A Wanderer in Holland By E. V. Lucas With Twenty Illustrations in Colour By Herbert Marshall And Thirty-Four Illustrations After Old Dutch Masters Contents Preface I Rotterdam II The Dutch in English Literature III Dordrecht and Utrecht IV Delft V The Hague VI Scheveningen and Katwyk VII Leyden VIII Leyden's Painters, a Fanatic and a Hero IX Haarlem X Amsterdam XI Amsterdam's Pictures XII Around Amsterdam; South and South-East XIII Around Amsterdam: North XIV Alkmaar and Hoorn, The Helder and Enkhuisen XV Friesland: Stavoren to Leeuwarden XVI Friesland (continued): Leeuwarden and Neighbourhood XVII Groningen to Zutphen XVIII Arnheim to Bergen-op-Zoom XIX Middelburg XX Flushing List of Illustrations In Colour Sunrise on the Maas Rotterdam Gouda The Great Church, Dort Utrecht On the Beach, Scheveningen Leyden The Turf Market, Haarlem St. Nicolas Church, Amsterdam Canal in the Jews' Quarter, Amsterdam Volendam Cheese Market, Alkmaar The Harbour Tower, Hoorn Market Place, Weigh-house, Hoorn The Dromedaris Tower, Enkhuisen Harlingen Kampen Arnheim The Market Place, Nymwegen Middelburg In Monotone Girl's Head. Jan Vermeer of Delft (Mauritshuis) The Store Cupboard. Peter de Hooch (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Portrait of a Youth. Jan van Scorel (Boymans Museum, Rotterdam) The Sick Woman. Jan Steen (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Anxious Family. Josef Israels View of Dort. Albert Cuyp (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Never-Ending Prayer. Nicholas Maes (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl A Lady. Paulus Moreelse (Ryks) Pilgrims to Jerusalem. Jan van Scorel (Kunstliefde Museum, Utrecht) View of Delft. Jan Vermeer (Mauritshuis) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The School of Anatomy. Rembrandt (Mauritshuis) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl A Young Woman. Rembrandt (Mauritshuis) The Steen Family. Jan Steen (Mauritshuis) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Menagerie. Jan Steen (Mauritshuis) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Portrait of G. Bicker, Landrichter of Muiden. Van der Heist (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Syndics. Rembrandt (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Oyster Feast. Jan Steen (Mauritshuis) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Young Housekeeper. Gerard Dou (Mauritshuis) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Breakfast. Gabriel Metsu (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Groote Kerk. Johannes Bosboom (Boymans Museum, Rotterdam) The Painter and His Wife (?). Frans Hals (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Group of Arquebusiers. Frans Hals (Haarlem) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Cat's Dancing Lesson. Jan Steen (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The "Night Watch". Rembrandt (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Reader. Jan Vermeer (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Milking Time. Anton Mauve Paternal Advice. Gerard Terburg (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Spinner. Nicholas Maes (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Clara Alewijn. Dirck Santvoort (Ryks) Family Scene. Jan Steen (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Little Princess. Paulus Moreelse (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl The Shepherd and His Flock. Anton Mauve Helene van der Schalke. Gerard Terburg (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Elizabeth Bas. Rembrandt (Ryks) From a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Preface It would be useless to pretend that this book is authoritativelyinforming. It is a series of personal impressions of the Dutch countryand the Dutch people, gathered during three visits, together with anaccretion of matter, more or less pertinent, drawn from many sources, old and new, to which I hope I have given unity. For trustworthyinformation upon the more serious side of Dutch life and character Iwould recommend Mr. Meldrum's _Holland and the Hollanders_. My thanksare due to my friends, Mr. And Mrs. Emil Lüden, for saving me frommany errors by reading this work in MS. E. V. L. A WANDERER IN HOLLAND Chapter I Rotterdam To Rotterdam by water--To Rotterdam by rail--Holland's monotony of scenery--Holland in England--Rotterdam's few merits--The life of the river--The Rhine--Walt Whitman--Crowded canals--Barge life--The Dutch high-ways--A perfect holiday--The canal's influence on the national character--The florin and the franc--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--The old and the poor--Holland's health--Funeral customs--The chemists' shops--Erasmus of Rotterdam--Latinised names--Peter de Hooch--True aristocracy--The Boymans treasures--Modern Dutch art--Matthew Maris--The Rotterdam Zoo--The herons--The stork's mission--The ourang-outang--An eighteenth-century miser--A successful merchant--The Queen-Mother--Tom Hood in Rotterdam--Gouda. It was once possible to sail all the way to Rotterdam by either ofthe two lines of steamships from England--the Great Eastern, _viâ_Harwich, and the Batavier, direct from London. But that is possiblenow only by the Batavier, passengers by the better-known Harwichroute being landed now and henceforward at the Hook at five A. M. I amsorry for this, because after a rough passage it was very pleasantto glide in the early morning steadily up the Maas and graduallyacquire a sense of Dutch quietude and greyness. No longer, however, can this be done, as the Batavier boats reach Rotterdam at night;and one therefore misses the river, with the little villages on itsbanks, each with a tiny canal-harbour of its own; the groups of treesin the early mist; the gulls and herons; and the increasing trafficas one drew nearer Schiedam and at last reached that forest of mastswhich is known as Rotterdam. But now that the only road to Rotterdam by daylight is the roadof iron all that is past, and yet there is some compensation, forshort as the journey is one may in its progress ground oneself verythoroughly in the characteristic scenery of Holland. No one who lookssteadily out of the windows between the Hook and Rotterdam has muchto learn thereafter. Only changing skies and atmospheric effects canprovide him with novelty, for most of Holland is like that. He has theformula. Nor is it necessarily new to him if he knows England well, North Holland being merely the Norfolk Broads, the Essex marshlandsabout Burnham-on-Crouch, extended. Only in its peculiarity of lightand in its towns has Holland anything that we have not at home. England has even its canal life too, if one cared to investigateit; the Broads are populous with wherries and barges; cheese ismanufactured in England in a score of districts; cows range ourmeadows as they range the meadows of the Dutch. We go to Holland tosee the towns, the pictures and the people. We go also because somany of us are so constituted that we never use our eyes until weare on foreign soil. It is as though a Cook's ticket performed anoperation for cataract. But because one can learn the character of Dutch scenery so quickly--ona single railway journey--I do not wish to suggest that henceforward itbecomes monotonous and trite. One may learn the character of a friendvery quickly, and yet wish to be in his company continually. Hollandis one of the most delightful countries to move about in: everythingthat happens in it is of interest. I have never quite lost thesense of excitement in crossing a canal in the train and getting amomentary glimpse of its receding straightness, perhaps broken by abrown sail. In a country where, between the towns, so little happens, even the slightest things make a heightened appeal to the observer;while one's eyes are continually kept bright and one's mind stimulatedby the ever-present freshness and clearness of the land and its air. Rotterdam, it should be said at once, is not a pleasant city. Itmust be approached as a centre of commerce and maritime industry, or not at all; if you do not like sailor men and sailor ways, noisystreets and hurrying people, leave Rotterdam behind, and let thetrain carry you to The Hague. It is not even particularly Dutch: itis cosmopolitan. The Dutch are quieter than this, and cleaner. Andyet Rotterdam is unique--its church of St. Lawrence has a grey andsombre tower which has no equal in the country; there is a windmillon the Cool Singel which is essentially Holland; the Boymans Museumhas a few admirable pictures; there is a curiously fascinating storkin the Zoological Gardens; and the river is a scene of romantic energyby day and night. I think you must go to Rotterdam, though it be onlyfor a few hours. At Rotterdam we see what the Londoner misses by having a river thatis navigable in the larger sense only below his city. To see shippingat home we must make our tortuous way to the Pool; Rotterdam has thePool in her midst. Great ships pass up and down all day. The Thames, once its bustling mercantile life is cut short by London Bridge, dwindles to a stream of pleasure; the Maas becomes the Rhine. Walt Whitman is the only writer who has done justice to a greatharbour, and he only by that sheer force of enumeration which in thisconnection rather stands for than is poetry. As a matter of fact itis the reader of such an inventory as we find in "Crossing BrooklynFerry" that is the poet: Whitman is only the machinery. Whitman givesthe suggestion and the reader's own memory or imagination does therest. Many of the lines might as easily have been written of Rotterdamas of Brooklyn:-- The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars, The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants, The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses, The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels, The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the grey walls of the granite storehouses by the docks, On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter, On the neighbouring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night, Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of the houses, and down into the clefts of streets. There is of course nothing odd in the description of one harbourfitting another, for harbours have no one nationality but all. Whitmanwas not otherwise very strong upon Holland. He writes in "Salut auMonde" of "the sail and steamships of the world" which in his mind'seye he beholds as they Wait steam'd up ready to start in the ports of Australia, Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, The Hague, Copenhagen. It is not easy for one of the "sail or steamships of the world" towait steamed up at The Hague; because The Hague has no harbour exceptfor small craft and barges. Shall we assume, with great charity, that Walt feared that the word Rotterdam might impair his rhythm? Not only big shipping: I think one may see barges and canal boats ingreater variety at Rotterdam than anywhere else. One curious thingto be noticed as they lie at rest in the canals is the absence ofmen. A woman is always there; her husband only rarely. The onlyvisible captain is the fussy, shrewish little dog which, suspiciousof the whole world, patrols the boat from stem to stern, and warnsyou that it is against the law even to look at his property. I hopehis bite is not equal to his bark. Every barge has its name. What the popular style was seven yearsago, when I was here last, I cannot remember; but to-day it is"Wilhelmina". English suburban villas have not a greater variety offantastic names than the canal craft of Holland; nor, with all ourmonopoly of the word "home, " does the English suburban villa suggestmore compact cosiness than one catches gleams of through their cabinwindows or down their companions. Spring cleaning goes on here, as in the Dutch houses, all the yearround, and the domiciliary part of the vessels is spotless. Everybulwark has a washing tray that can be fixed or detached in amoment. "It's a fine day, let us kill something, " says the Englishman;"Here's an odd moment, let us wash something, " says the Dutch vrouw. In some of the Rotterdam canals the barges are so packed that theylie touching each other, with their burgees flying all in the samedirection, as the vanes of St. Sepulchre's in Holborn cannot do. Howthey ever get disentangled again and proceed on their free way totheir distant homes is a mystery. But in the shipping world incrediblethings can happen at night. One does not, perhaps, in Rotterdam realise all at once that every dropof water in these city-bound canals is related to every other drop ofwater in the other canals of Holland, however distant. From any onecanal you can reach in time every other. The canal is really much morethe high road of the country than the road itself. The barge is thePickford van of Holland. Here we see some of the secret of the Dutchdeliberateness. A country which must wait for its goods until a bargebrings them has every opportunity of acquiring philosophic phlegm. After a while one gets accustomed to the ever-present canal and the oddspectacle (to us) of masts in the streets and sails in the fields. Allthe Dutch towns are amphibious, but some are more watery than others. The Dutch do not use their wealth of water as we should. They do notswim in it, they do not race on it, they do not row for pleasure atall. Water is their servant, never a light-hearted companion. I can think of no more reposeful holiday than to step on board one ofthese barges wedged together in a Rotterdam canal, and never liftinga finger to alter the natural course of events--to accelerate ordivert--be earned by it to, say, Harlingen, in Friesland: between themeadows; under the noses of the great black and white cows; past heronsfishing in the rushes; through little villages with dazzling milk-cansbeing scoured on the banks, and the good-wives washing, and saturninesmokers in black velvet slippers passing the time of day; throughbig towns, by rows of sombre houses seen through a delicate screen ofleaves; under low bridges crowded with children; through narrow locks;ever moving, moving, slowly and surely, sometimes sailing, sometimesquanting, sometimes being towed, with the wide Dutch sky overhead, and the plovers crying in it, and the clean west wind driving thewindmills, and everything just as it was in Rembrandt's day and justas it will be five hundred years hence. Holland when all is said is a country of canals. It may have citiesand pictures, windmills and cows, quaint buildings, and quaintercostumes, but it is a country of canals before all. The canals setthe tune. The canals keep it deliberate and wise. One can be in Rotterdam, or in whatever town one's travels reallybegin, but a very short time without discovering that the Dutchunit--the florin--is a very unsatisfactory servant. The dearnessof Holland strikes one continually, but it does so with peculiarforce if one has crossed the frontier from Belgium, where the unitis a franc. It is too much to say that a sovereign in Holland isworth only twelve shillings: the case is not quite so extreme asthat; but a sovereign in Belgium is, for all practical purposes, worth twenty-five shillings, and the contrast after reaching Dutchsoil is very striking. One has to recollect that the spidery letter"f, " which in those friendly little restaurants in the Rue Hareng atBrussels had stood for a franc, now symbolises that far more seriousitem the florin; and f. 1. 50, which used to be a trifle of one andthreepence, is now half a crown. Even in our own country, where we know something about the cost ofthings, we are continually conscious of the fallacy embodied in thestatement that a sovereign is equal to twenty shillings. We know thatin theory that is so; but we know also that it is so only as long asthe sovereign remains unchanged. Change it and it is worth next tonothing--half a sovereign and a little loose silver. But in Hollandthe disparity is even more pathetic. To change a sovereign therestrikes one as the most ridiculous business transaction of one's life. Certain things in Holland are dear beyond all understanding. At TheHague, for example, we drank Eau d'Evian, a very popular bottled waterfor which in any French restaurant one expects to pay a few pence;and when the bill arrived this simple fluid cut such a dashing figurein it that at first I could not recognise it at all. When I put thematter to the landlord, he explained that the duty made it impossiblefor him to charge less than f. 1. 50 (or half a crown) a bottle;but I am told that his excuse was too fanciful. None the less, halfa crown was the charge, and apparently no one objects to pay it. TheDutch, on pleasure or eating bent, are prepared to pay anything. Onewould expect to get a reasonable claret for such a figure; but notin Holland. Wine is good there, but it is not cheap. Only in onehotel--and that in the unspoiled north, at Groningen--did I see wineplaced automatically upon the table, as in France. Rotterdam must have changed for the worse under modern conditions;for it is no longer as it was in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's day. FromRotterdam in 1716 she sent the Countess of Mar a pretty account ofthe city: "All the streets are paved with broad stones, and beforethe meanest artificers' doors seats of various coloured marbles, and so neatly kept that, I will assure you, I walked all over thetown yesterday, _incognita_, in my slippers, without receiving onespot of dirt; and you may see the Dutch maids washing the pavement ofthe street with more application than ours do our bed-chambers. Thetown seems so full of people, with such busy faces, all in motion, that I can hardly fancy that it is not some celebrated fair; but Isee it is every day the same. "The shops and warehouses are of a surprising neatness andmagnificence, filled with an incredible quantity of fine merchandise, and so much cheaper than what we see in England, I have much adoto persuade myself I am still so near it. Here is neither dirt norbeggary to be seen. One is not shocked with those loathsome cripples, so common in London, nor teased with the importunities of idle fellowsand wenches, that choose to be nasty and lazy. The common servantsand the little shopwomen here are more nicely clean than most of ourladies; and the great variety of neat dresses (every woman dressingher head after her own fashion) is an additional pleasure in seeingthe town. " The claims of business have now thrust aside many of the littlerefinements described by Lady Mary, her description of which has butto be transferred to some of the smaller Dutch towns to be howeverin the main still accurate. But what she says of the Dutch servantsis true everywhere to this minute. There are none more fresh andcapable; none who carry their lot with more quiet dignity. Not theleast part of the very warm hospitality which is offered in Dutchhouses is played by the friendliness of the servants. Every one in Holland seems to have enough; no one toomuch. Great wealth there may be among the merchants, but it is notostentatious. Holland still seems to have no poor in the extreme senseof the word, no rags. Doubtless the labourers that one sees are workingat a low rate, but they are probably living comfortably at a lower, and are not to be pitied except by those who still cherish the illusionthat riches mean happiness. The dirt and poverty that exist in everyEnglish town and village are very uncommon. Nor does one see maimed, infirm or very old people, except now and then--so rarely as at onceto be reminded of their rarity. One is struck, even in Rotterdam, which is a peculiarly strenuoustown, by the ruddy health of the people in the streets. In England, as one walks about, one sees too often the shadow of Death on thisface and that; but in Holland it is difficult to believe in his power, the people have so prosperous, so permanent, an air. That the Dutch die there is no doubt, for a funeral is an almostdaily object, and the aanspreker is continually hurrying by; butwhere are the dead? The cemeteries are minute, and the churches haveno churchyards. Of Death, however, when he comes the nation is veryproud. The mourning customs are severe and enduring. No expense isspared in spreading the interesting tidings. It is for this purposethat the aanspreker flourishes in his importance and pomp. Drapedheavily in black, from house to house he moves, wherever the slightestties of personal or business acquaintanceship exist, and announceshis news. A lady of Hilversum tells me that she was once formally therecipient of the message, "Please, ma'am, the baker's compliments, and he's dead, " the time and place of the interment following. I saiddraped in black, but the aanspreker is not so monotonous an official asthat. He has his subtleties, his nuances. If the deceased is a child, he adds a white rosette; if a bachelor or a maid, he intimates thefact by degrees of trimming. The aanspreker was once occasionally assisted by the huilebalk, but Iam afraid his day is over. The huilebalk accompanied the aansprekersfrom house to house and wept on the completion of their sad message. Hewore a wide-awake hat with a very large brim and a long-tailed coat. Ifproperly paid, says my informant, real tears coursed down his cheeks;in any case his presence was a luxury possible only to the rich. The aanspreker is called in also at the other end of life. Assuminga more jocund air, he trips from house to house announcing littlestrangers. That the Dutch are a healthy people one might gather also from thecharacter of their druggists. In this country, even in very remotetowns, one may reveal one's symptoms to a chemist or his assistantfeeling certain that he will know more or less what to prescribe. Butin Holland the chemists are often young women, who preside over shopsin which one cannot repose any confidence. One likes a chemist's shopat least to look as if it contained reasonable remedies. These donot. Either our shops contain too many drugs or these too few. Thechemist's sign, a large comic head with its mouth wide open (knownas the gaper), is also subversive of confidence. A chemist's shop isno place for jokes. In Holland one must in short do as the Dutch do, and remain well. Rotterdam's first claim to consideration, apart from its commercialimportance, is that it gave birth to Erasmus, a bronze statueof whom