From Ghent to Brussels (the next great stage in my way), I found, to my regret, that there was no conveyance by water: I therefore was obliged to go in a voiture, and stopt at Alost, as an intermediate stage; and mathematically intermediate it is——for it lies at equal distance from Ghent and Brussels, being exactly fifteen miles from each.
This is a small, but exceeding neat town, situated on the river Dender; and being a remarkably great thoroughfare, accommodations of every kind are tolerably good in it. It would be idle to suppose, that Catholic zeal had left so many souls unprotected and undisciplined, where there were so many bodies capable of drudgery to pay for it. In truth, there has been as ample provision made for the town of Alost in the way of sacerdotal business, as for any other town in the Netherlands——regard being had to its bulk; for there were several Convents of Friars, and of course several of Nuns: besides, there was a Jesuit’s College of some note. How they all fare by this time, it is difficult for me to determine.
The Church of Saint Martin could boast of some excellent pictures, particularly a most capital piece, “La Peste,” by Rubens.
In a Convent inhabited by a set of Monks, denominated Gulielmite, I saw the tomb of Thierry Martin, who first brought the art of Printing from Germany to that place. His name and fame are transmitted to us by an epitaph upon his tomb, written by his friend, the ingenious Erasmus.
This tomb of Thierry Martin stands a monument, not only of his merit, but of the short-sightedness and folly even of Monks. Alas, silly men! they little knew, that when they granted Thierry Martin the honours of the Convent, they were harbouring, in their hallowed ground, one of their greatest enemies, and commemorating the man who was contributing to the overthrow of their sacred Order: for the art of Printing, wherever it reached, illuminated the human mind, and first kindled up that light, before which Priestcraft, and all its pious impostures, like evil spectres, have vanished. To the art of Printing is human society indebted for many of the advantages which it possesses beyond the brute or savage tribes——for the perfection of arts, the extension of science, the general enlargement of the mind, and, above all, for the emancipation of person and property from the shackles of despotism, and of the human intellect from the fetters of blindness and ignorance with which sacerdotal fraud had chained it for centuries to the earth.
The territory of this City is of pretty large extent, and is called a County, having, in ancient times, had Counts of its own; and the whole of it is extremely fruitful in pasture, corn, hops, flax, and most other productions of those climes.
I made but a very short stay at Alost, when I proceeded on to Brussels; and, having thus brought you through that part of the Netherlands called Austrian Flanders, I think I ought to give you a general account of the Country at large, as I have hitherto confined myself merely to the cities and towns of it; but as this Letter is already of a length that will not allow of any great addition, I shall postpone my intended description to my next.