tower, called Belfort tower: from whence there is a delightful prospect over the whole city and its environs. Monasteries and churches, there, are without number; besides hospitals and market-places: that called Friday's market, is the largest of all, and is adorned with a statue of CHARLES the Fifth, in his imperial robes. The stadthouse is a magnificent structure-So is the cathedral, under which the reverend fathers have built a subterraneous church. What deeds are those which shun the light? Why those holy patriarchs have such a desire for burying themselves, and working like moles under ground, they themselves best know, and I think it is not difficult for others to conjecture.

This cathedral, however, is well worth attention, on account of some capital pictures it contains. The mar ble of the church is remarkably fine, and the altar-piece splendid beyond all possible description; and, indeed, in all the others, there are paintings, eminent for their own excellence, and for the celebrity of the masters who painted thein.

In the monastery of St. PIERRE, there is a grand library, filled with books in all languages; but it is chiefly remarkable for the superlative beauty of its ceiling, one half of which was painted by RUBENS.

Thus you may perceive, my dear FREDERICK, the charity of the clergy!-how, in pure pity for the sins of mankind, and in paternal care of their souls, they exact from the laity some atonement for their crimes, and constrain them at least to repent-and with unparalleled magnanimity, take upon themselves the vices, the gluttony, the avarice, and the sensuality, of which they are so careful to purge their fellow-creatures.

LETTER IX.

HAVING given you a general outline of the city of Ghent, I shall now proceed to give you an account of one of the most excellent, and certainly the most in

teresting, of all the curiofities in that place. It is indeed of a sort so immediately correspondent to the most exalted sensations of humanity, and so perfectly in unison with the most exquisitely sensible chords of the feeling heart, that I resolved to rescue it from the common lumber of the place, and give it to you in a fresh letter, when the ideas excited by my former, might have faded away, and left your mind more clear for the reception of such refined impressions.

On one of the many bridges in Ghent, stand two large brazen images of a father and son, who obtained this distinguished mark of the admiration of their fellow-citizens by the following incidents :

Both the father and the son were, for some offence a gainst the state, condemned to die. Some favorable circumstances appearing on the side of the son, he was granted a remission of his share of the sentence, upon certain provisions in short he was offered a pardon, on the most cruel and barbarous condition that ever entered in the mind of even monkish barbarity, namely, that he would become the executioner of his father! He at first resolutely refused to preserve his life by means so fatal and detestable: This is not to be wondered at; for I hope, for the honor of our nature, that there are but few, very few sons, who would not have spurned with abhorrence, life sustained on conditions so horrid, so unnatural. The son, tho' long inflexible, was at length overcome by the tears and intreaties of a fond father, who represented to him, at all events, his (the father's) life was forfeited, and that it would be the greatest possible consolation to him, at his last moments, to think that in his death he was the instrument of his son's preservation. The youth consented to adopt the horrible means of recovering his life and liberty he lifted the axe-but, as it was about to fall, his arm sunk nerveless, and the axe dropped from his hand! Had he as many lives as hairs, he would have yielded them all, one after the other, rather than again even conceive, much less perpetrate, such an act. Life, liberty, every thing, vanished before the dearer interests of filial affection: he fell upon his father's neck, and embracing him, triumphantly exclaimed, "My father

my father! we will die together!" and then called for another executioner to fulfil the sentence of the law.

Hard must be their hearts indeed, bereft of every sentiment of virtue, every sensation of humanity, who could stand insensible spectators of such a scene-A sudden peal of involuntary applauses, mixed with groans and sighs, rent the air. The execution was suspended; and on a simple representation of the transaction, both were pardoned; high rewards and honours were conferred on the son; and finally, those two admirable brazen images were raised, to commemorate a transaction so honourable to human nature, and transmit it for the instruction and emulation of posterity. The statue represents the son in the very act of letting fall the axe.

Lay this to your mind, my dear FREDERICK: talk over it to your brother; indulge all the charming sym pathetic sensations it communicates; never let a mistaken shame, or a false idea (which some endeavor to impress) that it is unmanly to melt at the tale of woe, and sympathize with our fellow creatures, stop the current of your sensibility-no! Be assured, that on the contrary, it is the true criterion of manhood and valor to feel; and that the more sympathetic and sensible the heart is, the more nearly it is allied to the Divinity.

