Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

A
TOUR THROUGH HOLLAND,
ALONG THE RIGHT AND LEFT
BANKS OF THE RHINE,
TO THE SOUTH OF
GERMANY,
IN
THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF
1806.

Pergit et hostiles (tanta est fiducia) ripas

Inconitatus adit.

Claudian.

BY SIR JOHN CARR,

OF THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, AUTHOR OF THE STRANGER IN IRELAND; A NORTHERN SUMMER, OR A TOUR ROUND THE BALTIC.

PHILADELPHIA:

Printed for C. and A. Conrad and Co., Samuel F. Bradford, Byrch and Small, and James Humphreys, Philadelphia: Andrews and Cummings, Boston: Peter A. Mesier, New-York, and Edmond Morford, Charleston.

FRY AND KAMMERER, PRINTERS.

1807.

TO HIS GRACE
JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORD.

MY LORD,

If the name of your Grace had been rendered illustrious solely by those distinguished Patriots from whom you derived it, my pride could not fail of being eminently gratified by being permitted to dedicate to you the following pages: but other, and infinitely more impressive and honourable emotions are awakened, when I reflect, that in the present descendant of the House of Russel are displayed that patriotic fervor, that lofty spirit of political independence, and that ardent zeal in the great cause of humanity, which distinguished so many of its branches in the annals of this great country. Indeed, my Lord, it is a felicity to be able to attest, from experience, and now to record, the pretensions of your Grace to the gratitude of your country and the love of mankind.

To the wisdom of your administration was committed a great and important, but a much neglected portion of the United Empire. You became the ruler of a country long oppressed, wickedly calumniated, and still bleeding from many a wound. Soon after the elevation of your Grace to this august situation, public symptoms appeared which called for sagacity and energy of no ordinary nature. Instead of listening, in the sunshine of vice-regal magnificence, to the vague reports of the idle, the ignorant, or the mischievous, you penetrated into the wild recesses of that distracted country, reputed to contain the hot-bed of insurrection; you personally contemplated the character of the poor, suffering Irish peasant, in all its rough but affecting simplicity; you beheld a fellow-being possessed of affections easily to be won by tenderness, of a vivid imagination, and quick and ardent susceptibility, clothed in rags, and living in common with the beast of the field, in a state of penury and wretchedness, unknown to the miserable and oppressed of any other region. To see, to feel, and to meditate relief were all simultaneous in the mind of your Grace. When some partial excesses at length broke out, when the violent and the intolerant clamorously demanded the terrible inflictions of military law, you firmly, wisely, and most humanely resolved upon surrendering up the guilty to the laws of their country, without delivering over their unoffending vicinage to the savage dominion of the bullet and the bayonet. The noble experiment answered, and your Grace lost no portion of your popularity, in the very spot where dire necessity compelled you to offer up victims to justice. Your conduct on that occasion, even in the absence of every other laudable event of your life, is sufficient to sweeten it to its latest period.

A great and unexpected political change rendered the administration of your Grace too brief to execute the enlightened and salutary plans which you had conceived for the amelioration of Ireland; but it was of sufficient duration to afford opportunities of displaying those qualities of the head and of the heart, which will endear your memory to that unhappy country for ever, and you have left to it the benefits of a brilliant example.

That your illustrious successor may adopt the same clemency and wisdom which your Grace so efficaciously exhibited; and that he may complete the measures which extraordinary political events prevented your Grace from perfecting, is the cordial prayer of him who is an enthusiastic well-wisher to Ireland, and who, with great respect, has the honour to subscribe himself,

My Lord, your Grace’s

Most obliged obedient servant,

JOHN CARR.

2, Garden-Court, Temple.

18th May, 1807.

TO THE READER.

I am indebted for some interesting anecdotes of the most eminent Painters of the Dutch and Flemish School to the authors of the Abrégé de la Vie des Peintres, to Pilkington’s Dictionary of Painters, and to the elegant and witty D’Israeli.

I had no companion with me during the greater part of the Tour described in the following pages, which was taken amidst many untoward and embarrassing circumstances, the melancholy effects of war, and which, for that reason, will, I hope, be favoured with the indulgent candour of my friends and of the Public.

CONTENTS.

TOUR THROUGH HOLLAND.

CHAPTER I.
A CONFESSION ... THE WAR ... AN ADOPTION ... CONFIDENCE IN FORTUNE SOMETIMES NECESSARY ... HATEFUL CHARACTER OF A SPY ... A MOTIVE FOR TRAVELLING ... A MORAL ... ANECDOTE OF A ROYAL DESCRIPTION ... MISERIES OF A DUTCH GALLIOT ... CALVIN AND SERVETUS ... RELIGION AND A ROPE’S END ... DUTCH ANECDOTE OF FORTITUDE ... ANECDOTE OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG ... APPEARANCE OF HOLLAND FROM THE SEA ... ITS COAST ... A DILEMMA ... THE MAAS RIVER ... ANECDOTE OF NAPOLEON ... OF A DUTCH WOMAN ... A DISASTER ... ROTTERDAM DESCRIBED ... LEANING HOUSES.

The public shall be my confessor.—In the summer of last year, whilst the larger portion of the civilized world was anxiously awaiting the result of our sincere negotiations for a peace, which, alas! the crafty ministers of Napoleon, never intended should be other than mere “romans politiques,” the desire of contemplating a country, and a race of people to me entirely new, induced me to trespass upon their shore.

I resolved upon visiting Holland, although in a state of reluctant war with my own country, of a war which yet permitted to her commerce a few stolen embraces with that of England, which forced many a pursy Dutchman to lament the separation, and in the narcotic atmosphere of his consoling pipe, to wish for better times. In gratifying my wishes, I was guilty of assuming a character respected in every country, as well for its being most wisely and profitably at peace with all the world, as for its integrity and enterprize: I became an American, and by an act of temporary adoption, fixed upon Baltimore in North America as the place of my nativity. A fortunate correspondence in the personal description, except a slight variation, not easily discoverable, relating to my face and age, enabled a friend of mine, a legitimate American, to accommodate me with his passport, which after all I might as well have left behind me, so kindly are the Hollanders disposed towards us.

I was promised by my friend a full description of the principal places in Baltimore, and of the adjacent country, that I might pass unsuspected through a cross examination, should any be attempted: the description never arrived, or arrived too late, and I ascended my chaise, as ignorant of Baltimore as of the Peruvian Potosi, trusting to that good chance which has often favoured me, and under the guidance of which

“In my school days, when I had lost one shaft,

I shot his fellow of the self same flight

The self same way, with more advised watch,

To find the other forth; by vent’ring both,

I oft found both.”

Merchant of Venice, Act I. Sc. 1.

The stratagem, if not perfectly blameless, was at least intended to be an inoffensive one; I had no hopes of a peace, and consequently none of seeing Holland in a more regular mode. I went not to investigate the nakedness of the land, and by availing myself of its confidence to penetrate the military depots, the docks and arsenals of a country not in amity with my own.

I abhor the character of a spy, moving in friendly garb, however useful his treachery may be to his employers. My imposition extended no farther than to enable me to make a picturesque tour through an almost aqueous kingdom, to view its natives in their ordinary habits, to glide upon their liquid roads, to saunter in their green avenues and flourishing gardens, and trace the wonderful results of that daring and indefatigable ingenuity, which has raised the permanent habitation of man in the ocean, and made successful inroads upon the physical order of the universe.

But though the deception gave no pang to my conscience, yet, harmless as it was, (and let me mention it as a moral lesson) it did not escape the lash of many a petty inconvenience. Often have I been pestered upon the supposition of my being an American merchant, with interrogations as to the number of partners I had, how many clerks I kept, and the many other perplexing queries of minds at once devoted to commerce, and curiosity: nor did I escape dilemmas infinitely more perilous.

Having thus in all candour confessed my offence, if such it ought in justice to be called, and which has also met with its due proportion of chastisement, I trust I shall receive absolution from my reader, and in that hope I shall now proceed to my narrative.

I intended to have availed myself, as I wish I had done on former occasions, of the indulgence usually allowed to tours given in the shape of epistolary correspondence, the ease and familiarity of which render the tourist less formal, and the critic more indulgent; but the war presented an obstacle to the adoption of a plan which would have been more congenial to my mind, and to the nature of the remarks I have to offer.

In company with two highly esteemed friends, I proceeded to Gravesend: upon the road, we were charmed, by occasional views of the majestic Thames, formed by a rich setting sun into the appearance of an inverted sky, decorated by ships more supported over than upon its bosom, and a vast expanse of richly cultivated land fading in the mist of a far distant horizon.

Of the country which I was quitting, and of that to which I was proceeding, our Charles the Second, a monarch of whom Sir Richard Bulstrode justly says, that had he loved business as well as he understood it, he would have been the greatest prince in Europe, observed, “that the former was the most comfortable climate to live under, he had ever experienced; as there were more days in the year, and more hours in the day, that a man could take exercise out of doors in it, than in any country he had ever known. That during his exile he had seen many countries, of which none pleased him so much as the Flemings, who were the most honest and true-hearted people he had ever met with; and added very prophetically to me, to whom he addressed these remarks, I am weary of travelling, I am resolved to go abroad no more; but when I am dead and gone, I know not what my brother will do, I am much afraid that when he comes to the throne he will be obliged to travel again.” A prediction fatally realized by the wicked folly of the royal object of it.

At Gravesend we paid six guineas apiece to a Dutch captain, and a little favourable breeze springing up, we proceeded on board with a large party composed of specimens of the human race from various parts of the globe, proceeding, through the indulgence of the government of Holland, to their various destinations on the continent. The moment we stepped on board we found we were victims to the most infamous imposition. Six guineas for a berth in a vessel, which Noah in the first rudiments of his art, would have made a thousand times more commodious! Figure to yourself about forty persons stowed in a Dutch galliot of about one hundred tons burthen, deeply laden with a cargo of chalk, &c. a hold near the bows covered with straw for the accommodation of thirty-six of the passengers; a low miserable cabin, four feet high on the deck, which formed the honey-moon bower of a young Swiss and a pretty English girl just married; and a little hole astern which, furnished with a couple of tickings crammed with Dutch peas instead of feathers, constituted the vestibule, drawing-room and chamber for me and one of my companions.

Hoping for a speedy termination to our marine miseries, we set sail and slowly creeped down the Thames by the aid of a scanty breeze, which dying before we had advanced two miles, left us as a legacy to the tardy tides. Indeed, we almost tided it over to Holland, in the achievement of which we were six long days and nights; but then the days were serene and warm, and the nights were adorned by a brilliant moon, and the blue vault of heaven was spangled over with stars.

