artistic architecture.

It was when wandering down a darkish street, that I came on a most
original building, the old _Mairie_, enriched with a belfry of
delightfully graceful pattern. It might be a problem how to combine a
bell-tower with offices for municipal work, and we know in our land
how such a 'job' would be carried out by 'the architect to the Board.'
But all over Flemish France and Belgium proper we find an
inexhaustible fancy and fertility in such designs. It is always
difficult to describe architectural beauties. This had its tower in
the centre, flanked by two short wings. Everything was original--the
disposition of the windows, the air of space and largeness. Yet the
whole was small, I note that in all these Flemish bell-towers, the
topmost portion invariably develops into something charmingly
fantastic, into cupolas and short, little galleries and lanterns
superimposed, the mixture of solidity and airiness being astonishing.
It is appropriate and fitting that this grace should attend on what
are the sweetest musical instruments conceivable. Mr. Haweis, who is
the poet of Flemish bells, has let us into the secret. 'The fragment
of aërial music,' he tells us, 'which floats like a heavenly sigh over
the Belgian city and dies away every few minutes, seems to set all
life and time to celestial music. It is full of sweet harmonies, and
can be played in pianoforte score, treble and bass. After a week in a
Belgian town, time seems dull without the music in the air that
mingled so sweetly with all waking moods without disturbing them, and
stole into our dreams without troubling our sleep. I do not say that
such carillons would be a success in London. In Belgium the towers are
high above the towns--Antwerp, Mechlin, Bruges--and partially
isolated. The sound falls softly, and the population is not so dense
as in London. Their habit and taste have accustomed the citizens to