I AM now on the point of conducting you out of Austrian Flanders-One town only, and that comparatively a small one, lying between Us and Brabant: the name of this town is Alost, or as the Flemings spell it, Aelst.

From Ghent to Brussels (the next great stage in my way,) I found, to my regret, that there was no conveyance by water: I therefore was obliged to go in a voiture, and stopt at Alost, as an intermediate stage; and mathematically intermediate it is for it lies at equal distance from Ghent and Brussels, being exactly fifteen miles from each.

This is a small, but exceeding neat town, situated on the river Dender; and being a remarkably great tho roughfare accommodations of every kind are tolerably good in it. It would be idle to suppose, that Catholic seal had left so many souls unprotected and undisciplins

ed, where there were so many bodies capable of drudgery to pay for it. In truth, there has been as ample provisi on made for the town of Alost in the way of sacerdotal business, as for any other town in the Netherlands—regard being had to its bulk; for there were several convents of friars, and of course several of nuns: besides, there was a Jesuit's college of some note. How they all fare by this time, it is difficult for me to determine.

The church of St. Martin could boast of some excellent pictures, particularly a most capital piece, La Peste,' by Rubens.

In a convent inhabited by a set monks, denominated Gulielmite, I saw the tomb of Thierry Martin, who first brought the art of printing from Germany to that place. His name and fame are transmitted to us by an epitaph upon his tomb, written by his friend, the ingenious Erasmus.

This tomb of Thierry Martin stands a monument, not only of his merit, but of the shortsightedness and folly even of monks. Alas, silly men! they little knew, that when they granted Thierry Martin the honours of the convent, they were harbouring, in their hallowed ground, one of their greatest enemies, and commemorating the man who was contributing to the overthrow of their sa cred order: for the art of printing, wherever it reached, illuminated the human mind, and first kindled up that light, before which priest craft, and all its pious impostures, like evil spectres, have vanished. To the art of. printing is human society indebted for many of the advantages which it possesses beyond the brute of savage tribes--for the perfection of arts, the extension of science, the general enlargement of the mind, and, above all, for the emancipation of person and property from the shackles of despotism, and of the human intellect from the fetters of blindness and ignorance with which sacerdotal fraud had chained it for centuries to the earth.

The territory of this city is of pretty large extent, and is called a county, having, in ancient times, had counts of its own; and the whole of it is extremely fruitful in pasture, corn, hops, flax, and most other productions of those climes.

I made but a very short stay at Alost, when I pro-> ceeded on to Brussels; and, having thus brought you through that part of the Netherlands called Austrian Flanders, I think I ought to give you a general account of the country at large, as I have hitherto confined myself merely to the cities and towns of it; but as this letter is already of a length that will not allow of any great addition, I shall postpone my intended description to my next.

LETTER X,

WERE mankind to be guided by moderation, reason, and justice-were there no lust for territory in particular states no ambition or desire in kings for an undue enlargement of their power-no unjustifiable infractions attempted by one state or potentate upon the peace and possession of another-no armies to carry desolation and plunder through the world, nor churchmen more mild, but not more moderate, to drain them with their subtle deceptions were the husbandman, the fisherman, the manufacturer, and the labourer, permitted to inake, by their industry, the best use of the soil on which chance or nature had planted them, and to lift the fruits of their labour to their own lips-no people were more happy than the inhabitants of Austrian Flanders.

This country is bounded, to the north, by the Scheldt; to the north-west, by the Northern Sea: to the south, and south-west, by Artois, one of the finest Provinces of France; and to the east, by Brabant. Its greatest length is seventy-five miles; and its greatest breadth, fifty-five. The air is good; but it is said to be better in proportion as it recedes from the sea,

The winters are sometimes long and severe, and the summers sometimes wet and sultry; yet, in general, the climate is agreeable. The soil is in most parts fertile, and in some to a degree equal to that of any part of Europe. It is chiefly famous for its pasturage; in consequence of which, great numbers of black cattle, horses and sheep,