a city in the Austrian Netherlands, in the province of Brabant, pleasantly seated on the river Dyle, in a plentiful and agreeable country. The walls are about eight or nine miles in circumference; but they include several fields and vineyards. The cattle stands on a high hill, surrounded with fine gardens, and has a charming prospect all over the country. This town contains nine market places, 14 water-mills, 126 streets, 16 stone bridges, and several handsome palaces. The town-house is a venerable old building, adorned with statues on the outside; and the churches are very handsome, particularly the collegiate church of St Peter; but the principal ornament is the university, founded only in 1426 by John IV. duke of Brabant, with the concurrence of Pope Martin V. It contains about 40 colleges, four of which are called Pedagogia. There is in the number also an English college of friars-preachers, which owes its establishment to the liberalities of Cardinal Philip Howard, brother to the duke of Norfolk, who, before he was raised to the purple, had been private chaplain to Queen Catherine, comfort to Charles II. The Irish have likewise a seminary, erected in part under the care of Eugenius Mathaeus, titular archbishop of Dublin, anno 1623, which receives its appointments from the Propaganda at Rome. Besides the above, there are two convents for the Irish, one of Recollects and the other of Dominicans, where divinity and the mathesis are taught. In the last century the number of scholars exceeded 4000; but in the year 1744 the inhabitants amounted to 12,000, including 2000 students only.—At the beginning of the 14th century, under John III. it flourished considerably in the manufacture of woollen cloth: 400 houses were then occupied by substantial clothiers, who gave employment to an incredible number of weavers, so great, it is said, that a bell was rung to prevent any injuries which the children in the street might receive from the crowd and hurry on their returning from work. In 1382, these weavers, however, took up arms, and rebelled against their sovereign Prince Wenceslaus, throwing from the windows of the town hall 17 of the aldermen and counsellors, and afterwards proceeded to lay waste great part of Brabant; but being besieged and reduced to great extremities, they submissively implored his clemency; which was granted after the execution of some of the principal ringleaders. The weavers, the chief instigators to this revolt, were banished, the greater part of whom took refuge in England; where they first introduced, or at least augmented very much, the woollen manufacture. The town, by this circumstance, being almost depopulated, the university was established to supply in some measure the loss of the rebellious clothiers. Since that time the manufacture gradually declined, no cloth of any account being made there at present. This impolitic step of the duke Wenceslaus sent treasures to England, through the hands of these exiled people: 'an important lesson to governors, that they should deal with great precaution respecting such useful members of the community. Upon the ruins of these looms was formed the cloth manufacture of Limbourg, which is carried on with good advantage to this day. There is yet standing at Louvain part of the old drapers-hall, now converted into four public schools, where lectures in divinity, philosophy, law, and physic, are given, and the public acts are made.' Adjoining to the schools is the university library, which altogether compose a large pile of building. Over the door of the chief entrance we read these words, Sapientia adficiavit sibi domum. The principal church is collegiate, dedicated to St Peter, which had formerly three very large towers with elevated spires, one considerably higher than the two collaterals; these were blown down in the year recorded by this chronogram, oMnIa CaDVnt. From the name of this church, the burghers have acquired the nickname of Petermen, whose ancestors having clothed the back by a noble woollen manufacture, the modern Petermen now compose an ignoble mixture for the belly, called after them Peterman beer, a sort of whitish muddy ale, which they notwithstanding send in large quantities to all parts of the country, as well as to Holland, by the canals. Louvain was anciently the capital of the province, long before Brussels had any claim to that title. It was taken by the French in 1792, afterwards lost, and retaken in 1794. E. Long. 4. 40. N. Lat. 51. 12.