Our captain and his crew exhibited twice a day that attention to their devotions, which is still so characteristic of their country, in spite of every hostile attack and insidious intrigue of France, in the most vulgar, impious, and savage era of her bloody revolution. The breakfast of every morning, and the supper of every evening, were consecrated by a long shrill anthem, and still longer prayer. The cook was the chaplain, and the kitchen, a hole of about eight feet by five, the chapel. The spirit of Calvin, if it be not offered up to the manes of Servetus, must have smiled with satisfaction at the motley group, surrounding a pot of boiled peas and pork, and enveloped in a deep fog of steam and smoke, thus offering up their homage in the language, and according to the rites of that merciless reformer.

The piety of the commander was carried to an extreme length. One morning we were disturbed by a great noise: the captain had compelled his son, a sprightly lad of about nine years old, to read the Dutch Testament for three days together, and with scarcely any cessation; in consequence of which the young disciple became restive, and whilst his father’s back was turned committed the apostles to the deep, for which he received a tolerable proportion of castigation. Fifty times a day were we annoyed by our pious commander vociferating to his child,

“Leer, leer, jou luigaart, of dit endje touw zal je leeren.”

“Learn, learn, you idler, or this rope’s end shall teach you.”

I restored our captain, who spoke English very well, to good humour, by relating to him an anecdote of the activity and cool philosophy of a Dutch sailor belonging to the fleet under the command of the celebrated Van Tromp, who immortalized himself by his naval victories over the Spaniards in 1639, but submitted to the superior skill and prowess of the British fleet under the command of the sturdy patriotic Blake. At the time when the hostile fleets were laying very near each other, after a severe engagement, to refit, a British and Dutch sailor endeavoured to rival each other by their activity in ascending and descending the rigging of their respective ships; at last the English sailor astonished his competitor by standing with his heels in the air upon the truck head of the main top gallant mast; the Dutchman endeavoured to do the same, but in the attempt fell upon the deck, from which, with great anguish and difficulty, he raised himself a little, and exclaiming to the Englishman, “dere mynheer can you do dat,” expired upon the spot. The Dutch are very fond of dogs. Our captain had a bitch and two puppies on board of a very peculiar breed, for which he expressed great attachment, and he was one day not a little amused at my telling him that at the commencement of the gallant action which took place between the Nymph and Cleopatra in the last war, there was a large Newfoundland dog on board the former vessel, which, as soon as the firing began, ran from below deck in spite of every exertion of the men to keep him down, and climbing up into the main chains, there kept up a continual barking, and exhibited the most violent rage during the whole of the engagement. When the Cleopatra struck he was amongst the foremost to board her, and walked up and down her decks as if he participated in the glory of the victory obtained by the English.

After a passage, during which our patience was put to a severe trial, we discovered Schouwen, and soon after the Island of Goree, where the wind began to freshen, and just before we made the mouth of the Maas, we met and hailed a fine large fishing smack, the captain of which our commander endeavoured to prevail upon, by the usual and generally successful application of a little money, to smuggle us into the Briel: after a long consultation, the captain and crew of the smack, not considering that all was fish which came to their net, refused to take charge of us, and to our no very pleasant sensations, instead of standing out to sea, tacked and returned to the Briel under full press of canvass. A low slimy shore surmounted by green flags and a few scanty oziers announced our voyage to be at its close, and we entered the river of a country which our Hudibrastic Butler thus peevishly describes:

“A country that draws fifty foot of water,

“In which men live as in the hold of nature;

“And when the sea does in upon them break,

“And drowns a province, does but spring a leak;

“That always ply the pump, and never think

“They can be safe, but at the rate they stink;

That live as if they had been run aground,

And, when they die, are cast away and drown’d;

That dwell in ships, like swarms of rats, and prey

Upon the goods all nations’ ships convey;

And when their merchants are blown up and crack

Whole towns are cast away in storms and wreck;

That feed like cannibals, on other fishes,

And serve their cousin germans up in dishes,

A land that rides at anchor, and is moor’d,

In which they do not live, but go aboard.”

The Duke of Alva, with more whimsicality and less bitterness, observed, “that the Dutch were the nearest neighbours to hell of any people on the earth, for they dwelt the lowest.”

In consequence of the tide being always very rapid when going out, and the wind again falling, we came to an anchor in the mouth of the Maas. One of the first objects that saluted our eyes, in this state, was the telegraph, which was in a state of uncommon activity, and the glasses of its official attendants often came in direct opposition with ours. The balls flew up and down with wonderful rapidity for nearly an hour after we anchored, and sufficiently explained the motive which induced the captain of the smack to return to port. The signification of the word Briel, in Dutch, is spectacle, which is supposed to have given its name to this place, on account of the extensive view which its buildings command of the surrounding country. This town is celebrated for having given birth to the illustrious warrior I before mentioned, admiral Cornelius Van Tromp.

In the dead of the night, and in a deep fog, a fishing boat dropped along side, the master of which told us that the last vessel which had arrived from England had been confiscated, and all the passengers made prisoners, and after this exordium offered to conduct us in safety past the guard-ship if we would give him two guineas apiece: and to secure our transit, he proposed shutting us all down in his cabin, under hatchways, for that night and the whole of the next day, and then dropping past the guard-ship in the evening; during all which time we must have sat chin to knee, and have been infinitely worse accommodated than a cargo of African slaves. As we had an aversion from being introduced into the kingdom in this furtive manner, we persisted in refusing to quit our vessel, to the no little mortification of our captain, who having safely deposited our passage money in a large tin box, was very anxious to get rid of us in any manner. I believe personal apprehensions induced him to weigh the anchor early next morning, and to bear away for Maaslandsleys, on the other side of the Maas, where after the captain had satisfied the commodore commanding the guard-ships there, to whom he was well known, that we all came from Varel, a little neutral town to the eastward of the Weser, a fast sailing fishing boat was provided to take us up to Rotterdam, a distance of twenty-five miles, at half a guinea a head.

Gladly we bade adieu to our miserable ark, and about six o’clock in the evening embarked upon the Merwe river, a noble branch of the Maas, the breadth of which is about a mile, lessening but in a little degree as it reaches Rotterdam. The water of this river is rather foul, its shores are beautifully lined with villages, farm houses and avenues of trees. A botanical gentleman informed me that the eryngium campestre, field eryngo, so very rare in England, grows in great profusion, and wild, on either side of the river, and in most other parts of Holland.

When the night advanced, the floating lanterns of the fishermen had a pleasing and romantic effect, as we glided along with a fine breeze; and a row of lamps running parallel with a canal supplied by the Merwe, announced our passing Schiedam, so celebrated throughout Holland for its distilleries of geneva, of which we were informed there were three hundred before the Dutch submitted to the arms of France.

When the French troops entered Holland as victors, this beautiful river, in a season remarkably rigorous, formed a compact road of ice for the infantry, cavalry, and artillery, of the invaders: dreadful as the winter was, the French were in want of the most necessary articles of clothing; even whole battalions were destitute of shoes and stockings, and centinels frequently did duty with no other covering than a tattered blanket, and the fragment of a pair of breeches, which time and service had reduced by instalments to little more than a few shreds: yet they did not repine.

In a milder climate, after the French took possession of Bologna, a soldier, whose coat was nearly in the predicament of his military countryman’s breeches before mentioned, came up to Bonaparte, and begged that he would order him a new one, to which his general, who had none to give him, very shrewdly replied, “my good fellow, that will not do, it will hinder your wounds from being seen.”

When the French troops entered Rotterdam, they were quartered on the inhabitants, whose good opinion, I was well informed, they soon conciliated by their quiet conduct and orderly deportment. I afterwards received the same character of the French troops in other parts of Holland, from those with whom, I am convinced, they were not very welcome visitors, on account of the contributions which they levied.

In the faces of our crew, and the scenery on each side of us, before dusk-fall, we saw those studies to which the exquisite works of the Dutch school have familiarized every person of taste. About twelve o’clock we arrived at the boom, or barrier for shipping at Rotterdam, and here a luckless accident had nearly befallen me. The luggage of the passengers was deposited in small holds nearly the length of the vessel, covered over with loose boards: the night was dark, and as by the light of a solitary lamp we were endeavouring to get at our luggage, a fat Dutchman’s wife sprung out of the cabin, in which she had been concealed during our expedition up the river, who thinking that we were molesting some of her bonnet boxes, in the unguarded violence of her approach, slipped into one of the holds, the boards of which had been inadvertently left open by the Swiss bridegroom before mentioned, in an irritable struggle to obtain his luggage; the oaths and howlings of the poor lady brought out her husband, a man whom we had remarked for the unpleasantness of his physiognomy and deportment during the voyage, and as I stood nearest to his prostrate wife in the act of assisting her, he charged me with having maliciously occasioned her suffering, and threatened repeatedly to call the watchmen of the city and send me and my companions to prison.

It was a long time before I could allay the storm, and dulcify the temper of this man, which, considering my situation, required some little forbearance and management of feeling. At length we got on shore, and after much difficulty and perambulation discovered a comfortable hotel in the suburbs; the gates of the city being always shut, and the boom closed at eleven o’clock.

Our hotel lay at the bottom of a most beautiful avenue of trees, running parallel with the river opposite to the ferry. Our landlord was very civil, and all his servants spoke French. In the principal apartment was a print of Napoleon in his coronation robes: I afterwards observed similiar prints in many other houses in the city.

Many of the principal merchants of Rotterdam have country-houses in these delightful suburbs. I walked along a line of them, and beheld for the first time a specimen of the taste of the Dutch in rural scenery: the gardens, upon a level with the river, and divided from it by a high raised road, appeared to have been all designed by a mathematician; but still their neatness and luxuriance left a pleasing impression on the mind. Upon every gate, or house, a motto indicative of the mind of the owner, or of the character of the place, presented itself, of which the following are specimens:

Vreede is myn Lust Haf

Peace is my garden.

Lust en rust

Hope and repose.

Na by Bruten

Almost out of town.

Ziet op u minder

Look upon those beneath you.

N. B. This was inscribed upon a large house that commanded some little cottages.

Wel te vreeda

Very content, &c. &c.

These inscriptions are seldom used but by opulent tradesmen; amongst the higher classes they are considered to be a little tinctured with vulgarity, though, as I found, they sometimes indulge in them: the villas of the latter are frequently known by names corresponding with those which are applied to the country residences of the superior families in England.

In the morning our luggage was inspected by the proper officers, who gave us very little trouble, and were content with a trifling douceur. The entrance to the city, towards the river, through the principal gate, called De Nieuwe Hoofds Poort, a structure infinitely more elegant than another barrier of this city, called De Oude Hoofds Poort, is very handsome.

The immediate transition from the tranquillity of the country to the busy hum of men was very striking: the canals, with their numerous draw-bridges, as we proceeded to our city hotel, the Mareschal de Turenne, were lined with vessels of all sorts and sizes; and notwithstanding the war, every one appeared to be engaged in some active pursuit or another.

Before hostilities began, it was no uncommon circumstance to see between three and four hundred merchant ships, from England alone, lying in these canals and in the Maas; by which a vast commerce is carried on with the greatest facility and economy, from the centre to the extremities of the kingdom; and as they communicate with the Rhine and other large rivers, all the productions of the earth are conveyed at little expense to many parts of the continent, in a period of tranquillity.

