Download the Full Ebook and Access More Features - ebooknice.

com

(Ebook) Rust High Performance: Learn to skyrocket

the performance of your Rust applications by Iban
Eguia Moraza ISBN 9781788399487, 9781785880254,
178839948X, 178588025X
https://ebooknice.com/product/rust-high-performance-learn-
to-skyrocket-the-performance-of-your-rust-
applications-50493968

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebooknice.com

 Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) ready for you
Download now and discover formats that fit your needs...

Start reading on any device today!

(Ebook) Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook by Loucas, Jason;

Viles, James ISBN 9781459699816, 9781743365571,
9781925268492, 1459699815, 1743365578, 1925268497
https://ebooknice.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-6661374

ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Matematik 5000+ Kurs 2c Lärobok by Lena

Alfredsson, Hans Heikne, Sanna Bodemyr ISBN 9789127456600,
9127456609
https://ebooknice.com/product/matematik-5000-kurs-2c-larobok-23848312

ebooknice.com

(Ebook) SAT II Success MATH 1C and 2C 2002 (Peterson's SAT

II Success) by Peterson's ISBN 9780768906677, 0768906679

https://ebooknice.com/product/sat-ii-success-
math-1c-and-2c-2002-peterson-s-sat-ii-success-1722018

ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Rust for Network Programming and Automation: Learn

to Design and Automate Networks, Performance Optimization
by Brian Anderson ISBN 9788196228538, 8196228538
https://ebooknice.com/product/rust-for-network-programming-and-
automation-learn-to-design-and-automate-networks-performance-
optimization-48076880
ebooknice.com
(Ebook) Rust for C++ Programmers: Learn how to embed Rust
in C/C++ with ease by Mustafif Khan

https://ebooknice.com/product/rust-for-c-programmers-learn-how-to-
embed-rust-in-c-c-with-ease-48159110

ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Master SAT II Math 1c and 2c 4th ed (Arco Master

the SAT Subject Test: Math Levels 1 & 2) by Arco ISBN
9780768923049, 0768923042
https://ebooknice.com/product/master-sat-ii-math-1c-and-2c-4th-ed-
arco-master-the-sat-subject-test-math-levels-1-2-2326094

ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Rust Crash Course: Build High-Performance,

Efficient and Productive Software with the Power of Next-
Generation Programming Skills (English Edition) by
Abhishek Kumar ISBN 9355510993
https://ebooknice.com/product/rust-crash-course-build-high-
performance-efficient-and-productive-software-with-the-power-of-next-
generation-programming-skills-english-edition-44479710
ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Effective Rust: 35 Specific Ways to Improve Your

Rust Code by David Drysdale ISBN 9781098151409, 1098151402

https://ebooknice.com/product/effective-rust-35-specific-ways-to-
improve-your-rust-code-56677956

ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C -

Depth Study: the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition by
Benjamin Harrison ISBN 9781398375147, 9781398375048,
1398375144, 1398375047
https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-igcse-and-o-level-history-
workbook-2c-depth-study-the-united-states-1919-41-2nd-edition-53538044

ebooknice.com
Rust High Performance

Learn to skyrocket the performance of your Rust applications

Iban Eguia Moraza
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Rust High Performance

Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information
presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied.
Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products
mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the
accuracy of this information.

Commissioning Editor: Merint Mathew

Acquisition Editor: Sandeep Mishra
Content Development Editor: Akshada Iyer
Technical Editor: Abhishek Sharma
Copy Editor: Safis Editing
Project Coordinator: Prajakta Naik
Proofreader: Safis Editing
Indexer: Mariammal Chettiyar
Graphics: Jisha Chirayil
Production Coordinator: Arvindkumar Gupta

First published: March 2018

Production reference: 1270318

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78839-948-7

www.packtpub.com
To my father, Manu, and to the memory of my mother, Arantza, for giving me all the opportunities I had in my
life, and for being there when I most needed it.
mapt.io

Mapt is an online digital library that gives you full access to over
5,000 books and videos, as well as industry leading tools to help you
plan your personal development and advance your career. For more
information, please visit our website.
Why subscribe?
Spend less time learning and more time coding with practical
eBooks and Videos from over 4,000 industry professionals

Improve your learning with Skill Plans built especially for you

Get a free eBook or video every month

Mapt is fully searchable

Copy and paste, print, and bookmark content

PacktPub.com
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book
published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the
eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are
entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at
service@packtpub.com for more details.

At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical

articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters, and receive
exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks.
Contributors
About the author
Iban Eguia Moraza is a passionate Rust developer. He has a
bachelor's degree in computer engineering and a master's degree in
information and communication security. He has over 10 years of
experience in web development, and since 2015, he has been
developing Rust applications.

Iban loves space exploration and the latest technologies. In this

regard, he has developed open source software for stratospheric
balloons from the ground up, and he now works at the CERN particle
physics laboratory. He likes to travel to learn from the most
experienced people.
This book would not have been possible without the moral help of my dad and coworkers. They were really
motivating when I was struggling to find enough time to write the book. I also have to thank the Rust
community for always being helpful in fixing all my issues and questions. Without doubt, it's the most friendly
and welcoming community I have ever encountered in software development.
About the reviewer
Daniel Durante is an avid coffee drinker/roaster, motorcyclist,
archer, welder, and carpenter whenever he isn't programming. From
the age of 12, he has been involved with web and embedded
programming with PHP, Node.js, Golang, Rust, and C.

He has worked on text-based browser games that have reached over

1,000,000 active players, created bin-packing software for CNC
machines, embedded programming with cortex-m and PIC circuits,
high-frequency trading applications, and helped contribute to one of
the oldest ORMs of Node.js (SequelizeJS).

He has also reviewed the following books for Packt:

PostgresSQL Developer's Guide

PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance
Rust Programming By Example
I would like to thank my parents, my brother, my mentors, and friends who've all put up with my insanity of
sitting in front of a computer day in and day out. I would not be here today if it wasn't for their patience,
guidance, and love.
Packt is searching for authors
like you
If you're interested in becoming an author for Packt, please visit autho
rs.packtpub.com and apply today. We have worked with thousands of

developers and tech professionals, just like you, to help them share
their insight with the global tech community. You can make a
general application, apply for a specific hot topic that we are
recruiting an author for, or submit your own idea.
Table of Contents
Title Page

Copyright and Credits

Rust High Performance

Dedication

Packt Upsell

Why subscribe?

PacktPub.com

Contributors

About the author

About the reviewer

Packt is searching for authors like you

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Download the example code files

Conventions used

Get in touch
Reviews

1. Common Performance Pitfalls

Asking the Rust compiler about performance

Optimizations
Build configuration

Optimization level
Debug information

Link-time optimizations
Debug assertions

Panic behavior
Runtime library paths

Translation issues
Indexing degradations
 Using iterators
Iterator adaptors

Real-life example
Specialized adaptors

Interaction between adaptors

Itertools

Borrowing degradations
Cyclomatic complexity

Summary
2. Extra Performance Enhancements

Compile-time checks
Sequential state machines

Complex state machines

Real-life type system check example

Extra performance tips

Using closures to avoid runtime evaluation

Unstable sorting
Map hashing

Perfect hash functions

Standard library collections

Sequences
Maps

Sets
Summary

3. Memory Management in Rust

Mastering the borrow checker

Allocations
Mutability, borrowing, and owning

Lifetimes
Memory representation

Alignment
Complex enumerations

Unions
Shared pointers

The cell module

Cells
 RefCell
The rc module

Summary
4. Lints and Clippy

Using Rust compiler lints

Lints
Avoiding anonymous parameters

Avoiding heap allocated box pointers

Avoiding missing implementations
Enforcing documentation
Pointing out trivial casts

Linting unsafe code blocks

Unused lints
Variant size differences
Lint groups

Clippy
Installation
Configuration
Lints

Casting
Bad practice
Performance lints
Unwraps

Shadowing
Integer overflow
Lint groups
Summary

5. Profiling Your Rust Application

Understanding the hardware
Understanding how the CPU works
Speeding up memory access with the cache

Cache misses
How can you fix it?
Cache invalidation
CPU pipeline

Branch prediction
 The relevance of branch prediction for our code
Profiling tools
Valgrind

Callgrind
Cachegrind
OProfile

Summary
6. Benchmarking
Selecting what to benchmark
Benchmarking in nightly Rust

Benchmarking in stable Rust

Continuous integration for benchmarks
Travis-CI integration
Benchmark statistics with Criterion

Summary
7. Built-in Macros and Configuration Items
Understanding attributes
Trait derivations

Crate features
Configuration attributes
Macros
Console printing

String formatting
Compilation environment
Loading byte arrays and strings at compile time
Code paths

