere else they 
 seem intended only for single persons, as if 
 married ones never slept together. 
 
 Sunday, 8 Oct. 
 
 J. ms is a little, quiet place, in that respect 
 resembling Tunbridge Wells. One of the 
 springs is in the town, and these verses have 
 been inscribed over it since the Prince of 
 Orange, who is here at present, arrived, 
 
 L'onvre mon sein salubre au fils de la patrie 
 t desire ardemment de prolonger sa vie. 
 
 There are three other springs. Two are at 
 
 the same place, about a mile and half from 
 
 [ 147 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 the town : both are strong chalybeates, tho' 
 one is stronger than the other, and in the 
 strongest you see bubbles rise. Close by the 
 otiier is a footstep cut in stone, some four or 
 five inches deep, with these words beside it, 
 he Pied de St. R. Not knowing who the 
 Saint might be, but not doubting that his 
 footstep had been imprinted there for some 
 good purpose, I enquired the meaning, and 
 was informed that Ladies who desired to be- 
 come fruitful were to set a foot in it, and 
 obtain their wish thro' the merits of St. Re- 
 made. Mrs. Vardon had already been trying 
 whether the footstep fitted her. Away I went 
 to Edith, led her there, and begged her to 
 set her foot in the impression, which my Gov- 
 erness did ; and when we told her the legend, 
 she declared that she never again would do 
 anything I desired. Koster also, before he 
 heard of the spell, tried his foot, and we had 
 much laughing about the consequences. He 
 had stood in the Saint's shoes, we said, but it 
 might not be so pleasant some time hence to 
 stand in his ; and we wished him well thro' it. 
 The third spring, which contains some sul- 
 [ 148 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 phur, is a mile and half from these, and at the 
 same distance from the town ; the woods about 
 this have not been cut down, and the place 
 is sequestered and beautiful. A poor woman 
 here presented a petition to us with a mourn- 
 ful story, which the people of the weU assured 
 us was true. She had offered it to the Prince's 
 attendants (for he comes every day to drink 
 this water), and they told her he had no money 
 and could give to no one. Mrs. Vardon ex- 
 plained to her that this was the answer of the 
 attendants, not of the Prince himself. It is 
 indeed his obvious policy to acquire all the 
 popularity he can, and popularity is always to 
 be cheaply bought by Princes ; a little money 
 goes a great way in purchasing it. If he does 
 not make hay while the sun shines, he will 
 never get in his harvest. 
 
 Spa has suffered much since the days before 
 the Revolution, when it was perhaps the 
 most fashionable place of resort in Europe. 
 The woods aU around it are gone, except the 
 small part by the sulphur spring. Eight years 
 ago one hundred and eighty houses were de- 
 stroyed by an accidental fire ; an inundation 
 
 [ 149 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 did further mischief, and last year the Prus- 
 sians bivouacqued here. The Master of our 
 hotel speaks English. His wife, who had 
 borne up against repeated calamities, died 
 about six weeks ago broken-hearted by mis- 
 fortunes. Their whole hopes had been upon 
 this season ; the return of Buonaparte from 
 Elba made her believe there would be no end 
 to their troubles, and she sunk imder them. 
 The poor man is in the deepest dejection, and 
 speaks of his children, especially of a babe 
 who is only a few months old, with great 
 feeling. 
 
 One of the Vauxhalls here has the whole 
 of the upper part cased in wood to preserve it 
 from the weather, a very large house in 
 a packing-case. The great ambition of the 
 boys seems to be to crack the whip, like the 
 postillions ; they were emulously practising it, 
 one feUow with so much exertion that he threw 
 himself down with the effort. We were sere- 
 naded here as at Brussels, and with good music 
 and singing. A blind woman came begging 
 into our room and told us she was the person 
 who had given occasion to Madame Genlis' 
 
 [ 150 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 story, a story which we were supposed to 
 know. She had been in England, she said, 
 where the Duchess of Devonshire introduced 
 her to the Prince of Wales, and he gave her two 
 guineas. She now subsisted upon the bounty 
 of the English, and kept a little orphan girl 
 to guide her about. Crayfish are very abun- 
 dant here, a provoking sort of food, which 
 promises so much more than it affords. 
 
 Monday, 9 Oct. 
 
 J. 0-DAY there was a horse-race patronised by 
 the Prince. It was on the heights about a mile 
 and half from the town, and certainly there 
 never was worse racing; but the scene was 
 chearful, and^ the people seemed very happy 
 and thoroughly delighted, in spite of a pierc- 
 ing northeast wind. Blue was the predomi- 
 nant colour, the greater part of the spectators 
 being in their frocks. Next door to our hotel 
 is a large house, built for a gambling-house 
 and for dancing. We were invited to a ball 
 there, but did not go. A woman called for our 
 names, which we afterwards found were to be 
 printed in the list of visitors to Spa. House 
 
 C 151 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 rent is cheap here, a good one only from 
 two hundred to three hundred francs per 
 annum. 
 
 Here I bought Rennefort's Travels, which, 
 under the absurd title of " Histoire des Indes 
 Orientales," contains a great deal about Mad- 
 agascar, something about Brazil, and a few 
 curious notes concerning England. 
 
 The fruit and the wine appeared to have dis- 
 agreed with me here, as they did at Brussels. 
 The effect for a night and half a day was 
 violent ; and I think the Eau de Cologne, 
 which I took by Mrs. Vardon's advice, tended 
 to stop the complaint. But it was proper to 
 abstain from anything that might renew it; 
 which as my inclination for both had suffered 
 no abatement made me talk of describing my 
 situation at the dinner-table as the Temptation 
 of St. Robert. 
 
 Tuesday, 10 Oct. 
 
 Our coachmen dissuaded us from attempting 
 to reach Aix-la-ChapeUe in one day ; the dis- 
 tance, they said, was ten strong leagues, and 
 the road bad ; and they assured us that there 
 L 152 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 was a good Inn at Verviers, four leagues on 
 the way. 
 
 Owing to this advice, and to some misman- 
 agement about our linen, we did not start till 
 noon. We soon rolled over the good road back 
 as far as Theux, where being told that we had 
 plenty of day before us, we went up to examine 
 Franchimont Castle, which we had only seen 
 from the road. The place is often mentioned 
 in the French Memoirs, and if I am not 
 mistaken is the scene of an adventure with 
 robbers or coiners which is said to have hap- 
 pened to Marshal Saxe. It was ruined no 
 longer ago than the Revolution, when a pas- 
 sion for destrojdng whatever was ancient and 
 venerable seems to have possessed the hearts 
 of the people. The ruins are extensive, but 
 less picturesque than any which I ever saw 
 before, or than I should have thought possible 
 for so large a mass. We saw some snail shells 
 here, of a species larger than any in England, 
 and a yellow flower, with which none of us 
 were acquainted, we gathered here. It was very 
 pretty and sweet. 
 
 From hence we turned aside by a wretched 
 [ 153 ]
 
 J O U B X A L 
 
 road to Verviers up a long and most wearying 
 hill, and then down it into the fertile valley 
 wherein the town stands. It is a flourishing 
 place, containing ten thousand inhabitants ; and 
 its manufactures of cloth and kersymere have 
 the reputation of being the best in Europe. 
 Teazles grow in the neighbourhood. The mas- 
 ter of the Hotel at Spa advised us to drive to 
 the sign of the Emperor ; the house was dirty, 
 the mistress received us with the utmost in- 
 civility, and the beds were neither enough in 
 number, nor inviting in appearance if they 
 had. We tried our fortune, therefore, at an- 
 other inn, to which the coachman would fain 
 have taken us at first ; but we had been as- 
 sured that it was only part of a large build- 
 ing, the other part of which was used as a 
 manufactory noisy enough to keep us awake 
 the whole night. Upon enquiring here we 
 found that an English family from Spa had 
 arrived before us and engaged all the beds 
 except two; our party required eight. The 
 avhergiste was exceedingly civil and recom- 
 mended us to proceed to Batisse, and if, as 
 she thought it would prove, we could not be 
 [ 164 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 lodged at the Post House there, go then to 
 Herve, which was only a quarter of an hour 
 out of our way. The grumpy coachman 
 grumbled, but could neither help himself nor 
 us. Henri, as usual, took things contentedly ; 
 and haying lost half an hour in these fruitless 
 attempts to establish ourselves for the night, 
 we proceeded two leagues to Batisse ; the trial 
 there was in vain, and we turned aside to 
 Herve, where we arrived about six o'clock, 
 dinnerless and not a little apprehensive as to 
 obtaining quarters in so impromising a little 
 town. Room, however, was promised with 
 some makeshifts ; we found a very civil land- 
 lady, and sate down to dinner at seven. But 
 we had left French cookery behind us, and 
 perceived to our sorrow that we were now in 
 a land of grease. 
 
 When we had been in the house about two 
 hours, the Prussian commandant of the town 
 came in, and calling for the Hostess, asked 
 her if she had forgotten the law which required 
 her always without delay to communicate an 
 account of all strangers who arrived at her 
 Inn? For this first time, said he, I remind 
 [ 156 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 you of it. The second time I shall reprimand. 
 The third I shall punish. He then turned to 
 us and demanded our passports. To us he 
 deported himself with great courtesy, even 
 winningly so, a manner which was at once con- 
 ciliating and dignified being aided by a fine 
 countenance. But he came in followed by two 
 gens d ^armes^ and if we had been of any other 
 nation, our treatment perhaps might not have 
 been so satisfactory. The Hostess said it was 
 the first time he had ever entered her house ; 
 in the hurry and perhaps the pleasure of hav- 
 ing unexpectedly so large a party to provide 
 for, she had neglected to conform to a precau- 
 tion which is by no means unnecessary in these 
 parts at this time. The poor woman was very 
 attentive and obliging, desirous of accommo- 
 dating us in the best manner she could. She 
 spoke with bitterness of the French tyranny 
 and its ejffects ; but observed that the Prussian 
 frontiers were too near, and that the Bhine 
 would be the proper boundary. 
 
 The public room in the uncivil woman's inn 
 at Verviers was heated by a stove, being the 
 first which we had seen except in kitchens. 
 [ 156 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 At Herve we found the same symptom of our 
 approach to Germany, and whatever may be 
 the advantage of thus dijBfusing the heat over 
 the whole room, we all disliked the oppressive 
 sensation which it produced. To say nothing 
 of the life and motion and beauty of an Eng- 
 lish fire, there is the great objection to the 
 stove that when you enter the room, and re- 
 quire to be warmed, it heats the face too much 
 and the feet too little. 
 
 An insulated spiral staircase of dark brown 
 wood fronted us as we entered the house, 
 having a door at the bottom which led to the 
 cellar. The chairs are wooden, and of a fash- 
 ion rather old than foreign, but the round 
 knobs on the crossbars below are polished 
 with black lead. The beds were of German 
 fashion, having instead of blanket or counter- 
 pane a mattrass about four feet square for a 
 covering. The pannels of Mrs. Vardon's door 
 are painted with pictures most ludicrously bad, 
 representing an irresistible gentleman courting 
 an incomparable lady, both in full dress. 
 
 I was in bed when I was alarmed by the 
 voice of William, crying in great distress from 
 [ 167 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 the upper story, " Mary, Mary, send Mr. Koster 
 here! send Mr. Koster here directly! The 
 Coachmen are getting into the gentlemen's 
 beds, and I can't make them understand me." 
 It had been arranged that William should 
 sleep in the same room with Koster and Mr. 
 Nash, there being no other place. Accord- 
 ingly he had gone to bed and fallen asleep, but 
 happening to open his eyes on hearing some 
 stir in the chamber, to his utter astonishment 
 he saw the two coachmen undressing them- 
 selves, and about to take possession. Up ran 
 Mr. Nash and Senhor Henrique at the outcry, 
 hardly able to claim their beds for laughing at 
 the circimistance and the scene. The coach- 
 men, when they discovered their mistake, were 
 equally amused ; the whole party having heard 
 the uproar joined in the laugh, and we never 
 went to rest more merrily than at Herve. 
 Nescia mens hominum. 
 
 For the only time during the journey Edith 
 May had not been lodged in the same room 
 with us. The beds in our chamber would only 
 hold one person each. Mary had a larger, 
 and Edith therefore was to sleep with her. 
 [ 158 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 The child had a miserable night, owing to a 
 sore throat, which had not been perceived be- 
 fore, but which was doubtless occasioned by 
 exposure to the sharp wind at the Spa races, 
 and probably aggravated by the discomfort of 
 the bed ; for it is impossible for any person to 
 sleep between two beds or mattrasses unless 
 they have been used to it ; and all of us, not 
 having learnt to sleep in the German fashion, 
 found ourselves repeatedly without any cover- 
 ing during the night. She was, owing to this 
 cause, exposed alternately to heat and cold, 
 and obtained no rest. Being accustomed to 
 seeing the tonsils of all my children frequently 
 swoln without producing any inconvenience, I 
 was not alarmed, and strolled into the town 
 before breakfast with an easy and unappre- 
 hensive mind. We found a good church in- 
 ternally, tho' of little outward beauty, and we 
 saw a pig fastened by one leg to a stake in 
 the street, and presently heard unequivocal 
 proofs that they were killing him there. 
 Here and at Verviers we observed the whole 
 preparation of the HouilUy as coal of this 
 kind is called : men tread it Uke mortar, and 
 [ 169 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 women make it into rolls or loaves with their 
 hands ; it is put into the stove with a trowel 
 when the hands axe not used instead. There 
 were several carts full of the Herve or Lim- 
 bourg cheese in the town, and you might nose 
 them at a considerable distance. These cheese, 
 as abominable in smell as they are excellent 
 in flavour, are made in the shape and size of 
 ordinary bricks and packed in the carts very 
 nicely upon straw. 
 
 Eeturning to the inn, I found that Edith 
 had much fever, and that her throat was fright- 
 fully swoln. We were between five and six 
 leagues from Aix-larChapelle, and thither it 
 was necessary to proceed ; for as to remaining 
 where we were it was impossible, there were 
 neither accommodations for sickness, nor medi- 
 cal aid if it should be needed. I went out 
 again, looked for a Stag's Horns (the sign 
 over an Apothecary's door in these countries), 
 and bought volatile spirit of ammonia, the 
 knowledge of a medical term proving for once 
 in my life of some use. But the appearance 
 of the Apothecary made me shudder to think 
 how I should have felt if it had been necessary 
 [ 160 ]
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 to call him in and rely upon him. This was 
 applied ; the child had been sick after taking 
 some Eau de Cologne ; she appeared to rally ; 
 we set off and the air seemed at first to revive 
 her. But it soon became expedient to remove 
 her to the close carriage, and by the time we 
 reached Aix-la-Chapelle she was very ill. 
 
 The country is one of the richest I ever saw, 
 compleatly spotted with villages and single 
 houses. In richness and woodiness it resem- 
 bles the best parts of Kent or Herefordshire. 
 Picturesque it is not ; and its features are too 
 even to be beautiful ; but it bears abundant 
 marks of industry, activity, and of a thriving 
 population. It improved in beauty as we drew 
 nearer Aix. We past one pleasant country- 
 house, which had a series of fish-ponds belong- 
 ing to it, on the opposite side of the road. The 
 carts (for they are upon two wheels) seem to 
 be preposterously long ; they are very neatly 
 covered with cloth when the goods require 
 cover. Walking up a long hiU I observed a 
 great number of pansies entirely yellow ; the 
 only place where I remember them growing 
 wild in England is at Busselton, near St. Hel- 
 
 [ 161 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 ens, Auckland. I know not wky it is tkat local 
 recollections are so vividly recalled by the sight 
 of flowers and by odours ; but, according to 
 my experience, nothing makes the strings of 
 memory vibrate so finely. The Belgian Cus- 
 tom House is near the boundary, and after a 
 few minutes' delay there, a few francs pre- 
 vented further trouble. Near the city there 
 are whole fields of cabbages of both colours. 
 
 We heard at the Custom House that the 
 King of Prussia was expected every hour from 
 Liege ; and accordingly, when we entered Aix 
 the whole population was in motion, and the 
 streets were crowded to receive him, so that 
 we trembled for a lodging. Yesterday a like 
 apprehension at Verviers and at Herve had 
 been a matter of jest ; in our present situation 
 it was truly painful, for the child was worsen- 
 ing every minute. The Dragon d'Or, to which 
 we had been directed, was full; the Hotel 
 Grande, chez Dehigh, which is next door, took 
 us in. While arrangements were making for 
 the rooms, I walked out for half an hour. On 
 my return the child appeared so ill that I 
 thought it necessary to look for a physician. 
 C 162 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 There was, or seemed to be, a risque of being 
 recommended to some ignorant or unprincipled 
 fellow, if I asked the people of the inn to re- 
 commend one. I therefore went to the Banker 
 to whom my circular letter was addrest, and 
 asked him where I should apply. He directed 
 me to Dr. Reumont, who had studied at Edin- 
 burgh. 
 
