ild the walls of Jerusalem.
Dixmude, indeed--I judge from an interior view--is possibly shattered
past hope; but Dinant and St. Pierre, at Louvain, so far at least as
their fabrics are concerned, seem to lack little but the woodwork of
their roofs. It is only a few years ago since the writer stood in the
burnt-out shell of Selby Abbey; yet the Selby Abbey of to-day, though
some ancient fittings of inestimable value have irreparably perished,
is in some ways not less magnificent, and is certainly more complete,
than its imperfect predecessor. One takes comfort, again, in the
thought of York Minster in the conflagration caused by the single
madman Martin in 1829, and of the collapse of the blazing ceilings in
nave and chancel, whilst the great gallery of painted glass, by some
odd miracle, escaped. Is it too much to hope that this devil's work of
a million madmen at Dixmude or Nieuport may prove equally incomplete?

In the imperfect sketch that follows I write of the aspect of
Belgium--of its cities, that were formerly the most picturesque in
Europe; of its landscapes, that range from the level fens of Flanders
to the wooded limestone wolds of the Ardennes--as I knew these, and
loved them, in former years, before hell was let loose in Europe. And
perhaps, the picture here presented will in time be not altogether
misrepresentative of the regenerated Belgium that will certainly some
day arise.

II.

It is not merely in its quality of unredeemed and absolute flatness
that the great fen country of Flanders is so strongly reminiscent of
the great fen country of the Holland parts of Lincolnshire. Each of
these vast levels is equally distinguished by the splendour and
conspicuousness of its ancient churches. Travelling by railway between
Nieuport and Dixmude, you have on every side of you, if the day be
clear, a prospect of innumerable towers and spires, just as you have if
you travel by railway between Spalding and Sleaford, or between
Spalding and King's Lynn. The difference, perhaps, is that the
Lincolnshire churches present finer architectural feature, and are
built of stone, floated down in barges, by dyke or fen, from the famous
inland quarries of Barnack, in Northamptonshire; whilst most of those
in Flanders are built of local brick, though the drums of the piers and
the arches are often of blue limestone. It is remarkable, certainly,
that these soaring spires should thus chiefly rise to eminence in a
setting