CHAPTER I.

BELGIUM.CHAPTER I.OSTEND AND BRUGES.

BELGIUM.

OSTEND AND BRUGES.

Ostend, the Harbour—Canal Docks—Police—Economy of a private carriage for a party on the continent—General aspect of Ostend—Effluvia—Siege in 1604—Fortifications—Promenade—Sands and sea-bathing—Commerce—Bruges, the railroad—Belgium naturally suited to railroads—Old canal travelling to Bruges superseded—Appearance of the city—Its style of ancient houses—The streets—Canals and gardens—Squares—Style of public edifices—Resembles Pisa—Ancient history of Bruges—Its old palaces—Marriages of Charles the Rash and Mary of Burgundy—Singular marriage custom of the middle ages—House in which the Emperor Maximilian was confined—Residences of Edward IV. of England, and of Charles II.—Commercial greatness of Bruges—The Hanseatic League—Her tapestries—The order of the Golden Fleece instituted in her honour—Saying of the Queen of Philip the Fair—Story of the Burghers at thecourt of John of France—Her present decay—Air of reduced nobility—Costume of the middle classes—Grave demeanour of the citizens—No traces of the Spaniards to be found in the Low Countries—Flemish sculptures in wood—Pictures—No modern paintings in Bruges—Collection in the Church of St. Sauveur—Characteristics of the early Flemish school—The paintings inthe Museum—Statue of Van Eyck—His claim to be the inventor of oil painting—Collection in the Chapel of the Hospital of St. John—Story of Hans Memling—The cabinet of St. Ursula—The folding-doors of the Flemish paintings—The Hospital of St. John—Statue by Michael Angelo—Tombs of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the Rash—The tower of Les Halles—Carillon—Splendid view—ThePalais de Justice—Superb carved mantel-piece—Hotel de Ville—Its statues destroyed by the French revolutionists—Diamond setters—Comparison of Bruges and Tyre—Mr. Murray’s hand-books—The manufacture of lace in Belgium.

September, 1840.

Atsunset when about ten to fifteen miles from land, we had the first sight of the coast of the “Low Countries,” not as on other shores discernible by hills or cliffs, but by the steeples of Nieuport, Ostend, and Blankenburg rising out of the water; presently a row of wind-mills, and the tops of a few trees and houses, and finally a long line of level sand stretching away towardsWalcheren and the delta of the Scheldt. Within fourteen hours from heaving up our anchor at the Tower, we cast it in the harbour of Ostend, a narrow estuary formed where the waters of a little river have forced their way through the sand-banks to the sea. An excellent quay has been constructed by flanking the sides of this passage with extensive piers of timber, whilst the stream being confined by dams and sluices above, is allowed to rush down at low water, carrying before it to the sea, any silt which may have been deposited by the previous tide.

At the inner extremity of the harbour, spacious basins have been constructed for the accommodation of the craft which ply upon the Canal de Bruges, which connects that town with Ghent and Ostend, but its traffic is now much diminished by the opening of the railroad, as well as from other causes.

Neither the police nor the custom-house officials, gave any inconvenience with our passports or our baggage, beyond a fewminutes of unavoidable delay, and within half an hour from the packet touching the pier, we found ourselves arranged for the night at the Hotel de la Cour Impériale in the Rue de la Chapelle.

I may here mention as a piece of recommendatory information to future travellers, that the journey, of which these volumes are a memento, was performed in an open English carriage, the back seat of which was sufficiently roomy to accommodate three persons, leaving the front for our books, maps and travelling comforts, and the box for our courier and a postillion; and that except upon mountain roads, we made the entire tour of Belgium, Rhenish Prussia, and Germany, from Bavaria to Hanover, with a pair of horses. For such a journey, no construction of carriage that I have seen is equal to the one which we used, a britscka, with moveable head, and windows which rendered it perfectly close at night or during rain.[1]I have not made a minute calculation as to expenses, buteven on the score of economy, I am inclined to think this mode of travelling, for three persons and a servant, will involveless actual outlaythan the fares of diligences, and Eil Wagens or Schnell posts. In Belgium, our posting, with two horses, including postillions, fees and tolls, did not exceed, throughout, elevenpence a mile; in Prussia, ninepence; and in Bavaria, even less. Besides the perfect control of one’s own time and movements, is a positive source of economy, as it avoids expense at hotels, while waiting for the departure of stages and public conveyances, after the traveller is satisfied with his stay in the place where he may find himself, and is anxious to get forward to another. Between the advantages gained in this particular, and the means of travelling comfortably at night almost without loss of sleep, through some of the sandy and uninteresting plains of northern Germany, I am fully of opinion that our English carriage, independently of its comparative luxury, not only diminished the expense of our journey, but actuallyadded some weeks to its length, within the period which we had assigned for our return. In Belgium, however, and Saxony where railroads are extensively opened, a carriage affords no increase of convenience, on the contrary, inshort stages, which should be avoided, it will be found to augment the expense without expediting the journey.