The number of beautiful streets adorned, as is the case throughout Holland, with noble rows of trees, is a spectacle at once novel and beautiful. The trees act as a fan to the houses in hot weather, and their leaves are said to inhale whatever mephitic air may arise from such of the canals as are stagnant, and to breathe it out again with refreshing purity.

In a sick chamber, fresh flowers are now thought salubrious, although, in no very distant time, they were regarded by the faculty as extremely noxious.

The city derives its name from the adjoining river Rotte, which unites with the Merwe, and from the neighbourhood of both to the sea, renders the situation of this town very eligible for trade, commerce, and navigation. The pleasure-boats of some of the merchants, which we saw moored opposite to their houses, appeared to be very clumsy, and constructed only for smoking or napping in: they were broad, high at the head and stern, admitted only of one rower, and had a heavy cabin with moveable glass windows towards the stern.

One of the first appearances which impress a foreigner on his arrival in Holland is that of the houses, which, built of very small bricks, very lofty, and filled with large windows, lean forward as they ascend; to such a rage has this unaccountable passion for avoiding an upright been carried, that I am sure many of them must be two or three yards out of the perpendicular: nothing can be more whimsical than the corner houses of most of the streets. If these houses had not the appearance of being perfectly stable, from the freshness of their outsides, and from their presenting no fissures, a stranger would be induced from apprehension of personal safety, to prefer paddling his way in the very centre of their canals, to walking in the streets. No scene can at first be more novel and interesting than that which Rotterdam presents; masts of ships, enlivened by gay streamers; beautiful stately trees and lofty leaning houses appear mingled together, and at one view he sees before him the characteristic features of the country, the city, and the sea.

CHAPTER II.
THE BOOMPIES ... BAYLE ... PREROGATIVES OF GENIUS ... SPANISH INSCRIPTIONS ... A DUTCH DINNER ... DUTCH BEGGARS ... A GOOD BARGAIN ... ANECDOTES OF SOME MEMBERS OF THE BATAVIAN EXECUTIVE BODY ... ANECDOTES OF THE PASSION OF THE DUTCH FOR TRAFFIC ... ANECDOTE OF LORD NELSON AND THE DEY OF TUNIS ... HEREDITARY DRESSES ... THE EXCHANGE OF ROTTERDAM ... ANECDOTES OF THE ENGLISH THERE ... SEVERAL ANECDOTES OF THE KING AND QUEEN OF HOLLAND ... PUBLIC OPINION OF THEM ... DUTY OF A TOURIST.

One of the first places we visited was the Boom-quay, or Boompies, which extends along the river, about half a mile from the new to the old head, the two places where the water enters the city, and fills the canals, which are seven in number: this street is very broad and truly magnificent; and the prospect from it, over the river, and the opposite country, highly delightful. Cheyney-walk at Chelsea is a very humble resemblance to it.

Many of the houses are very noble, and some of them are built of free-stone, which not being the produce of the country, must have been brought to the spot at a great expense. In England a rage for expensive building had so possessed a man whom I knew, and who resided very far from the capital, that he had many parcels filled with bricks and stones sent down to his workmen by the mail coach.

The Boom-quay forms a fine mall for the inhabitants of the city, and is chiefly the residence of the most opulent and elegant families. An English nobleman, Lord North and Gray, had many years since a superb house here, which he became entitled to in right of his wife, a rich Dutch lady.

Upon this quay once resided the celebrated Bayle, the author of the Historical and Critical Dictionary, and professor of philosophy and history at Rotterdam, from which he was removed by the influence of M. Jurieu, who in a violent controversy with him, had illiberally misrepresented his principles, and driven him to great penury. The writings of this extraordinary man are so versatile and so adapted to every one’s taste, that he secured readers amongst divines, philosophers, physicians, wits, and libertines in every part of Europe. Saurin, with that antithesis for which he was more known than for the elegance of his compositions, thus describes him: “Bayle was one of those extraordinary men, whom it is difficult to reconcile with themselves, and whose opposite qualities give us room to doubt whether we ought to consider him as the best, or the worst of men. On the one hand he was a great philosopher, who knew how to distinguish truth from falsehood, who could at one view perceive all the consequences of a principle, and the chain or series, in which they were linked together; on the other, he was a great sophist, who undertook to confound truth with falsehood, and knew how to deduce false inferences from the hypothesis he advanced. On the one hand, he was a man of learning and of knowledge, who had read all that could be read, and remembered all that could be remembered; on the other, he was ignorant, or affected to be so, of the most common things, in respect of which he proposed such difficulties, as had been answered a thousand times. On the one hand he attacked the most eminent men, opened a large field of labour for them, led them through the most difficult ways, and if he did not get the better of them, at least gave them great trouble, to get the better of him; on the other, he made use of the worst of authors, to whom he was lavish of his praise, frequently disgracing his writings by citing such names as no learned man ever mentioned.” So speaks Saurin of this able man, whose abilities, however, have been honoured with the usual homage; they have been allowed to consecrate the place in which they flourished. No stranger can visit the Boom-quay without being informed that Bayle resided there, and without having the spot where his little mansion stood pointed out to him. It is the noble nature of genius to requite the ingratitude of a thankless country, by shedding upon it unquenchable lustre, and raising it in the rank of nations.

In several parts of the city, memorials of the inroads of the Spaniards are traceable, not only in the forms of several of the buildings, but in several mottos and inscriptions in their language, which are still legible in many of the old buildings, in this and in other cities.

The number of Jews in Rotterdam is very great, and many of them are of high respectability, and as much distinguished for their integrity, as their industry and opulence.

Soon after my arrival I had the pleasure of dining with one of the first families of that persuasion: our host, a very amiable man, gave us a true Dutch dinner, consisting of nearly fifteen different sorts of fish, exquisitely dressed, and served up with vegetables of various kinds. In Holland, in preparing the fish for the kettle, the head, fins, and tail, are generally cut off. In this city port wine is scarcely ever drank; it is by no means gratifying to a Dutch palate. Some was presented to me at a dinner where I was, but it was so old that all its flavour had evaporated. The principal wines drank are Claret, Madeira, and the Rhine wines. I found the bread in Holland every where excellent, and the coffee every where bad.

I soon found that the received opinion of there being no beggars in Holland is perfectly erroneous. I was frequently beset by these sons and daughters of sorrow or idleness, who preferred their petition with indefatigable pursuit, but in so gentle a tone, that it was evident they were fearful of the police. They are abundant, but orderly. It was observed by some English in Holland, that a Dutch beggar is too wise to waste his breath by asking alms of a Dutchman, and that relief is only sought from strangers: the fact is, there are so many asylums for paupers, that a Dutchman acquainted with the legislative provision made for them, always considers a beggar as a lawless vagabond.

For this reason, and this alone, Charity seldom takes an airing in Holland: towards the wretched, in the streets, the rich in this country

“Resemble sweet instruments hung up in cases,

That keep their sounds to themselves.”

Timon of Athens, Act. I. Sc. 5.

In no country of its size, as will appear in the course of this journal, are there more charitable institutions, and at the same time a stronger appetite for accumulation. To make a good bargain is considered by many a Dutchman as the highest achievement of the human mind. As a proof that they never suffer their national animosities to interfere with individual interest, the reader may rely on the following anecdote.

In an early stage of the last war, when the Dutch government rigorously prohibited the importation of English manufactures, some members of the executive body entered into an agreement with a mercantile house in Rotterdam, to supply the requisition for the clothing of the French army, by a clandestine importation of cloth from England, and the looms of Yorkshire accordingly clothed ten thousand French soldiers.

The same commercial spirit was observed by the Dutch many years since to us, when, in a severe battle between the fleets of the Republic and Great Britain, during a cessation of the fight, for the mutual accommodation of repairing the damages sustained, some of the officers of the Dutch ships actually offered the captains of some of ours, supplies of gunpowder at an advanced price, in consequence of understanding that two or three of our ships had nearly exhausted their stores of it.

The Dey of Tunis made a more whimsical offer; when the heroic and immortal Nelson threatened to blow his capital about his ears, the Dey sent to his lordship to know the cost of every shot that would be fired, the answer was nearly a pound sterling; upon which the Dey said, if his lordship would calculate how many shots would be necessary to demolish his capital, and send him half the amount in good bills, he would destroy it himself.

I nowhere saw, except amongst the skippers, that mighty mass of breeches, in which my expectation had in part clothed every Dutchman’s frame: but the appearance of many of the men in long flowered waistcoats, and trunk hose, and the females in short plaited petticoats, blue stockings, and large round silver buckles projecting over either side of the foot, was very whimsical. Many of their dresses are hereditary; and grandfather, father, and son, have in regular succession proceeded to the altar in the same nuptial breeches. The quays of Rotterdam are very spacious, and every where embellished with trees; and the canals deeper and cleaner than in any other of the large cities in the kingdom.

In consequence of the features of every street being so similar, a stranger finds uncommon difficulty in reaching the place of his destination, or in returning to his hotel, without a guide.

After having secured a bedroom and deposited our luggage at the Mareschal de Turenne, kept by Mr. Crabb, an Englishman, who renders the character of a maitre d’hotel eminently respectable, by his attention to foreigners of every description, and to his own countrymen in particular, by moderate charges and excellent accommodations, we proceeded to the Exchange at two o’clock, when the merchants assemble.

This building is an oblong square with a covered walk on each side, and is plain and handsome. It was finished in 1736. I was astonished to find it crowded in every part, and presenting, in the activity and bustle which were displayed, every appearance of a great commercial country in a high state of prosperous tranquillity.

In this Babel assembly the greatest interest for a successful termination of the negotiation between France and England seemed anxiously to prevail; and induced a stranger like myself to think that the interests of Holland were pretty closely interwoven with those of England.

The arrival of English papers, and of couriers from Paris, never failed to excite a strong sensation from one end of the city to the other. Upon the exchange I saw several Englishmen transacting business; and such is the respect which the Dutch bear towards us, that we soon found the suspicion of our being English rather increased than damped the civilities we experienced.

As Rotterdam may be considered, as Bonaparte has recently described the city of Hamburg, une ville Anglaise, in consequence of so many English families having settled there before the revolution, and also of the proximity of its port to England, it was with surprise I found that the new ruler and form of government were so popular as they are in this city.

In the years 1794 and 1795 the progress of the French arms excited uncommon consternation in this city, in which a higher veneration for the stadtholderian government, as established under the influence of England and Prussia in 1787, existed, than in any other city in the United Provinces.

As the French advanced, the principal English families fled with great precipitation, and were followed by many of the Dutch: their flight was in the most inclement part of a winter remarkably rigorous, and they were obliged to pass over frozen canals, rivers and deep snows, many by the most wretched open conveyances, in their way to Helvoetsluys, where they embarked for that country, which, since the time of the first Charles, has, thank Heaven! been neither the seat of war, nor of revolutionary phrenzy.

