The first sight of Brussels, on approaching it from the side of Malines, is well calculated to give a favourable impression of its beauty and extent, the long planted line of the Allée Vert, terminating at the handsome gate d’Anvers, (formerly the Porte Guillaume, before the change of dynasty), with its dark iron balustrade and gilded capitals, and in front, the steep acclivity covered with streets and buildings of the modern and more elegant town, whilst the turrets of the Hôtel de Ville and the towers of St. Gudule are equally conspicuous, rising above the roofs of the ancient city which nestles at its base. The city itself, though of remote antiquity, has nothing very antique in its first appearance, and, in fact, it is only in the narrow alleys and passages of the lower quarter that the mansions and municipal buildings of the former nobles and burghers of Brabant are to be discerned. Even here there are fewer architectural traces of the magnificence of the middle ages than in almost any other of the great cities of Belgium. The Grand Place is a splendid exception to this observation, as it is surrounded on all sides with lofty old Spanish-looking houses, in the style, at least, if not of the date of the palmy days of Brabant, its high peaked roofs bristling with tiers of little grim windows, its pointed gables covered with bas-reliefs and carvings, and the ample fronts of its mansions richly decorated with arabesques in stone, which had once been gaudily coloured, and here and there tipped with gold. On one side starts up to a surprising height the gothic tower of the Hôtel de Ville, by far the most beautiful in the Low Countries, and on the opposite one is a vast gloomy-looking building, now converted into shops, which was once the _Maison Communale_ of the city; and being rebuilt by the Infanta Isabella, in the early part of the seventeenth century, was, in commemoration of the deliverance of Brussels from the plague, dedicated to Notre Dame de la Paix, with an inscription, which is still legible, though much defaced: “_A peste, fame et bello libera nos Maria pacis_.”