stands in the Groote Market, looking down on the stallsof fruit. Erasmus of Rotterdam--it sounds like a contradictionin terms. Gherardt Gherardts of Rotterdam is a not dishonourablecacophany--and that was the reformer's true name; but the fashionof the time led scholars to adopt a Hellenised, or Latinised, style. Erasmus Desiderius, his new name, means Beloved and longdesired. Grotius, Barlaeus, Vossius, Arminius, all sacrificed localcolour to smooth syllables. We should be very grateful that the fashiondid not spread also to the painters. What a loss it would be had themagnificent rugged name of Rembrandt van Rhyn been exchanged for asmooth emasculated Latinism. Rotterdam had another illustrious son whose work as little suggestshis birthplace--the exquisite painter Peter de Hooch. According to theauthorities he modelled his style upon Rembrandt and Fabritius, but theinfluence of Rembrandt is concealed from the superficial observer. DeHooch, whose pictures are very scarce, worked chiefly at Delft andHaarlem, and it was at Haarlem that he died in 1681. If one were putto it to find a new standard of aristocracy superior to accidentsof blood or rank one might do worse than demand as the ultimate testthe possession of either a Vermeer of Delft or a Peter de Hooch. One only of Peter de Hooch's pictures is reproduced in this book--"TheStore Cupboard". This is partly because there are, I think, betterpaintings of his in London than at Amsterdam. At least it seems tome that his picture in our National Gallery of the waiting maid isfiner than anything by De Hooch in Holland. But in no other workof his that I know is his simple charm so apparent as in "The StoreCupboard". This is surely the Christmas supplement carried out to itshighest power--and by its inventor. The thousands of domestic sceneswhich have proceeded from this one canvas make the memory reel; andyet nothing has staled the prototype. It remains a sweet and genuineand radiant thing. De Hooch had two fetishes--a rich crimson dressor jacket and an open door. His compatriot Vermeer, whom he sometimesresembles, was similarly addicted to a note of blue. No one has managed direct sunlight so well as De Hooch. The light inhis rooms is the light of day. One can almost understand how Rembrandtand Gerard Dou got their concentrated effects of illumination; buthow this omnipresent radiance streamed from De Hooch's palette is oneof the mysteries. It is as though he did not paint light but foundlight on his canvas and painted everything else in its midst. Rotterdam has some excellent pictures in its Boymans Museum; but theyare, I fancy, overlooked by many visitors. It seems no city in which tosee pictures. It is a city for anything rather than art--a mercantilecentre, a hive of bees, a shipping port of intense activity. Andyet perhaps the quietest little Albert Cuyp in Holland is here, "DeOude Oostpoort te Rotterdam, " a small evening scene, without cattle, suffused in a golden glow. But all the Cuyps, and there are six, are good--all inhabited by their own light. Among the other Boymans treasures which I find I have marked (notnecessarily because they are good--for I am no judge--but becauseI liked them) are Ferdinand Bols fine free portrait of Dirck vander Waeijen, a boy in a yellow coat; Erckhart's "Boaz and Ruth, " asmall sombre canvas with a suggestion of Velasquez in it; Hobbema's"Boomrijk Landschap, " one of the few paintings of this artist thatHolland possesses. The English, I might remark, always appreciativejudges of Dutch art, have been particularly assiduous in the pursuit ofHobbema, with the result that his best work is in our country. Hollandhas nothing of his to compare with the "Avenue at Middelharnis, "one of the gems of our National Gallery. And his feathery trees maybe studied at the Wallace Collection in great comfort. Other fine landscapes in the Boymans Museum are three by Johanvan Kessel, who was a pupil of Hobbema, one by Jan van der Meer, one by Koninck, and, by Jacob van Ruisdael, a corafield in the sunand an Amsterdam canal with white sails upon it. The most notablehead is that by Karel Fabritius; Hendrick Pot's "Het Lokstertje"is interesting for its large free manner and signs of the influenceof Hals; and Emmanuel de Witte's Amsterdam fishmarket is curiouslymodern. But the figure picture which most attracted me was "Portretvan een jongeling, " by Jan van Scorel, of whom we shall learn more atUtrecht. This little portrait, which I reproduce on the opposite page, is wholly charming and vivid. The Boymans Museum contains also modern Dutch paintings. Wherevermodern Dutch paintings are to be seen, I look first for the delicateart of Matthew Maris, and next for Anton Mauve. Here there is noMatthew Maris, and but one James Maris. There is one Mauve. The modernDutch painter for the most part paints the same picture so often. ButMatthew Maris is full of surprises. If a new picture by any of hiscontemporaries stood with its face to the wall one would know whatto expect. From Israels, a fisherman's wife; from Mesdag, a greystretch of sea; from Bosboom, a superb church interior; from Mauve, a peasant with sheep or a peasant with a cow; from Weissenbruch, astream and a willow; from Breitner, an Amsterdam street; from JamesMaris a masterly scene of boats and wet sky. Usually one would haveguessed aright. But with Matthew Maris is no certainty. It may be alittle dainty girl lying on her side and watching butterflies; it maybe a sombre hillside at Montmartre; it may be a girl cooking; it maybe scaffolding in Amsterdam, or a mere at evening, or a baby's head, or a village street. He has many moods, and he is always distinguishedand subtle. Rotterdam has a zoological garden which, although inferior to ours, is far better than that at Amsterdam, while it converts The Hague's Zoointo a travesty. Last spring the lions were in splendid condition. Theyare well housed, but fewer distractions are provided for them thanin Regent's Park. I found myself fascinated by the herons, who werecontinually soaring out over the neighbouring houses and returninglike darkening clouds. In England, although the heron is a native, werarely seem to see him; while to study him is extremely difficult. InHolland he is ubiquitous: both wild and tame. More interesting still was the stork, whose nest is set high ona pinnacle of the buffalo house. He was building in the leisurelystyle of the British working man. He would negligently descend fromthe heavens with a stick. This he would lay on the fabric and thencarefully perform his toilet, looking round and down all the timeto see that every one else was busy. Whenever his eye lighted upona toddling child or a perambulator it visibly brightened. "My truework!" he seemed to say; "this nest building is a mere by-path ofindustry. " After prinking and overlooking, and congratulating himselfthus, for a few minutes, he would stroll off, over the housetops, for another stick. He was the unquestionable King of the Garden. Why are there no heronries in the English public parks? And why isthere no stork? The Dutch have a proverb, "Where the stork abidesno mother dies in childbed". Still more, why are there no storks inFrance? The author of _Fécondité_ should have imported them. No Zoo, however well managed, can keep an ourang-outang long, andtherefore one should always study that uncomfortably human creaturewhenever the opportunity occurs. I had great fortune at Rotterdam, for I chanced to be in the ourang-outang's house when his keepercame in. Entering the enclosure, he romped with him in a score ofdiverting ways. They embraced each other, fed each other, teasedeach other. The humanness of the creature was frightful. Perhaps ourlikeness to ourang-outangs (except for our ridiculously short arms, inadequate lower jaws and lack of hair) made him similarly uneasy. Rotterdam, I have read somewhere, was famous at the end of theeighteenth century for a miser, the richest man in the city. He alwaysdid his own marketing, and once changed his butcher because he weighedthe paper with the meat He bought his milk in farthingsworths, halfof which had to be delivered at his front door and half at the back, "to gain the little advantage of extra measure". Different travellersnote different things, and William Chambers, the publisher, in his_Tour in Holland_ in 1839, selected for special notice another typeof Rotterdam resident: "One of the most remarkable men of this [themerchant] class is Mr. Van Hoboken of Rhoon and Pendrecht, who liveson one of the havens. This individual began life as a merchant'sporter, and has in process of time attained the highest rank amongthe Dutch mercantile aristocracy. He is at present the principal ownerof twenty large ships in the East India trade, each, I was informed, worth about fourteen thousand pounds, besides a large landed estate, and much floating wealth of different descriptions. His establishmentis of vast extent, and contains departments for the building of shipsand manufacture of all their necessary equipments. This gentleman, until lately, was in the habit of giving a splendid fête once a yearto his family and friends, at which was exhibited with modest pridethe porter's truck which he drew at the outset of his career. Oneseldom hears of British merchants thus keeping alive the remembranceof early meanness of circumstances. " At one of Rotterdam's stations I saw the Queen-Mother, asmiling, maternal lady in a lavender silk dress, carrying a largebouquet, and saying pretty things to a deputation drawn up on theplatform. Rotterdam had put out its best bunting, and laid six inchesof sand on its roads, to do honour to this kindly royalty. The bandplayed the tender national anthem, which is always so unlike what oneexpects it to be, as her train steamed away, and then all the gravebearded gentlemen in uniforms and frock coats who had attended herdrove in their open carriages back to the town. Not even the presenceof the mounted guard made it more formal than a family party. Everybodyseemed on the best of friendly terms of equality with everybody else. Tom Hood, who had it in him to be so good a poet, but living in acountry where art and literature do not count, was permitted to coarsenhis delicate genius in the hunt for bread, wrote one of his comicpoems on Rotterdam. In it are many happy touches of description:-- Before me lie dark waters In broad canals and deep, Whereon the silver moonbeams Sleep, restless in their sleep; A sort of vulgar Venice Reminds me where I am; Yes, yes, you are in England, And I'm at Rotterdam. Tall houses with quaint gables, Where frequent windows shine, And quays that lead to bridges, And trees in formal line, And masts of spicy vessels From western Surinam, All tell me you're in England, But I'm in Rotterdam. With headquarters at Rotterdam one may make certain small journeysinto the neighbourhood--to Dordrecht by river, to Delft by canal, to Gouda by canal; or one may take longer voyages, even to Cologne ifone wishes. But I do not recommend it as a city to linger in. Betterthan Rotterdam's large hotels are, I think, the smaller, humblerand more Dutch inns of the less commercial towns. This indeed is thecase all over Holland: the plain Dutch inn of the neighbouring smalltown is pleasanter than the large hotels of the city; and, as I haveremarked in the chapter on Amsterdam, the distances are so short, and the trains so numerous, that one suffers no inconvenience fromstaying in the smaller places. Gouda (pronounced Howda) it is well to visit from Rotterdam, for ithas not enough to repay a sojourn in its midst. It has a Groote Kerkand a pretty isolated white stadhuis. But Gouda's fame rests on itsstained glass--gigantic representations of myth, history and scripture, chiefly by the brothers Crabeth. The windows are interesting ratherthan beautiful. They lack the richness and mystery which one likesto find in old stained glass, and the church itself is bare and coldand unfriendly. Hemmed in by all this coloured glass, so able andso direct, one sighs for a momentary glimpse of the rose window atChartres, or even of the too heavily kaleidoscopic patterns of BrusselsCathedral. No matter, the Gouda windows in their way are very fine, and in the sixth, depicting the story of Judith and Holofernes, thereis a very fascinating little Düreresque tower on a rock under siege. If one is taking Gouda on the way from Rotterdam to Amsterdam, the surrounding country should not be neglected from the carriagewindows. Holland is rarely so luxuriant as here, and so peacefullybeautiful. Chapter II The Dutch in English Literature Hard things against the Dutch--Andrew Marvell's satire--The iniquity of living below sea-level--Historic sarcasms--"Invent a shovel and be a magistrate"--Heterogeneity--Foot warmers--A champion of the Hollow Land--_The Dutch Drawn to the Life_--Dutch suspicion--Sir William Temple's opinion--and Sir Thomas Overbury's--Dr. Johnson's project--Dutch courtesy--Dutch discourtesy--National manners--A few phrases--The origin of "Dutch News"--A vindication of Dutch courage. To say hard things of the Dutch was once a recognised literarypastime. At the time of our war with Holland no poet of any pretensionsrefrained from writing at least one anti-Batavian satire, the classicalexample of which is Andrew Marvell's "Character of Holland" (followingSamuel Butler's), a pasquinade that contains enough wit and fancyand contempt to stock a score of the nation's ordinary assailants. Itbegins perfectly:-- HOLLAND, that scarce deserves the name of land, As but th' off-scouring of the British sand, And so much earth as was contributed By English pilots when they heav'd the lead, Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell Of shipwrackt cockle and the muscle-shell: This indigested vomit of the sea Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. Glad then, as miners who have found the ore They, with mad labour, fish'd the land to shoar And div'd as desperately for each piece Of earth, as if't had been of ambergreece; Collecting anxiously small loads of clay, Less than what building swallows bear away; Or than those pills which sordid beetles roul, Transfusing into them their dunghil soul. How did they rivet, with gigantick piles, Thorough the center their new-catchèd miles; And to the stake a struggling country bound, Where barking waves still bait the forcèd ground; Building their wat'ry Babel far more high To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky! Yet still his claim the injur'd ocean laid, And oft at leap-frog ore their steeples plaid: As if on purpose it on land had come To show them what's their _mare liberum_. A daily deluge over them does boyl; The earth and water play at level-coyl. The fish oft times the burger dispossest, And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest, And oft the Tritons and the sea-nymphs saw Whole sholes of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillau; Or, as they over the new level rang'd For pickled herring, pickled _heeren_ chang'd. Nature, it seem'd, asham'd of her mistake, Would throw their land away at duck and drake. The poor Dutch were never forgiven for living below the sea-leveland gaining their security by magnificent feats of engineering andpersistence. Why the notion of a reclaimed land should have seemedso comic I cannot understand, but Marvell certainly justified the joke. Later, Napoleon, who liked to sum up a nation in a phrase, accusedHolland of being nothing but a deposit of German mud, thrown there bythe Rhine: while the Duke of Alva remarked genially that the Dutchwere of all peoples those that lived nighest to hell; but Marvell'ssarcasms are the best. Indeed I doubt if the literature of drollexaggeration has anything to compare with "The Character of Holland". The satirist, now thoroughly warmed to his congenial task, continues:-- Therefore Necessity, that first made kings, Something like government among them brings; For, as with pygmees, who best kills the crane, Among the hungry, he that treasures grain, Among the blind, the one-ey'd blinkard reigns, So rules among the drowned he that draines: Not who first sees the rising sun, commands, But who could first discern the rising lands; Who best could know to pump an earth so leak, Him they their Lord, and Country's Father, speak; To make a bank, was a great plot of State, Invent a shov'l, and be a magistrate. So much for the conquest of Neptune, which in another nation were alaudable enough enterprise. Marvell then passes on to the nationalreligion and the heterogeneity of Amsterdam:-- 'Tis probable Religion, after this, Came next in order, which they could not miss, How could the Dutch but be converted, when Th' Apostles were so many fishermen? Besides, the waters of themselves did rise, And, as their land, so them did re-baptize. Though Herring for their God few voices mist, And Poor-John to have been th' Evangelist, Faith, that could never twins conceive before, Never so fertile, spawn'd upon this shore More pregnant than their Marg'ret, that laid down For Hans-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town. Sure when Religion did itself imbark, And from the East would Westward steer its ark, It struck, and splitting on this unknown ground, Each one thence pillag'd the first piece he found: Hence Amsterdam, Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew, Staple of sects, and mint of schisme grew; That bank of conscience, where not one so strange Opinion but finds credit, and exchange. In vain for Catholicks ourselves we bear; The universal Church is only there. Nor can civility there want for tillage, Where wisely for their Court, they chose a village: How fit a title clothes their governours, Themselves the hogs, as all their subject bores! Let it suffice to give their country fame, That it had one Civilis call'd by name, Some fifteen hundred and more years ago, But surely never any that was so. There is something rather splendid in the attitude of a man who cantake a whole nation as his butt and bend every circumstance to hispurpose of ridicule and attack. Our satirists to-day are contented topillory individuals or possibly a sect or clique. Marvell's enjoymentin his own exuberance and ingenuity is so apparent and infectiousthat it matters nothing to us whether he was fair or unfair. The end is inconclusive, being a happy recollection that he hadomitted any reference to _stoofjes_, the footstools filled withburning peat which are used to keep the feet warm in church. Sucha custom was of course not less reprehensible than the building ofdykes to keep out the sea. Hence these eight lines, which, however, would have come better earlier in the poem:-- See but their mermaids, with their tails of fish, Reeking at church over the chafing-dish! A vestal turf, enshrin'd in earthen ware, Fumes through the loopholes of a wooden square; Each to the temple with these altars tend, But still does place it at her western end; While the fat steam of female sacrifice Fills the priest's nostrils, and puts out his eyes. Not all the poets, however, abused the Dutch. John Hagthorpe, in his_England's Exchequer_ in 1625 (written before the war: hence, perhaps, his kindness) thus addressed the "hollow land":-- Fair Holland, had'st thou England's chalky rocks, To gird thy watery waist; her healthful mounts, With tender grass to feed thy nibbling flocks: Her pleasant groves, and crystalline clear founts, Most happy should'st thou be by just accounts, That in thine age so fresh a youth do'st feel Though flesh of oak, and ribs of brass and steel. But what hath prudent mother Nature held From thee--that she might equal shares impart Unto her other sons--that's not compell'd To be the guèrdons of thy wit and art? And industry, that brings from every part Of every thing the fairest and the best, Like the Arabian bird to build thy nest? Like the Arabian bird thy nest to build, With nimble wings thou flyest for Indian sweets, And incense which the Sabáan forests yield, And in thy nest the goods of each pole meets, -- Which thy foes hope, shall serve thy funeral rites-- But thou more wise, secur'd by thy deep skill, Dost build on waves, from fires more safe than hill. To return to the severer critics--in 1664 was published a little bookcalled _The Dutch Drawn to the Life_, a hostile work not improbablywritten with the intention of exciting English animosity to the pointof war. A great deal was made of the success of the Dutch fisheriesand the mismanagement of our own. The nation was criticised in allits aspects--"well nigh three millions of men, well-proportioned, great lovers of our English beer". The following passage on thedrinking capacity of the Dutch would have to be modified to-day:-- By their Excise, which riseth with their charge, the more money they pay, the more they receive again, in that insensible but profitable way: what is exhaled up in clouds, falls back again in showers: what the souldier receives in pay, he payes in Drink: their very enemies, though they hate the State, yet love their liquor, and pay excise: the most idle, slothful, and most improvident, that selleth his blood for drink, and his flesh for bread, serves at his own charge, for every pay day he payeth his sutler, and he the common purse. Here are other strokes assisting to the protraiture "to the life" ofthis people: "Their habitations are kept handsomer than their bodies, and their bodies than their soules". --"The Dutch man's building isnot large, but neat; handsome on the outside, on the inside hungwith pictures and tapestry. He that hath not bread to eat hath apicture. "--"They are seldom deceived, for they will trust nobody. Theymay always deceive, for you must trust them, as for instance, if youtravel, to ask a bill of Particulars is to purre in a wasp's nest, you must pay what they ask as sure as if it were the assessment ofa Subsidy. " But the wittiest and shrewdest of the prose critics of Holland was OwenFeltham, from whom I quote later. His little book on the Low Countriesis as packed with pointed phrase as a satire by Pope: the first halfof it whimsically destructive, the second half eulogistic. It ishe who charges the Dutch convivial spirits with drinking down theEvening Starre and drinking up the Morning Starre. The old literature tells us also that the Dutch were notalways clean. Indeed, their own painters prove this: Ostadepre-eminently. There are many allusions in Elizabethan and early Stuartliterature