A short time before we visited Rotterdam, we heard that the king and queen had visited that city, the only one which they had then honoured with their presence, except the seat of the royal residence at the Hague.

Upon their arrival in the city, their majesties and the two princes, in their carriages, attended by their suite and an escort of horse, proceeded to the Exchange, where they were waited upon by the principal functionaries and a deputation of the most opulent merchants of the city. Their majesties appeared to be much affected by the very flattering manner in which they were received.

The queen, who is always mentioned by those who have had the honour of knowing her before and since the wonderful elevation of so many branches of her family, as a most amiable, enlightened, and accomplished woman, very much gratified some of the members, and the nation at large, by observing upon the Exchange: “We are deeply penetrated by the cordiality with which we have been received in the country; as strangers we could not, and did not expect such a reception; but we hope to remain long enough amongst you to secure your esteem, by doing all the good in our power.” This short address, delivered with that grace and manner, which, I am informed, are so characteristic of her majesty, captivated all the Dutchmen present, and spread with great celerity through every part of the city, and contributed to raise her very high in the public estimation.

From the Exchange their majesties proceeded to the Admiralty, and were gratified, for the first time in their lives, with seeing a man of war, a seventy-four, launched; and after partaking of a splendid collation, they passed through the principal streets in a single carriage, unattended by their body-guard. On this public occasion, the only external ornament which the king wore was the star of the legion of honour.

In the department of the admiralty, the king has effected many wise and salutary regulations. He has abolished all the sinecure offices attached to it, reduced overgrown salaries, and doubled the hours of labour of the clerks, who were before almost receiving the wages of idleness from the country. By this firm and sagacious conduct, the king has already produced a saving to the state of two millions sterling a year.

Before the new constitution, which will be given hereafter, was finally adjusted, the king declared, that the national debt should be most sacredly respected, and its guarantee forms accordingly a permanent feature in that system, and measures have been adopted for its speedy liquidation. The king has also chosen two gentlemen of high respectability from the body of the merchants of Rotterdam to be members of his council.

Before these circumstances, and the previous unsettled condition of the country are known or reflected upon, it would appear somewhat paradoxical, that as the interests of the Dutch have a bias in favour of England, and as their government is of French construction, the ruler who has been placed over them by events little less than miraculous, could ever, and especially in so short a time, have made himself popular; but to the fact I pledge myself, upon the authority of some of the most respectable and enlightened Dutchmen in different parts of Holland, repeatedly renewed to me.

It is a subject of congratulation with every Englishman, that a similar spirit of economy and retrenchment animates the minds of the present administration, which, during the short period of its elevation to power, has purified many of the public offices of slothful supernumeraries, and has to its eternal honour refused to augment the public burthens by reversionary pensions.

By such instances of public virtue, and the wisdom, vigour, and sound policy, which reign in the councils of his majesty, the British empire may ultimately triumph over its enemies, or at least be preserved entire amidst the general wreck of other nations.

The king of Holland was described to me to resemble his brother Napoleon, very strongly in size, complexion, manner, thoughtful taciturnity, and abstemiousness: he is a great invalid, and has received some severe paralytic shocks in one of his arms, for which, as well as for the general extreme delicate state of his health, he has been obliged to visit the baths of Wisbaden, and to drink the waters of the Spa; which prevented his remaining in Holland but for a very short time, after the constitution had placed him on the throne, and he was absent when I was there.

The king has the reputation of being much pleased with the English character, and very fond of the society of Englishmen; a gratification which a series of adverse circumstances has prevented him from indulging in for some time past. I remember, when I was at Paris, during the brief pause of war, that just gave “a time for frighted peace to pant,” he was never more happy than when he had one of our countrymen at his splendid and hospitable table.

The queen is, as she was also described to me, a brunette of considerable beauty, inclined to the en bon point, has a face expressive of great suavity of mind, and is highly accomplished; she particularly excels in dancing, in which, for the gracefulness of her attitudes, she is said to be unrivalled. To this elegant accomplishment she is particularly attached, and when she travels, is generally complimented, in any considerable town where she stops for a day or two, with a public ball, an attention by which she is always much gratified.

Their majesties have two princes who are very young; the eldest is called Napoleon after the emperor. Should the dynasty of the Bonapartes experience no convulsive overthrow, it is generally believed that, upon the demise of that extraordinary being, who has pushed so many kings from their thrones to make room for the members of his own family, the crown of France will devolve upon this child.

In detailing these few anecdotes, which to me at least were interesting, I have been induced by a veneration for truth alone, to give a representation which, to such as think that nothing favourable, however deserved, should be reported of those with whom we are not in amity, will not be very palatable. To an enemy, if not generous, let us at least be always just. It is as base in principle, as it is dangerous in politics, to depreciate the popularity of a prince with whom we are at war, for it obviously leads to a miscalculation of his influence upon his people, and of the nature and extent of his strength and resources.

I abhor fuming a sovereign with adulation, more especially the ruler of a country at war with my own; but it is what I owe to my own country to relate the fact.

CHAPTER III.
COMMISSION COUNTENANCES ... PHYSIOGNOMIES COMPARED ... HOMAGE PAID TO GENIUS ... ERASMUS’S STATUE ... INSCRIPTION ... REVOLUTIONARY WHIMS ... LEARNED GALLANTRY ... KISSES ... ANECDOTES OF ERASMUS ... CATHEDRAL OF SAINT LAWRENCE ... THE RIVAL ORGAN ... CHARITY SCHOOLS ... PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS ... EFFECTS OF EDUCATION ON THE PUBLIC MIND ... HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD ... MR. LANCASTER’S SCHOOL.

In my way to the celebrated statue of Erasmus, and indeed wherever I moved, almost every face I met looked as if it belonged to a soul more disposed to cultivate the figures of arithmetic, than of rhetoric. I saw none of those sprightly physiognomies, which abound in the large towns of England or France, full of smiles, of levity, and carelessness, the happy owners of which appear as if they basked and frolicked in the sunshine of every event. Even the Spanish proverb, “thoughts close, looks loose,” is not observed in this city. An eye prone to the earth, a look of settled meditation, and a measured pace denote the Rotterdammer. Yet with these appearances Holland has not been insensible to that literary merit, in honour of which, in other times and regions, the Grecians and Romans raised temples, statues, and constituted public games, to which the Persians, the Arabians, the Turks, and even the Chinese, presented the most magnificent rewards.

As the inhabitants of Languedoc established floral games, at which they bestowed golden flowers as prizes to the fortunate poets; as Rome crowned Petrarch with laurel; as Ravenna erected a marble tomb to the memory of Dante, and Certaldo a statue to Boccaccio; as delighted princesses touched with their fragrant lips the cheeks of poets; as the Venetians paid to Sannazarius six hundred pistoles for six verses; as Baif received a silver image of Minerva from his native city, and Ronsard had apartments reserved for him in the palace of Charles IX. of France, and also the honour of receiving poetical epistles from that monarch: behold the Hollander has raised a superb bronze figure to the memory of that great restorer of the Latin tongue, Erasmus.

This statue stands upon an arch crossing a canal, and is nearly ten feet high; it was finished in 1622, and is said to be the chef-d’œuvre of Henry de Keiser, a very celebrated statuary and architect. It has been observed, that in the quality of the different statues which the Dutch raised to the memory of Erasmus, may be traced the different degrees of zeal with which his memory was cherished by them.

In 1540 they raised a statue of wood; seventeen years afterwards, blushing for the little respect they had observed, they exchanged it for one of blue stone; and in sixty-five years following apotheosized him by the noble memorial of their veneration, which I contemplated with equal admiration and delight. In 1572 the Spaniards, Vandal-like, shot at the stone statue with their muskets, and threw it in the canal, from whence it was afterwards raised and again set up, by order of the magistrates, upon the expulsion of the Spaniards; upon whom the Dutch retaliated in the most spirited and gallant manner, by attacking that nation through her colonial establishments in the East and West Indies, and in Africa, and by capturing the rich galleons of their merciless invaders.

The bronze figure is clad in an ecclesiastical habit, with an open book in his hand. Various attempts have at different times been made to convert the sage into a turncoat: before the revolution which expelled the stadtholder and his family, every concavity in his dress was crammed, on certain holidays, with oranges; during the hey-day of the republican form of government, amidst the celebration of its festivals, he was covered with tri-coloured ribbons, when the juice of the orange was never suffered to pass the lips of a true patriot!! Even the marigold, first consecrated by poets to the Virgin, and afterwards used as a symbol of the House of Orange,

“The marigold, whose courtier’s face

Echoes the sun, and doth unlace

Her at his rise,”

was expelled from the gardens of the new republicans. Oh, Liberty! happy had it been for millions, if all the outrages perpetrated in thy hallowed name had spent themselves upon ribbons, oranges, and marigolds!

Oudaan the poet has done honour to this star of erudition, whose works filled ten folio volumes, and whose talents had nearly raised him to cardinalate under Pope Paul III. in the following lines in Dutch, which are inscribed on his pedestal:

Hier rees die groote zon, en ging te Bazel onder!

De Rykstad eer’ en vier’ dien Heilig in zyn grav;

Dit tweede leeven geevt, die’t eerste leeven gav:

Maar ’t ligt der taalen, ’t zout der zeden, ’t heerlyk wonder.

Waar met de Lievde, en Vreede, en Godgeleerdheid praald,

Word met geen grav geerd nog met zeen beeld betaald:

Dies moet hier’t lugtgewele Erasmus overdekken,

Nadien geen mind’re plaats zyn tempel kan verstrekken!

Or thus in English:

Erasmus, here, the eloquent and wise,

That Sun of Learning! rose, and spread his beam

O’er a benighted world, through lowering skies,

And shed on Basil’s towers his parting gleam.

There his great relics lie: he blest the place:

No proud preserver of his fame shall prove

The Parian pile; tho’ fraught with sculptur’d grace:

Reader! his mausoleum is above.

The reader may perhaps be pleased with the following anecdote. When Erasmus was in England, which he visited several times, and where he was honoured with the friendship of Archbishop Warham, Bishops Tonstal and Fox, Dean Colet, Lord Montjoy, Sir Thomas More, and other distinguished men, he mentions a custom then prevalent amongst the females of this country, the discontinuance of which, considering how much improved they are since the time of Erasmus, and how their natural charms are heightened by the grace of the Grecian drapery, must be a subject of infinite regret with all who love and cherish the sex, as it ought to be loved and cherished.

ERASMUS.

Sunt hic in Anglia nymphæ divinis vultibus, blandæ, faciles. Est præterea mos nunquam satis laudandis, sive quò venias, omnium osculis receperis, sive discedas aliquo, osculis dimitteris. Redis redduntur suavia; venitur ad te propinantur suavia, disceditur abs te, dividuntur basia; occurritur alicui, basiatur affatim; denique quocumque te moveas, suaviorum plena sunt omnia.

