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resolved not to look; but, as I dare say you may some of you have experienced at times, we feel ourselves irresistibly impelled to look at, or think of, those things from which we would most wish to withdraw our attention, so I felt, I know not how, a strange impulse to fix my eyes upon this tomb, on which reclined the sculptured figure of Sir William, nearly as large as life.

the tomb, on which I had previously my recumbent posture, determined to examine the tomb myself, and to be convinced that my mind had been under a temporary derangement. I stood up; I looked to the door of the pew, when, oh dreadful sight! the same ghastly and horrid face met my view, as the spectre leaned over it, with its glaring eyes fixed on mine. My sensations I have hardly words to describe by no power could I withdraw my eyes from this object; for hours did I remain thus spell-bound; I felt as if the blood had congealed in my veins; my temples ached with intense agony, and every hair on my head felt as if it was endued with a living power, and was moved by some invisible mechanism. I felt that my senses were deserting me, but I was not mad; for through that long and dreadful night did I distinctly hear the hours told by the church clock, which returned in dismal echoes to my ear. Horror at last became despair; I rose in frantic wildness to rush from my prison, when again did the spectre utter that soul-appalling sound. Every object, the church, the monuments, seemed to rock and reel around me, my eyes emitted sparks of fire, and from that moment I lost all recollection of many weeks of my existence.

"While my eyes remained, as it were, fastened on this object, could I be deceived by the shadows of the moonlight, or did I in reality perceive a moving form apparently rising from that tomb? Ah no! it was no vision of the imagination: I distinctly saw a long lean arm raised above the sepulchre, and, a moment afterwards, the ghastly apparition of a human face, pale, wild, and unearthly, glared on me with eyes expressive of misery and despair. I stood unable to move a limb; every faculty of body and mind seemed frozen up in horror. The spectre advanced a step from the monument, and in that moment my senses were almost paralysed by the most heartrending sound that ever appalled a mortal ear. It was the yell of despair-it was the cry of human suffering, with a strange and horrible mixture of the agony of a dying animal. I sank down totally overpowered all that I had heard recurred to my mind, which became a chaos of terror and superstitious alarms, and I lost all consciousness of the horrors that surrounded me in a temporary insensibility.

"I know not how long I remained in this state almost approaching death, but, when I in some degree recovered myself, I found that I had fallen on the floor of the pew, and, as my mind was gradually restored to recollection, I endeavored to persuade myself that I had been deJuded by a phantom of the imagination. I thought how often we are victims to our over-excited fancies. My senses might have been bewildered; I might only have dreamed. In this idea, I slowly rose from

"My story appears terrific, and it was indeed truly so to me, and yet the events were in reality very common, and such as, had my mind, instead of being in a state of excitement and terror, been capable of calm investigation, wouid not to me have been the cause of such protracted suffering. The next morning, the woman who had the care of sweeping the church came to it early to prepare it for the approaching service, and she found me raving in a paroxysm of delirium, and the poor innocent cause of my fear himself terrified and alarmed. He was a pauper belonging to a village some miles distant: he was born deaf and dumb, and had, as he grew up, been found to be also an idiot. His parents had

supported him decently while they lived; but, on their death, the care of him had devolved on the parish. He had grown old in poverty, sickness, and dependence but he was perfectly harmless, and the neighboring farmers never refused him a meal. Frequently in the summer season he wandered around for days together, taking his scanty food from the hand of charity, and his nightly rest in barns or outhouses. It was supposed that he had wandered into the church, where he had fallen asleep; and when he awoke, he was the unconscious cause to me of terror never to be forgotten, by his meagre and ghastly appearance, and his horrid and uncouth attempts at articulation.

"I remained long on a bed of suffering. A frenzy fever left me reduced to almost infantine weakness. Of its effects on me corporeally and mentally you may judge, when I tell you, that when I entered that church my hair was brown and glossy as the chesnut, and that when I rose from my bed it was grey as you now see it. My limbs, which were strong and agile, have ever since trembled with paralysis; and my mind, which was once cheerful, energetic, and courageous, is now, as you observe, subdued to such weakness, as to have been overpowered at the idea of passing the night in a church, though surrounded by friends and protect

ors."

THE LATE REVOLUTION IN BELGIUM.

BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

DE POTTER is a native of Bruges, and the head of a noble family of competent fortune. He is about forty years of age, short in stature, dry in temperament, perfectly bald, with an acute expression of countenance. His youth has been a studious one: during Napoleon's iron reign, he spent his time in Italy-at Rome chiefly, where he had free admission to the records of the Vatican. He has since, in his History of the Church, and in his life of Scipio de Ricci (translated by Mr. T. Roscoc, and published by Colburn), made such a use of these researches, as to subject him to the charge of unfairness. The friends of the church have urged, he would never have been permitted to peruse and copy the documents he has availed himself of, had he not given the Court of Rome to understand that his views were friendly. His reputation at Rome stood deservedly high in the absence of the Belgian ambassador, his friend, he officiated in his place, and altogether, from his birth, fortune, talents and learning, bore a high consideration at Rome.

