Brussels, Maiines, and Louvain. By Charles Sulky. (Simpkin and Marshall.)—A
plain and matter-of-fact account of an ordinary trip, written for those who have never been abroad, by one who has been abroad for a few weeks. There is really nothing to notice in it, and all we can say is that we hope it may find its proper public. Still, it is rather a shame for Mr. Salley to tell even such a public that Malines was called Mechlin till lately, and to hint at a conspiracy of some very recent date for Frenchifying the names of these grand old Belgian cities. What he means is, we suppose, that he only lately found out that these cities had French names, and that the French names were used by French-speaking people. All who prefer to Anglicize the names of foreign places talk of Mechlin still. There is no necessity for abandoning that name for the French one, any more than in the case of Brussels and Antwerp we are bound to resort- to Gallicisms. Mr. Salley reminds us of an Irishman who was travel- ling backwards and forwards in Belgium for a whole year in vain search of the town of Ghent. He had come at last to believe that the place was purely mythical. Whenever he asked at the railway station for a ticket to Ghent he was given a ticket to Gand, and if on arriving at Ghent he asked its name, he was sure to be told that it was Grind. In some traveller's book of the neighbourhood a record of his journey was, preserved by his stating that he was coming from " Gand—bad luck to. it!" and that he was going to "Ghent—if ever I can get there." Per- haps if, like Mr. Sulley, he had heard of the change of name, he might have put up with the Fronchified substitute for Van Artevelde's city.
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