To conclude——In the Chapel of Saint Basil is said to be kept, in perfect preservation, the blood which Joseph of Aremethea wiped off with a sponge from the dead body of Christ. Finis coronat opus.
I fancy you have, by this time, had as much of miracles as you can well digest: I therefore leave you to reflect upon them, and improve.
LETTER VIII.
As I was going to the barque[barque], at Bruges, to take my departure for Ghent, the next town in my route, I was surprised to see a number of officious, busy, poor fellows, crowding round my effects, and seizing them——some my trunk, some my portmanteau, &c. I believe two or three to each: but my astonishment partly subsided when I was told that they were porters, who plied on the canal, and about the city, for subsistence, and only came to have the honour of carrying my baggage down to the vessel. Noting their eagerness, I could not help smiling. I know there are those, and I have heard of such, who would bluster at them: but my mirth at the bustling importance which the poor fellows affected, soon sunk into serious concern; I said within myself, “Alas, how hard must be your lot indeed!” and my imagination was in an instant back again in London, where a porter often makes you pay for a job, not in money only, but in patience also, and where the surliness of independence scowls upon his brow as he does your work. Every one of my men demanded a remuneration for his labour: one man could have easily done the work of five——-but I resolved not to send them away discontented: he is but a sordid churl that would; and I paid them to their full satisfaction. Here, my dear Frederick, let me offer you (since it occurs) my parental advice on this point——from the practice of which you will gain more solid felicity than you can possibly be aware of now: never weigh scrupulously the value of the work of the Poor; rather exceed than fall short of rewarding it: it is a very, very small thing, that will put them in good humour with you and with themselves, and relax the hard furrows of labour into the soft smile of gratitude——a smile which, to a heart of sensibility such as your’s, will, of itself, ten-thousand-fold repay you, even though the frequent practice of it should abridge you of a few of those things called pleasures, or detract a little from the weight of your purse.
Being again seated in my barque[barque], I set off for Ghent, a city lying at a distance of twenty-four miles from Bruges. I must here remark to you, that the company one meets in those vessels is not always of the first rank; it is generally of a mixed, motley kind: but to a man who carries along with him, through his travels, a love for his fellow-creatures, and a desire to see men, and their customs and manners, it is both pleasant and eligible——at least I thought it so, and enjoyed it. There were those amongst us who spoke rather loftily on that subject: I said nothing; but it brought to my mind a reflection I have often had occasion to concur in, viz. that a fastidious usurpation of dignity (happily denominated stateliness) is the never-failing mark of an upstart or a blockhead. The man of true dignity, self-erect and strong, needs not have recourse, for support, to the comparative wretchedness of his fellow-creature, or plume himself upon spurious superiority. You will understand me, however! When I say, “the man of true dignity,” I am far, very far, from meaning a lord, a squire, a banker, or a general officer——I mean a man of intrinsic worth——homo emunctæ naris——one who, in every station into which chance may throw him, feels firm in the consciousness of right——who can see and cherish merit, though enveloped and concealed behind a shabby suit of clothes——and who scorns the blown-up fool of fortune, that, without sense or sentiment, without virtue, wisdom or courage, presumes to call himself great, merely because he possesses a few acres of earth which he had neither the industry nor merit to earn, or because his great-great-great-grandfather purchased a title by perfidy to his Country, the plunder of his fellow-citizens, or the slaughter of mankind.
Although the face of that part of the Country through which we are now passing, like that of the preceding stage from Ostend to Bruges, wants diversity, it has its charms, and would be particularly delightful in the eye of an English farmer; for it is covered with the thickest verdure on each side of the canal, and the banks are decorated all along by rows of stately trees, while the fields in the back ground are cultivated to the highest degree of perfection, and bear the aspect of producing the most abundant harvest.
You will be able to form a judgment of the trifling expence of travelling in this Country, from my expences in this stage of twenty-four miles. I had an excellent dinner for about fifteen pence of our money; my passage cost me but sixteen more, amounting in all to two shillings and seven pence: compare that with travelling in England, where one cannot rise up from an indifferent dinner, in an Inn, under five shillings at the least, and you must be astonished at the disproportion.
Ghent is the capital of Flanders, and is to be reckoned among the largest cities of Europe, as it covers a space of ground of not less than seven miles in circumference; but there is not above one half of that occupied with buildings, the greater part being thrown into fields, gardens, orchards, and pleasure-grounds. Situated on four navigable rivers, and intersected into no fewer than twenty-six islands by a number of canals, which afford an easy, cheap and expeditious carriage for weighty merchandise, it may be considered, in point of local advantages for commerce, superior to most cities in Europe; while those islands are again united by about a hundred bridges, some great and some small, which contribute much to the beauty of the city.