in a French court. We were both pleased with him; and the more so, perhaps, from having hitherto formed so unfavourable an opinion of the Belgian officers.

On this part of our route I find the following note in Mr. Bray's journal: ·

"Here (Louvain) they seem to know the value of time, by their chimes playing every quarter of an hour. Though I had heard that a nervous man (and am I not one myself?) in his last illness insisted to be described on his tombstone as killed by the chimes of Louvain, so many things chimed in with my own wishes that I bore them patiently. They reminded me of musical boxes on an immense scale, as did the diligences on the Chemin de Fer of being in a mill.

"I was much pleased with the Flemish towns. Malines' (Mechlin) cathedral tower I thought more like an obelisk of natural rock than masonry, as it is composed almost entirely of buttresses; but this, perhaps, was necessary, had it been continued, as it was intended to be, twice its height. The dial of the clock is of

open work; the plan of it inserted in the pavement, in black and white stones, in the centre of the Place Publique. The chimes were out of tune, and sounded like bells tolling in the midst of them."

In my next I shall take you to Ghent. Till then farewell, and believe me,

My dear Brother,

Ever your most affectionate Sister,

ANNA ELIZA Bray.

LETTER XXXV.

TO A. J. KEMPE, ESQ. F.S.A.

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From Mechlin to Ghent. La Poste. House of Sir Simon de Bête.· - Old Houses most picturesque.-The Belfry. -St. Bavon.- St. Nicholas.- Hotel de Ville.-Van Eyck.-His greatest Work. Fifteenth of August a grand Day. Assumption of the Virgin. - Account of the Festival, Procession, &c. The Sexagenarian's Account of the Procession and Image of our Lady.Pictures.-Table-d'hôte.- Bruges. -Antwerp. — Cathedral described. The Virgin.- Magnificent Ceremony and Procession. The Sexagenarian's Account of what he thought of the Show.-Van Eyck.-Hemling. - Rubens.- Public Places. Antwerp, its striking Characteristics.-The Inn Its Annoyances.-Departure for Amsterdam.

My dear Brother,

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WE passed from Mechlin by the railroad to Ghent; there we went direct to the largest hotel in the place, that of La Poste. It was a very fine house, but there was more show than comfort to be found within its walls. When arrived VOL. III.

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in Ghent, I took my husband, by his express desire, to show him all the buildings and localities in which I had placed any scene of action in my romance of "The White Hoods." If he felt gratified in seeing them, I was no less so by witnessing the interest he took in the scenes of my work; and more especially on my pointing out to him the fine old Gothic house, with its carved stone front, with a ship cut over the door, and standing opposite to one of the canals, that I nad selected and described, in the opening of the volumes, as the house of the Ghent merchant, Sir Simon de Bête.

After admiring this most curious structure, I conducted him through all the principal streets, rich in their fine old houses, their picturesque gables, and their numberless canals. The belfrey, the cathedral of St. Bavon, the ancient church of St. Nicholas, the beautiful Hotel de Ville (the Moresco Gothic front of which, a work of the fifteenth century, he considered as the finest specimen of the highly ornamental style he had ever seen), all delighted him. Of the latter he observed, it was rich without being

overloaded with richness, which is too often the case in the Gothic architecture of that period.

In St. Bavon he was principally struck with that wondrous painting, the work of the brothers Hubert and John Van Eyck, in the year of our Lord, 1432. The subject is the The Adoration of the Spotless Lamb. To describe this picture in detail would occupy many pages. It contains more than three hundred figures: they are of miniature proportions, and the countenance of every one of them is finished with a truth the most admirable. Indeed, the groups are perfection, and the colouring as rich as that of Rubens himself in his finest works. The tone and finish of the landscape, in which the characters are grouped, is of no less merit. For its date, this is perhaps the most beautiful specimen of historical painting extant in Europe.

The day after our arrival, being the 15th of August, was one of the highest ceremony in the church of Rome, the assumption of the Virgin Mary. All Ghent was in commotion. There was to be a grand procession bearing the image of the Virgin throughout the place: it was to set