and original, running round to a vast extent, which the sensible town
has decreed is never to be interfered with. A more pleasing,
refreshing, and novel collection of objects for the ordinary traveller
of artistic taste to see without trouble or expense, it would be
impossible to conceive. Yet everyone hurries by to see the somewhat
stale glories of Ghent and Brussels.

[Illustration: ARRAS.]

There was a general fat contented air of _bourgeois_ comfort about the
sleepy old-fashioned, handsome Prefecture--in short, a capital
background for the old provincial life as described by Balzac. But the
_place_, with its inimitable Spanish houses and colonnades--under
which you can shop--and that most elegant of spires, sister to that of
Antwerp, which it recalls, will never pass from the memory. A
beautiful object of this kind, thus seen, is surely a present, and a
valuable one too.

A spire is often the expression of the whole town. How much is
suggested by the well-known, familiar cathedral spire at Antwerp, as,
of some fresh morning, we come winding up the tortuous Scheldt, the
sad, low-lying plains and boulders lying on either hand, monotonous
and dispiriting, yet novel in their way; the cream-coloured,
lace-worked spire rising ever before us in all its elegant grace,
pointing the way, growing by degrees, never for an instant out of
sight. It seems a fitting introduction to the noble, historical, and
poetical city to which it belongs. It _is_ surely ANTWERP! We
see Charles V., and Philip, and the exciting troubles of the Gueux,
the Dutch, the Flemings, the argosies from all countries in the great
days of its trade. Such is the mysterious power of association, which