daughters. They were very kind. It being Sunday, we saw all the women of the village—all ugly: indeed, I have not seen a pretty woman since I left Ostend.
[This reference to April 28 as being a Sunday puts a stop to any preceding question as to the right day of the month, for in fact April 28, 1816, was a Sunday.]
On proceeding on our journey, we were stopped for our passports, and the fellow began bullying us, thinking we were French; but, when he heard we were English, he became cap in hand, and let us go: indeed, we have not yet shown our passports.
Having eaten, I issued forth in search of the Promenade, and found the canal with walks called La Copeure. Many ladies, all ugly without exception—the only pretty woman being fat and sixty. It very much resembled the Green Basin, where our West-end cits trot on one another's heels with all possible care: not quite so crowded. Coming back, I tourized to the Roi d'Espagne, where, as in a coffeehouse, I found a room full of disreputable women and card-tables. This, instead of the streets, is the lounge for such women. I went to the Café Grand, where by means of mirrors some excellent effects are produced. There also were billiards, cards, dice, etc. A cup of coffee, some centimes; a glass of lemonade, two sous: a woman presides at the end of the room.
"Lord Byron" was in the Ghent Gazette. Lord Byron encouraged me to write Cajetan, and to continue being a tragedian. Murray offered £150 for two plays, and £500 for my tour.
April 29.—Looking from my window, I saw a native dashing about in a barouche and four. There is in the town a society of nobles, and another of literati. Mr. Scamp has a fine collection of pictures, which I did not see. In Ghent, as well as in all other places where I have been, the barber's sign is Mambrino's helm. On the Sunday mornings there is a market for flowers in pot in the Place des Armes.
We set off at 11 in the morning, and passed through some fine villages: one of which, St. Nicholas, the mistress of the inn told me Buonaparte made into a town—"mais il n'y a pas des postes." The country is tiresomely beautiful. Fine avenues, which make us yawn with admiration; not a single variation; no rising ground—yes, one spot raised for a windmill. The landscape is as unchangeable as the Flemish face. The houses white-washed, with a row of trees before them; the roofs tiled, and the windows large. Indeed, the appearance of comfort in the places we have passed through is much greater than any I have seen in England. We have only seen one country-villa, and that very English: its pasture had the only firs we have yet seen. The avenues are sometimes terminated by a church or a house—the church very ugly; and both very tiresome, as they always prove much farther off than is at first expected. The ground cultivated, and without a weed—no waste ground. The plough moves as if cutting water, the soil is so light a sand. Women work in the fields as well as men. No more difference is found in the face of the inhabitants than in the face of the country. Nothing striking, all evenness, no genius, much stupidity. They seemed to spend all their fund of cleanliness upon their fields and houses, for they carry none about them.
An oldish man wears a three-cornered cocked hat, capacious breeches, black or blue stockings, buckles, and a great-coat; young, fancy travelling-caps. The women wear enormous gold earrings, large wooden shoes. Their dress is a kind of bed-gown, like the Scotch. Young girls of eight in town have their hair dressed with a net or cap. In towns and villages the better peasant-women wear a black silk mantle with a hood, that looks well. Multitudes of children everywhere, who tumble and run by the side of the carriage to gain a few centimes. In the larger villages the market-places are splendidly large, with a little square place in the middle, with pollards and a statue. The houses seem comfortable everywhere. Going into the house of a postmaster, we saw some English prints. At another, our servants having got down and comfortably seated themselves to a bottle of wine etc., the postmistress, on our getting out, took us for the servants, and told us "the messieurs Anglais were in yon room"—and then made us a thousand apologies. At every posthorse place there is kept a book of the posts: many barriers—every 1-1/2 mile.
At Gand they had told us we could not reach Anvers without passing the Scheldt at 2 o'clock—we passed it at 6-1/2.
The town of Antwerp makes a good figure at a distance, chiefly on account of its Cathedral, which has a very airy appearance, the steeple showing the sky between its meeting arches. About five steeples. The fortifications, which enabled Carnot to make such a defence, produce no great effect on the sight.
[The defence by Carnot was, when Polidori wrote, a quite recent event, 1814.]
The Scheldt is a fine river, not so large as our Thames, and covered with ugly Dutch vessels. We passed our coach in a boat.
[This coach was a formidable affair. According to Mr. Pryse Lockhart Gordon, it was "copied from the celebrated one of Napoleon taken at Genappe, with additions. Besides a lit de repos, it contained a library, a plate-chest, and every apparatus for dining."]
On landing, twenty porters ran off with our things to a cart. As they were passing, one in all the pomp of office stopped us, and asked for our passports, which (on handing to him) he detained, giving his directions to the police.
The older parts of Antwerp have a novel and strange effect by the gable-ends being all to the street, ornamented—very acute angles. The Place de Meer is fine. The old street, the finest I ever saw, has some fine houses. Many of the houses have English labels on them. In our sitting-room are two beds. Indeed, the towns are beautiful: their long streets, their houses all clean-stuccoed or white-washed, with strange old-fashioned fronts, the frequent canals, the large places and venerable cathedrals. Their places are much finer than our squares, for they contain trees, and are open without railing.
Went to the café, and saw all playing at dominoes. Read The Times till the 23rd. Fine furniture, everywhere of cherry-tree.
At Gand in the Cathedral the cicerone laid great stress on the choir-seats being all made of solid acajou. The master of the inn at Ghent assures me the carriage of Buonaparte was made in Paris—the body-carriage at Brussels: no English work. Plenty of Americans in the town.
April 30.—Got up late, and went to look at the carriage, and found that the back had been not of the best-made. Called a maréchal, who assured me it could not be better. Breakfasted. Then looked at an old calèche, for which asked 60 naps. Refused it.
Got, with a guide, a calèche to see the lions. The town is large: apparently, not a proportionable quantity of misery. Women better-looking. At all the fountains, Madonnas—and upon all the corners of the streets, with lamps before them. Lamps with reverberators strung on ropes into the middle of the streets. Went to the Cathedral. Everywhere we have been, dreadful complaints of French vandalism. In this chapel it has been shameless: once crowded with altars of marble, now there are about five—only two marble, the others painted in imitation. Pictures were stolen—altars sold by auction—only one saved, bought by a barber for a louis. The others, with all the tombs, monuments, everything, broken by these encouragers of the fine arts. So great was the ruin that there were five feet of fragments over the church—even the columns that support the roof were so much defaced that they were obliged, in restoring it, to pare them all much thinner. Some pictures were carried to Paris, of which some are now about to be replaced. It was the feast of St. Anthony, and many candles were burning about, and some relics were fixed above the doors. In many parts of the chapel were frames containing silver representations, very small, of bad limbs etc., offered by the devout. Many images over altars, dressed out in silk and taffeta: most common one, the Virgin Mary. Though the French acted with all the spirit of Vandals and true Gauls, yet to their very mischief is owing the greatest beauty of the Cathedral, the choir not being divided from the church, so that from one end to the other there is a complete perspective and one of the finest effects I have seen, the airiness and length being now proportionate. There is one great defect in the internal decorations—that they are Greek. What bad taste it is to ornament Gothic with Corinthian columns must be evident: to make it also more glaring, the marble is all coloured. There is here a fine marble altar-railing. Indeed, in all the churches we have here seen they are beautiful—especially where boys, called in Italian "puttini," are sculptured. The confessionals are of wood, with evangelical figures, nearly as large as life, between each box—not badly carved.
We went to see another church, wherein is the tomb of Rubens.
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