town, and was many times protected from pestilence and war. Of this latter there were two notable instances. In 1489 one Philip Cleves, a redoubtable leader in the civil struggles at that time agitating the Low Countries, ruled at Brussels, and he undertook the project of seizing upon Hal. By chance, or, as Lipsius rather thinks, by the divine interposition of Our Lady, a citizen of Brussels got scent of this undertaking, and discovered it, so that when Cleves with his soldiers advanced against the place, they were received so warmly by a shower of darts, from both men and women, that a great loss was sustained. The same year he made another attempt with 10,000 horse and foot, and so suddenly that he intercepted a small body of the garrison of Hal, amounting to 120 men, who were out foraging, and by this the defence was reduced to 250 soldiers. The attack began with great fury, and part of the town was fired by grenades; but the citizens rushed to the Virgin with pious vows for aid, and such courage was infused in them, that even the priests mixed in the fight, and the battle lasted until the evening, when the enemy retired with great loss. Many dead and wounded were supposed to exist among the ruined houses, but to the astonishment of all they got up unhurt, and went each to his house. Next day the enemy made as if to renew the fight, but letters came to the people of Hal from Maximilian promising succour within three days. At this the inhabitants commenced ringing the bells, and giving other signs of joy. The enemy, believing they had received reinforcements, immediately began a precipitate retreat, leaving behind their dead in the ditches, and many engines of war. A hundred balls of iron and stone were picked up, and are to this day kept in the church as a memorial of the victory.

In 1580 another attempt was made upon Hal by an active and expert soldier, Oliver Zempele, who ruled over Brussels. Hal was held for Philip II., but had scarcely forty raw soldiers to defend it. On the first day he was repelled with vigour, and retired; but he renewed his attempt the following night with a body of troops having scaling ladders and other preparations. Among the forces was a fellow, both wicked in his life and with his tongue.

His name was John Zwyck. Now Zwyck came on, singing a song of triumph, the burden of it being a very ungallant resolve; that he would cut off all the noses of the young women of Hal. "DIVA audierat," says Lipsius, and as if to punish him by a proper law of retaliation, his own nose was presently carried away by a leaden ball. Zwyck ever afterwards was told jeeringly by his companions to go to Hal for a nose. There was another ruffian in their army whose name was John Rysselmann, who was audacious enough to say, that he would carry the sacred image to Brussels, and burn it publicly with fire. He had his mouth and chin carried off by the stroke of a cannon-ball, and soon after died.

There was at Hal a most ancient and celebrated confraternity, or sodality of the Virgin, to which various privileges and indulgences were confirmed by the Pope in 1432. Among the princes who were enrolled in the sixteenth century, were many names celebrated in European history:-the Emperor Maximilian and his friend Henry VIII. of England, together with their wives and children; the Dukes of Brabant and Guelders, as well as William the elder, Count of Hainault, William junior Count of Hainault, Holland, and Zeeland, with wife and children; also Albert Count Palatine of the Rhine, Louis Count of Flanders and his wife Margaret, Frederic Duke of Bavaria, Theodoric Count of Losdun, William of Flanders; Count of Namur, and his wife Joan, and many others of all ranks of society.

It is on the first Sunday of September that the twelve ancient members of this confraternity, that is to say, Ath, Tournay, Brussels, Valenciennes, Condé, Namur, Lembeque, Quiévrain, Crespin, Brain le Château, Bausignies, and Saintes, celebrate their festival at Hal, presenting a suit of clothes each to the image, which they afterwards carry in procession, vieing for the honour of the sacred burden; which honour is contested as it passes through the street by the populace, as has been described on a former occasion.

The riches of this shrine were very great, and among the donors names of great historic importance. Louis XI. when Dauphin of France gave a large silver-gilt falcon, also a silver statue of a female with the ensigns of Bavaria.

A silver-gilt statue of Our Lady of Hal was the gift of Montmorency. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, was much attached to Our Lady of Hal, as is attested by his presents. One was a statue of the Virgin in pure gold, holding the child Jesus in one arm and a lily in the other. On the breast, by way of brooch, were six large pearls, with a carbuncle or ruby in the centre. On her head was a crown of pure gold. On the altar were also figures of the twelve Apostles in silver of excellent workmanship, and on each side of the same two angels worked of the same material, holding candelabra, and kneeling in devotion to the Virgin's image. There were also two silver figures of soldiers, one on horse, the other on foot; they were originally of pure gold, but public necessities had compelled the substitution of the less valuable metal, as well as in the instance of a golden lamp presented by the same illustrious prince. Duke Philip also gave a painted window to the chapel, and a picture of himself as a suppliant before the statue of the Virgin, with some verses in French to her honour, "more pious than good," says Lipsius, which we may also say of his own ode, by which he prefaces his history.

Charles the Bold, his son, only gave a silver falcon. Perhaps he was not so fond of shrines as his rival Louis XI. of France, and his turbulent spirit gave him plenty of work during his eventful life. Our author does not say that the niggardly gift was the reason of his unprosperous life and fatal end; but he takes care to tells us, that his father was certainly rewarded for his zeal and devotion by extension of territory.

The daughter of the latter, Mary of Burgundy, married Maximilian of Austria, and thus carried with her the Low Countries to the empire. Maximilian was a great benefactor to Hal; among his gifts, were a silver-gilt chalice with the arms of the house of Austria engraven upon it, and a silver statue of his patron saint, St. Maximilian. There was also a rose-tree of pure gold, a present from the Pontiff to Maximilian, which the latter immediately sent to Our Lady of Hal, as a votive offering, that the restoration of peace to Belgium might be accomplished through him.