“The women in England are divinely beautiful, affable, and good humoured. There is a custom also here, which can never be sufficiently commended. When you go any where, you are received by all with kisses; when you depart, you are dismissed with kisses. On your return, kisses are again bestowed on you. When they visit you, kisses are presented; when they go away, kisses also pass between you. If you meet any body, kisses are plentifully distributed. In short, whatever you do, wherever you go, you are sure of kisses in abundance.”

This is language sufficiently warm to prove that Erasmus carried the feelings of a man under the cowl of a monk. Erasmus was very accomplished: he is said to have imbibed from Hans Holbein a fine taste for painting, and to have painted several pictures whilst in the convent at Gouda.

Holbein owed the patronage of Henry VIII. to Erasmus, for at his request it was that he came to London, and by him was introduced to Sir Thomas More, who employed and entertained him in his own house for three years, during which his likenesses, and the execution of his works, attracted the notice of the king, who took him into his service, and paid him as long as he lived: although he once hazarded the severest displeasure of his royal and turbulent patron; for being dispatched by Cromwell to paint the Lady Ann of Cleves, Holbein so flattered her with his pencil, that Henry was induced to marry her; but when he discovered how plain she really was, his anger turned from the painter to the minister, and poor Cromwell lost his head because the unhappy Ann was denounced by her royal husband for “a Flanders’ mare,” and not the Venus depicted by Holbein.

Amongst the churches, the only one I saw worthy of notice was the cathedral of St. Lawrence, the tower of which I ascended, and from its top commanded the greater part of the south of Holland. The body of the church is very large. The walls, like all the rest of the Dutch churches, are saddened over with a great number of sable escutcheons, and the floor covered with rush bottom chairs for the congregation when assembled. A magnificent brass ballustrade of exquisite workmanship, separates the choir from the nave.

The church is used for various purposes: the synod of the province and the presbytery of the town used to assemble in it; I was informed they still continue to do so; and at the fairs, booths are erected in it.

The only monuments worthy of attention, and those merit but little, are erected to the memories of Admiral Cornelius de Witt, Johannes a Brakel, and Admiral Korlenaar. A magnificent organ has been building for some years in this church: a very large but inadequate sum of money has been subscribed for this superb instrument, which is intended to rival the celebrated one at Haarlem, but much more money will be necessary for that purpose: the object of this measure is not out of homage to St. Cecilia, but from a commercial spirit, that repines at hearing of the number of persons who flock to Haarlem to hear its boasted instrument, by which considerable sums of money in the course of the year are expended in that city.

To the honour of Holland, her seminaries of learning have always been favourite objects with her government; and I was well informed, that to the further promotion of this great and vital source of the morals, order, and glory of nations, the king has devoted much of his consideration.

To the choirs of this cathedral, the scholars of the charity schools of the city, attended by their masters and professors, repair twice a year to undergo a public examination, in the presence of the principal officers of the state resident in the city, who are distinguished for their learning, attended by some of the clergy. The rector, or first professor, opens the meeting with a short speech in praise of Literature and the Civil Magistracy: such of the pupils as are about to remove to the university, pronounce an oration in praise of some illustrious prince, or of Erasmus; on the dignity, ornament, and utility of sound learning to a state; in praise of commerce and industry; on the baneful consequence of passion and indolence; on fortitude, patience, concord, and other moral virtues; they then conclude with a compliment to their masters for their care of them, and to the magistrates for honouring them with their presence; and finally, take leave of their school-fellows, whom they exhort to pursue their studies indefatigably, and to live in amity with each other.

The principal magistrates then present each of them with some classical author, superbly bound and gilt: the juniors, who are to remove to the higher classes, then come forward, and compliment the magistrates and their masters in a sentence or two either of verse or prose. The effect of this ceremony is increased by the organ playing at its commencement and close.

The reader will, I am sure, be gratified with this brief description of a plan so generative of every good to the nation which adopts it. Children, as soon as they can think, discover that they are the peculiar care of their country; they are taught to respect its laws, and by descanting upon, to imitate its most shining examples, and to repay the paternal solicitude of the government, by becoming useful or ornamental members of its community.

Amidst the political storms which have agitated Holland for so many years, more fatal to its prosperity than those of the ocean, in which it almost appears to float, education has never been neglected: to bestow upon his children decent and useful instruction, has ever formed the anxious care of the Hollander: he feels that whilst he trains their minds to habits of investigation and industry, he secures to them, under any form of government, the sources of support and advancement.

This general diffusion of useful instruction made Holland what she was in the most shining periods of her history, and whenever its enlightening influence shall cease to be felt, as a commercial country she must decline.

The very few instances of cruelty which occurred in Holland during the late revolution, have been very justly attributed to the happy effects of education. Whenever any disposition to severity evinced itself, an appeal to reason and humanity inclined it to forgive: a memorable proof of this statement will hereafter appear in the account of some of the revolutionary movements which occurred at Amsterdam.

Even an English merchant would be astonished to see the wonderful arithmetical attainment of stripling clerks in any of the Dutch compting-houses, and the quantity of complicated business which they discharge in the course of the day, the order of their books, the rapidity and certainty of their calculation, according to the commercial habits and exchange of different countries, and the variety of languages which they speak; to which may be added, the great regularity and length of their attendance, and the decency and propriety of their deportment.

With proper modifications, what an example for our own government, with respect to the sister kingdom, does Holland present! And here I cannot but lament my inability to do justice to the illustrious nobleman, to whose care his majesty has with sound wisdom and discrimination committed the administration of his government in Ireland. In his Grace the Duke of Bedford, that unhappy and long neglected island has found an able, zealous, and resolute friend and patron; who, shunning every ostentatious display, and almost the eye of observation, has conferred upon that country the salutary benefits of those measures which do honour to the christian, the statesman, and the governor.

To this nobleman, and to Lord Somerville, the British nation is indebted for having discerned the utility, and encouraged the progress of a system of education, which has entirely originated from the benevolent zeal and ability of Mr. Lancaster, a member of a religious community long known, as well for the purity of their minds as for the simplicity of their dress and deportment, who, after many arduous experiments, has matured a plan by which one thousand poor children may be taught and governed by one master, for the trifling expense of five shillings per annum for each child: a plan which is eminently honourable to its meritorious discoverer, and promises fair to effect an incalculable amelioration in the habits and condition of the rising generation.

We are not allowed upon the continent to be a people of much creative faculty, but this plan is solely of British growth, and till lately wholly unknown to political economists of every other country. This cheap and efficacious system, which has received, to their lasting honour, the cordial approbation and support of their Majesties and the Royal Family, his Grace the Duke of Bedford is anxious to introduce into Ireland, wholly free from religious proselytism, and which would powerfully accelerate those comprehensive and enlightened measures, to which another great friend to Ireland has, with uncommon promptitude and assiduity, obtained the assent of the imperial parliament; I allude to that amiable and able statesman Sir John Newport, the present chancellor of the exchequer of Ireland.

May the happy effects of such a measure be as forcibly experienced in that country, as they have been in this which I am describing!

CHAPTER IV.
THE COINS ... PRACTICE OF VAILS-GIVING IN HOLLAND ... FRUIT AND VEGETABLE SELLERS ... DUTCH PASSION FOR SCRUBBING AND MOPPING ... WHIMSICAL SARCASM OF A TRAVELLER ... SINGULAR OFFENCE OFFERED TO A CHAMBER-MAID ... DUTCH PRINTS OF LORD NELSON ... TREATMENT OF OUR COUNTRYMEN AT VERDUN ... DUTCH COMPARED WITH THE CHINESE ... PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF PAINTINGS ... BRIEF ANECDOTE OF THE VANDERWERFS ... REMARKS ON DUTCH AND FLEMISH SCHOOLS ... DORT ... ANECDOTES OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS THERE ... ANECDOTE OF COWPER ... INTERPOSITION OF PROVIDENCE.

It is with great reluctance I approach the subject of the currency of Holland, but as I hope to be read by some one who may hereafter visit that country, as much a stranger as I was to it, it is fit that I should not omit it; and I hereby apprize all my chair-travelling readers of my intention, that they may leap over my table of coins if they choose so to do.

SILVER COINS.

A doyt. Worth about half a farthing.

A stiver. About a penny at par. Twelve stivers are generally, but not in every part of Holland, considered equal to a shilling. This coin resembles a silver penny.

Dubbeltje, or two stiver piece. This coin is very convenient small change.

A quarter guilder, or five stiver piece. This coin, I am told, is very rare; I met with none of it.

A zesthalven, or five stivers and four doyts. This is a piece of base metal, and equal to an English six-pence; it is very convenient for an English traveller, on account of its precise value being known.

Schellingen, of various kinds, the size of which determines the value, unless they are stamped.

Six and a half stiver piece. A silver piece, little larger than a six-pence, and the eighth part of a rix-dollar.

Eight stiver piece. A larger, but thinner piece than a schellingen, not much in circulation.

Ten stiver piece. Worth half a guilder, very scarce.

Twelve and a half stiver piece. Not much in use.

Thirteen stiver piece. A Zealand coin, and much in circulation.

A guilder or florin, or twenty stiver piece. The legitimate coin of Holland, by which they calculate, and is the best silver.

Twenty-four stiver piece, or half a rix-dollar.

Twenty-six stiver piece.

Twenty-eight stiver piece. There are many sorts of this in Holland: it is usual to receive five in a lot, each of which is equal to seven guilders.

Thirty stiver piece, or dollar. Of the value of half a crown English, and about that size.

Thirty-one and a half stiver piece, or half a ducatoon. They are rare.

Forty stiver piece, or two guilder piece. Not common.

Fifty stiver piece. The antient rix-dollar; not much in use.

Fifty-two stiver piece, or modern rix-dollar. Much in circulation: in Amsterdam, and several other places, they will not pass for more than 50 or 51 stivers. In Zealand they are worth 53.

Sixty stiver piece, called a three guilder piece. Much in use.

Sixty-three stiver piece, or ducatoon. Coined when the Spaniards were in the country.

GOLD COINS.

A ducat. A beautiful coin, of the purest fine gold. The Jews and the brokers generally deal in this coin, for which they receive two or three stivers profit on each. It is thin, and remarkably pleasant to the touch; and as a proof of its purity, it will bear to be frequently bent, without breaking. Upon almost every part of the continent this coin bears a premium, and is current throughout Europe.

A double ducat is ten guilders ten stivers.

Rider, fourteen guilders.

Half rider, seven guilders. These are current through the provinces.

I would recommend the traveller to carry with him a sufficient number of guineas for his return to England, as they are scarce and very dear; for twelve guineas I paid an exchange of 35–4 agio 104 on 145, or 13l. 4s. 6d.

COINS.

No alteration has taken place in the legends of the coins of Holland. Since the revolution there has been a copious silver coinage, but the florin has remained the same for more than a century. The old calendar is adhered to, with the slight alterations rendered necessary by a change in the name and spirit of the government.