Checking preconditions and postconditions

Others
Nightly Rust
Conservative trait return

Constant functions
Inline assembly and naked functions
Using bigger integers
Single instruction multiple data

Allocation API
Compiler plugins
 Summary
8. Must-Have Macro Crates

Working with external data

Data serialization and deserialization
Serializing and deserializing complex structures
Parsing byte streams

Learning about useful small crates

Creating lazily evaluated statics
Avoiding boilerplate code for the builder pattern
Managing errors

Logging efficiently in Rust

Creating command-line interfaces
Using Rust for web development
Creating extremely efficient templates

Connecting with a database

Creating a complete web server
Summary
9. Creating Your Own Macros

Creating your own standard macros

Macro variants
Complex macros
Creating procedural macros

Implementing a simple trait

Implementing complex derivations
Implementing getters
Implementing setters

Metaprogramming in nightly Rust

Understanding compiler plugins
Declarative macros
Summary

10. Multithreading
Concurrency in Rust
Understanding the Send and Sync traits
The Send trait

The Sync trait

Other types of concurrency in Rust
 Understanding multithreading
Creating threads

Panicking in Rust
Moving data between threads
The move keyword
Sharing data between threads

Channels between threads

Multithreading crates
Non-blocking data structures
Scoped threads

Thread pooling
Parallel iterators

Summary

11. Asynchronous Programming

Introduction to asynchronous programming

Understanding I/O in the CPU

Getting the kernel to control the I/O

Asynchronous programming from the programmer's perspective

Understanding futures
Future combinators

Asynchronous I/O in Rust

Creating Tokio codecs

WebSockets in Rust

Understanding the new Generators

Summary
Other Books You May Enjoy

Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Preface
Welcome to Rust High Performance. In this book, you will get a
gentle introduction to high-performance programming by learning
how to improve the performance of your Rust code. It will show you
how to translate your code from other languages properly by
avoiding common bottlenecks, and it will show you how to easily
increase the performance of your application using some idiomatic
Rust APIs.

You will learn about the great Rust community by finding great
crates that will increase the development efficiency while also
improving the performance of your application, and you will write
examples to use all your knowledge. You will write your own macros
and custom derives, and you will learn about asynchronous and
multithreaded programming.
Who this book is for
In this book, you will find everything you need to improve the
performance of your Rust code; you will learn many tricks and use
helpful crates and tools. Therefore, the book is written from the
basis that you already have some knowledge of programming in
Rust.

This book will not cover the whole world of high-performance

programming since it's an incredibly wide topic. You will find a gentle
introduction to most of the generic high-performance programming
concepts and learn how specific patterns can be used in the Rust
programming language.
What this book covers
, Common Performance Pitfalls, helps you learn why
Chapter 1

translating from languages such as C/C++ can lead to big

performance decline, how to improve your algorithms using different
Copy/Clone types and references, and understand how cyclomatic
complexity can make compiler optimizations less effective.

, Extra Performance Enhancements, takes a step forward to

Chapter 2

understand some tips and tricks Rust gives us to improve the

performance of your applications. After learning about common
mistakes in the previous chapters, you will learn how to use the Rust
type system to your advantage, creating complex compile-time
checks and evaluations. You will also understand the difference
between the common standard library collections so that you can
choose the right one for your algorithm.

, Memory Management in Rust, shows you how to improve

Chapter 3

the memory footprint of your applications by taking advantage of the

borrow checker. You will learn about lifetimes and how to properly
use them, understand the different representation attributes that will
help your data be properly structured in memory, and finally, learn
how to create efficient shared pointer structures for your application
using standard library types.

, Lints and Clippy, teaches you the power of lints and how to
Chapter 4
configure them to give you proper suggestions. You'll learn how to
configure clippy, an incredibly powerful tool that will point out
common errors and potential performance improvements. In this
chapter, you will learn the most important clippy lints and use them
in your development workflow.

, Profiling Your Rust Application, covers how to use profiling

Chapter 5

software so that you can easily find performance bottlenecks in your

applications. You'll learn how cache misses impact your code and
how to find where in the code is the application spending more time.
You will learn to fix those bottlenecks and therefore improve the
overall performance of the application.

Chapter 6, Benchmarking, discusses how to detect performance critical

code and how to benchmark it in both Rust stable and nightly. You
will also learn how to set up your continuous integration
environment to get performance reports and track them during the
development process of your project.

Chapter 7, Built-in Macros and Configuration Items, brings you to the

world of attributes that can personalize your code so that you target
specific platforms with each section of your code using all of each
platform's potential. You will understand how to divide your crate so
that not all the code has to be compiled for each use, and you will
finally learn how to use nightly features to improve the efficiency of
your code and the amount of code to write.

, Must-Have Macro Crates, introduces you to multiple

Chapter 8

metaprogramming crates—create serializable structures, deserialize

data from languages such as JSON or TOML, parse log files, or
create a lot of boilerplate code for your data structures. Here, you
can understand how to initialize complex static structures and use a
proper error handling. Finally, thanks to nightly Rust and plugins,
you will be able to create a small web server with a database and
even attach to it the fastest template system in existence.

, Creating Your Own Macros, covers how to write your own

Chapter 9

macros to avoid code boilerplate. You will understand how the new
macros 1.1 work and create your first custom derive. Finally, you will
learn how compiler plugins internally work and will create your own
compiler plugin.

, Multithreading, outlines how to create multiple threads to

Chapter 10
balance the work of your application. You will understand the full
power of Rust's threads and the synchronization primitives in the
standard library. In addition, you will learn how to send information
between threads. Finally, you will read about some useful crates that
will enable you to implement work stealing algorithms, parallel
iterators, and more.

, Asynchronous Programming, helps you understand how

Chapter 11
asynchronous programming works. Here, you can learn how to
develop asynchronous algorithms in Rust, thanks to mio and futures,
and learn the new async/await syntax. You can also create
asynchronous applications using tokio and WebSockets.
To get the most out of this
book
This book assumes some basic knowledge of the Rust programming
language. If you are new to Rust, the first few chapters of the
official Rust book are a great prelude. Nevertheless, you should have
moderate to deep knowledge of at least one programming language;
basic knowledge of terminal usage will also be needed.

Having basic knowledge of computer architectures is a plus, along

with basic knowledge of high-performance programming in C/C++.
They are not required, though, since in this book we will cover all
the base theory to understand how the performance improvements
work behind the scenes.

You will need a code editor or an IDE to follow the book. Rust has
been heavily tested in Microsoft's Visual Studio Code, GitHub's Atom,
and IntelliJ's IDEA IDE. I have personally used Atom to write the
code examples, but feel free to use your favorite text editor or IDE.
You will probably find plugins or extensions for your editor.

In the case of VS Code, Atom, and IntelliJ IDEA, you will find official
Rust packages along with unofficial extensions. Personally, I've been
using the Tokamak package for Atom.
Download the example code
files
You can download the example code files for this book from your
account at www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you
can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed
directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.

2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the
onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or
extract the folder using the latest version of:

WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows

Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://githu
b.com/PacktPublishing/Rust-High-Performance. In case there's an update to the
code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and
videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Conventions used
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder

CodeInText

names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user

input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "The iterator will not
run until you call collect() method or use it in a loop. Those are the
moments in which the next() method gets executed."

A block of code is set as follows:

for row in arr1.iter().cartesian_product(arr2.iter()) {
print!("{:?}, ", row);
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

cargo install --no-default-features --features sqlite diesel_cli

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you

see onscreen.
Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Get in touch
Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: Email feedback@packtpub.com and mention the book

title in the subject of your message. If you have questions about any
aspect of this book, please email us at questions@packtpub.com.