On his return home, under the

reign of a constitutional monarch, he seems to have abandoned theology and history for politics, and to have engaged warmly in the controversies of the day. Belgium was a complainant: it had never ceased to be so under the present king, from the time he was imposed upon them by the allies. Her grievances were not serious, but they were vexatious, and, above all, the Belgians felt that. Holland was prefer-, red by the Dutch king, and that a full measure of justice was not dealt out to it. The Belgians are a jealous and irritable race, and it was an unlucky measure to couple them with a rival people, under an alien sovereign, and what is more, a heretic. De Potter took up the cause of his countrymen, and all that man could do by pamphlet and newspaper, he did. He may be said to have been an agitator, but he took none of the measures of the great Irish disturber; he neither made speeches nor went on missions, but at last he proposed a rent, and was banished for it. Certain members of the States, who had voted against ministers, were turned out of the

posts they filled, and some were deprived of pensions. De Potter proposed that a fund should be established to indemnify all persons who suffered for patriotism's sake he was already in prison for a libel on the government, and he was now brought out to be tried for a conspiracy and high treason. In less than three months after his condemnation, he and his two advocates were the chiefs of the provisional government, established on the ruins of the authority that persecuted him. This circumstance alone is a strong indication of the immediate causes of the revolution in Belgium.

The history of the remote causes is long and tedious, and we feel confident in saying, that though some grounds existed for complaint, there were none to justify a revolution, and none which would of themselves have roused the country to resistance. The proximate causes were of a more inflammatory nature they arose out of the tyranny and injustice used towards the press. The press is a terrible enemy, for it lives upon its griefs; the very strokes of arbitrary power which shake it in one direction, in another sense afford it the most animating and exciting sustenance.

The first overt act committed against the press, by the government, was the sending two Frenchmen out of the country for a squib or satire of some kind. The iniquity of this measure was pointed out in very strong terms, by Ducpetiaux and De Potter, in the different journals of the day; they were tried and imprisoned for it. They were convicted by a law against sedition, which was promulgated on Napoleon's return from Elba, and which had been intended to serve a temporary purpose in those dangerous times. De Potter was utterly unaffected by imprisonment; on the contrary, it left him time for uninterrupted labors. He became still more assiduous in his vocation. The persecution of the liberals, and the discontent of the priests, under re

strictions imposed by a protestant court, suggested a union-an alliance offensive and defensive-between the two great factions. The party thus united became so strong both in the States and in the country, and the war of the journals so severe upon the obnoxious ministers, that it was determined by the government to employ a sort of coup d'état, and put down the organ of these discontents, conceiving that when the mouth-piece had been taken away, the complainants themselves would sink into silence. They availed themselves of the very first pretext, and brought the chief scribe, De Potter, to trial for conspiracy and high treason, and with a view to sow disunion in a party already too strong, they seized upon his private correspondence, upon that of his intimate friend Tuilemans, and published them.

De Potter was no sooner condemned, than the ministers continued the prosecution of the journals. In thirty days a libel per diem was attacked; these libels were contained in seven different newspapers. It was now, while these affairs were pending, that the French revolution broke out. Can it be doubted that the public mind, inflamed by the attacks on the press, was in a fit state to receive any violent impression? The newspapers, in expectation of fine, imprisonments, and destruction, were naturally prepared to push the people to any step which might screen themselves, and produce an amendment of the law under which they wrote. The inflammability of the public feeling was, however, only skin deep; it had no profound or pressing causes; and the country enjoyed all essential advantages; it had never been in an equal state of prosperity trade, commerce, and the arts were flourishing, and the improvement in the means and manner of living, within the last five years, has been extraordinary. At the same time, the clumsy policy of the government had left grievances, great in name,

sad in sound, which amused the ear and served the purposes of watchwords. The people complained loudly of taxes, of being compelled to use the Dutch language, of an unequal partition of places; whereas, in point of fact, they were simply in a very bad humor at the treatment of their newspapers, which had naturally enough identified their own cause with that of the national liberty and independence. Thus the Belgian revolu- tion is a newspaper revolution, as was that of Paris.

It never, however, could have come to anything, had it not been for the extreme folly and mismanagement of the government, who actually enticed and tantalized the Belgians on to revolt.