The practice of vails-giving still continues in Holland. Previous to my going to dine with some acquaintances which I made at Rotterdam, I was particularly reminded by a friend who knew the habits of the country, not to forget to carry a few florins with me, as the servant who opened the door, upon my quitting the house, would expect either one or two of those pieces. This abominably mean practice existed in England in a higher degree, and still continues in part in the shape of card money.

If I remember correctly, we are indebted to Mr. Hanway the philanthropist, whose life is given in a very entertaining manner by his pupil and protégé, Mr. Pugh, for the abolition of giving vails to servants; previous to which, a gentleman of moderate income could scarcely afford to dine with an opulent and fashionable friend.

In houses of great resort in Holland, servants are in the habits of purchasing their places of their masters free of wages, solely for the douceurs which custom rigidly exacts from the visitor. At one table a friend of mine, a thoughtless Englishman, was reminded of his having forgotten the usage, by having a quantity of soup poured over his new coat by accidental design.

In the streets I was much gratified by seeing the fruit and vegetable sellers: the fruit was abundant, very fresh, and fine, and such as is usually to be found at the same season in England: the vegetables are remarkably excellent, and are submitted to the eye in the cleanest and most attractive manner. The Dutch potatoes are small and uncommonly good; I think they are, if possible, superior to those of Ireland.

The proximity of the houses to the canals enables the Dutch women to indulge to the full extent of their wishes, in scrubbing and mopping their passages and rooms, which they do from the first to the last blush of day; indeed, cleanliness in their houses is carried to a painful excess. All the strong features of an English Saturday evening, viz. mops, pails, scrubbing-brushes, dusters, fullers’ earth, are in active use every hour of the day, in Holland; and a little hand garden-engine is in perpetual requisition, for washing the outside of the windows.

But the aqua-terrene nymphs to whose hands these right useful instruments are committed, appear to be so solicitous of removing every feculent impression of the foot in their white-tiled halls, of giving a brilliant polish to the brass knockers, and of preserving the furniture of the rooms unsullied, that they frequently neglect to purify their own persons; the charms of which are to be often seen mingled with, if not obscured by, the accretions of long neglect and inattention.

Some travellers have extended similar remarks to the higher classes of the female sex, but unquestionably with more spleen than truth.

I had the honour of being acquainted with many Dutch ladies of respectability, and found them to be very neat in their persons, but my first remark too powerfully applies to the lower orders of the sex: they have no leisure to attend to themselves: to them, with a little transposition of the sentiment, may be applied the facetious lines that described a once celebrated opposition financier.

“It is said that his thoughts have been so long directed

To the national debt that his own are neglected.”

I remember while at Amsterdam a servant was very angry because I would not suffer her to wash my bedroom every day. It might be supposed that in a climate which must be naturally very humid, the natives would prefer having dry rooms as long as possible.

Upon some of the canals I saw Rhine boats of extraordinary dimensions; they were principally laden with hardware, and their owners and families resided wholly on board, in a suite of cabins, generally raised upon the deck, which, in point of commodious arrangement, of neatness and comfort, cannot easily be surpassed on shore. Upon the fore and aft part of the deck their ware is exposed to sale, and below are prodigious depots of the same articles. These vessels are frequently six months in their voyage up and down the Rhine, in consequence of their stopping at those cities or towns situated on its banks, where the owners are likely to have a market for their merchandize.

The reader will be surprised to hear that in several shops I saw many prints of our illustrious Nelson, in which the artist, in order to prevent the beholder from doubting that he had lost the sight of one eye in the service of his country, had the optic completely removed from its socket, and left a large frightful hole, for the purpose of illustrating this part of his heroic history.

At an excellent table d’hote, at the Mareschal de Turenne, I had the happiness of meeting several of my countrymen, who were returning to England after a long and most unjust detention at Verdun; from them I learned that specie was abundant in France, and that Napoleon scarcely admitted any paper to be in circulation; that the roads were no longer farmed, but by the aid of a small additional duty on salt, were put into the finest condition, and that no toll whatever was taken in any part of the empire. They said, that in point of restriction, they were not rigidly treated, but that there were no bounds to the rapacity of those appointed to look after them, particular of the gens d’armes.

The collections of paintings in Rotterdam are not numerous, but very select: perhaps no people upon the face of the earth ever displayed a more inveterate and immoveable attachment to every thing of native growth than the Dutch, except the Chinese, who consider improvement as penal innovation, and who confined a native in irons for life, because he ventured to make a boat upon a new construction, by which it sailed faster than any other.

This immoveable adhesion to old customs in the Dutch, is the more singular, as from their commercial character, they have been in constant intercourse with the natives of every quarter of the globe, the various produces of which they have brought into their own canals, but not for adoption, imitation, or, generally speaking, for consumption, but solely for profitable re-sale.

This spirit, or if you like to call it so, this amor patriæ, is strongly evinced in all their collections of paintings: in only one or two private cabinets in Holland are to be found any productions of the Italian and Venetian schools.

The finest private cabinet belongs to M. Vanderpals, a very rich and respectable merchant; it is principally filled by the works of those delightful masters Nicholas Berchem, and Linglebach; of the former I shall give a few striking anecdotes when I reach Haarlem, the place of his nativity; of the latter I shall briefly speak when I describe Frankfort on the Maine, where he was born.

M. Vanderpot, another wealthy merchant, has also a very large and well selected collection of the Dutch and Flemish painters. M. Lockhorst, a gentleman of commercial distinction, has also a fine assortment of pictures of the same school.

The proprietors of these valuable productions are always ready with the greatest politeness to gratify strangers with the sight of them. Amongst other artists, Rotterdam has the honour of giving birth to the Chevalier Vanderwerf, who was born in 1659, and received his first instructions from Picolet, a portrait painter; he afterwards studied under Eglon Vanderneer, under whom he made a rapid improvement: he principally confined himself to historical subjects of a small size. The Elector Palatine conceived a great fondness for him, from accidentally seeing some of his performances in that style; this prince honoured him with every mark of esteem and beneficence. He conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, ennobled his descendants, gave him a chain of gold and a medal, and his portrait set with diamonds of great value, and allowed him a noble pension, besides paying him munificently for his productions; and upon the wife of Vanderwerf presenting him with a picture drawn by herself, their royal patron bestowed upon her husband six thousand florins, and on the lady a magnificent toilette of silver. What a model of munificence and liberal policy for princes! The pictures of this eminent master are very rare, and bear very high prices. He is principally celebrated for the roundness and relief of his figures; his defect lay in a coldness of colouring. Upon his pictures he laboured with unsparing toil, which injured the spirit of his productions.

His brother, Peter Vanderwerf, was born near Rotterdam in 1665, and was the pupil of his brother Adrian. His principal subjects were portraits and conversations, which entitled him to rank as a very able artist, and as a further proof of it, a small picture of his sold, in 1713, for five hundred and fifty guilders; and another, a copy from one of his brother Adrian’s, for eight hundred guilders. I did not hear of any living painter at Rotterdam of very distinguished eminence, a circumstance somewhat singular, when it is considered how many fine artists, though inferior to Vanderwerf, that city has produced.

The perfection to which the Dutch and Flemish schools arrived, proves that great artists may be formed, without the assistance of great galleries. The present low state of the French school demonstrates, that the most magnificent collection ever known, containing the renowned and exalted specimens of art, and opened to the inspection of every one with a becoming spirit of liberality, cannot form good artists. The St. Jerome of Corregio, and the St. Cecilia of Michael Angelo, have created no successful disciple since their arrival at Paris.

At Dort, or Dordreght, a city of great antiquity, about nine miles from Rotterdam, resides a celebrated artist of the name of Varestage, aged about fifty; he is justly celebrated for his candlelight subjects, which are masterly: one of his works, a school by candlelight, and a number of children, is spoken of as truly exquisite. On account of his eyes growing weak, he has altered his manner, and at present confines himself to large figures, portraits, and conversations.

As I was informed there was nothing very attractive at Dort, I did not visit that city: it is however famous for having given birth to several able men. John Gerard Vossius studied there in 1577, and wrote a great number of learned works; he was the father of Issac Vossius, also a man of profound erudition. Our King Charles humourously observed of him, alluding to his credulity and infidelity, “that he would believe any thing but the Bible.”

Adrian Junius was born here in 1511, and was considered to be one of the most profound men of his country, and wrote many learned works. Dr. Johnson observes of Junius, in the preface to his Dictionary, “the votaries of the northern muses will not perhaps easily restrain their indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degraded by a disadvantageous comparison, (alluding to Skinner); but whatever reverence is due to his diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of censoriousness, to charge that etymologist with want of judgment, who can seriously derive dream from drama, because life is a drama, and a drama is a dream.”

It would be an inexpiable offence to pass over the name of Albert Kuyp, or Cuyp, who was born here, son of the well known Jacob Gerritze Kuyp, whose pupil he was, and whom he infinitely surpassed. The former excelled in whatever he attempted to represent; the diffusion of his lights is as exquisite as it is natural, and the very times of the day in which he painted are immediately discoverable; the misty haze of the morning, the brilliant lustre of noon, the last blush of evening, and the lunar beam of night from his hands, presented the closest imitations of nature, and the utmost powers the art is susceptible of. Most of his subjects were furnished by his native city and the adjacent scenery, particularly his celebrated representation of the cattle-market at Dort, and the square where the troops exercised: his works are much sought after, and preserved as great curiosities; and yet, though now so highly prized, they fell into so much disrepute, that not many years since, a large collection of his best pictures sold for eight guineas apiece, so uncertain is the opinion and taste of the public.

——“He that depends

“Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead,

“And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?

“With every minute you do change a mind,

“And call him noble that was now your hate;

“Him vile that was your garland.”

Coriolanus, Act I.

Even our immortal Cowper experienced the severity of popular caprice. So diffidently did he think of his abilities, that he offered his first poems to his publisher; reserving only as a remuneration, a few copies to present to his friends, from an apprehension that his works might produce rather loss than profit. These productions were, on their first appearance, very rudely handled by most of the reviewers, and nearly the whole of the copies lay like so much waste paper for a long time in the bookseller’s shop.

Some time afterwards, not wholly discouraged by this mortifying neglect, he presented through the hands of a friend, his manuscript copy of that divine poem, “The Task” upon the same terms, the merit of which, dispelled the folly or ignorance of the town, as the rays of the sun pierce through and absorb the mist, and Cowper took a high rank amongst the living great men of his century; the fame of “The Task” brought into light his former discarded productions, and their sale has ever since continued to augment the wealth of his bookseller, the venerable and much respected Johnson.

The following very interesting and extraordinary circumstance occurred at Dort in the year 1785, which is still the frequent narrative of the young and old of that city, who relate it with mingled sensations of awe and delight, as an interposition of Divine Providence in favour of a widow and her family of this city. This woman, who was very industrious, was left by her husband, an eminent carpenter, a comfortable house with some land, and two boats for carrying merchandize and passengers on the canals. She was also supposed to be worth ten thousand guilders in ready money, which she employed in a hempen and sail-cloth manufactory, for the purpose of increasing her fortune and instructing her children (a son and two daughters) in useful branches of business.