Ostend presents but a bad subject for the compilers of guide books, as it does not possess a single “lion,” nor a solitary object, either of ancient or modern interest, for the tourist. Its aspect too is unsatisfactory, it is neither Dutch, French, nor Flemish, but a mixture of all three, and its houses with Dutch roofs, Flemish fronts, and French interiors, are painted all kinds of gaudy colours, red, green and blue, and covered with polyglot sign boards, announcing the nature of the owner’s calling within, in almost all the languages of Northern Europe.

Being built in a dead flat, the town has of course no sewers—it was Saturday evening when we arrived, and in honour of theapproaching Sabbath, I presume, every house within the walls seemed busied in pumping out its cesspool and washing the contents along the channels of the streets, creating an atmosphere above that “all the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten.” This, however, is an incident by no means peculiar to Ostend, the great majority of the cities in the “Low Countries” being similarly circumstanced.

Although a place of importance five hundred years ago, every trace of antiquity in Ostend has been destroyed by the many “battles, sieges, fortunes,” it has passed. It was enclosed in the fifteenth century, fortified by the Prince of Orange in the sixteenth, and almost razed to the ground in its defence against the Spaniards in the seventeenth, when Sir Francis Vere, (one the military cavaliers, whom, with Sir Philip Sydney and others, Elizabeth in her capricious sympathy, had from time to time sent to the aid of the protestant cause in the Netherlands), held its command at the close of its remarkable siege by the forces of the ArchdukesAlbert and Isabella.[2]This memorable siege, which the system of antiquated tactics then in vogue, protracted for upwards of three years, “became a school for the young nobility of all Europe, who repaired, to either one or the other party, to learn the principles and the practice of attack and defence.” The brothers Ambrose and Frederick Spinola here earned their high reputation as military strategists, and the former eventually forced Ostend to surrender, after every building had been levelled by artillery, and innumerable thousands had found a grave around its walls. In the subsequent troubles of the eighteenth century, it was again repeatedly besieged and taken, sharing in all these disastrous wars which have earned for Belgium, the appropriate soubriquet of the “Cock-pit of Europe.” Its fortifications are still maintained in tolerable repair, one large battery called Fort Wellington, is of modern construction, and a long rampart,which was originally designed to protect the town from the inundation of the sea, has been converted into a glacis, and strengthened with stone, brought, at a considerable cost, from Tournay, as the alluvial sands of Flanders cannot supply even paving stones for her own cities. The summit of this defence is an agreeable promenade along the sea, which rolls up to its base, and as far as the eye can reach, stretch long hills of sand, which the wind sets in motion, and has driven into heaps against the walls and fortifications. The level and beautiful strand, however, renders Ostend an agreeable bathing-place, and it is fashionably frequented for that purpose during the months of summer, when the town presents the usualagrémentsof a watering place, baths, ball rooms, cafés, and a theatre.

As the second sea-port in the kingdom, it enjoys a considerable share of the shipping trade of Belgium, but it has no manufactures, and the chief emoluments of the lower classes, arise from the fisheryof herrings and oysters, the bed of the latter, “le parc aux huitres,” being the leading lion recommended by the valet-de-place, to the notice of the stranger at Ostend; and the green oysters of Ostend (huitres vertes d’Ostende), one of the luxuries of the Parisian gourmands. Oysters are, indeed, the first dish introduced at every Belgian dinner-table, and the facility of the railroad has considerably augmented the demand at Ostend.

The herring fishery has, of late years, almost disappeared from the coast of Flanders. It was once one of the most lucrative branches of trade in the Low Countries; and Charles V, when he visited the grave of Beukelson, who discovered the method of pickling herrings, at Biervliet, near Sluys, caused a monument to be erected over his remains. With the Reformation, however, and the lax observance of Lent upon the continent, the demand for salted fish declined, and Holland herself now retains but a remnant of herancient trade; which, however, she cultivates with a rigid observance of all its ancient formalities—the little fleet of fishing boats assemble annually at Vlaardingen, at the entrance of the Maas—the officers assemble at the Stad-huis, and take the ancient oath to respect the laws of the fishery; they then hoist their respective flags, and repair to the church to offer up prayers for their success. The day of their departure is a holiday on the river. The first cargo which reaches Holland, is bought at an extravagant price, and the first barrel which is landed on the shore, is forwarded as a present to the King.

