surprise, possibly because he saw nothing unusual in the circumstance. The corpse was laid out at one end of a long room; and by the head of the bed on which it rested were a few long stools. A table stood at the foot covered with pipes, tobacco, snuff in various boxes, bottles of gin, and vessels of beer. Two long forms ran parallel with the sides of the apartment close to the walls. On these were seated many people; indeed, the room was full of men and women when we entered. The widow sat at the small table administering pipes, beer, and gin to every successive applicant. In a short time singing commenced-I believe, psalms at first, for the airs which were new to me were very slow and solemn. Anon succeeded songs of a questionable character. Chansons a boire, and others of an unquestionable character, as far as immodesty was concerned, followed; and, ultimately, one of the party, the brother. of the deceased, approached the widow and handed her forth to the middle of the room. A musician, who had it seems been in waiting all the evening, was then introduced, and dancing commenced by the pair of disconsolates treading a measure' down the apartment. 'The mirth and fun grew fast and furious' from thenceforward-every one danced, every one sung, and every one talked; such a scene of confusion and indecent riot I never witnessed: where the widow went I do not know, but I never saw her or her partner for the rest of the entertainment. I could not help thinking of similar ceremonies which I had witnessed in Ireland, and comparing them together. The resemblance was wonderful. The Irish, however, have the advantage over the Dutch in as far as decency is concerned. Though the scenes which take place at their wakes are objectionable enough, I never knew any of them to equal this in grossness. Chacun a son gout. It is not my taste.”pp. 326-328.

In Antwerp an old gentleman was pointed out to our author, of whom a curious account is given, because he was one of the most incurious persons ever heard of.

"He is an advocate, and until recently always practised in the courts. It is not long since he retired with an ample competence from the labours of his profession. But that is not the notable circumstance connected with him. Previous to the occupation of Antwerp by Napoleon, there were no quays to the river; and it was his great mind conceived, and his great will caused the erection of the basins and the improvements in that quarter, which has rendered it the most beautiful .* as well as the most useful portion of the city. Sixty-five years had the old gentlemen I speak of been a resident there, and yet he never saw these improvements, which so much interested the inhabitants; and which, at their commencement and conclusion, every person rushed to see. When urged to walk in that direction for that purpose, his answer uniformly was, I have not time now, wait till I make a fortune; I shall then retire from my profession, and visit them as well as the other things in town.' He kept his word. After he had made his fortune, by the closest application, and the labour of five and thirty years, he retired, and the first thing he did was to go sight-seeing; he was doing so when he was pointed out to me. I do not know whether he is as happy, now

that his curiosity is gratified, and opportunity afforded him for satiating it, as he was when he was at the drudgery of the bar and the closet; but I must say that I certainly never yet saw a human being look so supremely unhappy," pp. 328, 329.

We began to entertain hopes that the writer, after showing that' he had arrived at sounder notions about breakfastings, than those with which he set out, would have given us something more spirited, novel, or quaint, than he could be supposed capable of relishing, so long as confined to bread and butter, and brandied coffee. But even a Mechlin breakfast is impotent and unproductive in some cases. Strange, that in mean auberge, or on dusty highway, that nothing like adventure or novelty was to be found, either as occurring to himself or any one else, that was worth recording or listening to. To be sure he fell in with a female peasant on one occasion, who trundled a heavily laden wheel-barrow before her, whom he commiserated; and hence the following notable story :

"I spoke to her, and would fain have relieved her of a part of her excessive labour, although I feared my unskilfuluess would have injured rather than served her, if besides to the trouble she had had, and the trouble she necessarily would have, was superadded the trouble of regathering and re-arranging the contents of her barrow, which it was more than probable my awkwardness would have contrived to overturn. She looked at me and smiled.

"Monsieur,' said she in broken French, 'is not used to trundle barrows; I don't heed it much.' The heaving of her breast, however, belied her generous and self-denying assertion.

I am.

"But if Monsieur would permit me to have the honour,' here she made an elegant courtesy, which would not have disgraced a duchess. I should feel too happy to relieve him from the load of his haversack, which I see is rather heavy for him this hot day.'