to their dirt and rags. In Earle's _Microcosmography_, for example, a younger brother's last refuge is said to be the LowCountries, "where rags and linen are no scandal". But better testimonycomes perhaps from _The English Schole-Master_, a seventeenth-centuryDutch-English manual, from which I quote at some length later in thisbook. Here is a specimen scrap of dialogue:-- S. May it please you to give me leave to go out? M. Whither? S. Home. M. How is it that you goe so often home? S. My mother commanded that I and my brother should come to her this day. M. For what cause? S. That our mayd may beat out our clothes. M. What is that to say? Are you louzie? S. Yea, very louzie. Sir William Temple, the patron of Swift, the husband of DorothyOsborne, and our ambassador at The Hague--where he talked horticulture, cured his gout by the remedy known as Moxa, and collected materialsfor the leisurely essays and memoirs that were to be written at MoorPark--knew the Dutch well and wrote of them with much particularity. Inhis _Observations upon the United Provinces_ he says this: "Hollandis a country, where the earth is better than the air, and profit morein request than honour; where there is more sense than wit; more goodnature than good humour, and more wealth than pleasure: where a manwould chuse rather to travel than to live; shall find more things toobserve than desire; and more persons to esteem than to love. Butthe same qualities and dispositions do not value a private man anda state, nor make a conversation agreeable, and a government great:nor is it unlikely, that some very great King might make but a veryordinary private gentleman, and some very extraordinary gentlemanmight be capable of making but a very mean Prince. " Among other travellers who have summed up the Dutch in a fewphrases is Sir Thomas Overbury, the author of some witty characters, including that very charming one of a Happy Milk Maid. In 1609 hethus generalised upon the Netherlander: "Concerning the people: theyare neither much devout, nor much wicked; given all to drink, andeminently to no other vice; hard in bargaining, but just; surly andrespectless, as in all democracies; thirsty, industrious, and cleanly;disheartened upon the least ill-success, and insolent upon good;inventive in manufactures, and cunning in traffick: and generally, for matter of action, that natural slowness of theirs, suits better(by reason of the advisedness and perseverance it brings with it)than the rashness and changeableness of the French and Florentinewits; and the equality of spirits, which is among them and Switzers, renders them so fit for a democracy: which kind of government, nationsof more stable wits, being once come to a consistent greatness, have seldom long endured. " Many Englishmen have travelled in Holland and have set down the recordof their experiences, from Thomas Coryate downwards. But the countryhas not been inspiring, and Dutch travels are poor reading. HadDr. Johnson lived to accompany Boswell on a projected journey weshould be the richer, but I doubt if any very interesting narrativewould have resulted. One of Johnson's contemporaries, Samuel Ireland, the engraver, and the father of the fraudulent author of _Vortigern_, wrote _A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part ofFrance_, in 1789, while a few years later one of Charles Lamb'searly "drunken companions, " Fell, wrote _A Tour through the BatavianRepublic_, 1801; and both of these books yield a few experiencesnot without interest. Fell's is the duller. I quote from them nowand again throughout this volume, but I might mention here a few oftheir more general observations. Fell, for example, was embarrassed by the very formal politenessof the nation. "The custom of bowing in Holland, " he writes, "isextremely troublesome. It is not sufficient, as in England, that aperson slightly moves his hat, but he must take it off his head, and continue uncovered till the man is past him to whom he paysthe compliment. The ceremony of bowing is more strictly observedat Leyden and Haarlem, than at Rotterdam or The Hague. In eitherof the former cities, a stranger of decent appearance can scarcelywalk in the streets without being obliged every minute to pull offhis hat, to answer some civility of the same kind which he receives;and these compliments are paid him not only by opulent people, but bymechanics and labourers, who bow with all the gravity and politenessof their superiors. " Such civilities to strangers have become obsolete. So far fromcourtesy being the rule of the street, it is now, as I have hintedin the next chapter, impossible for an English-woman whose clotheschance to differ in any particular from those of the Dutch to escapeembarrassing notice. Staring is carried to a point where it becomesalmost a blow, and laughter and humorous sallies resound. I am toldthat the Boer war to a large extent broke down old habits of politenessto the English stranger. When one thinks of it, the Dutch habit of staring at the visitor untilhe almost wishes the sea would roll in and submerge him, argues awant of confidence in their country, tantamount to a confession offailure. Had they a little more trust in the attractive qualitiesof their land, a little more imagination to realise that in othereyes its flatness and quaintness might be even alluring, they wouldaccept and acknowledge the compliment by doing as little as possibleto make their country's admirers uncomfortable. "Dutch courage, " to which I refer below, is not our only use of Dutchas a contemptuous adjective. We say "Dutch Gold" for pinchbeck, "Dutch Myrtle" for a weed. "I shall talk to you like a Dutchuncle" is another saying, not in this case contemptuous but rathercomplimentary--signifying "I'll dress you down to some purpose". Onepiece of slang we share with Holland: the reference to the pawnbrokeras an uncle. In Holland the kindly friend at the three brass balls(which it may not be generally known are the ancient arms of Lombardy, the Lombards being the first money lenders, ) is called Oom Jan orUncle John. There is still another phrase, "Dutch news, " which might beexplained. The term is given by printers to very difficult copy--DeanStanley's manuscript, for example, was probably known as Dutch news, so terrible was his hand, --and also to "pie". The origin is to befound in the following paragraph from _Notes and Queries_. (The SirRichard Phillips concerned was the vegetarian publisher so finelytouched off by Borrow in _Lavengro_. ) In his youth Sir Richard Phillips edited and published a paper atLeicester, called the _Herald_. One day an article appeared in itheaded 'Dutch Mail, ' and added to it was an announcement that it hadarrived too late for translation, and so had been cut up and printedin the original. This wondrous article drove half of England crazy, and for years the best Dutch scholars squabbled and pored over itwithout being able to arrive at any idea of what it meant. This famous'Dutch Mail' was, in reality, merely a column of pie. The story SirRichard tells of this particular pie he had a whole hand in is this:-- "One evening, before one of our publications, my men and a boyoverturned two or three columns of the paper in type. We had toget ready in some way for the coaches, which, at four o'clock in themorning, required four or five hundred papers. After every exertion wewere short nearly a column; but there stood on the galleys a temptingcolumn of pie. It suddenly struck me that this might be thoughtDutch. I made up the column, overcame the scruples of the foreman, and so away the country edition went with its philological puzzle, to worry the honest agricultural reader's head. There was plenty oftime to set up a column of plain English for the local edition. " SirRichard tells of one man whom he met in Nottingham who for thirty-fouryears preserved a copy of the Leicester _Herald_, hoping that someday the matter would be explained. I doubt if any one nation is braver than any other; and the fact thatfrom Holland we get the contemptuous term "Dutch courage, " meaningthe courage which is dependent upon spirits (originally as suppliedto malefactors about to mount the scaffold), is no indication thatthe Dutch lack bravery. To one who inquired as to the derivation ofthe phrase a poet unknown to me thus replied, somewhen in the reignof William IV. The retort, I think, was sound:-- Do _you_ ask what is Dutch courage? Ask the Thames, and ask the fleet, That, in London's fire and plague years, With De Ruyter yards could mete: Ask Prince Robert and d'Estrées, Ask your Solebay and the Boyne, Ask the Duke, whose iron valour With our chivalry did join, Ask your Wellington, oh ask him, Of our Prince of Orange bold, And a tale of nobler spirit Will to wond'ring ears be told; And if ever foul invaders Threaten your King William's throne, If dark Papacy be running, Or if Chartists want your own, Or whatever may betide you, That needs rid of foreign will, Only ask of your Dutch neighbours, And you'll _see_ Dutch courage still. Chapter III Dordrecht and Utrecht By water to Dordrecht--Her four rivers--The milkmaid and the coat of arms--The Staple of Dort--Overhanging houses--Albert Cuyp--Nicolas Maes--Ferdinand Bol--Ary Scheffer--G. H. Breitner--A Dort carver--The Synod of Dort--"The exquisite rancour of theologians"--_La Tulipe Noire_--Bernard Mandeville--The exclusive Englishman--The Castle of Loevenstein--The escape of Grotius--Gorcum's taste outraged--By rail to Utrecht--A free church--The great storm of 1674--Utrecht Cathedral--Jan van Scorel--Paul Moreelse--A too hospitable museum. Dordrecht must be approached by water, because then one sees her asshe was seen so often, and painted so often, by her great son AlbertCuyp, and by countless artists since. I steamed from Rotterdam to Dordrecht on a grey windy morning, on apassenger boat bound ultimately for Nymwegen. We carried a very mixedcargo. In a cage at the bows was a Friesland mare, while the wholeof the deck at the stern was piled high with motor spirit. Betweencame myriad barrels of beer and other merchandise. The course to Dordrecht (which it is simpler to call Dort) is up theMaas for some miles; past shipbuilding yards, at Sylverdyk (where isa great heronry) and Kinderdyk; past fishermen dropping their netsfor salmon, which they may take only on certain days, to give theirGerman brethren, higher up the river, a chance; past meadows goldenwith marsh marigolds; past every kind of craft, most attractive ofall being the tjalcks with their brown or black sails and green-linedhulls, not unlike those from Rochester which swim so steadily in thereaches of the Thames about Greenwich. The journey takes an hour anda half, the last half-hour being spent in a canal leading south fromthe Maas and ultimately joining Dort's confluence of waters. It is these rivers that give Dort her peculiar charm. There is alittle café on the quay facing the sunset where one may sit and loseoneself in the eternally interesting movement of the shipping. Ifound the town distracting under the incessant clanging of the trambell (yet grass grows among the paving-stones between the rails);but there is no distraction opposite the sunset. On the evening thatI am remembering the sun left a sky of fiery orange barred by cloudsof essential blackness. Dort's rivers are the Maas and the Waal, the Linge and the Merwede;and when in 1549 Philip of Spain visited the city, she flourishedthis motto before him:-- Me Mosa, me Vahalis, me Linga Morvaque cingunt Biternam Batavæ virginis ecce fidens. The fidelity, at least to Philip and Spain, disappeared; but the fourrivers still as of old surround Dort with a cincture. I must give, in the words of the old writer who tells it, the prettylegend which explains the origin of the Dort coat of arms: "There is anadmirable history concerning that beautiful and maiden city of Hollandcalled Dort. The Spaniards had intended an onslaught against it, andso they had laid thousands of old soldiers in ambush. Not far from itthere did live a rich farmer who did keep many cows in his ground, to furnish Dort with butter and milk. The milkmaid coming to milksaw all under the hedges soldiers lying; seemed to take no notice, but went singing to her cows; and having milked, went as merrilyaway. Coming to her master's house, she told what she had seen. Themaster wondering at it, took the maid with him and presently came toDort, told it to the Burgomaster, who sent a spy immediately, found ittrue, and prepared for their safety; sent to the States, who presentlysent soldiers into the city, and gave order that the river should belet in at such a sluice, to lay the country under water. It was done, and many Spaniards were drowned and utterly disappointed of theirdesign, and the town saved. The States, in the memory of the merrymilkmaid's good service to the country, ordered the farmer a largerevenue for ever, to recompense his loss of house, land, and cattle;caused the coin of the city to have the milkmaid under her cow tobe engraven, which is to be seen upon the Dort dollar, stivers, anddoights to this day; and so she is set upon the water gate of Dort;and she had, during her life, and her's for ever, an allowance offifty pounds per annum. A noble requital for a virtuous action. " Dort's great day of prosperity is over; but once she was the richesttown in Holland--a result due to the privilege of the Staple. Inother words, she obtained the right to act as intermediary betweenthe rest of Holland and the outer world in connection with all thewine, corn, timber and whatever else might be imported by way ofthe Rhine. At Dort the cargoes were unloaded. For some centuries sheenjoyed this privilege, and then in 1618 Rotterdam began to resentit so acutely as to take to arms, and the financial prosperity ofthe town, which would be tenable only by the maintenance of a fleet, steadily crumbled. To-day she is contented enough, but the cellarsof Wyn Straat, once stored with the juices of Rhenish vineyards, are empty. The Staple is no more. Dort is perhaps the most painted of all Dutch towns, and with reason;for certainly no other town sits with more calm dignity among thewaters, nor has any other town so quaintly medieval a canal as thatwhich extends from end to end, far below the level of the streets, crossed by a series of little bridges. Seen from these bridges it isthe nearest thing to Venice in all Holland--nearer than anything inAmsterdam. One may see it not only from the bridges, but also fromlittle flights of steps off the main street, and everywhere it isbeautiful: the walls rising from its surface reflected in its depths, green paint splashed about with perfect effect, bright window boxes, here and there a woman washing clothes, odd gables above and bridgesin the distance. Dordrecht's converging facades, which incline towards each otherlike deaf people, are, I am told, the result not of age and sinkingfoundations, but of design. When they were built, very many years ago, the city had a law directing that its roofs should so far projectbeyond the perpendicular as to shed their water into the gutter, thusenabling the passers-by on the pavement to walk unharmed. I cannotgive chapter or verse for this comfortable theory; which of coursepreceded the ingenious Jonas Hanway's invention of the umbrella. In asmall and very imperfect degree the enactment anticipates the coveredcity of Mr. H. G. Wells's vision. A Dutch friend to whom I put thepoint tells me that more probably the preservation of bricks andmural carvings was intended, the dryness of the wayfarer being quitesecondary or unforeseen. Dort's greatest artist was Albert Cuyp, born in 1605. His bodylies in the church of the Augustines in the same city, where hedied in 1691--true to the Dutch painters' quiet gift of living anddying in their birthplaces. Cuyp has been called the Dutch Claude, but it is not a good description. He was more human, more simple, than Claude. The symbol for him is a scene of cows; but he had greatversatility, and painted horses to perfection. I have also seen goodportraits from his busy brush. Faithful to his native town, he paintedmany pictures of Dort. We have two in the National Gallery. I havereproduced opposite page 30 his beautiful quiet view of the town inthe Ryks Museum. Dort has changed but little since then; the schoonerwould now be a steamer--that is almost all. The reproduction cangive no adequate suggestion of Cuyp's gift of diffusing golden light, his most precious possession. Another Dort painter, below Albert Cuyp in fame, but often above him, I think, in interest and power, is Nicolas Maes, born in 1632--agreat year in Dutch art, for it saw the birth also of Vermeer ofDelft and Peter de Hooch. Maes, who studied in Rembrandt's studio, was perhaps the greatest of all that master's pupils. England, as hasbeen so often the case, appreciated Maes more wisely than Holland, with the result that some of his best pictures are here. But one must go to the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam to see his finest workof all--"The Endless Prayer, " No. 1501, reproduced on the oppositepage. We have at the National Gallery or the Wallace Collection noMaes equal to this. His "Card players, " however, at the NationalGallery, a free bold canvas, more in the manner of Velasquez than ofhis immediate master, is in its way almost as interesting. To "The Endless Prayer" one feels that Maes's master, Rembrandt, could have added nothing. It is even conceivable that he might haveinjured it by some touch of asperity. From this picture all Newlynseems to have sprung. According to Pilkington, Maes gave up his better and moreRembrandtesque manner on account of the objection of his sitters tobe thus painted. Such are sitters! Dordrecht claims also Ferdinand Bol, the pupil and friend of Rembrandt, and the painter of the Four Regents of the Leprosy Hospital in theAmsterdam stadhuis. He was born in 1611. For a while his pictures wereconsidered by connoisseurs to be finer than those of his master. Weare wiser to-day; yet Bol had a fine free way that is occasionallysuperb, often united, as in the portrait of Dirck van der Waeijen atRotterdam, to a delicate charm for which Rembrandt cared little. Hisportrait of an astronomer in our National Gallery is a great work, and at the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam his "Roelof Meulenaer, " No. 543, should not be missed. Bol's favourite sitter seems to have beenAdmiral de Ruyter--if one may judge by the number of his portraitsof that sea ravener which Holland possesses. By a perversity of judgment Dort seems to be more proud of Ary Schefferthan of any of her really great sons. It is Ary Scheffer's statue--notAlbert Cuyp's or Nicolas Maes's--which rises in the centre of thetown; and Ary Scheffer's sentimental and saccharine inventions fillthree rooms in the museum. It is amusing in the midst of this riotof meek romanticism to remember that Scheffer painted Carlyle. Dorthas no right to be so intoxicated with the excitement of having givenbirth to Scheffer, for his father was a German, a mere sojourner inthe Dutch town. The old museum of Dort has just been moved to a new building in theLindengracht, and in honour of the event a loan exhibition of modernpaintings and drawings was opened last summer. The exhibition gavepeculiar opportunity for studying the work of G. H. Breitner, thepainter of Amsterdam canals. The master of a fine sombre impressionism, Breitner has made such scenes his own. But he can do also more tenderand subtle things. In this collection was a little oil sketch of amere which would not have suffered had it been hung between a Corotand a Daubigny; and a water-colour drawing of a few cottages and ariver that could not have been strengthened by any hand. Another artist of Dort was Jan Terween Aertz, born in 1511, whose carvings in the choir of the Groote Kerk are among its chiefglories. It is amazing that such spirit and movement can be suggestedin wood. That the very semblance of life can be captured by a painteris wonderful enough; but there seems to me something more extraordinaryin the successful conquest of the difficulties which confront an artistof such ambition as this Dort carver. His triumph is even more strikingthan that of the sculptor in marble. The sacristan of Dort's GrooteKerk seems more eager to show a brass screen and a gold christeningbowl than these astounding choir stalls; but tastes always differ. By the irony of fate it was Dort--the possessor of Terween's carvingof the Triumph of Charles V. (a pendant to the Triumph of the Churchand the Eucharist)--that, in 1572, only a few years after the carvingwas made, held the Congress which virtually decided the fate of Spainin the Netherlands. Brill had begun the revolution (as we shall see inour last chapter), Flushing was the first to follow suit, Enkhuisenthen caught the fever; but these were individual efforts: it was theCongress of Dort that authorised and systematised the revolt. The scheme of this book precludes a consecutive account of the greatstruggle between Holland and Spain--a struggle equal almost to thatbetween Holland and her other implacable foe, the sea. I assume inthe reader a sufficient knowledge of history to be able to followthe course of the contest as it moves backwards and forwards in thesepages--the progress of the narrative being dictated by the sequenceof towns in the itinerary rather than by the sequence of events intime. The death of William the Silent, for example, has to be set forthin the chapter on Delft, where the tragedy occurred, and where he liesburied, long before we reach the description of the siege of Haarlemand the capture of De Bossu off Hoorn, while for the insurrection ofBrill, which was the first tangible token of Dutch independence, wehave to wait until the last chapter of all. The reader who is endowedwith sufficient history to reconcile these divagations should, I think, by the time the book is finished, have (with Motley's assistance)a vivid idea of this great war, so magnificently waged by Holland, which lowers in the background of almost every Dutch town. A later congress at Dort was the famous Synod in 1618-19, in whicha packed house of Gomarians or Contra-Remonstrants, pledged tocarry out the wishes of Maurice, Prince of Orange, the Stadtholder, affected to subject the doctrines of the Arminians or Remonstrants toconscientious examination. These doctrines