Ostend, Blankenburg, Nieuport, Antwerp, and even Bruges, had once a valuable share in this important fishery, but it has of late years been utterly lost; not more than three sloops, we were told, having put to sea in any year since 1837, and even then with indifferent success. The cod-fishery, however, has been more prosperous, employing between five and sixhundred seamen at Ostend alone; but even this is bolstered and sustained by the unsound expedient of government bounties.

We left Ostend for Bruges by the railroad, sending forward our carriage to Ghent. The fare for the entire distance is little more than for one half, the trouble of mounting and dismounting, being the same for the longer as for the shorter stage. The arrangements of the railroad differ in no essential particular from those of England, except that every passenger’s luggage is more scrupulously examined and charged for extra weight, after which, it is taken from the custody of the owner, who receives a ticket, on the production of which, it is delivered up to him, on reaching the town for which his place has been secured. This system, however, is found to be productive of frequent mistakes and confusion, from trunks andportmanteaus being sent beyond their destination, or left behind altogether. The conductors and officials are all arrayed in uniform, and the starting of the train from each station is announced by a few notes of a trumpet. The engines are chiefly of English manufacture, with the exception of a few made at Liege.

Belgium is of all countries in Europe the best calculated for railroads; its vast alluvial plains, hardly presenting a perceptible inequality. From Ostend to Ghent, I scarcely noticed a single cutting or an embankment, the rails being laid upon the natural surface of the ground, and the direction as straight as the flight of an arrow, without the necessity of a curve or inclination, except to approach some village station on the road.

The old mode of conveyance by the Trekschuit, on the Canal de Bruges, though not discontinued, is comparatively deserted for the railroad. It is, however, by no means disagreeable, the boats being drawn along at the rate of nearly six miles anhour, the accommodation excellent and unique, and the only drawback, the effluvia which in summer arises from the almost stagnant waters of the canal, occasionally heightened by the poisoned streams in which flax had been steeped by the farmers, which is instantly fatal to the fish.

The air and general appearance of Bruges, on entering it by the railroad, which passes direct into the centre of the town, cannot fail to arrest the interest and attention of a stranger. It is unlike any place that one has been accustomed to before, and is certainly the most perfect specimen of a town of the middle ages on this side the Rhine. Its houses have not been rebuilt in modern times, and with their ample fronts, vast arched entrances and sculptured ornaments, and fantastic gables, are all in keeping with our stately impressions of its feudal counts and affluent but turbulent burghers. “Le voyageur,” says its historian, M. Ferrier, “au milieu de ces vieux hôtels, de ces pierres féodales encore debout, espère toujours qu’une noble dame au chaperon develours et au vertugadin élargi, va sortir des portes basses en ogives le faucon au poign, la queue retroussée par un page.”

Instead of the narrow, dingy passages which occur in cities of similar antiquity and renown, there is an air peculiarly gay and imposing in the broad and cheerful streets of Bruges; its streets enlivened by long lines of lindens and oriental plane trees, and traversed by canals, not sluggish and stagnant, but flowing with an active current through the city. Upon these, the wealthier mansions open to the rear, a little ornamented “pleasance” separating them from the river, laid out in angular walks, and ornamented with evergreens, clippeden quenouille, and here and there a statue or an antique vase. The squares maintain the same character of dignity and gravity, overshadowed with “old ancestral trees,” and flanked by their municipal halls and towers—the monuments of a time when Bruges was the Tyre of Western Europe, and her Counts and citizens combined the enterprize and wealth of the merchantwith the fiery bearing of the soldier. These edifices, too, exhibit in their style something of the sturdy pride of their founders, presenting less of ornament and decoration than of domineering height and massive solidity, and striking the visitor rather by their strength than their elegance. On the whole, Bruges reminded me strongly of Pisa, and some of the towns of northern Italy, whose history and decline are singularly similar to its own. The air of its edifices and buildings is the same, and there is around it a similar appearance of desertion rather than decay—though in Bruges the retirement and solitude which was, till recently, its characteristic, has been much invaded by the concourse of strangers whom the railroad brings hourly to visit it.

