pathizing with an irritated stomach, I have been trying what low diet would do to appease the hostile coalition.

14th May. Rather better. Mr. Ritchie dines with me, and I venture to eat a little. After dinner we take a long drive, going out of the town at the gate of Flanders, and returning by way of the Allée Verte, having made the tour of the Chateau and its wood, heard the nightingales singing in its shade, and enjoyed, altogether, a most enchanting evening. Did not get home before 9 o'clock. The view of Brussels, from the road that leads from the great highway to Flanders, to the village of Lacken, under so fine a sky, was quite beautiful, and one of the best I have seen from the many points I have looked from. Mr. R. takes leave, with many thanks.

15th May. Dine at Prince Auguste's. Meet there two strangers, Mr. Abercrombie, Secretary of the British embassy at Berlin, and Lord Valletort, eldest son of Lord Mount-Edgecombe. Nothing particular. All the diplomatic corps present, except the new attaché to the English legation, just arrived, (who promises, Sir Robert assures me, smiling, to be a working, and not a fishing, Secretary,) Mr. Des Voeux. King arrives this evening.

16th May. Dinner at Court. I sit on the left of His Majesty, Lady Valletort, who had walked to dinner with Sir R. Adair, being on my right, (between the king and me,) and the barronne d'Hoogvorst (whom I had led in) on my left. This young English lady was, about eighteen months ago, a Miss somebody, daughter of a Captain in the British navy; she is now likely to be a Countess, and will grace her coronet with a great deal of beauty of a high style. I talked with her a little at dinner, and found her, like all the English, enthusiastic about Italy, and, like herself, still more so about Greece. Her hair was dressed à la Grecque, and this charming simplicity heightened the effect of the fine contrast between its own blackness and her very white cheeks and gorge. She talked in that low tone, and rather mincing, precieuse manner, which some English think the perfection of the ton. Short soirée, on account of the queen's pregnancy, no doubt.

Party at Mr. Freke's, brother of Lord Carberry, who has two daughters, nice, frank, good-natured, lively Irish girls, and a son, heir-presumptive of a peerage and 40,000 a year, who is both deaf and dumb. Yet he goes to every ball, etc., dances, and seems the happiest man in the room. I am told he has been (and more than once, I think) engaged to be married, but contrived to be off when it came to the pinch. Lady Valletort, Lady Wm. Paget, etc., but not the Hastings', who have just lost a

relation. Party numerous, and very English. Ladies all seated round the principal salon, looking at each other with that air of uneasy, though subdued and grave mutual distrust, that belongs to that sort of armed neutrality. It was very warm, and so, as I found myself rapidly becoming nervous, I slunk away into a small apartment adjoining, where, to my great relief, I found a window wide open, a small society chattering and noisy, and Miss- -, my special favorite and a sweet girl, sitting entrenched in a corner, with an evident determination to defend the position to the last. Here I established myself for the evening, never having plucked up courage enough to cross the other room, even to speak to Mrs. Seymour, my most familiar acquaintance here. Singing by Miss Freke (very passable) and two gentlemen. Still, the dullness of the hour oppresses every body. At length, things being fairly at extremities, a waltz or quadrille, to the piano-forte, is got up. I avail myself of the first confusion to make my escape, which I effect, without further damage, about half-past 11. Sic me servavit Apollo.