 The complaint was severe without being 
 dangerous, farther than the danger which al- 
 ways exists that such a disease may put on a 
 malignant type. Under any circumstances I 
 should have been anxious ; and here we were 
 under curious circumstances of discomfort. 
 The people of the house were brutal in the 
 extreme; we were obliged to take what we 
 wanted, for they would not bring it us, and to 
 prepare everything ourselves. Mrs. Vardon's 
 servants were of great use in purveying for us, 
 and foraging for what was necessary. During 
 two days it was only water that she needed, 
 and the things required in medicine. She had 
 been ordered to use a warm gargle every hour, 
 even if it were necessary to wake her for that 
 purpose : this was not needful, for she never 
 C 163 ]
 
 JO U B N A L 
 
 slept an hour at a time ; but one of the women 
 servants absolutely refused to let us have fuel 
 for keeping up a fire during the night in the 
 adjoining room. She said we had been sup- 
 plied three times in the course of the day, and 
 if it had not been for a poor civil German 
 woman, who speaks no French, and whom I 
 talked with by help of the grammar, we should 
 have been without fire. On Thursday she 
 grew better, but apparently fell back at night. 
 Friday the amendment was more certain, but 
 at night, when for the first time she was dis- 
 posed to a natural and restoring sleep, the 
 whole Prussian band struck up in the yard 
 under our window and played for about an 
 hour ; and what made it more provoking was, 
 that it was done as a compliment to our party. 
 This roused her so compleatly that she did not 
 sleep a wink till three o'clock, tho' between one 
 and two I got out of bed and read to her for 
 half an hour, in hope of composing her. Sat- 
 urday, however, the disease was subdued ; it 
 left her greatly reduced and with a compleat 
 prostration of spirits. 
 
 Miserable as the occasion was which thus 
 [ 164 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 delayed us at Aix-larChapelle, the delay proved 
 highly advantageous. Our apartment being 
 close to the sick-room, it was determined to 
 dine at the table d ^hhte after the first day, 
 and there we fell into the company of some 
 Prussian officers, who were here recovering 
 from their wounds. Major Petry, second in 
 command at this place, was one. His com- 
 panions here assure us that it was he who 
 gained the battle of Donowitz, and that he is 
 one of the best and most distinguished men 
 in the Prussian service. His face is a singular 
 compound of two countenances perfectly un- 
 like each other, Carlisle's and Rickman's, 
 the character of the latter predominating. He 
 conmianded in the attack upon Namur, where 
 a bullet entered his throat, under the tongue, 
 and came out at the back of his neck. It is 
 said that he vrill recover his speech, which at 
 present is intelligible to those only who are 
 accustomed to it. 
 
 Captain Ferdinand Augustus, Leopold Fran- 
 cis von Dresky, a Silesian by birth, was an- 
 other of our new acquaintances ; during our stay 
 he received the cross of honour and his pro- 
 [ 165 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 motion to the rank of Major, for his conduct 
 at Ligny, where he was severely wounded. 
 Dreslqr is the officer who was ridden over with 
 Bliicher in that battle. He and his servant 
 and the old General knew that their only 
 chance of escaping was to lie as if they were 
 dead. After a while he ventured to look up, 
 and asked his men if the coast were clear. 
 " I am glad to hear you speak," was the reply. 
 In person, I certainly never have seen any 
 man who excelled perhaps hardly any one 
 who in all respects equalled him as to out- 
 ward accomplishments. At this time, when he 
 is overflowing with happiness, his natural hi- 
 larity has full scope, and he possesses a versa- 
 tility of talents of which he is fully conscious, 
 and which he delights to display. His musical 
 powers absolutely astonished me. He plays 
 the violin (tho' it is not what he calls his in- 
 strument) in such a manner as to call from it 
 the tones of ^ almost every instrument, flute, 
 drum, trumpet, guitar, etc. His voice is so 
 powerful that he led the band with it, and it 
 predominated above their music. But his most 
 extraordinary exhibition was upon the Jew's- 
 [ 166 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Iiarp, an instrument differing a little in its 
 construction here from the English one of that 
 name, but not in more repute. Playing upon 
 two of these at once, he produced sounds as 
 sweet as those of an Eolian harp ; and an air 
 in which he echoed with the one the notes of the 
 oUier was more magical than anything I ever 
 heard before. He assured us that if the candles 
 were put out, the effect would be greater, 
 and that this was not imagination, but that 
 darkness produced an actual and perceptible 
 difference in the sounds. The experiment was 
 made, and every person agreed that it was so, 
 a fact in confirmation of an opinion which 
 I have long maintained. 
 
 Another of these officers whom I shall like 
 to remember hereafter is a young Pomeranian, 
 by name Geek, son of a rich merchant at 
 Stettin. He is said to resemble the Prince of 
 Orange most strikingly, and is therefore no 
 beauty ; but from what is said of the Prince's 
 present conduct, I suspect there is something 
 in Geek's physiognomy which must be want- 
 ing in his Boyal Highness's ; for this is at 
 once a very acute coimtenance and a very 
 [ 167 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 honest one. I found him not only well ac- 
 quainted with the literature of his own coun- 
 try, but estimating it judiciously, and speak- 
 ing of the merits of the different poets like 
 a man whose opinions were derived from the 
 right source. 
 
 But the most interesting person with whom 
 we fell in was a Major in the German Legion, 
 by birth a Pole, and by name Constantine 
 Charles Henry Ernest Frederick Augustus 
 Gustav Adolph de Forster, for so he has 
 written it in my memorandmn-book. What a 
 polyonymous person ! Twice as many names 
 as Dresky ! EUs father was a man of rank, 
 holding some office equivalent to that of our 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. But the family 
 have been marked for misfortune. One brother 
 was taken by the conscription and died in 
 a hospital, broken-hearted. He himself was 
 taken prisoner by the French, and after much 
 cruel usage (being made to march barefoot, 
 etc.) effected his escape by way of Strasburg, 
 almost miraculously. He was afterwards in 
 the Duke of Brunswick's corps, one of those 
 who stood by him faithfully to the last, and 
 168 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 were ill-requited by that Prince, whose only 
 merit seems to have been his courage and his 
 patriotism, for Forster says he was wanting in 
 gratitude, principle, and conduct. In 1810 he 
 went to Spain in the German Legion, and 
 continued there till the end of the war, where 
 by marching on foot in that climate, by biv- 
 ouacking, and by a fall in the Pyrenees down 
 some crags, his constitution has received most 
 serious injury, so that he is here, on unlimited 
 leave of absence, for his health. All his 
 family are dead except two brothers ; the one 
 is a poor lad of eighteen, whom he has always 
 supported out of his pay, and who has now 
 for two years been suffering with an abscess 
 of the spleen, but whom he speaks of with the 
 deepest affection, and the highest admiration for 
 his spirit and genius. The other, who was also 
 with the Duke of Brunswick, has just married 
 the daughter of a Sicilian noble. Forster had 
 written his own memoirs up to the year 1812, 
 when he lost them in a shipwreck off Santona. 
 He has promised to rewrite them under my 
 roof next summer, if he lives so long. The 
 day before our departure he had a return of 
 [ 169 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 hemorrhage from the Kver, at a time when his 
 meeting with me and the news of his brother's 
 marriage had given him better hopes and more 
 chearful feelings than have often fallen to 
 his lot. Illness and ill fortune have fixed a 
 melancholy and thoughtful character upon 
 his countenance, naturally fine, intellectual, 
 and open. 
 
 All these men were Free Masons, and Ros- 
 ter having been initiated into the same fra- 
 ternity, an acquaintance with them was facili- 
 tated by that circumstance. When I was 
 introduced, each of them tried me as he shook 
 hands, to the discomposure of my joints and 
 knuckles; and I have no doubt that a man 
 may derive some advantage in his travels from 
 being a Free Mason, if he can condescend to 
 degrade himself by submitting to its mysteries 
 and its mummeries. The acquaintance began 
 at table. The Prussians filled their glasses 
 with champagne, stood up, and addressing 
 themselves to us, gave the Prince Eegent's 
 health. In return, we rendered the same mark 
 of respect to the King of Prussia. Each in- 
 dividual then gave a toast in turn, after we had 
 [ 170 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 done honour to the Duke of Wellington and 
 Marshal Bliicher ; and when my turn came I 
 mustered up French enough to say, " The 
 Belle Alliance between Prussia and England : 
 may it continue as long as the memory of the 
 battle." The Prussians were so pleased at this 
 that they rose and embraced me. 
 
 It is not possible that these officers can be 
 a fair specimen of the Prussian army, for they 
 would be very much above the average of men 
 anywhere ; but there may be good hopes for 
 any nation that has such men in its armies. 
 They had a national feeling at once proud and 
 generous, such as the last two years of their 
 history justified, and by which, indeed, the re- 
 generation of their country had been brought 
 about. Their hatred of the French was pro- 
 found, principled, and hearty, and perhaps the 
 more indignant for the contempt with which 
 it is mingled. There were some regiments, 
 they told us, in which the officers had made a 
 rule that any one of them who spoke a word 
 in French should be knocked down. I shall 
 never forget the look and the gesture of Dresky 
 when he was speaking of the French hel- 
 
 [ 171 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 mets worn by the cuirassiers. "They save the 
 head," said he, " from a cut in this direction " 
 (suiting the action to the word). " But I never 
 cut in that manner ; when I cut at a French- 
 man, I cut thus, " and he made a kind of feint 
 as of striking right at the face. 
 
 The tahle d ^Jwte had some English visitants ; 
 they were an old harridan of quality. Lady 
 Aldborough I think is her title, sister to Lady 
 Melbourne, with her two granddaughters. Miss 
 Rodney and Miss Hallowell, young Ladies ^ 
 who seem very well disposed to walk in the 
 way wherein they are trained up. Finding 
 themselves unnoticed by our party, and that we 
 attracted the officers, they absented themselves 
 from table the third day, and decamped the 
 fourth. 
 
 The mistress of the hotel resembles Lady 
 in person, voice, manner, and expres- 
 sion, and tho' she is by no means so hand- 
 some, the likeness is as striking as if they 
 were twin daughters of the Devil. Never was 
 a house under worse management. The first 
 
 ^ One of these very Ladies has heen divorced this year 
 
 1824. 
 
 C 172 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 improvement in our treatment was when Kos- 
 ter (following the advice of the Prussian of- 
 ficers) told the waiter he would thrash him if 
 he did not attend upon us better ; the second 
 when Mr. Vardon took the Landlady to task 
 and roundly reprimanded her. It seems the 
 economy of the household was that there was 
 a woman who weighed out everything to the 
 servants, and allowed them so much for each 
 person in the house, as if every person in an 
 Inn were not entitled to have as much of 
 everything as he chose to call for. 
 
 The houille or Mitter fire, as the German 
 woman called it, requires peculiar manage- 
 ment. Stirring does more harm than good; if 
 you blow it, you put it out. An Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle guide which I bought here taught me 
 to make it bum up by sprinkling salt upon it. 
 The fire is good and durable, but it makes a 
 great quantity of ashes. 
 
 The Cathedral, here called the Notre Dame, 
 is the most extraordinary building we have 
 seen. The central part, which is Charlemagne's 
 work, seems to have been built after a Grreek, 
 that is to say a Constantinopolitan model ; but 
 [ 173 ]
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 in every succeeding age something has been 
 added, and there is now so much patchwork 
 that some houses which have been built round 
 the one end of the church, between the but- 
 tresses, so as to block up the lower part of the 
 longest windows in the world (such I suppose 
 them to be), hardly appear out of place. There 
 remain no other vestiges of the founder's tomb 
 than a large slab with the words Carola 
 Magna. We did not see the relics. There are 
 some very curious brasses in the wall of one 
 of the chapels ; the letters are raised and the 
 groundwork strongly hatched, which makes 
 the inscription much more distinct. It is like 
 wood engraving ; an impression of the letters 
 might have been taken. Under one of these, 
 the epitaph of some old canon, is a ghastly 
 representation of a dead body, with worms as 
 large as snakes at their work. Some lads of 
 sixteen or eighteen were whipping tops in the 
 cloisters and smoaking their pipes at the same 
 time. 
 
 We had intended to commence our return 
 on Monday ; it was, however, found prudent to 
 remain another day, that Edith might recover 
 
 [ 174 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 a little more strength ; and making use of 
 the time, I went up the hill on which the obe- 
 lisk stands. The hill is called Lausberg, ori- 
 ginally Luouesberch, signifying, according to 
 M. Poissenot, the mount of observation. Bea- 
 con-hill is the more likely meaning of the name, 
 and this explanation of the Frenchman savours 
 the obelisk, which bears these inscriptions. 
 On the south side_: 
 
 Cette pyramide est un des sommets des 
 grands triangles qui ont s&rvi de base a la 
 carte topographique et militaire des departe- 
 mens reunis de la rive gauche du Hhin, levee 
 sous le regne de Napoleon le Grand, et 
 d'apres les ordres de S. A. S. le prince Alex- 
 andre Berthier, ministre de la guerre, par 
 les offimers ingenieurs-geographes depot ge- 
 neral de la guerre. 
 
 On the west : 
 
 Au mois de Juillet 1804, il a etc fait, au 
 pied de cette pyramide des observations astro- 
 nomiques par M. J. Jos. Tranchot, astro- 
 name, directeur et Colonel au corps des in- 
 genieurs-geographes, qui en a determine la 
 [ 176 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 latitude de 50, 47', 8", 8" ', et la longitude, 
 comptee de V Observatoire de Paris de 3, 
 44', 67", 5"'. 
 
 On the north : 
 
 La distance de ce point a la ligne meridi- 
 enne, passant par V Observatoire de Paris, est 
 
 de 264187^ 7. 
 
 La distance a la ligne perpendiculaire a 
 cette meridienne, passant par la meme Observa- 
 toire, est de 223526=^, 7. 
 
 La distance a la grande tour de Sittard, 
 est de 28124"', 98. 
 
 La distance ct la grande tour d'Erkdens, 
 est de 36596^ 05. 
 
 Cette demiere distance forme, avec le meri- 
 dien de ce lieu, un angle spMrique de 26, 
 27', 11", 21" '. 
 
 On the east : 
 
 The original inscription was 
 
 A NAPOLi:ON-LE-GRAND 
 
 PBEMIEB EMPEBEUB DEB EBAN9AIS 
 
 ET BOI D'ITALIE 
 
 [ 176 ]
 
 J O U K N A li 
 
 but that has been erased, and in its place 
 there now stands the following memorial of 
 his fall: 
 
 DENCKMAL 
 
 GALLISCHEM 
 
 GEBUEMUTHE 
 
 EIN8T GEWEBHT 
 
 MIT DEN 
 
 TYBANNEN 
 
 ZUGLEICH 
 
 GESTUEZT 
 
 AM 11 APBIL 
 
 1814 
 
 WIEOEB 
 
 EBBICHTET DEB 
 
 WI8SENSCHAPT 
 
 UND TEUTSCHEB 
 
 KBAPT 
 
 AM TAGE DEB FEYEB- 
 
 -LICHEN HULDIQUNG 
 
 DEB PBUSSISCHEN 
 
 BHEIN-LAENDEB 
 
 DEN XV MAY 
 
 1815
 
 J O U B N A Ij 
 
 Just below the summit of this hill is one of 
 the coffee-houses which are so numerous about 
 this city, with a fine room commanding a rich 
 and extensive prospect. The two towers of the 
 Town-House come in very finely here, with the 
 Cathedral. A willowy hue stiU predominates 
 in the landscape, and the effect of this foliage 
 is increased and partly modified with a bluer 
 tinge by the quantity of ground which is planted 
 with cabbages, here cultivated more extensively 
 for men than for cattle in England. I am 
 persuaded the sour krout would be one of the 
 most useful additions that could be made to 
 our standard food. They are forming a fine 
 public walk round the walls ; or perhaps were 
 making it, for it was commenced in Buona- 
 parte's time, who, in imitation of Cliarlemagne, 
 affected to distinguish this city by his favour. 
 Fish-ponds are very numerous here, tho' one 
 never saw any fish at the tahle d'hJbte except 
 red herrings. We drove to Borset, or Bur- 
 sheid, for it is one inconvenience in these coun- 
 tries that every place has two names, its Grer- 
 man and its French one, which are sometimes 
 very different, and sometimes a Dutch name 
 [ 178 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 equally differing from either; for example, 
 Liege is called Luttich by the Germans, Luyk 
 by the Dutch; Aix-la-Chapelle is Achen or 
 Aken. Bursheid is a large village about one 
 mile from the city, and one of the hot springs 
 for which this part of the country is remark- 
 able rises in the street, in a large open octagon 
 walled basin. The water is hot enough to 
 dress an egg. The stream which it produces 
 flows under cover for about an hundred yards, 
 after which it serves as a general washing- 
 place, and simdry washerwomen were availing 
 themselves of it. 
 
