preserved, after remarkable vicissitudes of loss and recovery, in
the Norman Abbey of Fecamp; and mediaeval Gloucestershire once
boasted as big a treasure, which brought great concourse and
popularity to the Cistercian house of Hayles. Pass beneath the
archway of the Maison de l'Ancien Greffe, cross the sluggish
canal, and turn sharply to the left, and follow, first the cobbled
Quai des Marbriers, and afterwards its continuation, the Quai
Vert. Pacing these silent promenades, which are bordered by humble
cottages, you have opposite, across the water, as also from the
adjacent Quai du Rosaire, grand groupings of pinnacle, tower, and
gable, more delightful even, in perfection of combination and in
mellow charm of colour, than those "domes and towers" of Oxford
whose presence Wordsworth confessed, in a very indifferent sonnet,
to overpower his "soberness of reason." "In Brussels," he says
elsewhere in his journal, "the modern taste in costume,
architecture, etc., has got the mastery; in Ghent there is a
struggle; but in Bruges old images are still paramount, and an air
of monastic life among the quiet goings-on of a thinly-peopled
city is inexpressibly soothing. A pensive grace seems to be cast
over all, even the very children." This estimate, after the lapse
of considerably more than half a century, still, on the whole,
stands good.

"In Ghent there is a struggle." Approaching Ghent, indeed, by
railway from Bruges, and with our heads full of old-world romance
of Philip van Artevelte, and of continually insurgent burghers
(for whom Ghent was rather famous), and of how Roland, "my horse
without peer," "brought good news from Ghent," one is rather
shocked at first, as we circle round the suburbs, at the rows of
aggressive new houses, and rather tempted to conclude that the