of Ostend; and, notwithstanding the peace, above a third of the houses were said to be untenanted.  Bruges has neither river nor fountain, but abundance of stagnant canals and reservoirs.  The word Bourse, as designating the place where merchants assemble to transact business, had its first origin from a house at Bruges, then belonging to the family of Van der Bourse, opposite to which the merchants of the city used to meet daily.  As the road between Ghent and Lisle did not claim any minute survey, and as I had been satisfied with the trial I had before made of a diligence in their country, I engaged a place for Lille for the next morning.

I was awakened, long before daybreak, by the noise of packing in the carriages in the yard, and by the vociferations of several Frenchmen in the house, who seemed to exert their lungs more than the occasion required.  I was not sorry to see them set off in a different carriage from that in which I was to proceed, as their extreme noise would have been tiresome.  I had not to complain that my companions made an unnecessary depense de parole.  They were, I believe, all Flemish.  One of them prided himself on being able to speak a little English, which he said he could read perfectly, and pulled from his pocket “The Vicar of Wakefield,” which, he assured me, he admired extremely.  I have, on many occasions, in Germany, been in company with persons who were more desirous of beginning a conversation in English, than able afterwards to continue it; but in general I have found that the English make less allowance for the want of proficiency of foreigners in their language than foreigners do for our ignorance of theirs.  On one occasion, at a table d’hote, a person who sat near me pointed out a gentleman at some distance, and observed that it would be impossible to please him more than by giving him an opportunity of speaking English, as he valued himself much on his knowledge of that language.  He was not long without finding the opportunity he sought for, but not the approbation which he had probably expected.

But to return to the diligence.  The rest of the passengers being lethargic after dinner, an elderly lady and I had the conversation to ourselves.  She complained frequently of her poor bonnet, which, from its extraordinary elevation (having to all appearance antiquity to boast of) was frequently forced in contact with the top of the carriage by the roughness of the pavement.  I told her, I had heard that the bonnets at Paris had been much reduced in point of height, and that perhaps something between the French and English fashions would in time be generally worn.  But although she had to complain of the inconvenience arising from the unnecessarily large dimensions of her headdress, she expressed a hope that no such reduction might take place, as the English bonnets were in her opinion so extremely unbecoming, that she should much regret any bias in the French ladies towards such an innovation.