p. 165. II. Brugès: This is not the first poetical tribute which in our times has been paid to this beautiful City. Mr. Southey, in the "Poet's Pilgrimage", speaks of it in lines which I cannot deny myself the pleasure of connecting with my own.

In this city are many vestiges of the splendour of the Burgundian Dukedom, and the long black mantle universally worn by the females is probably a remnant of the old Spanish connection, which, if I do not much deceive myself, is traceable in the grave deportment of its inhabitants. Brugès is comparatively little disturbed by that curious contest, or rather conflict, of Flemish with French propensities in matters of taste, so conspicuous through other parts of Flanders. The hotel to which we drove at Ghent furnished an odd instance. In the passages were paintings and statues, after the antique, of Hebe and Apollo; and in the garden, a little pond, about a yard and a half in diameter, with a weeping willow bending over it, and under the shade of that tree, in the centre of the pond, a wooden painted statue of a Dutch or Flemish boor, looking ineffably tender upon his mistress, and embracing her. A living duck, tethered at the feet of the sculptured lovers, alternately tormented a miserable eel and itself with endeavours to escape from its bond and prison. Had we chanced to espy the hostess of the hotel in this quaint rural retreat, the exhibition would have been complete. She was a true Flemish figure, in the dress of the days of Holbein; her symbol of office, a weighty bunch of keys, pendent from her portly waist. In Brussels, the modern taste in costume, architecture, &c. has got the mastery; in Ghent there is a struggle: but in Brugès old images are still paramount, and an air of monastic life among the quiet goings-on of a thinly-peopled city is inexpressibly soothing; a pensive grace seems to be cast over all, even the very children.—Extract from Journal.—W. Adapted from D. W.'s Journal. On July 13 she wrote: "We entered Bruges by a long gently-winding street … . W. and Mr. M. walked out immediately, eager to view the city in the warm light of the setting sun … . Continued to walk through the silent town till ten o'clock … a cloistral silence felt in every corner and every open space." On July 14 M. W. wrote: "Yesterday was not a sunny day, and Bruges wanted no sunshine, its own outline in the gloom of evening needed no golden lustre. Yet this W. witnessed, when D. and I were not with him, the great Tower of the Market House bathed in gold!"

p. 169. X. Hymn. For the Boatmen etc.: "The river flows beside it calmly (though with strong motion as all these large rivers do) but after that point, to the bridge, the channel is rocky and therefore the stream turbulent. While passing under the garden-wall the peasant sailor, before he trusts his boat or timber-raft to the rocks and rapids, kneels down and prays for protection from danger, and a safe passage through the arches of the bridge. An image of Jesus on the cross is the visible object of his worship, which Mr Pickford, when he rebuilt his garden-wall, replaced in its station, out of respect to the piety or superstition of past and present times. During the passage an appropriate hymn is chaunted,—the thought touched our poet's fancy, and he has since composed the following verses for the Heidelberg Boatman."—D. W. Journal, July 28.