pleasure-house, built by the Emperor Charles the fifth, after his abdication.

The palace is a magnificent structure: the rooms of it are finished in style far superior to those of any palace in England, and enriched with many fine paintings: that of the family of Hector, in the council chamber, lays claim to the first rank of eminence. Of the other buildings (the grandeur of which entitle them to the names of palaces), those of the Prince de la Tour and Taxis, and the British Earl of Aylesbury, are distinguished by great beauty and magnificence. Indeed, in all the palaces, there are collections of original paintings, by the most eminent masters, both Italian and Flemish.

The royal library of Brussels claims particular attention, for the magnitude and liberality of its establishment, containing a grand collection of the most excellent books in all languages, and being open all the year on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, to public access. The arsenal of Brussels is extremely well worth going to see, on account of the very curious antique arms it contains of which it is, at this distance of time, im possible for me to give you any account worth attention. The armour of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, together with the furniture of his horse, and state sword, are shewn I could see nothing either novel or interesting in them a strong mark, I presume, of my want of taste; but I confess my organs are not so refined as to feel any extraordinary emotions at the sight of a heap of inert matter, merely because it once enveloped the carcase of a tyrant: neither were they so very course or dull as not to undergo very pointed sensations at the sight of the armour of Montezuma, the injured Emperor of Mexico, the victim of avarice and rapine, under the usual mask, religion. Why Montezuma's armour should make a part of the trophies of a Popish state, and be triumphantly exhibited, is hard to account for in human folly: why that should be exhibited which is a stain of the deepest-damned black, in their black code of faith, is astonishing, unless we allow the truth of the old say ing, "Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat;" and that, after having violated every principle of virtue,

morality, and human feeling-after having surpassed in cruelty all that we know of the worst monsters of the earth, or of the deep, the fell hyena, or the ravening shark-after having succesefully emulated the worst efforts of the most malignant spirits that are said to hold counsel for the ruin of mankind in hell-they were desirous to transmit the spoils of their ravages to posterity, to tell them what glorious things have been atchieved in days of yore, for the love of CHRIST to demonstrate what benefits are to be derived from a religion which has, for so many hundred years, given sanction to every enormity that strikes the soul of man with horror, and thereby to make converts to their principles. Monsters! fools! Away with your idle cants, ye hypocrites, who would brand the cruelties of the present days, the massacres of the Jacobins, with the crime of infidelity, and attribute those much lamented defections from humanity to a falling off from the Christain faith. Look to Mexico!see a monster, a high priest of your religion, collecting, by fair promises and sweet persuasion, a people round him; and, when a plain was filled, commanding his bloodhounds, armed with sword and crucifix, to fall upon and murder them because one poor creature, who knew not what a book meant, had accidentally dropped a bible from his hands!-see him not sparing age or sex, but butchering all, for the love of CHRIST!When have the deluded and enfrenzied mob of France perpetrated, in the full torrent of popular frenzy, such attrocities as this cruel priest committed in cold blood? when have they hnnted down their fellow creatures, massacred children, and given their yet panting members to their dogs for food, as pious Christains, headed by a pious priest, have done in Mexico? Never! never!-Learn wisdom, then, ye hypocrites! and if you cannot convince your enemies by reason, or conquer them by force, and if their predatory and wicked progress is not to be stopped, do not sanctify their enormities, or palliate their crimes, in the eye of reason, by a comparison with those of a 'deeper dye: remember, that "not to be the worst stands in some rank of praise," and that the Jacobin cruelties of Paris, horrible though they were, were pity and tender

mercy, compared with the Christian butchery in Mexico, in Europe, in Asia, in every place where Popery ever set its bloody hoof.

You are not, from what I say, to infer that I entertain any illiberal animosity to Popery, as many men, and more women, do, merely because its articles of faith differ from those in which I was bred; I trust my heart and understanding are above such very degrading prejudices but I abhor every thing that militates against human happiness-every thing that crushes the operations of intellect every thing that stops the current of opinion, and prevents its course from enlarging and meliorating our condition: I abhor the impertinent and hypocritical intrusion of all churchmen upon national or domestic concerns; the more, when that intrusion is mischievous; and more still, when it assumes the mask of piety for that is at once a fraud upon man, and an abuse of God. All those causes of abhorrence attach, more or less, to all sects of the Christian religion, the Quakers only excepted but to Popery rather more than to any of the others; for it is observed, that while the very first principles of Christianity, as originally laid down in theory, are peace and good-will towards men, warfare, persecution, and bloodshed, have practically marked its footsteps wherever it has trod, and its very essence been perverted by its own ministers, who, entrusted with the key of the temple, steal the vestments from the altar, to cover the deformed, crooked back of vice. But the rays of dawning reason now break with fuller light upon mankind; and it hastens to meridian resplendance, before which those phantoms raised by pious jugglers will vanish, and, "like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind."

