and one of them fixed our attention instantly. It is the scourging, and is the only one of the series that is by Rubens. Painful as the subject is, it is a wonderful picture, horribly natural, and so expressive that it makes one's blood boil with indignation-which I suppose is the effect it is intended to produce. This church of St. Paul is rich in carvings in wood,

I have not said a word of our hotel St. Antoine, but it is one of the handsomest we have used. The dining room, where is an elegant and most elaborate table d'hôte, is particularly rich, though rather dark because of the crimson walls and painted ceiling The table, ornamented with vases of flowers, is covered with empty silver dishes, into which the several courses and removes are put as they are brought in. We had a good deal of not altogether agreeable amusement at dinner. One of our own countrymen made himself quite conspicuous by talking about his travels through the continent. He had been to Rome, and some Americans asked what he thought of Florence; to which he replied, "I didn't go to Florence, though they tell me I'd oughter!" There was an Englishman near him, who was a tolerable pendant; and opposite us an old man with a young wife, and rather pretty daughter-the lady mother loaded with jewelry and eating prodigiously.

There is to be a concert and ball to-night, and an opera! I do not think any one not knowing the day, would have suspected it of being Sunday, at any time since breakfast.

The pictures at the Muscum are richly interesting, and we longed for time to see them properly. It has many pictures of Rubens, and some that I should rank above any that I have seen except the Descent from the Cross.

Our Saviour on the cross between the thieves, is perhaps the best; its figures live and act with wonderful power and earnestness. An Adoration of the Magi also pleased us extremely. The house of Rubens is no longer standing, and the pavilion in which he painted, is converted into a dye-house. There is a colossal statue of him in the Place Verte-a public square planted with trees, nearly facing our hotel.

Antwerp is full of rich shops and other evidences of prosperity and wealth. Directly opposite the Hotel St. Antoine, I look into a repository of the most splendid East India china, with great vases that one can hardly help coveting; and everywhere we observe the most expensive articles, showing that there is wealth somewhere in the city. At a shop to which we went on Saturday evening, an intelligent woman told us that the sufferings of the lace-makers are dreadful, in consequence of the check put upon their trade by the present perturbations.

ANTWERP TO OSTEND.

SEPT. 5.-We left Antwerp very early, in company with a handsome, jolly priest, and quite a number of ladies, who travelled with him. They were evidently people of condition, and the priest's dress was very handsome. I observe that the priests we meet here wear, instead of shirt-collar above the narrow-black stock, a strip of bright blue, of which I have endeavored in vain to guess the material. It is a curious accessory to the priestly

costume, and must be, I think, the badge of some order. The priests of this region wear a three-cornered cocked hat, instead of the wavy sombrero of Italy. The latter is much the more graceful of the two.

We had some little talk with our priest, but he was far from being as intelligent as our friend of the Amsterdam railway. He was wonderfully sleek and well content with himself, at the same time that his want of information was so obvious as to give him an air almost of childishness. He seemed to be acting as chaperon to the ladies, and we saw them afterwards walking about in Ghent, where we looked from the balcony of our great, dirty Hotel de la Poste, upon the public square, admiring the picturesque air of everything, and at the same time feeling that the town had a deserted and melancholy look. Near us was a Corps de Garde, and soldiers made a large portion of all the population that we saw in that quarter of the city. I think of all the attempts at decorative architecture that I remember there is the strangest at this hotel. At the foot of the stairway, and in the hall, are white caryatides some dozen feet high or so; with an aged human head under the cornice, and on the floor a great pair of human feet, while all between is a sort of mummycase, tapering like a coffin. I believe these ghastly things must be accountable for the half-shudder which the very thought of the house gives me, though it was dirty and uncomfortable besides.

Ghent, (Gand, French,) was once so large that Charles V. was wont to say that he could put all Paris into his glove. It was here that the spirit of liberty broke forth, and that among the weavers, as usual. This spirit was

never crushed, although whenever the tide of fortune turned against the burghers, their feudal lords took the bloodiest and most humiliating revenge for their contumacy. In 1400 Ghent contained 80,000 men capable of bearing arms, and of these one half were weavers. A custom which then arose of ringing the bells three times a day, to summon the weavers to their work, is still in force, and the weavers are yet the true sovereigns of Ghent. The celebrated belfry is, in some sense, the emblem as it was the assertion of their liberty. Ghent is considered the Belgic Manchester.

Gothic architecture is seen in its perfection in these Belgic cities. Not only are the churches rich specimens of it, but the Hotels de Ville exemplify its beauty and impressiveness as applied to ordinary civil purposes. The Town Hall of Ghent is a striking building, with two façades in different styles; and there are several other edifices used for public purposes, as well as many antique private ones, which delight the eye as choice relics of a time when the uses of beauty seem to have been acknowledged even by burghers and weavers. The great old square, in which the market is held every Friday, has for ages been the theatre of all splendid public ceremonials, and its history would almost be the history of the city. It was here that the Van Arteveldes figured; here the smoke of the Inquisition blackened the heavens under the rule of the Duke of Alva. Near this famous old square is a great cannon of hammered iron, used at the old sieges, and now occupying the centre of a quiet street, a suggestive for the moralist or the poet. Not very far distant is still remaining part of the old

tower in which

Queen Philippa bore "John of Gaunt-time-honored Lancaster."

Here is a glorious old cathedral, with twenty-four sidechapels, all decorated with pictures, some of which are of the first order. The endless riches of this interior overwhelm the imagination and the memory. The marbles, the statuary, the work in brass, the monuments, the carvings in wood, each would be as much as one could appreciate or remember. Embarras de richesses! high altar is the figure of St. Bavon, the patron saint, in his ducal robes; and four tall candlesticks of copper, stamped with the British arms, are shown as having belonged to Charles I. of England, probably sold during the Protectorate.

On the

In one of the side-chapels is the celebrated masterpiece of the two Van Eycks-the Adoration of the Lamb-a subject from the Revelations, containing more than three hundred figures. This was originally one of the enclosed pictures once so common in the churches, the shutters being painted both within and without in a style not inferior to that of the main picture. When the painting was brought back from Paris, at the period of disgorging after the downfall of Napoleon, the valves were missing, and they have since found their way to Berlin, by means of the picture dealers. One of the best works of Rubens is in this cathedral-the Self-consecration of St. Bavon, who quits the profession of a soldier to become a monk. He is represented in armor, kneeling at the door of a church, where he is welcomed by a priest; while below, a person, supposed to be intended as his almoner, is bestowing alms, and a noble lady is unloosing a rich gold