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy

of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in
this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please
visit www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the
Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any
form on the Internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us
with the location address or website name. Please contact us at
copyright@packtpub.com with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic

that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or
contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 Instead of the narrow, dingy passages which occur in cities of
similar antiquity and renown, there is an air peculiarly gay and
imposing in the broad and cheerful streets of Bruges; its streets
enlivened by long lines of lindens and oriental plane trees, and
traversed by canals, not sluggish and stagnant, but flowing with an
active current through the city. Upon these, the wealthier mansions
open to the rear, a little ornamented “pleasance” separating them
from the river, laid out in angular walks, and ornamented with
evergreens, clipped en quenouille, and here and there a statue or an
antique vase. The squares maintain the same character of dignity
and gravity, overshadowed with “old ancestral trees,” and flanked by
their municipal halls and towers—the monuments of a time when
Bruges was the Tyre of Western Europe, and her Counts and citizens
combined the enterprize and wealth of the merchant with the fiery
bearing of the soldier. These edifices, too, exhibit in their style
something of the sturdy pride of their founders, presenting less of
ornament and decoration than of domineering height and massive
solidity, and striking the visitor rather by their strength than their
elegance. On the whole, Bruges reminded me strongly of Pisa, and
some of the towns of northern Italy, whose history and decline are
singularly similar to its own. The air of its edifices and buildings is
the same, and there is around it a similar appearance of desertion
rather than decay—though in Bruges the retirement and solitude
which was, till recently, its characteristic, has been much invaded by
the concourse of strangers whom the railroad brings hourly to visit
it.
Bruges, in the olden time, was indebted for its political importance
to its being the most ancient capital of the Low Countries, and one
of the residences of the old “Foresters of Flanders,” and of that
illustrious line of sovereign Counts and Dukes, whose dynasty
extends almost from Charlemagne to Charles V, and whose exploits
enrich the annals of the crusades and form the theme of the
romancers and minstrels of the middle ages. Of the palaces of these
stormy potentates, scarcely a vestige now remains, except a few
dilapidated walls of the “Princenhof,” in which Charles le Téméraire
espoused Margaret of York, the sister of our Edward IV, and in
which, also, his interesting daughter, Mary of Valois, Duchess of
Burgundy, married Maximilian of Austria, son to Frederick IV—that
“portentous alliance,” which subsequently brought the Netherlands
under the dominion of the Emperor, and consigned them, on the
abdication of Charles V, to the tender mercies of the sanguinary
Philip of Spain. At her nuptials, the Duke of Bavaria acted as proxy
for the imperial bridegroom, and according to the custom of the
period, passed the night with the young duchess, each reposing in
full dress, with a sword placed between them, and in the presence
of four armed archers of the guard.
On the opposite side of the same square, stands, likewise, the
house, now an estaminet, in which her husband, Maximilian, then
King of the Romans, was, after her death, confined by the citizens of
Bruges, in 1487, in consequence of a dispute as to the custody of his
two children, in whom, by the death of their mother, was vested the
right to the sovereignty of Flanders. In spite of the fulminations of
the Pope, and the march of the Emperor, his father, with an army of
forty thousand men, the undaunted burghers held him a prisoner for
six weeks, till he submitted to their terms and took an oath to
respect their rights, and exact no vengeance for their violent
demonstration in their assertion.
Bruges was, likewise, upon two occasions the asylum of the exiled
monarchs of England; once when Edward IV took refuge there,
when flying from the Earl of Warwick’s rebellion; and, again, when
Charles II, in his exile, occupied a house in the Place d’Armes, at the
corner of the Rue St. Amand. It is now the shop of a tailor.
But all our recollections of Bruges are crowded with associations of
the poetry of history; and the very names of her chieftains, Baldwin
of the Iron Arm, Robert of Jerusalem, Margaret of Constantinople,
Philip the Handsome, and Louis of Crecy, call up associations of
chivalry, gallantry and romance.
From the thirteenth century to the close of the sixteenth, Bruges
was at once in the plentitude of her political power and the height of
her commercial prosperity. As the furs and iron of the north were not
yet carried by sea round the Baltic, and the wealth of India still
poured through the Red Sea into Genoa and Venice, Bruges became
one of the great entrepots where they were collected, in order to be
again distributed over Western Europe; and with Dantzic, Lubeck,
Hamburg, and a few other trading cities of the west, Bruges became
one of the leading commandaries of the Hanseatic League. The idea
of marine insurances was first acted upon at Bruges in the thirteenth
century, and the first exchange for the convenience of merchants
was built there in the century following.
Her manufactures were equally celebrated with her traffic and her
trade. Her tapestries were the models, and, indeed, the progenitors
of the Gobelins, which were established in France by a native of
Bruges, under the patronage of Henry IV; and the fame of her
woolstaplers and weavers has been perpetuated in the order of the
Golden Fleece, the emblem of which was selected by Philip the Good
in honour of the artizans of Bruges.
It was a native of Bruges, Beham, who, fifty years before the
enterprise of Columbus, ventured to “tempt the western main,” and
having discovered the Azores, first led the way to the awakening of a
new hemisphere.
Of the luxury of her citizens in this age, many traditions are still
extant; such as that of the wife of Philip the Fair exclaiming on
finding herself eclipsed in the splendour of her dress by the ladies of
her capital:—“Je croyais être ici la seule reine, mais j’en vois plus de
cent autour de moi!” A similar story is recorded of their husbands,
who when they returned to Paris with their Duke, Louis le Mael, to
do homage to King John, the successor of Philip of Valois, felt
affronted on finding that no cushions had been provided for them at
a banquet to which they were invited by the King, and having sat
upon their embroidered cloaks, declined to resume them on
departing, saying:—“Nous de Flandre, nous ne sommes point
accoutumés où nous dinons, d’emporter avec nous les coussins.”
 All this has now passed away, other nations have usurped her
foreign commerce, and her own rivals at home have extinguished
her manufactures. But still in her decline, Bruges wears all the air of
reduced aristocracy; her poor are said to be frightfully numerous in
proportion to her population, but they are not, as elsewhere,
ostentatiously offensive; except a few decrepid objects of
compassion, by the door of the cathedral, we did not see a beggar in
the streets. The dress of the lower orders is remarkable for its
cleanliness and neatness, and an universal costume with the females
of the bourgeoisie, was a white muslin cap with a lace border and a
long black silk cloak, with a hood which covered the head, and is
evidently a remnant of the Spanish mantilla. There was, also, a
cheerful decorum in the carriage of the people whom we met in the
streets, that one felt to be in accordance with the gravity of such a
venerable old place, as if the streets were consecrated ground:

The city one vast temple, dedicate

To mutual respect in word and deed,
To leisure, to forbearances sedate,
To social cares, from jarring passions freed.[3]