"I of course refused this kind offer, made in that genuine spirit of goodness, which, after all, is the highest and best, as well as the strongest characteristic of the female nature, and assured her of what was not the fact, that I felt perfectly comfortable and entirely at my ease under it, for the purpose of setting her anxiety about the matter at rest. We then pursued our journey together for upwards of a mile. At parting, I put a franc in her hand; but I found considerable more difficulty than I could possibly have imagined, in making her keep it. Several times she attempted to return it; and it was only at last by walking away as rapidly as I could, that I succeeded. I have met equal kindness on all occasions from women; and there can be no doubt that the greater portion of the goodness of human nature is enshrined in their hearts."-pp. 332-334. The truth is, the woman pitied the Saunterer, or had her laugh at his expense. The occasion, however, served the well-meaning pedestrian, to pay a finely expressed compliment to the dear sex. But if he has not won the favour of all the fair by this sentiment about enshrined goodness, surely not one of them can withstand the following eloquent testimony :

-

"One word on the women of Brussells, and I have done with this chapter. I think them a noble race-fair, large, comely, and kind. They are superior to the Flemish women-I mean the women of Flanders Proper-and fully equal in every essential requisite to beauty, to the fairest women I have ever seen on the frontiers. Moreover, those who can afford to do so, dress well and tastefully, and walk well also. A betternatured looking race of women I never saw in my life; but women look kindly all the world over. It is only the reflection of their hearts in their soft faces. The poorer class of females are scarcely so well looking as the bourgeoise, who are generally handsomer in every respect than those of the highest class; they wear a long cloak like the females of the same condition in the centre and south of Ireland. That garment is called a 'cover slut' in the latter country, from its partaking greatly of the nature of charity, which covereth a multitude of sins;' in Belgium it is known by a synonymous term, the exact words of which I cannot at this moment remember. It is a useful garment for them, poor things! I believe beauty is more fugacious among the fair sex in Belgium, than it is in most other countries; perhaps from the physiological cause that they are literally fair; as it is well established that individuals of that complexion have much less vitality in their constitutions, than those whose purity is tempered with a darker shade of colour. I have been told, that most of them begin to fade when they have passed a certain age-twenty-one is fixed on as their rubicon-a fact which I can easily credit, from my own observation and experience. It is said they fade sooner than that age, if they become mothers. Faded or flourishing, they are good kindly creatures, exemplary wives, excellent mothers, and faithful friends in every emergency. I reckon the women of Brussells fully equal to the best specimens of their sex, I have ever fell in with in my own or in any other country."-pp. 360, 361. After these specimens, we need not say more of the writer's gallantry. A better cattle-show style of description we never met with; and now for Waterloo. Here, he has the good taste not to repeat what has been thousands of times told before. What, then, has he to say? Why, that he still wore the costume of the peasantry of the country; that, while reading the inscription on the monument of Sir Alexander Gordon, an English party approached, to whom, in compliance with the custom of the natives, he took off his cap and bowed; but, lo! only two out of the five acknowledged the courtesy, and these were females, who acted like thoroughbred ladies, as they certainly were;" but how such thorough-breds came to be escorted by "great, gaping-eyed, young boobies," who stared at the author, we do not learn. It appeared probable to him, at the same time, that though gaping-eyed, they were not in busi

ness.

"I cannot say with any degree of certainty what their condition in life was; but I think that they were not in business-because I think tradesmen would be much better behaved. Very different from this was the deportment of a party of French nobility, male and female, whom I met subsequently on the very same spot. Greeting on the one side-mine of course, as I was the poorest in appearance-begat politeness on the other

and a conversation of some length on the circumstances of the war, produced an invitation to partake of a dejeuner à la fourchette-with which they came provided. It is many years since I spent such a perfectly pleasant morning as I did with the amaible dames and frank-hearted gentlemen who honoured me on that occasion with their society. We had delicious viands, exquisite wines, and better than all, the grace, the fascination, and the agremens of the finest female society. I am not at liberty in a work like this to name those composing the party; but if I were, the mention of them would be a sufficient guarantee for the accuracy of all I have said respecting the individuals."-pp. 364, 365.

