Near Brussels we passed a body of Brunswick troops (called Black Brunswickers). They were dressed in black, and mounted upon black horses, and their helmets were surmounted with tall nodding plumes of black horsehair, which gave them a most sombre and funereal appearance. As they slowly moved along the road before us in a long regular procession, they looked exactly like an immense moving hearse. I laughed, and observed to my sister, "that one might take this for a bad omen, and that it reminded me of the mourning wedding-ring in the Simple Story." Some of these black, ominous looking men kept before us, and entered Brussels along with us. At first we passed through some mean, dirty streets, but the appearance of the town soon improved. The houses are large, ancient, and highly ornamented. There is an air of grandeur and of architectural design in the towns of Flanders, which is peculiarly striking, on first coming from the plain, diminutive, shopkeeper-looking, red brick rows of houses in England. The streets of Brussels are narrow, but they have that air of bustle, opulence, and animation, which characterises a metropolis. To us everything was new and amusing: the people, the dresses, the houses, the shops, the very signs diverted us. Every notice was stuck up in the French language, and quite in the French style: the poorest and most paltry shop called itself a Magazine. Here were Magasins de Modes, Magasins de Souliers, Magasins de----everything, in short: it was amusing to see the names of people and trades, that we had only been accustomed to meet with in French books and plays, stuck up in gilt letters above every shop-door.