specting a Work which I have lately read with much pleasure, a very wellwritten, entertaining, and instructive little volume, called the "Terra Incognita of Lincolnshire." The descriptions are remarkably striking, of places which apparently though little known, well deserve, and will adequately repay the curiosity of the traveller. There is a sort of general prejudice against the scenery of Lincolnshire; and they who are less acquainted with its different districts, very naturally elicit ideas of fogs and damps, and moors and uncultivated wastes. It contains, nevertheless, some detached pictures of singular interest, and much beauty; and some of these will be found delineated with great force and vivacity in this publiS. M.

cation.

(From the Times.) TO THE FRIENDS OF THE POOR. "There is no want of charitable feeling in the breasts of Englishmen, when a proper and forcible appeal is made to them.-There wants only an active person or two in every parish, to call it into action. The rich and the great seldom see distress with their own eyes, and therefore they are seldom among the first to suggest plans for its relief; but they have universally shewn a readiness to take up and patronize any practical scheme for the relief of the poor. We would therefore recommend all persons who possess practical knowledge on the subject of directing human labour to beneficial purposes, to contribute their share of information to the common stock; and, if not of general applicability, it will probably be found of use, at least, within a limited sphere."

Mr. EDITOR,

Tis with much satisfaction that I borrow from your leading article of the 16th inst. the foregoing extract, as it enables me to lay before your Readers, a second time, one of those forcible appeals to our heads and hearts, which cannot be repeated too often in this hour of distress, and which cannot fail of being highly acceptable to the friend of humanity. Now, although I cannot boast of any scheme exactly relating to that which you so laudably solicit, yet I will venture to offer a plan, which, if duly put in practice, could not but prove highly beneficial to the poor.

To save the consumption of bread, and satisfy the cravings of the hungry, by feeding them with wholesome, palatable, and most substantial food at a very cheap rate, are surely two points well deserving the attention of the publick. This is the scheme I now venture to propose to the Community; and, to borrow your own words, "wants only an active person or two in every parish to call it into action;" and, let me add, crown it with success.

I have now further to request, that you will not only have the goodness to lay before the publick the accompanying experiments, but also that you will here allow me to offer a few observations to those who may be desirous to carry them into effect. Such truly charitable persons must not suppose that the mere distribution of these receipts among the poor is all that is required of them. No, they must do this (I speak it from long tried experience), they must make these experiments in their own kitchens, and they must be executed under the eye of a humane housekeeper, or by the hand of a no less humane cook, who, whilst performing her task, will reflect that she is bestowing an act of charity upon countless suffering beings; for, with holy reverence I speak it, these trials, like the grain of mustard-sced in the parable, might, under Providence, become such a spreading tree, as would hereafter afford shelter and relief to thousands and thousands yet unborn. For my own part I am so fortunate as to possess servants of the above description; nevertheless I ever make use of my own eyes and palate upon these occasions: consequently know that what I offer to the poor is clean, good, and wholesome, and such as I myself and my family might most satisfactorily share. This has been my practice, and my pains and trouble (if such trifling attentions merit those terms) have been amply rewarded, by the heartfelt joy of seeing my expectations completely realized. Let any gentleman or lady make the experiment I have now described, and let them at the same time call into the kitchen the honest cottager or poor suffering mechanic's wife, making the cook explain the details of the whole process, the donor winding up the lecture with" And now,

my

e name

authent

he matter

Like cut

Tour through various Parts of the whom NETHERLANDS and GERMANY in oking st 1815. (Continued from page 6.) d forta Y last letter left me at Halle, sible car which, in the rotte that I took, have lu is the last town in the province of dbiHainault. I was highly delighted with what I saw of that province; cowhich yields to few parts of the Nereastherlands in beauty, fertility, and ite population. I offer your Readers some sketches of its history, which beguiled the tediousness of a rainy morning at an inn. Hainault derives power its name from the river Haine, which odud flows through the province from East to West, and after washing Mons, its capital, falls into the Scheldt at Condé. Its Northern boundaries are Brabant and Flanders; the Southern are the Cambresis, Picardy, and Champagne. It is bounded towards the East by a part of Brabant and the County of Namur, and on the West by the Scheldt, which separates it from Artois and a part of French Flanders. The air is healthy, the sol productive; and the general face of the country is beautifully diversified by the band of Nature and the decorations of Art. In tracing the history of this as well as of the other provinces of the Netherlands, we are involved in great obscurity, from the downfall of the Roman Empire, until the beginning of the ninth century, Then Charlemagne formed that extensive Empire, of which the Low Countries constituted a part. He divider the Netherlands into Dukedoms, Marquisates, Earldoms, and Lordships; and invested with corresponding titles those whom he had appointed to govern them. "During the reign of Charlemagne (as we are told by a sensible Writer whom I have often quoted), and for some time after his death, while the reverence of his name lasted, these Governors kept themselves within the bounds of duty; but in succeeding times, when the reins of empire were slackened in the hands of his feeble descendants, and when the empire that he had formed was weakened by its division into distinct monarchies, the Governors in the Netherlands, by degrees, withdrew themselves from obedience; and

Shaw's Sketches of the History of the Austrian Netherlands.

