Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents | Page 6

called forth on the
occasion. As I had seen cabinets enough to form some slight judgment
of Flemish painting, I determined to stay one day longer at Antwerp to
hear a little how its inhabitants were disposed to harmony.
Having taken this resolution, I formed an acquaintance with Mynheer
Vander Bosch, the first organist of the place, who very kindly
permitted me to sit next him in his gallery during the celebration of
high mass. The service ended, I strayed about the aisles, and examined
the innumerable chapels which decorate them, whilst Mynheer Vander
Bosch thundered and lightened away upon his huge organ with fifty
stops.
When the first flashes of execution were a little subsided, I took an
opportunity of surveying the celebrated "Descent from the Cross,"
which has ever been esteemed one of Rubens's chef d'oeuvres, and for
which they say old Lewis Baboon offered no less a sum than forty
thousand florins. The principal figure has, doubtless, a very meritorious
paleness, and looks as dead as an artist could desire; the rest of the
group have been so liberally praised, that there is no occasion to add
another tittle of commendation. A swinging St. Christopher, fording a
brook with a child on his shoulders, cannot fail of attracting your
attention. This colossal personage is painted on the folding-doors which
defend the capital performance just mentioned from vulgar eyes; and
here Rubens has selected a very proper subject to display the gigantic

coarseness of his pencil.
Had this powerful artist confined his strength to the representation of
agonizing thieves and sturdy Barabbases, nobody would have been
readier than your humble servant to offer incense at his shrine, but
when I find him lost in the flounces of the Virgin's drapery, or
bewildered in the graces of St. Catherine's smile, pardon me if I
withhold my adoration. After I had most dutifully observed all the
Rubenses in the church, I walked half over Antwerp in search of St.
John's relics, which were moving about in procession, but an heretical
wind having extinguished all their tapers, and discomposed the canopy
over the Bon Dieu, I cannot say much for the grandeur of the spectacle.
If my eyes were not greatly regaled by the Saint's magnificence, my
ears were greatly affected in the evening by the music which sang forth
his praises. The cathedral was crowded with devotees and perfumed
with incense. Several of its marble altars gleamed with the reflection of
lamps, and, altogether, the spectacle was new and imposing. I knelt
very piously in one of the aisles while a symphony in the best style of
Corelli, performed with taste and feeling, transported me to Italian
climates, and I was quite vexed, when a cessation dissolved the charm,
to think that I had still so many tramontane regions to pass, before I
could in effect reach that classic country, where my spirit had so long
taken up its abode. Finding it was in vain to wish or expect any
preternatural interposition, and perceiving no conscious angel, or
Loretto-vehicle, waiting in some dark consecrated corner to bear me
away, I humbly returned to my hotel in the Place de Mer, and soothed
myself with some terrestrial harmony; till, my eyes growing heavy, I
fell fast asleep, and entered the empire of dreams, according to custom,
by its ivory portal. What passed in those shadowy realms is too thin and
unsubstantial to be committed to paper. The very breath of waking
mortals would dissipate all the train, and drive them eternally away;
give me leave, therefore, to omit the relation of my visionary travels,
and have the patience to pursue a sketch of my real ones from Antwerp
to the Hague.
Monday, June 26th, we were again upon the pave, rattling and jumbling
along between clipped hedges and blighted avenues. The plagues of

Egypt have been renewed, one might almost imagine, in this country,
by the appearance of the oak-trees: not a leaf have the insects spared.
After having had the displeasure of seeing no other objects for several
hours, but these blasted rows, the scene changed to vast tracts of level
country, buried in sand, and smothered with heath; the particular
character of which I had but too good an opportunity of intimately
knowing, as a tortoise might have kept pace with us without being once
out of breath.
Towards evening, we entered the dominions of the United Provinces,
and had all their glory of canals, track-shuyts, and windmills before us.
The minute neatness of the villages, their red roofs, and the lively green
of the willows which shade them, corresponded with the ideas I had
formed of Chinese prospects; a resemblance which was not diminished
upon viewing on every side the level scenery of enamelled meadows,
with stripes of clear water