I think it is Dr. Clarke who advises every traveller, who wishes speedily to map the spot in which he finds himself in his memory, to take the earliest opportunity of ascending the nearest tower or mountain, and I am most fully prepared to certify for its advantages. One half-hour on the tower of the Cathedral of Antwerp will give a stranger a better idea of its localities and extent, than a week’s driving around its streets and environs. The Cathedral itself is situated near the pretty little square called the _Place Vert_, (which was, I think, at one time a burying-place attached to the church). The building itself is defaced, as usual, by a number of ordinary houses erected against its walls, and which, of course, cover up all the exterior beauty of the architecture. It stands, tradition says, on a spot of ground which belonged to a monastery founded by Godfrey of Bouillon. The exquisite steeple, however, was built shortly before the reign of Charles V., (who stood as godfather to the great Bell,) from a design which originally contemplated two towers of equal grandeur and elegance, but one only was completed. The ascent is fatiguing in the extreme; and as the day was stormy, the vibrations of the tower were sensibly felt as the wind rushed through its beautiful galleries. Workmen have been employed for some years in restoring all the decayed portions of the stone-work, and the steeple is still filled with their scaffolding and machinery. But the view, long before gaining the extreme summit, is by far the finest in Belgium, extending, as it does, over the broad current of the Scheldt, whose windings can be traced from Ghent to Flushing, whilst to the north, the eye can reach Breda and the frontiers of Holland; to the south and east, the distant cities of Brussels, Mechlin, Turnhout, and Louvain. The vast extent of country which is swept by one of these Flemish prospects is really quite inconceivable, whilst the absence of a single hill to intercept the horizon upon either side, renders them as peculiar as they are surprising. Over the grand doorway, as we enter below the tower, is a crucifix in bronze, which was cast from the fragments of a statue which the Duke of Alva erected to himself upon the Citadel, with the insulting motto on its pedestal “_ex ære captivo_,” in allusion to its being made out of the cannon, taken in his first successful battle against the Prince of Orange at Jeminghem, near Emden in 1568. This memorable statue gave origin to the distich, Cur statuam vivo tibi Dux Albane dedisti? An quia defuncto nemo daturus erat? Requesens, the successor of Alva, in his anxiety to conciliate the people, took down this record of their sufferings, and concealed it, but being discovered by the citizens after the “Pacification of Ghent,” it was by them melted and applied to its present purpose.