158 Dunkerque. [FEB. 



north-western corner of the Grand Place. It is built of the yellow 

 bricks used for most of the edifices here and the effect of them, in this 

 instance, now that they are time-worn, and discoloured down to a pic- 

 turesque hue, is I think, even better than that of stone. The tower is 

 square, supported by buttresses from bottom to top, and gradually 

 diminishing in size as it ascends ; and the view of it, looking upwards 

 from the bottom, at but a little distance, is very noble ; but seen from 

 outside the town, the general effect is greatly injured by a little wooden 

 erection, which is placed at the top, and surmounted by a flag-staff, with 

 cords, &c., on which certain flags are hoisted on fete days. The French 

 generally contrive to spoil their fine buildings by something of this kind, 

 and seldom with any sufficient reason. The little cabin which is here 

 erected, I suppose for purposes of observation, might just as well have 

 corresponded in look with the place on which it stands, instead of having 

 the appearance of a smart, newly-painted peasant's cottage, escaped, nobody 

 can tell how or why, from its appropriate situation in some secluded dell. 

 The Roman fa9ade of the cathedral of Saint Eloi, would be a very fine 

 one, if it were not disfigured by an extra column, beyond the extremity of 

 the pediment at each end, above which an ugly eastern-looking tower rises ; 

 and if it were not, moreover, cut up in another essential part of its general 

 effect, by the barbarism of nearly the whole of the architrave and frieze 

 being run into one flat surface for the purpose of receiving an inscrip- 

 tion : Deo optima maxima Sacro : as if any body could doubt the pur- 

 poses of a building of this kind. 



Dunkerque has a theatre, which is about on a par, in point of size and 

 condition, with that of Calais ; but the morale of it is much superior. 

 The Dunkerquois have a passion for theatrical amusements, and espe- 

 cially for those connected with music which makes the management of 

 their theatre a better speculation than it usually is in the provincial 

 towns of France. The troupe assembled here is usually an operatic one ; 

 and the comic opera may in some sort be said to take in the whole of 

 those boasts of the French stage the vaudevilles, and other petites 

 pieces ; since these always contain more or less of those agreeable little 

 epigrammatic couplets epigrammatic both in words and music in 

 which the modern French writers so much excel, and the ability to sing 

 which with grace and spirit is an indispensable qualification of all their 

 comic actors. It is the great merit of a French audience even a pro- 

 vincial one that it cares little or nothing for that which, with us, is 

 almost every thing namely, the external embellishments of a theatre, 

 including its " scenery, machinery, dresses, and decorations." Accord- 

 ingly, their provincial theatres are much better supplied with actors 

 than with any thing else. Those of the Dunkerque theatre at present 

 would form a very fair company, if the somewhat too refined and ambi- 

 tious taste of the Dunkerquois did not exact from them more than they 

 have any right to expect out of Paris. The " Grands Operas" of the 

 Academic Royale de Musique, which are execrable any where even in 

 their splendid birth-place itself are here as much worse than execrable 

 as you choose to imagine any thing : in short, they are as much worse 

 as bad music sang out of tune is than the same music sang in tune, and 

 no more : for the only noticeable difference between French singers is, 

 that some sing out of tune, and others do not. But the vaudevilles, and 

 other light comic pieces of the day, they contrive to make very enter- 

 taining here. They have one actor, in particular (Dumas), who comes 



