opulence.  The town-house is considered as a model of Gothic architecture, and the cathedral of St. Peter is a stately building.  The portal of the Collegium Falconis presents a specimen of Grecian architecture, which is much admired for the simplicity.  The University of Louvain was formerly of great celebrity, and no person could exercise any public authority in the Austrian Netherlands, without having graduated here.  This regulation, however beneficially intended, only produced the effect of raising extremely the expence of the different diplomas, without being attended with any advantage, except to the funds of the university.  In the present unsettled state of the Netherlands, it cannot be expected that the seats of learning should be as much frequented, as they probably will be when their new sovereign shall have had leisure to turn his attention to the important subject of public education; and the wisdom of the regulations he has promulgated, on other matters of general interest (particularly that which enforces the more solemn observation of Sunday) leaves little room to doubt that this point will, in its turn, be duly and successfully attended to.  Those who have resided at Louvain have observed, that its inhabitants are in general more polite than in most of the towns in these provinces; but my stay was not sufficiently long to enable me to form any opinion on the subject.  The manners of the people do not seem to me very dissimilar from those of the French, but others think they most resemble the Dutch.  In fact, the Netherlanders have no very peculiar characteristics, but partake, in many respects, of those which distinguish the various nations from whom they are descended.  They have been much and often abused by various writers, who have attributed to them the faults of almost all the nations of Europe, without allowing that they possess any of the good qualities by which those faults are palliated in the other nations.  Those, however, who are of a candid disposition will not feel inclined to assent to the truth of statements so evidently dictated by enmity or spleen.  But whilst I would not have the Flemish considered as a compound of all that is exceptionable in the human character, I do not consider them as meriting any particular praise; nor can I vindicate them from the charge of dishonesty, which has been so often alleged against them.  In general on the Continent, where the English are the subjects of extortion, the fraud is considered as trivial, and the French often boast in conversation how John Bull is pillaged at Paris.  But whatever may be the Flemish character, it is allowed by all that they follow the French customs in their domestic arrangement, but are in general more cleanly.  Their kitchens are kept very neat, and the cooking apparatus is ranged in order round the stove, which, in many of the kitchens that I saw in the small inns, projects considerably into the room.