as contained in the fivearticles of the Arminians were as follows, in the words of Davies, the historian of Holland: "First, that God had resolved from thebeginning to elect into eternal life those who through his gracebelieved in Jesus Christ, and continued stedfast in the faith; and, on the contrary, had resolved to leave the obstinate and unbelievingto eternal damnation; secondly, that Christ had died for the wholeworld, and obtained for all remission of sins and reconciliation withGod, of which, nevertheless, the faithful only are made partakers;thirdly, that man cannot have a saving faith by his own free will, since while in a state of sin he cannot think or do good, but it isnecessary that the grace of God, through Christ, should regenerate andrenew the understanding and affections; fourthly, that this grace isthe beginning, continuance, and end of salvation, and that all goodworks proceed from it, but that it is not irresistible; fifthly, that although the faithful receive by grace sufficient strength toresist Satan, sin, the world, and the flesh, yet man can by his ownact fall away from this state of grace. " After seven months wrangling and bitterness, at a cost of a millionguelders, the Synod came to no conclusion more Christian than thatno punishment was too bad for the holder of such opinions, whichwere dangerous to the State and subversive of true religion. Theresult was that Holland's Calvinism was intensified; Barneveldt(who had been in prison all the time) was, as we shall see, beheaded;Grotius and Hoogenbeets were sentenced to imprisonment for life; andEpiscopius, the Remonstrant leader at the Synod, was, together withmany others, banished. Episcopius heard his sentence with composure, merely remarking, "God will require of you an account of your conductat the great day of His judgment. There you and the whole Synod willappear. May you never meet with a judge such as the Synod has beento us. " Davies has a story of Episcopius which is too good to be omitted. Onbanishment he was given his expenses by the States. Among thedollars given to Episcopius was one, coined apparently in the Duchy ofBrunswick, bearing on the one side the figure of Truth, with the motto, "Truth overcomes all things"; and on the reverse, "In well-doing fearno one". Episcopius was so struck with the coincidence that he hadthe coin set in gold and carefully preserved. It is impossible for any one who has read _La Tulipe Noire_ not tothink of that story when wandering about Dort; but it is a mistake toread it in the town itself, for the Great Alexandre's fidelity to factwill not bear the strain. Dumas never wore his historical, botanical, geographical and ethnographical knowledge more like a flower thanin this brave but breathless story. In Boxtel's envy we may perhapsbelieve; in Gryphon's savagery; and in the craft and duplicity of theStadtholder; but if ever a French philosopher and a French grisettemasqueraded as a Dutch horticulturist and a Frisian waiting-maid theyare Cornelius van Baerle and his Rosa; and if ever a tulip grew bymagic rather than by the laws of nature it was the tulipe noire. Nomatter; there is but one Dumas. According to Flotow the composer, William III. Of Holland told Dumas the story of the black tulip athis coronation in 1849, remarking that it was time that the novelistturned his attention to Holland; but two arguments are urged againstthis origin, one being that Paul Lacroix--the "Bibliophile Jacob"--issaid, on better authority, to have supplied the germ of the romance, and the other (which is even better evidence), that had the stimuluscome from a monarch Dumas would hardly have refrained from saying so(and more) in the preface of the book. Cornelius de Witt, whose tragedy is at the threshold of the romance, was apprehended at Dort, on his bed of sickness, and carried thenceto the Hague, to be imprisoned in the Gevangenpoort, which we shallvisit, and torn to pieces by the populace close by. Another literary association. From Dort came the English cynical writerBernard Mandeville, born in 1670, author of _The Fable of the Bees_, that very shrewd and advanced commentary upon national hypocrisies--soadvanced, indeed, that several of the more revolutionary of thethinkers of the present day, whose ideas are thought peculiarly modern, have not really got beyond it. After leaving Leyden as a doctor ofmedicine, Mandeville settled in England, somewhen at the end of theseventeenth century, and became well known in the Coffee Houses asa wit and good fellow. We are a curious people when we travel. At Dort I heard a youngEnglishman inquiring of the landlord how best to spend his Sunday. "Onecan hardly go on one of the river excursions, " he remarked; "theyare so mixed. " And the landlord, with a lunch at two florins, fifty, in his mind, which it was desirable that as many persons as possibleshould eat and pay for, heartily agreed with him. None the less itseemed well to join the excursion to Gorinchem; and thence we steamedon a fine cloudy Sunday, the river whipped grey by a strong crosswind, and the little ships that beat up and passed us, all aslant. AtGorinchem (pronounced Gorcum) we changed at once into another steamer, a sorry tub, as wide as it was short, and steamed to Woudrichem(called Worcum) hoping to explore the fortress of Loevenstein. ButLoevenstein is enisled and beyond the reach of the casual visitor, and we had therefore to sit in the upper room of the Bellevue inn, overlooking the river, and await the tub's deliberate return, whilethe tugs and the barges trailed past. Save for modifications broughtabout by steam, the scene can be now little different from that inthe days when Hugo Grotius was imprisoned in the castle. The philosopher's escape is one of the best things in the history ofwives. Two ameliorations were permitted him by Maurice--the presenceof the Vrouw Grotius and the solace of books. As it happened, thislenience could not have been less fortunately (or, for Grotius, morefortunately) framed. Books came continually to the prisoner, which, when read, were returned in the same chest that conveyed his linen tothe Gorcum wash. At first the guard carefully examined each departingload; but after a while the form was omitted. Grotius's wife, a womanof no common order (when asked why she did not sue for her husband'spardon, she had replied, "I will not do it: if he have deserved it letthem strike off his head"), was quick to notice the negligence of theguard, and giving out that her husband was bedridden, she concealedhim in the chest, and he was dumped on a tjalck and earned over toGorcum. While on his journey he had the shuddering experience ofhearing some one remark that the box was heavy enough to have a manin it; but it was his only danger. A Gorcum friend extricated him;and, disguised as a carpenter armed with a footrule, he set forthon his travels to Antwerp. Once certain that Grotius was safe, hiswife informed the guard, and the hue and cry was raised. But it wasraised in vain. At first there was a suggestion that the lady shouldbe retained in his stead, but all Holland applauded her deed and shewas permitted to go free. The river, as I have said, must be still much the same as in Grotius'sday; while the two towns Gorcum and Worcum cluster about their noblechurch towers as of old. Worcum is hardly altered; but Gorcum's railwayand factories have enlarged her borders. She has now twelve thousandinhabitants, some eleven thousand of whom were in the streets when, the tub having at length crawled back with us, we walked through themto the station. Odd how one nation's prettiness is another's grotesque. My companionwas wearing one of those comely straw hats trimmed with roses whichwe call Early Victorian, and which the hot summer of 1904 broughtinto fashion again on account of their peculiar suitability to keepoff the sun. In England we think them becoming; upon certain headsthey are charming. But no head must wear such a hat at Gorcum unlessit would court disaster. The town is gay and spruce, bright as a newpin; the people are outrageous. I suppose that the hat turned down atthe precise point at which, according to Gorcum's canons of taste, it should have turned up. Whatever it did was unpardonable, andwe had to be informed of the solecism. We were informed in variousways; the men whistled, the women sniggered, the girls laughed, thechildren shouted and ran beside us. The same hat had been disregardedby the sweet-mannered friendly Middelburgians; it had raised no smileat Breda. At Dordrecht, it is true, eyes had been opened wide; atBergen-op-Zoom mouths had opened too; but such attention was nothingcompared with Gorcum's pains to make two strangers uncomfortable. As it happened, we had philosophy, and the discomfort was veryslight. Indeed, after a while, as we ran the gauntlet to the station, annoyance gave way to interest. We found ourselves looking ahead fordistant wayfarers who had not yet tasted the rare joy which rippledlike a ship's wake behind us. We waited for the ecstatic moment whentheir faces should light with the joke. Sometimes a mother standingat the door would see us and call to her family to come--and comequickly, if they would not be disappointed! Women, lurking behindHolland's blue gauze blinds, would be seen to break away with a hastysummoning movement. Children down side streets who had just realisedtheir exceptional fortune would be heard shouting the glad tidings totheir friends. The porter who wheeled our luggage was stopped againand again to answer questions concerning his fantastic employers. In course of time--it is a long way to the station--we grew to feela shade of pique if any one passed us and took no notice. To bulkso hugely in the public eye became a new pleasure. I had not knownbefore what Britannia must feel like on the summit of the largest ofthe cars in a circus procession. I am convinced that such costly and equivocal success as theBritish arms achieved over the Boers had nothing to do with Gorcum'sfeelings. The town's æsthetic ideals were honestly outraged, and ittook the simplest means of making its protest. We did not mean to wait at the station; having left our luggage there, we had intended to explore the town. But there is a limit even to thepassion for notoriety, and we had reached it, passed it. We read andwrote letters in that waiting-room for nearly three hours. At Gorcum was born, in 1637, Jan van der Heyden, a very attractivepainter of street scenes, combining exactitude of detail with richcolour, who used to get Andreas van der Velde to put in the figures. Hehas a view of Cologne in the National Gallery which is exceedinglypleasing, and a second version in the Wallace Collection. I shallnever forget his birthplace. We came into Utrecht in the evening. At Culemberg the country beginsto grow very green and rich: smooth meadows and vast woods as faras one can see: plovers all the way. The light transfiguring thisscene was exactly the golden light which one sees in Albert Cuyp'smost peaceful landscapes. When I was last on this journey the time was spring, and the sliding, pointed roofs of the ricks were at their lowest, with their four poleshigh and naked above them, like scaffolding. But now, in August, they were all resting on the top pegs, a solid square tower of haybeneath each; looking in the evening light for all the world as ifevery farmer had his private Norman church. The note of Utrecht is superior satisfaction. It has discreet verdantparks, a wonderful campanile, a University, large comfortable houses, carriages and pairs. Its cathedral is the only church in Holland(with the exception of the desecrated fane at Veere) for the privilegeof entering which I was not asked to pay. I have an uneasy feelingthat it was an oversight, and that if by any chance this statementmeets an authoritative eye some one may be removed to one of thepenal establishments and steps be taken to collect my debt. But soit was. And yet it is possible that the free right of entrance isintentional; since to charge for a building so unpardonably disfiguredwould be a hardy action. The Gothic arches have great beauty, but it isimpossible from any point to get more than a broken view on account ofthe high painted wooden walls with which the pews have been enclosed. The cathedral is only a fragment; the nave fell in, isolating thebell tower, during a tempest in 1674, and by that time all interestin churches as beautiful and sacred buildings having died out ofHolland, never to return, no effort was made to restore it. But itmust, before the storm, have been superb, and of a vastness superiorto any in the country. I find a very pleasant passage upon Holland's great churches, andindeed upon its best architecture in general, in an essay on UtrechtCathedral by Mr. L. A. Corbeille. "Gothic churches on a grand scaleare as abundant in the Netherlands as they are at home, but to findone of them drawn or described in any of the otherwise comprehensivearchitectural works, which appear from time to time, is the rarest ofexperiences. The Hollanders are accused of mere apishness in employingthe Gothic style, and of downright dulness in apprehending its importand beauty. Yet a man who has found that bit of Rotterdam which beatsVenice; who has seen, from under Delft's lindens on a summer evening, the image of the Oude Kerk's leaning tower in the still canal, and has gone to bed, perchance to awake in the moonlight while theNieuwe Kerk's many bells are rippling a silver tune over the oldroofs and gables; who has drunk his beer full opposite the stadhuisat Leyden, and seen Haarlem's huge church across magnificent milesof gaudy tulips, and watched from a brown-sailed boat on the ZuiderZee a buoy on the horizon grow into the water-gate of Hoorn; whoknows his Gouda and Bois-le-duc and Alkmaar and Kampen and Utrecht:this man does not fret over wasted days. " Mr. Corbeille continues, later: "Looking down a side street ofRotterdam at the enormous flank of St. Lawrence's, and again atSt. Peter's in Leyden, it seems as if all the bricks in the worldhave been built up in one place. Apart from their smaller size, bricks appear far more numerous in a wall than do blocks of stone, because they make a stronger contrast with the mortar. In the laboriousarticulation of these millions of clay blocks one first finds Egypt;then quickly remembers how indigenous it all is, and how characteristicof the untiring Hollander, who rules the waves even more proudlythan the Briton, and has cheated them of the very ground beneath hisfeet. And if sermons may be found in bricks as well as stones, one hasa thought while looking at them about Christianity itself. Certainlythere is often pitiful littleness and short-comings in the individualbeliever, just as each separate brick of these millions is stainedor worn or fractured; and yet the Christian Church, august andsignificant, still towers before men; even as these old blocks ofclay compile vastly and undeniably in an overpowering whole. " Among a huddle of bad and indifferent pictures in the KunstliefdeMuseum is a series of four long paintings by Jan van Scorel (whomwe met at Rotterdam), representing a band of pilgrims who travelledfrom Utrecht to Jerusalem in the sixteenth century. Two of thesepictures are reproduced on the opposite page, the principal figurein the lower one--in the middle, in white--being Jan van Scorelhimself. The faces are all such as one can believe in; just so, wefeel, did the pilgrims look, and what a thousand pities there wasno Jan van Scorel to accompany Chaucer! These are the best picturesin Utrecht, which cannot have any great interest in art or it wouldnot allow that tramway through its bell tower. In the reproductionthe faces necessarily become very small, but they are still full ofcharacter, and one may see the sympathetic hand of a master in all. Jan van Scorel was only a settler in Utrecht; the most illustriouscitizen to whom it gave birth was Paulus Moreelse, but the city has, I think, only one of his pictures, and that not his best. He wasborn in 1571, and he died at Utrecht in 1638. His portraits are veryrich: either he had interesting sitters or he imparted interest tothem. Opposite page 40 I have reproduced his portrait of a lady inthe Ryks Museum at Amsterdam, which amongst so many fine pictures onemay perhaps at the outset treat with too little ceremony, but whichundoubtedly will assert itself. It is a picture that, as we say, grows on one: the Unknown Lady becomes more and more mischievous, more and more necessary. The little Archiepiscopal Museum at Utrecht is as small--or aslarge--as a museum should be: one can see it comfortably. It has manytreasures, all ecclesiastical, and seventy different kinds of lace;but to me it is memorable for the panel portrait of a woman by Janvan Scorel, a very sweet sedate face, beautifully painted, which onewould like to coax into a less religious mood. Utrecht is very proud of a wide avenue of lime trees--a triple avenue, as one often sees in Holland--called the Maliebaan; but more beautifulare the semi-circular Oude and Nieuwe Grachts, with their moat-likecanals laving the walls of serene dignified houses, each gained byits own bridge. At the north end of the Maliebaan is the Hoogeland Park, with afringe of spacious villas that might be in Kensington; and here isthe Antiquarian Museum, notable among its very miscellaneous riches, which resemble the bankrupt stock of a curiosity dealer, for the mostelaborate dolls' house in Holland--perhaps in the world. Its date is1680, and it represents accurately the home of a wealthy aristocraticdoll of that day. Nothing was forgotten by the designer of thisminiature palace; special paintings, very nude, were made for itssalon, and the humblest kitchen utensils are not missing. I thoughtthe most interesting rooms the office where the Major Domo sits athis intricate labours, and the store closet. The museum has manyvery valuable treasures, but so many poor pictures and articles--allpresents or legacies--that one feels that it must be the rule toaccept whatever is offered, without any scrutiny of the horse's teeth. Chapter IV Delft To Delft by canal--House-cleaning by immersion--The New Church--William the Silent's tomb--His assassin--The story of the crime--The tomb of Grotius--Dutch justice--The Old Church--Admiral Tromp--The mission of the broom--The sexton's pipe--Vermeer of Delft--Lost masterpieces--The wooden petticoat--Modern Delft pottery and old breweries. I travelled to Delft from Rotterdam in a little steam passenger barge, very long and narrow to fit it for navigating the locks; which, as it is, it scrapes. We should have started exactly at the hourwere it not that a very small boy on the bank interrupted one of thecrew who was unmooring the boat by asking for a light for his cigar, and the transaction delayed us a minute. It rained dismally, and I sat in the stuffy cabin, either peering atthe country through the window or talking with a young Dutchman, the only other traveller. At one village a boy was engaged inhouse-cleaning by immersing the furniture, piece by piece, bodilyin the canal. Now and then we met a barge in full sail on its way toRotterdam, or overtook one being towed towards Delft, the man at therope bent double under what looked like an impossible task. Little guides to the tombs in both the Old and the New Church of Delfthave been prepared for the convenience of visitors by Dr. G. Morre, andtranslations in English have been made by D. Goslings, both gentlemen, I presume, being local savants. The New Church contains the morehonoured dust, for there repose not only William the Silent, who wasperhaps the greatest of modern patriots and rulers, but also Grotius. The tomb of William the Silent is an elaborate erection, of stone andmarble, statuary and ornamentation. Justice and Liberty, Religion andValour, represented by female figures, guard the tomb. It seems to meto lack impressiveness: the man beneath was too fine to need all thisdisplay and talent. More imposing is the simplicity of the monumentto the great scholar near by. Yet remembering the struggle of Williamthe Silent against Spain and Rome, it is impossible to stand unmovedbefore the marble figure of the Prince, lying there for all time withhis dog at his feet--the dog who, after the noble habit of the finestof such animals, refused food and drink when his master died, and sofaded away rather than owe allegiance and affection to a lesser man. There is an eloquent Latin epitaph in gold letters on the tomb; but abetter epitaph is to be found in the last sentence of Motley's greathistory, perhaps the most perfect last sentence that any book ever had:"As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets". Opposite the Old Church is the Gymnasium Publicum. Crossing thecourt-yard and entering the confronting doorway, one is instantly onthe very spot where William the Silent, whose tomb we have just seen, met his death on July 10th, 1584. The Prince had been living at Delft for a while, in this house, hispurpose partly being to be in the city for the christening of hisson Frederick Henry. To him on July 8th came a special messengerfrom the French Court with news of the death of the Duke of Anjou;the messenger, a _protégé_ of the Prince's, according to his own storybeing Francis Guion, a mild and pious Protestant, whose father had beenmartyred as a Calvinist. How far removed was the truth Motley shalltell: "Francis Guion, the Calvinist, son of the martyred Calvinist, was in reality Balthazar Gérard, a fanatical Catholic, whose fatherand mother were still living at Villefans in Burgundy. Before reachingman's estate, he had formed the design of murdering the Prince ofOrange, 'who, so long as he lived, seemed like to remain a rebelagainst the Catholic King, and to make every effort to disturb therepose of the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion'. When but twentyyears of age, he had struck his dagger with all his might into a door, exclaiming, as he did so, 'Would that the blow had been in the heartof Orange!'" In 1582, however, the news had gone out that Jaureguy had killed thePrince at Antwerp, and Gérard felt that his mission was at an end. Butwhen the Prince recovered, his murderous enthusiasm redoubled, andhe offered himself formally and with matter-of-fact precision to thePrince of Parma as heaven's minister of vengeance. The Prince, who hadlong been seeking such an