It is not difficult to imagine the vicissitudes of the woollen trade of Belgium, thus driven, within five-and-twenty years, from the markets of France and her colonies, Holland, Java, and Germany, and, shut up within the narrow circle of her new independence, to maintain a competition with her two powerful rivals--the English and the French. Its present condition and prospects are thus noticed in the intelligent volume of M. Briavionne. “After having participated, for so many years, in the splendour of the Empire, the woollen manufactures of Belgium underwent a decline in the early stage of her connexion with Holland, which she ultimately recovered, and with such a firm success, that the events of 1830 inflicted on it but a momentary injury. The close of 1831, and the years 1832, 1833 and 1834, were, on the whole, a period of satisfactory trade. But now commenced a struggle of every description, and the clothing for the army being speedily accomplished, it became essential to look for new outlets abroad. But just at this crisis came the consolidation of the Zoll-Verein in Germany--the plague, which ravaged the Levant--the cholera, which terrified Italy--and, above all, the commercial calamities of the United States in 1836 and 1837, each and all of which interfered directly with her demand; and, to crown all, a period of depression in the home market in 1838, and last year arrived, simultaneously with a change in public taste, as to the fashion of dress, which altered the whole character of their productions, and imposed the expense of new machinery, and differently constructed apparatus of all kinds. The general result is, at present, a weighty depression, especially in the poorer districts of Dison; and one may sum up the recent history of the trade by saying, that the two first years after the separation from Holland were _good_--1834, _disastrous_--1835 and 1836, _passable_--1837 and 1838, _bad_--and 1839, equally so.”[15] Verviers is an open, gay looking country town, not like the manufacturing places of England, which are dense, red-bricked rows of smoky houses, thickly huddled together--but with broad, sunny streets, and handsome white houses; the dwellings of the proprietors and their factories, being equally ornamented on the front next the street. The country around it, though beautiful, is barren, and provisions of all kinds are as expensive in Verviers as in Brussels.