By the way, it is an instance of the abiding hatred with which the

people of the Low Countries must have, traditionally, regarded their
former tyrants, that so few traces of their dominion or their presence
should now be discernible in the country which they so long blasted
with their presence. Occasionally, one recognizes in the olive
complexion and coal black eye of the Fleming, the evidences of her
southern blood; and at Ghent and Brussels there are one or two
families who still bear the names of Alcala, Rey and Hermosa, and a
few others who trace their origin to Castilian ancestors; but there
are no striking monuments now existing of a people, who so long
exercised a malignant influence over the destinies of Flanders.
It is true that but a short period, about a century and a half,
elapsed from the death of Mary of Burgundy to that of Albert and
Isabella, but it is equally true, that for generations before, the
princes of the Low Countries had sought their matrimonial alliances
at the court of Spain; and under Philip the Handsome and Charles V,
when the Netherlands were in the pride of their prosperity, they
afforded an alluring point for the resort of the adventurers of that
country, and of the numbers who availed themselves of the royal
encouragement to settle there; it is curious that not a mansion, not
a monument, or almost a remnant should now be discernible.
In Bruges, as in most other catholic cities, the chief depositaries of
objects of popular admiration are the churches; and of these, the
most attractive and remarkable are the matchless sculptures in wood
which decorate the confessionals and pulpits, and in the richness
and masterly workmanship of which, the specimens in the
Netherlands are quite unrivalled. Bruges is rich in these. In the
church of Notre Dame, the pulpit is a superb work of art of this
description; chiselled in oak, supported by groups of figures the size
of life, and decorated throughout with arabesques and carvings of
flowers and fruit of the most charming execution. It is of vast
dimensions for such a work, reaching from the floor almost to the
gothic roof of the building. In the same church there are two
confessionals of equal elegance, each separated, as usual, into three
apartments by partitions, in front of each of which are caryatides,
which support the roof.
In the church of the Holy Saviour,[4] the grand organ presents
another example of this gorgeous carving; and in the little chapel of
St. Sang, which is possessed of a few drops of the genuine blood of
our Saviour, periodically exhibited in its jewelled shrine to the
faithful, there is a pulpit, perhaps, of better workmanship than taste,
the shell of which represents the terrestrial globe, (orbis veteribus
cognita), with a delineation of those geographical outlines which
were known at the period of its erection.
In works of art, the burghers of Bruges seem to have been
generous as well as ambitious in adorning their city, so long as its
municipal affluence placed it within their power to gratify their
tastes. The churches, are, therefore, rich in works of the early
Flemish school—the Van Eycks and Hans Hemling, and Pourbus and
their collaborators and successors: but at the period when the new
Flemish school had arisen, with Otto Vennius, and attained its
eminence under Rubens and Vandyk, Bruges had already suffered
her decline, the sun of her prosperity had gone down, and she
possesses no works of their pencil. The chief depositaries of
paintings in the city, are the church of St. Sauveur, the chapel of the
Hospital of St. John, and the Gallery of the Museum near the Quai
du Miroir. The three collections present precisely the same array of
names, and the same features of art, insipid and passionless faces,
figures harsh and incorrect in drawing, finished with that elaborate
care which seems to have been at all times the characteristic of the
schools of both Flanders and Holland, and gaudy, inharmonious
colours, upon a brilliant and generally gilded ground, in the
Byzantine style. Except as mere antiquities, these pictures have but
little interest to any except the mere historian of the art. The
collection in St. Saveur I did not see, as it had been removed in
consequence of a recent fire, but it seems from the lists to be rather
extensive.
That in the Museum is numerous, but monotonous and tiresome,
for the reasons I have mentioned, though Sir Joshua Reynolds
speaks with high approbation of some beauties, I presume, it
requires the eye of an artist to discern them. The gallery here
contains, also, a statue, by Calloigne, a native artist, of John Van
Eyck, the painter, called “John of Bruges,” to whom has been
ascribed the invention of painting in oil. His claim to the discovery is,
of course, incorrect, as the mummy cases of Egypt sufficiently attest,
but his merit as one of those, who, earliest and most successfully
applied it to the purposes of art, is sufficiently indicated by a glance
at his pictures, and their comparison with the inferior productions of
his contemporaries in Italy.
But the principal exhibition of the old masters of Bruges, is in the
parlour of the chapel at the ancient Hospital of Saint John. Here the
pride of the custodian are the chef-d’œuvres of Hans Memling.
Hemling was a soldier and a roué, a prodigal and a genius utterly
unconscious of his power. He ended a career of excesses by enlisting
in one of the military companies of Bruges, his native city, and from
the battle of Nancy, whither he had followed Charles the Rash, in
1477, he was carried, wounded and dying, to the Hospital of St.
John. The skill of the leeches triumphed, however, and Hans was
restored to strength and vigour, when, for want, perhaps, of some
other asylum, he spent ten years of his subsequent life amongst his
friends in the hospital, and enriched its halls with the choicest
specimens of his art. These pictures are of marvellous brilliancy,
although it is said, that Hemling rejected the use of oil, which had
been introduced by his contemporary and rival, Van Eyck, and
adhered to the old plan of tempering his colours with size and
albumen. The artist, too, has introduced into them portraits of the
nuns and sisters of charity, who were the attendants of the sick in
the hospital—a delicate and yet lasting memorial of his gratitude for
their kindnesses towards himself.
Amongst a number of portraits and scriptural subjects, the gem of
the collection is a little, old-fashioned cabinet, probably intended for
the reception of relics, some three feet long and broad in proportion,
covered with a conical lid, and the whole divided into pannels, each
containing a scene from the legend of St. Ursula, and the massacre
of herself and her eleven thousand virgins, by the Goths, at Cologne.
This curious little antique is so highly prized, that it is shown under a
glass cover, and the directors of the hospital refused to exchange it
for a coffer of the same dimensions in solid silver. The execution of
the paintings has all the characteristic faults and beauties of its
author, only the former are less glaring from the small dimensions of
the figures. The faces of the ladies exhibit a good perception of
female beauty, and St. Ursula herself has her hair plaited into braids
and drawn behind her ear, much in the fashion of the present time in
England.
The majority of the other pictures have the folding doors which
were peculiar to all the painters of the Low Countries, till Rubens
latterly dispensed with the use, though they are to be seen on his
matchless “Descent from the Cross,” and some others of his pictures
in the cathedral at Antwerp. They served to close up the main
composition when folded across it; and as they are, themselves,
painted on both sides, so as to exhibit a picture whether closed or
open, they had the effect of producing five compartments all
referring to the same subject, but of which the four outward ones
are, of course, subsidiary to the grand design within.
The hospital in which these pictures are exhibited, is one of the
best conducted establishments of the kind I have ever seen. Its
attendants, in their religious costume, and with their nun’s head-
dresses, move about it with the quiet benevolence which accords
with their name, as “sisters of charity,” and the lofty wards, with the
white linen of the beds, present in every particular an example of
the most accurate neatness and cleanliness.
Both it and the churches I have named, stand close by the station
of the railway by which the traveller arrives from Ghent or from
Ostend. Besides their curious old paintings, the churches have little
else remarkable; they are chiefly built of brick, and make no very
imposing appearance. That of the St. Sauveur, contains a statue in
marble attributed to Michael Angelo, and though not of sufficient
merit to justify the supposition, is in all probability the work of one
of his pupils. The story says, that it was destined for Genoa, but
being intercepted on its passage by a Dutch privateer, was carried to
Amsterdam, where it was purchased by a merchant of Bruges, and
presented to his native city.
But the chief object of interest, and, indeed, the grand lion of
Bruges, is the tomb of Mary of Burgundy in a little chapel of the
