forming square, each in its appointed | forenoon the doors are open, to be sure, and there is no one to levy an entrance-fee. I was standing ever so still, looking through the great gates of the choir at the twinkling lights, and listening to the distant chants of the priests performing the service, when a sweet chorus from the organloft broke out behind me overhead, and I turned round. My friend the drum-major ecclesiastic was down upon me in a moment. "Do not turn your back to the altar during divine service," says he, in very intelligible English. I take the rebuke, and turn a soft right-about face, and listen a while as the service continues. See it I cannot, nor the altar and its ministrants. We are separated from these by a great screen and closed gates of iron, through which the lamps glitter and the chant comes by gusts only. Seeing a score of children trotting down a side aisle, I think I may follow them. I am tired of looking at that hideous old pulpit with its grotesque monsters and decorations. I slip off to the side aisle; but my friend the drum-major is instantly after me—almost I thought he was going to lay hands on me. "You mustn't go there," says he; "

place, under the vast roof; and teachers presently coming to them. A stream of light from the jewelled windows beams slanting down upon each little squad of children, and the tall background of the church retires into a grayer gloom. Pattering little feet of laggards arriving echo through the great nave. They trot in and join their regiments, gathered under the slanting sunbeams. What are they learning? Is it truth? Those two gray ladies with their books in their hands in the midst of these little people have no doubt of the truth of every word they have printed under their eyes. Look, through the windows jewelled all over with saints, the light comes streaming down from the sky, and heaven's own illuminations paint the book! A sweet, touching picture indeed it is, that of the little children assembled in this immense temple, which has endured for ages, and grave teachers bending over them. Yes, the picture is very pretty of the children and the teachers, and their book but the text? Is it the truth, the only truth, nothing but the truth? If I thought so, I would go and sit down on the form cum parvulis, and learn the precious lesson with all my heart.

BEADLE. But I submit, an obstacle to conversions is the intrusion and impertinence of that Swiss fellow with the baldric- the officer who answers to the beadle of the British Islands, and is pacing about the church with an eye on the congregation. Now the boast of Catholics is that their churches are open to all; but in certain places and churches there are exceptions. At Rome I have been into St. Peter's at all hours: the doors are always open, the lamps are always burning, the faithful are forever kneeling at one shrine or the other. But at Antwerp not so. In the afternoon you can go to the church, and be civilly treated; but you must pay a franc at the side gate. In the

you mustn't disturb the service." I was moving as quietly as might be, and ten paces off there were twenty children kicking and clattering at their ease. I point them out to the Swiss. "They come to pray," says he. "You don't come to pray, you" "When I come to pay, says I, "I am welcome;" and with this withering sarcasm, I walk out of church in a huff. I don't envy the feelings of that beadle after receiving point blank such a stroke of wit.

LEO BELGICUS.- Perhaps you will say after this I am a prejudiced critic. I see the pictures in the cathedral fum. ing under the rudeness of that beadle, or at the lawful hours and prices, pestered by a swarm of shabby touters, who come behind me chattering in bad English, and who wild have me see

somest horses. He paints the handsomest pictures. He gets the handsomest prices for them. That slim young Van Dyck, who was his pupil, has genius too, and is painting all the noble ladies in England, and turning the heads of some of them. And Jordaens what a droll dog and clever fellow! Have you seen his fat Silenus? The master himself could not paint better. And his altar-piece at St. Bavon's? He can paint you any thing that Jordaens cana drunken jollification of boors and doxies, or a martyr howling with half his skin off. What a knowledge of anatomy! But there is nothing like the master-nothing. He can paint you his thirty-six thousand five hundred florins' worth a year. Have you heard of what he has done for the French Court? Prodigious! I can't look at Rubens' pictures without fancying I see that handsome figure swaggering before the canvas. And Hans Hemmelinck at Bruges? Have you never seen that dear old hos