emissary, at first declined the alliance:he had become too much the prey of soldiers of fortune who representedthemselves to be expert murders but in whom he could put no trust. InMotley's words: "Many unsatisfactory assassins had presented themselvesfrom time to time, and Alexander had paid money in hand to variousindividuals--Italians, Spaniards, Lorrainers, Scotchmen, Englishmen, who had generally spent the sums received without attempting thejob. Others were supposed to be still engaged in the enterprise, and at that moment there were four persons--each unknown to theothers, and of different nations--in the city of Delft, seekingto compass the death of William the Silent. Shag-eared, military, hirsute ruffians, ex-captains of free companies and such marauders, were daily offering their services; there was no lack of them, and theyhad done but little. How should Parma, seeing this obscure, undersized, thin-bearded, runaway clerk before him, expect pith and energy from_him_? He thought him quite unfit for an enterprise of moment, anddeclared as much to his secret councillors and to the King. " Gérard, however, had supporters, and in time the Prince of Parma cameto take a more favourable view of his qualifications and sincerity, but his confidence was insufficient to warrant him in advancing anymoney for the purpose. The result was that Gérard, whose dominatingidea amounted to mania, proceeded in his own way. His first stepwas to ingratiate himself with the Prince of Orange. This he did bya series of misrepresentations and fraud, and was recommended by thePrince to the Signeur of Schoneval, who on leaving Delft on a missionto the Duke of Anjou, added him to his suite. The death of the Duke gave Gérard his chance, and he obtainedpermission to carry despatches to the Prince of Orange, as we haveseen. The Prince received him in his bedroom, after his wont. Motleynow relates the tragedy: "Here was an opportunity such as he (Gérard)had never dared to hope for. The arch-enemy to the Church and tothe human race, whose death would confer upon his destroyer wealthand nobility in this world, besides a crown of glory in the next, lay unarmed, alone, in bed, before the man who had thirsted sevenlong years for his blood. "Balthazar could scarcely control his emotions sufficiently to answerthe questions which the Prince addressed to him concerning the deathof Anjou, but Orange, deeply engaged with the despatches, and withthe reflections which their deeply important contents suggested, didnot observe the countenance of the humble Calvinistic exile, who hadbeen recently recommended to his patronage by Villiers. Gérard had, moreover, made no preparation for an interview so entirely unexpected, had come unarmed, and had formed no plan for escape. He was obliged toforego his prey most when within his reach, and after communicatingall the information which the Prince required, he was dismissed fromthe chamber. "It was Sunday morning, and the bells were tolling for church. Uponleaving the house he loitered about the courtyard, furtivelyexamining the premises, so that a sergeant of halberdiers askedhim why he was waiting there. Balthazar meekly replied that hewas desirous of attending divine worship in the church opposite, but added, pointing to his shabby and travel-stained attire, that, without at least a new pair of shoes and stockings, he was unfitto join the congregation. Insignificant as ever, the small, pious, dusty stranger excited no suspicion in the mind of the good-naturedsergeant. He forthwith spoke of the want of Gérard to an officer, by whom they were communicated to Orange himself, and the Princeinstantly ordered a sum of money to be given him. Thus Balthazarobtained from William's charity what Parma's thrift had denied--afund for carrying out his purpose! "Next morning, with the money thus procured he purchased a pair ofpistols, or small carabines, from a soldier, chaffering long aboutthe price because the vendor could not supply a particular kind ofchopped bullets or slugs which he desired. Before the sunset of thefollowing day that soldier had stabbed himself to the heart, and dieddespairing, on hearing for what purpose the pistols had been bought. "On Tuesday, the 10th of July, 1584, at about half-past twelve, the Prince, with his wife on his arm, and followed by the ladiesand gentlemen of his family, was going to the dining-room. Williamthe Silent was dressed upon that day, according to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He wore a wide-leaved, loosely shaped hat ofdark felt, with a silken cord round the crown, --such as had beenworn by the Beggars in the early days of the revolt. A high ruffencircled his neck, from which also depended one of the Beggars'medals, with the motto, '_Fidèles au roy jusqu'à la besace_, ' whilea loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide slashed underclothes completed his costume. [1] "Gérard presented himself at the doorway, and demanded a passport. ThePrincess, struck with the pale and agitated countenance of the man, anxiously questioned her husband concerning the stranger. The Princecarelessly observed, that 'it was merely a person who came for apassport, ' ordering, at the same time, a secretary forthwith to prepareone. The Princess, still not relieved, observed in an undertone that'she had never seen so villanous a countenance'. Orange, however, notat all impressed with the appearance of Gérard, conducted himself attable with his usual cheerfulness, conversing much with the burgomasterof Leeuwarden, the only guest present at the family dinner, concerningthe political and religious aspects of Friesland. At two o'clockthe company rose from table. The Prince led the way, intending topass to his private apartments above. The dining-room, which wason the ground-floor, opened into a little square vestibule whichcommunicated, through an arched passage-way, with the main entranceinto the court-yard. This vestibule was also directly at the foot ofthe wooden staircase leading to the next floor, and was scarcely sixfeet in width. [2] "Upon its left side, as one approached the stairway, was an obscurearch, sunk deep in the wall, and completely in the shadow of thedoor. Behind this arch a portal opened to the narrow lane at the sideof the house. The stairs themselves were completely lighted by a largewindow, half-way up the flight. The Prince came from the dining-room, and began leisurely to ascend. He had only reached the second stair, when a man emerged from the sunken arch, and, standing within a footor two of him, discharged a pistol full at his heart. " When Jaureguy had fired at the Prince two years earlier, the ballpassing through his jaw, the Prince, at he faltered under the shock, cried, "Do not kill him--I forgive him my death!" But he had notime to express any such plea for his assailant after Gérard'scruel shots. "Three balls, " says Motley, "entered his body, one ofwhich, passing quite through him, struck with violence against thewall beyond. The Prince exclaimed in French, as he felt the wound, 'O my God, have mercy upon my soul! O my God, have mercy upon thispoor people!' "These were the last words he ever spoke, save that when his sister, Catherine of Schwartzburgh, immediately afterwards asked him if hecommended his soul to Jesus Christ, he faintly answered, 'Yes'. " Never has the pistol done worse work. The Prince was only fifty-one;he was full of vigour; his character had never been stronger, hiswisdom never more mature. Had he lived a few years longer the countrywould have been saved years of war and misery. One may stand to-day exactly where the Prince stood when he wasshot. The mark of a bullet in the wall is still shown. The dining-room, from which he had come, now contains a collection of relics of hisgreat career. Let us return to the New Church, past the statue of Grotius inthe great square, in order to look again at that philosopher'smemorial. Grotius, who was born at Delft, was extraordinarilyprecocious. He went to Leyden University and studied under Scaligerwhen he was eleven; at sixteen he was practising as a lawyer atThe Hague. This is D. Goslings' translation of the inscription onhis tomb:-- _Sacred to Hugo Grotius_ The Wonder of Europe, the sole astonishment of the learned world, the splendid work of nature surpassing itself, the summit of genius, the image of virtue, the ornament raised above mankind, to whom thedefended honour of true religion gave cedars from the top of Lebanon, whom Mars adorned with laurels and Pallas with olive branches, whenhe had published the right of war and peace: whom the Thames andthe Seine regarded as the wonder of the Dutch, and whom the courtof Sweden took in its service: Here lies _Grotius_. Shun this tomb, ye who do not burn with love of the Muses and your country. Grotius can hardly have burned with love of the sense of justice ofhis own country, for reasons with which we are familiar. His sentenceof life-long imprisonment, passed by Prince Maurice of Orange, who lieshard by in the same church, was passed in 1618. His escape in the chest(like General Monk in _Twenty Years After_) was his last deed on Dutchsoil. Thenceforward he lived in Paris and Sweden, England and Germany, writing his _De Jure Belli et Pacis_ and other works. He died in 1645, when Holland claimed him again, as Oxford has claimed Shelley. The principal tomb in the Old Church of Delft is that of Admiral Tromp, the Dutch Nelson. While quite a child he was at sea with his fatheroff the coast of Guinea when an English cruiser captured the vesseland made him a cabin boy. Tromp, if he felt any resentment, certainlylived to pay it back, for he was our victor in thirty-three navalengagements, the last being the final struggle in the English-Dutchwar, when he defeated Monk off Texel in the summer of 1653, and waskilled by a bullet in his heart. The battle is depicted in bas-reliefon the tomb, but the eye searches the marble in vain for any reminderof the broom which the admiral is said to have lashed to his mastheadas a sign to the English that it was his habit to sweep their seas. Thestory may be a myth, but the Dutch sculptor who omitted to rememberit and believe in it is no friend of mine. This is D. Goslings' translation of Tromp's epitaph:-- _For an Eternal Memorial_ You, who love the Dutch, virtue and true labour, read and mourn. The ornament of the Dutch people, the formidable in battle, lies low, he who never lay down in his life, and taught by his example that acommander should die standing, he, the love of his fellow-citizens, the terror of his enemies, the wonder of the ocean. _Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp_, a name comprehending more praise thanthis stone can contain, a stone truly too narrow for him, for whomEast and West were a school, the sea the occasion of triumph, thewhole world the scene of his glory, he, a certain ruin to pirates, the successful protector of commerce; useful through his familiarity, not low; after having ruled the sailors and the soldiers, a roughsort of people, in a fatherly and efficaciously benignant manner;after fifty battles in which he was commander or in which he playeda great part; after incredible victories, after the highest honoursthough below his merits, he at last in the war against the English, nearly victor but certainly not beaten, on the 10th of August, 1653, of the Christian era, at the age of fifty-six years, has ceased tolive and to conquer. The fathers of the United Netherlands have erected this memorial inhonour of this highly meritorious hero. There lie in Delft's Old Church also Pieter Pieterzoon Hein, Lieut. -Admiral of Holland; and Elizabeth van Marnix, wife of thegovernor of Bergen-op-Zoom, whose epitaph runs thus:-- Here am I lying, I _Elizabeth_, born of an illustrious and ancientfamily, wife to Morgan, I, daughter of Marnix, a name not unknownin the world, which, in spite of time, will always remain. There isvirtue enough in having pleased one husband, which his so preciouslove testifies. The tomb of Antony van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the microscope, isalso to be seen in the church. "As everybody, O Wanderer, " the epitaphconcludes, "has respect for old age and wonderful parts, tread thisspot with respect; here grey science lies buried with Leeuwenhoek. " Each of the little guide-books, which are given to every purchaserof a ticket to enter the churches, is prefaced by four "Remarks, "of which I quote the third and fourth:-- 3. Visitors are requested not to bestow gifts on the sexton or hisassistants, as the former would lose his situation, if he accepted;he is responsible for his assistants. 4. The sexton or his assistants will treat the visitors with thegreatest politeness. I am not certain about the truth of either of these clauses, particularly the last. Let me explain. The sexton of the Old Church hurried me past these tombs withsome impatience. I should naturally have taken my time, but hisattitude of haste made it imperative to do so. Sextons must not bein a hurry. After a while I found out why he chafed: he wanted tosmoke. He fumbled his pipe and scraped his boots upon the stones. Istudied the monuments with a scrutiny that grew more and more minuteand elaborate; and soon his matches were in his hand. I wanted to tellhim that if I were the only obstacle he might smoke to his heart'scontent, but it seemed to be more amusing to watch and wait. Myreturn to the tomb of the ingenious constructor of the microscopesettled the question. Probably no one had ever spent more than halfa minute on poor Leeuwenhoek before; and when I turned round againthe pipe was alight. The sexton also was a changed man: before, hehad been taciturn, contemptuous; now he was communicative, gay. Hetold me that the organist was blind--but none the less a fine player;he led me briskly to the carved pulpit and pointed out, with someexaltation, the figure of Satan with his legs bound. The cinctureseemed to give him a sense of security. In several ways he made it impossible for me to avoid disregardingClause 3 in the little guide-books; but I feel quite sure that hehas not in consequence lost his situation. Delft's greatest painter was Johannes Vermeer, known as Vermeerof Delft, of whom I shall have much to say both at the Hague andAmsterdam. He was born at Delft in 1632, he died there in 1675; andof him but little more is known. It has been said that he studiedunder Karel Fabritius (also of Delft), but if this is so the termof pupil-age must have been very brief, for Fabritius did not reachDelft (from Rembrandt's studio) until 1652, when Vermeer was twenty, and he was killed in an explosion in 1654. One sees the influence ofFabritius, if at all, most strongly in the beautiful early picture atThe Hague, in the grave, grand manner, of Diana? but the influence ofItaly is even more noticeable. Fabritius's "Siskin" is hung beneaththe new Girl's Head by Vermeer (opposite page 2 of this book), but they have nothing in common. To see how Vermeer derived fromRembrandt viâ Fabritius one must look at the fine head by Fabritiusin the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam, so long attributed to Rembrandt, but possessing a certain radiance foreign to him. How many pictures Vermeer painted between 1653, when he was admittedto the Delft Guild as a master, and 1675, when he died, cannot nowbe said; but it is reasonable to allot to each of those twenty-threeyears at least five works. As the known pictures of Vermeer are veryfew--fewer than forty, I believe--some great discoveries may be instore for the diligent, or, more probably, the lucky. I have read somewhere--but cannot find the reference again--of a shipthat left Holland for Russia in the seventeenth century, carrying anumber of paintings by the best artists of that day--particularly, if I remember, Gerard Dou. The vessel foundered and all were lost. Itis possible that Vermeer may have been largely represented. Only comparatively lately has fame come to him, his first prophetbeing the French critic Thoré (who wrote as "W. Burger"), and hissecond Mr. Henri Havard, the author of very pleasant books on Hollandfrom which I shall occasionally quote. Both these enthusiasts wrotebefore the picture opposite page 2 was exhibited, or their ecstasiesmight have been even more intense. In the Senate House at Delft in 1641 John Evelyn the diarist saw "amighty vessel of wood, not unlike a butter-churn, which the adventurouswoman that hath two husbands at one time is to wear on her shoulders, her head peeping out at the top only, and so led about the town, asa penance". I did not see this; but the punishment was not peculiarto Delft. At Nymwegen these wooden petticoats were famous too. Nor did I visit the porcelain factory, having very little interest inits modern products. But the old Delft ware no one can admire more thanI do. A history of Delft written by Dirk van Bleyswijck and publishedin 1667, tells us that the rise of the porcelain industry followed thedecline of brewing. The author gives with tears a list of scores ofbreweries that ceased to exist between 1600 and 1640. All had signs, among them being:-- The Popinjay. The Great Bell. The White Lily. The Three Herrings. The Double Battle-axe. The Three Acorns. The Black Unicorn. The Three Lilies. The Curry-Comb. The Three Hammers. The Double Halberd. I would rather have explored any of those breweries than the modernDelft factory. Ireland, by the way, mentions a whimsical sign-board which he sawsomewhere in Holland, but which I regret to say I did not find. "Itwas a tree bearing fruit, and the branches filled with little, nakedurchins, seemingly just ripened into life, and crying for succour:beneath, a woman holds up her apron, looking wistfully at the children, as if intreating them to jump into her lap. On inquiry, I found it tobe the house of a sworn midwife, with this Dutch inscription prefixedto her name:-- 'Vang my, ik zal zoet zyn, ' that is, 'Catch me, I'll be a sweet boy'. This new mode of procreation, so truly whimsical, pleased me, " Ireland adds, "not a little. " Let me close this chapter by quoting from an essay by my friend, Mr. Belloc, a lyrical description of the Old Church's wonderful wealthof bells: "Thirdly, the very structure of the thing is bells. Herethe bells are more even than the soul of a Christian spire; they areits body, too, its whole self. An army of them fills up all the spacebetween the delicate supports and framework of the upper parts. ForI know not how many feet, in order, diminishing in actual size andin the perspective also of that triumphant elevation, stand rankson ranks of bells from the solemn to the wild, from the large tothe small, a hundred, or two hundred or a thousand. There is herethe prodigality of Brabant and Hainaut and the Batavian blood, a generosity and a productivity in bells without stint, the manwho designed it saying: 'Since we are to have bells, let us havebells; not measured out, calculated, expensive, and prudent bells, but careless bells, self-answering multitudinous bells; bells withoutfear, bells excessive and bells innumerable; bells worthy of theecstacies that are best thrown out and published in the clashing ofbells. For bells are single, like real pleasures, and we will combinesuch a great number that they may be like the happy and complex lifeof a man. In a word, let us be noble and scatter our bells and reapa harvest till our town is famous in its bells, ' So now all the spireis more than clothed with them; they are more than stuff or ornament:they are an outer and yet sensitive armour, all of bells. "Nor is the wealth of these bells in their number only, but also intheir use--for they are not reserved in any way, out ring tunes andadd harmonies at every half and a quarter and at all the hours bothby night and by day. Nor must you imagine that there is any obsessionof noise through this; they are far too high and melodious, and (whatis more) too thoroughly a part of all the spirit of Delft to be morethan a perpetual and half-forgotten impression of continual music;they render its air sacred and fill it with something so akin toan uplifted silence as to leave one--when one has passed from theirinfluence--asking what balm that was which soothed all the harshnessof sound about one. " Chapter V The Hague Dutch precision--Shaping hands--Nature under control--Willow _v_. Neptune--The lost star--S'Gravenhage--The Mauritshuis--Rembrandt--The "School of Anatomy"--Jan Vermeer of Delft--The frontispiece--Other pictures--The Municipal Museum--Baron Steengracht's collection--The Mesdag treasures--French romantics at The Hague--The Binnenhof--John van Olden Barneveldt--Man's cruelty to man--The churches--The fish market and first taste of Scheveningen--A crowded street--Holland's reading--The Bosch--The club--The House in the Wood--Mr. "Secretary" Prior--Old marvels--Howell the receptive and Coryate the credulous. Although often akin to the English, the Dutch character differs from itvery noticeably in the matter of precision. The Englishman has littleprecision; the Dutchman has too much. He bends everything to it. He hasat its dictates divided his whole country into parellelograms. Even therushes in his swamps are governed by the same law. The carelessnessof nature is offensive to him; he moulds and trains on every hand, as one may see on the railway journey to The Hague. Trees he enduresonly so long as they are obedient and equidistant: he likes themin avenues or straight lines; if they grow otherwise they must bepollarded. It is true that he has not touched the Bosch, at The Hague;but since his hands perforce have been kept off its trees, he has runscores of formal straight well-gravelled paths beneath their branches. This passion for interference grew perhaps from exultation uponsuccessful dealings with the sea. A man who by his own efforts canlive in security below sea-level, and graze cattle luxuriantly wheresand and pebbles and salt once made a desert, has perhaps the rightto feel that everything in nature would be the better for a littlemanipulation. Eyes accustomed to the careless profusion that one maysee even on a short railway journey in England are shocked to findnature so tractable both in land and water. The Dutchman's pruning, however, is not done solely for thesatisfaction of exerting control. These millions of pollardedwillows which one sees from the line have a deeper significance thanmight ever