this literal lamb, on its red-damasked table, in the midst of
these carefully marshalled squadrons of Apostles, Popes, and
Princes, can ever quite escape a hint of something ludicrous. One
may question all this, yet still admire to the full both the
spirit of devotion that inspired this marvellous picture and its
miracle of minute and jewel-like execution. There are scores of
other good pictures in Ghent, including (not even to go outside
St. Bavon's) the "Christ among the Doctors" by Francis Pourbus,
into which portraits of Philip II. of Spain, the Emperor Charles
V., and the infamous Duke of Alva--names of terrible import in
the sixteenth-century history of the Netherlands--are introduced
among the bystanders; whilst to the left of Philip is Pourbus
himself, "with a greyish cap on which is inscribed Franciscus
Pourbus, 1567." But it is always to the "Adoration of the Mystic
Lamb" that our steps are first directed, and to which they always
return.

It is hard, indeed, that necessities of space should
compel us to pass so lightly over other towns in Flanders--over
Courtrai, with its noble example of a fortified bridge, and with
its great picture, by Van Dyck, of the "Raising of the Cross" that
was stolen mysteriously a few years ago from the church of Notre
Dame, but has since, like the Joconde at the Louvre, been
recovered and replaced; over Oudenarde, with its two fine
churches, and its small town hall that is famous for its splendour
even in a country the Hotels de Ville of which are easily the most
elaborate (if not always the most chaste or really beautiful) in
Europe; and over certain very minor places, such as Damme, to the
north-east of Bruges, whose silent, sunny streets, and half-
deserted churches, seem to breathe the very spirit of Flemish