 The poultry are very familiar in this city. 
 They frequently come into the public room, 
 and in a stationer's shop there were some 
 perched on the counter, a familiarity, this, 
 which implies in the inhabitants more good 
 nature than cleanliness. There is a cruel con- 
 sumption of small birds in all these countries, 
 insomuch that I wonder that they are not ex- 
 tirpated ; for they are a constant and favourite 
 dish everywhere. They dress them undrawn 
 like woodcocks, but the sight of red herrings in 
 the inside is by no means tempting. We saw 
 [ 179 ]
 
 J O U R N A Ij 
 
 a jay in the market, and I am told magpies 
 may sometimes be seen there. 
 
 In the afternoon we visited the Cabinet of 
 
 Baron . It is one of three collections 
 
 which the virtuosos of the last century were 
 fond of forming, and which travellers were at 
 one time chiefly employed in visiting and cata- 
 loguing ; it was the fashion then for travellers 
 to look for curiosities and antiquities, and they 
 seem to have had no eyes for anything else. 
 This collection is rich in agates, carved ivory, 
 and bronzes, and must have been made at an 
 enormous expense. The room was filled up 
 with stuffed animals, and at one end of it sate 
 a waxwork old gentleman in a wig, as if he 
 were reading a folio on the table before him. 
 A singular lusus naturce is preserved here, a 
 block of wood sawn transversely and represent- 
 ing a profile which I instantly recognised to be 
 like that of Louis XVI. ; it is plainly the natu- 
 ral veining, without any assistance from art. 
 The room into which we were first introduced 
 had its walls compleatly covered with prints, 
 of which great part were of English manufac- 
 ture ; I must use the word, because prints are 
 [ 180 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 manufactured in England, the spirit of trade 
 degrading everytliing with which it connects 
 itself. The garden of this Nobleman's seat 
 was a good specimen of its kind. There was 
 a piece of stagnant water there, not to be con- 
 demned because it served as a fish-pond, and 
 fish-ponds, which are useful everywhere, are 
 necessary to the comfort of a Catholic family 
 in inland countries. It is very small, and in 
 great part overgrown with aquatic plants ; yet 
 an island had been formed in it, communicat- 
 ing with the mainland by a bridge, and on 
 this island was a boathouse, and by this boat- 
 house lay a boat, which three strokes of the 
 oar would have sent to land in any direction, 
 except one, where perhaps half a dozen more 
 might have been required. The borders and 
 alleys were ornamented with a railing, and 
 with little Cupids at regfular intervals. 
 
 Tuesday, 17 Oct 
 
 jMr. Short wrote to Mr. Vardon from Maes- 
 tricht, to let him know that the road was very 
 bad, and that we should find a most obliging 
 hostess at the Levrier. This Gentleman's 
 [ 181 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 family it was wlicli had forestalled us at Ver- 
 viers ; we had spoken with him there, met 
 them on the next day's road, and were at the 
 same hotel at Aix. He is a Devonshire man, 
 who, having had his boys educated up to a cer- 
 tain age by my old friend Lightfoot (of whom 
 he spoke as one loves to hear an old friend 
 spoken of), had placed them at Westminster, 
 and taken a house in Abingdon Street, for 
 the sake of being near them. Colonel Hall- 
 burton called on us with a message from him 
 to the same purport, lest his letter should not 
 have arrived. The reason of this solicitude 
 on his part was that he had witnessed the be- 
 haviour of the Aix-la-Chapelle Hostess, and 
 knew how desirable it was, in case Edith should 
 have any return of the fever, that we should 
 find common humanity in the mistress of the 
 house. 
 
 Our coachmen had always said that the 
 road to Maestricht was bad, and that a third 
 horse for each carriage would be necessary. 
 They had heard, however, now that it was 
 worse than they had apprehended, and re- 
 quired each an additional pair. After Mr. 
 [ 182 ]
 
 J O U B N A L 
 
 Short's letter and the Colonel's account of this 
 road, it would have been unreasonable to have 
 made any demur; both the men, moreover, 
 being very careful, civil, and obliging, and, I 
 believe, very honest, at least we have every 
 reason to think so. 
 
 Forster would have risen from his bed and 
 come across the street to take leave of us ; 
 but I extorted a promise from him not to at- 
 tempt this, and charged his servant (a faith- 
 fid old soldier, who has refused his discharge 
 that he may still attend him) not to allow it. 
 He would, however, rise and come to the win- 
 dow. I parted from him with much regret 
 and much fear, but not without a hope that 
 our meeting may prove of some advantage to 
 himself and to history, for his Memoirs, 
 seeing what he is, and what he has seen, would 
 be most valuable. Major Petry was to have 
 escorted us out of town ; but his wound, or 
 rather the issue at the back of his neck, had 
 been painful in the night and rendered it 
 prudent for him to keep his apartment. We 
 took leave of him there, where he and another 
 officer were smoking. The skin of that officer 
 [ 183 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 was covered with a varnish composed of to- 
 bacco smoke and perspiration. Dresky and 
 Geek drove out with us in an open carriage. 
 The Commissionaire had taken our passports 
 to the Commandant, and brought us in return 
 a letter of surety for four days, to be renewed 
 if needful. The passports were now made 
 valid for Maestricht. 
 
 Our road lay round the end of the Laus- 
 berg, on which the obelisk stands. It led us 
 thro' a rich and pleasing country; the red 
 foliage in the landscape exceeded in vividness 
 any that I remember to have seen. About 
 three miles from the city our friends took 
 their farewell, Geek with an honest shake of 
 the hand, and a promise that we shoidd see 
 him in England, where he had been in the 
 King's train, and consequently had seen little 
 more than Kings see. Dresky saluted Mr. 
 Vardon, Koster, and myself, the only persons 
 who were then on foot, first on the right side of 
 the nose, then on the left, a ceremony to which 
 I submitted with great resignation, and which 
 my daughter witnessed with no less astonish- 
 ment. And so farewell to Aix-larChapelle. 
 [ 184 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 The road was even worse than it had been 
 represented. An Englishman, indeed, must 
 not expect to find such cross-roads on the Conti- 
 nent as in his own country, far as they are even 
 there from being what they ought to be. The 
 country fertile and populous, and tho' in its 
 picturesque appearance not entitled to a higher 
 epithet than pleasing, pleasing it certainly was 
 to a high degree, streams, villages, churches, 
 a chateau here and there with its Flemish 
 towers, and a general woodiness, not produced 
 by coppices or forests, but by enclosures and 
 hedgerows. The willowy hue again predom- 
 inated when we had left the bluer tint which 
 the vast fields of cabbage occasion round the 
 city. A residence among lakes and moimtains 
 has not in any degree diminished my enjoy- 
 ment of humbler and milder scenes. We past 
 
 a churchyard fuU of gravestones, noticeable 
 
 because we had not observed tombstones be- 
 
 C 185 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 fore in any such situation. They were all in 
 the form of a short cross, the arms and top 
 being broad and round. 
 
 When we were about three miles from 
 Maestricht, it began to rain most heavily, 
 insomuch that our carriage stopt and both 
 Gnmipy and the postillion took shelter imder 
 its lee, the former laughing heartily in the 
 best humour, tiU the pelting had abated a 
 little, and then we proceeded. The master of 
 the horses, one of the hugest and heaviest 
 men I ever saw, rode postillion to the first 
 carriage, an unmercifid load he was, for he 
 was at least six feet in stature, and all his 
 limbs were of enormous bulk. Our postillion 
 was a lad, apparently about seventeen, who 
 smoked as he went, according to the abomi- 
 nable custom of this country, and had been 
 more than once admonished by his master to 
 pay a little more attention to the off-horse lest 
 it should fall. The fellow chose rather to at- 
 tend to his pipe, and so going downhill the 
 horse tript and fell. It required aU Grumpy's 
 skill to keep the carriage back, and well it 
 was that Grumpy was skilful ; and it was 
 [ 186 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 some time before the horse could be got up. 
 But then, to our no small astonishment, the 
 lad, tho' he himself had not fallen, was so 
 frightened that he ran away, meaning to make 
 his way back to Aix-la-ChapeHe. Koster pur- 
 sued, and presently brought him back. He 
 still declared that he would drive us no far- 
 ther ; upon this his master gave him two or 
 three well-deserved strokes with the whip, and 
 getting furious as he gave way to anger, threw 
 him down in the dirt and trod upon his neck. 
 Being in the close carriage I was so placed as 
 not to see this act of ferocious anger. The 
 lad, however, was more frightened than hurt ; 
 and the last fear prevailing over the first, he 
 remounted, and we reached Maestricht safely. 
 The distance is four posts about eighteen 
 nules. 
 
 The atmosphere was so thick with rain that 
 we saw little of the city as we approached it, 
 and in this we had some loss, considering its 
 situation and its importance in military his- 
 tory. But we caught a sight of the moats 
 and ramparts and drawbridges and gates in 
 passiQg them. The Levrier is not so plea- 
 [ 187 ]
 
 J O U B N A L 
 
 santly situated as those Hotels which stand in 
 the Great Place; the Hostess has, however, 
 a reputation among English travellers for 
 obliging civility, and certainly she well de- 
 serves it. Everything here was good of its 
 kind. The apartment was well furnished, and 
 the walls so fuU of closets as literally to be 
 lined with them. There were some family 
 portraits decently executed, two landscapes 
 ill cut in paper, poor specimens of a poor art ; 
 a bust of Voltaire about as good as the com- 
 mon porcelain ones of Wesley, and a com- 
 panion to it which I suppose to be Rousseau* 
 
 " VoQa quelque chose de rare I " said our 
 good-natured hostess, bringing in a plate of 
 wild strawberries after dinner, and rare it 
 must be allowed they were in the middle of 
 October. 
 
 There was no stirring out of doors the re- 
 mainder of the day, because of the -continued 
 rain. 
 
 Wednesday, 18 Oct. 
 
 X HERE is a very fine raven belonging to this 
 
 Hotel, with a mane like a cock. He spoke 
 
 [ 188 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 the word Napoleon distinctly. Grumpy tells 
 us there was one in this city which was known to 
 be a hundred and ten years old, and used to wan- 
 der about the place whither he pleased, being 
 known to every man, woman, and child as the 
 old Raven, and held sacred accordingly, till a 
 year or two ago, when some French soldiers 
 killed it in mere mischief. 
 
 Mr. Locker, when we fell in with him at 
 Bruges, earnestly advised us not to omit see- 
 ing the quarries at Maestricht, which are the 
 most remarkable excavations of their kind. 
 We hired two hackney coaches at six francs 
 each to take us thither, and according to cus- 
 tom drove thro' them in the usual route. 
 But the horses in one turned restive, and had 
 nearly overturned it. The way, owing to the 
 rain, proved actually impassable ; of necessity 
 therefore we got out, and fearful of her catch- 
 ing cold, I carried Edith May over the wet 
 ground. We entered the hill, or mountain as 
 it is called, under a low arch of masonry, 
 where my Lady Governess, feeling the oppres- 
 siveness of the air, would fain have turned 
 back, if I would have permitted her, or if 
 [ 189 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 there had been any one to have returned with 
 her. But we soon past this low entrance and 
 found ourselves in the excavations, where, dead 
 as the air is, and motionless, it produces no sense 
 of weight or suffocation. We continued walk- 
 ing about an hour at a good brisk pace in 
 these endless labyrinths, where I believe none 
 of the party felt themselves perfectly at ease 
 except the Guide, for irretrievably lost we 
 must have been without him, as soon as we 
 had lost sight of the entrance. Certainly it is 
 Tiot prudent to venture into such a labyrinth, 
 with only one guide who knew the way, and 
 no more than two flambeaux, which were both 
 lighted at the same time. But I determined, 
 in case these should by any accident fail us, 
 to sit down immediately and wait till we should 
 be missed at the Hotel and search made for 
 us. For if we remained in any part of the 
 regular course, there we should be found. 
 Among the names inscribed on the white stone 
 piUars and roof was that of Ellen Locker. 
 Buonaparte had been there, and the Prince of 
 Orange. The sides, indeed, were everywhere 
 marked with the memorials of former visitors. 
 [ 190 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 They led ns to a stone hollowed like a bason, 
 into which water continually falls from the 
 roof, drop by drop; and to a chapel deco- 
 rated upon the excavated sides with drawings 
 of Purgatory, etc., by no means ill-executed. 
 Here and there were other drawings, heads, 
 or whole length figures, and in one place a 
 Cherubim's head. We were told that these 
 excavations extend aU the way to Liege. I 
 believe, indeed, that both cities have been 
 built from them. 
 
 None of our party were so entirely at their 
 ease during this hour's walk as not to acknow- 
 ledge a feeling of hearty pleasure when once 
 more in sight of daylight. We debouched 
 upon an eminence above the Meuse, having 
 on the right the ruins of a Castle which the 
 Guide assured us was built by Julius Csesar ; 
 and on the left, shut in by the door of what 
 had once been a Convent of RecoUets, but is 
 now in greut part demolished, and the rest 
 converted into a coffee-house and pubhc gar- 
 den. Maestricht was on our left. The scene 
 reminded us in some respects of the view over 
 the same river from Namur; it is not so fine 
 
 C 191 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 but we came upon it in a manner to make 
 us feel its beauty most sensibly. Few things 
 can be more striking than to emerge from a 
 long subterranean walk upon such a prospect, 
 in light and sunshine; and it is well worth 
 while to go into these frightful excavations, 
 were it only for the pleasure of coming out of 
 them. It was from the recollections of hav- 
 ing felt thus at Wokey Hole, some twenty 
 years before, that I wrote the beginning of the 
 last canto but one in " Kehama. " 
 
 When we entered the Gate yesterday, a 
 young Belgian Officer very civilly said he 
 would not detain us in the rain, but would 
 send for our passports. This, however, was 
 not done. The English are apt to complain 
 of this part of the police in other countries. 
 We have never experienced the slightest 
 trouble or inconvenience from it, and the regu- 
 lation appears to me not only necessary at this 
 time, but reasonable and useful at all times. 
 
 On our return to the Hotel, the carriages 
 were ready, and we started before twelve 
 o'clock. The drivers lost some twenty minutes 
 by taking a wrong road when they set out. 
 
 [ 192 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Three leagues over the pave to Tongres; a 
 little before we reached it, there are some 
 large and very well-shaped barrows. This 
 place, once of such celebrity, is now in a state 
 of sad decay. It has never recovered the wan- 
 ton havock committed there by the French in 
 Louis XIV. 's time. No modem nation has 
 so many crimes of this kind to disgrace its 
 history as the French. And perhaps there is 
 not any Prince who ought to be so peculiarly 
 odious for the havock which his armies com- 
 mitted as Louis XIV. 
 
 The Church here, which is said to have been 
 the first that was dedicated to the Virgin Mary 
 on this side the Alps, was set on fire by those 
 wretches, and its fine tower destroyed. It is 
 still a grand and venerable edifice, tho' dis- 
 figured by some incongruous additions. We 
 entered it in time to be present at a christen- 
 ing. The child, which had been bom that day, 
 was weU or rather ill swaddled in the old pre- 
 posterous fashion, and wrapt in a mantle most 
 richly embroidered with coloured silks. The 
 midwife carried it, and the father and sponsors 
 attended, decent people in humble life. The 
 [ 193 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 ceremony was mumbled over by the PrieEft, 
 with as much haste and as little decorum as 
 
 it is by the Vicar of ; and the inant, 
 
 having been blown upon, touched with spittle, 
 crost, christened, sprinkled, oiled, and salted, 
 was laid on the altar. I observed that while 
 the Priest read the office, the lips of the at- 
 tendants moved as if mechanically, tho' they 
 did not understand what he was saying. The 
 service was performed at one of the side 
 altars; but I neglected (which I am sorry 
 for) to observe of what Saint, and to ask the 
 name of the child. A five franc piece was 
 given for her, as a memento that some English 
 travellers had been present at her baptism. 
 
 We lunched here with good appetites upon 
 bread, butter, cheese, and wine, good things 
 which you meet with, good of their kind every- 
 where in these countries ; the bread, I think, 
 always better than in England, and the butter 
 and cheese generally so. Our room was hung 
 with canvas painted in good imitation of tap- 
 estry. I went out to look for some fruit, and 
 finding some excellent apples, proffered in pay- 
 ment a piece of the base metal which is current 
 
 [ 194 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 here, but which had been refused at the Liege 
 post office. It was as much like a button as 
 a bad shilling : they gave me as many apples 
 as my pockets would hold, and a heap of cop- 
 per money beside, in exchange. Upon the 
 same stall there were large snails lying for 
 sale, the common large house-snail, not the 
 larger kind which Sir Kenelm Digby imported, 
 and which, if it still exists in Buckinghamshire, 
 has not, I believe, travelled beyond it. 
 