Bruges, in the olden time, was indebted for its political importance to its being the most ancient capital of the Low Countries, and one of the residences of the old “Foresters of Flanders,” and of that illustrious line of sovereign Counts and Dukes, whose dynastyextends almost from Charlemagne to Charles V, and whose exploits enrich the annals of the crusades and form the theme of the romancers and minstrels of the middle ages. Of the palaces of these stormy potentates, scarcely a vestige now remains, except a few dilapidated walls of the “Princenhof,” in which Charles le Téméraire espoused Margaret of York, the sister of our Edward IV, and in which, also, his interesting daughter, Mary of Valois, Duchess of Burgundy, married Maximilian of Austria, son to Frederick IV—that “portentous alliance,” which subsequently brought the Netherlands under the dominion of the Emperor, and consigned them, on the abdication of Charles V, to the tender mercies of the sanguinary Philip of Spain. At her nuptials, the Duke of Bavaria acted as proxy for the imperial bridegroom, and according to the custom of the period, passed the night with the young duchess, each reposing in full dress, with a sword placed between them, and in thepresence of four armed archers of the guard.

On the opposite side of the same square, stands, likewise, the house, now an estaminet, in which her husband, Maximilian, then King of the Romans, was, after her death, confined by the citizens of Bruges, in 1487, in consequence of a dispute as to the custody of his two children, in whom, by the death of their mother, was vested the right to the sovereignty of Flanders. In spite of the fulminations of the Pope, and the march of the Emperor, his father, with an army of forty thousand men, the undaunted burghers held him a prisoner for six weeks, till he submitted to their terms and took an oath to respect their rights, and exact no vengeance for their violent demonstration in their assertion.

Bruges was, likewise, upon two occasions the asylum of the exiled monarchs of England; once when Edward IV took refuge there, when flying from the Earl of Warwick’s rebellion; and, again, whenCharles II, in his exile, occupied a house in the Place d’Armes, at the corner of the Rue St. Amand. It is now the shop of a tailor.

But all our recollections of Bruges are crowded with associations of the poetry of history; and the very names of her chieftains, Baldwin of the Iron Arm, Robert of Jerusalem, Margaret of Constantinople, Philip the Handsome, and Louis of Crecy, call up associations of chivalry, gallantry and romance.

From the thirteenth century to the close of the sixteenth, Bruges was at once in the plentitude of her political power and the height of her commercial prosperity. As the furs and iron of the north were not yet carried by sea round the Baltic, and the wealth of India still poured through the Red Sea into Genoa and Venice, Bruges became one of the great entrepots where they were collected, in order to be again distributed over Western Europe; and with Dantzic, Lubeck, Hamburg, and a few other trading cities of the west, Bruges becameone of the leading commandaries of the Hanseatic League. The idea of marine insurances was first acted upon at Bruges in the thirteenth century, and the first exchange for the convenience of merchants was built there in the century following.

Her manufactures were equally celebrated with her traffic and her trade. Her tapestries were the models, and, indeed, the progenitors of the Gobelins, which were established in France by a native of Bruges, under the patronage of Henry IV; and the fame of her woolstaplers and weavers has been perpetuated in the order of the Golden Fleece, the emblem of which was selected by Philip the Good in honour of the artizans of Bruges.

It was a native of Bruges, Beham, who, fifty years before the enterprise of Columbus, ventured to “tempt the western main,” and having discovered the Azores, first led the way to the awakening of a new hemisphere.

Of the luxury of her citizens in this age, many traditions are still extant; such asthat of the wife of Philip the Fair exclaiming on finding herself eclipsed in the splendour of her dress by the ladies of her capital:—“Je croyais être ici la seule reine, mais j’en vois plus de cent autour de moi!” A similar story is recorded of their husbands, who when they returned to Paris with their Duke, Louis le Mael, to do homage to King John, the successor of Philip of Valois, felt affronted on finding that no cushions had been provided for them at a banquet to which they were invited by the King, and having sat upon their embroidered cloaks, declined to resume them on departing, saying:—“Nous de Flandre, nous ne sommes point accoutumés où nous dinons, d’emporter avec nous les coussins.”

All this has now passed away, other nations have usurped her foreign commerce, and her own rivals at home have extinguished her manufactures. But still in her decline, Bruges wears all the air of reduced aristocracy; her poor are said to be frightfully numerous in proportion toher population, but they are not, as elsewhere, ostentatiously offensive; except a few decrepid objects of compassion, by the door of the cathedral, we did not see a beggar in the streets. The dress of the lower orders is remarkable for its cleanliness and neatness, and an universal costume with the females of the bourgeoisie, was a white muslin cap with a lace border and a long black silk cloak, with a hood which covered the head, and is evidently a remnant of the Spanish mantilla. There was, also, a cheerful decorum in the carriage of the people whom we met in the streets, that one felt to be in accordance with the gravity of such a venerable old place, as if the streets were consecrated ground:

The city one vast temple, dedicateTo mutual respect in word and deed,To leisure, to forbearances sedate,To social cares, from jarring passions freed.[3]

The city one vast temple, dedicate

To mutual respect in word and deed,

To leisure, to forbearances sedate,

To social cares, from jarring passions freed.[3]

By the way, it is an instance of the abiding hatred with which the people of theLow Countries must have, traditionally, regarded their former tyrants, that so few traces of their dominion or their presence should now be discernible in the country which they so long blasted with their presence. Occasionally, one recognizes in the olive complexion and coal black eye of the Fleming, the evidences of her southern blood; and at Ghent and Brussels there are one or two families who still bear the names of Alcala, Rey and Hermosa, and a few others who trace their origin to Castilian ancestors; but there are no striking monuments now existing of a people, who so long exercised a malignant influence over the destinies of Flanders.

It is true that but a short period, about a century and a half, elapsed from the death of Mary of Burgundy to that of Albert and Isabella, but it is equally true, that for generations before, the princes of the Low Countries had sought their matrimonial alliances at the court of Spain; and under Philip the Handsome and Charles V, when the Netherlands were in the pride of theirprosperity, they afforded an alluring point for the resort of the adventurers of that country, and of the numbers who availed themselves of the royal encouragement to settle there; it is curious that not a mansion, not a monument, or almost a remnant should now be discernible.

In Bruges, as in most other catholic cities, the chief depositaries of objects of popular admiration are the churches; and of these, the most attractive and remarkable are the matchless sculptures in wood which decorate the confessionals and pulpits, and in the richness and masterly workmanship of which, the specimens in the Netherlands are quite unrivalled. Bruges is rich in these. In the church of Notre Dame, the pulpit is a superb work of art of this description; chiselled in oak, supported by groups of figures the size of life, and decorated throughout with arabesques and carvings of flowers and fruit of the most charming execution. It is of vast dimensions for such a work, reaching from the floor almost to the gothic roof ofthe building. In the same church there are two confessionals of equal elegance, each separated, as usual, into three apartments by partitions, in front of each of which are caryatides, which support the roof.

In the church of the Holy Saviour,[4]the grand organ presents another example of this gorgeous carving; and in the little chapel of St. Sang, which is possessed of a few drops ofthe genuine blood of our Saviour, periodically exhibited in its jewelled shrine to the faithful, there is a pulpit, perhaps, of better workmanship than taste, the shell of which represents the terrestrial globe, (orbis veteribus cognita), with a delineation of those geographical outlines which were known at the period of its erection.

In works of art, the burghers of Bruges seem to have been generous as well as ambitious in adorning their city, so long as its municipal affluence placed it within their power to gratify their tastes. The churches, are, therefore, rich in works of theearlyFlemish school—the Van Eycks and Hans Hemling, and Pourbus and their collaborators and successors: but at the period when the new Flemish school had arisen, with Otto Vennius, and attained its eminence under Rubens and Vandyk, Bruges had already suffered her decline, the sun of her prosperity had gone down, and she possesses no works of their pencil. The chief depositaries of paintings in the city, are the church of St. Sauveur, the chapel of the Hospital of St. John, and the Gallery of the Museum near the Quai du Miroir. The three collections present precisely the same array of names, and the same features of art, insipid and passionless faces, figures harsh and incorrect in drawing, finished with that elaborate care which seems to have been at all times the characteristic of the schools of both Flanders and Holland, and gaudy, inharmonious colours, upon a brilliant and generally gilded ground, in the Byzantine style. Except as mere antiquities, these pictures have but little interest to any except themere historian of the art. The collection in St. Saveur I did not see, as it had been removed in consequence of a recent fire, but it seems from the lists to be rather extensive.

That in theMuseumis numerous, but monotonous and tiresome, for the reasons I have mentioned, though Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks with high approbation of some beauties, I presume, it requires the eye of an artist to discern them. The gallery here contains, also, a statue, by Calloigne, a native artist, of John Van Eyck, the painter, called “John of Bruges,” to whom has been ascribed the invention of painting in oil. His claim to the discovery is, of course, incorrect, as the mummy cases of Egypt sufficiently attest, but his merit as one of those, who, earliest and most successfully applied it to the purposes of art, is sufficiently indicated by a glance at his pictures, and their comparison with the inferior productions of his contemporaries in Italy.

