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veller, that in each place I have left unseen just that one only thing worth seeing, which you most fortunately discovered; and that Murray's universal Handbooks are far more entirely to be depended on than my blundering catalogue of omissions.

A party of eleven is a respectable invading force; some Grand-Dukes might think it even formidable to Paterfamilias it may well be both; respectable in appearance, formidable in care and cost and the only economical item in this onety-one is that rare and precious animal, an honest courier. If you wish to be saved from all manner of sharks and sharpers, to have no care about luggage, tickets, bills, exchanges, languages, accidents, and all beside, -if you desire to enjoy your holiday by abdicating all responsibilities and yielding yourself up quite unfettered to your spree, go to the Courier's Office in Bury Street, St. James's, inquire for Pierre D-y [my younger children would call him Pêre-and he deserved the compliment,] engage him if you can, be careless and be happy. We met him at Red Hill, and forthwith were free of anxiety, and emancipated from baggage. Thence, of the rapid railway whisk to Dover-the dreary arrival in rainy darkness-the bustle on board that sloppy wretched steamer-and how in mira

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culous safety we threaded two hundred sail amid the black mist, and had a rough miserable passage to Ostend, let retrospection shudder at: not but that Paterfamilias, with his elder progeny, kept the deck manfully all night, wedged into the not unpleasant paddlebox arbour, wrapped in tarpaulings and overcoats, and out-watching the Bear, as well he might in such congenial panoply but-the horrors of the middle passage below let all the rest acknowledge; except indeed a brace of little sons sleeping sweetly throughout; and their nurse, an utter wreck of prostration and unconsciousness. And so the morning dawns, miserably, though it be the 12th of July, and the Dunkirk dunes look more forlorn than ever; and an inhospitable surf is beating all along that illimitable shore; and at last we reach Ostend in the chilly morning, but must roll about at anchor for two hours till there is tide enough to carry us over the harbour-bar; and all is very trying to mind and body: but hope, expectancy, and in fact the fine sentence I began with, buoyed us bravely, and at last up went the black ball; and when we did set foot upon that hostile shore at 8 in the cheerful sunshine, we voted Ostend a very pleasant place.

Experience confirmed the verdict: there is

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a combination of Ramsgate sands with donkeys and star fish; of Bognor with dykes and sea breezes; of Brighton esplanade with music and promenading company-suggestive of former holiday-makings, all very pleasant; and the broad bright sea is everywhere open before us, with an expanding sense of happy freedom; and Leopold's gay military are lounging about, sporting their smart tassel-substitute for an epaulette on the left shoulder; and there's a trifle of costume still lingering among the country folk enough to remind of a foreign land; and we're all looking out for novelty; and find it, if no where else, in the Virgin Mary's blue calico gown at church; and the hotel Des Bains is large, splendid, polished, and full of Napoleonic pictures; and so a day may be spent pleasantly enough at Ostend, by way of rest after that uneasy voyage.

July 13th.-Bruges, a flat fourteen miles off, perhaps a little disappointed me; we got there too early, before breakfast; and digestion has much to do with mundane satisfaction. But irrespectively of such personals, its character for picturesqueness is damaged by its aspect of desolate decay; though there is plenty of beauty and interest to remember too. We were there but a very little while, and did not do it

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justice. Further, I am quite aware that these earlier notes of Paterfamilias's journal are meagre enough, as idly kept and never intended in their first jotting for any other purpose than a personal reminder. But at all events you are spared prolixity yet awhile, and must put up with all sorts of omissions at all times. This is a journal, not a guide-book; and the few first days, not to say also as far as Schaffhausen, are among the scantiest for record; seeing I began by keeping it carelessly as a 'pen-ible' thing, only desirable to be escaped the best proof that publication is an after-thought. And now I will be honest enough, though often times in self-disparagement, to serve up rough notes as much as can be in their genuine state; not attempting to be profound, or political, or philosophical, or in fact anything worse than simple and natural; not pilfering information from guides nor from anybody else, but honestly earning it for myself by hard sight-seeing; and trusting that you may meet some improvement anon, and will meanwhile have patience.

During then our three or four hours at Bruges, I have to record a rapid glance at these memorables. Notre Dame, with its solemn grandeur, carved pulpit, Michael Angelo's Virgin and Child, and the gilded

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tombs of Burgundy; the Hôpital de St. Jean, rich in Hemminck's pictures, and the St. Ursulan reliquary, a gorgeous receptacle for an armbone; St. Thomas's church, of splendid proportions, with an elaborate marble railing and gloriously carved oak pulpit; St. Sauveur's, a most antique pile, peopled by marble bishops, and Van-Eyck's pictures; a crucifixion there, the work of this great master, is the most touching of all the many I have since seen : the church of Jerusalem, with its curious holy sepulchre the chapel of the Holy Blood, a beauteous piece of moresco-gothic architecture, having a curious globe pulpit; here, people are crowding in to kiss a crystal vial for a fee,the priest who holds forth the idolized bottle of blood knowing very well that it is a fabricated miracle-most likely duck's blood shed this morning the lofty belfry tower and its musical chimes the Justice Hall, and that majestic Charles the Fifth mantelpiece, a wonder of carving, with life-sized warriors standing out all oak, but in an ill-proportioned room: our Charles the Second's house, when here an outcast; and his picture, as a dissolute-looking youth, the well kept promise of the man: St. Jacques, rich in brasses: the Town Hall; and scores of architectural bits of beauty and scenes of interest, which our too great haste obliged

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