grant, and therefore are not likely to be observed by man, whose records or whose knowledge are not permitted to be handed down beyond a certain extent. Knowledge is not happiness; and when the accumulation has arrived to that height so as to render it dangerous, it is swept away by the all-wise and benevolent Creator, and we are permitted to begin again _de novo_. After all, what we term posterity is but a drop of water in the ocean of Time. CHAPTER NINE. Brussels. There are few people in Brussels, indeed in Belgium, who do not complain of the revolution; all that goes wrong is at once ascribed to this cause--indeed I was rather staggered by one gentleman, at Ghent, telling me very gravely that they had had no fat oxen since the revolution; but this he explained by stating that the oxen were fattened from the refuse of several manufactories, all of which had been broken up, the proprietors having quitted for Holland. The revolution has certainly been, up to the present time, injurious to both countries, but it is easy to foretell that eventually Belgium will flourish, and Holland, in all probability, be the sufferer. The expenses of the latter even now are greater than her revenue, and when the railroads of Belgium have been completed, as proposed, to Vienna, the revenue of Holland will be proportionably decreased from her loss of the carrying trade. It may be urged that Holland can also have her railroads--but she cannot: so large a proportion of her population find their support at present on the canals, that a railroad would be productive of the most injurious effects. It is true that she can lower her rates of carriage, but the merchant will save ten days of transport by the railroads, and this rapidity of communication will always obtain the preference.