1828. ] A Cheap Journey. 249 
kind of impression ; for it is not likely that he will have found his way 
already to the fine exception which is presently to offer itself to all that 
we have said. Not to keep him long in suspense, he had best devote 
the middle and after-part of his first day to getting rid of this impres- 
sion: which he will find a very unpleasant one, if any thing has led him 
to look for one of an exactly opposite nature. To this end he has only 
to inquire his way to the Place Royale, which he will reach by a long, 
winding, mounting, and irregular street—the best in Brussels, and if 
not much worse, certainly not much better, than the best in Bristol. 
Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the spot he has 
now reached, and those which he has passed through to reach it. Let 
him now at once place himself in the centre of this fine, though not very 
spacious, square of noble houses, and he will see before him one of the 
finest coups-d’ceil in Europe, of its kind. That from the centre of the 
Place de Louis XV. in Paris, is inferior to it in one or two particulars, 
and is not much superior to it in any, except its vast extent and variety. 
In London we have nothing that can compare with it. In order, how- 
ever, to take in the whole extent of the coup-d’ail, it must be viewed 
from a little farther on, where the Place Royale opens out into the great 
square, formed by the buildings surrounding the Park. From this 
point of view the eye takes in three palaces—(those of the King, the 
Prince of Orange, and the States General)—several ranges of private 
houses, the noble taste of which gives them the air of palaces, and the 
principal sides of the Place Royale itself, the effect of which is scarcely 
inferior to any of the other parts of the view. The centre of the vast 
oblong square formed by all these, is occupied by what is called the 
Park—a spot which, though little answerable to the English meaning of 
the name, is a most delightful promenade, blending the regularity of the 
French mode of arranging grounds with the luxuriance of the English 
mode, in a very novel and effective manner. 
Having placed our traveller in view of this really fine and delightful 
part of Brussels, we shall leave him to pursue his own course, that being 
almost always the most agreeable, and, consequently, the most likely to 
produce permanently agreeable impressions and recollections. This 
desultory ramble of to-day will probably have shewn him all the fine, 
that is to say all the modern portion of Brussels—consisting of the streets 
adjacent to the great square, the delightful new Boulevards, the new 
Porte Guillaume, the buildings that are in progress as part of the new 
Botanic Garden, and, finally, the noble Allée Vere, a magnificent quad. 
ruple line of old elms and linden trees mixed, forming one of the most 
striking and perfect promenades of the kind in Europe, and running 
unbroken along the right bank of the Antwerp Canal for two miles. 
By the by, this noble avenue is one striking exception to our position, 
that no part of Brussels is at all fine, or conveys the idea of a great 
capital, but those portions which are modern. 
aving indulged our traveller with one whole day’s desultory ramble, 
we would counsel him to conclude it at one of the two theatres, looking 
in at the Café des Milles Colonnes in his way: and then make his 
arrangements for to-morrow, by procuring (through the waiter at his 
inn) a decent guide to the rest of the sights at Brussels; for utterly as 
we would discountenance this mode of sight-seeing under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, it is, in the present case, a necessary nuisance that cannot be 
dispensed with. 
M.M. New Series.~—Vou. VI. No. 33. 9K 
