round chamber, with conical roof, the summit
evidently of one of the flank towers. Round
apertures had been cut in the sides and filled
with glass through which views of the
surrounding country could be obtained in every
direction. A bench had been constructed so as
to command the finest prospect. Here my host
would sit for hours of an evening, after his day's
toil, puffing his long pipe, and watching the sun
setting over the fair cities of Flanders. It was
a grand sight. A wide, endless expanse of plain,
as far as the eye could reach. Louvain and
Brussels lay just below me; while Ghent,
Bruges, Antwerp, and many another distant old
township, broke the horizon with its cluster of
spires and towers, or sparkled in the watery
sunshine, with its white houses and bright red
roofs. I could have stayed long to enjoy the
scene, and the thoughts suggested, and
recollections stirred up by each variation of it,
but I feared to exhaust the patience of my
strange conductor. We descended, and he led
me down to the second cryptal chamber that I
had entered on my voyage of discovery. One
end was separated from the rest by a plaster
wall. He pushed open the door, and I found
myself in an octagonal room, old and gloomy,
but crowded with rich and quaint furniture. On
the left of the door stood a dark oaken bookcase,
devoted solely to English literature. My
eye ran quickly from shelf to shelf, lighting
upon the names of our best British authors,
ranged chronologically, from Ben Jonson to
Macaulay. The sculptor smiled at my expression
of astonishment as I entered the room, and
at once proceeded to initiate me into the
mysteries thereof. He was singularly silent; what
little he said was in French. I tried to elicit
some of the facts of his own history, but he
quietly changed the subject. A tall cabinet next
arrested my attention. It was fitted, from
carpet to cornice, with drawers, each containing
choice specimens of conchology. Almost touching
this stood a second bookcase, rich with the
best and rarest French works; then a cabinet of
geological specimens. Bookcases and cabinets
entirely encircled the room, ranged alternately.
We next examined a library of Italian authors;
then a cabinet of various kinds of wood, polished
and unpolished, and still another bookcase, the
sacred repository of classical lore. He took
thence quaint editions of Horace, Virgil, and
Homer, and wondrous old MSS. that he had
picked up in by-lanes in the Italian cities.

I found myself, at this moment, standing
opposite the fireplace, one of those huge caverns
that the old Flemings loved to dedicate to
Vulcan. The iron ring which many an old
soldier had doubtless held while warming his
feet at the great fire, still depended from the
mantelpiece.

A large oaken chest next demanded inspection.
It stood against the wall, reaching half way to
the roof. It had evidently been used once as an
ammunition chest. The ingenuity of the sculptor
had converted it into a receptacle of rare prints,
which he had collected from various parts of the
world. Next came a bookcase of German
works; then a cabinet of chemical preparations;
then another bookcase, containing Dutch and
Flemish authors; a cabinet of mineralogy; a
bookcase dedicated to “Les Beaux Arts;” a
cabinet of aërolites. I sat down in a deep
window, upon leopard skins, almost fatigued
with the tour of observation, but astounded at
the richness and universality of the artist's
collection.

“What have you not got?” said I.

“A wife,” he answered. “But I'm wedded
to my old tower and my books and my chisel
instead.”

I asked if he had always lived in the tower.
He said that he had passed many years in Italy,
that he had visited every country in Europe but
England. “Then do you understand English?”
I inquired. “Thoroughly, to read, but not to
speak.” He immediately snatched down a large
volume, and displayed to my astonished gaze
the Prize Catalogue of the Exhibition of 1851
He opened it, and pointed to the centre of a
page. I stooped, and read my host's name in
the list of honour; and as I looked up, he held
the medal in his hand, and smiled with almost
childlike pleasure and simplicity as he showed
me the little bauble.

There were various other curiosities challenging
attention, but I could not prolong my visit.
As I pressed the hand of the lonely being, and
hurried from his quaint abode, a confused image
of bookcases, cabinets, oak-chests, pictures, skins,
skeletons, musical instruments, statues, and old
clothes flitted before my brain. When I stood
in the street below, and saw men with modern
coats and hats, women with bonnets, and a pretty
English girl with crinoline and plumed hat passing
along, I almost doubted my identity, and
felt as I should fancy one of the old knights,
who repose with folded arms in the Temple
Church, would feel were he suddenly to awake
when the men and women of A.D. 1860 are passing
in to service.

Certainly, this lonely artist is no being of the
modern day. He has no sympathy with it. He
is but little known in the lace-making town.
Scarcely a soul visits him from end to end of the
year. He seldom leaves his grim old haunt.
He wanders up and down the staircases and
ladders, and sits contemplating the world from
the top of his tower. If he needs companions,
he has them in his books, and in his dumb
creatures of stone and marble. They never tell
tales, they never change; those that smile now
do not frown to-morrow. They never die, the
young among them are ever young, the beautiful
among them ever beautiful. The child of
his fancy, too, he can mould and chisel to his
will, daily and hourly; there is no rebellious
heart to conquer, no fierce passion to restrain,
no ingratitude to disappoint and sour him. He
sees it surely and steadily growing beneath his
care, until at last it stands before him, a spotless
model.

The sculptor is an accomplished man. The
tongue of no European people is strange to his