the sights through their mean, greedy | as the two Maries. He chooses the eyes. Better see Rubens anywhere handsomest wives. He rides the handthan in a church. At the Academy, for example, where you may study him at your leisure. But at church? - I would as soon ask Alexandre Dumas for a sermon. Either would paint you a martyrdom very fiercely and picturesquely-writhing muscles flaming coals, scowling captains and executioners, swarming groups, and light, shade, color, most dexterously brilliant or dark; but in Rubens I am admiring the performer rather than the piece. With what astonishing rapidity he travels over his canvas! how tellingly the cool lights and warm shadows are made to contrast and relieve each other! how that blazing, blowsy penitent in yellow satin and glittering hair carries down the stream of light across the picture! This is the way to work, my boys, and earn a hundred florins a day. See! I am as sure of my line as a skater of making his figure of eight! and down with a sweep goes a brawny arm or a flowing curl of drapery. The figures arrange themselves as if by magic. The paint-pots are exhaust-pital of St. John, on passing the gate ed in furnishing brown shadows. The pupils look wondering on, as the master careers over the canvas. Isabel or Helena, wife No. 1 or No. 2, are sitting by, buxom, exuberant, ready to be painted; and the children are boxing in the corner, waiting till they are wanted to figure as cherubs in the picture. Grave .burghers and gentlefolks come in on a visit. There are oysters and Rhenish always ready on yonder table. Was there ever such a painter? He has been an ambassador, an actual Excellency, and what better man could be chosen? He speaks all the languages. He earns a hundred florins a day. Prodigious! Thirty-six thousand five hundred florins a year. Enormous He rides out to his castle with a score of gentlemen after him, like the Governor. That is his own portrait as St. George. You know he is an English knight? Those are his two wives

of which you enter into the fifteenth century? I see the wounded soldier still lingering in the house, and tended by the kind gray sisters. His little panel on its easel is placed at the light. He covers his board with the most wondrous, beautiful little figures, in robes as bright as rubies and amethysts. I think he must have a magic glass, in which he catches the reflection of little cherubs with many-colored wings, very little and bright. Angels, in long crisp robes of white, surrounded with halos of gold, come and flutter across the mirror, and he draws them. He hears mass every day. He fasts through Lent. No monk is more austere and holy than Hans. Which do you love best to behold, the lamb or the lion? the eagle rushing through the storm, and pouncing mayhap on carrion; or the linnet warbling on the spray?

Ru

By much the most delightful of the and were pointing out the tricks of Christopher set of Rubens to my mind his mystery? Pardon, O great chief, (and ego is introduced on these oc- magnificent master and poet! You casions, so that the opinion may pass can do. We critics, who sneer and only for my own, at the reader's hum- are wise, can but pry, and measure, ble service to be received or declined) and doubt, and carp. Look at the is the "Presentation in the Tem- lion. Did you ever see such a gross, ple: " splendid in color, in sentiment shaggy, mangy, roaring brute? Look sweet and tender, finely conveying at him eating lumps of raw meat— the story. To be sure, all the others positively bleeding, and raw and tell their tale unmistakably witness tough-till, faugh! it turns one's that coarse 66 Salutation," that mag- stomach to see him-O the coarse nificent "Adoration of the Kings "wretch! Yes, but he is a lion. (at the Museum), by the same strong bens has lifted his great hand, and downright hands; that wonderful the mark he has made has endured "Communion of St. Francis," which, for two centuries, and we still conI think, gives the key to the artist's tinue wondering at him, and admirfaire better than any of his performing him. What a strength in that ances. I have passed hours before arm! What splendor of will hidden that picture in my time, trying and behind that tawny beard, and those sometimes fancying I could under- honest eyes! Sharpen your pen, my stand by what masses and contrasts the good critic. Shoot a feather into artist arrived at his effect. In many him; hit him, and make him wince. others of the pictures parts of his Yes, you may hit him fair, and make method are painfully obvious, and him bleed, too; but, for all that, he you see how grief and agony are pro- is a lion -a mighty, conquering, genduced by blue lips, and eyes rolling erous, rampagious Leo Belgicus blood-shot with dabs of vermilion. monarch of his wood. And he is not There is something simple in the dead yet, and I will not kick at him. practice. Contort the eyebrow sufficiently, and place the eyeball near it, - by a few lines you have anger or fierceness depicted. Give me a mouth with no special expression, and pop a dab of carmine at each extremity and there are the lips smiling. This is art if you will, but a very naïve kind of art and now you know the trick, don't you see how easy it is?