The beginning was a mob or riot after the play the house of Van Maanen, the prime minister, was burnt and pulled down; and the house of the prime minister's devil, Lebry Bagnano, the editor of the National, and a printer. The respectable citizens at length succeeded in quelling the violence of the mob, and with arms in their hands-those they had used against the rioters-they began to treat with the government respecting the grievances alleged to have laid the foundation of the popular commotion. The king listened with apparent attention, temporised, and shuffled. He exhibited both his fear and his obstinacy. The Prince of Orange arrived in Bruxelles, avowedly to inquire into the complaints of the people, and to assist in remedying them. He grew alarmed, and, under pretext of bearing a message to his father, decamp ed. The people were again left to themselves; with arms in their hands, and a mob ready to rise into violence, the very first moment of encouragement. The municipal authorities perceiving the royal government too weak to protect them, deserted their posts, and the citizens were driven to erect temporary governments, and to other revo

lutionary acts, for the sole purpose of maintaining order, and carrying on the business of the country. At the first unequivocal signal of an honest intention to meet the complaints of the people, their arms would have been laid down. No such sign was given all was palaver. Though tired to death of military employment, the citizens would have been too glad to resign their weapons on the slightest pretext: they could not do it in very shame. The king would not afford them an excuse. All his talk was of the fundamental law and the States-General: the people well knew they had nothing to look to but the monarch's will. If the design had been to tire out the bourgeois, who were neglecting their business, losing their time, and occupied in disagreeable duties, there might have been some wisdom in the plan. But the king would neither disband these rebels by promptness, nor weary them out by delay: he neither used clemency nor severity, but shilly-shallied between the two, till he had absolutely driven even the best-intentioned into rebellion. He then, when it was too late, and while he was still pretending to defer the question to the States assembled, secretly marched an army to the siege of Bruxelles. While the States were deliberating upon the demands of the complainants, the army of Prince Frederick was cutting them in pieces in the streets of the capital.

The success of the citizens of Brussels, in their opposition to the Dutch troops, is almost unaccountable. It required cowardice and incapability of the most eminent degree, to ensure a failure of the enterprize. In the first place, they were scarcely opposed at all; they were stopped simply because they dared not proceed, and when they were opposed, it was because they in a manner invited the attack; it was a kind of rising to crush a retreating, trembling monster, that while it grinned and showed its teeth, was evidently bent upon tak

ing to its heels on the first opening plunderings, were commenced. Perhaps the flying army did its share ; but it was the canaille of Bruxelles, sallying forth from lane and hovel, garret and cellar, that perpetrated far more than half the mischief. This has never been said in Bruxelles, for a very good reason: nobody dare say it. From the time of the victory up till very lately, the mob has always been at least dreaded.

that presented itself. There is perhaps an inaptitude in both Dutch and Belgians to military command: the commanders of the king exhibited the extremest ignorance and imbecility, and the commanders that sprung up on the popular side were foreigners; Van Halen, a Spaniard, and Mellinet, a Frenchmen; and subsequently Duvives and Pontecoulant, both, we believe, natives of France, or at least born of French parents. Viscount Pontecoulant commands in West Flanders; and I, who was a witness of his proceedings, was struck with the soldierly air, and the familiarity and mastery he appeared to have in all military and administrative functions over the Belgians acting with him, many of whom had had equal opportunity for acquiring warlike experience.

The loss experienced on both sides in Bruxelles was certainly considerable, but it has been greatly exaggerated. The forces brought against Bruxelles amounted probably to 7,000 or 8,000; though as many more might be approaching, to join the forces under the command of the Prince. Of their loss it is difficult to form a calculation. The people had killed 400 or 500: 1,500 more were wounded, and a considerable proportion died of their wounds-perhaps 300.

Persons at home, who formed their opinions through the exaggerating medium of the newspapers, whose correspondents probably wrote in great haste, and in some confusion, have imagined the picture of an infuriated population falling upon a numerous army in the act of taking their city by storm. Nothing, however, that was warlike, could be more peaceable than was the fight of Bruxelles. It was a set-to at pop-game, which lasted four days. The horrors, of which we have heard so much, began when the army was in the act of being driven out it was then that the atrocities, the burnings, the rapes, and the

The apparent stand against the king had been made by the bourgeois, the respectable tradespeople, who, with muskets in their hands, had treated with the king, and had been represented by the Committee of Safety, and by their Commander in Chief. It was they who treated, but it was not they who fought. When the troops approached, they gladly let the mob take their arms, while they ran away to their cellars and hiding-holes. This was called being disarmed by an insurrection of the mob: the authorities of the bourgeois took this favorable occasion to disappear. So that when the army arrived, the talking and treating revolutionists had disappeared: the chief part of the tradespeople and their families joyfully made ready to receive the prince and his troops, for revolutions are bad for trade, and it was universally expected that the army would enter and take possession of the city. But the army seemed to think twice about the matter. They came in shuffling and looking behind them; they were evidently in a dreadful taking. This encouraged a few of the mob-they who had picked up the arms of the bourgeois guard-to fire. They fired, and fired,-up a lane and from the bottom of an alley, or the top of a house, or out of a garret window; but the attack was perfectly despicable. The town had neither spirit, leaders, nor ammunition, and on the field no force at all. The passiveness of the Dutch, however, soon brought everybody upon them. Delay encouraged, the peasants

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