which had loft its own virtue, being preferved by the virtue of an ally.

Our French Ambaffador is a man of great talents, iniproved by learning and experience, and qualified to make a diftinguished figure in the Cabinet Council, or the polite circle, or the academy of belles lettres; he has all the folidity of the English character, with the agrémens of a French one. If the French do not fay as much of our Ambaffador at Paris, they must allow I am a candid enemy,

*

I am fure my brother will be glad to hear that Mrs. S-, of S-, is wet nurfe to our Prince of Wales; and is much liked by the King and Royal family; fo that I hope the will be able to make intereft to establish all her children. A little of the royal favour and protection will bring them forward in their profeflions; and the girls may have little places in the household; and I hope this fcheme, which

* *

will fave an ancient and honourable family from ruin. She is vaftly pleafed and happy in her fituation; and her royal nurfling is as fine and as healthy a child as can be.

I had the happiness of my fifter's company here about three weeks. It was a great mortification to me to part with her fo foon, but Lady Bab's § ill health made her unwilling to be ab fent any long time.

I have rambled a good deal this fummer, much to my amufement, and the amendment of Mr. Montagu's health, who was greatly out of order in the fpring. We went to Lord Lyt telton's in Worcestershire with a large party, confifting of my Lord Bath, Mr. and Mrs. Vefey, and Dr. Monfey. Lord Lyttelton had his daughter, his fifter, Mrs. Hood, and the Bishop of Carlife, with him; fo we made a pretty round family. The weather was fine, and the place is delightful beyond alt defeription; and I fhould do it wrong, if I was to attempt to defcribe

+ Here follows, in the original, the account of Lady M. Wortley Montague's death, already printed in this Magazine, See vol. LXXIII. p. 1435.

Mrs. Scott, wife of George-Lewis Scott, efq. and author of Milleniumhall, &c. She died November, 1795.

Lady Bab Montagu, her intimate friend, fifter of Lord Lallifax.

it. Its beauties I will give you fummed
up in two lines of my favourite Italian
Poet:

Culte pianure, e delicati colli,
Chiare agne, ombrofe ripe, e prati molli,
Thefe lines seem to have been written
for Hagley; but, befide these foft beau-
ties, it has magnificent profpects of dif-
tant mountains, and hills thaded with
wood. The houfe is magnificent and
elegant. We had feveral agreeable en-
tertainments of mufick in different parts
of the park, and adapted to the fcenes.
In fome places the French-horns re-
verberated from hill to hill; in the
fhady parts, near the cafcades, the foft
mufick was concealed, and feemed to
come from the unfeen Genius of the
wood. We were all in great fpirits,
and enjoyed the amufements prepared
for us. Mr. Montague grew better
every day by the air. and exercife; and
returned to London quite well, though
he had been much pulled down by the
fashionable cold called l'influenza. He
is now very well; but his fiomach not
good.

He carried me to fee Oxford, which,
indeed, I had been at before; but,
when there are fo many cities built for
trade and commerce, it is always a
pleasure to me to fee there are places
dedicated to the improvements of the
human mind, and the nobler com-
merce with the Mules; and though
it is eafy to find faults in every thing,
yet
I think thefe places of education
and fiudy muft have been of great fer-
vice in advancing the nobleft interefts
of mankind, the improvement of know-
ledge, and humanizing the mind.

We went to Blenheim, which I faw with great pleature, as the monument of England's foreigu glory and national gratitude. In our return to town, we faw Warwick cafile, the feat of the great Nevile, furnamed the Make-king. Weifited his tomb, and the monuments of Beauchamps. Neviles, and Brookes. I walked an hour under fome trees on a beautiful terrace, where Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sydney

fed to take their morning walk, blends ing, I dare fay, as in his Arcadia, wildom of fate and fotremes of great enterprize with rural talk.