LETTER XII.

In the arsenal of Brussels was another curiosity, which I overlooked in my last a model of a cannon, constructed so as to throw seven balls at once. It is

some consolation to philanthropy to reflect, that of all the abominable engines and instruments which the inventive faculties of man have discovered, to increase the cruelty and carnage of war, not one has been, of late times, adopted. This model lies here, therefore, only as a memorial of the diabolical genius of the inventor. The opera-house of Brussels, accounted the noblest and largest in Europe, is built after the Italian manner, with rows of lodges or closets, in most of which are chimneys. One of those, which belonged to a prince, whose title I now forget, was hung with looking-glasses, in which, while he sat by the fire, took refreshments, or reclined on his couch, he could see the whole representation, without being exposed to the view of either the actors or the audience.

The markets of Brussels are very remarkable. The dukes of St. Pierre paid no less than forty thousand florins, or upwards of three thousand pounds Sterling, for four pictures of them, painted by Rubens and SynderLewis the Fourteenth of France offered an immense sum of money for them; but they found their way at last into the collection of the British Earl of Orford. The value of them is said, by connoisseurs, to be beyond computation.

Brussels is extremely well supplied with water: for, besides the river, it has twenty public fountains, adorned with statues, at the corners of the most public streets; and the lower part of the city is cut into canals, which communicate with the great one, extending from Brussels to the Scheldt, fifteen miles: by means of this canal, which was finished in 1561, and cost the city eight hundred thousand florins, a person may sail from Brussels to the North Sea; and barques do actually go twice a-day to Antwerp, and back again.

This city is full of churches, of which the most remarkable is that of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula, commonly called the cathedral. It is a superb, old Gothic structure, and, from its celebrated situation, a most beautiful ornament to the city. It is not only grand in its external appearance, but finely adorned with in. The pillars which support the roof are lofty and ele

gant and against each is a statue of ten feet in height. There are no less than sixteen chapels in it; and each chapel is enriched with abundance of splendid ornaments, altar finery, candle-sticks, crucifixes, &c. and with some excellent pictures too: a picture of JESUS CHRIST presenting the keys of Paradise to Saint Peter, which is reckoned among the chef-d'œuvres of Rubens, hangs in one of those chapels. There are some monuments, also, of very great merit, in the choir of this church. But that which I think by far the greatest and most admirable curiosity (I mean of human workmanship) in the church, is a pulpit-one of the richest and most exquisitely wrought pieces I have ever seen at the bottom are seen ADAM and EvE as large as life, represented as at the moment when the angel drove them out of Paradise in both of their faces are deeply and expressively marked the traits of a mind agonised with anguish and remorse behind EvE is a figure of Death, which follows them; and on the top of the pulpit are seen the figures of JESUS CHRIST and the Virgin Mary crushing the head of the Serpent. The strong expressions in the faces of these figures, and the exquisite turn of the workmanship, is the more remarkable, as it is all cut out of oak wood.

Of supernatural curiosities, one of the chapels in this cathedral contains some, that, for miracle, yield to none in the long catalogue of monkish devices. Three' hosts or wafers are daily worshipped by the people; which hosts or wafers, the priests firmly assert, and the people as firmly believe, were, so long ago as the year 1369, stabbed by a Jew, and bled profusely. They are exposed on every festival, in a chalice richly set with diamonds; and on the first Sunday after every thirteenth of July, there is a yearly procession in memory of this stabbing and bleeding, when the hosts are carried in great state round the city, embellished with all manner of precious stones, and attended by all the clergy, secular and regular, the magistrates, the courts of justice, and even by the governor of the province: the chapel where they are. kept is of marble, and the altar of solid silver.

Great GoD! what an opprobrium to the human un