laws, in short, are so translucent and so
simple and so orderly, that we need carry no
light at all in travelling among them!

MALINES.

I AM at Malines, on the Dyle, in Belgium,
and the first person I meet is a placid watery-
faced man, rolling a bandbox on a
wheelbarrow. Any one remaining ten years in the
country could hardly tind a trait of national
manners more characteristic. Our honest
neighbours seem to have taken for their motto
the sensible device of Jehan le Maire—de peu
assez, enough with little—and they sturdily
abide by the pithy maxim in all their
concerns. Roving on a little farther, with a
leathern bag in one hand and an umbrella (to
keep up appearances) in the other, I meet a
marriage procession. A pleasanter scene of
quiet comedy than that presented by the six
people which form it never stood out from
the page of Cervantes or Le Sage. The
bridegroom, a bumpkin, is drawing at a black
untractable cigar, unaware that its fire is
extinct, and shyly looking away from his wife;
he stares uneasily at his large awkward hands
in their wedding gloves, and spreads his
fingers rigidly out fanwise. They resemble
ten white puddings in tight cracked skins. It
occurs at once to all beholders that he has
probably never gone through a period of time
so exquisitely distressing as this morning of
the happiest day of his life.

The bride, clenching a stiff upright nosegay,
holds on with her thumb and the stalks of
the flowers to one of his drooping arms,
and appears to be unconsciously pinching
the extreme point of the elbow. She is
hanging back as far as possible; her face,
naturally pretty enough, is the colour of beetroot
from confusion and exposure to the sun;
her eyes droop with all the shrinking
sensitiveness of provincial modesty. She has
wriggled backwards a great part of her bridal
veil, and it has tugged her virginal wreath all
on one side. I am sure she cannot think
what is making her feel so uncomfortable
about the head, and she dares not put her
hand up to take out the pin which is galling
her, lest she should drop her flowers or her
handkerchief. As for speaking to her
husband and asking him to hold either, it is not
to be thought of for a moment, though she is
almost ready to cry. Two stumbling friends
or relatives who have honoured the marriage
ceremony with their presence follow solemnly
behind, evidently not knowing exactly how
to fulfil their part or do what is expected of
them on so momentous an occasion. Twice
the second swain has trodden heavily on the
bride's dress and pulled out the gathers at her
waist; but the poor girl only reddens a
deeper crimson and neither stops nor turns.
A worthy elderly couple toddle contentedly
in the rear; they know the world too well to
be flustered or disconcerted at its gaze. It is
for such as they that wedding breakfasts were
invented, and I would wager that these good
ripe souls are chiefly anxious touching the
dish of pigs' feet and ears, a great local
delicacy, which will doubtless be an important
part of the coming entertainment.

There is something in the Belgian cities,
a sort of faded importance mingled with
content, of which the charm grows stronger upon
you daily. They remind one of so many
philosophical gentlemen whose fortunes have
been much humbled, but whose tempers have
been made sweeter by calamity. I do not
think I should have liked them so well when
they bade defiance to the chivalry of Burgundy
and gave haughty protection to fugitives from
the wrath of the Counts of Flanders; when
they revolted so restively against the princes
of the House of Austria; when they were
the rich centres of commerce and arts, as in
the time of Rubens; or even when they
shook off the yoke of Holland only five lustres
ago. Now all is changed. There is no noise
or display or pride about them. The glare
of fashion and the pomp of wealth must be
sought elsewhere. No military music is
heard pealing through their tranquil streets
at noonday. No great man exposes his
grandeur or his folly in a gilded coach. No
demagogue lifts a seditious voice in their plentiful
market-places. The arrival of a company of
players is an event, and the inhabitants go to
see them in festival clothes. A ball is a
matter to be maturely considered, and a
dinner-party is a weighty affair. Yet abide
awhile amongst those simple, kind-hearted
Flemish folk, and you will experience a sober
but great delight. They will tend you in
sickness with a natural goodness most gentle
and patient; sing you drowsy songs as you
get well, and tell you about their household
affairs with a pathos or a humour so
unaffected, a fidelity of homely detail so minute
that you may suppose yourself living in
a picture by Teniers. I remember taking
considerable interest in the purchase of a
birch broom, and feeling quite one of the
family in the snug little inn where I stayed
at Malines. Go, wandering traveller, about
the still, clean, retired streets, and it will
repose your eyes to dwell upon their
peacefulness. The old painted houses, with their
grotesque mediaeval gables and shady
projecting roofs, their niches and fretted
woodwork, carry the mind at once two hundred
years back. If you have really a useful
imagination within call, however, you may
stand in yon streak of temperate autumn
sunshine, and remember the fair seigneurie
as it was in the fighting days of Charles the
Bold. You may, without any very great effort,
see him riding under that dark, solid archway
with a gallant train of knights and ladies on
jennet and palfrey, hawks upon their wrists,
and eager dogs held in leashes by stout
serving-men. Among them, with wrinkled
forehead and calm mien, goes also De