be guessed at: it is they that are keeping out Holland'sancient enemy, the sea. In other words, a great part of the basis ofthe strength of the dykes is imparted by interwoven willow boughs, which are constantly being renewed under the vigilant eyes of the dykeinspectors. For the rest, the inveterate trimming of trees must be acomparatively modern custom, for many of the old landscapes depictcareless foliage--Koninck's particularly. And look, for instance, at that wonderful picture--perhaps the finest landscape in Dutchart--Rembrandt's etching "The Three Trees". There is nothing in NorthHolland to-day as unstudied as that. I doubt if you could now findthree trees of such individuality and courage. When I was first at The Hague, seven years ago, I stayed not, as onmy last visit, at the Oude Doelen, which is the most comfortablehotel in Holland, but at a more retired hostelry. It was spaciousand antiquated, with large empty rooms, and cool passages, and anair of decay over all. Servants one never saw, nor any waiter proper;one's every need was carried out by a very small and very enthusiasticboy. "Is the hroom good, sare?" he asked, as he flung open the door ofthe bedroom with a superb flourish. "Is the sham good, sare?" he askedas he laid a pot of preserve on the table. He was the landlady's sonor grandson, and a better boy never lived, but his part, for all hisspirit and good humour, was a tragic one. For the greatest misfortunethat can come upon an hotel-keeper had crushed this house: Bædekerhad excised their star! The landlady moved in the background, a disconsolate figure witha grievance. She waylaid us as we went out and as we came in. Wasit not a good hotel? Was not the management excellent? Had weany complaints? And yet--see--once she had a star and now it wasgone. Could we not help to regain it? Here was the secret of thegrandson's splendid zeal. The little fellow was fighting to hitchthe old hotel to a star once more, as Emerson had bidden. Alas, it was in vain; for that was seven years ago, and I see thatBædeker still withholds the distinction. What a variety of misfortunethis little world holds! While some of us are indulging our rightto be unhappy over a thousand trivial matters, such as illness anddisillusion, there are inn-keepers on the Continent who are staggeringand struggling under real blows. I wondered if it were better to have had a star and lost it, thannever to have had a star at all. But I did not ask. The old lady'sgrief was too poignant, her mind too practical, for such questions. S'Gravenhage or Den Haag, or The Hague as we call it, being the seatof the court, is at once the most civilised and most expensive of theDutch cities. But it is not conspicuously Dutch, and is interestingrather for its pictures and for its score of historic buildings aboutthe Vyver than for itself. Take away the Vyver and its surroundingtreasures and a not very noteworthy European town would remain. And yet to say so hardly does justice to this city, for it hasa character of its own that renders it unique: cosmopolitan andelegant; catholic in its tastes; indulgent to strangers; aristocratic;well-spaced and well built; above all things, bland. And the Vyver is a jewel set in its midst, beautiful by day andbeautiful by night, with fascinating reflections in it at both times, and a special gift for the transmission of bells in a country wherebells are really honoured. On its north side is the Vyverberg withpleasant trees and a row of spacious and perfectly self-composedwhite houses, one of which, at the corner, has in its windows themost exquisite long lace curtains in this country of exquisite longlace curtains. On the south side are the Binnenhof and the Mauritshuis--in theMauritshuis being the finest works of the two greatest Dutch painters, Rembrandt of the Rhine and Vermeer of Delft. It is largely by thesepossessions that The Hague holds her place as a city of distinction. Rembrandt's "School of Anatomy" and Paul Potter's "Bull" are thetwo pictures by which every one knows the Mauritshuis collection;and it is the bull which maintains the steadier and larger crowd. Butit is not a work that interests me. My pictures in the Mauritshuisare above all the "School of Anatomy, " Vermeer's "View of Delft, "his head of a young girl, and the Jan Steens. We have magnificentRembrandts in London; but we have nothing quite on the same planeof interest or mastery as the "School of Anatomy ". Holland has notalways retained her artists' best, but in the case of Rembrandt andHals, Jan Steen and Vermeer, she has made no mistakes. Rembrandt's"School of Anatomy, " his "Night Watch, " and his portrait of ElizabethBas are all in Holland. I can remember no landscape in Holland in themanner of that in our National Gallery in which, in conformity with thetaste of certain picture buyers, he dropped in an inessential Tobiasand Angel; but for the finest examples of his distinction and poweras a painter of men one must go to The Hague and Amsterdam. In theMauritshuis are sixteen Rembrandts, including the portrait of himselfin a steel casque, and (one of my favourites) the head of the demurenun-like and yet merry-hearted Dutch maiden reproduced opposite thenext page, which it is impossible to forget and yet difficult, whennot looking at it, to recall with any distinctness--as is so oftenthe case with one's friends in real life. If any large number of visitors to Holland taken at random were askedto name the best of Rembrandt's pictures they would probably say the"Night Watch". But I fancy that a finer quality went to the makingof the "School of Anatomy". I fancy that the "School of Anatomy"is the greatest work of art produced by northern Europe. To Jan Steen and his work we come later, in the chapter on Leyden, but of Vermeer, whom we saw at Delft, this is one place to speak. Ofthe "View of Delft" there is a reproduction opposite page 58, yetit can convey but little suggestion of its beauty. In the case ofthe picture opposite page 2 there is only a loss of colour: a greatpart of its beauty is retained; but the "View of Delft" must beseen in the original before one can speak of it at all. Its appealis more intimate than any other old Dutch landscape that I know. Isay old, because modern painters have a few scenes which sootheone hardly less--two or three of Matthew Maris's, and Mauve's againand again. But before Maris and Mauve came the Barbizon influence;whereas Vermeer had no predecessors, he had to find his delicatepath for himself. To explain the charm of the "View of Delft" isbeyond my power; but there it is. Before Rembrandt one stands awed, in the presence of an ancient giant; before Vermeer one rejoices, as in the presence of a friend and contemporary. The head of a young girl, from the same brush, which was left to thenation as recently as 1903, is reproduced opposite page 2. To me itis one of the most beautiful things in Holland. It is, however, in nosense Dutch: the girl is not Dutch, the painting is Dutch only becauseit is the work of a Dutchman. No other Dutch painter could compasssuch liquid clarity, such cool surfaces. Indeed, none of the othersseem to have tried: a different ideal was theirs. Apart, however, from the question of technique, upon which I am not entitled to speak, the picture has to me human interest beyond description. There is awinning charm in this simple Eastern face that no words of mine canexpress. All that is hard in the Dutch nature dissolves beneath herreluctant smile. She symbolises the fairest and sweetest things inthe Eleven Provinces. She makes Holland sacred ground. Vermeer, although always a superb craftsman, was not alwaysinspired. In the next room to the "View of Delft" and the girl'shead is his "New Testament Allegory, " a picture which I think Idislike more than any other, so false seems to me its sentiment andso unattractive its character. Yet the sheer painting of it is littleshort of miraculous. Among other Dutch pictures in the Mauritshuis which I should liketo mention for their particular charm are Gerard Dou's "YoungHousekeeper, " to which we come in the chapter on Leyden's painters;Ostade's "Proposal, " one of the pleasantest pictures which he eversigned; Ruisdael's "View of Haarlem" and Terburg's portraits. I singlethese out. But when I think of the marvels of painting that remain, of which I have said not a word, I am only too conscious of theuselessness of such a list. Were this a guide-book I should say more, mentioning also the work of the other schools, not Dutch, notablya head of Jane Seymour by Holbein, a Velasquez, and so forth. But Imust not. After the Mauritshuis, the Municipal Museum, which also overlooks theVyver's placid surface, is a dull place except for the antiquary. Inits old views of the city, which are among its most interestingpossessions, the evolution of the neighbouring Doelen hotel may bestudied by the curious--from its earliest days, when it was a shootinggallery, to its present state of spaciousness and repute, baskingin its prosperity and cherishing the proud knowledge that Peter theGreat has slept under its hospitable roof, and that it was there thatthe Russian delegate resided when, in 1900, the Czar convoked at TheHague the Peace Conference which he was the first to break. In one room of the Municipal Museum are the palette and easel ofJohannes Bosboom, Holland's great painter of churches. His lastunfinished sketch rests on the easel. No collection of modern Dutchart is complete without a sombre study of Gothic arches by thisgreat artist. All his work is good, but I saw nothing better thanthe water-colour drawing in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam, whichis reproduced opposite page 132. At The Hague one may also see, whenever the family is not inresidence, the collection of Baron Steengracht in one of the amplewhite mansions on the Vyverberg. Most interesting of the pictures tome are Jan Steen's family group, which, however, for all its wonderfuldrawing, is not in his most interesting manner; a very deft Metsu, "The Sick Child"; a horse by Albert Cuyp; a characteristic group ofconvivial artists by Adrian Brouwer, including Hals, Ostade, Jan Steenand the painter himself; and--best of all--Terburg's wholly charming"Toilette, " an old woman combing the head of a child. Quite recently the Mesdag Museum has been added to the publicexhibitions of The Hague. This is the house of Hendriks Willem Mesdag, the artist, which, with all its Barbizon treasures, with noblegenerosity he has made over to the nation in his lifetime. Mesdag, who is himself one of the first of living Dutch painters, has beenacquiring pictures for many years, and his collection, by representingin every example the taste of a single connoisseur, has thus theadditional interest of unity. Mesdag's own paintings are mostly ofthe sea--a grey sea with a few fishing boats, very true, very quietand simple. How many times he and James Maris painted Scheveningen'sshore probably no one could compute. His best-known work is probablythe poster advertising the Harwich and Hook-of-Holland route, in whichthe two ports are joined by a chain crossing a grey sea--best known, because every one has seen this picture: it is at all the stations;although few, I imagine, have connected with it the name and fame ofthe Dutch artist and patron of the arts. In the description of the Ryks collection at Amsterdam I shall saysomething about the pleasure of choosing one's own particular picturefrom a gallery. It was amusing to indulge the same humour in the MesdagMuseum: perhaps even more so than at the Ryks, for one is certainthat by no means could Vermeer's little picture of "The Reader, "--thewoman in the blue jacket--for example, be abstracted from thosewell-guarded walls, whereas it is just conceivable that one couldselect from these crowded little Mesdag rooms something that mightnot be missed. I hesitated long between a delicate Matthew Maris, thevery essence of quietude, in which a girl stands by a stove, cooking;Delacroix's wonderful study of dead horses in the desert; a perfectDiaz (No. 114), an old woman in a red shawl by a pool in a wood, withits miracle of lighting; a tender little Daumier, that rare master;a Segantini drenched in sincerity and pity; and a bridge at evening(No. 127) by Jules Dupré. All these are small and could be slippedunder the overcoat with the greatest ease! Having made up my mind I returned to each and lost all my decision. Idecided again, and again uncertainty conquered. And then I made afinal examination, and chose No. 64--a totally new choice--a littlelovely Corot, depicting a stream, two women, much essential greenness, and that liquid light of which Corot had the secret. But I am not sure that the Diaz (who began by being an old master)is not the more exquisite picture. For the rest, there are other Corots, among them one of his black nightpieces; a little village scene by Troyon; some apples by Courbet, in the grandest manner surely in which apples ever were painted; aMonticelli; a scene of hills by Georges Michel which makes one wishhe had painted the Sussex Downs; a beautiful chalk drawing by Millet;some vast silent Daubignys; a few Mauves; a very interesting earlyJames Maris in the manner of Peter de Hooch, and a superb later JamesMaris--wet sand and a windy sky. The flower of the French romantic school is represented here, broughttogether by a collector with a sure eye. No visitor to The Hague whocares anything for painting should miss it; and indeed no visitorwho cares nothing for painting should miss it, for it may lure himto wiser ways. The Binnenhof is a mass of medieval and later buildings extendingalong the south side of the Vyver, which was indeed once a part ofits moat. The most attractive view of it is from the north side of theVyver, with the long broken line of roof and gable and turret reflectedin the water. The nucleus of the Binnenhof was the castle or palace ofWilliam II. , Count of Holland in the thirteenth century--also Emperorof Germany and father of Florence V. , who built the great hall of theknights (into which, however, one may penetrate only on Thursdays), and whose tomb we shall see in Alkmaar church. The Stadtholders madethe Binnenhof their headquarters; but the present Royal Palace is halfa mile north-west of it. Other buildings have been added from time totime, and the trams are now allowed to rush through with their bellsjangling the while. The desecration is not so glaring as at Utrecht, but it seems thoroughly wrong--as though we were to permit a line totraverse Dean's Yard at Westminster. A more appropriate sanction isthat extended to one or two dealers in old books and prints who havetheir stalls in the Binnenhof's cloisters. It was in the Binnenhof that the scaffold stood on which John vanBarneveldt was beheaded in 1619, the almost inevitable result of hislong period of differences with the Stadtholder Maurice, son of Williamthe Silent. His arrest, as we have seen, followed the Synod of Dort, Grotius being also removed by force. Barneveldt's imprisonment, trial and execution resemble Spanish methods of injustice moreclosely than one likes to think. I quote Davies' fine account ofthe old statesman's last moments: "Leaning on his staff, and withhis servant on the other side to support his steps, grown feeblewith age, Barneveldt walked composedly to the place of execution, prepared before the great saloon of the court-house. If, as it is notimprobable, at the approach of death in the midst of life and health, when the intellect is in full vigour, and every nerve, sense and fibreis strung to the highest pitch of tension, a foretaste of that whichis to come is sometimes given to man, and his over-wrought mind isenabled to grasp at one single effort the events of his whole pastlife--if, at this moment and on this spot, where Barneveldt was nowto suffer a felon's death, --where he had first held out his fosteringhand to the infant republic, and infused into it strength and vigourto conquer the giant of Europe, --where he had been humbly sued forpeace by the oppressor of his country, --where the ambassadors of themost powerful sovereigns had vied with each other in soliciting hisfavour and support, --where the wise, the eloquent, and the learned, had bowed in deference to his master-spirit;--if, at this moment, thememory of all his long and glorious career on earth flashed upon hismind in fearful contrast to the present reality, with how deep feelingmust he have uttered the exclamation as he ascended the scaffold, 'Oh God! what then is man?' "Here he was compelled to suffer the last petty indignity that mancould heap upon him. Aged and infirm as he was, neither stool norcushion had been provided to mitigate the sense of bodily weakness ashe performed the last duties of mortal life; and kneeling down on thebare boards, he was supported by his servant, while the minister, John Lamotius, delivered a prayer. When prepared for the block, he turned to the spectators and said, with a loud and firm voice, 'My friends, believe not that I am a traitor. I have lived a goodpatriot, and such I die. ' He then, with his own hands, drew his capover his eyes, and bidding the executioner 'be quick, ' bowed hisvenerable head to the stroke. "The populace, from various feelings, some inspired by hatred, someby affection, dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, or carriedaway morsels of the blood-stained wood and sand; a few were evenfound to _sell_ these as relics. The body and head were laid in acoffin and buried decently, but with little ceremony, at the courtchurch of the Hague. "The States of Holland rendered to his memory that justice which hehad been denied while living, by the words in which they recorded hisdeath. After stating the time and manner of it, and his long periodof service to his country, the resolution concludes, 'a man of greatactivity, diligence, memory, and conduct; yea, remarkable in everyrespect. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall;and may God be merciful to his soul. '" A very beautiful story is told of Barneveldt's widow. Her son plottingto avenge his father and crush the Stadtholder was discovered andimprisoned. His mother visited Maurice to ask his pardon. "Why, " saidhe, "how is this--you value your son more than your husband! You didnot ask pardon for him. " "No, " said Barneveldt's widow; "I did notask pardon for my husband, because he was innocent; I ask pardon formy son, because he is guilty. " Prince Maurice never recovered from the error--to put for the momentno worse epithet to it--of the death of Barneveldt. He had killedhis best counsellor; thenceforward his power diminished; and withevery rebuff he who had abandoned his first adviser complainedthat God had abandoned him. Davies sums up the case thus: "Theescutcheon of Maurice is bright with the record of many a deed ofglory; the fabric of his country's greatness raised by his father, strengthened and beautified by himself; her armies created the mastersof military science to the civilized world; her States the centre andmainspring of its negotiations; her proud foe reduced to sue humblyat her feet. But there is one dark, deep stain on which the eye ofposterity, unheeding the surrounding radiance, is constantly fixed:it is the blood of Barneveldt. " The Binnenhof leads to the Buitenhof, a large open space, the oldgateway to which is the Gevangenpoort prison--scene of another shamefuldeed in the history of Holland, the death of John and Corneliusde Witt. The massacre occurred two hundred and thirty-three yearsago--in 1672. Cornelius de Witt was wrongfully accused of an attemptto procure the assassination of the Stadtholder, William III. To him, in his cell in the Gevangenpoort, came, on 22nd August, John de Witt, late Grand Pensionary, brought hither by a bogus message. I quote from Davies, who elsewhere makes it clear that (as Dumas says)William III was privy to the crime: "His friends, fearful of sometreachery, besought him to pause and inquire into the truth of thesummons before he obeyed it; and his only daughter threw herselfat his feet, and implored him with floods of tears not to riskunnecessarily a life so precious. But his anxiety for his brother, with whom he had ever lived on terms of the tenderest affection, proved stronger than their remonstrances; and setting out on foot, attended by his servant and two secretaries, he hastened to theprison. On seeing him, Cornelius de Witt exclaimed in astonishment, 'My brother, what do you here?' 'Did you not then send for me?' heasked; and receiving an answer in the negative, 'Then, ' rejoined he, 'we are lost'. "During this time one of the judges sent for Tichelaar, and suggestedto him that he should incite the people not to suffer a villainwho had intended to murder the Prince to go unpunished. True to hisinstructions, the miscreant spread among the crowd collected beforethe prison doors the report, that the torture inflicted on Corneliusde Witt was a mere pretence, and that he had only escaped the deathhe deserved because the judges favoured his crime. Then, entering thegaol, he presented himself at the window, and exclaimed to the crowdbelow, 'The dog and his brother are going out of prison! Now is yourtime; revenge yourselves on these two knaves, and then on thirty more, their accomplices. ' "The populace received his address with shouts and cries of 'To arms, to arms! Treason, treason!' and pressed in a still denser crowd towardsthe prison door. The States of Holland, immediately on information ofthe tumult, sent three troops of cavalry, in garrison at the Hague, for the protection of the gaol, and called out to arms six companiesof burgher guards. But in the latter they only added fresh hosts tothe enemies of the unfortunate captives. One company in especial, called the 'Company of the Blue Flag, ' was animated with a spirit ofdeadly vengeance against them; its leader, Verhoef, having that morningloaded his musket with a determination either to kill the De Wittsor perish in the attempt. They pressed forward towards the prison, but were driven back by the determined appearance of the cavalry, commanded by the Count de Tilly. "So long as these troops remained, it was evident that the fell purposeof the rioters was impracticable. Accordingly, a report was raised thata band of peasants and sailors was coming to plunder The Hague; andtwo captains of the burgher guards took occasion from thence to demandof the Council of State, that the soldiers should be drawn off fromtheir station, in order to protect the houses from pillage. First averbal order, and on Tilly's refusing obedience to such, a written one, was sent, commanding him to divide his troops into four detachments, and post them upon the bridges leading into the town. 