Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/83

 12 S. VIII. JAN. 22, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 63 LETTERS OF 1720 FROM THE LOW COUNTRIES AND HANOVER. (See ante, p. 42.) III. MY LORD, If my Letters hacL th6 honour of being con- sidered by Your Lordship, as a Testimony of my Respect and Veneration for You (as from your Goodness I hope they have) and not as an in- stance of my Levity in presuming to interrupt your Lordships more important Thoughts with my Follys, I am sure I have more than sufficient Reason to give You an Account of my Silence ever since I had the honour of writing to You from Ostend y e 22 d of July N.S. last. This I shall do in one word. After I have thank'd your Lordship for the favour of it, I am to acquaint You, that Your letter of the 29th of July, O.S. found Me but the 20 th of September at Maestricht, on my departure from thence to Louvain, with which Town I finish'd my Tour of those Countrys. From there thro' Brussels, Mechlin & Antwerp I returned to Rotterdam. I have had it frequently in my Thoughts to pay my Duty to your Lordship since that Time (which vv-as about y e beginning of tnis Month Octob r ) and I have been as often unaccountably prevented : I may truly well say unaccountably because ye honour of your Lordships Considera- tion is by much the greatest Satisfaction of my Life, and it must have been something very much ag" my Will, that should have prevented Me from cultivating it. I now return to acquaint your Lordship, That I was too much taken with my new manner of Life, to take up with a slight Survey of those famous Countrys, and and [sic] the Company which I accidental}* (tho' indeed I might say by reason of the great Pleasure and advantage accrued to me from it, providentialy) fell into y" Day of my Departure from Rotterdam, made Me alter my Resolution of contenting my Self with so slight a Survey of them, as I at first intended. And therefore after I had gone from Ostend, through Newport [,J Dunkirk, S l Omer, Aire [,]Bethune, Lille, Tournay, Mons (where my curiosity drew Me to see y* field of Battle) & so return 'd to Brussels, We all agreed to finish our Tour by Seing y e Towns on y e Meuse, and that famous River it Self ; the going down which from Namur to Maestricht (thro' Huy, & Leige) was none of the least Delight, I received hi my Peregrination. At Huy we stai'd 3 weeks for y e Sake of y e Waters, & y e Company from all Parts, which rendezvous there for y Sake of them. The most agreable Situation oi this Place, the goodness & variety of the Company, & the Benefitt which I hi particular receiv'd with respect to my own Health, made y e 3 weeks of our Stay there y c most pleasant of all our Tour, as y 3 months we spent in it were by much the most pleasant of of [sic] all y c former part of my Life. After some time spent at Leige, we made a small Tour on horseback to Spaw, and Aix la Chapelle, taking Stablo,* & Limburg hi our way ; y e former being a Monestary which by Reason of the Antiquity of its Establishment highly deserves the Strangers Curiosity : the latter we saw onely as it lay in our way ; Tho' it is a Capital' of one of y e seventeen provinces, & is remarquable for its manufacture of broad Cloth (which I found not comparable to ours in England) & y e Country around it more deservedly famous for excellent cheese ; which I may truly say it makes to Per- fection. From Aix la Chapelle We came to Maestricht & from thence Cross'd the Country another way to Louvain ; passing through S* Tron, & Tirlemont (two very ancient Towns) & by y e famous Landen. By the Course I took, which I have here represented to your Lordship, You will easily conceive that it was no slight View I have had cf the Country : But the Seing of so glorious a Country as is in particular Brabant for its prodigious fertility, & y e Countrys adjacent to y e Meuse for y e incredible Beauty of its Pro- spects, &c, tho' it was a Considerable Satisfac- tion in it Self, yet it was vastly inferior to the Pleasure I had in the many hours of Conversation I have spent with learned Men especialy Eccle- siasticks of all Countrys, & Orders, & Religious of both Sexes. One may easily by imagination travel over different Countrys, for it is onely varying in our Thoughts y e Face of the Earth, But there is something so peculiar in what relates to y e difference of Religions among Mankind that one can never make a right judgment of Men hi this particular without personaly sounding: Them. I have ever Since I began to think for Myself, thought Religion to be not onely the Charactaristick of Humane Nature, but the noblest Distinction that belongs to it. And I have thought it a Subject well deserving Time, & Pains in order to have a right apprehension of it. In order to have this I have enquir'd into most Religions of the World, But I know not how it has happened, that I was the least acquainted with the Roman of any; Unless it is owing to This, That it is impossible to have a just Idea of the Romish Religion, but by seing their Churches, their Convents, their Ceremonies in those Coun- trys where they have a free Exercise of it. It must have been occasion'd by a particular In- curiosity that I never was in the Popish Chapel* at London hi my Life ; for I am sure, was there a Chinese paged, or a Mahometan Mosque, I had not fail'd to have seen them. On this account I came into a New World, when I came first to Antwerp, and so much was I possess'd with it, that the novalty of it hardly disappeard, when I came to that famous city (worthy by its Situa- tion & magnificent buildings of a much better Fate than it has) a second Time on my Return. As the Result of y e Inquiry I have made into Religion, is not to overvalue what may happen to appear more particularly right to my own Eyes, to the Prejudice of Other Persons judg- ments ; So it is with all the Pleasure hi the World that I hear another lay open the Grounds of his particular Sentiments," and not without repug- nance that I enter into a Dispute with him on y e account of their Diversity from my Own. I am persuaded the true Nature of Religion lyes, in the living under the Sense of a Supreme Being, and in exercising that Power He has given Us
 * Stavelot.
 * The Sardinian Chapel?