but inglorious warfare, the balance was effectually turned against Spain, by the arts of that great statesman, Cardinal Mazarine, who had the address to draw Oliver Cromwell into an alliance with France after some operations in maritime Flanders, in 1657, which were highly gratifying to the pride of Cromwell, a powerful English fleet was sent in the spring of the following year to block up the harbour of Dunkirk, together with a body of six thousand veteran soldiers to join the army of the great Turenne in besieging it by land. The siege had been carried on for the space of eighteen days, when Don John of Austria, Governor General of the Low Countries, accompanied by the renowned Conde, appeared for its relief at the head of twenty thousand men; a bloody battle was fought in sight of Dunkirk, in which the steady and desperate valour of the English troops was conspicuous. The issue of the battle was the entire defeat of the Spanish army, together with the capture of Dunkirk, which, according to treaty, was given up to Cromwell. It remained in the possession of England until 1662, when Charles the Second disgraced himself, and disgusted the nation, by selling it to France, as he afterwards sold himself, and would have sold our constitution in church and state if he could. Dunkirk was an important acquisition to France in every point of view, naval, military, and commercial. Louis the Fourteenth spared no expence in improving the harbour, and strengthening and adorn ing the fortifications, so that in a few years it became one of the strongest and most magnificent fortresses in Europe. England then regretted, but too late, the folly, to say the least of it, which had dictated the sale of Dunkirk; her chagrin and jealousy on that score were manifest on every occasion, and more especially during the negociations which terminated in the peace of Utrecht, one of the conditions of which was, that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be demolished, which accordingly took place in 1713; a most humiliating blow to the pride of Louis the Fourteenth, at the close of the most disastrous war in which France has ever been engaged, excepting that which was terminated last Summer on the plains of Waterloo. The siege of Dunkirk in, the year 1793, the is sue of which was so disgraceful to the British arms, is fresh in all our memories. I happened to be near the scene of action at the time, and have no hesitation in saying, that the whole business was ill conducted, both by land and sea. I was then very anxious to see Dunkirk in our hands, and felt more disappointed than I can express at the failure of the Duke of York's enterprize. The Calais Diligence drove to an excellent inn at Dunkirk, where I found a good table d'hote, a luxury which foreign travellers do not find in England. The inns in England may boast of some comforts which are not to be met with in French inns; but in the latter you have the comforts of the table d'hote, where an Englishman never fails to experience those polite attentions which are so grateful in a strange land, and where the enjoyments of the table are frequently mingled with "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." You meet ladies as well as gentlemen at a French table d'hote; and as the French ladies excel in wit and lively repar tee, so their society at the table d'hote, while it embellishes all the charms of social converse, is an effectual check upon any attempt to vio late its purity. At Dunkirk I bade adieu to my fair fellow traveller from Calais, in whose company it was scarcely possible to feel ennui. At parting she condescended with a gracious smile to hold out her hand, which I saluted, as in duty bound. "And now, sir," said she, "I hope you are not offended at the freedom and warnth with which I have animadverted upon your Nation, especially when I add, as 1 do with great sincerity, that I feel nothing but cordial amity towards you." "That sentiment, Madam," replied I," is reciprocal," and then bidding one another, in all probability, a final adieu, I took my leave. Here also I parted with the Flemish young lady, whom I mentioned in my last letter as being so partial to England. She was pleased to favour me with her address. I promised to send her Bishop Lowth's Grammar, with a view to her improvement in the niceties of our language, adding, that I should be happy to meet her in England. "I haye have a brother, Sir," said she, "who is no less warm in his admiration of your country than myself; and I promise myself ere long the gratification of a trip to England under his protection." "In that case," I said,' Madam, permit me to indulge the hope that you will extend your journey to L-c-t-sh-; and allow me to have the satisfaction of shewing you the way to the Leasowes, and to "Avon's banks, where flowers eternal blow." The young Cantab whom I mentioned in my last, and who had crossed the channel for the purpose of visiting Waterloo, took the route of Ostend, Bruges, and Ghent. I too was bound for Waterloo; but, having formerly travelled from Brussels to Ostend, I determined to proceed in a new direction, and took a place in the stage for Lille, the capital of French Flanders. I travelled in company with two respectable English gentlemen from Sussex, who were going to Waterloo, and a party of French gentlemen, one of whom was an officer, a very intelligent man, who had served in the garrison of Wittenberg, in Saxony, during the long and memorable siege of that town, and had closed his career, under the banner of Buonaparte, at Waterloo. The first place in this route worth notice was Bergues, a neat fortified town, situated in a pleasant country, famed for rich pastures, which I was told produce butter and cheese of very superior quality. Bergues is six miles to the South of Dunkirk. We proceeded from thence towards Cassel, through a most fertile and well-cultivated country, but without much variety of scenery. I think I never saw any thing in England equal to it in regard to cultivation; not a foot of land seemed to be lost. For many miles the eye was feasted with a continued display of agricultural industry, and good management, intermingled with The lowing vale, the bleating cote, We breakfasted at Cassel, which stands on the top of a bold hill, commanding one of the most extensive and beautiful prospects in all Flan ders; but I must reserve the description of this delightful spot until my next letter. CLERICUS LEICESTR. Mr. URBAN, March 22. ROM the well-known