 Here we were assured that the next two 
 leagues were actually impassable without four 
 horses to each carriage, and would scarcely be 
 passable with them. The Landlady at Maas- 
 tricht had boasted of the road to Louvaine, as 
 a light half-day's journey for us : it was only 
 two leagues, she said, of country road (^de terre 
 was her expression), and the rest of the way 
 was like the street, which we should have 
 thought no recommendation in England ; but 
 here it is as desirable for the traveller to get on 
 the stones as it is there to get ofiP them. For 
 noise and jolting, however, the paved roads are 
 just like the streets. We now perceived that 
 we had been at cross-purposes with Colonel 
 [ 195 ]
 
 J OU R N A L 
 
 Haliburton, and that tliis was the stage con- 
 cernmg which Mr. Short had desired him to 
 warn us. There was some delay in getting 
 horses from the plough, and we resumed our 
 journey about four o'clock. 
 
 The Church continued in sight as long as 
 there was light for distinguishing it, a grand 
 and solemn object in this wide and open plain. 
 Of what coarse clay must those beasts upon two 
 legs be formed, who are for pidling down Ca- 
 thedrals and building Meeting Houses ! 
 
 The roads were indeed, as Grumpy called 
 them, dbomindble. Three times we were 
 obliged to alight and walk, while the carriages 
 were dragged thro' places so bad that it wa? 
 doubtful whether they would escape an over- 
 turn. These places were generally deep 
 sloughs. But in one part the way from one 
 line of road (if road it may be called) into 
 another had been banked up by the owner of 
 the ground at the farther end, leaving the other 
 open where we had entered, so that we were 
 caught as in a trap. In the midst of this diffi- 
 culty, where the nicest driving was required, 
 the pin of our carriage came out, and never 
 [ 196 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 did I see more presence of mind and judicious 
 exertion than were displayed in replacing it. 
 Indeed, both drivers and postillions behaved 
 with the greatest alacrity and good humour, 
 and we got through at the expense only of a 
 few sacres and sacrements. An Englishman 
 j^eems to increase his angry or vexed feelings 
 by swearing ; but the pests and sacres which 
 are in use here appear to act as safety-valves. 
 The words are uttered with a slow and delib- 
 erate earnestness of enunciation, in which the 
 vexation that called them forth passes away. 
 The third of these passes was an absolute 
 Slough of Despond, a long piece of hollow 
 road, half full of water ; but we had here the 
 distant sound of wheels upon the paved way, 
 and few sounds were ever more welcome to our 
 ears. In the] midst of this slough, where the 
 water and mud were up to the horses' bellies, 
 the pin came out a second time, and was a sec- 
 ond time, with equal dexterity, replaced, tho' 
 poor Gnmipy could only act by the sense of 
 feeling, it now being too dark for him to see 
 what he was about. We were at this time 
 walking on the high and dry bank above, and 
 [ 197 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 just then the moon rose behind us, red as blood, 
 over the wide and open country which we were 
 leaving. 
 
 Having at length cleared this passage, we 
 reached the chaussee. From Maestricht as 
 far as Tongres I believe to be the Liege road 
 from that city, and we had now crost into the 
 road from Liege to Brussels. The first letter 
 in the alphabet represents the course A 
 we have gone up the left leg halfway, and then 
 struck by the cross-line into the right one, in- 
 stead of describing the angle. There is a poor 
 cabaret where this bye-road opens into the high 
 one, and we went in to warm ourselves and dry 
 our feet while the horses rested. The only 
 liquor it afforded was white beer, 'a weak, 
 fresh, and not unpleasant beverage, tasting 
 well of the malt ; if bottled, I have no doubt 
 but that it would be a very agreeable summer 
 drink. The kitchen was full of country fel- 
 lows, who neither moved their hats, nor ap- 
 peared in the slightest degree curious at be- 
 holding so large a party of foreigners. One 
 man sate writing a letter the whole time, with- 
 out once lifting his eyes from the paper. The 
 198 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 mistress of the house was a woman of prodi- 
 gious stature, at least six feet high. They 
 were all decent in their appearance ; and I 
 may remark here that during our whole jour- 
 ney we have seen no drunkenness, no quarrel- 
 ling (unless the afair of yesterday with the 
 postiUion be called so, which was rather a 
 matter of chastisement), and no ill behaviour 
 of any kind. We had fuU leisure for look- 
 ing at these people well, and were aU struck 
 by the general good expression of their coun- 
 tenances. 
 
 Here the extra horses were dismissed ; the 
 stage had been severe, tho' short (about six 
 miles), and the drivers were very thankfid for 
 a [franc each, which they had well deserved. 
 We paid for what our own horses had here, 
 and also for the coachmen, which put them 
 also in high good-humour. They were two 
 civil, good fellows as ever travellers fell in 
 with. The moonlight served us well for our 
 stage to St. Trou, which was three leagues. 
 Our inn was the Hotel de Sauvage. We went 
 into the public room, which was heated by a 
 comfortless stove in the middle, and there we 
 
 [ 199 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 found a Belgian officer, who commanded the 
 detachment stationed in this poor decayed 
 town. Like every man with whom we have 
 conversed, he seemed to have a strong impres- 
 sion that things were by no means settled. 
 Peace, he said, had been dictated to the 
 French, but not accepted by them. The mis- 
 tress of the house said, we must not expect 
 much in so poor a place as St. Trou, which 
 she called a village. What we had, however, 
 was excellent in its kind, chops, fricassee, 
 and omelet. The beds were good, and the 
 charges more reasonable than had been any- 
 where else. I have called her the mistress, 
 because we supposed her to be so, but it 
 appeared afterwards that the mistress was 
 ill, and there was a Beguine in the house 
 nursing her from a Beguinage near the 
 town. 
 
 Thursday, 19 Oct. 
 
 Our chamber was a very large room with a 
 black floor, the hearth a singular composition, 
 being, if Edith May and I were not both mis- 
 taken, made of rushes (like a chair-bottom) 
 [ 200 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 or of twine (we could not ascertain which) 
 plaited in a diaper pattern and thickly painted. 
 We had a quilt of yellow sattin. Here, and 
 almost everywhere, the tables are covered with 
 an oiled marble-paper, set in a wooden border. 
 The tower with the chimes stands in the great 
 Place ; it bears the date of 1606, and is painted 
 black and white. There is also a large church 
 by which some fine old flat tombstones were 
 lying, broken and half covered with filth. 
 Large blocks of coal were to be seen in the 
 shops as if sold by weight. 
 
 Three leagues to Tirlemont. By the way 
 we noticed an odd contrivance for the poultry. 
 Some six or more feet from the ground there 
 was a hole in the wall, to serve as a door for 
 them ; and sticks were driven into the wall, at 
 intervals, like the steps of a ladder, for them 
 to ascend by. We saw this at so many farms 
 that it is plainly the custom here, and I sup- 
 pose it is found to secure them from vermin. 
 Some mud houses here have the whole side 
 which is most exposed to the weather covered 
 with thatch. The villages are not by the 
 roadside ; the churches very numerous every- 
 [ 201 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 where. Here I saw a Eoyston crow, or 
 what I took to be one, a crow with the head 
 and wings black, and the body grey. We past 
 over Dnmouriez' field of battle, in a wide and 
 open country. 
 
 The gate thro* which we entered has been 
 painted Orange colour in compliment to the 
 new sovereign. Much as I may approve the 
 old cry of Orange haven, I certainly do not 
 like an orange-coloured town gate. The Plat 
 d'Etain here is a good hotel. The Landlord 
 remembers the battle in 1792, when a fourth 
 part of the town was destroyed by an explo- 
 sion ; and this house had all its windows shat- 
 tered, tho' far enough from the spot to escape 
 any greater injury. This would account for 
 the wide space, and the number of fields within 
 the circuit of its old walls. But no part of 
 Europe has suffered so frequently, or so se- 
 verely, from war as these poor countries, of 
 which Tirlemont and St. Trou and Tongres 
 are melancholy proofs, and the latter place 
 especially, which is the more melancholy, be- 
 cause it is a famous and a venerable name. 
 
 There is a fine church at Tirlemont, not a 
 [ 202 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 little disfigured by the buildings which are 
 stuck against its sides. Buying some apples 
 I was surprised to find that the woman who 
 sold them spoke English. I bought also two 
 coloured prints, designed for children, of the 
 very coarsest kind, but not a little curious, 
 representing in a series of compartments, one 
 the history of Gulliver, the other that of Tom 
 Thumb, with Flemish verses under each. 
 Both stories are greatly corrupted. Grulliver 
 is made to die in Brobdignag by falling into 
 a tureen of soup, and Tom Thumb by falling 
 into a pond from a tree where he has climbed 
 to steal apples. 
 
 The trappings of the horses are in general 
 very handsomely ornamented with brass nails. 
 The leaders in these huge waggons are usually 
 three abreast ; the shaft horses in pairs. The 
 cattle seem to be very well used. I have seen 
 neither instance nor marks of cruelty to an 
 animal; and I fear no man could travel a 
 day in England without perceiving both. 
 
 When a nosegay is stuck in a cart or wag- 
 gon, it is understood as signifying that what 
 is for sale there is of the best quality. 
 [ 203 ]
 
 J O U B N A L 
 
 Two leagues to Louvain. Here, as at Tirle- 
 mont, there are fields and bams within the 
 old walls ; but Louvain is still a very large and 
 populous city ; in the early part of the fifteenth 
 century (the golden age of the Low Coun- 
 tries) it was the largest city on this side the 
 Alps. We had seen no dogs used in draught 
 since we left Brussels, till we arrived here. 
 The Church of St. Paul's here has a most 
 magnificent pulpit; one side represents the 
 Conversion of St. Paul, the other St. Peter 
 sitting, with the keys. These Pulpits in the 
 Low Countries I suppose to be the finest speci- 
 mens of carving in the world ; nor indeed is 
 sculpture anywhere to be seen upon so large a 
 scale of design and execution. Chaire de la 
 Verite they call the pulpit, a felicitous name, 
 considering the enormous fables which have 
 been delivered from it in Roman Catholick 
 countries. I have in my possession Catholick 
 sermons containing stories quite as amus- 
 ing and quite as true as any in Mother 
 Goose. 
 
 At our Inn here, the Hotel de Cologne, 
 there is the same luxury of plate-glass win- 
 [ 204 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 dows as at Brussels. The windows every- 
 where fasten as they do at Lisbon, with a large 
 bolt, which presses up at one end and down at 
 the other, by turning a handle in the middle. 
 But the workmanship is much better. We 
 had some of the Peterman beer for which tiiis 
 place is famous, at dinner: finer I never 
 tasted ; it is soft, nuld, and strong as Burton 
 Ale, but neither sweet nor cloying. 
 
 The Town-House at Louvain was weU char- 
 acterised by Mrs. Vardon, who exclaimed at 
 first seeing it that it was like a trinket, ac- 
 tually an architectural bijou. The ornaments 
 are so exquisitely rich that it looks like a thing 
 of ivory, or fiUagree designed for a Lady's 
 dressing-table. There is a very remarkable 
 picture in one of the rooms, which our guide 
 (a most incompetent one, for he could neither 
 understand us, nor make us understand him) 
 ascribed to Quintin Matsys. A Guardian 
 Angel is pointing out the Crucified Saviour in 
 Heaven to two children, a boy and a girl, who 
 seem clinging to his knees ; another boy, who 
 holds a cross, is looking wistfully to the Angel, 
 but the Devil has his leg in a chain. He 
 [ 205 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 could tell us nothing of the history of the 
 piece, hut it plainly relates to some family 
 unhappily divided in those religious troubles 
 of which this Painter saw the commencement 
 and progress. 
 
 I set out in search of the Beguinage, and 
 after a long walk was conducted to the smaller 
 one, for there are two in this city. This proved 
 to be a single, narrow street, closed at the one 
 end. There are no gardens, and the houses 
 are like those at Ghent, but not so large. A 
 Beguine whom I met and accosted told me 
 there were only three sisters here, the apart- 
 ments being occupied by Nxms formerly be- 
 longing to the suppressed orders. The larger 
 Beguinage, she said, had seventy sisters. But 
 that was half an hour's walk, and time did not 
 allow me to get there. 
 
 Tho' this large city is the seat of a Univer- 
 sity, I could not discover that it contained a 
 decent bookseller's shop. At the best I could 
 find, I picked out from a very few books three 
 which I was glad to obtain. The one a Gazet- 
 teer of Louvaine and what are called its May- 
 eries, published, I see, in successive years as an 
 [ 206 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 appendage to some Almanack, but collected 
 into a volume of a very unpretending and 
 useful kind. Another is the Acta of King 
 St. Ferdinand, in a good octavo, with the 
 prints reduced, published in this form by the 
 Bollandists, before the volume of their great 
 work, which includes his day, was ready. This 
 belongs to my Spanish collection. The third 
 relates to Irish or Scotch Ecclesiastical his- 
 tory : " Sancti Kumoldi Martyris Inclyti, 
 Archiepiscopi Dubliniensis, Mechliniensium, 
 Apostoli, Advocati steriliiun conjugum, agri- 
 colarum, piscatorum institorum, et hairgen- 
 tium, Acta Martyrium, Liturgia Antiqua," 
 etc., by Hugo Vardous, an Irish Francis- 
 can, 1662. It had been a presentation copy 
 from the Author. The book appears to con- 
 tain a good deal of research into the dark 
 as well as the fabulous ages of Scotland and 
 Ireland. 
 
 Friday, 20 Oct. 
 
 J IVE leagues to Brussels. On the way Edith 
 
 May's quick eyes discovered the small or Lil- 
 
 liput cabbages growing like warts upon the 
 
 [ 207 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 stalks of what seemed common cabbages ; and 
 no doubt they are an artificial product. The 
 road commands a most extensive prospect, such 
 as the slightest elevation gives over a plain 
 country. The cathedral at Mechlin was dis- 
 tinctly seen, and Antwerp, we were agreed, is 
 visible to good eyes in clear weather. We 
 left Laeken on the right, and reached our old 
 quarters at Brussels to dinner. 
 
 During this tour, wherever we went, the blue 
 frock continued to be the costume of the com- 
 mon man, and that of the women has nowhere 
 varied from what we saw at Ostend. The 
 men of the better orders wear caps more fre- 
 quently than hats ; these caps are mostly of 
 grey or black cloth, with a front of the same, 
 or of horn, like a jockey's cap ; or they are 
 of velvet, and have generally then a circle of 
 grey worsted (perhaps it may be Astrachan 
 lamb-skin, real or imitated) at the bottom. 
 
 The swine are as miserably lean as in Ireland, 
 or leaner, if that can be. I called them 
 not pigs, but greypigs, for as some humorists 
 in England have trained pigs to point, here 
 they might use them for coursing. 
 [ 208 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 Saturday, 21 Oct. 
 
 yjjJB. chance acquaintance with Mr. Nash hav- 
 ing by this time been ripened by mutual good- 
 will into incipient intimacy, he offered to make 
 some Waterloo sketches for my intended 
 poem, and for that purpose we returned this 
 day to the field of battle, leaving the Var- 
 dons to pass the day with their Brussels 
 friends. We set out a little after seven, the 
 two Ediths with Nash and myself in the open 
 carriage, Koster and Miss Foreman on horse- 
 back. 
 
 The forest of Soigny is very striking. It 
 has none of the beauty of a natural forest ; 
 but because it is an artificial one, it has a 
 character of its own, not always becoming im- 
 pressive where it is upon a large scale. The 
 trees are so straight that they look as if they 
 had grown under the superintendence of a 
 Drill Sergeant. An oak which stands on the 
 verge of the forest, where it has room to spread 
 its arms in natural growth, really appeared 
 like a deformed and monstrous being, from its 
 utter unlikeness to all the other trees. They 
 [ 209 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 stand in many parts so close that the inter- 
 stices look only like straight lines of green 
 light. The road is in many parts raised con- 
 siderably above the level of the forest. La- 
 bouring men and boys were seated by the way- 
 side at breakfast, and spreading their dark 
 brown bread ^ with a white substance, which 
 whether it be lard, or a sort of inferior butter, 
 or curd, we have not yet learnt, tho' we have 
 frequently seen it thus used. Saw one horse 
 with a comb attached to the trappings of his 
 neck ; another with red tassels pendant over 
 his face, which must be useful against the 
 flies. 
 
 Breakfasted at "Waterloo. Among other ves- 
 sels in the kitchen there were, to my no small 
 astonishment, six bright and shining pewter 
 chamber-pots hanging up, evidently for or- 
 namental display, when not on service. Edith 
 May tells me there were similar ornaments in 
 the kitchen at Tongres. The inner room, in 
 
 ^ This bread is dark enongh to explain the Datch word 
 for a favourite child, or one cockered, as we should say, and 
 brought up on dainties. It is wittebroodskind or kindje 
 a white-bread child. 
 