'I shall obey, 'said he, as he perused the mandate; 'but it is the death-warrant ofthe brothers. ' "His anticipations were too soon realized. No sooner had he departedthan the rioters were supplied by some of those mysterious agents whowere actively employed throughout the whole of these transactions, withwine, brandy, and other incitements to inflame their already maddeningfury. Led on by Verhoef and one Van Bankhem, a sheriff of The Hague, they assailed the prison door with axes and sledge-hammers, threateningto kill all the inmates if it were not instantly opened. Terrified, or corrupted, the gaoler obeyed their behests. On gaining admittancethey rushed to an upper room, where they found their victims, who had throughout the whole of the tumult maintained the greatestcomposure. The bailiff, reduced to a state of extreme debility by thetorture, was reclining on his bed; his brother was seated near him, reading the Bible. They forced them to rise and follow them 'to theplace, ' as they said, 'where criminals were executed'. "Having taken a tender leave of each other, they began to descend thestairs, Cornelius de Witt leaning on his brother for support. They hadnot advanced above two or three paces when a heavy blow on the headfrom behind precipitated the former to the bottom. He was then draggeda short distance towards the street, trampled under foot, and beatento death. Meanwhile, John de Witt, after receiving a severe woundon the head with the butt-end of a musket, was brought by Verhoef, bleeding and bare-headed, before the furious multitude. One VanSoenen immediately thrust a pike into his face, while another of themiscreants shot him in the neck, exclaiming as he fell, 'There goesdown the Perpetual Edict'. Raising himself on his knees, the suffererlifted up his hands and eyes to heaven in deep and earnest prayer. Atthat moment, one Verhagen struck him with his musket. Hundreds followedhis example, and the cruel massacre was completed. "Barbarities too dreadful for utterance or contemplation, all thatphrenzied passion or brutal ferocity could suggest, were perpetratedon the bodies of these noble and virtuous citizens; nor was it tillnight put an end to the butchery, that their friends were permittedto convey their mangled remains to a secret and obscure tomb. " In the Nieuwe Kerk at The Hague the tomb of the De Witts may be seenand honoured. The Gevangenpoort is well worth a visit. One passes tortuously fromcell to cell--most of them associated with some famous breaker ofthe laws of God or man, principally of man. Here you may see a stonehollowed by the drops of water that plashed from the prisoner's head, on which they were timed to fall at intervals of a few seconds--aform of torture imported, I believe, from China, and after some hoursending inevitably in madness and death. Beside such a refinementthe rack is a mere trifle and the Gevangenpoort's branding irons andthumb screws become only toys. A block, retaining the cuts made by theaxe after it had crashed through the offending neck, is also shown;and the names of prisoners written in their blood on the walls maybe traced. The building is a monument in stone of what man can do toman in the name of justice. I referred just now to the Nieuwe Kerk, the resting-place of theDe Witts. There lies also their contemporary, Spinoza, whose homeat Rynsburg we shall pass on our way to Katwyk from Leyden. Hishouse at The Hague still stands--near his statue. The Groote Kerkis older; but neither church is particularly interesting. From theGroote Kerk's tower one may, however, see a vast deal of countryaround The Hague--a landscape containing much greenery--and in thewest the architectural monsters of Scheveningen only too visible. Weshall reach Scheveningen in the next chapter, but while at The Hagueit is amusing to visit the fish market in order to have sight of thegood women of that town clustered about the stalls in their peculiarcostume. They are Scheveningen's best. The adjoining stadhuis is avery interesting example of Dutch architecture. The Hague has excellent shops, and one street--the Lange Pooten--morecrowded in the evening, particularly on Sunday evening, than any Iknow. Every Dutch town has certain crowded streets in the evening, because to walk up and down after dinner is the national form ofrecreation. There are in the large cities a few theatres and musichalls, and in the smaller, concerts in the summer; but for the mostpart the streets and the cafés are the great attraction. Each town hasone street above all others which is frequented in this way. At TheHague it is the Lange Pooten, running into Spui Straat; at Amsterdamit is Kalverstraat. Dutch shops are not very interesting, and the book-shops inparticular are a disappointment. This is because it is not a readingpeople. The newspapers are sound and practical before all things:business before pleasure is their motto; and native literature isnot fostered. Publishers who bring out new Dutch books usually doso on the old subscription plan. But the book-shops testify to thepopularity of translations from other nations and also of foreignbooks in the original. The latest French and German fiction is alwaysobtainable. Among translations from the English in 1904 I noticed aconsiderable number of copies of the Sherlock Holmes tales and also oftwo or three of Miss Corelli's works. These for adults; for boys thereading _par excellence_ was a serial romance, in weekly or monthlyparts, entitled "De Wilsons en de Ring des Doods of het Spoor vanpen Diamenten". The Wilsons, I gather, have been having a great runin Holland. A lurid scene in Maiden Lane was on the cover. Anotherstory which seemed to be popular had the engaging title "Beleagueredby Jaguars". The Hague is very proud of the Bosch--the great wood to the eastof the city, with a few deer and many tall and unpollarded trees, where one may walk and ride or drive very pleasantly. The Bosch has no restaurant within its boundaries. I mention this inorder to save the reader the mortification of being conducted by apolite but firm waiter back to the gates of the pavilion in which hemay reasonably have supposed he was as much entitled to order tea asany of the groups enjoying that beverage at the little tables withinthe enclosure, whose happiness had indeed led him to enter it. Theyare, however, members of a club, to which he has no more right ofentry than any Dutch stranger would have to the Athenæum. The Huis ten Bosch, or House in the Wood, which all good travellersmust explore, is at the extreme eastern end of the Bosch, with pleasuregrounds of its own, including a lake where royal skating partiesare held. This very charming royal residence, now only occasionallyoccupied, is well worth seeing for its Chinese and Japanese decorationsalone--apart from historical associations and mural paintings. Formural paintings unless they are very quiet I must confess to caringnothing, nor does a bed on which a temporal prince breathed his last, or his first, move me to any degree of interest; but on the walls ofone room of the House in the Wood is some of the most charming Chineseembroidery I ever saw, while another is decorated in blue and whiteof exquisite delicacy. With these gracious schemes of upholstery Ishall always associate the Huis ten Bosch. At Leyden we shall find traces of Oliver Goldsmith: here at The Hagueone may think of Mat. Prior, who was secretary to our Ambassador forsome years and even wrote a copy of spritely verses on the subject. THE SECRETARY. Written at The Hague, 1696. With labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, And in one day atone for the bus'ness of six. In a little Dutch chaise, on a Saturday night, On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right: No memoirs to compose, and no post-boy to move, That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love; For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea, Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee: This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine To good or ill-fortune the third we resign. Thus scorning the world, and superior to Fate, I drive in my car in professional state; So with Phia thro' Athens Pisistratus rode, Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god. But why should I stories of Athens rehearse, Where people knew love, and were partial to verse, Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose In Holland half-drownèd in int'rest and prose? By Greece and past ages what need I be tried When The Hague and the present are both on my side? And is it enough for the joys of the day To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say, When good Vandergoes and his provident Vrow, As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow, That, search all the province, you'll find no man dar is So blest as the _Englishen Heer Secretár is_? Let me close this rambling account of The Hague with a passage fromJames Howell, in one of his conspicuously elaborate _Familiar Letters_, written in 1622, describing some of the odd things to be seen at thatday in or about the Dutch city: "We went afterwards to the _Hague_, where there are hard by, though in several places, two wonderful thingsto be seen, the one of _Art_, the other of _Nature_; that of _Art_ isa Waggon or Ship, or a monster mixt of both like the _Hippocentaure_who was half man and half horse; this Engin hath wheels and sails thatwill hold above twenty people, and goes with the wind, being drawnor mov'd by nothing else, and will run, the wind being good, and thesails hois'd up, above fifteen miles an hour upon the even hard sands:they say this Invention was found out to entertain _Spinola_ when hecame thither to treat of the last Truce. " Upon this wonder, whichI did not see, civilisation has now improved, the wind being but acaptious and untrustworthy servant compared with petrol or steam. Nonethe less there is still a very rapid wheeled ship at Zandvoort. But the record of Howell's other wonder is visible still. He continues:"That wonder of _Nature_ is a Church-monument, where an Earl anda Lady are engraven with 365 children about them, which were alldelivered at one birth; they were half male, half female; the twoBasons in which they were Christened hang still in the Church, and theBishop's Name who did it; and the story of this Miracle, with the yearand the day of the month mentioned, which is not yet 200 years ago;and the story is this: That the Countess walking about her door afterdinner, there came a Begger-woman with two Children upon her back tobeg alms, the Countess asking whether those children were her own, she answer'd, she had them both at one birth, and by one Father, whowas her husband. The Countess would not only not give her any alms, but reviled her bitterly, saying, it was impossible for one man toget two children at once. The Begger-woman being thus provok'd withill words, and without alms, fell to imprecations, that it shouldplease God to show His judgment upon her, and that she might bear atone birth as many children as there be days in the year, which shedid before the same year's end, having never born child before. " The legend was naturally popular in a land of large families, and itwas certainly credited without any reservation for many years. InEngland the rabbit-breeding woman of Dorking had her adherentstoo. What the beggar really wished for the Dutch lady was as manychildren at one birth as there were days in the year in which theconversation occurred--namely three, for the encounter was on January3rd. Or so I have somewhere read. But it is more amusing to believe inthe greater number, especially as a Dutch author has put it on recordthat he saw the children with his own eyes. They were of the sizeof shrimps, and were baptised either singly or collectively by Guy, Bishop of Utrecht. All the boys were named John and all the girlsElizabeth, They died the same day. Thomas Coryate of the _Crudities_, who also tells the tale, believedit implicitly. "This strange history, " he says, "will seem incredible(I suppose) to all readers. But it is so absolutely and undoubtedlytrue as nothing in the world more. " And here, hand in hand with Veritas, we leave The Hague. Chapter VI Scheveningen and Katwyk The Dutch heaven--Huyghens' road--Sorgh Vliet's builder--Jacob Cats--Homely wisdom--President Kruger--A monstrous resort--Giant snails--The black-headed mannikins--The etiquette of petticoats--Katwyk--The old Rhine--Noordwyk--Noordwyk-Binnen. Good Dutchmen when they die go to Scheveningen; but my heaven iselsewhere. To go thither is, however, no calamity, so long as onechooses the old road. It is being there that so lowers the spirits. TheOude Scheveningen Weg is perhaps the pleasantest, and certainly theshadiest, road in Holland: not one avenue but many, straight as aline in Euclid. On either side is a spreading wood, among the treesof which, on the left hand, as one leaves The Hague, is Sorgh Vliet, once the retreat of old Jacob Cats, lately one of the residences of aroyal Duke, and now sold to a building company. The road dates from1666, its projector being Constantin Huyghens, poet and statesman, whose statue may be seen at the half-way halting-place. By the timethis is reached the charm of the road is nearly over: thenceforwardit is all villas and Scheveningen. But we must pause for a little while at Sorgh Vliet (which has thesame meaning as _Sans Souci_), where two hundred years ago livedin genial retirement the writer who best represents the shrewdsagacity of the Dutch character--Jacob Cats, or Vader Cats as he wasaffectionately called, the author of the Dutch "Household Bible, "a huge miscellaneous collection of wise saws and modern instances, humour and satire, upon all the businesses of life. Mr. Austin Dobson, who leaves grains of gold on all he touches, hasdescribed in his _Side-Walk Studies_ the huge, illustrated editionof Cats' Works (Amsterdam, 1655) which is held sacred in all rightlyconstituted old-fashioned Dutch households. I have seen it at theBritish Museum, and it seems to me to be one of the best picture-booksin the world. As Mr. Dobson says, the life of old Holland is reproduced in it. "Whatwould one not give for such an illustrated copy of Shakespeare! Inthese pages of Jacob Cats we have the authentic Holland of theseventeenth century:--its vanes and spires and steep-roofed houses;its gardens with their geometric tulip-beds, their formally-clippedalleys and arches, their shining parallelograms of water. Here areits old-fashioned interiors, with the deep fire-places and queerandirons, the huge four-posters, the prim portraits on the wall, thegreat brass-clamped coffers and carved _armories_ for the ruffs andstarched collars and stiff farthingales of the women. In one pictureyou may see the careful housewife mournfully inspecting a moth-eatengarment which she has just taken from a chest that Wardour Streetmight envy; in another she is energetically cuffing the 'foolishfat scullion, ' who has let the spotted Dalmatian coach-dog overturnthe cauldron at the fire. Here an old crone, with her spectacles on, is cautiously probing the contents of the said cauldron with a fork;here the mistress of the house is peeling pears; here the plump andsoft-hearted cheese-wife is entertaining an admirer--outside thereare pictures as vivid. Here are the clumsy leather-topped coach withits masked occupant and stumbling horses; the towed _trekschuit_, with its merry freight, sliding swiftly through the low-lyinglandscape; the windy mole, stretching seaward, with its blown andflaring beacon-fire. Here again in the street is the toy-shop withits open front and store of mimic drums and halberds for the martiallittle burghers; here are the fruiteress with her stall of grapesand melons, the rat-catcher with his string of trophies, the fowlerand his clap-net, the furrier with his stock of skins. " In 1860 a number of Van der Venne's best pictures were redrawn by JohnLeighton to accompany translations of the fables by Richard Pigot. Asa taste of Cats' quality I quote two of the pieces. Why the picturesshould have been redrawn when they might have been reproduced exactlyis beyond my understanding. This is one poem:-- LIKE MELONS, FRIENDS ARE TO BE FOUND IN PLENTY OF WHICH NOT EVEN ONE IS GOOD IN TWENTY. In choosing Friends, it's requisite to use The self-same care as when we Melons choose: No one in haste a Melon ever buys, Nor makes his choice till three or four he tries; And oft indeed when purchasing this fruit, Before the buyer can find one to suit, He's e'en obliged t' examine half a score, And p'rhaps not find one when his search is o'er. Be cautious how you choose a friend; For Friendships that are lightly made, Have seldom any other end Than grief to see one's trust betray'd! And here is another:-- SMOKE IS THE FOOD OF LOVERS. When Cupid open'd Shop, the Trade he chose Was just the very one you might suppose. Love keep a shop?--his trade, Oh! quickly name! A Dealer in tobacco--Fie for shame! No less than true, and set aside all joke, From oldest time he ever dealt in Smoke; Than Smoke, no other thing he sold, or made; Smoke all the substance of his stock in trade; His Capital all Smoke, Smoke all his store, 'Twas nothing else; but Lovers ask no more-- And thousands enter daily at his door! Hence it was ever, and it e'er will be The trade most suited to his faculty:-- Fed by the vapours of their heart's desire, No other food his Votaries require; For, that they seek--The Favour of the Fair, Is unsubstantial as the Smoke and air. From these rhymes, with their home-spun philosophy, one might assumeCats to have been merely a witty peasant. But he was a man of thehighest culture, a great jurist, twice ambassador to England, whereCharles I. Laid his sword on his shoulder and bade him rise Sir Jacob, a traveller and the friend of the best intellects. From an interestingarticle on Dutch poetry in an old _Foreign Quarterly Review_ I takean account of the aphorist: "Vondel had for his contemporary a man, of whose popularity we can hardly give an idea, unless we say thatto speak Dutch and to have learnt Cats by heart, are almost the samething. Old Father Jacob Cats--(we beg to apologize for his unhappyname--and know not why, like the rest of his countrymen, he did noteuphonize it into some well-sounding epithet, taken from Greeceor Rome--Elouros, for example, or Felisius; Catsius was venturedupon by his contemporaries, but the honest grey-beard stuck to hispaternities)--was a man of practical wisdom--great experience--muchtravel--considerable learning--and wonderful fluency. He had occupiedhigh offices of state, and retired a patriarch amidst children andchildren's children, to that agreeable retreat which we mentionedas not far from The Hague, where we have often dreamed his soberand serious--but withal cheerful and happy, spirit, might stillpreside. His moralities are sometimes prolix, and sometimes ratherdull. He often sweeps the bloom away from the imaginative anticipationsof youth--and in that does little service. He will have everythingsubstantial, useful, permanent. He has no other notion of love thanthat it is meant to make good husbands and wives, and to producepainstaking and obedient children. "His poetry is rhymed counsel--kind, wise, and good. He calculatesall results, and has no mercy for thoughts, or feelings, or actions, which leave behind them weariness, regret or misery. His volumesare a storehouse of prudence and worldly wisdom. For every stateof life he has fit lessons, so nicely dovetailed into rhyme, thatthe morality seems made expressly for the language, or the languagefor the morality. His thoughts--all running about among the dutiesof life--voluntarily move in harmonious numbers, as if to thinkand to rhyme were one solitary attribute. For the nurse who wantsa song for her babe--the boy who is tormented by the dread of thebirch--the youth whose beard begins to grow--the lover who desires aposey for his lady's ring--for the husband--father--grandsire--forall there is a store--to encourage--to console--and to be gratefulfor. The titles of his works are indices to their contents. Amongthem are _De Ouderdom_, Old Age; _Buyten Leven_, Out-of-Doors Life;_Hofgedachten_, Garden Thoughts; _Gedachten op Slapelooze Nachten_, Thoughts of Sleepless Nights; _Trouwring_, Marriage Ring; _Zelfstrijt_, Self-struggle, etc. Never was a poet so essentially the poet of thepeople. He is always intelligible--always sensible--and, as was wellsaid of him by Kruijff, Smiling he teaches truth, and sporting wins to virtue. " When President Kruger died last year the memoirs of him agreed infixing upon the Bible as his only reading. But I am certain he knewVader Cats by heart too. If ever a master had a faithful pupil, VaderCats had one in Oom Paul. The vivid yet homely metaphors and allegoriesin which Oom Paul conveyed so many of his thoughts were drawn from thesame source as the emblems of Vader Cats. Both had the Æsopian gift. We have no one English writer with whom to compare Cats; but asyndicate formed of Fuller and Burton, Cobbett and Quarles mightproduce something akin. Scheveningen is half squalid town, half monstrous pleasure resort. Uponits sea ramparts are a series of gigantic buildings, greatest of whichis the Curhaus, where the best music in Holland is to be heard. Itspier and its promenade are not at the first glimpse unlike Brighton's;but the vast buildings have no counterpart with us, except perhaps atBlackpool. What is, however, peculiar to Scheveningen is its expanse ofsand covered with sentry-box wicker chairs. To stand on the pier on afine day in the season and look down on these thousands of chairs andpeople is to receive an impression of insect-like activity that I thinkcannot be equalled. Immovable as they are, the chairs seem to add tothe restlessness of the seething mass. What a visitor from Mars wouldmake of it is a mystery; but he could hardly fail to connect chairand occupant. Here, he would say, is surely the abode of giant snails! On a windy day the chairs must be of great use; but in heat theyseem to me too