paying only vain marks of homage to the Kings of France and Germany, assumed to themselves, and transmitted to their descendants, the so

vereignty of those provinces which they had before governed only with a delegated sway. Thus arose the Dukes of Brabant, the Counts of Flanders and Hainault, and the other Princes of the Low Countries, already in the eleventh century possessed of independent power." We find the province of Hainault under the government of hereditary Counts as early as the beginning of the tenth century. Count René, the fourth of that name, who died in 1036, left the inheritance of Hainault to his daughter Richilda, who married Baldwin, Count of Flanders, by whom she had two sons, Arnold and Baldwin; the former of whom succeeded to the Earldom of Flanders, the latter to that of Hainault. In giving an account of Cassel in French Flanders, I had occasion to mention the unhappy fate of Arnold, who fell a victim to the base usurpation of his uncle Robert de Frison, Count of Holland. His brother Baldwin followed Godfrey of Bouillon, whom Tasso has immortalized, to the Holy Land, where he was killed in battle in 1098. His grandson, Baldwin the Fourth, married Adelaide Countess of Namur, which province was thereby annexed to Hainault: he died 1171. Their son, Baldwin the Fifth, united to Hainault and Namur the Earldom of Flanders, by marriage with Margaret of Alsace, heiress of Flanders. Their son Baldwin, so renowned in the History of the Crusades, was raised to the throue of Constantinople in the beginning of the 13th century; but his reign was of short duration; he was defeated and taken prisoner by Calo-John, a Bulgarian Chief, and languished in captivity till he was released by death. He was succeeded in the Earldoms of Hainault and Flanders by his daughter Jane, a woman of great spirit, whose uncle Philip had previously obtained the Marquisate of Namur. About 20 years after the accession of Jane, the peace of her Government was disturbed for a short time by a singular Occurrence. -A hermit in one of the

*See Gent. Mag. April, 1816, p. 295.

forests

forests of Flanders proclaimed himself to be their old sovereign Baldwin, the Emperor of Constantinople. He dressed up a romantic account of his escape from prison, and subsequent adventures, till his arrival in his native land, when, by way of penance, he retired to a hermitage; from whence he now came forth to claim their allegiance as his lawful subjects. His adherents soon became numerous and formidable; but before their plans were ripe for action, he was detected to be an impostor, and was hanged at Lille in 1225. The Countess Jane died without issue in 1244. She was succeeded by her sister Margaret, whose son, John d'Avesnes, by her first husband, succeeded to the Earldom of Hainault. Another son, by a second marriage, Guy de Dampierre, obtained the Earldom of Flanders. John d'Avesnes married Adelaide, the daughter of the Count of Holland, in consequence of which that powerful province, as well as Zealand and Friesland, devolved to the Counts of Hainault, which made up for the loss of Flanders. John died in 1300. During the fourteenth century the House of Hainault was in the height of its power and splendour; and its history is closely connected with English affairs, during the reign of Edward the Second, and of his son Edward the Third, who was son-in-law to William Count of Hainault, a bold and warlike prince, whose fame was not surpassed by any chief in that renowned period of military adventure and heroism. Isabella, Queen of Edward the Second, having quarrelled with the Spensers, the King's favourites, repaired to the Continent for succours to make head against them, accompanied by her son, afterwards Edward the Third, then a boy. She met with a kind reception at the Court of Hainault, where a splendid train of gallant knights, in the true spirit of chivalry, devoted themselves to her service; and attending her back to England, powerfully contributed to the success of her arms, and to the attainment of her grand object, the elevation of her son to the Throne.

Young Edward, during his residence at the Court of Hainault, fell in love with the Princess Philippa, who afterwards became his Queen, an accomplished and high-spirited wo

man. Edward availed himself of this alliance to strengthen his hands against France, which was peculiarly vul nerable in that quarter; and he bad the address to engage in his cause the most powerful Princes of the Low Countries. The intercourse between the Courts of England and Hainault was constant and intimate during the reign of Edward. The Chronicle of that period, by Froissart, is well worth the perusal of such as are desirous to see a lively picture of those romantic days; and your Fair Readers will be amused with a circumstance mentioned by that Writer, in giving an account of an embassy from England to Hainault; namely, that in the ambassador's train appeared English Knights with one eye veiled, according to a vow they had made to their mistresses, on taking leave, that they never would uncover the eye till they had performed some gallant exploit deserving of their smiles.

Edward and Philippa frequently visited the Netherlands. Two of their sons, Liouel, and John of Gaunt, were born in that country. The Low Countries in that age were unrivalled in commerce and manufactures: and to our intimate connexion with Hai nault in the reign of Edward the Third, we may trace the origin of the spirit of commercial enterprize in England, and the introduction of the woollen manufacture among us.

William, Count of Hainault, the father of our Queen Philippa, was succeeded by his sister, Margaret d'Avesnes, who conveyed, by marriage, the rich inheritance of her family to the House of Bavaria. Her son, William Duke of Bavaria, married Matilda of Lancaster. He died without issue, and was succeeded by his brother Albert, who died in 1404. His son William married Margaret, daughter of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, by whom he had au only daughter, the heiress of his States, Jacoba, or, as the French writers call her, Jacqueline, a Prin cess whose history exhibits a most interesting and affecting narrative, which a sudden interruption obliges me to postpone, together with some further observations on the Princess of Hainault, till my next letter.

CLERICUS LEICESTRIENSIS.