same cathedral. The memory of this amiable Princess, and her early
fate are associated with the most ardent feelings of the Flemings;
she was the last of their native sovereigns, and at her decease, their
principality became swallowed up in the overgrown dominion of the
houses of Austria; like Charlotte of England, she was snatched from
them in the first bloom of youth, she died before she was twenty-
five, in consequence of a fall from her horse when hawking, and the
independance of her country expired with her. Beside her, and in a
similar tomb, repose the ashes of her bold and impetuous father,
Charles the Rash, which was constructed by order of Philip of Spain.
The chapel in which both monuments are placed, was prepared for
their reception at the cost of Napoleon, who, when he visited
Belgium, with Maria Louisa, in 1810, left a sum of money to defray
the expense of their removal. Both tombs are of the same model,
two rich sarcophagi, composed of very dark stone, ornamented with
enamelled shields, and surmounted by recumbent statues, in gilded
bronze, of the fiery parent and his gentle daughter. The blazonry of
arms upon the innumerable shields which decorate their
monuments, and the long array of titles which they record, bespeak
the large domains, which, by successive alliances, had been
concentrated in the powerful house of Burgundy. The inscription
above the ashes of Charles the Rash, is as follows:
CY GIST TRES HAVLT TRES PVISSANT ET MAGNANIME
PRINCE CHARLES DVC DE BOVRGne DE LOTHRYCKE DE
BRABANT DE LEMBOVRG DE LVXEMBOVRG ET DE
GVELDRES CONTE DE FLANDRES D’ARTOIS DE BOVRGne
PALATIN ET DE HAINAV DE HOLLANDE DE ZEELANDE DE
NAMVR ET DE ZVTPHEN MARQVIS DV SAINCT EMPIRE
SEIGNEUR DE FRISE DE SALINS ET DE MALINES, LEQVEL
ESTANT GRANDEMENT DOVÉ DE FORCE CONSTANCE ET
MAGNANIMITÉ PROSPERA LONGTEMPS EN HAVLTES
ENTREPRINSES BATAILLES ET VICTOIRES TANT A
MONTLHERI EN NORMANDIE EN ARTHOIS EN LIEGE QVE
AVLTREPART JVSQVES A CE QVE FORTVNE LVI
TOVRNANT LE DOZ LOPPRESSA LA NVICT DES ROYS,
1476 DEVANT NANCY FVT DEPVIS PAR LE TRES HAVT
TRES PVISSANT ET TRES VICTORIEVX PRINCE CHARLES
EMPEREUR DES ROMAINS Vmc DE CE NOM SON PETIT
NEPHEV HERITIER DE SON NOM VICTOIRES ET
SEIGNORIES TRANSPORTE A BRVGES OV LE ROI
PHILIPPE DE CASTILLE LEON ARRAGON NAVARE ETC.
FILS DUDICT EMPEREVR CHARLES LA FAICT METTRE EN
 CE TOMBEAU DU COTÉ DE SA FILLE ET VNIQVE
HERITIERE MARIE FEMME ET ESPEVSE DE TRES HAVLT
ET TRES PVISSANT PRINCE MAXIMILIEN ARCHIDVC
D’AVSTRICE DEPVIS ROI EMPEREVR DES ROMANS—
PRIONS DIEV POVR SON AME.—AMEN.
The sincere and unaffected sorrow of those who raised a
monument to the Princess, is much more impressively bespoken in
the simple and natural language of its inscription. After
recapitulating the pompous honours of her house, and her greatness
as a Queen, they have thus expressed affectionate esteem for her as
a woman and a wife. “Five years she reigned as Lady of the Low
Countries, for four of which she lived in love and great affection with
my Lord, her husband. She died deplored, lamented and wept by her
subjects, and by all who knew her as was never Princess before.
Pray God for her soul. Amen.”
The most conspicuous object in Bruges, both from a distance and
within the walls, is the lofty tower of an ancient building, called “Les
Halles”—an edifice of vast extent, whose original destination seems
to be but imperfectly known, but which, in all probability, served as a
depot for merchandize during the palmy days of the Hanseatic
League, whilst in its ponderous tower were deposited the ancient
records of the city. The lower buildings are now partly unoccupied,
and partly used for the purposes of a covered market, and on the
tower are stationed the warders, who, night and day, look out for
fires in the streets of the city or the suburbs. It contains, likewise,
one of those sweet carillons of bells, which, in their excellence, seem
to be peculiar to the Netherlands, as in no other country that I am
aware of do their chimes approach to any thing like harmonious
music. In the tower of Les Halles and some others in Belgium, they
are set in motion by a huge cylinder with moveable keys, similar to
those in a barrel organ or a Geneva box. The tunes are arranged and
altered every year at Easter, and the carillon, besides announcing
every hour, is played almost daily for the amusement of the citizens.
But besides the mechanical arrangement, there are keys which can
be played on at pleasure, and during our visit, the “chief musician”
commenced this feat, hammering with his fists, defended first by
strong leather, and tramping with his heels, till every muscle in his
whole body seemed called into action—an exercise very like that of
Falstaff’s recruit Bullfrog, when he “caught a cold in ringing in the
king’s affairs upon the coronation day.”
The view from this tower is really surprising, owing to the vast level
plain in which it stands, and which stretches to the horizon without
an undulation upon every side; the view is only limited by the ability
of the eye to embrace it, and the sight is bewildered with the infinity
of villages, towers, forests, canals and rivers which it presents,
taking in at one vast glance, the German Ocean, the distant lines of
Holland, the towers of Ghent, and to the south, the remote frontier
of France. Its views, like almost every thing else in the Netherlands,
are peculiar to itself, and in the repose and richness of cultivated
beauty, have not a parallel in any country of Europe.
In a small square adjoining that in which stands the tower of Les
Halles, are two other ancient buildings of equal interest. The palais
de justice occupies the site of the old “palace of the Franc or liberty
of Bruges.” It contains in one of its apartments, (the others are
chiefly modern,) a remarkable mantel-piece of carved oak, covering
the entire side of the hall, and consisting of a number of statues the
size of life, let into niches decorated with the most elaborate and
beautiful carvings, and surmounted by the armorial bearings of
Burgundy, Brabant, and Flanders. This singular specimen of the arts,
dates from the reign of Charles V. and contains statues of the
Emperor himself, with Maximilian, and Mary of Burgundy to his left
hand; on his right, those of Charles le Téméraire, and his Lady
Margaret of York. These specimens of the perfection to which this
description of modelling has attained amongst the Flemings, must
really be seen, in order to be sufficiently comprehended.
The other building adjoining is the Hotel de Ville, a small, but
elegant example of the gothic architecture in the fourteenth century.
The many niches which now stand empty at each compartment of its
front, were formerly filled with statues of the native Princes of
Flanders and Burgundy, to the number of thirty-three; numerous
shields, charged with arms surmounted the principal windows, and
on a little balcony in front, the Dukes, on the occasion of their
inauguration, made oath to respect the rights and privilege of their
subjects. But in 1792, the soldiers of the French directory, under
Dumourier, in the “fine frenzy” of republicanism, tore down these
ancient monuments of the former history of Bruges, as “the images
of tyrants” and pounding them to dust, flung them upon a pile
composed of fragments of the gallows and the scaffold, and ordered
it to be kindled by the public executioner. The grand hall in the Hotel
de Ville is occupied as a library, and contains a large and valuable
collection of books and manuscripts.
Bruges was the birth-place of Berken, who discovered the art of
polishing the diamond, and, as if the secret were still confined to the
craft, (in fact it was for a length of time a secret amongst the
jewellers of the Low Countries), one still sees over many a door in
Bruges, the sign-board of the “Diamant-zetter,” who resides within.
In other cities, one would feel as if compiling a guide-book in
noting these particulars of Bruges; but here it is different, as every
spot, however trifling, is exalted by some traditionary association
with the past. “In the thirteenth century,” says the Hand-book, “the
ambassadors of twenty states had their hotels within the walls of the
city, and the commercial companies of seventeen nations were
settled and carried on their traffic within its walls. It became the
resort of traders of Lombardy and Venice, who carried hither the
merchandize of Italy and India, to be exchanged for the produce of
Germany and the north. The argosies of Genoa and Constantinople,
frequented her harbour, and her warehouses were stored with the
wool of England, the linen of Belgium, and the silk of Persia.”[5] Can
any one read this record of the past, and comparing it with the
desolation of the present, avoid being reminded of the magnificent
description and denunciation of Tyre, by Ezekiel. “Fine linen from
Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth for thy sails; the
inhabitants of Zidon were thy mariners; the men of Persia were thine
army; and they of Gammadin were on thy towers, and hung their
shields upon thy walls to make thy beauty perfect. Tarshish was thy
merchant, and with iron and with tin they traded in thy fairs. Syria
gave thee emeralds and broidered work, and coral, and agate. Judah