Mr. George St. George seems to have been sadly annoyed, because people did not discover the gentleman in him, in spite of his rustic dress, thus letting his vanity out rather unnecessarily to the eye of the indulgent reader. He even waxed pugnacious at La Haye Sainte, where he met with a Prussian, who had fought under Blucher at Waterloo.

"All I could say or do would not suffice to persuade him that Wellington was the conqueror of Napoleon. He persisted in asserting that Blucher was the hero of that sanguinary strife; and that it was owing to him alone that the British army escaped annihilation, and their great commander disgrace and death. My blood boiled at the old man's obstinacy; and I am quite sure that if he had been any thing near my own age I should have ended the contention with knocking him down, in proof of the powerful nature of my arguments. I might certainly have had the worst of it in the rencontre which would inevitably ensue, and I might have had the better: but for the honour and glory of old England, I would have tried it with him on the field of Waterloo. We parted friends; that is, when our hot fit of nationality was over."-pp. 366, 367.

We meant to have copied no more from St. George about the fair sex, but the following portrait is too good to be left out. The subject was seen at Sombreuf.

She had a lank face, full of short hairs, flat nose, wide nostrils, a squint in one eye, and the other not quite straight; she was scarcely four feet high, her shoulders were square, and her back bent; yet notwithstanding these natural defects, I never met with a more agreeable woman in her class of life. She was full of fun-had a ready reply and a sweet smile always at hand-was ever good-humoured and bland in her mannerand, better than all, had a noble nature, a fine disposition, and a heart overflowing with the milk of human kindness."-pp. 367, 368.

Upon the omission hinted at, in the last paragraph of the volume, we need not anticipate the judgment of our readers farther than to say, that the author has not, in the slightest degree, incurred our displeasure on any one point, although it is to be regretted that such a well-intentioned man should have perpetrated such a foolish deed, as to publish the results of his Saunter in Belgium.

"It may be thought an omission that I have not made politics an incidental subject to these pages; but I trust I shall incur no public displeasure by stating, that politics formed no part of my plan. As far,

however, as they came under my observation, I think the people of Belgium have been bettered by the change of their sovereign; and that Leopold lives in the hearts of his subjects. I have heard many speak well of the king of Holland, and more speak ill of him; but I never yet heard any Belgian, however adverse to his rule, speak otherwise than well of Leopold. The prince I am sure is pleased with the people; and the people, I know from my own observation, are pleased with the prince of their choice. Long may they continue in such peaceful and happy union."-386, 387.

ART. XIV.

1. On Insanity; its Nature, Causes, and Cure. By WILLIAM B. NEVILLE, Esq. London: Longman & Co. 1836.

2. Psychological Fragments, on Insanity. By FRANCIS LEURET, M.D. WHEN any member of the medical profession acquires a reputation for curing particular diseases, an influx of patients is the certain consequence, and wealth increases proportionably with honourable fame. But though this holds as a general rule, insanity forms a decided and remarkable exception; and the reputation of a medical practitioner, for the successful treatment of insane patients, will seldom bring him either increase of practice or of reputation. On the contrary, the practitioner who devotes himself to the investigation and treatment of mania, is considered by his brethren, in most cases, as following pursuits of doubtful respectability, and as degrading himself into the lowest ranks of the profession. We, accordingly, find physicians possessed of respectable talents and connections, shrink from this department of the medical art, lest they should be degraded in their professional reputation.

The cause of this lamentable state of things is partly inseparable, we fear, from the disorders in question. Insane patients are seldom managed or manageable at home, and are, therefore, in most cases, consigned by their friends to some private or public establishment, where no one is interested in promoting their recovery. On the contrary, it is the interest of the proprietors and the attendants, that there should be no recoveries. The medical superintendants of such establishments may, indeed, be supposed, from their rank and education, to be actuated by humane and liberal feelings towards the wretched beings committed to their care; but when it is clear that they can have little or no interest-no increase of fame or of wealth from success, and no loss of either from the want of success-it would be expecting more of human nature than we are authorised to do, to anticipate requisite exertions from motives of pure humanity. The facts, indeed, which have been wrung from unwilling witnesses in recent public investigations, prove but too strongly that members of the medical profession-how 'incapable soever they may be of a dereliction of honourable and humane con