BRUXELLES, May 10.

The Hotel d’Angleterre where we are lodged is within four minutes walk from the finest part of the city, where the Parc and Royal Palace is situated.  The Parc is not large, but is tastefully laid out in the Dutch style, and is the fashionable promenade for the beau monde of Bruxelles.  The women, without being strikingly handsome, have much grace; their air, manner and dress are perfectly a la francaise.  A good cafe and restaurant is in the centre of one of the sides, and the buildings on the quadrangle environing the Parc, which form the palace and other tenements are superb.  The next place I went to see was the Hotel de Ville and its tower of immense height.  It is a fine Gothic building, but that which should be the central entrance is not directly in the centre of the edifice, so that one wing of it appears considerably larger than the other, which gives it an awkward and irregular appearance.  On the Place or Square as we should call it, where the Hotel de Ville stands, is held the fruit and vegetable market, and a finer one or more plentifully supplied I never beheld.  This Place is interesting to the historian as being the spot where Counts Egmont and Hoorn suffered decapitation in the reign of Philip II of Spain, by order of the Duke of Alva, who witnessed the execution from a window of one of the houses.  The conduct of these noblemen at the place of execution was so dignified that even the ferocious duke could not avoid wiping his eyes, hardened as his heart was by religious and political fanaticism; and though he held them in abhorrence as rebels and traitors a tear did fall for them down his iron cheek.  How fortunate for the liberties of Holland that William the Taciturn did not also fall into the claws of that Moloch Philip!  I next visited the museum and picture gallery, where I witnessed the annual exposition of the modern school of painting.  The specimens I saw pleased me much, particularly because the subjects were well chosen from history and the mythology, which to me is far more agreeable than the subjects of the paintings of the old Flemish school; but I am told often that I know nothing about painting, so I shall make no further remarks but content myself with sending you a catalogue, with the pictures marked therein which made most impression on me.  With respect to the churches of Brussels those of Ste. Gudule and of the Capuchins are the finest and most remarkable.  In the former is the Temptation of Adam by the Serpent, richly carved in wood in figures as large as life grouped round the pulpit.[4]