One night about nine o’clock, when the workmen were gone home, a person dressed in uniform, with a musket and broad sword, came to her house, and requested a lodging. “I let no lodgings, friend,” said the widow, “and besides, I have no spare bed, unless you sleep with my son, which I think very improper, on account of your being a perfect stranger to us all.” The soldier then shewed a discharge from Diesbach’s regiment (signed by the Major, who gave him an excellent character), and a passport from Compte Maillebois, governor of Breda. The widow, believing the stranger to be an honest man, called her son, and asked him if he would accommodate a veteran, who had served the republic thirty years with reputation, with part of his bed. The young man consented; the soldier was accordingly hospitably entertained; and at a seasonable hour withdrew to rest.

Some hours afterwards, a loud knocking was heard at the street door, which roused the soldier, who moved softly down stairs, and listened at the hall door, when the blows were repeated, and the door almost broken through by a sledge, or some heavy instrument. By this time the widow and her daughters were much alarmed by this violent attack, and ran almost frantic through different parts of the house, exclaiming “Murder! Murder!” The son having joined the soldier with a case of loaded pistols, and the latter screwing on his bayonet and fresh priming his piece, which was charged with slugs, requested the women to keep themselves in a back room out of the way of danger. Soon after the door was bursted in, two ruffians entered, and were instantly shot by the son, who discharged both his pistols at once. Two other associates of the dead men immediately returned the fire, but without effect, when the intrepid and veteran stranger, taking immediate advantage of the discharge of their arms, rushed on them like a lion, ran one through the body with his bayonet, and whilst the other was running away, lodged the contents of his piece between his shoulders, and he dropped dead on the spot. The son and the stranger then closed the door as well as they could, reloaded their arms, made a good fire, and watched till day-light, when the weavers and spinners of the manufactory came to resume their employment, who were struck with horror and surprise at seeing four men dead on the dunghill adjoining the house, where the soldier had dragged them before they closed the door.

The burgomaster and his syndic attended, and took the depositions of the family relative to this affair. The bodies were buried in a cross-road, and a stone erected over the grave, with this inscription: “Here lie the remains of four unknown ruffians, who deservedly lost their lives, in an attempt to rob and murder a worthy woman and her family. A stranger who slept in the house, to which Divine Providence undoubtedly directed him, was the principal instrument in preventing the perpetration of such horrid designs, which justly entitles him to a lasting memorial, and the thanks of the public. John Adrian de Gries, a discharged soldier from the regiment of Diesbach, a native of Middleburgh in Zealand, and upwards of seventy years old, was the David who slew two of these Goliaths, the rest being killed by the son of the family. In honorem, a gratitudine ergo, Dei optimi maximi, pietatis et innocentæ summi protectoris, magistratus et concilium civitatis Dortrechiensis hoc signum poni curavere, xx. die Nov. annoque salutis humanæ, 1785.”

The widow presented the soldier with one hundred guineas, and the city settled a handsome pension on him for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER V.
LICENSED BROTHELS ... REMARKS UPON THEM ... DUTCH LITERARY MEETING DESCRIBED ... SPITTING POTS ... PIPES, DUTCH EXTRAVAGANT IN THEM ... SMOKING ... HISTORICAL ANECDOTE OF TOBACCO ... GENERAL TEMPERANCE OF THE DUTCH ... ARBITRARY POWER OF POLICE MASTERS ... TRAVELLING IN HOLLAND VERY CHEAP AND VERY AGREEABLE ... CANAL TO DELFT ... DUTCH SAWING MILLS ... ENGLISH CIRCULAR MASONRY MILLS ... DUTCH LANGUAGE ... SPECIMEN OF THE ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND GERMAN LANGUAGES.

It is matter of surprise to the contemplative traveller to observe in a country apparently so mechanically moral and regular as Holland, the glaring defects of the most loose and meretricious government: in the hearts of the finest cities are to be found brothels surpassing in iniquity all such seats of impurity in any other nation, in which the horrible novelty of the most savage oppression is united to a public, licensed, and authorised display of vice and profligacy. I mean the spill-houses, to one of which my laquais de place conducted me about ten o’clock at night, when those scenes of revelry open. In a street, in an inferior quarter of the town, the sound of fiddles and dancing announced the approach to one of these houses: presently my guide stopped before one of them, into the saloon of which he introduced me by pulling aside a curtain drawn before the door, near which, in a little raised orchestra, two fiddlers were scraping; upon benches at the other end of the room were seven or eight females, painted and dressed in all their finery, with large silver buckles, loose muslin robes, massy gilt ear-rings, and ornaments of the same metal round the head. Most of them looked very jaded. As soon as I entered, a bottle of wine and glasses, and pipes and tobacco, were put before me, for which I paid a florin, and which is considered as the premium of admission.

These miserable wretches were all prostitutes and prisoners, confined to this haunt of vice, and never suffered to pass its threshold until enabled, out of the wages of prostitution, to redeem themselves. The way in which they are ensnared into this brothel-dungeon is worthy of notice. The keeper of it hears of some girl who is in debt, frequently occasioned by dressing beyond her means, to set off her person to advantage at some of the music-rooms or other public places; he approaches her, pities her, offers her money to discharge her debts, advances her more for immediate and future purposes; she becomes his debtor: in a short time he seizes upon her person, and bears her away to his bagnio, and receives the profligate produce of her disgrace and infamy; and this scene of compound enormity is tolerated by the government, and has so continued for many years, till time has hardened the cruel practice into a custom which has become inoffensive to the people.

One of these poor wretches approached me; the affected gaiety of her deportment, so entirely discordant with the genuine feelings of a mind exposed to scenes of such humiliating profligacy, was in no little degree distressing; but I observed she drank the wine I gave her with a heavy heart, and some money I presented her with, excited expressions of gratitude, but no emotions of delight; from which I concluded that she was merely the channel through which my present would pass to her brutal gaoler; an apprehension which was confirmed to me by my lacquey upon my quitting this scene of complicated wretchedness.

It is a curious circumstance that to Solon, the wisest amongst the wise men of Greece, is attributed the origin of brothels: his motives may be appreciated in the following extracts. “Nicandre raconte dans le troisième livre des choses remarquables de Colophon, que le legislateur Solon a été le premier qui ait bâti un temple à Venus Pandemos. Philemon (Athenée liv. xiii. p. 569.) loue beaucoup la sage indulgence que Solon a témoignée par cette loi pour la foiblesse humaine: ‘Solon, tu as vraiment été le bienfaiteur du genre humain! car on dit que c’est toi qui a le premier pensé à une chose bien advantageuse au peuple ou plutôt au salut public. Oui, c’est avec raison que je dis ceci, lorsque je considère notre ville pleine de jeunes gens d’un temperament bouillant, et qui en consequence se porteraient à des excès impermissables. C’est pourquoi tu as acheté des femmes, et les as placées dans des lieux, où, pourvues de tout ce qui leur est nécessaire, elles deviennent communes à tous ceux qui en veulent.’” “Nicander relates in the third book of remarkable circumstances of Colophon, that the legislator Solon was the first who built a temple to Venus Pandemos. Philemon praises much the wise indulgence which Solon has shown by this law to human infirmity. ‘Solon! thou hast truly been the benefactor of the human race! for it is said that thou first thought of a measure greatly beneficial to the people, or rather to the public good. Yes, I say it with reason, when I see our town full of young men of warm constitutions, and who in consequence would indulge in censurable excesses. Therefore thou hast purchased women, and fixed them in places, where, provided with every thing they want, they become accessible to all who desire an intercourse with them.’”

The Dutch are so familiarized to these scenes, that parents frequently carry their children to them; from the hope of preserving them from vicious propensities, by placing before their eyes the nauseous and frightful images of suffering profligacy. Such an experiment in morals would be somewhat dubious in its operations; for vice like deformity ceases to disgust in proportion as it is contemplated. Such ideas never enter the sober brains of such visitors; they go to spend an hour, which to them is mirthful, and the poor wretches I have mentioned augment the pleasures of the scene by the gaudiness of their finery, and the company add to its vivacity. In the beauty of its plumage, “they forget the dying bird.”

Through considerable interest I was enabled to see the Rasp-House, or prison for male and female culprits: it is a large quadrangular building; most of the cells and rooms look towards the yard, which is considerably below the level of the street. The food is wholesome and abundant, and the chambers are kept very neat. I saw in this place nothing objectionable but the period allowed to the prisoners for taking exercise, which is infinitely too short and infrequent, each person being allowed to walk in the yard only once in the week; the consequence is, that few of the prisoners looked healthy.

Holland is justly celebrated for its public charities. In Rotterdam, before the last war, there were many benevolent institutions, some of which have inevitably languished, and others expired, in consequence of the political convulsions of the country and the usually impoverishing effects of long hostility.

In the streets I was surprised to see the horses shod in the shameful and clumsy manner they are: the shoe is behind elevated to a considerable height, so that the poor animal must suffer from the position into which he is always forced, resembling that of a lady in a high-heeled pair of shoes of the last century.

At my hotel I was much gratified by the whimsical appearance of a meeting called the Society of Variety and Unity, which was held there: about eighty Dutchmen of the middling classes of life were assembled in one of the rooms, to discuss philosophical, but more particularly religious questions: when I entered the room, one of their members was addressing the body upon the subject of death, as I was informed. His eloquence appeared to be as sluggish as the canal opposite; the motto of the fraternity was well illustrated by what appeared; the only variety I saw was in their pipes, and their unity was effected by the fumes of their tobacco, which seemed to blend them in one common mass of smoke.

I had not been two days in Holland without witnessing the abominable custom of introducing a spitting pot upon the table after dinner, into which, like the Kava bowl used amongst the natives of the South-sea islands, each person present who smokes, and that generally comprehends all who are present, discharges his saliva, which delicate depositary is handed round as regularly as the bottle. This custom is comparable in point of delicacy with that of washing the mouth and cleaning the teeth with a napkin after dinner, as in England, or picking the latter with a fork, as in France.

The Dutch are proverbial for smoking. The moment I entered any coffee-house, pipes and tobacco were introduced, as if the waiters were in dread of my imbibing some pestilent disease, without this sort of fumigation, and expressed uncommon surprise, when they remarked that I declined using them. The Dutch will insist upon it that smoking is not only as necessary to preserve their constitutions, as paint is to protect the exterior of their houses from the effects of their moist climate, but that the vapour invigorates the mind, which mounted like an aerial spirit upon a cloud, pours forth treasures of reflection with a brilliancy little short of inspiration.

The Dutch go to an astonishing expense in their pipes, which assume an endless variety of shapes, and are decorated sometimes with the most coxcombical figures painted upon the head or cup of it, according to the taste of its possessor.

