description book. You wish to have my ideas on the subjects that most
strike me individually, and those you shall have; but it would be very
absurd and presumptuous in me to attempt to give a _catalogue raisonne_ of
buildings and pictures and statues, or to set up as a connoisseur when I
know nothing either of sculpture, of architecture or painting; nor am I
desirous of imitating the young Englishman, who, in writing to his father
from Italy, described so much in detail, and so scientifically, every
production, or staple, peculiar to the cities which he happened to visit,
that he wrote like a cheese-monger from Parma, like a silk mercer from
Leghorn, like an olive and oil merchant from Lucca, like a picture dealer
from Florence, and like an antiquarian from Rome.

BRUXELLES, May 10.

The _Hotel d'Angleterre_ where we are lodged is within four minutes walk
from the finest part of the city, where the Parc and Royal Palace is
situated. The Parc is not large, but is tastefully laid out in the Dutch
style, and is the fashionable promenade for the _beau monde_ of Bruxelles.
The women, without being strikingly handsome, have much grace; their air,
manner and dress are perfectly _a la francaise_. A good cafe and restaurant
is in the centre of one of the sides, and the buildings on the quadrangle
environing the Parc, which form the palace and other tenements are superb.
The next place I went to see was the _Hotel de Ville_ and its tower of
immense height. It is a fine Gothic building, but that which should be the
central entrance is not directly in the centre of the edifice, so that one
wing of it appears considerably larger than the other, which gives it an
awkward and irregular appearance. On the Place or Square as we should call
it, where the _Hotel de Ville_ stands, is held the fruit and vegetable
market, and a finer one or more plentifully supplied I never beheld. This
_Place_ is interesting to the historian as being the spot where Counts
Egmont and Hoorn suffered decapitation in the reign of Philip II of Spain,
by order of the Duke of Alva, who witnessed the execution from a window of
one of the houses. The conduct of these noblemen at the place of execution
was so dignified that even the ferocious duke could not avoid wiping his
eyes, hardened as his heart was by religious and political fanaticism; and
though he held them in abhorrence as rebels and traitors a tear did fall
for them down his iron cheek. How fortunate for