candour and impartiality with which your Miscellany is conducted, I have no doubt that you will admit into it this appeal against a peremptory decision on the merits of an important question, to which you have given extensive circulation, and which may have had, on others, the effect of stifling inquiry, as it had on mne. A CHURCHMAN, To the Bishop of St. DAVID'S. My Lord; Having been a sufferer, both in my time and my pocket, by a too implicit reliance on your Lordship's authority, I avail myself of the same channel through which I sustained the injury, to present to your Lordship my Unitarians, published in the Magazine complaint. In your Third Address to for August last, you appear to have appropriated to "a Right Rev. Member of the British and Foreign Bible Society" a very common - place observation, purposely that it might form a peg on which to hang the following note : "on the Rev. H. H. Norris's Practical Exposition, a Tract professing demonstration, but which Mr. Dealtry has effectually answered, by the correc tion of fifty mistakes." As I had read the work alluded to, and had, in conseopinion of the Bible Society, such a dequence, conceived a very unfavourable claration, under your Lordship's hand, had an imperative effect upon my mind; and I lost no time in purchasing Mr. Dealtry's "Review," and devoting my first leisure hours, and my best attention, to the perusal of it. I am free to confess to your Lordship, that I did not find it that "effectual answer" which your Lordship's judgment, expressed in such unqualified terms, led me to expect; as the most formidable of Mr. Norris's charges against the Bible Society were scarcely glanced at by his Reviewer, and his numerous illustraby parallel passages of Puritanical Histions of the tendency of its proceedings tory, both apposite and alarming, rather acquired importance, than lost any of their weight, from the wretched attempt made in the Review to get rid of them by a personality. But, though I thought the success of Mr. Dealtry's labours over-rated, I did not attach to them the disgrace of total failure. Your Lordship had stood forth, uncalled for, and had publicly pledged your own credit for his fidelity. I therefore considered this as unquestionable, and, in confidence that it was so, received all his representations of Mr. Norris's statements as correctly taken; who therefore appeared to me to have fallen into those, (in most instances) not very material, mistakes, which his Reviewer had detected. In this persuasion I had dismissed the subject from my thoughts, till the recent advertisement of "An Examination of Mr. Dealtry's Review" excited my curiosity and I cannot conceal the mortification which I experienced on discovering, that what I had mistaken for a deliberate judgment of your Lordship's, could only have been a conjectural opinion,-an opinion moreover so directly at variance with the real state of the case, that nothing more is necessary to confute it, than "to bring the accused and his accuser face to face," and compare what Mr. Norris has actually advanced with Mr. Dealtry's allegations for this has been done seriatim by the Examiner above referred to: and the result is, that "those Articles in the Review,' which profess to disprove thefacts' recorded in the Practical Exposition'," are proved to belong to one or other of the three following classes,-" such as do not, in reality, éven contradict them; such as pervert, before they contradict them; and such as contradict them without adequate evidence of their incorrectness in any essential point." your Correspondents who will inform me whether a Layman, or a Gentleman, 24 years of age and in Deacon's Orders, can be admitted a Tengain information on the subject, I year-man. Having been desirous to have asked many of my University friends this question, but none of them can give me a positive answer. I have been told that a Layman can enter his name for the degree of B. D. if he promises to go into Orders. In the Cambridge Calendar for 1813, p. 13, under the head of Graduates, it is stated that a Tenyear-man must be in Priest's Orders at the time of his admission; whereas in p. 137, Priest's Orders are omitted, and the only thing required is, that he must be 24 years of age. In Ackerman's History of the Univer sity of Cambridge, vol. II, p. 311, no mention is made of Priest's Orders. Harraden, in his Cantabrigią Depicta, p. 14, says that Ten-year men "are generally Clergy who, having acquired wealth or prefer ment without a University education, dignify themselves at a moderate expence with an academic title; they are tolerated by the statutes of Elizabeth, which allow persons, who are admitted at any College when 24 years of age and upwards, after ten years to become Bachelors of Divinity without taking any prior degree." Does the degree of B. D. entitle those who have been Tenyear-men to a vote at the University Elections, and to the use of books from the Public Library? I heard, the other day, that the University had it in contemplation to abolish this order of Graduates, for what reason I cannot tell. As there may be others, besides myself, who, thrown off their guard by the gravity of your Lordship's language, may have placed implicit reliance on the decision which it conveys, the cause of Truth seems to impose upon me this public address, that I may recommend to them the able pamphlet by which I have been undeceived, and, at the same time, may press it upon your Lordship's consideration; since, as the case stands at present, the Note which has occasioned this, I trust not disrespectful, appeal, is the most apposite illustration of the apophthegm to which it is append-AVING, some months since, aned; incontestibly proving that "prejudice has neither eyes nor ears," in short, is wholly destitute of all power of discrimination. With all due respect I remain, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient servant, A CHURCHMAN. Mr. URBAN, A NON-GRADUATE. March 19. irrefutable evidence, that De Lolme, nounced the early production of author of the admired Essay on the English Constitution, produced the Letters of Junius; permit me to state, that the sole cause of the delay of my demonstrations has been, the consideration, that the public mind was too deeply interested by the late momentous events, to admit of that attention to the subject, which, in my opinion, it so fully merits. I have only to add, that the work is now in the press, and will speedily appear, T. BUSBY. Mr. |