THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
| VOL. XX, NO. 579.] | SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1832. | [PRICE 2d. |
ANTWERP.
This Engraving may prove a welcome pictorial accompaniment to a scoreof plans of "the seat of war," in illustration of the leading topic ofthe day. The view may be relied on for accuracy; it being a transfer ofthe engraving in "Select Views of the Principal Cities of Europe, fromOriginal Paintings, by Lieutenant Colonel Batty, F.R.S.1" We have sorecently described the city, that our present notice must be confinedto a brief outline.
Antwerp, one of the chief cities of the Netherlands, is situated on theriver Scheldt, 22 miles north of Brussels, and 65 south of Amsterdam:longitude 4° 23' East; latitude 51° 13' North. It is called by Latinwriters, Antverpia, or Andoverpum; by the Germans, Antorf; bythe Spanish, Anveres; and by the French, Anvers.2 The city is ofgreat antiquity, and is supposed by some to have existed before the timeof Cæsar. It was much enlarged by John, the first Duke of Brabant, in1201; by John, the third, in 1314; and by the Emperor Charles V. in1543: it has always been a place of commercial importance, and abouttwenty years after the last mentioned date, the trade is concluded tohave been at its greatest height; the number of inhabitants was thencomputed at 200,000. A few years subsequently, Antwerp suffered much inthe infamous war against religious freedom, projected by the detestablePhilip II. (son of Charles V.) and executed by the sanguinary Dukeof Alva, whose cruelty has scarcely a parallel in history. In thismerciless crusade, Alva boasted that he had consigned 18,000 personsto the executioner; and with vanity as disgusting[pg 370]as his cruelty, he placed a statue of himself in Antwerp, in which hewas figured trampling on the necks of two statues, representing the twoestates of the Low Countries. Before the termination of the war, notless than 600 houses in the city were burnt, and 6 or 7,000 of theinhabitants killed or drowned. Antwerp was retaken and repaired by thePrince of Parma, in 1585. It has since that time been captured andre-captured so frequently as to render its decreasing prosperity a sadlesson, if such proof were wanting, of the baleful scourge of war. Thereader need scarcely be reminded that the last and severest blow to theprosperity of Antwerp was occasioned by the overthrow of Buonaparte,when, by the treaty of peace signed in 1814, her naval establishment wasutterly destroyed.3 The population has dwindled to little more thanone-fourth of the original number, its present number scarcely exceeding60,000.
The annexed view is taken from the Téte de Flandre, a fortifiedport on the left bank of the river Scheldt, immediately opposite to thecity, and now in the possession of the Dutch. The river here is a broadan