Many of the opulent Hollanders use a pipe, the head of which is made of a clay which is very rare, and found only in Turkey, of so beautiful a colour, that is called the Meerschaum, or froth of the sea; for this piece of luxury the value of eight and even ten guineas is frequently paid.

The lower orders of society, and many of the higher, carry in their pockets their pipe, a pricker to clear the tube, a piece of tinder made in Germany from the large mushrooms growing on old trees, resembling spunge, a small steel and flint to kindle the fire with, and a box frequently capacious enough to contain a pound of tobacco.

It is curious to observe how naturally a pipe depends from a Dutchman’s mouth, and with what perfect facility he smokes without the assistance of either hand: he literally appears to have been formed by nature to breathe through this tube, with which he rides on horseback, drives in a carriage, and even dances. I have seen little boys take this instrument and puff away with an apparently instinctive predilection for the transatlantic weed. Smoking is a Dutchman’s panacea, he thinks it good in all cases, whether of consumptions, or plethora, nervous debility, or fiery fever: as a masticatory, tobacco is but little used even by the fishermen, sailors and boors; and I was surprised to find, that in the social shape of snuff, it seemed to have not many admirers.

Tobacco had many enemies to contend with. In 1610, the smoking of tobacco was known at Constantinople, but it was thought so injurious a custom, that to remove it by ridicule, a Turk who had been found smoking, was conducted about the streets with a pipe transfixed through his nose: it was a long time before the Dutch cultivated the plant themselves; previous to that period they purchased it, and that the very refuse of the English. In 1615, tobacco began to be sown about Amsfort in Holland.

By James I. the practice of smoking was severely and most whimsically denounced in a work, called “King James the Sixth’s (of Scotland) Counterblast to Tobacco,” in which the royal pedant states, “that some gentlemen of his courts were accustomed to expend no less than three or four hundred pounds a year upon this indulgence.” He also says, “that it was used as a powerful aphrodisiac.” He particularly deplores the case of delicate, wholesome, clean complexioned wives, whose husbands were not ashamed to pollute them with the perpetual stinking torment of tobacco smoke: the concluding sentence of this extraordinary composition is somewhat laughable. “The use of tobacco,” he says, “is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrid Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”

Few would wish to withhold from a Dutchman the narcotic enjoyment of his pipe, when they reflect, that he seeks no other species of oblivion to his care; for, I believe, notwithstanding a Dutchman’s eulogium upon his pipe, that it produces more oblivion than inspiration: he is scarcely ever seen intoxicated: indeed, drunkenness is held unpardonably infamous in Holland. To keep bad accounts, and to be seen inebriated, are equally disgraceful; and hence the use of wines and spirituous liquors is much less in Holland than in England.

The Dutch agree with Cassio’s reasoning:

——“Oh! that men should put an enemy into their mouths, to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!”

Othello, Act II. Scene 3.

The spill-houses are not the only objectionable instances of the abuse of the government; the police master is suffered to misuse his authority to a shameful excess. Instead of bringing delinquents to justice, he is in the frequent habit of privately compromising public offence, and putting the sum paid into his own pocket. Some time before I was in Rotterdam, a burgher who had been guilty of adultery, paid twenty thousand guilders to this minister of justice, who thus partaking of the commercial spirit of his country, becomes a merchant in delinquency.

I saw in several shops a great number of articles of English manufacture exposed to sale, particularly Manchester goods. The Dutch manufacture their own woollens, and they are esteemed to be very good. The black cloth of Holland is very well known, which is infinitely of a deeper and superior colour than ours. The principal cloth manufactures are at Leyden and Tielburg. There are also very capital and flourishing manufactures of velvets, silk, and carpets, at Hilversom; and those of linen and table-cloths, which are exquisite, at Overyssel; and numerous paper-mills.

The population of Rotterdam is estimated at sixty thousand inhabitants. Upon the whole, it is a gloomy place to live in; a constant iteration of the same canals, bridges, boats, houses, and figures, will soon damp the spirits of a traveller, unless naturally very vivacious. There is no theatre, no place of public amusement, but the spill-houses I have described, which are as much, at least to feeling minds, not accustomed to them, entitled to that appellation, as any of our houses of correction.

Here I bade adieu to my companions and friends, who proceeded direct to Germany, where I promised to rejoin them. I was by no means sorry to follow a lacquey to that quarter of the suburbs where the Delft boats set off every two hours, with my portmanteau, and to bid adieu to Rotterdam. Our treckschuyt lay ready for starting; at two o’clock, a little bell fastened on the outside of a house where the director resides, announced that all was ready; the horse was fastened to a very long, and rather a thin line, and we slipped through the liquid road, sensible of moving only from passing the objects that lined the sides of the canal, consisting for a considerable way of pretty houses and avenues of trees.

The treckschuyt is a long barge divided into two apartments; the after one, called the ruif or roof, possesses superior accommodations, and will hold from eight to a dozen persons, and the other from forty to fifty: this vessel, which is drawn by a single horse, moves so precisely at the rate of four miles an hour, that the Dutch always compute by the hour instead of the mile.[^[1]] In the cabin or roof, there are four oblique windows, which move up and down, a table in the middle, with a long drawer filled with pipes. The seats are covered with handsome cushions; but the prime accommodations are a spitting-box, and a little iron pot filled with burning turf, to furnish the smokers with fire for their pipes. The price is about three pence an hour: this part is generally occupied by persons of a superior condition. So steady is the motion of the vessel, that the passenger may read, write, or draw in it, without interruption.

[1]. The Dutch boors are also so regular in smoking their pipes, that in calculating the distances of places, they say they are so many pipes asunder.

The treckschuyts preserve an easy intercourse between the most distant parts of the kingdom, and the cheapness of their conveyance places them within the reach of the most slender purse. Every thing relative to these vessels is conducted with such admirable punctuality, that the passenger can tell to the smallest cost in the kingdom what his expenses will amount to, and to a minute when he shall arrive at the end of his journey, in which, if it be long, he carries his provision with him, or purchases a frugal meal at the house where the boat stops a few minutes for that purpose. At those places where the treckschuyts stop on account of the course of the canal being interrupted, and where passengers are in consequence obliged to quit one vessel to go to another, there are females who offer refreshments for sale, consisting of little rolls and small birds, and slices of cold baked eels, fastened to a small stick.

The treckschuyts are all under the direction of government, and are truly punctual, convenient, cheap, and agreeable. The town of Delft was about twelve miles, or three hours distant. On the sides of the canal, the surface of the water was frequently covered by the nymphæa alba, a magnificent white water-lily, whose expanded and unsullied flowers had a charming effect, particularly when intermixed with menyanthes nymphoides, the yellow fringed water-lily, which are very uncommon in England.

We passed by several sawing or wood mills, which are moved by wind: the machinery of those buildings, which I afterwards examined, is very curious; they were originally invented by Corneille Van Uitgust. The flies of the mill are fixed to a large beam, which turns on an axis; in the centre of the beam the principal wheel is fixed, which impels one immediately below it, which is also fixed on the middle of a piece of timber, hanging on an axis, to which four perpendicular saws, ten in each compartment, are fastened, which, as the wheel revolves, are elevated and depressed. Two iron hooks are fastened at the end of this beam, which catch a wheel, and as the saw rises and falls, move this wheel one cog; that wheel impels another, which catches into a piece of iron, and draws it towards itself; at the end of this iron there is a cross bar, which presses against the end of the tree, while the other end is sawing, and gradually forces it on to the teeth of the saws, as they proceed in cutting.

I remember at Memel, in Polish Prussia, the sawing mills there had another mechanical power, that of drawing up the trees from the barks in which they were brought in the river, into the yard or store-house. I believe mills for sawing timber have been introduced only partially into England. All the mills in Holland rise to a very great height, to secure as much wind at all times as possible. Many of these mills were thatched on the sides as well as the roof.

A very ingenious discovery, infinitely more curious than the Dutch sawing-mill, has, however, been recently made in London, by Sir George Wright, Bart. of machinery for sawing stone, for which a patent has been obtained, now the property of Samuel Hill, Esq. who has added many improvements to it. By means of a steam-engine, a number of saws are set in motion, by which a solid block of marble or stone, rough from the quarry, can be cut into shafts of columns of diminishing diameters, one within the other, at the same time: the blocks fixed in an iron circular frame, resting upon four small wheels, by which they can be turned round by the person who has the care of a certain number of them, to keep the saws, which are almost in a horizontal position, constantly acting upon them; the blocks are a little inclined, to enable the saws to be supplied with water from a trough above, conducted by means of tin pipes to the respective orifices.

By means of this admirable invention, a saving of three-fourths of the stone is produced upon a block of large diameter; the outer cases being as strong as the cube, five men can perform the work which occupied forty before the discovery; and stone columns are reduced to the price of wooden ones. These saws can also cut out an entire gothic window, which they effect at a saving of eighty per cent. with great beauty and precision, and which in its former construction was divided into six different parts; the last savings or cubes, upon being cemented together, constitute a complete gothic column, and the concavity of the divided outer case of a large column forms an entire recess; a block will also, after it has afforded several shafts of columns, form a handsome series of chimnies. The pipes for conveying water by this machinery are much preferred, on account of their durability: the proprietors of several public works have adopted them in preference to those of wood, which are continually wanting repairs. This highly ingenious discovery has been matured and prosecuted with great public spirit and expense by the proprietor, and promises, from its great utility and economy, to become an object of high national importance.

In our treckschuyt, I witnessed a strong contrast to the spirits and loquacity of the French and Germans; all was smoke and silence, save when it yielded to a few short sentences, in which the word mi vrow frequently met my ear. One very grave elderly gentleman, who wore an enormous curled and powdered wig, and who somewhat resembled Lord Burleigh in the Critic, spoke but once all the way, and that was in the following oracular sentence; “Wat is goed voor de man is ook goed voor de vrow—What is good for the husband, is as good for the wife;” so similar in many instances are the Dutch and English languages, that some of our witlings have observed that bad English will make very good Dutch. M. Siegenbeek, minister of the anabaptist church at Leyden, and the first who has occupied the chair for Dutch literature and eloquence in the university of that city, in which, by his genius and attainments, he reflects honour upon his country, has published a very ingenious work, entitled, Verhandeling over de Nederduitsche Spelling; a Treatise on Dutch Orthography, tending to render it uniform: this work and another by the same author, called Verhandeling over den Ionsted, &c. or a Treatise on the Influence of Euphony or agreeable Sound, and of the Facility of Pronunciation, on the orthography of the Dutch language, were, at the instigation and by the able exertions of M. Vander Palm, the agent of national education, some years since published, for the improvement of the national language and poetry. The late Batavian government adopted the system of orthography proposed by M. Siegenbeek, and ordered it to be used by all the offices of administration.

It is generally understood that the language of Holland is divided into High and Low Dutch, whereas there is but one pure language, as in England, which is called Neder Duitch, the language of the Netherlands, or of a country lying very low. In Holland, as in every other country, there is a variety of provincial idioms; for instance, a raw native of Friesland would not be understood at Amsterdam.