 [ 210 ]
 
 JO U R N A li 
 
 whicb a noble wood fire was kindled for us, 
 contained four beds, which no doubt has 
 been sadly occupied after the battle. On the 
 chimney-piece was a tuft of artificial flowers, 
 something of the same kind more artificial 
 still being an imitation of flowers made with 
 feathers, and with gilt foil for the stamens, 
 and two hyacinth glasses of blue and gold. 
 There is generally a sort of vallance or little 
 canopy, about a quarter of a yard deep, over 
 the chimney-piece in these countries. The 
 cieling of the room was of black boards, the 
 floor of bricks, and sanded; and under the 
 window was a hole to let the water out when 
 the room is washed. Knowing at what sort 
 of house we should make our first halt, we 
 took our own tea rather than trust to the 
 chance of finding coffee there ; toasted bread 
 by help of a gridiron, which the people of the 
 house brought us for that purpose ; and break- 
 fasted well as well as merrily. 
 
 After breakfast Nash made a sketch of the 
 Church, and I copied the inscription over its 
 portico, interesting enough for its subject 
 and its semi-pagan form. 
 
 C 211 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 D. O. M. 
 
 ET D. D. JOSEPHO ET ANNAE, 
 
 HOC SACELLUM, 
 
 PBO DESIDERATA DOMmnS CATHOLICIS 
 
 CAROLI 2. HISP. IND. REGIS, BELG. PRINCIPIS 
 
 PROSAPIA, 
 
 FRAN. ANT. AGURTO. MARCHIO. DE CASTANACA 
 
 BELG. GUBERNTOR. 
 
 Cause enough indeed had these poor coun- 
 tries to pray that that most pitiable poor king 
 might leave issue to succeed him ! There is a 
 good portrait of this poor king in the " Acta 
 S. Ferdinandi Kegis," which I bought yester- 
 day ; it is so truly characteristic that it alone 
 would make the book valuable. I never saw 
 a more compleat union of gentleness, melan- 
 choly, and imbecility. 
 
 There are two monuments in the Church to 
 the English Officers ; one to those of the first 
 foot guards, the other to those of the 15th 
 Hussars, both at the cost of their brother 
 officers. They are of plain white marble with 
 a narrow black edge. I copied both inscrip- 
 tions. The churchyard is a square unadorned 
 212 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 enclosure, between two and three hundred 
 yards behind the Church, or rather ChapeL 
 Several graves were shown us on the way be- 
 tween, on the edge of the forest, where men 
 had been buried who died of their wounds. 
 In the churchyard are two flat tombstones, 
 close together, and both on the ground. One 
 to Colonel de Langrehr of the Bremen corps ; 
 the other to Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Fitz- 
 gerald of the 2d Life Guards. The children 
 who acted as our guides here said his body 
 had been buried on the field, but was removed 
 hither by his widow; and that it was the 
 trunk only, the head having been carried off 
 by a cannon-ball. I copied these epitaphs 
 also. There was but one other tombstone in 
 the cemetery : it was that of an inhabitant of 
 the village ; and this, tho' it has been made 
 some years, is not yet fixed, only laid upon 
 some temporary supporters. 
 
 I enquired at the Inn if there were any 
 remembrance in the village of an affair here 
 in 1705, when the Duke of Marlborough 
 gained some advantage upon this very ground, 
 but could not learn that there was any recol- 
 C 213 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 lection of it. They axe so used to such things 
 in these countries that nothing short of a gen- 
 eral action leaves any impression upon them ; 
 but I should add that the man of the house 
 both speaks and understands French worse 
 than any person whom we have met with who 
 pretended to do either the one or the other. 
 
 Lord Uxbridge's leg, the most remarkable 
 relic of modern times, is deposited in the gar- 
 den of a house opposite the Inn, and on the 
 same side of the road as the Chapel, the 
 nearest house to it on the Brussels side. The 
 owner of the house is as proud of possessing 
 it as a true Catholic would be of an imdoubted 
 leg of his patron Saint. The figure, manner, 
 and earnest enthusiasm of this Leg- worshipper 
 were in the highest degree comic. I accosted 
 him hat in hand, and with the best French I 
 coidd muster (which is bad enough. Heaven 
 knows), but as much courtesy as if I had been 
 French by birth and breeding, requested per- 
 mission to visit the spot. He led us to a little 
 mound in his garden, which is in front of the 
 house. The mound is about three or four feet 
 in diameter, and of proportionate elevation 
 C 214 ]
 
 J O U B N A L 
 
 (sounding words should be used on great oc- 
 casions), and in the centre of it is a tuft of 
 Michaehnas daisies, at this time in blossom. 
 The leg, he told us, had been at first interred 
 behind the house. But the Wife of my Lord 
 has requested him to plant a tree which should 
 mark the spot; and he, considering that a 
 tree behind the house, which was not private 
 ground, might be very probably injured or de- 
 stroyed by boys, had removed the leg into his 
 own garden, and there deposited it in a proper 
 box or coffin. The Michaelmas daisy was a 
 mere temporary ornament. In November he 
 should plant the tree ; it was to be " un saule^ 
 English willow." " Oui, Monsieur,'* I 
 replied, ^^ f entends, Varhre larmoyant ; the 
 weeping willow. It will be very picturesque 
 and pathetic." The whole thing is so ridicu- 
 lously comic that I hope no foolish person will 
 hint to him that the laurel might be more ap- 
 propriate. He had composed an epitaph for 
 the leg, he said, which was then in the stone- 
 cutter's hands ; but he had a copy of it. Of 
 course I requested to be favoured with the 
 perusal ; and having perused it with due grav- 
 [ 215 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 ity, solicited permission to transcribe it also. 
 Upon this he presented me with the copy, and 
 I then perceived that he had several other 
 copies, ready to be disposed of in like manner. 
 Here follows the Epitaph, being I believe 
 unique in its kind : 
 
 Ci est enterre'e la Jambe de L^Ulustre, brave et vailUmt 
 Comte Uxbridge, Lieutenant General, Commandant en 
 Chef la Cavalerie Anglaise, Beige et Hollandoise ; blesse 
 le 18 Juin, 1815, en la memorable battaille de Waterloo : 
 qui par son heroisme a concouru au triomphe de la cause 
 du Genre humain, glorieusement decidee par I'eclatante 
 victoire du dit jour. 
 
 I did not present him with my own Epitaph 
 upon the same subject in return. 
 
 This is the Grave of Lord Uxbridge's leg : 
 Pray for the rest of his body, I beg. 
 
 He was too proud of having such a deposit in 
 his garden, too happy, and too serious in his 
 happiness for such a jest to have been allow- 
 able. He took us into the house and shewed 
 US the stain of blood upon two chairs, telling 
 us Lady Uxbridge had desired it might never 
 be washed out. And he called for the boot, 
 C 216 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 remarking as he displayed it, "Voila quel 
 petit pie pour si grand homme ! " According 
 to his account, some dozen surgeons assisted 
 at the operation, which I do not believe, 
 because if the surgeons at hand had been fifty- 
 fold more numerous than they were, there 
 would even then have been fifty times as much 
 work as they could all have performed. It 
 was amputated at eleven o'clock at night, and 
 they were ten minutes about it, his Lordship 
 never uttering an expression of pain. 
 
 The Forest extends farther on the East 
 (that is the left) side of the road, than on 
 the West. To the end of the forest from 
 Waterloo is a distance which we were thirteen 
 minutes in driving at a regular jog-trot pace ; 
 from that termination to Mont St. Jean fifteen 
 more, and another fifteen from thence to the 
 Belle Alliance ; La Haye Sainte being about 
 halfway between the two latter places, as 
 nearly as may be. There was therefore no 
 fighting within two miles and a half of Wa- 
 terloo. 
 
 At Mont St. Jean the wells are in some of 
 the houses, a door opening directly upon it. 
 [ 217 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 This must be for the double purpose of secu- 
 rity and cleanliness. Our guide seemed de- 
 lighted at recognizing us as we drove past, 
 tho' his services were not needed on this second 
 visit. We left the carriage and the two horses 
 at La BeUe Alliance, and crost the fields to 
 Hougoumont, taking a boy with us to carry 
 our provisions. The Gardener gladly bade us 
 welcome here. Mr. Nash established himself 
 by the house, to the left of the entrance, 
 chusing a point of view in which the Chapel 
 is the prominent object with the adjoining 
 ruins to the right ; and while he was thus em- 
 ployed, we reconnoitred the ground a second 
 time, at leisure. 
 
 I now discovered in the garden a sun-dial 
 cut in box, but having been neglected and 
 allowed to grow in its own way since the action. 
 I should not have perceived what it had been, 
 if the wooden gnomon had not caught my eye, 
 and induced me to examine the circular bed 
 in which it stood. It is surprising to see how 
 many small trees have been destroyed in the 
 wood, and in a row beside the path, at the end 
 of the premises. There can be no better proof 
 [ 218 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 how thickly the shot must have fled. The 
 owner of the estate, a man of eighty-six, who 
 resides at Nivelles, has just sold the wood for 
 felling, and wishes to dispose of the whole 
 property. I wish it might be allowed to re- 
 main untouched, that the ruins themselves 
 might remain as the best monument of the 
 brave men who are buried underneath them. 
 
 Mr. Nash made a second sketch, from the 
 door of the Chapel, comprising the interior of 
 the ruins ; and another of the Mansion look- 
 ing at its entrance. When making this, his 
 seat was placed on the mound where the burnt 
 remains of the Frenchmen are covered, and 
 the children who beg here with the most in- 
 vincible pertinacity actually offered him for 
 sale some calcined bones which they had raked 
 out of a hole. 
 
 Leaving the ladies here, I walked with Ros- 
 ter to Papelote; which is a large enclosed 
 farm and dweUing-house like Hougoumont, 
 and is perhaps the most picturesque place of 
 the two, tho' it does not appear to have been 
 so recently inhabited as the mansion of a 
 wealthy owner. Had these short days per- 
 C 219 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 mitted, I could very much have wished that 
 Mr. Nash should have made some sketches 
 here also. They are rapidly rebuilding such 
 parts as were destroyed. We spoke with the 
 owner, a plain farmer he appeared to be. 
 There had not been many men killed here, 
 but a great many wounded Prussians had been 
 carried into the stables, which escaped the fire ; 
 and tho' he made repeated applications at all 
 the neighbouring places both for means of 
 transport and for assistance, they had neither 
 to give; and in this state of utter abandon- 
 ment did Mr. Werth find these poor creatures 
 five days after the battle. 
 
 At some little distance a fine plain stone 
 pillar is lying on the ground, apparently from 
 the ruins of some considerable edifice. 
 
 Hougoumont and Papelote were the extreme 
 points of the British position. We were 
 three quarters of an hour in walking from one 
 to the other, at a brisk pace ; the distance, 
 therefore, is three miles. The fighting ex- 
 tended no farther on the left than to the end 
 of the Orchard, some two hundred yards. The 
 French had possession of it for some quarter 
 C 220 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 of an hour, and then abandoned it upon the 
 appearance of the Prussians. Papelote is not 
 upon the Wavre road, but on a road that 
 turns from it to the right. The road from 
 La Haye Sainte to this turning is lined with 
 graves, and here we saw more bones than in 
 any other part of the field. More than once 
 the air told us in how hasty and insufficient a 
 manner the bodies had been covered. This 
 labour, and an enormous labour it must have 
 been, was left for the peasants to perform, 
 for their own sakes and at their own cost. It 
 is no part of military business to bury the 
 dead. 
 
 As we walked leisurely over the field on our 
 return, the inequalities of the ground were 
 considerable enough to make us take a little 
 circuit for the sake of avoiding them. Cer- 
 tainly, therefore, in bad weather, they would 
 greatly impede the cavalry. It was an affect- 
 ing circumstance to observe the oats which 
 had been trodden down during the battle 
 sprinpng up here and there. The young corn 
 was shewing itself in other places. 
 
 We conversed with Lacoste, who has ob- 
 [ 221 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 tained so much notoriety for having been in- 
 voluntary guide to Buonaparte. He was with 
 him during the whole day, and assured us that 
 Buonaparte never charged at the head of the 
 cuirassiers, nor ever, in any part of the action, 
 exposed himself. The Observatory, he says, 
 was erected by the Belgian Government, and 
 there are three or four such along the frontier 
 between this place and Ghent. 
 
 Five or six parties of English arrived while 
 we were here. We afterwards learnt that Dr. 
 Ireland, the Dean of Westminster, was with 
 one of them. Among the pertinacious chil- 
 dren who infest this place, the most pertinar 
 cious was a girl drest in a good and apparently 
 new upper dress, which was carefuUy pinned 
 up to display a ragged imder petticoat, and 
 present an appearance of poverty. It will be 
 well if the habits of greedy mendicity, in which 
 all these children have been encouraged by 
 their parents and by the shoals of visitors, do 
 not render them shameless and worthless thro' 
 life. There is a noble dog at Hougoumont, 
 who remained there with the Gardener, his 
 master, during the greater part of the action, 
 [ 222 ]
 
 J O U B N A L 
 
 barking at times bravely, as if he would will- 
 ingly have taken part in it. But when the 
 French got possession of the wood, General 
 Maitland desired the man to get ofif while he 
 could, lest the enemy, if he fell into their hands, 
 should put him to death as one who had given 
 information to the English. 
 
 It was dark before we returned to Brus- 
 sels: some apprehension was expressed as if 
 there might be robbers in the forest (for 
 whom it certainly affords fine cover) ; and at 
 the gate we were questioned concerning our 
 passports. * 
 
 The women in this country take a much 
 greater part in business than they do in Eng- 
 land. Very commonly they keep their hus- 
 bands' accounts, they are quite as active in the 
 shops, and I am told that it is not uncommon 
 for them to have the management of the con- 
 cern. There must be advantages in this, as 
 well as objections to it ; and I am inclined to 
 think the advantages predominate. 
 
 The houses very much resemble those in 
 Spain and Portugal as to the entrance, doors, 
 etc., in fact, the Spanish fashion in building 
 [ 223 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 them still prevails. They are often coloured 
 of a light green. Throughout Flanders the 
 favourite colour for doors and window-shutters 
 (which all open outwards) is grass-green, and 
 nothing can give a more chearful appearance. 
 The doors of good houses have generally a 
 brazen knob, or handle (which is a Bristol 
 fashion), fixed in a brazen star. The stables 
 are all without stalls, which makes them cooler 
 and cleaner. Hooks are fixed on the roofs of 
 the houses to secure ladders when laid there 
 for the purpose of repairs. The form of the 
 common saw here is like that of a turning 
 saw. 
 
 t 
 
 Sunday y 22 Oct. 
 
 W ISHING to see Antwerp, which the Vardons 
 had seen, we left them at Brussels, where they 
 were to remain this day and meet us to-morrow 
 evening at Ghent. Mr. Nash accompanied us. 
 On the way we crost the Allee Verte, and had 
 a good view of the gardens at Laeken, and 
 the back of the palace, which is certainly most 
 finely situated. A little beyond is a fine villa, 
 with long covered walks and jetting fountains. 
 [ 224 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 The covered walk is better in a wanner cK- 
 mate, and there it is perfectly delightful, a 
 natural cloister, perfumed by orange, lemon, 
 or jessamine blossoms, or enriched with clus- 
 ters of grapes. I like fountains, and think 
 we have done ill in discarding them from the 
 English garden. The sound is always sooth- 
 ing, and in a sultry day they produce the sense 
 as well as the association of coolness and 
 freshness. We saw some splendid trekschuits, 
 tho' perhaps none so handsome as that which 
 plies between Bruges and Ghent. They look 
 more like Chinese junks than European ves- 
 sels. The barges have on each side a large 
 moveable fin, which prevents them from falling 
 to windward ; it is no doubt borrowed from 
 the fin of a fish, and is shaped and used like 
 them. 
 
 We past thro' Vilvorde, where there is an 
 immense House of Correction, large enough 
 to accommodate six thousand criminals with 
 separate apartments. It is probably the 
 largest edifice of its kind in the world, and 
 prisoners are sent there from all parts of the 
 Low Countries. Vilvorde is remarkable to a 
 [ 225 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Protestant, and more especially to an English- 
 man, on another account, as being the place 
 where Tindal suffered martyrdom. He was 
 betrayed by an English Catholic, who was a 
 student at Louvain, and the Clergy of that 
 University delivered him over to the secular 
 arm, to be strangled and burnt. The town 
 is still Catholic, and those of its inhabitants 
 who are not unbelievers would, I have no 
 doubt, at this day justify his execution, such 
 is the unmitigated and immitigable spirit of 
 this abominable superstition. More allow- 
 ance, however, is to be made for its intolerance 
 in the Netherlands than in any other part of 
 Europe. 
 