But the principal exhibition of the oldmasters of Bruges, is in the parlour of the chapel at the ancientHospital of Saint John. Here the pride of the custodian are the chef-d’œuvres of Hans Memling. Hemling was a soldier and a roué, a prodigal and a genius utterly unconscious of his power. He ended a career of excesses by enlisting in one of the military companies of Bruges, his native city, and from the battle of Nancy, whither he had followed Charles the Rash, in 1477, he was carried, wounded and dying, to the Hospital of St. John. The skill of the leeches triumphed, however, and Hans was restored to strength and vigour, when, for want, perhaps, of some other asylum, he spent ten years of his subsequent life amongst his friends in the hospital, and enriched its halls with the choicest specimens of his art. These pictures are of marvellous brilliancy, although it is said, that Hemling rejected the use of oil, which had been introduced by his contemporary and rival, Van Eyck, and adhered to the old plan of tempering his colours with size and albumen. The artist, too, has introduced into them portraitsof the nuns and sisters of charity, who were the attendants of the sick in the hospital—a delicate and yet lasting memorial of his gratitude for their kindnesses towards himself.

Amongst a number of portraits and scriptural subjects, the gem of the collection is a little, old-fashionedcabinet, probably intended for the reception of relics, some three feet long and broad in proportion, covered with a conical lid, and the whole divided into pannels, each containing a scene from the legend of St. Ursula, and the massacre of herself and her eleven thousand virgins, by the Goths, at Cologne. This curious little antique is so highly prized, that it is shown under a glass cover, and the directors of the hospital refused to exchange it for a coffer of the same dimensions in solid silver. The execution of the paintings has all the characteristic faults and beauties of its author, only the former are less glaring from the small dimensions of the figures. The faces of the ladies exhibit a good perception of female beauty,and St. Ursula herself has her hair plaited into braids and drawn behind her ear, much in the fashion of the present time in England.

The majority of the other pictures have the folding doors which were peculiar to all the painters of the Low Countries, till Rubens latterly dispensed with the use, though they are to be seen on his matchless “Descent from the Cross,” and some others of his pictures in the cathedral at Antwerp. They served to close up the main composition when folded across it; and as they are, themselves, painted on both sides, so as to exhibit a picture whether closed or open, they had the effect of producing five compartments all referring to the same subject, but of which the four outward ones are, of course, subsidiary to the grand design within.

The hospital in which these pictures are exhibited, is one of the best conducted establishments of the kind I have ever seen. Its attendants, in their religious costume, and with their nun’s head-dresses, move aboutit with the quiet benevolence which accords with their name, as “sisters of charity,” and the lofty wards, with the white linen of the beds, present in every particular an example of the most accurate neatness and cleanliness.

Both it and the churches I have named, stand close by the station of the railway by which the traveller arrives from Ghent or from Ostend. Besides their curious old paintings, the churches have little else remarkable; they are chiefly built of brick, and make no very imposing appearance. That of the St. Sauveur, contains a statue in marble attributed to Michael Angelo, and though not of sufficient merit to justify the supposition, is in all probability the work of one of his pupils. The story says, that it was destined for Genoa, but being intercepted on its passage by a Dutch privateer, was carried to Amsterdam, where it was purchased by a merchant of Bruges, and presented to his native city.

But the chief object of interest, and, indeed, the grand lion of Bruges, is thetomb of Mary of Burgundy in a little chapel of the same cathedral. The memory of this amiable Princess, and her early fate are associated with the most ardent feelings of the Flemings; she was the last of their native sovereigns, and at her decease, their principality became swallowed up in the overgrown dominion of the houses of Austria; like Charlotte of England, she was snatched from them in the first bloom of youth, she died before she was twenty-five, in consequence of a fall from her horse when hawking, and the independance of her country expired with her. Beside her, and in a similar tomb, repose the ashes of her bold and impetuous father, Charles the Rash, which was constructed by order of Philip of Spain. The chapel in which both monuments are placed, was prepared for their reception at the cost of Napoleon, who, when he visited Belgium, with Maria Louisa, in 1810, left a sum of money to defray the expense of their removal. Both tombs are of the same model, two rich sarcophagi, composed of very dark stone,ornamented with enamelled shields, and surmounted by recumbent statues, in gilded bronze, of the fiery parent and his gentle daughter. The blazonry of arms upon the innumerable shields which decorate their monuments, and the long array of titles which they record, bespeak the large domains, which, by successive alliances, had been concentrated in the powerful house of Burgundy. The inscription above the ashes of Charles the Rash, is as follows:

CY GIST TRES HAVLT TRES PVISSANT ET MAGNANIME PRINCE CHARLES DVC DE BOVRGneDE LOTHRYCKE DE BRABANT DE LEMBOVRG DE LVXEMBOVRG ET DE GVELDRES CONTE DE FLANDRES D’ARTOIS DE BOVRGnePALATIN ET DE HAINAV DE HOLLANDE DE ZEELANDE DE NAMVR ET DE ZVTPHEN MARQVIS DV SAINCT EMPIRE SEIGNEUR DE FRISE DE SALINS ET DE MALINES, LEQVEL ESTANT GRANDEMENT DOVÉ DE FORCE CONSTANCE ET MAGNANIMITÉ PROSPERA LONGTEMPS EN HAVLTES ENTREPRINSES BATAILLES ET VICTOIRES TANT A MONTLHERI EN NORMANDIE EN ARTHOIS EN LIEGE QVE AVLTREPART JVSQVES A CE QVE FORTVNE LVI TOVRNANT LE DOZ LOPPRESSA LA NVICT DES ROYS, 1476 DEVANT NANCY FVT DEPVIS PAR LE TRES HAVT TRES PVISSANT ET TRES VICTORIEVX PRINCE CHARLES EMPEREUR DES ROMAINS VmcDE CE NOM SON PETIT NEPHEV HERITIER DE SON NOM VICTOIRES ET SEIGNORIESTRANSPORTE A BRVGES OV LE ROI PHILIPPE DE CASTILLE LEON ARRAGON NAVARE ETC. FILS DUDICT EMPEREVR CHARLES LA FAICT METTRE EN CE TOMBEAU DU COTÉ DE SA FILLE ET VNIQVE HERITIERE MARIE FEMME ET ESPEVSE DE TRES HAVLT ET TRES PVISSANT PRINCE MAXIMILIEN ARCHIDVC D’AVSTRICE DEPVIS ROI EMPEREVR DES ROMANS—PRIONS DIEV POVR SON AME.—AMEN.

The sincere and unaffected sorrow of those who raised a monument to the Princess, is much more impressively bespoken in the simple and natural language of its inscription. After recapitulating the pompous honours of her house, and her greatness as a Queen, they have thus expressed affectionate esteem for her as a woman and a wife. “Five years she reigned as Lady of the Low Countries, for four of which she lived in love and great affection with my Lord, her husband. She died deplored, lamented and wept by her subjects, and by all who knew her as was never Princess before. Pray God for her soul. Amen.”

The most conspicuous object in Bruges, both from a distance and within the walls, is the lofty tower of an ancient building,called “Les Halles”—an edifice of vast extent, whose original destination seems to be but imperfectly known, but which, in all probability, served as a depot for merchandize during the palmy days of the Hanseatic League, whilst in its ponderous tower were deposited the ancient records of the city. The lower buildings are now partly unoccupied, and partly used for the purposes of a covered market, and on the tower are stationed the warders, who, night and day, look out for fires in the streets of the city or the suburbs. It contains, likewise, one of those sweet carillons of bells, which, in their excellence, seem to be peculiar to the Netherlands, as in no other country that I am aware of do their chimes approach to any thing like harmonious music. In the tower of Les Halles and some others in Belgium, they are set in motion by a huge cylinder with moveable keys, similar to those in a barrel organ or a Geneva box. The tunes are arranged and altered every year at Easter, and the carillon, besides announcing every hour, is played almost daily for theamusement of the citizens. But besides the mechanical arrangement, there are keys which can be played on at pleasure, and during our visit, the “chief musician” commenced this feat, hammering with his fists, defended first by strong leather, and tramping with his heels, till every muscle in his whole body seemed called into action—an exercise very like that of Falstaff’s recruit Bullfrog, when he “caught a coldin ringing in the king’s affairsupon the coronation day.”

The view from this tower is really surprising, owing to the vast level plain in which it stands, and which stretches to the horizon without an undulation upon every side; the view is only limited by the ability of the eye to embrace it, and the sight is bewildered with the infinity of villages, towers, forests, canals and rivers which it presents, taking in at one vast glance, the German Ocean, the distant lines of Holland, the towers of Ghent, and to the south, the remote frontier of France. Its views, like almost every thing else in the Netherlands,are peculiar to itself, and in the repose and richness of cultivated beauty, have not a parallel in any country of Europe.

