y are! A great thundering Times could hardly talk more
big. One reads about the rascally Ministers, the miserable Opposition,
the designs of tyrants, the eyes of Europe, &c., just as one would
in real journals. The Moniteur of Ghent belabors the Independent of
Brussels; the Independent falls foul of the Lynx; and really it is
difficult not to suppose sometimes that these worthy people are in
earnest. And yet how happy were they sua si bona norint! Think what a
comfort it would be to belong to a little state like this; not to abuse
their privilege, but philosophically to use it. If I were a Belgian,
I would not care one single fig about politics. I would not read
thundering leading-articles. I would not have an opinion. What's the use
of an opinion here? Happy fellows! do not the French, the English, and
the Prussians, spare them the trouble of thinking, and make all their
opinions for them? Think of living in a country free, easy, respectable,
wealthy, and with the nuisance of talking politics removed from out of
it. All this might the Belgians have, and a part do they enjoy, but not
the best part; no, these people will be brawling and by the ears, and
parties run as high here as at Stoke Pogis or little Pedlington.

These sentiments were elicited by the reading of a paper at the cafe in
the Park, where we sat under the trees for a while and sipped our cool
lemonade. Numbers of statues decorate the place, the very worst I
ever saw. These Cupids must have been erected in the time of the Dutch
dynasty, as I judge from the immense posterior developments. Indeed the
arts of the country are very low. The statues here, and the lions before
the Prince of Orange's palace, would disgrace almost the figurehead of a
ship.

Of course we paid our visit to this little lion of Brussels (the
Prince's palace, I mean). The architecture of the building is admirably
simple and firm; and you remark about it, and all other works here, a
high finish in doors, wood-works, paintings, &c., that one does not see
in France, where the buildings are often rather sketched than completed,
and the artist seems to neglect the limbs, as it were, and extremities
of his figures.

The finish of this little place is exquisite. We went through some dozen
of state-rooms, paddling along over the slippery floors of inlaid woods
in great slippers, without which we must have come to the ground. How
did his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange manage when he lived