In our next flage we faw Kenelworth castle, once the irong place of Simon de Montfort, fince the feat of the Earl of Leicefter. He entertained Queen Elizabeth there in all the pageantry of

the

the old times of chivalry. From the Jake a lady came, who told the queen, in rude thyme that he had been confined there ever fince the days of Merlin, but her majefty's power had fet her free. The lake is now dried up; the place no longer belongs to ambition or luxury; laughing Ceres has reaflumed the land; and what the proad rebel and the affuming_favourite left is enjoyed by a farmer. There are great reinains of this ftately caftle, made more venerable by the fineft ivy I ever faw. I could with this object placed rather at the edge of a bleak mountain, and that it frowned on a defart; but it unhappily overlooks a fweet paftoral fcene. However, the memory of illuf trious perfons it has belonged to gives the mind that ferious folemn difpofition its fituation wants. But you, who walk on claffic ground, will defpife my Gothic antiquities, I will own my Neviles and Montforts dare not fiand equal with your Gracchi, nor my Earl of Leicester with any of the favourites of Augufius; but, perhaps, to the rough virtue and untamed valour of thefe potent rebels we owe part of our prefent liberty and happiness, and even our talte for the venerable remains of antient Rome.

I am in hopes of getting leave to go to Bath for a few days to fee my fifter before we go to London, which will pot be till the meeting of the parliament. I hope you will foon think of revifuing old England; but I imagine that my brother and you will fometimes take a ramble in the fummer feafon to France or Germany. The pleafures and advantages of travelling are many, and are attained with lefs difficulty, I believe, than people by their fire-files imagine. Mr. Pitt's acount of the accommodations and roads in Spain will hinder my ever vifiting the Alhambra, though I fhall have a diftant refpect for it. If there is any thing in which I can be ufeful to you here, I beg to receive your commands. I delire my most affectionate love to my brother, and to my nephew and god fon my best wishes; and I defire that he will be a Roman, and not an Italian. I beg him to go back as far as before the ruin of Carthage for his morals. Mr. Montagu's beft refpects attend you, my brother, and Mr. Richardfon, to whom I defire leave to prefent mine, I am, dear Madam, your most affectionate fifler, E. MONTAGU.

TOUR TO THE NETHERLANDS,

IN THE AUTUMN OF 1793. (Continued from vol. LXXIV. p. 1124.) Y laf letter gave an account of

MY

my journey from Bruffels to Aloft, and from thence to Ghent, the capital of Flanders, which, under the fway of the Burgundian Princes, and before the difmemberment of the Netherlands, was the most fertile, popus lous, and rich, of all the XVII provinces. This charming country is bounded on the South by Artois and Hainaut, on the Eaft by Hainaut and Brabant, on the North by the German Ocean and the mouth of the Scheld, which fepas rates it from Zeland, and on the Weft chiefly by the fea, which divides it from England. Its greatest length is about 25 leagues from Sas de Ghent to the environs of St. Omer, and its greatest breadth about 20 leagues, from Nieuport to Aloft. Flanders, for up wards of 200 years, had been under the government of military chiefs, named Forefters, who were feudatory vaffals of France, till towards the end of the ninth century, when, Baldwin the Forefter having married a daugh ter of Charles the Bald, king of France, the title of Forefter was changed to that of Count. During the middle ages, the Counts of Flanders ranked very high in power and wealth among the petty fovereigns of the Low Coun ties, and, by the affifiance of Eng land, often proved themselves formidable neighbours to the kings of France. Towards the end of the 14th century, the Houfe of Burgundy first gained a footing in the Netherlands, by the marriage of Philip Duke of Burgundy, fourth fon of John King of France, with Margaret, heiress of Flanders; and, by a rare concurrence of fortunate circumftances, in little more than half a century the Houfe of Burgundy acquired the fovereignty of almost all the Netherlands, which, in the end of the 15th century, was trans ferred to the House of Auftria, by the marriage of Mary, the fole heirefs of the Houfe of Burgundy, to the Archduke Maximilian. The rich poffeffions of Mary of Burgundy," fays Dr. Robertfon, in his Hiftory of Charles V. "had been defined for another family, he having been contracted by her father to the only fon of Louis XI. of France; but that capricious monarch, indulging his hatred to her family chote rather to ftrip her of part of her

territory

territory by force, than to fecure the whole by marriage; and by this mif conduct, fatal to his pofterity, he threw all the Netherlands into the hands of a rival."