17th May. Having eaten a little yesterday, I am sensibly better to-day, for abstinence makes me ill for the present, whatever its ultimate effects may be. Determine to break my long fast. Mr. Serruys, Vice-Consul at Ostend, comes in. Hands me the commission of the Consul, and requests I will get an exequatur. Tells me he had seen the King at Ostend, and heard him say, (nay, said he, His Majesty even addressed the parole to me,) apropos of the projected rail-road to the Rhine, that the objections made to the port of Ostend as one of its termini, had not been answered, and, therefore, were believed. Yet you know, said the King with a significant look, that the press is free, and very free. Mr. S. tells me, at Ghent the Orangists did all they could to insult and mortify Leopold. Thus, they hired the boxes at the theatre in front of the royal box, and left them vacant. On pretence of presenting him a petition, some one forced upon him a number of a paper filled with abuse of him and the queen, etc., etc. But, at Östend and other towns, he found some compensation for these outrages. Apropos of this, driving out this evening, Mr. Seymour, whom I took up, tells me that Capt. La Goletterie, (officièr d'ordonnance,) a French officer of our acquaintance, whom I met last night at the Frekes', had fought a duel yesterday morning with some malcontent here, in consequence of his hissing (the said patriot) at a serenade offered to His Majesty on his return, by the Societé de la Grande Harmonie. The worthy siffleur was not favored by fortune, having been very dangerously wounded in the body.

Spend the evening at Mr. Seymour's. While I am there, a loud peal of thunder (for this climate) announces the much

VOL. I.-2

desired probability or approach of rain, of which, indeed, a few scattered drops do fall, but far too few to correct the dusty drought.

18th May. Dinner yesterday restored me a good deal. Take a warm bath-the second this season-at 2 o'clock, and remain in it half an hour. Dismiss my fille-de-quartier,-mistress, it seems, of Mr. Ferrari, my valet-de-chambre, who does not choose that she shall be at too much pains to put the house to rights, and kicks up a tremendous row because the other servant will not put down the stair-case carpet until the stairs are washed clean. He ought to be sent off with her, and shall soon follow her, if he continue to mistake the valet for the roi here.

19th May-Sunday. Feel almost well to-day. Walk in the park before breakfast; the fresh verdure of the foliage, the retreat, the stillness, broken by the voices of numberless birds,-all delightful.

He

Bring up this journal to the present date. Write to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the subject of the Ostend consulship, and the "style" proper to be used in addressing letters of notification to the President of the United States; (they have generally kept up that of the old confederation, to "the President and Congress", which is obviously wrong). Read (my habit of a Sunday) Bossuet's variations des Eglises Protestantes. passes over Cranmer, Somerset & Co., with tremendous force: all the subtlety of controversial dialectics, combined with strong downright sense, the sincerity and earnestness of deep conviction, and the severe, masculine, sublime simplicity of style, for which that great master is remarkable. His summing up of Cranmer's character and conduct is inimitably well done.

Sally forth en voiture, and make some calls. Dine at 6, and take an airing, after dinner, to my favorite resort in the forest,-the sweet remnant of the haunted Ardennes. My head was particularly full of "As you like it," etc., this evening. Return at half-past S.

Take a walk: meet Mr. Seymour and his charming daughter, Emily; invited to go home with them; do so. Look again at her admirable sketches. One of the Last Supper, and another of a Prince of Orange at the head of a troop of horse, struck me as displaying talent of a very high order. All good, however, and as I looked alternately at these master-pieces of art, and at the fair creature who executed them, (she is little more than 18 now,)

*

While I am there Gen. Des Prez comes in, telling them I had informed him they were usually at home on Sunday evenings.

20th May. Resume Greek; read half the 4th book of the Odyssey before breakfast. Take a short walk; find myself quite well. Weather very cool; too much so for me to venture to bathe. About 1, the Minister of Foreign Affairs calls, and begs me to furnish him a copy of the treaty lately negotiated at Washington, by and between Mr. Livingston and the Belgian envoy, Mr. Behr; the one sent him by the latter not having come to hand. Tell him that explains what had puzzled me very much hitherto: viz., the profound silence about it, and, indeed, the ignorance in which Mr. Lebeau, Minister of Justice, was, as late as the last time I met him at Court.