 The acacia is a very common tree here. 
 
 Four leagues from Brussels to Mechlin, or 
 Malines, as it is here called. The public room 
 at the Cour Imperial was hung with embossed 
 leather, of which the greater part of the ground 
 was covered with gilding : I never saw so mag- 
 nificent a remnant of old times. The Cathe- 
 dral Tower is remarkable (that is, it appeared 
 so to me) for the depth of its projecting parts. 
 They have the fashion of placing only the skele- 
 [ 226 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 ton of a dial upon their church clocks. In 
 particular lights the figures are sufficiently 
 distinct; and I suppose the reason for the 
 fashion is the same as for our invisible fences, 
 that the clock may not be seen, or rather seen 
 as little as possible, unless you have occasion 
 to look at it ; being, tho' a necessary append- 
 age to a church tower, no ornament to it, in 
 the opinion of these architects. Be this as it 
 may, the effect of these skeleton dials is by no 
 means good. Give me an honest clock that 
 shows its face, and a quarter-boy standing at 
 each side. 
 
 The Cathedral is a very fine one. "Within, 
 there is, according to the usual custom in the 
 Low Countries, a whole-length statue upon 
 every pillar ; and there is also a second regi- 
 ment above them ; but this upper range con- 
 sists of Termes, if that word be fitly applied 
 to half-length figures, ending in a pedestal 
 which makes up the full length of life. There 
 is much fine marble in the Church and withal 
 some imitations of marble, always provoking 
 for their paltriness ; for example, there is some 
 carving in the choir painted to look like bas- 
 [ 227 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 relief, in white marble, and some monuments, 
 which you think very fine at first sight, betray 
 the same meanness upon nearer inspection. 
 
 Mechlin is at present the great seminary for 
 the Clergy. Many of the students were walk- 
 ing about the streets, a liberty which we were 
 told was only allowed there on Sundays. Some 
 of the houses are ornamented with gilding on 
 the outside. The great Place has a singular 
 building which I suppose to be the Town-house, 
 with two pointed Flemish towers on each side 
 the gate. The Beguinage here is of some ex- 
 tent, and resembles that at Ghent, except that 
 there are neither courts nor gardens before the 
 houses. Mechlin is an interesting place, which 
 weU deserves to be seen at leisure. 
 
 The country from Brussels to this city is 
 chiefly in pasture. I saw a pyebald sheep on 
 the way, spotted like a water spaniel. We 
 have seen so few sports among the boys, that 
 the sight of a party at ninepins was noticed by 
 us as something extraordinary. There are so 
 many public gardens in the vicinity of every 
 large town, that it is evidently very much the 
 custom to frequent them. 
 
 [ 228 3
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 From Mechlin to Antwerp four leagues. 
 "We past thro' a large village halfway, with 
 a large church, where service was going on 
 at three in the afternoon, and the church was 
 crowded. The congregation consisted wholly, 
 as it appeared to us, of the lower ranks, and 
 very many sailors among them, on their knees, 
 in much apparent devotion. Both here and 
 at Vilvorde, the coachman when he stopt to 
 water his horses drove under a large open shed, 
 erected to afford shelter (should it be needed) 
 at such times. 
 
 Near Antwerp there are some extensive pub- 
 lic gardens, which have been so recently made 
 that they have not yet any one beauty to re- 
 commend them; you merely perceive that 
 they will be places for recreation when the 
 plants shall have had time to grow. If we 
 were correctly informed, they are laid out upon 
 the ground where a considerable part of the 
 suburbs stood, which was pulled down by the 
 French. Yet to this bare and joyless spot 
 (as we should have deemed it) all Antwerp 
 and his wife and all the little Antwerps were 
 crowding. 
 
 [ 229 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Our passports were required as we entered, 
 and we were told to call for them at the Po- 
 lice Office between the hours of six and seven. 
 Having reached the Bear Hotel, we asked for 
 a private room, and were shewn into one with 
 a stove and a sanded floor. Dinner was or- 
 dered at six, and we set out to make the best 
 use of two hours' daylight. 
 
 The first place to which the Commissionaire 
 led us was the Cathedral. Its celebrated tower 
 is like the Town-house at Louvain, a piece 
 of architectural trinketry ; but here, to my 
 feelings at least, the trinketry is out of place. 
 It excited surprize, wonder, and perhaps ad- 
 miration ; but I felt that grandeur and effect 
 had been sacrificed. You must be near enough 
 to see the lace-work distinctly, otherwise the 
 form only is perceived, which has neither the 
 solemn massiveness and majesty of a tower, 
 nor the light sky-pointing beauty of a spire. 
 Surprizingly beautiful, however, in its kind, it 
 is. Charles 5 said of it when he saw it first, 
 that it ought to be shut up in a case, and shewn 
 only once a year. We saw it under the most 
 favourable circumstances, in an evening light, 
 [ 230 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 against a clear sky, which made all the open 
 parts distmct. 
 
 Perhaps the interior has lost nothing in ef- 
 fect from having been mercilessly stript by 
 the Revolutionists and the French ; it has now 
 the naked grandeur of an English cathedral. 
 All the Images have been destroyed except 
 one, which a mechanic of the town purchased 
 in the time of havoc, preserved, and has since 
 replaced. Of six and thirty chapels which it 
 contained, the French only left one. They 
 sold the brasses, broke the marbles, and melted 
 down the plate. A safer method of inlaying 
 monumental stones is practised here : the stone 
 is a blueish marble and the letters, armorial 
 bearings, and ornaments or emblems are let in 
 in white. 
 
 The Pulpit is poor in comparison with those 
 which we have lately seen. Four figures re- 
 presenting the four parts of the world support 
 it, and emblematic birds and other animals 
 are grouped about it. The great picture of 
 Rubens is expected to-morrow ; others have 
 already arrived from Paris (for which honour 
 and praise to the name of old BlUcher), and 
 [ 231 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 when they are replaced there is to be an illu- 
 mination and a day of public rejoicing, in 
 which, if it were my lot to be present, I should 
 partake as heartily as if I were a Boman Catho- 
 lic and a native of Antwerp. 
 
 The Commissionaire was now leading us to- 
 wards the Docks, but we had so little daylight 
 remaining that none could be afforded for an 
 object of no great interest to any one of the 
 party ; so he turned back to the Musemn, in 
 all the avenues to which there was an abomi- 
 nable and sickening stench of uncleanness 
 from the cloacas. Here is the Chair of Ru- 
 bens, so inscribed, and decorated with a laurel 
 wreath round that inscription, which is always 
 replaced before it grows sere. Mr. Nash, as 
 in duty bound, kissed the chair. A Church 
 which under the French has been appropri- 
 ated for the use of the Academy of Design, 
 has lately been emptied of its pictures that it 
 may be fitted up as a place of worship for the 
 English. The Commissionaire now said he 
 would take us to a Church which had not its 
 equal in the world ; and as far as any of us 
 had seen the World, he was right in his boast. 
 [ 232 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 For in a Court belonging to the Church and 
 adjoining to it, half the scripture history is re- 
 presented by figures large as life, and coloured 
 to life ; and at the end is a huge Calvary built 
 up against the wall of the Church, and made 
 to the model of the Holy Sepulchre, the two 
 inventors, we were told, having made three 
 joumies to Jerusalem, in order that the plan 
 might be perfectly correct. Then statues, let- 
 tered B. Jordanus and B. Gimdisalvus, are 
 the first as you enter. Hound about the Sep- 
 ulchre you see thro' iron grates the Souls in 
 Purgatory praying amid the flames, whether 
 the beatified artists went thither also to make 
 their sketches on the spot, our guide did not 
 inform us. The body in the Sepulchre is 
 covered with a white silk pall ; you look at 
 it thro' a hole, and see it by the light of a 
 lamp within. This was the most ridiculous 
 puppet show, in all its parts, that I ever saw. 
 The Dominican Church to which it is at- 
 tached, has a good picture of the Descent from 
 the Cross, painted some seven years ago at 
 Rome, by an artist who is still living, and 
 whose name sounded to our ears like Seltz, 
 [ 233 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 perhaps Schultz. There is a singular clock 
 over the entrance to the Choir ; a dart in the 
 hand of an Angel points to the hours which 
 are marked upon a revolving globe. The Con- 
 fessionals in this Church are ranged against 
 the wall all round, and have statues about 
 them of dark brown wood, large as life, mak- 
 ing a terrific appearance, especially as we saw 
 them when the evening was closing fast. 
 
 We went also to the Church of St. Jaques, 
 which is exceedingly rich in marble, but our 
 reason for going there was to see the grave of 
 Rubens. There was a large Beguinage which 
 the French destroyed, because the site was 
 wanted for some of their works. The Be- 
 guines, to the number of some six or seven hun- 
 dred, are now lodged in a Convent, a change 
 made for the worse. There, as throughout 
 these countries, they are much respected ; and 
 they are said not to be poor. The great street 
 is certainly a very fine one, and may fairly 
 be ranked with those at Madrid and Oxford 
 wherewith it is compared. That at Naples, 
 which is named with them, I have not seen. 
 Yet the Calle de Alcala is much longer, and 
 E 234 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 terminates more finely in a gateway, and the 
 High Street at Oxford contains much finer 
 buildings. Water is flowing under the street. 
 
 As we had asked for a private apartment, 
 I was displeased upon our return at finding 
 a great fleshy, florid feUow, who looked like 
 an Englishman, seated at dinner in the room 
 which we had engaged. However, he soon 
 took his departure without having opened his 
 mouth for any other purpose than that of put- 
 ting something into it, and when the book was 
 brought for us to enter our names and desig- 
 nation, I perceived that he styled himself Doc- 
 tor and was Irish. The door of the stove 
 when it was opened displayed a grating within, 
 so as to allow the sight of a fire, which makes 
 no inconsiderable part of its comforts. 
 
 After some trouble in the search Koster 
 found out our trekschuit acquaintance, Mr. 
 Sergeant, and brought him to pass the re- 
 mainder of the evening with us. From him 
 we heard all that he had heard or knew re- 
 specting Antwerp. He told us, what may 
 weU be believed, that there is a large party of 
 Buonapartists here, for Antwerp is one of the 
 [ 236 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 few places which derived great advantage 
 from his policy, and that the late Mayor, for 
 belonging to this faction, had been compelled 
 to resign his office a few days ago. The Eng- 
 lish, he said, had been very popular, as long 
 as there were other troops in the town ; but 
 now, when they were quartered on the inhabit- 
 ants, they were no longer liked, and the people 
 were not civil to them. In consequence of 
 this marked incivility, many officers who could 
 afford it had taken lodgings, to the great 
 alarm of the former hosts, who are thus put 
 in fear of having their quarters occupied by 
 less scrupulous guests. The firing of the 16th 
 was heard here, not that of the 18th, which, 
 the wind being in an opposite direction, was 
 heard at Herve. 
 
 A Hanoverian officer assured Sergeant that 
 the German officers in general made it a rule 
 if one of them spoke to another in French 
 to knock him down, and that such a blow 
 was not to be resented. They had deter- 
 mined also that their children should not 
 learn to speak the language of their mortal 
 enemies. 
 
 [ 236 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Sergeant told us a truly characteristic story 
 of his own countrymen. A fellow was brought 
 before his father for having been one of the 
 most active persons in a desperate riot to 
 which indeed his appearance bore full proof. 
 He however protested that he was as innocent 
 as a babe unborn. " AU I had to do with it, 
 your honour, was this. As I was walking 
 along thinking of nothing at all, I saw a 
 parcel of men fighting; so I only took my 
 shillelah to help one of the parties, and cried 
 out as I ran into the thick of them, God 
 grant I may take the right side." 
 
 Monday, 23 Oct. 
 
 VJuR bedroom was very comfortable, and, for 
 the first time, carpetted. Sergeant, having 
 been upon duty all night, called upon us ac- 
 cording to appointment at half after six, and 
 took us to the citadel. We got there before 
 the drawbridge was lowered, and a crowd was 
 waiting for admission, among whom were men 
 who had slept out without leave. The citadel 
 is to the S. W. of the town. There had for- 
 merly been some fine trees between them, which 
 [ 237 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Carnot cut down, and our men had hardly yet 
 cleared them out of the ditches. 
 
 The carts which came with vegetables to 
 market were packed with remarkable nicety. 
 Everything was in baskets, resembling in shape 
 our strawberry baskets, and containing, I sup- 
 pose, a certain measure. The cart was Med 
 with them, and others even hung round the 
 outside ; so that there was nothing more to do 
 than to take the baskets out and arrange them 
 in the market-place. The market is held at 
 the top of the great street. 
 
 Charges at the Bear were high. They have, 
 indeed, everywhere been higher than they 
 ought to be in a land which is overflowing 
 with plenty. But this is because we are 
 English. 
 
 The Coachman had crossed the Scheldt at 
 seven o'clock, high water being necessary 
 either for embarking or landing the carriage. 
 We were on the other side before nine, leav- 
 ing Antwerp thro' a gate which has a large 
 statue of Neptune, or some river god, 
 over the entrance. The Scheldt we thought 
 to be about as wide as the Thames at Green- 
 [ 238 J
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 wich, and the water was just savoured with 
 salt. The city and its towers were seen to 
 great advantage from the river and the oppo- 
 site shore. The ferry was cheap, the weather 
 fine, and the passage to T6te de Flandre plea- 
 sant ; but if the traveller goes from Ghent to 
 Antwerp, it is desirable that he should reach 
 Tete de Flandre early enough to cross, other- 
 wise he must put up at an uncomfortable 
 auberge. 
 
 The first three miles of our journey lay over 
 open and marshy pasture lands, which of all 
 kinds of country is the dreariest. We then 
 entered upon inclosures, where the cultivation 
 was in the highest degree careful, the Pays de 
 Waas indeed being the most highly cultivated 
 part of Flanders, and consequently of Chris- 
 tendom. What there may be in Asia I know 
 not, but in any other part of the world I be- 
 lieve there is nothing can be compared with 
 this. And it is not a little gratifying to per- 
 ceive how much beauty has been produced by 
 this wise and careful industry, which had 
 utility alone in view. The richest parts of 
 England present nothing more woody, tho' the 
 [ 239 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 wood here consists only of double rows of 
 trees, one on each side the ditches which 
 divide the fields. The fields are for the most 
 part very small gardens perhaps they ought 
 rather to be called, both from their size and 
 produce. Every one is slightly raised in the 
 middle, with an inclination which is just suffi- 
 cient to be perceptible toward the sides. This 
 is evidently that the water may run off, not 
 for the purpose of increasing the surface, as 
 has foolishly been stated by writers who either 
 had not seen the ground or did not reflect 
 upon what they were saying. 
 
 The first place on the way is Beveren, the 
 chief place of the Pays de Beveren (a Barony 
 in old times), which is almost surrounded by 
 the Pays de Waas. It is one of those places 
 called in French a franchise^ which is more 
 than a village and less than a town, and may 
 perhaps be rendered a privileged village. In 
 size, however, beauty and apparent opulence 
 and comfort, it is superior to half the towns 
 we have seen. The next place to which we 
 came, St. Nicholas, is of the same description, 
 but it is a finer place, and has indeed the 
 [ 240 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 name of being the wealthiest and finest village 
 in the world. Nothing can exceed the neat- 
 ness and visible welfare of this place, and be 
 it observed that this is not a prosperity arising 
 from manufactures, if it were there would 
 be none of this neatness and quiet comfort, 
 but wholly from agriculture and the trades 
 which every community requires. 
 
 In the Great Place at St. Nicholas, or what 
 in England might be called the Green, is a 
 pole with a bird on the top, which the men 
 practise in shooting at. 
 
 As we drove by I perceived a bookseller's 
 shop; thither I went while the horses were 
 watered, and was received with a degree of cold- 
 ness amounting even to sour incivility by the 
 mistress; the cause was explained when she 
 said she supposed I was a Frenchman, and the 
 change in her manner was instantaneous when 
 I assured her she was mistaken ; she then told 
 us that her husband had been obliged to con- 
 ceal his most valuable books when the French 
 were in authority there, and they had suffered 
 much from that detested people. Here I 
 bought the Lives of the Admirals, an old, popu- 
 C 241 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 lar compilation in Dutcli, and, overlooking 
 the inconvenience of transporting it, the great 
 history of the War in the Netherlands down 
 to the year 1600 by Pieter Bor, in four huge 
 folios. We were, however, sufficiently amused 
 with that inconvenience as we carried them 
 off, I bearing one under each arm in triumph, 
 and Mr. Nash and Koster following with one 
 each, and we laughed heartily as we stowed 
 them in the coach, even the Coachman join- 
 ing in our mirth. 
 
