When the convents of the Low Countries were reduced in number by the Austrian government under Joseph II, he made a special exemption in favour of the Beguines, they were equally recognized and protected, when the French directory completed the suppression of the remaining religious houses of Belgium, and the King of Holland following the same example, confirmed them, in the possession of their privileges and property, by a charter granted in 1826 or 1827. A number of the sisters occupy a portion of their time in making lace; their dwellings, streets and gardens, are preserved with a “beauty of cleanliness” truly delightful. Every thing we could see or learn of their inmates was characterized by gentleness and goodness, and their active benevolence, (in spite of my uncle Toby’s insinuation,) the dictate of their heart, and not of their profession.[18] In the whole aspect of their dwelling, there was nothing of the “Relentless walls, whose darksome round contains, Repentant sighs and voluntary pains.” But a cheerful serenity, and an enlivening interest, very different from the ideas usually associated with the gloom of a convent. The churches of Ghent in which, as usual, the grand objects of curiosity and vertu are amassed and exhibited, are in point of number, richness, and sombre beauty, quite proportionate to the other attractions of Ghent. They are all, (with one exception, that of St. Peter’s, which is a copy of the one at Rome,) built in the same venerable and massive style of gothic architecture, with huge square turrets, lofty aisles, rich altars, pulpits of carved oak and marble, and chapels decorated with paintings by the old masters of the Flemish School. The population is almost exclusively Roman Catholic, hardly 2000 of its 95,000 inhabitants being of the reformed religion. For the use of the latter, a church was appropriated by the King of Holland, in 1817, which had once been attached to a convent of Capuchins, and on their suppression, had been converted into a military magazine and hospital by the French. Such, however, was the animosity of the priesthood to this act of toleration on the part of the King, that it was for some time necessary to station a guard, both within the church and without, to protect those who frequented it from violence or insult. And yet Ghent has the reputation of being the least intolerant and bigoted city in the Netherlands.