Speak of the elections. Mr. Goblet thinks himself and Mr. Le Hon, (now Minister at Paris,) in some danger at Tournaythe Catholics of that city being the exaltés and in opposition. I ask him how exaltés. He answers, by republican ideas. I express (what I felt) my surprise at this, having hitherto supposed that most of the soi-disant democrats here were fifth-monarchymen, or libertines in politics, religion and morals, or, lastly, Orange-men and contre-révolutionairès in disguise. I think, with some few exceptions among theoretical men, especially German and other students and professors, such is a pretty exact description of the republican party all over Europe, for whom, I confess, I have no great respect.

Visit two or three book-shops, inquiring after St. Croix, Daru, Meyer's Judicial Institutions, Savigny and Hugo. Get none of them. At the Jew's Summerhauzen, taken with a new edition of the Institutes, that is, of the Corpus Juris, of which the first livraison only is published; good edition in quarto, with copious notes, containing the concordance of the law.

Take a long drive in the evening, going round the Boulevard, and thence by cross roads to the gate of Anderlecht. View of Brussels still better than the one mentioned above. Weather delighful. At night, the whole air filled with the musical chorus. of frogs, which I mistook for birds!

Invitation to dine, on the 28th of this month, with the British minister, it being H. B. Majesty's birth-day; and so we are to dine in their horrid straight-jackets, called court-dress.

21st May. Read the Odyssey, on waking, etc. Day passed as usual. No event. At 7, take a drive, and more than ever charmed with the beauty of the earth, and the brightness and sweet temperature of the heavens. Pass the voiture of Madame la Contesse de Mérode (Henri), who stops to walk through a by-path, leading along a wood of Mr. Mosselman's, on the côte, out of the Porte de Hal. Asks me how I like their country. Tell them excessively, and that I often visit these enchanted

solitudes. Think this the prettiest drive of all. Not dark until half-past 9, and a new moon promises still sweeter evenings.

22d May. Write to Mr. Patterson, consul at Antwerp. Receive a note from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Invited to dine at Court to-morrow. Go to Summerhauzen's libraire: gives me the card of a teacher of German. Dine at Prince Auguste's. Meet there Sir Robt. Adair and his new attaché, Mr. Des Voeux, (whom I had not seen before,) M. de Baillet, M. de, Percy Doyle, attaché to the English legation, Lady Wm. Paget, (looking very pretty), and her mother, Lady de Rottenburg, M. Perier, afterwards, (the Prince, who is usually exact to a minute, was becoming impatient,) the Earl and Countess of Stanhope come in. At dinner, Mr. Des Voeux is beside me. Talkative and amiable; has been in Germany, and learned its language and literature; is rather scholastic. In the course of conversation, tells me we are making in America a new experiment,viz: a republic without slaves. I ask him, if he has ever seen that idea in print. He says not, and that it has just occurred to him. I reply that my reason for asking was that I had often and often reflected on it in all its bearings, and but lately had a long conversation upon it with an intelligent and interesting young Polish exile, Count Zamoiska, (nephew of Prince Czartorisky,) and I had often wondered that no one had ever (to my knowledge) dwelt upon and developed it, among the thousand and one speculations which these later times have produced in what is called political philosophy. Seems struck with what I say. After dinner, the Prince's Savoyard pensioners play and dance in the street, which draws us all to the window. While I am there, the Prince brings Lord Stanhope to me and introduces him. Long conversation on politics; not knowing his politics, my share of it rather political,-that is to say, with a double aspect. The Prince at length (in his way) comes up with his hat on. I ask him if he is going to the theatre, (of which he is a constant attendant.) Answers negatively, for they give Hamlet in English, which is Greek to him. Says he is going to "carry off" (enlever) Lady Stanhope. What will you do, says he to my lord. On some indecisive answer being given, I propose to his lordship to take a drive with me, which he agrees to. Go to the Allée Verte, and thence round the Chateau of Lacken. Find him extremely talkative,-engrossed with the politics of England, whose situation he thinks imminently, nay desperately, perilous. Soon find out he is neither whig nor tory, (mistake: he was an ultra tory, turned jacobin, verbo tenus, from despite,) but a believer in an approaching English republic, and a root and branch reformer, bien entendu, however, after his own