traded in thy markets in honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus in the
wine of Hebron and white wool. Arabia occupied with thee in lambs
and in goats; and the merchants of Sheba brought thee precious
stones and gold. * * * They that handle the oar, the mariner and
pilots of the sea, shall come down from thy ships; they shall stand
upon the land, and in their wailing they shall cry, what city is like
unto Tyre, like unto the destroyed in the midst of the waters?”
Of all her active pursuits, Bruges now retains no remnant except
the manufacture of lace, to which even her ancient fame has ceased
to give a prestige; and it is exported to France to be sold under the
name of Point de Valenciennes. Mechlin, Antwerp, Ypres and
Grammont share with her in its production; and it is interesting to
observe how this mignon and elegant art, originally, perhaps, but the
pastime of their young girls and women, has survived all the storms
and vicissitudes which have from time to time suspended or
disturbed the other national occupations of the Belgians, and now
enables the inhabitants of their superannuated cities, in the ruin of
their own fortunes, to support themselves, as it were, upon the
dower of their females. France, in the time of Colbert, seduced the
manufacture to establish itself at Paris by actual gifts of money; and
England, emulous of sharing in it, purchased the lace of Belgium to
sell to Europe as her own, and made by it such a reputation, that
English lace is still a popular name for a particular description made
at Brussels!
The exquisitely fine thread which is made in Hainault and Brabant
for the purpose of being worked into lace, has occasionally attained
a value almost incredible. A thousand to fifteen hundred francs is no
unusual price for it by the pound, but some has actually been spun
by hand of so exquisite a texture, as to be sold at the rate of ten
thousand francs, or upwards of £400, for a single pound weight.
Schools have been established to teach both the netting of the lace
and drawing of designs by which to work it, and the trade, at the
present moment, is stated to be in a more flourishing condition than
it has been ever known before, even in the most palmy days of the
Netherlands.
 CHAPTER II.
GHENT.
Bruges a cheap residence—Tables-d’Hôte, their influence
upon society—Canal from Bruges to Ghent—Absence of
country mansions—Gardens—Appearance of Ghent—M.
Grenier and M. de Smet de Naeyer—The Conseil de
Prud’hommes, its functions—Copyright of designs in
Belgium—The linen trade of Belgium—Its importance—
Great value of Belgian flax—Its cultivation—Revenue
derived from it—Inferiority of British flax—Anxiety of the
government for the trade in linen—Hand-spinners—
Spinning by machinery—Société de la Lys—Flower
gardens—The Casino—Export of flowers—General
aspect of the city—Its early history—Vast wealth
expended in buildings in the Belgium cities accounted
for—Trading corporations—Turbulence of the people of
Bruges and Ghent—Jacques van Artevelde—His death—
Philip van Artevelde—Charles V.—His bon mots
regarding Ghent—Latin distich, characteristic of the
Flemish cities—Siege of Ghent, Madame Mondragon—
House of the Arteveldes—Hôtel de Ville—The belfry and
Roland—The Marché de Vendredi—The great cannon of
Ghent.
Bruges has the reputation of being an economical residence for
persons of limited fortune, but I have reason to believe it does not
fully merit it. I have understood, that at the termination of the war, a
large mansion with every appurtenance, was to have been had for
twenty-five pounds a year, but the concourse of English, and the
influx of strangers, has now placed it, in this respect, pretty much
upon a par with other places of the continent.
 We dined at an excellent table-d’hôte at the Hôtel de Commerce,
the only inconvenience being the early hour, 2 o’clock, but this, and
even earlier hours for dinner, we became, not only reconciled to, but
almost to prefer before leaving Germany. To the prevalence of these
tables-d’hôte in every town and village of the continent, must, no
doubt, be ascribed much of that social feeling and easy carriage
which characterise the people of almost every country in Europe
except our own. Being frequented by persons of all ranks, they lead
to an assimilation of manners and of taste, which must be conducive
to general refinement; and by an interchange of opinions and a
diffusion of intelligence during the two or three hours of daily
intercourse, they must contribute to a diffusion of information, and a
better understanding between all classes.
In England, with our present sectional ideas and well defined
grades, their introduction would be impossible, or if attempted,
would only serve to make more distinct and compact the divisions
into which society is parcelled out. And yet, how desirable would it
be that some successful expedient could be discovered to produce a
more frequent intercourse between these numerous castes, and to
soften down these Hindoo prejudices, which are an unquestionable
source of insecurity and weakness in England. It is to this, that in a
great degree is to be ascribed the virulence of political jealousies,
and the intense hatred of political parties. So long as wealth is
constituted the great standard which is to adjust conventional
precedence, affluence and intelligence must form one exclusive race,
of whose feelings, habits, objects and desires, poverty and
ignorance, as they can know nothing, may be easily persuaded to
believe them hostile and destructive to their own; and even
mediocrity of rank, as it stands aloof from either, will continue to
look with alarm and jealousy upon both.
Were it practicable, by any salutary expedient, to enable the
humble and laborious to perceive for themselves, that the
enjoyments and habits of the rich are not necessarily antagonist to
their own, it would at once paralyze the strength of the demagogue
and the incendiary. Religious bigotry and political malignity, like
sulphur and nitre, are explosive only when combined with the
charcoal of ignorance.
The railroad from Bruges to Ghent, runs for the entire way within
view, and frequently along the bank of the canal which connects the
two cities, and which occasionally presents greater beauty than one
is prepared to expect; its waters folded over with the broad leaves of
the water lilly, and variegated with its flowers, and those of the
yellow bog bean; and its steep banks covered with the tassels of the
flowering rush. The road passed through numerous copses,
cultivated for firewood and planted with the oak, the chesnut and
the weeping birch, with here and there broad patches of firs and
hornbeam. But the beauty of the long lines of ornamental trees
which enclose the road and sometimes border the canals in
Flanders, is much impaired by the fashion of pollarding their tops for
the purpose of fuel.
One misses, also, the numerous seats and mansions of the landed
gentry to which we are familiarized in travelling in our own country,
“the happy homes of England,” that constitute the rich luxuriance of
a British landscape. But here, their erection is discountenanced by
the law against primogeniture, by which the property of the
individual is compulsorily divided amongst his heirs; and, at former
periods, their absence may, perhaps, be ascribed to the insecurity of
the country, perpetually visited with war and all its accessories, so
that men found their only safety within the walls of their fortified
towns. In the neighbourhood of Ghent, however, they are more
frequent than in any other district of Belgium which I have seen, an
evidence, perhaps, of the more abundant wealth of its successful
manufactures and merchants.
In the vicinity of all the villages and suburbs, each house is
provided with a garden, richly stocked with flowers, (amongst which
the multitude of dahlias was quite remarkable), and surrounded, not
by a fence, but more frequently, in gardens of any extent, by a
broad dyke of deep water, covered with lillies and aquatic plants.
Every inch of ground seemed to have been subjected to the spade,
and with a more than Chinese economy of the soil, made to
contribute either to the decoration or the support of the owner’s
dwelling.
After passing the hamlets of Bloemendael (the valley of flowers),
and Aeltre, we came in sight of Ghent, situated on a considerable
elevation above the water of the Scheldt (pronounced Skeld), the
Lys, the Lieve, and the Moer, which meet around its base, and with
their communicating branches and canals, divide the city into six-
and-twenty islets, connected by upwards of eighty bridges of wood
or stone. Its towers and steeples are discernible for some miles
before it is reached, mingled with the tall chimnies of its numerous
manufactories, which mark it as the Manchester of Belgium.
The court-yard of the station was filled with a crowd of omnibuses,
fiacres and vigilantes, an improvement upon the cabs of London,
and a drive of a few minutes brought us to the Cauter, or Place
d’Armes, where, following the direction of the Hand-book, we
stopped at the Hôtel de la Poste, a spacious house, kept by a M.
Oldi, who, we were told, was son to a Baroness of the same name,
who figured on the occasion of the trial of Queen Caroline.

