From Chambers' Journal.

THE BELGIANS, THEIR KING AND GREAT PEOPLE.

GOLDSMITH has, with matchless felicity, painted, in a few touches, the country where "the broad ocean leans against the

the land." Of a similar character is Flanders, which resembles Holland both in physical aspect and population. As we

approach the sea-board of Belgium, we observe the low, sandy coast mingling with the leaden, murky sky of winter, or, in midsummer, a narrow tawny line, scarcely visible over the azure expanse of the German Ocean.

ceased, even nominally, to stand on the rolls of living empire; but she has left her glorious tongue ineffaceably stamped on the new Europe as on the old, from the pillars of Hercules to the valley of the Meuse.

Alert, ingenious, and versatile, the Walloon of Liege and Namur is a complete contrast to the ponderous deliberate Fleming, who in politics acts as a drag-chain on the mobility of his excursive neighbour. In politics, the Fleming is the pièce de resis

Beyond this sterile mask, the soil is still flat; but rich pastures, fat cattle, and luxuriant but formal vegetation cover the wide champaign. As we advance, lofty spires rise in the distance, and in the numerous towns we see abundant signs of old Germanic wealth. Great labor and super-tance against a social overturn, for the abundant ornament distinguish these high gables and window-mouldings; while in street and market our ears are saluted by the tongue of a Vandyck or a Matsys, and we recognise the ruddy hue, blue eyes, flaxen locks, and cleanly apparel of a genuine Saxon race. Music is not in their accents, neither is grace visible in their movements and gestures, nor gaiety in their thoughts; but all the sound qualities of this great family-health and strength, moral and physical, truthful hearts, and clear, practical understandings.

Further inland, we find the basin of the upper Meuse, a sort of minor Rhine. Ruined castles crown the toppling rock, or overlook the grassy bank or sunny orchard. Crowded towns, with tall smoking chimneys, clink and hammer, and click of steam-engine, indicate mineral wealth and industrial activity. Namur and Liege, the Sheffield and Birmingham of the Netherlands, are in a district at once rich and picturesque. Behind is the Ardennes, our own Shakspeare's forest of Arden, a mountain-region, where trackless woods, the haunt of the wolf and the boar, are the delight of the hunter and fowler.

The inhabitants of the Belgian basin of the Meuse are not Flemings, but Walloons. Wales, Wallachia, Gaul, Galatia, Galicia,-how the limbs of the great Celtic giant of antiquity have been scattered over the four quarters of Europe, but how distinctly recognisable on the Valley of the Meuse! In Britain, the Celtic and Saxon races have been so amalgamated, that the national character is a composite. In Belgium, the two elements have remained distinct, but in juxtaposition. The Walloon, like the Frenchman, is a Latinized Celt. The language of the Druids is no longer spoken as by the children of the Scottish mist; the Walloon like the Frenchman, speaks a Latin dialect. More than a millennium has elapsed since Rome

stength of the republican party is in Namur and in Liege. In literature, the Fleming admires the profound thought and masterly treatment of the passions to be found in the literature of the Germanic races; but in the anatomy of the foibles of artificial society, the French-speaking and French-thinking inhabitants of Belgium shew an acuteness and a finesse that at once identify them with the larger branch of this brilliant family.

Such is the people ruled over by Leopold, who, if he has ceased to fulfil the functions of prince and peer of England, is still regarded with interest by the British people. It would indeed be difficult to point out a sovereign who in modern times has shewn more prudence, good sense, and high feeling. We may apply to him the words of Bossuet, which ought to sink into the mind of every public man: "He had a name which never appeared but in actions, the justice of which was incontestible." There are few sayings in the biographies of Plutarch characterised by a more noble simplicity and laconic elevation of sentiment than his brief speech to the chambers when the troubles of 1843 threatened Europe with confusion. "Gentlemen," said he, "I came here for the good of Belgium, and if the same object requires my departure, I am ready to start on the shortest notice, rather than have a civil war." In a moment, faction was paralysed, the most obstreperous were struck dumb, and the response came from the heart of the country in a loud chorus of applause and enthusiam.

Leopold of Belgium is now well advanced in years, his age being 66; but he is in the full enjoyment of good health. He is very temperate in living, and resides in a private manner at the palace of Lacken, a large villa on the slope of a hill, with a southerly exposure, a couple of miles from Brussels. It has no great extent of

park: and at break of day in the fine sum- | dustrial pursuits, or the inheritance of exmer mornings, the king is to be seen, with a single attendant, walking about the farms and country-roads round Lackenthe "Farmer George" of rural Brabant. On certain days, he comes into the palace of Brussels, to transact business with his ministers, and go through the acts and routine of royalty; and then returns, like the lawyer who doffs his gown and wig on proceeding to his suburban villa. The king profeses kingcraft chiefly at Brussels; with the people of Lacken and his establishment, he is merely the popular squire of the hall.

The town-palace is built upon what was formerly a vast walled inclosure, forming the crest of a hill on which was built the former residence of the Dukes of Brabant -at the gates of which, on the south side, was the continuous forest of Soignies. All is now altered. This celebrated forest has yielded so far to the axe and the plough, that it has almost ceased to exist; the field of Waterloo is now scarcely recognizable; and a new town of modern architecture covers the upper part of Brussels. The town-palace is a mere box or barrack, without architectural decorations, and inferior to that of many petty princes of Germany: there are therefore projects for rebuilding it in a manner more suitable to a kingdom which abounds in noble architectural monu

tinct collateral branches, are causes of their still being in Belgium aristocratic fortunes which would be considered large even in England. The Prince de Chimay-son of the beautiful Madame Tallien by her remarriage-having espoused the daughter of M. Pellaprat, the great army-contractor to the old French Empire in the days of Jena and Austerlitz, has thereby added not much short of a million sterling to his previous property. The Duke d'Aremberg, of the family of the princes of Ligne, is understood to have a clear income of £40,000 a year. The late Prince de Ligne has left a European reputation not only for wit, but for that perfect amiability which constitutes the highest breeding, so that people said of him: " Foreigners imitate the manners of the French, and the French imitate the manners of the Prince de Ligne," who was the only foreigner to whom they accorded this distinction.