 Beyond this place, which is two posts and a 
 quarter (about twelve miles) from Tete de 
 Flandre, the country becomes less beautiful. 
 In some places where the soil is poorest they 
 cultivate broom, to be used for an under-layer 
 in thatching. No com of any kind is grown 
 along the whole way from the Scheldt, at least 
 we saw none growing, nor vestige of any. When 
 we had left the pasture land, the inclosures 
 were all filled with culinary herbs, with here 
 and there a few fields of flax and woad. In 
 the sandier and worse soil there is sometimes 
 a slip of woodland by the wayside. And as 
 we advanced farther we came again to pastur- 
 [ 242 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 age. An old man was making twine in a 
 manner sufficiently rude: the string, which 
 was of very great length, was past over nails 
 driven into some of the roadside trees, and 
 a boy (probably his son) turned a wheel at 
 the end of the walk. 
 
 We dined at Lokeren, which is about eight 
 miles from St. Nicholas and twelve from Ghent. 
 Here we had pewter plates and sour red wine, 
 but the other fare was good. There is an odd 
 sign here of a stag's head, in which real horns 
 are fixed upon a painted head. Some few 
 miles farther a party of men and women were 
 playing bowls, all in great glee, and some of 
 them slapping their thighs as an expression of 
 delight. We saw many women making lace 
 in their houses, an employment which seems 
 to be wholly domestic in these countries. Pas- 
 ture and bleaching grounds near Ghent, where 
 we arrived at five o'clock, and were joyfully 
 recognised by the good people of the Hotel de 
 Flandres, from the Master and Mistress down 
 to the little boy who ascended the Belfrey with 
 us. 
 
 Having in consequence of the advanced sea* 
 [ 243 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 son dismissed the open carriage, we had taken 
 a close one, and a different coachman from 
 Brussels. This man had been employed in 
 conveying the wounded from Waterloo to the 
 hospital in that city, and what he had seen 
 while upon that service, he said, had made 
 him ill. He enquired of Koster what was the 
 meaning of " O Lord I " which he said the men 
 repeatedly cried out along the road. Some of 
 our officers whom he had seen lying on the 
 field were pierced with more than twenty bayo- 
 net wounds. 
 
 The Vardons arrived at Ghent half an hour 
 after us, and we supt at the table d'hote. 
 Here Koster had a long conversation with 
 a high-spirited young Frenchman, who hated 
 Buonaparte, despised the Bourbons, and 
 groaned over the state of his country. The 
 Marshals, he said, were all brigands, except 
 one or two, instancing Clarke and Macdonald 
 as exceptions ; and when we mentioned Oudi- 
 not, he exclaimed with great delight, " Oudinot 
 is my countryman ! " Louis, he said, ought to 
 have hanged some thirty of the chief brigands, 
 and broken all the officers of the rebel army ; 
 [ 244 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 and in this I heartily agreed with him. The 
 Duke de Berry seems to be detested by every- 
 body ; he must have a rare union of demerits 
 to be regarded at once with so much contempt 
 and abhorrence. In one point this young 
 Frenchman, however, was mistaken ; he insisted 
 that the Old Guard cared nothing for Buona- 
 parte, that it was for their country they felt and 
 fought, and that they would have fought with 
 the same good-will for the King. Now our 
 coachman had seen one of this guard who had 
 lost both thighs, and in that condition lain four 
 and twenty hours upon the field ; he had seen 
 that man wave his hat over his head for Buona- 
 parte, and heard him exclaim Vive VEmpe- 
 reur^ an sacre nom de Dieu ! It is beyond 
 all doubt that there was a very strong military 
 feeling in Buonaparte's favour. 
 
 Tuesday, 24 Oct. 
 
 feEVEN leagues to Courtray ; the road comes 
 frequently near the river Lys. We saw some 
 barges drawn against the stream by six or 
 seven men, with much greater exertion than I 
 should have looked for in so level a country. 
 [ 245 ]
 
 JO U R N A li 
 
 Vines are in some places here trained upon the 
 roofs of the houses, and the appearance is very 
 pleasing. Some houses have three or four rows 
 of tiles at the bottom of the thatch ; and the 
 thatch at the points of the house is usually 
 tied in some fantastic form. 
 
 During this day's journey we had some 
 cloud scenery of the grandest character. At 
 one time the clouds were cimiulated till they 
 resembled a range of Alpine mountains cov- 
 ered with snow, and with the appearance of 
 deep rifts and drifts, the sun shining upon 
 them. At another they extended in one dark 
 mass above us, but terminated on the west in 
 a line of Hghter sky, over which a curtain liter- 
 ally seemed to be let down when the rain began 
 to fall there in heavy streaks. 
 
 The effect of the light falling upon the red 
 sails of a windmill in motion was equally sin- 
 gular and striking. In some places there was 
 a most abominable stench of manure. Vespa- 
 sian might weU lay a tax upon such a com- 
 modity if it were used in this way. 
 
 We put up at the Golden Lion, which is an 
 
 [ 246 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 excellent hotel, but the charges higher than 
 they ought to be. We had the comfort of 
 a grate and a good fire in the sitting-room : 
 the hearth was composed of bricks set within 
 a brazen plate of this shape """V^^^,,^"" t^ 
 brass where it was straight being more than 
 a foot wide. There were some prints in the 
 room engraved at Augsburg, from English 
 originals ; the subjects were from Werter, and 
 I think they were Bunbary's designs. Here 
 I find that the oiled-paper table-tops fit like 
 a cover, over a deal frame. They make up 
 thirty-three beds in this house, and one wo- 
 man, who is the only female servant, does the 
 whole work, and cleans the house also. We 
 had English knives here, and the dessert was 
 served upon fine old China. This is the only 
 place where we were asked if we had brought 
 our own sheets or would use those of the house. 
 Everything was very good here, but the charges 
 higher than we had found them anywhere else 
 except at Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 The Place at Courtray has one fine object, 
 a tower which appears to rise very incongru- 
 
 [ 247 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 ously from some modern houses. The town 
 has little appearance of life, and yet little of 
 decay. There were some pitiful caricatures of 
 the English in a shop window : one of them 
 represented Mylord Plumpudding avec My- 
 lady Corrhee. Nothing could be worse. 
 
 Here I bought the "Histoire Monimien- 
 taire du Nord des Graules appuyee sur les 
 Traces marquantes et les Vestiges durables 
 des Anciennes Colonies qui ont illustre les 
 Fastes Belgiques. Par J. B. Lambioz. T. 1'." 
 Printed at Mons, without a date, but about 
 1800 I suppose. As the work of a curious 
 and credulous man, who has brought together 
 the antiquities, traditions, and fabulous history 
 of these parts, with some learning and little 
 discrimination, I am glad to have met with it, 
 and wish it had been continued thro' three 
 volumes more, as the author proposed. 
 
 Wednesday , 26 Oct. 
 
 J. HE Landlord enquired which of our party 
 
 had slept in No. 29, and having learnt that 
 
 Koster was the person, told him the Duke of 
 
 [ 248 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 York had slept in that same bed and chamber 
 five and twenty years ago. 
 
 Courtray appeared to most advantage as we 
 left it. Two short leagues to Menin, over a 
 dismal country, but of good pasture. Menin, 
 which once exported much cloth, especially to 
 Spain, and whose breweries were famous far 
 and wide, is now a decayed and dolorous place, 
 strikingly so to those who remember how 
 frequently it was mentioned in the Grazettes 
 during the first years of the war. The build- 
 ings are in ruins; grass is growing in the 
 streets; the works are neglected; they are 
 cultivated in some places, and one part is con- 
 verted into a cabbage garden. Sic transit ! 
 
 Three longer leagues over a pleasanter 
 country to Ypres. The scenery becomes more 
 English, and in one part there were some 
 fields slovenly enough to look like bad Eng- 
 lish farming. On our left we had some rising 
 ground, and the remarkable hill upon which 
 Cassel stands, in the distance. We saw a 
 great many windmills in this stage, and very 
 picturesque ones ; some had the door very high 
 above the groimd, others with a round stone 
 [ 249 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 building at the base. Upon arriving at Ypres 
 we found that there were three thousand Han- 
 overians quartered in the town. 
 
 We drove to two inns, both in the Great 
 Place: the one appeared very bad, and at 
 the other, which was little better, the extreme 
 incivility of the people determined us not to 
 stop ; so we sallied in search of something 
 less repulsive, and found civil treatment at the 
 Tete d'Or. 
 
 While dinner was preparing I went out with 
 Koster and Mr. Nash to see what this decayed 
 and mournful city might contain. In the days 
 of its prosperity the Great Place must have 
 been one of the finest things in the Low 
 Countries, perhaps the very finest. For 
 tho' the Town-House has not the florid beauty 
 of those at Louvain and Brussels, it is more 
 imposing than either, from its extent and 
 grandeur and position. I know of no build- 
 ing wherewith it may be compared. It has a 
 character of its own, and might be taken 
 either for a palace or for the most magnificent 
 of colleges. 
 
 In the Cathedral, which stands behind this 
 [ 250 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 noble edifice, there are some respectable pic- 
 tures. One, which the Sacristan pointed out 
 to us, represented an attack upon the city by 
 the English in former times. Over one of the 
 doors within there are some life-large figures 
 of Saints and Bishops painted on wood, and 
 cut out to resemble life. In a land which has 
 been above all others prolific of great painters, 
 one wonders to find such things as these. It 
 is remarkable that the very name of Janse- 
 nius, " wherewith all Europe rung from side 
 to side, " is now utterly unknown to the very 
 people who shew this church wherein he is 
 buried. I wished to have seen his grave. 
 The Sacristan knew of no such person, per- 
 haps, he said, it might be the Bishop Henry, 
 whose surname had not been added upon his 
 tombstone, and who died in 16 7-, the tomb- 
 stone having apparently either been prepared 
 in his lifetime, or by some strange neglect left 
 in this unfinished state by his representatives. 
 But Jansenius' name was Cornelius ; and this 
 was the grave of Henrik van Halmale, the 
 fourth Bishop after him, who died in 1677. 
 Perhaps the monument of Jansenius may have 
 [ 251 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 been removed thro' the influence of the 
 Jesuits: perhaps the materials were worth 
 something, and it may have been demolished 
 in the days of revolutionary plunder. It was 
 a disappointment to me not to find it, tho' I 
 have no respect for his person and a thorough 
 detestation for his doctrine, which is mere 
 Calvinism. 
 
 Seeing that an old plan of Ypres made in 
 the fifteenth century had been newly engraved, 
 and was announced for publication by bills 
 upon the walls, I went to the shop where it 
 was sold. I did not, however, purchase it, 
 because from its size it could not have been 
 carried without inconvenience and injury ; but 
 there were some books in the shop, among 
 which, few as they were, I found some that I 
 was very glad to obtain. The one was a Dutch 
 Poem upon the Great Earthquake at Lisbon 
 by Frans de Hals : a quarto, with some large 
 vignettes, and an admirable portrait of the 
 author by Houbreken, the face being most 
 remarkable for length of narrow chin and 
 prominence of nose. Disagreeable the counte- 
 nance is not, for it is mild and intellectual, 
 [ 252 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 but nothing can well be imagined more un- 
 handsome ; and yet the Author has printed 
 some verses written in his fiftieth year on the 
 effects produced upon him by a kiss from a 
 sweet mouth! Some of his poems are upon 
 a less trivial subject the benefit he had de- 
 rived from Mrs. Stephens' remedy for the 
 Stone. 
 
 My other purchase was a collection, and I 
 believe a compleat one, of Vondal's Works, 
 which must have been made with no little 
 care, the plays having all been printed sepa- 
 rately, and none of the other compositions 
 collectively, except two volumes of Poems. The 
 portrait of him in his eighty-fourth year is 
 the very finest engraved portrait I ever saw, 
 for effect and breadth and yet it has no 
 engraver's name affixed to it. The collection 
 is in eleven volumes foolscap quarto, and I paid 
 forty francs for it, a great prize. At Brus- 
 sels I wished to have bought the works of 
 Jacob Cats, who of all writers, in all languages, 
 best deserves to be called the Household Poet ; 
 but for the best edition, in one huge folio, 
 Verbeyst asked one hundred and forty francs ; 
 [ 263 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 and tempting as the book was, I might as well 
 think of buying a Tortoise-shell Tom Cat as 
 giving such a price for it. 
 
 This purchase will always make me recollect 
 Ypres with pleasure. The stove at our Inn 
 contained the fire in a well-shaped urn. The 
 wine was bad there, especially a weak, sweet 
 wine to which they give the name of Tours, 
 and which is, of course, a wine from the 
 Loire, about the worst in kind I ever tasted. 
 We had met with it before at La Belle Alli- 
 ance. In general, when the wines have not 
 been good, we have found the Rhenish the 
 best ; being the best of good wines, it seems 
 even when bad to preserve its superiority. 
 
 The Coachmen were very much out of hu- 
 mour with Ypres. " C'est une vilaine ville ! " 
 said the one. " You have not fared well then ? " 
 was the reply; upon which he answered, "C'est 
 ne pas Bruxelles," and declared that he would 
 never again take this road with any person. 
 The country immediately without the walls is 
 in pasturage, drear and ugly. It soon im- 
 proved, and again became of English character. 
 Hop-poles are laid up in the fields in stacks, 
 i: 254 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 and tliatched over. The stench of manure 
 upon this day's journey was sometimes almost 
 intolerable; some of it was in barrels: it 
 was plain even to nasal demonstration that 
 nothing is wasted here, which can be applied 
 to this useful purpose. The distances are 
 irregularly estimated by short leagues, strong 
 leagues, and leagues of the post; the latter 
 are like our posting miles in England, measured 
 for the profit of the posting concern. Indeed, 
 we have everywhere found the distance less 
 than it was represented. The barriers are 
 each a post league asunder. There are neither 
 mile nor league stones, and when you come to 
 a directing post it expresses the distance by 
 the fractions of a post, thus 2/4 vers YpreSy 
 2/4^ vers Poperinge. It is a stage of two 
 short leagues from Ypres to Poperinge, and 
 there I am now writing by a comfortable wood 
 fire, in a bedroom at the Grand Cerf. The 
 fireplace of this chamber is as large as the 
 ingle of an old farmhouse, and when we came 
 in it was closed by a chimney board big enough 
 to have served as a scene for a strolling com- 
 pany of players. The people are civil and 
 [ 255 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 obliging. They sent us good coffee in an old, 
 battered, ill-shaped coffee-pot, which had once 
 been plated, but now the copper was every- 
 where appearing ; the cups were of beautiful 
 French porcelain, made at Nantz. 
 
 Thursday, 26 Oct. 
 
 W E breakfasted in the public room, which 
 was in no better stile than the rest of the poor 
 house ; it was, however, furnished with some 
 prints which, tho' poor in themselves, were in- 
 teresting to me for their subjects. One which 
 bore for its title " La Lionne reconnoissante," 
 represented the lying story of the woman at 
 Buenos Ayres which is told by Charlevoix 
 on the authority of I know not what fellow 
 fabler. Its companion was upon a truer 
 tale, a mother falling on her knees before a 
 Lion who had got loose in the streets of Flor- 
 ence, and entreating him to spare her child. 
 Over the chimney was an engraved portrait, 
 which probably had hung there from the time 
 it was published, and now recalled a long train 
 of mournful recollections, it was the por- 
 trait of Elizabeth Philippe Marie HeCene de 
 [ 256 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 France^ Soeur de Monseigneur le Dauphin^ 
 nee a Versailles le 3 J/ai, 1764. 
 
 The church at Poperinge is much dilapi- 
 dated ; they are now repairing the inside, and 
 the masons to my surprise were going on with 
 their work during mass, tho' the church was 
 as full as the population of the place gave any 
 cause for expecting. A flat tombstone from 
 the floor of the church was lying in the street. 
 I noticed one at Courtray, which had been laid 
 in the pavement. In England we walk over 
 them with indifference in a church or church- 
 yard ; it would not be so if we were to see 
 them thus irreverently laid in the street. But 
 Forbes tells us that, during his detention in 
 France, he saw tombstones which had been 
 taken from a demohshed church set up as 
 tables in some public tea gardens ! 
 
 The poorest towns thro' which we have 
 past have never been without a silversmith's 
 shop. There are three or four in this paltry 
 place, so great and universal is the use of 
 trinkets. 
 
 The coachman tells us that the women dis- 
 like the young English officers for their in- 
 [ 257 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 civility and rudeness, but that they fear the 
 Prussian ; the one are discourteous, the others 
 brutal. Here at Poperinge, however, the Prus- 
 sians have left a good character ; they paid for 
 everything and behaved well. The English, 
 says Sir Cochee, are in general too brusques ; 
 they enter a house as if it were their own. 
 He observed that there were two sorts of men 
 with whom it was very impleasant to travel, the 
 parvenus, and those fellows who, having no- 
 thing and being nobody at home, go abroad 
 and give themselves airs. 
 
