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    umbrella in their bands , and sometimes one of them will serve for two persons . A number of these umbrellas have a very pretty appearance in a street , especially as they are of different colours , and the fashion of them is elegant ; but they would by no means do in the streets of London , or any crowded place ; for they necessarily take up a good deal of room /' " The whole of Austrian Flanders is highly cultivated and populous . The farm-houses seemed to be substantially good , and the poorest people we

    met , tolerably well clothed . Indeed , we have not yet seen any people so exceedingly shabby and wretched as the poor of Calne . It is something remarkable , however , that in this country the boys that beg on the way-side have the very same ridiculous custom of tumbling and standing on their heads that you will see at Studley , and which I have also seen in one part of Yorkshire . But here we once saw a girl standing on her head for this purpose . You may be assured that we did not encourage so much idleness and indecency by giving them any thing , though the custom could not have been established , if others had not been diverted with it and countenanced it .

    " This country has formerly produced very excellent painters , especially the celebrated Rubens ; and though ( which is very remarkable ) they can boast of no painters at present , the rich and curious give immense sums for pictures to furnish their cabinets , and some make a gainful traffic of buying to sell again . A curious character of this kind we met with at Ghent , who

    took no little pains , and used a good deal of address , to take in your papa . We got a sight of his pictures over night , and as he was very importunate , partly promised to see him again the next morning . However , as we were walking in the church , the next morning , which was Sunday , we happened to pass by a confessional chair where he was confessing an old woman ; and the moment he cast his eyes upon us , he gave us an intimation that he

    would be with . us immediately ; and so despatching his penitent with a most indecent hurry , he presently joined us . It was then impossible to avoid going to his house , from whence we returned , truly pleased with many of his pictures ; more with so curious a character ; and most of all that we saw through his artifice , and did not contribute to gratify his covetousness at our expense .

    " Another adventure of this kind we had at Antwerp . One of these trafficking- connoisseurs shewed us a picture as an original of Rubens , and asked a prodigious great price for it . Our guide , who , no doubt , was in league with him , avouched it ; but going immediately from thence to the house of a rich and whimsicaUcanon , we saw the real original of the very

    same picture , the same guide conducting us . This canon also was a much greater curiosity himself than any thing he had to shew . He had no real knowledge of any thing he had got , but had a valet who shewed them ; and we were told , that sometimes when such questions were asked as he could not answer himself , he would send for his maid . Indeed , his valet made so

    very free , both with his master and us , as made any thing of this kind very credible . This canon was very eager to hear every thing about him admired , but affected to make a great secret of every thing , and , in the bluntest and rudest manner , said no to almost every question your papa asked him about the management of his flowers , &c . - and though we particularly admired

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    Dr . Priestley 7 s Journal of a Tour on the Continent . 693

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 693, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/41/