GHENT.
My anxiety was to learn something of the actual state of
manufacturing industry in Belgium, and Ghent, its principal seat and
centre, presented the most favourable opportunities. Our
introductions were numerous, but my chief obligations are to M.
Grenier, one of the most intelligent and accomplished men of
business whom it has been my good fortune to meet. He had been
formerly an officer in the Imperial Guard of Napoleon, whilst Belgium
was a province of the empire, but on the return of peace, in 1815,
betook himself to pursuits of commerce, and is now connected with
some of the most important manufacturing and trading
establishments of Belgium. I owe a similar acknowledgment for the
polite attentions of M. de Smet de Naeyer,[6] an eminent
manufacturer, and one of the officers of the Chamber of Commerce
and of the Conseil de Prud’hommes at Ghent.
The latter body which is an institution, originally French, was
introduced in Belgium by a decree of Napoleon in 1810. It is a board
formed jointly of employers and workmen, elected by annual
sections, and discharging all its functions, not only gratuitously as
regards the public, but without payment to its own members,
beyond the mere expenditure of the office, and a moderate salary to
a secretary. Its duties have reference to the adjustment of the
mutual intercourse between workmen and their masters in every
branch of manufacture, the prevention of combinations, the
performance of contracts, the regulation of apprenticeship, and the
effectual administration of the system of livrets—a species of
permanent diploma, which the artisan received on the termination of
his pulpilage, signed by the master to whom he had been articled,
and sealed by the President of the Conseil de Prud’hommes. Without
the production of his livret, no tradesman can be received into
employment; and in it are entered all his successive discharges and
acquittances with his various masters. The powers of fining and of
forfeiture exercised by the conseil, are summary up to a certain
amount, and in cases of graver importance, there is a resort to the
correctional police.
But the main functions of the Conseil de Prud’hommes are the
prevention of any invasion of the peculiar rights of any manufacturer,
or the counterfeit imitation of his particular marks; and especially
the protection of the copyright of all designs and productions of art
for the decoration of manufactures. With this view, every proprietor
of an original design, whether for working in metals or on woven
fabrics, is empowered to deposit a copy of it in the archives of the
council, enveloped in a sealed cover, and signed by himself; and to
receive in return a certificate of its enrolment, and the date of
reception. At the same time, he is called upon to declare the length
of time for which he wishes to secure to himself the exclusive right
of its publication, whether for one, two, or three years, or for ever,
and in either case, a trifling fee is demanded, in no instance
exceeding a franc for each year the protection is claimed, or ten for
a perpetuity.[7] In the event of any dispute as to originality or
proprietorship, the officer of the council is authorized to break the
seal, and his testimony is conclusive as to the date and
circumstances of the deposit.
The effect of this simple and inexpensive tribunal has been found
so thoroughly effectual, that the most equitable security has been
established for designs of every description applicable to works of
taste, and the intellectual property of a pattern has been as
thoroughly vindicated to its inventor through the instrumentality of
the register of the Prud’hommes, as his material property, in the
article on which it is to be impressed, is secured to him by the
ordinary law. In fact, the whole operation of the institution at Ghent
has proved so beneficial to manufactures universally, that by a projet
de loi of 1839, similar boards are about to be established in all the
leading towns and cities, as Liege, Brussels, Courtrai, Antwerp,
Louvain, Mons, Charleroi, Verviers, and the manufacturing districts,
generally, throughout Belgium.
One of our first visits was to a mill for spinning linen yarn, recently
constructed by a joint stock company, called La Société de la Lys, in
honour, I presume, of the Flemish river on which it is situated, and
which is celebrated on the continent for the extraordinary suitability
of its waters for the preparation of flax. Belgium, from the remotest
period, even, it is said, before the Christian era, has been celebrated
for its manufacture of clothing of all descriptions. It was from
Belgium that England derived her first knowledge of the weaving of
wool; damask has been made there since the time of the Crusades,
when the soldiers of Godfrey of Bouillon and of Count Baldwin,
brought the art from Damascus; and to the present hour, the very
name of “Holland” is synonymous with linen, and the cloth so called,
has for centuries been woven principally in Flanders.
Under the government of Austria, the manufacture seems to have
attained its acmé of prosperity in the Netherlands, her exports of
linen, in 1784, amounting to 27,843,397 yards, whilst at the present
moment, with all her increase of population and discoveries in
machinery, she hardly surpasses thirty millions. Again, under the
continental system of Napoleon, from 1805 to 1812, it attained a
high degree of prosperity, which sensibly decreased after the events
of 1814, when English produce came again into active competition
with it.
The cultivation of flax is still, however, her staple employment, one
acre in every eighty-six of the whole area of Belgium, being devoted
to its growth. In peculiar districts, such as Courtrai and St. Nicolas,
so much as one acre in twenty is given to it; and in the Pays de
Waes, it amounts so high as one in ten. Every district of Belgium, in
fact, yields flax, more or less, except Luxembourg and Limburg,
where it has been attempted, but without success; but of the entire
quantity produced, Flanders alone furnishes three-fourths, and the
remaining provinces, one. The quality of the flax, too, seems,
independently of local superiority in its cultivation, to be essentially
dependent upon the nature of the soil in which it is sown. From that
around Ghent, no process of tillage would be sufficient to raise the
description suitable to more costly purposes; that of the Waloons
yields the very coarsest qualities; Courtrai those whose strength is
adapted for thread; and Tournai alone furnished the fine and
delicate kinds, which serve for the manufacture of lace and cambric.
Of the quantity of dressed flax prepared in Belgium, calculated to
amount to about eighteen millions of kilogrammes, five millions were
annually exported to England and elsewhere, on an average of eight
years, from 1830 to 1839. According to the returns of the Belgian
custom-houses, the export has been as follows—from 1830 to 1839.
1831 5,449,388 kilogr.
1832 3,655,226 ”
1833 4,392,113 ”
1834 2,698,870 ”
1835 4,610,649 ”
1836 6,891,991 ”
 1837 7,403,346 ”
1838 9,459,056 ”
It is important to observe the steady increase of the English
demand since 1834. The remainder is reserved for home
manufacture into thread and cloth, and it is estimated by M.
Briavionne, that the cultivation of this one article alone, combining
the value of the raw material with the value given to it by
preparation, in its various stages from flax to linen cloth, produces
annually to Belgium, an income of 63,615,000 francs.[8]
Belgium possesses no source of national wealth at all to be put into
comparison with this, involving as it does, the concentrated profits
both of the raw material and its manufacture, and, at the present
moment, the attention of the government and the energies of the
nation are directed to its encouragement in every department, with
an earnestness that well bespeaks their intimate sense of its
importance.
Nor are the prudent anxieties of the Belgium ministry on this point
without serious and just grounds. Their ability to enter into
competition with England in the production of either yarn or linen
cloth, arises solely from the fortunate circumstance to which I have
just alluded, that not only do they themselves produce the raw
material for their own manufactures, but it is they, who, likewise,
supply it to their competitors, almost at their own price. Such is the
superiority of Belgian flax, that whilst, in some instances, it has
brought so high a price as £220 per ton, and generally ranges from
£80 to £90; not more than £90 has in any instance that I ever heard
of, been obtained for British, and its ordinary average does not
exceed £50.
The elements of their trade are, therefore, two-fold, the growth of
flax, and secondly, its conversion by machinery into yarn and cloth.
In the latter alone, from the relative local circumstances of the two
countries, it is utterly impossible that Belgium could successfully
maintain the contest with England, with her inferior machinery, her
more costly fuel, and her circumscribed sale; but aided by the other
happy advantage of being enabled to supply herself with the raw
material at the lowest possible rate, and her rivals at the highest,
she is in possession of a position of the very last importance.
But, should any circumstance arise to alter this relative position,
should England wisely apply herself to the promotion of such an
improvement in the cultivation and dressing of her flax at home as
would render it in quality equal to that for which she is now
dependent for her supply from abroad—should India or her own
colonies betake themselves to its production, or should some other
country, adopting the processes of Belgium, supplant her in the
market, and thus reduce her competition with England to a mere
contest with machinery, the linen trade of Belgium could not by any
possibility sustain the struggle, and her staple manufacture for
centuries would pass, at once, into the hands of her rivals.
Conscious of their critical situation in this respect, the King of
Holland, during his fifteen years’ administration of the Netherlands,
bestowed a care upon the encouragement and improvement of their
mechanical skill, which may have, perhaps, been carried to an
unwise extreme; and with a similar anxiety for the maintenance of
their ascendancy in the other department, the ministers of King
Leopold have devoted a sedulous attention to the cultivation of flax;
and the very week of my arrival at Ostend, a commission had just
returned from England, whose inquiries had been specially directed
to the question of imposing restrictions upon its exportation.
Much of the uneasiness of the government upon this head, arises,
at the present moment, from the necessity of promoting vigorously
the spinning by machinery, and, at the same time, the difficulty of
finding employment for the thousands who now maintain themselves
by the old system of spinning by hand, and whom the successful
introduction of the new process will deprive of their ordinary means
of subsistence. Although this is one of those complaints to which we
have long been familiarized in England, and which the people of this
country have, at length, come to perceive is not amongst—
 “Those ills that kings or laws can cause or cure,”
the alarm and perplexity of the Belgians, and their earnest
expostulation on finding their employment suddenly withdrawn, have
caused no little embarrassment to their own government; and a
formidable party, both in the country and in the House of
Representatives, have been gravely consulting as to the best means
of securing a continuance of their “ancient industry” to the hand-
spinners at home, by restricting the export of flax to be spun by
machinery abroad!
The practicability of this, and the propriety of imposing a duty upon
all flax shipped for England, was understood to be the subject of
inquiry by the commission despatched by the Chambers to England,
which consisted of Count d’Hane, a member of the upper house, M.
Couls, the representative for the great linen district of St. Nicolas,
and M. Briavionne, a successful writer upon Belgian commerce, and
one or two other gentlemen connected with the linen trade.
The application of machinery to the manufacture of linen yarn,
though comparatively recent in its introduction into Belgium, has,
nevertheless, made a surprising progress, and bids fair, if
unimpeded, to maintain a creditable rivalry with Great Britain. The
offer by Napoleon, in 1810, of a reward of a million of francs for the
discovery of a process by which linen could be spun into yarn with
the same perfection as cotton, naturally gave a stimulus to all the
artisans of the empire, and almost simultaneously with its
promulgation, a manufacturer of Belgium, called Bawens, announced
his application of the principle of spinning through water, which is
now in universal use. The old system of dry spinning, however, still
obtained and was persevered in till superseded, at a very recent
period, by the invention of Bawens, improved by all the subsequent
discoveries in England and France.
The seat of the manufacture, at present, is at Ghent and Liege, and
is confined to a very few extensive establishments, projected by joint
stock companies, or Sociétés Anonymes,[9] for the formation of
which, there has latterly been almost a mania in Belgium. Four of