 One of our horses fell lame here, having 
 strained itself in its impatience at going be- 
 hind the heavy carriage. There was much 
 difficulty in procuring another. Past several 
 fields of beet the effects of Buonaparte's 
 continental system. Hop-poles are laid up 
 much more carefully than in England, and 
 I should think must last longer in conse- 
 quence. Some dozen are fixed upright in 
 the ground so as to form a parallellogram 
 frame, within which the others are laid at 
 length, and then thatched over ; these stacks 
 look like so many huts. 
 
 C 268 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 The French Custom House is at Oost Cap- 
 pelle : that on the Belgian side we had past 
 without trouble or impediment at the cost of 
 two or three francs ; and the Coachmen had 
 assured us that the same facility would be 
 found here ; but we met with a sour and surly 
 Frenchman who insisted upon opening every- 
 thing. A younger and civiller man, whose 
 hand was itching for a five franc piece, whis- 
 pered to us that he was very sorry for this, 
 but that it was owing to the presence of the 
 Superintendent. In these cases the Portu- 
 guese remedy is of approved efficacy ; and be- 
 ing patient perforce, we submitted to what at 
 first was a very rude overhauling. The pass- 
 ports were found good. I had had the pre- 
 caution at Ghent of having all our Waterloo 
 swords and sabres sewn up in one wrapper, 
 that we might not unnecessarily expose them 
 to the eyes of the French. The smaller tro- 
 phies which belonged to us were so wrapped 
 up among our things that there was little 
 chance of their being seen unless every sepa- 
 rate article were suspiciously examined. Mr. 
 Nash's trunk, which was behind our carriage, 
 [ 269 3
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 was produced the first ; and upon opening it, 
 the first thing that appeared, lying on the 
 very top, was the button of a French uniform, 
 bearing the Eagle. At sight of this, the old 
 Frenchman muttered something in a very 
 growling tone, and asked how that came there. 
 " C'est a moi," replied poor Mr. Nash, and 
 put it in his pocket, turning to me with a look 
 of such dolorous expression that it was impos- 
 sible to help laughing. After opening and 
 examining three or four trunks, the men began 
 to be tired, and they began to be civil also, 
 seeing the good humour and perfect unconcern 
 with which we submitted to the search. They 
 assured us that this proceeding here would 
 save us from a much more rigorous examina- 
 tion at Bergues or Dunkirk, for their certifi- 
 cate would clear us at both places. 
 
 We now thought all was done. The trunks 
 were replaced, and I had again taken my seat 
 in the carriage, when I was summoned into 
 the house to show what money I had about 
 me. It was the poor stock of a single guinea 
 and a single Napoleon. But upon my trea- 
 surer, Koster, among eight or ten pieces, four 
 [ 260 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 false louis were found. We had received 
 this money from Danot the Banker at Brus- 
 sels some days after the Gazette had officially 
 announced that such counterfeits were in cir- 
 culation, and pointed out the marks by which 
 they might be distinguished. Mr. Nash's and 
 the Vardons' were all good, Mr. Worth, who 
 had cashed their bills, having been scrupu- 
 lously and properly exact in examining what 
 he gave them. 
 
 Here was an inconvenient loss, because we 
 had aimed at taking no more foreign coin 
 with us than would clear us out of the coun- 
 try. But the loss was likely to be the least 
 unpleasant part of the business. The Super- 
 intendent (a gentlemanly man) showed us the 
 circular letter by which he was enjoined to 
 search all travellers for this false money, and 
 he laid some little stress, courteously but per- 
 ceptibly, upon the assumed (and probable) 
 fact that it was of English manufactory, which 
 we readily admitted they were likely to be. 
 He must send the four pieces to Dunkirk, he 
 said, and an officer of the customs must go 
 with us to that city. A feUow made ready at 
 [ 261 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 the word with all speed to accompany us upon 
 this pleasant errand. Upon this Koster ex- 
 claimed he would rather lose the four louis at 
 once. There was good reason for this, for he 
 had more money in his dressing-case, which, as 
 the case had not been examined, he had not 
 thought fit to produce ; and because he had 
 not produced it, he was now apprehensive that 
 further search might lead to a discovery of 
 more of the same die, and then assuredly the 
 endeavour at concealing them would have 
 placed us in a suspicious light. I understood 
 his fears, and joined with him in declaring 
 that we did not want to be enciunbered with 
 a custom-house Officer for the sake of four 
 louis ; if they were false they might as well 
 be destroyed where they were, and we would 
 throw them into the fire, or cast them into the 
 nearest ditch. But the Superintendent had 
 no authority to destroy them, nor instructions 
 how to dispose of such false money as he 
 found ; and when we proposed to leave them in 
 his hands, he expressed an apprehension that 
 we might suspect him of converting them to 
 his own use, an objection, however, which 
 [ 262 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 soon yielded to our professions concerning his 
 honour. I am ashamed of the uncharitable 
 opinion which I formed at the time ; for 
 upon reflection I am satisfied that the gentle- 
 man acted toward us both honourably and 
 kindly, honourably in believing that we were 
 not concerned in circulating base coin, and 
 kindly in sparing us the expence and trouble 
 to which he might have put us, and which 
 might have been greater than he was aware of ; 
 for upon examining Roster's remaining stock 
 three others of the same die were discovered. 
 The Banker's conduct was inexcusable ; he 
 was, moreover, the only Banker who made us 
 pay ^ per cent, for receiving gold instead 
 of silver. So we left the louis, and pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 This Custom House is about five miles from 
 Poperinge, from Poperinge to Bergues be- 
 ing as many leagues. There is high ground 
 in the distance on the left, and that eminence 
 on which Cassel stands is conspicuous. The 
 country is well cultivated ; but along the whole 
 line from Courtray there are no marks of pros- 
 perity ; the towns are dead and stagnant, the 
 [ 263 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 villages without the Flemish and Brabantine 
 characteristics of cheerfulness and comfort. 
 The approach to Bergues presents a not un- 
 pleasing scene, the church tower ; within 
 the works and on the summit of them a sort 
 of pyramid or obelisk of open wood-work (I 
 know not of what use, nor why erected), the 
 fortifications, a few poplars, and an open green 
 country. We past moat after moat, and gate 
 after gate, till at the inner gate our passports 
 were required, examined and returned to us with 
 much civility by a man with a wooden leg. 
 In another minute, just as we had turned the 
 corner close at hand, a blackguard-looking fel- 
 low stopt the coach and again demanded them. 
 Mr. Vardon said they had already been in- 
 spected. The fellow instantly cried out, " Send 
 two armed men immediately ! " and two soldiers 
 stept forward from the gate house to the horses' 
 heads. "We who saw this, and had only heard 
 the call, were compleatly ignorant of what 
 might be the cause. Edith was alarmed, and 
 Koster, thinking at once that the Buonapart- 
 ists were making a new struggle in France, 
 said, " Things are evidently in a very disturbed 
 [ 264 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 state here." On we moved at a funeral pace, 
 the two soldiers, like mutes, leading the way, 
 and the whole population of this melancholy 
 town crowding to the doors and windows, and 
 into the street, to see a party of English 
 travellers who had been put under arrest. At 
 length we reached the middle of the Great 
 Place, where the Commandant, coming out of 
 an Hotel, saw us, and came to enquire into the 
 matter. " Is it, Sire," said he, " that you have 
 no passports ? " Mr. Vardon presented them, 
 and told him what had past. He looked at the 
 papers, and saying that all was perfectly cor- 
 rect, begged us to proceed, and reprimanded 
 the fellow for his officious interference. The 
 soldiers were dismissed, and we drove into the 
 hotel from which the Commandant had come 
 out. 
 
 Here were the best beds which we had seen 
 since we landed on the continent. While the 
 horses rested, we had some bread and cheese 
 and mdijBFerent wine, for which we were charged 
 very dearly. The Flemish language seems as 
 common here as the French, the shopkeepers 
 using it. The Belfrey is a fine tower ; the 
 [ 266 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 town itself, like all upon this line, mournful 
 and in decay. 
 
 Two leagues to Dunkirk, but very short 
 ones, along a dreary country, and for the most 
 part of the way by the side of a canal, between 
 the road and the seacoast. Along this canal, 
 three women and one man were with much 
 labour towing a barge. Our certificates from 
 the frontier Custom House saved us from 
 any farther examination of baggage, and we 
 alighted without impediment or delay of any 
 kind at the Hotel d'Angleterre, an excel- 
 lent house, where the people speak English. 
 One room is hung with a paper representing 
 the whole process of hunting, a sort of 
 panorama. In another, to which we removed 
 as preferring a grate to a stove, there is a set 
 of ten prints upon the history of Charles L, 
 some of them very finely executed by Baron 
 and Depuis, others by Vandergucht, Epicie, 
 Du Bosc, and J. Harris. They were published 
 by Thomas and John Bowles, 1727. I did not 
 think we had had any such good engraving at 
 that time, and it is remarkable that neither 
 
 [ 266 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 Mr. Nash or I had ever seen any of the series 
 before. 
 
 The floor of the room is painted red. The 
 grate, which is for burning wood, stands upon 
 a wide, open hearth, and its brass ornaments 
 have a sort of tin extinguisher to cover them. 
 There is one pair of tongs of enormous weight, 
 shaped Uke pincers, and another pair of very 
 light ones made in the form of sugar tongs. 
 
 When we went into the streets, the first 
 beggar who accosted us was an Englishwoman. 
 The tower which serves as a sea mark has no 
 church belonging to it ; there is a church op- 
 posite, to which a new and fine facade has been 
 added. We went in and heard good music 
 there; a man walking up and down during 
 the service with a whip in his hand, for the 
 benefit of the dogs. There are many large 
 open spaces in the town, which show that 
 groimd is of little value. A tight-rope dancer 
 was exhibiting in the Great Place, and had 
 collected a large crowd. 
 
 [ 267 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 Friday, 27 Oct. 
 
 VY E had escaped from the huge, high, uncom- 
 fortable Flemish pillows and slept last night 
 after the manner of our own country, and in 
 a good bedroom, which was carpeted. The 
 charges at this excellent Inn were reasonable 
 enough, except that of four francs for candles 
 (the imposition of supplying you with wax 
 lights having reached this place). Five francs 
 were charged for our evening fire, one for that 
 by which we breakfasted. Fuel is necessarily 
 dear, where wood is burnt and brought from 
 a distance. Wine has been everywhere charged 
 at a most imposing rate, but least of any place 
 at Liege. It has seldom or never been below 
 four francs (3/4d), more frequently five, six, 
 and even higher. Here in their list we found 
 Ports and Oporto marked as two distinct 
 wines at six francs each. What was here 
 done with Port has been everywhere done 
 with Claret and Burgundy, under different 
 names and different prices all comes out of 
 the same binn. 
 
 We left Dunkirk after breakfast. The road 
 [ 268 ]
 
 J O U B N A li 
 
 is a straight and raised pavee^ with a row of 
 pollard willows on the left, and on the right a 
 canal, half choked. Along this canal there 
 are very many stands for fishing. An appa- 
 ratus such as we first observed at Ostend is 
 fixed to a stake in the middle of the canal, 
 which is in some places so filled up that there 
 are paths made to these stakes. The sand- 
 hills or downs (unde Dunkirk^ were in sight, 
 and we saw a great many Royston Crows. In 
 one place there was a dry hedge constructed 
 of reeds. The country is of the most dolorous 
 and dreary kind. Halfway (a nominal five 
 leagues) is Gravelines. Before we entered 
 that place we past a burial-ground, in which 
 all the ornaments are black, with inscriptions 
 in white ; the shape either a simple cross, or a 
 cross with a triangle at the crossing part, for 
 the inscription. We found civil people at the 
 Inn, and charges so moderate as to be strictly 
 honest, three and a half francs for a bottle of 
 wine with bread and cheese, we had been 
 charged eighteen at Bergues for the same fare, 
 with only an additional bottle. 
 
 The fortifications of Gravelines have been 
 [ 269 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 very strong, and probably may still be so, the' 
 they exhibit marks of decay. Indeed, the 
 whole town bears dismal symptoms of deca- 
 dence, and the church tower in the Great 
 Place is cracked from top to bottom in so many 
 places that I wonder how it can resist a high 
 wind. 
 
 The road to Calais is as dismal as that 
 which we had already past. Only in one place 
 there was a scene which the contrast made 
 pleasing, a few houses embowered among 
 high trees, at some little distance on the left. 
 We seldom lost sight of the sand-hills and 
 never obtained sight of the sea. The villages 
 thro' which we past were dirty, and the people 
 as dirty as their habitations. Near Calais 
 there is another burial-ground, in the same 
 ghastly fashion ; for nothing can be more hid- 
 eous and abominable than the black, wooden 
 monuments such as I have described. 
 
 At Calais we had neither difficulty nor 
 trouble about passports; in no place does it 
 seem more the system to " welcome the com- 
 ing, speed the parting guest." We drove 
 thro' gate after gate, to the number of five or 
 [ 270 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 six, and upon alighting in the Inn yard of 
 Quillacq's Hotel, were beset by men thrusting 
 their packet cards into our hands. Their ves- 
 sels were to sail on the morrow morning. 
 When they began to disperse, a young Eng- 
 lish officer in uniform, of very prepossessing 
 countenance and manners, approached, and 
 told us that the Lord Chichester, Post-Office 
 packet, which he commanded, would sail in an 
 hour, and that the wind was fair. I objected 
 that we could not get our trimks thro' the 
 Custom House in time ; but he undertook to 
 have that business managed, and accordingly 
 we resolved to go with him, because this packet 
 was sure to be weU manned, and at this season 
 a fair wind was not to be lost. The Commis- 
 sionaire despatched the passports and the lug- 
 gage without any trouble on our part, and at 
 a very trifling expence. We hurried down an 
 excellent dinner, with wine from which we 
 were loth to part, and proceeded at haK past 
 five to the pier. The packet was lying along 
 side, and the descent to it inconvenient and 
 frightful enough for women, by a ladder much 
 less upright than we are used to. We made 
 [ 271 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 our way thro' a great crowd and much dirt. 
 Mr. Nash, who parted from us here to proceed 
 in our smaller coach to Paris, accompanied us 
 to the water side. We parted with mutual 
 regret, but with a promise that he would visit 
 us next summer at Keswick. We saw him 
 watching us from the pier, as long as we could 
 distinguish anything. A fair and gentle wind 
 carried us out, and as soon as we were out of 
 the French harbour we saw the light on the 
 North Foreland, like a Star. 
 
 The Captain promised us a four hours' pas- 
 sage, provided the wind should continue as it 
 then was ; he could not enter Dover, he said, 
 till the morning tide, but a boat would come 
 out and land the passengers. The wind, how- 
 ever, increased, and we were obliged to lie-to 
 under bare poles all night, the men declaring 
 that they never saw the weather look dirtier. 
 In the evening as it darkened I had a good 
 opportunity of observing the phosphorescent 
 appearance of the sea. There was no moon 
 and the night was cloudy ; but on looking over 
 the side of the vessel, the water appeared as 
 
 [ 272 ]
 
 JOURNAL 
 
 if it were reflecting the brightest moonlight. 
 The less brilliant parts of the water had ex- 
 actly the appearance of light clouds in moon- 
 light, floating fast along a dark, blue sky. 
 Brighter spots, like splendid stars, or more 
 accurately like glow-worms, shot by. About 
 an hour after midnight I went on deck again. 
 It was then blowing hard, and the tops of the 
 waves all ai'ound flashed as they rose and 
 feU. 
 
 The morning dawned most inauspiciously. 
 Nothing could look worse than the sky, and 
 the Captain expressed his doubts whether he 
 should be able to enter the port. This sus- 
 pense did not continue long. As soon as he 
 could distinguish the flag on the pier to denote 
 that there was water enough for entering, the 
 vessel was steered for the harbour. The cool- 
 ness of the young Captain, the activity and 
 steadiness of the men, and the precision with 
 which they turned the corner, approaching so 
 closely to the Pier that it was necessary to 
 throw out a fender, were equally striking, and 
 formed altogether a scene which repaid me for 
 
 [ 273 ]
 
 J O U R N A li 
 
 the anxiety of the night. Immediately we 
 were in smooth water, and we landed safely 
 on English ground by seven o'clock, on the 
 morning of Saturday, Oct. 28. 
 
 THE END
 
 THIS EDITION COMPRISES FIVE HUNDRED AND 
 NINETEEN COPIES PRINTED AT THE RIVERSIDE 
 PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A. FIVE 
 HUNDRED COPIES ARE NUMBERED AND FOR SALE 
 
 NO. 3/
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
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 'i 11 MAR 3 11975 
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 1979 
 
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 3721 Journal or 
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