The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal:--"Friday, 14th July. Bruges.--The morning was bright, sunshine and shade falling upon the lines of houses, and the out-juttings of the more noble buildings. In the bright light of morning the same tender melancholy was over the city as in the sober time of twilight, yet with intervening images of rural life. A few peasants were now entering the town, and the rattling of a rustic cart, prettily laden with vegetables fresh from the soil, gave a gentle stirring to the fancy. Early as it was, people of all ages were abroad chiefly on their way to the churches: the figure, gait, and motions of the women in harmony with the collegiate air of the streets, and the processions and solemnities of Catholic worship. Such figures might have walked through these streets, two hundred years ago; streets bearing no stamp of progress or of decay. One might fancy that as the city had been built so it had remained. We first went to the Church of St. Salvador, a venerable Gothic edifice. Within the Church, our walk between the lofty pillars was very solemn. We saw in perspective the marble floor scattered over, at irregular distances, with people of all ages--standing, or upon their knees, silent, yet making such motions as the order of their devotions prescribed, crossing themselves, beating their breasts, or telling their beads. Such the general appearance of the worshippers: but the gestures of some were more impassioned.... "We spent some time in admiring the beauty of the choir, and every other part of this noble building, adorned as it is with statues; and pictures not in the paltry style of the Churches at Calais and Fernes; but works of art that would be interesting _anywhere_, and are much more so in these sacred places, where the wretched and the happy, the poor and the rich are alike invited to cast away worldly feelings, and may be elevated by the representations of Scripture history, or of the sufferings and glory of martyrs and saints." In the final arrangement of his poems, Wordsworth placed the one entitled _Incident at Brugès_--which belonged to the year 1828--after the two sonnets on Brugès in these "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820." In the present edition the former poem is restored to its chronological place (see vol. vii.), where it is associated with _A Jewish Family_. As a consequence the numbering of the poems differs slightly from that which Wordsworth finally adopted.--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 477: 1827. And Tales transmitted through the popular tongue, 1822. ] [Footnote 478: 1837. Strikes at ... 1822. Strikes to ... 1827. ] [Footnote 479: 1827. ... slide ... 1822. ] [Footnote 480: 1837. A nobler ... 1822. ] IV AFTER VISITING THE FIELD OF WATERLOO