must not presume to teach the branches which require a higher degree, although at perfect liberty to return after an interval and stand a second examination for a more favourable report. This arrangement has the effect of preventing much of the gross imposition practised in England by men who undertake teaching as a trade, and who often have no other qualification than the command of the money that is neces sary to buy a share of an established seminary. Generally speaking, education is well diffused throughout Holland, and the écoles primaires or elementary schools are respectably taught.

Mr. M. proceeds to give a practical example of the higher seminaries in the case of the Lycée of Ghent; one of those provincial colleges or academies that have been established during late years in France and the countries subject to her, and which contain from 100 to 200 pupils, according to the population of the town and neighbourhood. In that Lycée, the superintendants are a regent and thirteen teachers, or professeurs, as it is customary in the complimentary language of our neighbours to call them, with an income of somewhat more than 1ool. a-year each; and the objects of education are French, German, English, mathematics, drawing, classics geography, and rhetoric. Annual prizes are distributed; several bourses or scholarships are appropriated to those of superior progress, and the whole expence of the board and education in these seminaries is about 40l. a-year..

For a considerable time past, the Belgique has possessed no seminary dignified with the name of University: but an act was lately passed for the establishment of one at Ghent, and for the restoration of the old University of Louvain. The Dutch provinces contain three Universities, Leyden, Utrecht, and Groningen; and six Athenæa, or provincial colleges, in as many of the principal towns which happen to be situated at a distance from the Universities. The Athenæa have not the privilege of conferring degrees; so that the students edu cated there must go for twelve months to an University, before they can obtain the credentials necessary for entering the church, or practising in the higher departments of law and medicine. The salaries are somewhat higher than in the Belgic provinces, those at the Universities being from 200l. to 250l. per annum, exclusive of fees: at the Athenaea, the salaries are about 150l. The session in the Dutch Universities commences in September, and closes about the end of June; leav ing, with a short interval at Christmas and at Easter, somewhat less than three months of vacation for the whole year. The number of students at Leyden is about 360, of whom a pro

portion

portion study medicine, without the prospect of attaining an independence by their profession, the fees of physicians throughout the Netherlands being as much below the fair medium as they often are above it in our part of the world. The University at Utrecht is on a smaller scale than that of Leyden: but the town is preferable as a residence, its situation being on a rising ground, the first which the traveller discovers in an extent of forty miles on coming from the westward. The walks on the ramparts and on the outside of the town are very pleasant; and nothing can surpass the gratification of even this slight elevation, after having been for many weeks on a dead flat. The view from the tower of the cathedral is one of the most extensive in Europe; taking in the most populous cities of Holland to the west, and to the south a country finely diversified with gentle eminences. The population of Utrecht is 32,000; and Mr. M. has no hesitation in pronouncing it to be the best residence in Holland for a literary man.

State of the Dutch Church. The established form of worship in Holland is the Calvinistic or Presbyterian, discourses being delivered in the pulpit without writing, and the form of prayer and psalmody being nearly the same as among our Dissenters. The Dutch do not, however, carry their strictness so far as to exclude an organ: that of Haarlem has long been famous; and it is now equalled if not surpassed by another that was lately put up in a new church in Amsterdam. The Dutch clergy are indebted to the King not only for their presentations but for their annual salaries: a combination which throws a most extensive patronage into the hands of the executive power. In point of doctrine, the Dutch clergy, without being distinctly divided as in Scotland into two parties, are marked by correspondent discrepancies of opinion; the majo rity inclining to what are called moderate views; that is, they dwell much less than their forefathers on the doctrines of predestination, election, free grace, &c. The Dutch have long -been noted for. their toleration; and all classes, even Jews, enjoy among them the full privileges of citizens. The Catholic churches are in general small, but more than 300 of them are interspersed through the country; and their preachers, like those of the other Dissenters, receive a salary from govern ment. The Anabaptists are said to have nearly 100 congre gations; they are here called Mennonites, from the name of their founder; they baptize only those persons who have arrived at the years of discretion: but they deem sprinkling quite sufficient, without adopting the forbidding plan of plunging, like their brethren in England, the whole body into water,

The

The Lutherans have in all about fifty churches; but the most remarkable of the Dutch sects are the Arminians or Remonstrants, whose origin is cotemporary with the independence of the republic, and whose tenets were adopted by a portion of the "Patriots;" a designation by which we are to understand that numerous and respectable body who have long consti-› tuted the Opposition in Holland, and refused to the Orange family the right of governing the republic. Of this party were Grotius, Barneveldt, and the unfortunate De Witt; whose distike of their successful opponents became in the course of time very inveterate, and who certainly welcomed the entrance of the French in 1795: but let it be remembered to their honour that, when the tyranny of Bonaparte had sunken their country in distress, they forgot their former animosity, and lent their aid to the Orangists in asserting the national independence. The Arminians, as a religious sect, have not above fifty congregations: but, in a political sense, they may be fairly set down as composing half of the intelligent part of the Dutch population. Expence of living on the Continent. Mr. Mitchell seems to think that our countrymen are not great gainers by removing their families to the opposite side of the water, the price of articles being not much lower than with us; and the advantage of the change being little else than the power of reducing the style of living, without the mortification of doing so under the eye of their friends. No doubt, this remark is in part well founded: but Mr. M. should have added, that a plain mode of life has no effect in lowering the estimation of a family with our continental neighbours; so that the best company in France or Flanders may be enjoyed without giving dinners, keeping a carriage, or vying in any way with expensive neighbours. People thus not only live within their income, but they do this without losing their station in society; they may be said in fact not to feel their poverty. Moreover, education, particularly in the ornamental branches, such as music, drawing, horsemanship, and dancing, is far below the cost of it in our part of the world. It is equally true that, in point of comforts, such as cleanliness of the streets, accommodation in the interior of a house, or convenience in travelling, the Continent is far behind us; and that the saving in expence does not on the whole exceed a third: -but allowances would have been made for these various drawbacks, and our emigrating countrymen have experienced comparatively little disappointment, had they not been deceived by the allegations of those travellers who represented that articles on the Continent might be purchased for half and even less than half their price in this country.