· Under the three first Princes of the

And in the vales of Cantium, on the banks
Of Stour alighted, and the naval wave
Of fpacious Medway; fome on gentle Yare
And fertile Waveney pitch'd, and made

their feats

Pleafant Norvicum and Colceftria's towers;
Some to the Darent fped their happy way.
Soon o'er the hofpitable realm they spread
With cheer reviv'd, and in Sabrina's flood
And the Silurian Tame their textures
blanch'd."

the wings of France are clipped, I fear we must not indulge the hope of permanent independence; and I am perfuaded that no territorial arrangements on the Continent could be fo conducive.

Auftrian line, Flanders and the adjacent provinces were pre-eminent in arts, commerce, and manufactures. Many beautiful arts, which had been introduced from the Eaft by the Venetians, After various turns of fortune, Flanwere earried by the Flemings during ders came at length to be divided be¬ that period to great perfection. They tween three powers, the Auftrians, thewere unrivalled in the arts of embroi French, and the Dutch: in which dery and tapestry, in the various fiate it was at the time I vifited the branches of jewellery, in the fabricks country. It is now fcarcely difcernible of velvet, fațin, and damask; and on a map of the French empire. The they lay claim to the invention of the manufacture of gilded or figured lea- annexation of Belginn to France, and ther, and the art of painted glafs; but the fubjugation of Batavia, are alarmthe woollen trade was the grand fourceg confiderations to Britain. Unless whence Flanders at that period derived her wealth; and, to confer honour on this lucrative branch of commerce, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, inftituted the illuftrious order of The Golden Fleece. At the abdication of Charles V. Flanders had arrived at the pinnacle of its glory: its fertile and well-cultivated plains; its large and magnificent cities, and continurd fuccellion of towns and villages; its fine caftles aud ftately abbeys; the induftry, ingenuity, and wealth of its inhabitants, all confpired to render it, perhaps, the moft delightful foot in Europe. From the acceffion of Philip the Second, the waters of bitterness began to flow over that devoted country. The oppreffions of that unfeeling defpot and merciless bigot difperfed

the Flemish merchants and manufac-
turers, and drove vaft numbers of them
into England, where they enjoyed re-
pofe and comfort under the foftering
care of Queen Elizabeth, and la'd the
foundation of our prefent fuperiority
in the woollen trade, as Dyer thus
fings in his beautiful poem
Fleece:

to our interefts in the prefent conjune

re, as the re-union of the Nether lands under a feparate monarchy. I touched upon this fubject in a former letter (vol LXXIV. p. 132); and it is a point of which I earnestly hope our Sistemen will never lofe fight.

In my last letter I noticed the great perfection to which Agriculture has been carried in Flanders; where, i was told, the land never lay fallow, and the farms in general were of finall extent. Since writing that letter, I have been induced to think that the information had received, with repect to the occupiers of the foil, was not quite accurate, and that the Flewith peasants were more contented and happy than fome parts of my letter might lead your readers to fuppole. I know an English Roman-catholie gen tleman who was educated in that country, and who gives a very differ ent account of the peafantry of Flanders from what had been communi cated to me; and it is but justice to the landlords and ecclefiafiicks to whom I alluded, to oppofe to the ob fervations of the anonymous Tourift, quoted in my last, the following infor handmation from a book published the fame year by a gentleman who had refided long in the country: "The rural

* The

"Our day arofe
When Alya's tyranny the weaving arts
Drove from the fertile vallies of the
Scheld.
[they fled
With fpeedy wing and fcatter'd courfe
Like a community of bees difturb'd
By fome relentlefs fwain's rapacious
While good Eliza to the fugitives
Gave gracious welcome,

Then from fair Antwerp an industrious
train
[feas,
Crofs'd the fmooth channel of our filing

* Sketches of the Hiftory of the Auf trian Netherlands by James Shaw, fcene