The Emperor Charles V. was the next great benefactor, and oftentimes visited Hal; he gave a silver statue of an armed knight kneeling as in prayer, a large gilt cup of antique workmanship, also a rich cape or mantle of silk woven with gold thread, having emblazoned thereon the arms of the house of Austria. It was customary on the festival of the first Sunday of September to array the statue with this cape. Philip II. gave nothing to Hal, but, says Lipsius, he had more affection than he shewed, and had he been successful with the great Armada, perhaps Hal might not have been forgotten: yet Philip hated the people of the Netherlands, and would perhaps have rather honoured Our Lady of Montserrat. Alexander, Prince of Parma, the eminent and skilful general who so long led the armies of Spain in the Netherlands, was full of religious devotion to Hal; and it is said that whenever, on his visits thither, he came in sight of the tower of the church he dismounted from his horse, and went the rest of the way on foot. His gifts were, however, in money, and consequently without ostentatious record.

Lipsius concludes his history with a prayer to the "Queen of heaven, of earth, and sea," that she would avert the evils of a civil war now almost of forty years' duration, and restore faith. (It must be remembered he alludes to the long struggle for religious reform and civil freedom). And he finally presents her with a silver pen, in grateful commemoration of his having been permitted to record the story of Our Lady of Hal. The inscription in verse yet remains on the walls of the chapel, and runs thus:

Hanc, Diva, pennam interpretem mentis meæ
Per alta spatia quæ volavit ætheris,
Per imaque volavit et terræ et maris:
Scientiæ, prudentiæ, sapientiæ,
Operata semper. Ausa quæ constantiam
Describor et vulgare: quæ civilia,
Quæ militaria, atque Poliorcetica
Variaq. luce scripta prisci sæculi
Affecit, et perfudit: hanc pennam tibi
Nunc, Diva, meritò consecravi Lipsius,
Nam numine istæc inchoata sunt tuo,
Et numine istæc absoluta sunt tuo.
Terro ô benignitatis aura perpetim
Hæc spiret! et fama fugacis in vicem,
Quam penna peperit, tu perenne gaudium
Vitamq. Diva, Lipsio pare tuo.

Most of the rich gifts above enumerated are no longer at Hal, neither is

the pen of the accomplished historian, nor am I able to say at what time the altar was deprived of them. In the engraving given by Lipsius they all appear richly displayed around the miraculous image, and the shrine is an elegant design of Pointed architecture. All this has disappeared and given place to an ugly and tasteless mass of classic columns of wood, painted to imitate marble. In other respects the chapel is the same; but of the painted windows of Philip the Good there is no longer a trace, and the modern votive offerings, though numerous, are not remarkable for richness or great value. I have noticed them in my former article.

The numerous miracles recorded by Lipsius are illustrated by a number of very bad paintings on the walls of the church, but not of early date: they were apparently executed in the commencement of the 17th century. These stories, although having much in common with others of the kind, are curious and interesting. One actually relates to Philip Cleves, who afterwards attacked the sacred town with such bad success, and, as it was a favour wrought upon him, he proved either ungrateful, or did not ascribe the benefit he received to Our Lady of Hal. Philip Cleves was an illegitimate scion of an ancient race, and lived at Dijon, at that time (1472) a part of Burgundy. He was taken prisoner by the French and sent to Vauclure in Lorraine, and shut up in a tower eighty feet high. Fifty pieces of gold were demanded as the price of his ransom, but this was beyond his fortune; so that, sick of heart, he languished in his prison. One day, about noon, his food was brought to him; he did not taste it, but went to sleep, and slept on to the noon of the following day. He had even slept sitting, and in his chains, until his guard was attracted by it, and urged him to eat. He refused, indeed had no desire; his whole mind was agitated and fixed upon what he had seen in sleep. He saw himself at Hal, lying upon the steps of the chapel sacred to the Virgin. There he prayed before her image, and solicited that he might be freed from captivity. After having thus considered his dream, in the absence of the guard, he fell on his knees, and prayed to Our Lady to the

same end. Filled with hope, he took a bone from the piece of meat sent for him to eat, and began to use it as a file upon the iron collar by which his neck was bound. Immediately, he found the collar fell down broken, so he tried the same upon his wrists and ankles with the same success. Thus being freed from his bonds, he, with a rope which he had made with his linen and woollen garments, let himself down from the window. But the height of the tower was very great, and the rope not long enough; but, trusting to Divine aid, he boldly dropped, and fell unhurt on the ground. He then took refuge in an adjoining wood, and, fearful of pursuit, hid himself the whole day. He acted in the same way on the second and third, and was without food or clothes. "Yet," says the narrative, "the Virgin protected him, and conducted him safe to Hal, in such habit as he had, i. e. naked and squalid."

Now this story really contains little of the marvellous; it has all the features of truth, slightly coloured. Latude's escape from the Bastile might rather be called miraculous than this; and, without doubt, many of the wonders said to be wrought at these shrines have a foundation in some event, which imagination and a superstitious tendency magnify into Divine interposition. The following story of a tailor who swallowed a needle is amusing, and not more miraculous than the previous one; the date given to the story is 1440.

At Dendermond in Flanders, by the river Scheldt, was a tailor by trade, whose name was Bartholomew Broek. He, when he was sewing some cloth, got up to cut out a new garment. Therefore he put the needle with its thread into his mouth to have his hands free, and whilst he was intent upon his work, the needle and thread were drawn down his throat and swallowed. As soon as it had happened, he stood astonished, but afterwards went to his wife and told his misfortune. She began to lament, and ran to her neighbours and relations, as well as to the doctors, seeking assistance. "Many things are said, many done;" every thing is tried in vain, and for four days the needle remained. He afterwards went to Mechlin, where he had a brother, a physician, whom he consulted with others. They purged and physicked in vain ;