HINTS of OCCURRENCES, &c. 6 5

fcene; in which the houfes, churches, &c. are not only numerous, but in great variety. The mountain behindthe town is rendered rich to the eye, by a plantation of trees at one end, by brulh-wood at the other, and byvines in the centre. A village juft appearing on one of its fides has a good effect.

The principal light is on the church and the ftone bridge. At one corner a part of thecathedral appears: Icould not introduce the whole without changing a point of view, in which I had the beft aflemblage of obje&s,with the river Maefe in the front of the fcene.

From Hui, we proceeded to Namur; at the confluence of the Maefe and Sambre. It is one of the ftrongefttowns in Europe. The caftle and the forts are formidable fortifications. It is the fee of a fuffragan bifhop ; andthough the diftri£t is only thirty miles by twenty-eight, it contains eight cities, three hundred villages, befides ab-bies, religious houfes, and churches, which it would be difficult to number. It would not be eafy to eftimate theprofperity and happinefs of this province, if it poflefled a mild government, a mild religion; and if Namur werenot confidered as one of the military keys to the Netherlands. Namur poflefles a provincial council, a town ma-giftracy, and a feudal court called Balliage.

We arrived at Namur during the difpute between the late emperor and the people, or rather the ariftocracy andclergy of Brabant. The tendency of fuperftition in Flanders is fo ftrong, that the Roman Catholic prieftsinfluence the fprings of all civil, as well as ecclefiaftical policy. The accumulation of wealth in the church,interfered with the views of the civil power: and the late emperor, affe&ing to confider that wealth as public pro-perty, feized confiderable portions of it for his own ufe.

I could not learn, that the proceeding of Jofeph the Second againft the church, would have been difagreeable,either to the nobles or the people, if they had participated in the effe<5ls; the former by a divifion of plunder, thelatter by a relief from oppreflion. But the money was all carried to Vienna; and the ecclefiaftical depredationsalienated all orders of men in the Netherlands, and united them in a plan of revolt.

Henry the Eighth of England had furnilhed an example, fo remarkable, that it is wonderful the emperor fhouldhave overlooked it. The national aflembly of France have abundantly profited by that inftru6lion; and by divid-ing the ecclefiaftical fpoil into numerous lots, and conftituting by their fale a numerous yeomanry, they ftrength-ened their intereft, and almoft enfured the revolution. I fpeak not of the juftice or piety of thefe meafures; butmerely of that policy, to which the late emperor paid little or no attention.

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