In a small square adjoining that in which stands the tower of Les Halles, are two other ancient buildings of equal interest. Thepalais de justiceoccupies the site of the old “palace of the Franc or liberty of Bruges.” It contains in one of its apartments, (the others are chiefly modern,) a remarkable mantel-piece of carved oak, covering the entire side of the hall, and consisting of a number of statues the size of life, let into niches decorated with the most elaborate and beautiful carvings, and surmounted by the armorial bearings of Burgundy, Brabant, and Flanders. This singular specimen of the arts, dates from the reign of Charles V. and contains statues of the Emperor himself, with Maximilian, and Mary of Burgundy to his left hand; on his right, those of Charles le Téméraire, and his Lady Margaret of York. These specimens of the perfection to whichthis description of modelling has attained amongst the Flemings, must really be seen, in order to be sufficiently comprehended.

The other building adjoining is theHotel de Ville, a small, but elegant example of the gothic architecture in the fourteenth century. The many niches which now stand empty at each compartment of its front, were formerly filled with statues of the native Princes of Flanders and Burgundy, to the number of thirty-three; numerous shields, charged with arms surmounted the principal windows, and on a little balcony in front, the Dukes, on the occasion of their inauguration, made oath to respect the rights and privilege of their subjects. But in 1792, the soldiers of the French directory, under Dumourier, in the “fine frenzy” of republicanism, tore down these ancient monuments of the former history of Bruges, as “the images of tyrants” and pounding them to dust, flung them upon a pile composed of fragments of the gallows and the scaffold, and ordered it to bekindled by the public executioner. The grand hall in the Hotel de Ville is occupied as a library, and contains a large and valuable collection of books and manuscripts.

Bruges was the birth-place of Berken, who discovered the art of polishing the diamond, and, as if the secret were still confined to the craft, (in fact it was for a length of time a secret amongst the jewellers of the Low Countries), one still sees over many a door in Bruges, the sign-board of the “Diamant-zetter,” who resides within.

In other cities, one would feel as if compiling a guide-book in noting these particulars of Bruges; but here it is different, as every spot, however trifling, is exalted by some traditionary association with the past. “In the thirteenth century,” says the Hand-book, “the ambassadors of twenty states had their hotels within the walls of the city, and the commercial companies of seventeen nations were settled and carried on their traffic within its walls. It became the resort of traders of Lombardy andVenice, who carried hither the merchandize of Italy and India, to be exchanged for the produce of Germany and the north. The argosies of Genoa and Constantinople, frequented her harbour, and her warehouses were stored with the wool of England, the linen of Belgium, and the silk of Persia.”[5]Can any one read this record of the past, and comparing it with the desolation of the present, avoid being reminded of the magnificent description and denunciation of Tyre, by Ezekiel. “Fine linen from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth for thy sails; the inhabitants of Zidon were thy mariners; the men of Persia were thine army; and they of Gammadin were on thy towers, and hung their shields upon thy walls to make thy beauty perfect. Tarshish was thy merchant, and with iron and with tinthey traded in thy fairs. Syria gave thee emeralds and broidered work, and coral, and agate. Judah traded in thy markets in honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus in the wine of Hebron and white wool. Arabia occupied with thee in lambs and in goats; and the merchants of Sheba brought thee precious stones and gold. * * * They that handle the oar, the mariner and pilots of the sea, shall come down from thy ships; they shall stand upon the land, and in their wailing they shall cry, what city is like unto Tyre, like unto the destroyed in the midst of the waters?”

Of all her active pursuits, Bruges now retains no remnant except the manufacture of lace, to which even her ancient fame has ceased to give a prestige; and it is exported to France to be sold under the name ofPoint de Valenciennes. Mechlin, Antwerp, Ypres and Grammont share with her in its production; and it is interesting to observe how this mignon and elegant art, originally, perhaps, but the pastime of their young girls and women, has survived all thestorms and vicissitudes which have from time to time suspended or disturbed the other national occupations of the Belgians, and now enables the inhabitants of their superannuated cities, in the ruin of their own fortunes, to support themselves, as it were, upon the dower of their females. France, in the time of Colbert, seduced the manufacture to establish itself at Paris by actual gifts of money; and England, emulous of sharing in it, purchased the lace of Belgium to sell to Europe as her own, and made by it such a reputation, thatEnglish laceis still a popular name for a particular description made at Brussels!

The exquisitely fine thread which is made in Hainault and Brabant for the purpose of being worked into lace, has occasionally attained a value almost incredible. A thousand to fifteen hundred francs is no unusual price for it by the pound, but some has actually been spun by hand of so exquisite a texture, as to be sold at the rate of ten thousand francs, or upwards of £400, for a single pound weight. Schools have beenestablished to teach both the netting of the lace and drawing of designs by which to work it, and the trade, at the present moment, is stated to be in a more flourishing condition than it has been ever known before, even in the most palmy days of the Netherlands.

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