easily be imagined, and the effect is very striking upon entering there from the busy streets of Ghent: you seem to be in a different world. There is a large church within the precincts; a burial ground, in which there are no monuments; a branch from one of the many rivers or canals wherewith Ghent is intersected, in which the washing of the community is performed, from a large boat; and a large piece of ground planted with trees, where the clothes are dried.

"Our appearance here, and the evident curiosity with which we were perambulating a place seldom visited by strangers, attracted notice; and we were at length courteously accosted 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 is said to have been founded; nor could she refer me to any book containing either its history or its rule.

66

According to this lady, there are at this time about six thousand Beguines in Brabant and Flanders, to which countries they are confined; six hundred and twenty of these are resident here. 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 distinguishing dress; but this mandate was only obeyed in part, because public opinion, even then, was strongly in their favour, and they were of such manifest utility to all ranks, that very few, however otherwise malignant, were disposed to injure them. They receive the sick who come to them for succour, they support as well as attend them as long as the case may require. They go out also to nurse the sick, when their services are asked for. They are not bound by any vows, and Madame Devolder (this was the name of our obliging informant) assured us with an air of becoming pride, that no instance of a Beguine withdrawing from the order had ever been

and

known. The reason was obvious; the institution is in itself reasonable and useful, as well as humane and religious; no person is compelled to enter it, because there is no vow, no clausure, and no person who wished to withdraw could be compelled to stay and I suppose their numbers 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. Madame Devolder herself entered after the death of her husband. The property which a Beguine brings with her, reverts to her heirs at law upon her decease.

"During the Revolution, the church of this Beguinage was sold, as being confiscated property belonging to a suppressed order. The sale was a mere device, or in English phrase a job, to accommodate some partizan of the ruling demagogues with ready money. Such a person bought it for a nominal. price, and in the course of two or three weeks sold it for 300 Louis-d'or to Madame Devolder and another sister; who, as soon as they could, made it over once more to the community.

"The sisters dine in the Refectory if they please, but any one who chooses may have dinner sent from thence to her own apartments. We were taken into three of these chambers; they are small, and furnished with little more than necessary comforts, but those comforts are there, and they are remarkably clean. In one, a sister who has been bedridden many years, was sitting up in bed, knitting: we were introduced into her chamber, because Madame Devolder said, it amused her to see visitors, though she could not converse with us, for she spoke no French, and there was no Flemish tongue in our party. Two sisters were spinning in another chamber, one of whom was 83 years of age, the other 85.

"The habit of the Beguines is not inconvenient, but it is abominably ugly; as the habit of every female order is, I believe, without exception."

Ryckel ( 71, p. 315) says, this Beguinage was founded

about the year 1234, by Joanna and Margareta, countesses of Flanders. None of the present buildings appear to be as old as his own days; the former edifices were probably destroyed during some of the sieges which Ghent has sustained. Before the religious wars, he says, it had sometimes contained 700 inhabitants, when he wrote they did not exceed 400. Est locus amplissimus trium et amplius bonariorum terræ. Additus et amplitudini decor; adeo ut qui multa viderunt, fateantur se pulchrius nullum vidisse. Olim à prima sua origine fuit extimum civitati, nunc intra pomaria conclusum est.

COLLOQUY XIV.

THE LIBRARY.

I was in my library, making room upon the shelves for some books which had just arrived from New England, removing to a less conspicuous station others which were of less value and in worse dress, when Sir Thomas entered. You are employed, said he, to your heart's content. Why, Montesinos, with these books, and the delight you take in their constant society, what have you to covet or desire?

MONTESINOS.

Nothing,..except more books.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

Crescit, indulgens sibi, dirus hydrops.

MONTESINOS.

Nay, nay, my ghostly monitor, this at least is no diseased desire! If I covet more, it is for the want I feel and the use which I should make of them. "Libraries," says my good old friend George Dyer, a man as learned as he

is benevolent,.." libraries are the wardrobes of literature, whence men, properly informed, might bring forth something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use."* These books of mine, as you well know, are not drawn up here for display, however much the pride of the eye may be gratified in beholding them; they are on actual service. Whenever they may be dispersed, there is not one among them that will ever be more comfortably lodged, or more highly prized by its possessor; and generations may pass away before some of them will again find a reader... It is well that we do not moralize too much upon such subjects,..

For foresight is a melancholy gift,

Which bares the bald, and speeds the all-too-swift.

H. T. But the dispersion of a library, whether in retrospect or in anticipation, is always to me a melancholy thing.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

How many such dispersions must have taken place to have made it possible that these books should thus be brought together here among the Cumberland mountains!

MONTESINOS.

Many, indeed; and in many instances most

* History of Cambridge, vol. i. p. 6.