these establishments, projected between 1837 and 1838, proposed
to invest a capital amounting amongst the whole, to no less than
fourteen millions of francs. One of them at Liege, perfected its
intention and is now in action. A second, at Malines (Mechlin), was
abandoned after the buildings had been erected, and the other two
at Ghent, are still only in process of completion. Besides these, there
is a third at Ghent, in the hands of an individual, calculated for
10,000 spindles.
That which we visited belonging to La Société de la Lys, may be
taken as a fair illustration of the progress which the art has made in
Belgium, as the others are all constructed on similar models, and
with the same apparatus in all respects. It was originally calculated
for 15,000 spindles, but of these not more than one third are yet
erected, and in motion, and but 5,000 others are in preparation. The
steam engines were made in England, by Messrs. Hall, of Dartford,
on the principle known as Wolf’s patent, which, using two cylinders,
combines both a high and low pressure, and is wrought with one
half to one third the fuel required for the engines, in ordinary use in
England,[10] an object of vast importance in a country where coals
are so expensive as they are in Belgium.[11] The machinery is all
made at the Phœnix works in Ghent, the preparatory portions of it
are excellent, and exhibit all the recent English improvements, and in
roving they use the new spiral frames. But the spinning rooms show
the Belgian mechanics to be still much behind those of Leeds and
Manchester, as evinced by the clumsiness and imperfect finish of the
frames, although they were still producing excellent work; the yarn
we saw being of good quality, but of a coarse description, and
intended for home consumption, and for the thread-makers of Lisle.
The quantity produced, per day, was quite equal to that of English
spinners,[12] and their wages much the same as those paid in
Ireland, and somewhat less than the English.[13]
On the whole, the linen trade of Belgium, notwithstanding its
extensive preparation of machinery, and the extraordinary demand
for its flax, must be regarded as in anything but a safe or a
permanent position. In those stronger articles which can be made
from flax of English growth, the English considerably undersell her
already; an important trade is, at this moment, carried on in the
north of Ireland in exporting linen goods to Germany, whence they
were formerly imported into England, and whence they are still sent
into Belgium, where the damask trade of Courtrai, which has been
perpetually declining since 1815, is now, all but superseded by the
weavers of Saxony and Herrnhut; and the tickens of Turnhout, by
those woven from the strong thread of Brunswick.
The contemplated measure of the French government, to impose a
heavy duty on the importation of linen-yarn, will, if persevered in, be
most prejudicial to the spinners of Belgium, as more or less, it must
inevitably diminish their consumption. On the other hand, as
England herself may be said to grow no flax for her own
manufacture, and that of Ireland is not only far inferior in quality to
the Dutch and Belgian, but inadequate to her own consumption, and
every year increasing in demand and rising in price,—so long as
Great Britain is thus dependant upon her own rivals for a supply of
the raw material to feed her machinery, at an expense of from 8 to
10 per cent, for freight and charges, in addition to its high first cost,
and whilst she must, at the same time, compete with them in those
continental markets, which are open to them both, the spinning mills
of Belgium cannot but be regarded otherwise than as formidable
opponents. Nor is this apprehension diminished by the fact, that
Belgium, which a few years since had no machinery for spinning
yarn, except what she obtained from other countries, or could
smuggle from England at a serious cost, is now enabled to
manufacture her own, and has all the minerals, metals, and fuel
within herself, which combined with industry and skilled labour, are
essential to bring it to perfection. For the present, the English
manufacturer, has a protection in the cost of his machinery alone—
the factory of the Société de la Lys cost £80,000 to erect, which
supposing its 10,000 spindles to be in action, would be £8 per
spindle, and as only the one half of these are at present employed,
the actual cost is sixteen pounds; whilst an extensive mill can be
erected in Ireland for from £4 to £5, and in England for even less.
The difference of interest upon such unequal investments, must be a
formidable deduction from the actual profits of the Belgians.
We returned to our Hotel by a shady promenade along the
Coupure, which connects the waters of the Lys with the canal of
Bruges, the banks of which planted with a triple row of tall trees,
form one of the most fashionable lounges and drives in Ghent.
Opening upon it are the gardens of the Casino, a Grecian building of
considerable extent, constructed in 1836 for the two botanical and
musical societies of Ghent, and, in which, the one holds its concerts,
and the other its spring and autumn exhibition of flowers. At the
rear of the building is a large amphitheatre with seats cut from the
mossy bank and planted with flowers, where the Société de St.
Cecile give their Concerts d’Eté, which are held in the open air, in
summer, and at which as many as six thousand persons have
occasionally been accommodated.
In the rearing of flowers, Belgium and more especially Ghent, has
outrivalled the ancient florists of Holland, the city is actually
environed with gardens and green-houses, and those of the
Botanical Society, are celebrated throughout Europe for their
successful cultivation of the rarest exotics. At Ghent their sale has, in
fact, become an important branch of trade; plants to the value of a
million and a half of francs having been exported annually, on
account of the gardeners in the vicinity; and it is no unusual thing to
see in the rivers, vessels freighted entirely with Camellias, Azaleas,
and Orange trees, which are sent to all parts of Europe, even to
Russia by the florists of Ghent.
The general appearance of the city, without being highly
picturesque, is to a stranger, of the most agreeable I remember to
have seen. It does not present in the mass of its houses and
buildings, that uniform air of grave antiquity which belongs to those
of Bruges, the greater majority of the streets having been often
rebuilt and modernized, as well as from the effects of civic
commotions, as to suit the exigencies of trade and manufactures,
which, when they deserted the rest of Belgium, seem to have
concentrated themselves here. Its modern houses are almost all
constructed on the Italian model, with ample portes-cochers,
spacious court yards, lofty staircases, tall windows, and frequently
frescoes and bas-reliefs, to decorate the exterior.[14] Almost every
house is furnished with an espion, a small plate of looking-glass
fixed outside the window, at such an angle, that all that is passing in
the street is seen by those inside, without their appearing
themselves.
Here and there upon the quays and in the narrower streets, there
are to be found the gloomy old residences of the “Men of Ghent,”
now converted into inns or ware-rooms, with their sharp tilted roofs,
high stepped gables, abutting on the street, fantastic chimneys, and
mullioned windows, sunk deep into the walls. And turning some
sudden corner in a narrow passage obstructed by lumbering
waggons, drawn by oxen, one finds himself in front of some huge
old tower, or venerable belfry, covered with gothic sculpture, and
stretching up to the sky till he has to bend back his head to descry
the summit of it. One singular old building on the Quai aux Herbes,
remarkable for its profusion of Saxon arches and stone carvings, was
the Hall of the Watermen, whose turbulent insurrection under John
Lyon, is detailed with quaint circumstantiality in the pages of
Froissart. But in the main, the streets of Ghent are lively and
attractive, and its squares, spacious and planted with trees, forming
a striking contrast to the melancholy brick and mortar buildings, that
compose the manufacturing towns of England. Here too, as in
Manchester and Leeds, the population seem all alive and active, but
instead of the serious and important earnestness which one sees in
every countenance in Lancashire, the Gantois seems to go about his
affairs with cheerfulness and alacrity, as if he was less employed on
business than amusement. The canals are filled with heavily laden
barges, and the quays with long narrow waggons of most primitive
construction, into which they unload their cargoes; whilst the
number of handsome private carriages, that one sees in every
thoroughfare, bespeak, at once, the wealth and refinement of the
population. The shops are exceedingly good though not particularly
moderate in their charges, and I was somewhat surprised to see as
an attraction on the sign boards at the doors of the drapers and
modistes, the announcement that Scotch and English goods were to
be had within. Altogether the combination of antique singularity with
modern comfort, commercial bustle, wealth, gaiety, cleanliness, and
vivacity, which is to be seen at Ghent, cannot fail to strike the most
hurried traveller, and I doubt much whether it is to be found in equal
perfection, in any other city of the continent of equal extent.
Every quarter of the city exhibits traces of the former wealth of the
burghers, and every building has some tradition characteristic of the
fiery turbulence of this little municipal republic. Bruges and Ghent
are, in this regard, by far the most interesting towns of Flanders.
Brussels, Liege and Ypres, are all of more modern date and
infinitively less historical importance, during the stormy period of the
Flemish annals from the 12th to the 16th century. Ghent was a
fortified town a thousand years ago, when its citadel was erected by
Baldwin of the Iron Arm, but it was only with the rage for the
Crusades, that the wealth and importance of the towns of the Low
Countries arose; when the Seigneurs, in order to obtain funds to
equip them for their expeditions to the Holy Land, released the
inhabitants of the towns from their vassalage, and sold to them the
lands on which their cities were built, and all the rights of self
government, privileges which subsequently assumed the form of a
corporate constitution. Ghent thus obtained her independence from
Philip of Alsace, in 1178, and for the first time secured the right of
free assembly, the election of her own provosts, a common seal, and
belfry, always an indispensable accompaniment of civic authority,
and important in sounding the alarm and convoking the citizens
upon every emergency.
It was in consequence of these momentous concessions, that whilst
the lords of the soil and their agrarian followers were wasting their
energies in distant war, or subsisting by rapine and violence against
one another, the inhabitants of the towns, secured within their walls
and fortified places, were enabled to devote themselves to
manufactures and to commerce, and thus to concentrate in their
own hands, the largest proportion, by far, of the monied wealth of
the Netherlands.
But, coupled with their high privileges, there were also some
restrictions, to which we of to-day are indebted for the vast and
magnificent edifices which the burghers of these flourishing
communities have left for our wonder and admiration. The rights
accorded to them by their Seigneurs were rigidly confined to the
limits of their own walls, no free burgher could purchase or hold
landed estate beyond the circuit of his municipality; and thus, whilst
driven to accumulate capital in the pursuit of trade and traffic, they
were equally constrained to invest it, not in land, like the retired
merchants of modern times, but in the construction of these vast
palaces and private mansions, and in the decorations of their
dwellings, and the adornment of their cities.
It is to this political circumstance of their position that we are to
refer, in order to account for the extent and splendour of those
ancient houses which we meet at every turning in Bruges and Ghent
—for the costly carvings and sculptured decorations of their fronts
and interiors, and for the quantity of paintings and ornaments in
which they abound.
The accumulation of their municipal resources, too, required to be
similarly disposed of, and was applied to the erection of their lofty
belfries, the construction of those gigantic towers which are elevated
on all their churches, and to the building of their town halls and
hôtels-de-ville, whose magnitude and magnificence, are a matter,
equally of admiration of the genius which designed, and
astonishment at the wealth which was necessary to erect them.
As the towns increased in prosperity and wealth, money always
sufficed to buy from their sovereigns fresh privileges and powers,
and fresh accessions of territory to be added to their municipal
districts, till, at length, the trades became so numerous as to enroll
themselves in companies, half civil and half military, whilst all united
to form those trading commandaries or Hansen, the spread of
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com