Even when the old properties have been divided, it sometimes happens that a fall of water or a seam of coal, combined with some ingenuity, enables old families to keep up; but in general it is the aristocracy of wealth, and not of birth, that holds the present rule. Rich merchants of Antwerp, manufacturers of Liege, Namur, and Verviers, advocates in large practice in Brussels and other large towns, divide with the Catholic clergy the power of Belgium.

It is in the middle classes, rather than in the nobility, we find the curious contrast between the Saxon and the Gael in Belgium. During the Dutch rule, the Flemish language, spoken almost exclusively by the people of Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, &c., was kept up; but the French revolution of 1830 acted powerfully in the dissemination of the French, and restriction of the Flemish language. Centralisation in Brussels and the French language went together, and found a resistance in the Flemish language and the old Flemish municipal and provincial spirit. The leader in this movement was Hendrik Conscience, the well-known Flemish novelist, and the first literary celebrity in Belgium. A society was founded at Antwerp voor Taal en Kunst-that is to say, for the cultivation of vernacular philology and the fine arts. These men do not deny that administrative unity has many advantages, and that Flemish literature is the pigmy beside the giant; but they maintain, on the other hand, that the glory of Belgium is in the Flanders of

From the New Monthly Magazine.

MONTE CRISTO AND ALEXANDRE DUMAS.

Dumas (like almost every man of talent | found the distance from Paris so mighty in all ages) loves the "feast of reason and convenient, and the air of the château so flow of soul;" or, in other words, lives delightful, that somehow or other they beyond his means, and is immensely fond were always there. But there is a proviof company, but like other celebrated dence even for authors, unfortunately only authors gifted with fertile brains, he finds to be observed, it is true, after they have at last the supply can no longer meet the generally laid mouldering in their graves demand, and therefore, rapidly tumbles for many a year, whither starvation or a into debt. broken heart has often sent them. But The Castle, as it is termed, is nothing in M. Dumas's case this providence actubut a good honest square dwelling, orna- ally appeared then and there just when he mented, or disfigured, according to the most wanted it. His admirers (and are different tastes, by small turrets at the not their name Legion?) hearing of the corners; but castle, in good truth, it is misadventure, and of those ruthless credinone. However, that's not much-tors who had besieged, and stormed, and "What's in a name?" says Juliet-and taken possession of the castle-seizing on so we will call it castle or cottage, which- his Utopia while yet unfinished-actually, ever the witty proprietor chooses. It like good practical Christian souls, joined was begun on the strength of the im- together and repurchased for him the mense success of the novel whose name abode which was afterwards duly repreit bears, and was to be kept up on the sented to him, with sundry dinings and idea of a fertile brain filling Europe with speeches, and drinkings of wine, of Chamsimilar romances; Dumas's head still pagne and Burgundy, minus only the reeking with the visions of Eastern splen- elegant furniture he had placed in it. dor he had created for Dantès the Mag- But, dismantled as it was, he became lord nificent, he could not conceive anything and master, and could again hope to inless imposing than a castle for himself, dulge in dreams of becoming de facto mistaking as his own the everlasting purse Comte de Monte Cristo ! with which he had supplied his marvellous hero, who could at a word create a palace like a second Aladdin, and furnish it with diamonds from Golconda or gold of Peru. So our author began to build, and to make gardens and vineyards, and to dream great things for himself in a paradise already completed in his imagination -swelling down in verdant beauty to the banks of the winding Seine.

There is a motto-but, like everything good, it is somewhat musty-"that fools build for wise men to live in ;" and so found Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, for alas! long before the castle was finished, he got into debt, and those odious brutes, his creditors-remorseless tailors of rich stuffs and gaudy hangings-neither caring nor thinking about his glorious dreams, nor of Monte Cristo, about to appear in flesh and blood, and with a palace en suite, in the person of the author, actually confound the wretches!-seized on the half-finished abode to pay their disgusting bills, and dismantled the rooms which were already finished, where Dumas had received such réunions from Paris, such loves from the Variétés, such tragedyqueens from the Ambigu, and actual angels from the Grand Opera, with hordes of authors and wits, all as poor as rats, who

It was precisely in this state of semiexistence when I visited it, and was conducted by the antiquated crone into the interior through a door in one of the small turrets. All round looked dismal enough; where there ought to have been hangings and drapery were only bare walls and large rusty nails, bearing fragments of tattered fringe and brocade. The fireplaces round which so many a merry riotous circle had congregated were empty and desolate, denuded even of grates, and all around bore irrefragable evidence of the cruel invaders who had sacked the castle. Enough, however, was left to show that the furniture had been magnificent, for could Monte Cristo live on aught save purple and fine linen? The distribution of the house was exceedingly good, the centre portion being divided into large saloons, fitted up with divans looking out on the beautiful plain beneath, watered by the Seine, and the vine-terraced hills, with the town of St. Germain picturesquely covering the rising ground near at hand. Around these centre rooms were suites of smaller apartments which included the turrets, forming charming little coozy nooks and snugge rics.

Spite of my dislike of the exterior, I