be seen in the Netherlands. The commercial bustle of the place seems
considerable, and it contains more beer-shops than any city I ever saw.

These beer-shops seem the only amusement of the inhabitants, until,
at least, the theatre shall be built, of which the elevation is now
complete, a very handsome and extensive pile. There are beer-shops in
the cellars of the houses, which are frequented, it is to be presumed,
by the lower sort; there are beer-shops at the barriers, where the
citizens and their families repair; and beer-shops in the town, glaring
with gas, with long gauze blinds, however, to hide what I hear is a
rather questionable reputation.

Our inn, the "Hotel of the Post," a spacious and comfortable residence,
is on a little place planted round with trees, and that seems to be the
Palais Royal of the town. Three clubs, which look from without to
be very comfortable, ornament this square with their gas-lamps. Here
stands, too, the theatre that is to be; there is a cafe, and on evenings
a military band plays the very worst music I ever remember to have
heard. I went out to-night to take a quiet walk upon this place, and the
horrid brazen discord of these trumpeters set me half mad.

I went to the cafe for refuge, passing on the way a subterraneous
beer-shop, where men and women were drinking to the sweet music of a
cracked barrel-organ. They take in a couple of French papers at this
cafe, and the same number of Belgian journals. You may imagine how well
the latter are informed, when you hear that the battle of Boulogne,
fought by the immortal Louis Napoleon, was not known here until some
gentlemen out of Norfolk brought the news from London, and until it had
travelled to Paris, and from Paris to Brussels. For a whole hour I could
not get a newspaper at the cafe. The horrible brass band in the meantime