TU QUOQUE.- Now you know the trick, suppose you take a canvas and see whether you can do it? There are brushes, palettes, and gallipots full of paint and varnish. Have you tried, my dear sir-you, who set up to be a connoisseur? Have you tried? I have and many a day. And the end of the day's labor? O dismal conclusion! Is this puerile niggling, this feeble scrawl, this impotent rubbish, all you can produce you, who but now found Rubens commonplace and vulgar,

SIR ANTONY. - In that "Pietà" of Van Dyck, in the Museum, have you ever looked at the yellow-robed angel, with the black scarf thrown over her wings and robe? What a charming figure of grief and beauty! What a pretty compassion it inspires! It soothes and pleases me like a sweet rhythmic chant. See how delicately the yellow robe contrasts with the blue sky behind, and the scarf binds the two! If Rubens lacked grace, Van Dyck abounded in it. What a consummate elegance! What a perfect cavalier! No wonder the fine ladies in England admired Sir Antony. Look at —

Here the clock strikes three, and the three gendarmes who keep the Musée cry out, "Allons! Sortons! Il est trois heures! Allez! Sortez!" and they skip out of the gallery as happy as boys running from school. And we must go too, for though

with Murray's handbooks in their handsome hands- they have paid a franc for entrance-fee, you see; and we knew nothing about the franc for entrance until those gendarmes with sheathed sabres had driven us out of this Paradise.

many stay behind many Britons | rings; about the houses and towns which we pass a great air of comfort and neatness; a queer feeling of wonder that you can't understand what your fellow-passengers are saying, the tone of whose voices, and a certain comfortable dowdiness of dress, are so like our own; whilst But it was good to go and drive on we are remarking on these sights, the great quays, and see the ships sounds, smells, the little railway jourunlading, and by the citadel, and ney from Rotterdam to the Hague wonder howabouts and whereabouts comes to an end. I speak to the it was so strong. We expect a citadel railway porters and hackney coachto look like Gibraltar or Ehrenbreits- men in English, and they reply in tein at least. But in this one there their own language, and it seems is nothing to see but a flat plain and somehow as if we understood each some ditches, and some trees, and other perfectly. The carriage drives mounds of uninteresting green. And to the handsome, comfortable, cheerthen I remember how there was a boy ful hotel. We sit down a score at at school, a little dumpy fellow of no the table; and there is one foreigner personal appearance whatever, who and his wife, I mean every other couldn't be overcome except by a man and woman at dinner are Engmuch bigger champion, and the im-lish. As we are close to the sea, and mensest quantity of thrashing. A in the midst of endless canals, we perfect citadel of a boy, with a General Chassé sitting in that bomb-proof casemate, his heart, letting blow after blow come thumping about his head, and never thinking of giving in.

And we go home, and we dine in the company of Britons, at the comfortable Hôtel du Parc, and we have bought a novel apiece for a shilling, and every half-hour the sweet carillon plays the waltz from Dinorah in the air. And we have been happy; and it seems about a month since we left London yesterday; and nobody knows where we are, and we defy care and the postman.

have no fish. We are reminded of
dear England by the noble prices
which we pay for wines. I confess I
lost my temper yesterday at Rotter-
dam, where I had to pay a florin for
a bottle of ale (the water not being
drinkable, and country or Bavarian
beer not being genteel enough for the
hotel); -I confess, I say, that my
fine temper was ruffled, when the
bottle of pale ale turned out to be a
pint bottle; and I meekly told the
waiter that I had bought beer at
But then
Jerusalem at a less price.
Rotterdam is eighteen hours from
London, and the steamer with the
passengers and beer comes up to
the hotel windows; whilst to Jeru-
salem they have to carry the ale on
camels' backs from Beyrout or Jaffa,
and through hordes of marauding
Arabs, who evidently don't care for
pale ale, though I am told it is not
forbidden in the Koran. Mine would
have been very good, but I choked
with rage whilst drinking it. A florin
for a bottle, and that bottle having
the words " imperial pint," in bold
relief, on the surface! It was too
much.

I intended not to say any

thing about it; but I must speak. | ancient gilt hangings of the lofty A florin a bottle, and that bottle a chamber, and through the windows pint! Oh, for shame! for shame! the Boompjes and the ships along the I can't cork down my indignation; quay. I froth up with fury; I am pale with wrath, and bitter with scorn.