Mechlin is full of priests, as it abounds in churches, and is the residence of an Archbishop. The present prelate is M. Sterckx, son to a farmer at the village of Ophem, but one of the most restless, energetic and ambitious ecclesiastics that ever aspired to political power. He obtained his present See subsequently to the Revolution, but he is now the leading spirit of the _parti-prêtre_ in the legislature, and his will and wishes, transmitted through becoming channels, serve to “move, direct, and animate the whole” policy of the state, in the present ascendant position of the church in both houses. The Abbé de Pradt was Bishop of Mechlin under Napoleon. Malines is a very antique place; its name has been derived from _Maris linea_, and the influence of the tide upon the current of the Scheldt, and its tributary, the Dyle, on the side of which it is built, is felt for a mile beyond the town. It was once fortified, and besieged by Marlborough and others, but the French levelled the ramparts and filled up the fosse in 1804. Its lace manufacture has been sadly interfered with by other competitors, but above all, by the invention of tulle and bobbin-net, but the genuine specimens of its ancient production are still in the most distinguished repute. The other occupations of the population, which is somewhere about 20,000, are the manufactures of cashmere shawls, and chairs of gilded leather, which were, at one time, an article of export, so choice was the taste of their designs; they still engage upwards of four hundred workmen, and are in as great repute as ever with the Dutch. The district around is as usual, highly agricultural, and the canals which traverse it and pass by the city, have rendered Mechlin a prosperous seat of the flax trade, and quite an entrepôt for corn and oil. The only objects of interest, and depositaries of art in Mechlin, are, as usual, the churches. The Cathedral, whose solid moresco tower is seen from a vast distance, is of great antiquity, though not remarkable for its beauty. The tower is of amazing height, though unfinished; we ascended it by a stone staircase, in which I lost count after reckoning an ascent of five hundred steps; I should, therefore, conclude it to be at least three hundred feet high. It contains one of those “corals for grown gentlemen,” as some Fadladeen in music has denominated the carillons of the Netherlands--a chime of innumerable stops, set in motion by machinery. But, I confess, that the well arranged harmony of the carillons is to me infinitely more pleasing than the monotonous clangour that on fête days in London, disturb the city from its propriety, or the sweet but “drowsy tinklings” from every church and convent, that load the air with sound on an evening in Italy. Their gay and measured melody sometimes strikes so unexpectedly upon the ear, descending through such a distance from the sky, that it, also, seems like the song of Ariel attracting Ferdinand:--