Mr. Mitchell takes notice of a complaint which is now very general on the Continent, that the English do not spend so much money as formerly; the plain reason for which is that our countrymen go abroad less for pleasure than for economy: a point which it is difficult to impress on the conviction of the French, who have been always told by their government that we enriched ourselves by the war. He notices likewise the unpleasant habit of over-asking, on the part of tradesmen; a practice highly inconvenient to the buyer; and for which no epithet would be too severe, did it not arise less from a desire to impose than from an imagined necessity of lowering their demand before the purchaser can be persuaded that he has made a bargain. Mr. M. advises travellers to carry with them Bank of England notes: but here we must remark that letters of credit, or the travelling bills of such banking-houses as Ransom or Herries, are preferable, because continental merchants have been of late frequently subjected to loss from false bank-notes, and the exchange is at all times higher for bills. In another point, we agree with Mr. M., viz. that the number of English residents at Paris and on the Continent in general is not half, perhaps not one-third, of the amount at which report states it.

From Holland, Mr. M. went to Cleves, Cologne, and -Aix-la-Chapelle; returning by the way of Maestricht and Louvain to Brussels. In this part of his journey, he makes little attempt to generalize, and is satisfied with noticing the principal topics of ordinary observation at each place; such as the baths at Aix, and the three kings with the 11,000 virgins at Cologne. The Prussian government, in the true spirit of antipathy to its late oppressors, has abolished the professorship of French at Cologne, and forbidden the teaching of that language in the schools. Passing over the account of Brussels, Mons, Cambray, and other well known towns, we proceed to extract a short passage relative to one of the principal works of Bonaparte; and a work which is actually completed, although the case is very much otherwise with the majority of the undertakings which figured so conspicuously in his annual Exposé of the interior of France.

Canal of St. Quintin. The most wonderful thing to be seen in the whole way is the canal, completed, but not commenced, by the late ruler, to join together the navigation of the Somme and the Scheldt. For about a league and a half it is cut in a tunnel under ground, and the end of the tunnel approaches close to the road; the coach stops, and there are people ready, who immediately fix on the English, to offer their kind services to conduct them. The winding path descends through a plantation of trees, and the view of the tunnel is beautiful. The light at the farther

end,

end, seen in a straight line, seems close at hand. Men have to drag the barges through the tunnel, and carry torches to guide them through. Several barges generally go in company. It is said, the Spanish prisoners were employed in digging the canal, and I was shewn their prison, now in ruins.'

French Taxation. We have lately had occasion to advert to the principal items in the French budget, in our notice of a tract published by a veteran member of the legislature, Laffon-Ladébat: (Appendix to vol. lxxxii, p. 456.) but Mr. M. enters more particularly into the detail of the principal imposts, and into a contrast between them and those on our side of the Channel. The greatest and most productive of the French taxes is the foncier or land-tax, a charge intended avowedly to absorb a fifth of the income, but which, from a variety of circumstances disadvantageous to the land-holder, may more properly be put down at a fourth, and in some cases even at a third. The Cadastre or grand territorial survey of France being as yet by no means completed, the sum payable by each department is calculated from the valuation of property as it stands in the national books; and it belongs to the prefect and departmental council to arrange a repartition of this sum among the larger districts: after which the sub-prefect and local magistrates make a farther repartition among the lesser divisions of territory. Next comes the mobilier, or tax on personal and moveable property; which is paid not by the proprietor but by the tenant of a house, as well as the tax on doors and windows, which is considerably below the corresponding impost in England. A more serious, and among us happily an unknown, tax, is that which is levied on "patents" or professions, which prevails here as in the Netherlands, and has been greatly increased in late years. The tax for registering sales, wills, mortgages, and all other public deeds, is likewise very heavy, and imposes on all transfers of property that kind of burden which with us takes place only in the case of legacies and inheritances. Stamps are, we might almost say, of universal use in France; since a shopkeeper cannot circulate a bill or make oath to a book-debt without shewing it to have been printed or written on a stamp: but the cost of this kind of paper is trifling, compared to ours. The reason of so many and such heavy duties on home-transactions is the comparative insignificance of the French customs; the whole of which do not yield two millions sterling in a year, the imports from colonies and from foreign countries in general being much smaller than in England. The remaining taxes are those on salt, lotteries, wine,

spirituous