Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/68

56 the damned and flames. The place is grotto-work. Within there is a representation of our Lord swathed in linen. All over there are statues, so so. David is at a respectable distance from purgatory: this makes it the more remarkable that the Sepulchre is seated in purgatory. Indeed, indeed, there is much absurdity.

There is an academy for drawing and painting, with a museum. The Place is in a garden.

On arriving at Malines we found Mr. Pradt gone from his bishopric amongst his brethren; and we are assured he was a "vraiment français," and that he was not a "Catholique," and that this town wanted a "vraiment Catholique."

[The Abbé de Pradt, born in Auvergne in 1759, had been a champion of the monarchy in the Constituent Assembly of 1789-91. Napoleon made him Archbishop of Malines towards 1809, but afterwards viewed him with disfavour. He resigned the Archbishopric in 1816, receiving a pension. He wrote a number of books on political and public matters, and died in 1837.]

The country from Antwerp to Malines becomes more and more like England: trees more various, not the same dead flat but varied with gentle swells, many pollards, and more miserable cottages.

There is in the Cathedral [in Antwerp] a painting by Floris—the one on which is the bee—where he has