vertical and too hard. One must, however, either sitin them or lie upon sand. There is not a pebble on the whole coast:indeed there is not a pebble in Holland. Life after lying upon sandcan become to some of us a burden almost too difficult to bear;but the Dutch holiday-maker does not seem to find it so. As for thechildren, they are truly in Paradise. There can be no sand betterto dig in than that of Scheveningen; and they dig in it all day. Afavourite game seems to be to surround the parental sentry-boxes witha fosse. Every family has its castle, and every castle its moat. I have been twice to Scheveningen, and on each occasion I acquiredbeneath its glittering magnitude a sense of depression. That leavenof tenderness which every collection of human beings must have washarder to find at Scheveningen than anywhere in Holland--everythingwas so ordered, so organised, for pleasure, pleasure at any price, pleasure almost at the point of the bayonet. But on the second occasion one little incident saved the day--anencounter with a strolling bird-fancier who dealt in Black-HeadedMannikins. Two of these tiny brisk birds, in their Quaker black andbrown, sat upon his cane to attract purchasers. They fluttered to hisfinger, perched on his hat, simulated death in the palm of his hand, and went through other evolutions with the speed of thought and thebright spontaneous alacrity possible only to a small loyal bird. These, however, were not for sale: these were decoys; the saleable birds lay, packed far too close, in little wooden boxes in the man's bag. AndScheveningen to me means no longer a mile of palaces, no longer a"hot huddle of humanity" on the sand among myriad sentry-boxes:its symbol is just two Black-Headed Mannikins. From the Curhaus it is better to return to the Hague by electric tramalong the new road. Save for passing a field where the fishwives ofScheveningen in their blue shawls spread and mend their nets, thisroad is dull and suburban; but from it, when the light is failing, a view of Scheveningen's domes and spires may be gained which, softened and made mysterious by the gloaming, translates the chiefwatering-place of Holland into an Eastern city of romance. The fishwives of Scheveningen, I am told, carry the art of petticoatwearing to a higher point than any of their sisters. The appearanceof the homing fleet in the offing is a signal for as many as thirtyof these garments to be put on as a mark of welcome to a returninghusband. Probably no shore anywhere in the world has been so often paintedas that of Scheveningen--ever since the painting of landscape seemeda worthy pursuit. James Maris' pictures of Scheveningen's wet sand, grey sea, and huge flat-bottomed ships must run into scores; Mesdag'stoo. Perhaps it was the artists that prevailed on the fishermen to wearcrimson knickerbockers--the note of warm colour that the scene demands. Here, although it is separated from Scheveningen by some miles of sand, I should like to say something of Katwyk--which is Leyden's marineresort. A steam-tram carries people thither many times a day. Therail, when first I travelled upon it, in April, ran through tulips;in August, when I was there again, the patches of scarlet and orangehad given way to acres of massive purple-green cabbages which, inthe evening light, were vastly more beautiful. At Rynsburg, one of the villages on the way, dwelt in 1650-51 BenedictSpinoza, the philosopher, and there he wrote his abridgement of theMeditations of Descartes, his master in philosophy, who had for awhile lived close by at Endegeest. Spinoza, who was born at Amsterdamin 1632, died in 1677. His house at Rynsburg, which he shared with aColleginat (one of a sect of Remonstrants who had their headquartersthere) is now a Spinoza museum; his statue is at The Hague. Katwyk-aan-Zee is a compact little pleasure resort with the usualfantastic childish villas. Its most interesting possession is themouth of the Old Rhine, now restricted by a canal and controlled bylocks. There is perhaps no better example of the Dutch power over waterthan the contrast between the present narrow canal through which theriver must disembogue and the unprofitable marsh which once spreadhere. The locks, which are nearly a hundred years old, were amongthe works of the engineer Conrad, whose monument is in Haarlem church. From the Old Rhine's mouth to Noordwyk is a lonely but very bracingwalk of three miles along the sand, with the dunes on one's righthand and the sea on one's left. One may meet perhaps a few shellgatherers, but no one else. We drove before us all the way a whitecompany consisting of a score of gulls, twice as many tern, two oystercatchers and one curlew. They rose and settled, rose and settled, always some thirty yards away, until Noordwyk was reached, when weleft them behind. Never was a Japanese screen so realised as by thesebirds against the pearl grey sea and yellow sand. Katwyk is more cheery than Noordwyk; but Noordwyk has a prettierstreet--indeed, in its old part there is no prettier street in Hollandin the light of sunset. As Hastings is to Eastbourne, so is Katwyk toNoordwyk; Scheveningen is Brighton, Yarmouth, and Blackpool in one. Avery pretty lace cap is worn at Noordwyk by villagers and visitorsalike, to hold the hair against the west wind. From Noordwyk we walked to Noordwyk-Binnen, the real town, parentof the seaside resort; and there, at a table at the side of the mainstreet, by an avenue so leafy as to exclude even glints of the sky, we sipped something Dutch whose name I could not assimilate, andwaited for the tram for Leyden. It was the greenest tunnel I ever saw. Chapter VII Leyden Steam-trams--Holland for the people--Quiet Leyden--The Meermansburg--Leyden's museums--The call of the open--Oliver Goldsmith--A view of the Dutch--"Polite Learning"--"The Traveller"--James Howell--John Evelyn and the Burgundian Jew--_Colloquia Peripatetica_--St. Peter's and St. Pancras's--The Kermis--Drinking in Holland--Poffertjes and Wafelen--America's master. We travelled to Leyden from The Hague by the steam-tram, throughcheerful domestic surroundings, past little Englishy cottages andgardens. It was Sunday morning, and the villagers of Voorburg andVoorschoten and the other little places _en route_ were idle and gay. In England light railways are a rarity; Holland is covered witha net-work of them. The little trains rush along the roads allover the country, while the roadside willows rock in their eddyingwake. To stand on the steam-tram footboard is one very good way tosee Holland. In England of course we can never have such conveniences, England being a free country in which individual rights come first. ButHolland exists for the State, and such an idea as the depreciation orruin of property by running a tram line over it has never suggesteditself. It is true that when the new electric tramway between Amsterdamand Haarlem was projected, the comic papers came to the defence ofoutraged Nature; but they did not really mean it, as the æstheticminority in England would have meant it. The steam-tram journeys are always interesting; and my advice to atraveller in Holland is to make as much use of them as he can. Thisis quite simple as their time-tables are included in the officialReisgids. I like them at all times; but best perhaps when one hasto wait in the heart of some quiet village for the other tram tocome up. There is something very soothing and attractive in thesesudden cessations of noise and movement in the midst of a totallystrange community. Leyden is a paradise of clean, quiet streets--a city of professors, students and soldiers. It has, I think, the prettiest red roofs inany considerable Dutch town: not prettier than Veere's, but Veereis now only a village. Philosophers surely live here: book-worms towhom yesterday, to-day and to-morrow are one. The sense of commercialenterprise dies away: whatever they are at Amsterdam, the Dutch atLeyden cease to be a nation of shopkeepers. It was holiday time when I was there last, and the town wascomparatively empty. No songs floated through the windows of theclubs. In talk with a stranger at one of the cafés, I learned thatthe Dutch student works harder in the holidays than in term. In termhe is a social and imbibing creature; but when the vacation comes andhe returns to a home to which most of the allurements which an Englishboy would value are wanting, he applies himself to his books. I givethe statement as I heard it. One of the pleasantest buildings in Leyden is the Meermansburg--aspreading almshouse in the Oude Vest, surrounding a square gardenwith a massive pump in the midst. A few pictures are shown in theGovernors' room over the entrance, but greater interest attachesto the little domiciles for the pensioners of the Meerman trust. Afriendly concierge with a wooden leg showed us one of these compacthouses--a sitting-room with a bed-cupboard in one wall, and below ita little larder, like the cabin of a ship. At the back a tiny range, and above, a garret. One could be very comfortable in such quarters. Leyden has other _hofjes_, as these homes of rest are called, intoone of which, gay with geraniums, I peeped--a little court of cleancottages seen through the doorway like a Peter de Hooch. I did not, I fear, do my duty by Leyden's many museums. The sun shone;the boats swam continually down the Old Rhine and the New; and the seaat Katwyk and Noordwyk sent a call across the intervening meadows. Someday perhaps I shall find myself at Leyden again, when the sky is greyand the thirst for information is more strongly upon me. Ethnography, comparative anatomy, physiology--there is nothing that may not belearned in the Leyden museums; but such learning is not peculiarlyDutch, nor are the treasures of these museums peculiarly Dutch, and Ifelt that I might with a clear conscience leave them to others. Havewe not Bloomsbury? I did, however, climb the Burg, which is a circular fortress on amound between the two rivers, so cleverly hidden away among housesthat it was long ere I could find it. It is gained through an ancientcourtyard full of horses and carriages--like a scene in Dumas. Fromthe Burg one ought to have a fine view, but Leyden's roofs are toonear. And in the Natural History Museum I walked through miles ofbirds stuffed, and birds articulated, until I felt that I could givea year's income to be on terms again with a living blackbird--evenone of those that eat our Kentish strawberries at sunrise. I did not penetrate to the interior of the University, having none toguide me, but I was pleased to remember that Oliver Goldsmith had beena student there not so very long ago. Indeed, as I walked about thetown, I thought much of Goldsmith as he was in 1755, aged twenty-seven, with all his books to write, wandering through the same streets, looking upon the same houses and canals, in the interval of acquiringhis mysterious medical degree (ultimately conferred at Louwain). Hisingenious project, it will be remembered--by those whose memories(like my own) cling to that order of information, to the exclusionof everything useful and improving--Goldsmith's delightful plan forsubsistence in Holland was to teach the English language to the Dutch, and in return receive enough money to keep him at the University ofLeyden and enable him to hear the great Professor Albinus. It wasnot until he reached Holland that those adorable Irish brains ofhis realised that he who teaches English to a Dutchman must firstknow Dutch. Goldsmith, who spent his life in doing characteristic things--fewmen have done more--when once he had determined to go to Holland, took a passage in a vessel bound for Bordeaux. At Newcastle-on-Tyne, however, on going ashore to be merry, he was arrested as a Jacobiteand thrown into prison for a fortnight. The result was that the shipsailed without him. It was just as well for him and for us, for itsank at the mouth of the Garonne. In 1755, however, he was in Leyden, although by what route, circuitous or direct, he reached that citywe do not know. He lost little time in giving his Uncle Contarine an account of hisimpressions of Holland and its people. Here is a portion of a longletter: "The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature fromhim of former times: he in everything imitates a Frenchman, butin his easy disengaged air, which is the result of keeping politecompany. The Dutchman is vastly ceremonious, and is perhaps exactlywhat a Frenchman might have been in the reign of Louis XIV. Such arethe better bred. But the downright Hollander is one of the oddestfigures in nature: upon a head of lank hair he wears a half-cockednarrow hat laced with black ribbon; no coat, but seven waistcoats, and nine pairs of breeches; so that his hips reach almost up to hisarm-pits. This well-clothed vegetable is now fit to see company, or make love. But what a pleasing creature is the object of hisappetite! Why she wears a large fur cap with a deal of Flanders lace:and for every pair of breeches he carries, she puts on two petticoats. "A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but histobacco. You must know, sir, every women carries in her hand astove with coals in it, which, when she sits, she snugs under herpetticoats; and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe. Itake it that this continual smoking is what gives the man the ruddyhealthful complexion he generally wears, by draining his superfluousmoisture, while the woman, deprived of this amusement, overflows withsuch viscidities as tint the complexion, and give that paleness ofvisage which low fenny grounds and moist air conspire to cause. A Dutchwoman and Scotch will bear an opposition. The one is pale and fat, theother lean and ruddy: the one walks as if she were straddling aftera go-cart, and the other takes too masculine a stride. I shall notendeavour to deprive either country of its share of beauty; but mustsay, that of all objects on this earth, an English farmer's daughter ismost charming. Every woman there is a complete beauty, while the higherclass of women want many of the requisites to make them even tolerable. "Their pleasures here are very dull though very various. You maysmoke, you may doze, you may go to the Italian comedy, as good anamusement as either of the former. This entertainment always bringsin Harlequin, who is generally a magician, and in consequence of hisdiabolical art performs a thousand tricks on the rest of the personsof the drama, who are all fools. I have seen the pit in a roar oflaughter at this humour, when with his sword he touches the glassfrom which another was drinking. 'Twas not his face they laughed at, for that was masked. They must have seen something vastly queer in thewooden sword, that neither I, nor you, sir, were you there, could see. "In winter, when their canals are frozen, every house is forsaken, and all people are on the ice; sleds drawn by horses, and skating, are at that time the reigning amusements. They have boats here thatslide on the ice, and are driven by the winds. When they spread alltheir sails they go more than a mile and a half a minute, and theirmotion is so rapid the eye can scarcely accompany them. Their ordinarymanner of travelling is very cheap and very convenient: they sailin covered boats drawn by horses; and in these you are sure to meetpeople of all nations. Here the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, andthe English play at cards. Any man who likes company may have them tohis taste. For my part I generally detached myself from all society, and was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country. Nothingcan equal its beauty; wherever I turn my eye, fine houses, elegantgardens, statues, grottos, vistas, presented themselves; but whenyou enter their towns you are charmed beyond description. No miseryis to be seen here; every one is usefully employed. "Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast. There hills androcks intercept every prospect: here 'tis all a continued plain. Thereyou might see a well-dressed duchess issuing from a dirty close;and here a dirty Dutchman inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may becompared to a tulip planted in dung; but I never see a Dutchman inhis own house but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicatedto an ox. Physic is by no means here taught so well as in Edinburgh:and in all Leyden there are but four British students, owing to allnecessaries being so extremely dear and the professors so very lazy(the chemical professor excepted) that we don't much care to comehither. " When the time came to make the "Inquiry into the State of PoliteLearning" Leyden had to suffer. Goldsmith laid about him with no gentlehand. "Holland, at first view, appears to have some pretensions topolite learning. It may be regarded as the great emporium, not lessof literature than of every other commodity. Here, though destitute ofwhat may be properly called a language of their own, all the languagesare understood, cultivated and spoken. All useful inventions in arts, and new discoveries in science, are published here almost as soonas at the places which first produced them. Its individuals have thesame faults, however, with the Germans, of making more use of theirmemory than their judgment. The chief employment of their literati isto criticise, or answer, the new performances which appear elsewhere. "A dearth of wit in France or England naturally produces a scarcityin Holland. What Ovid says of Echo may be applied here, ----'nec reticere loquenti, Nec prior ipsa loqui didicit'---- they wait till something new comes out from others; examine its meritsand reject it, or make it reverberate through the rest of Europe. "After all, I know not whether they should be allowed any nationalcharacter for polite learning. All their taste is derived to themfrom neighbouring nations, and that in a language not their own. Theysomewhat resemble their brokers, who trade for immense sums withouthaving any capital. " Goldsmith did not finish there. His observations on the Continentserved him, with a frugality that he did not otherwise practise, at least thrice. He used them in the "Inquiry into Polite Learning, "he used them in the story of the Philosophic Vagabond in the _Vicarof Wakefield_, and still again in "The Traveller". This is the summaryof Holland in that poem:-- To men of other minds my fancy flies, Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. Methinks her patient sons before me stand, Where the broad ocean leans against the land, And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride. Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, The firm connected bulwark seems to grow; Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile; The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale, The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, A new creation rescued from his reign. Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil Impels the native to repeated toil, Industrious habits in each bosom reign, And industry begets a love of gain. Hence all the good from opulence that springs, With all those ills superfluous treasure brings, Are here display'd. Their much-lov'd wealth imparts Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts: But view them closer, craft and fraud appear, Even liberty itself is barter'd here. At gold's superior charms all freedom flies, The needy sell it, and the rich man buys; A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves, Here wretches seek dishonourable graves, And calmly bent, to servitude conform, Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm. It was with his good Uncle Contarine's money that Goldsmithtravelled to Leyden. The time came to leave, and Oliver was againwithout resources. He borrowed a sufficient sum from Dr. Ellis, afellow-countryman living there, and prepared for his departure. But onhis way from the doctor's he had to pass a florist's, in whose windowthere chanced to be exhibited the very variety of flower which UncleContarine had so often praised and expressed a desire to possess. Giventhe man and the moment, what can you expect? Goldsmith, chief amongthose blessed natures who never interrupt a generous impulse, plungedinto the florist's house and despatched a costly bundle of bulbs toIreland. The next day he left Leyden with a guinea in his pocket, no clothes but those he stood in, and a flute in his hand. For therest you must see the story of the Philosophic Vagabond. Evelyn records an amusing experience at Leyden in August, 1641:"I was brought acquainted with a Burgundian Jew, who had marriedan apostate Kentish woman. I asked him divers questions; he toldme, amongst other things, that the World should never end, that oursouls transmigrated, and that even those of the most holy persons didpenance in the bodies of brutes after death, and so he interpretedthe banishment and savage life of Nebuchadnezzar; that all the Jewsshould rise again, and be led to Jerusalem; that the Romans only werethe occasion of our Saviour's death, whom he affirmed (as the Turksdo) to be a great prophet, but not the Messiah. He showed me severalbooks of their devotion, which he had translated into English for theinstruction of his wife; he told me that when the Messiah came, all theships, barks, and vessels of Holland should, by the power of certainstrange whirlwinds, be loosed from their anchors, and transported ina moment to all the desolate ports and havens throughout the world, wherever the dispersion was, to convey their brethren and tribes to theHoly City; with other such-like stuff. He was a merry drunken fellow, but would by no means handle any money (for something I purchased ofhim), it being Saturday; but desired me to leave it in the window, meaning to receive it on Sunday morning. " In an old book-shop at Leyden I bought from an odd lot of Englishbooks, chiefly minor fiction for travellers, the _ColloquiaPeripatetica_ of John Duncan, LL. D. , Professor of Hebrew in theNew College, Edinburgh. "I'm first a Christian, next a Catholic, then a Calvinist, fourth a Pædo-baptist, and fifth a Presbyterian. Icannot reverse the order, " is one of his emphatic utterances. Hereare others, not unconnected with the country we are travelling in:"Poor Erasmus truckled all his life for a hat. If he could only havebeen made a cardinal! You see the longing for it in his very features, and can't help regarding him with mingled respect and pity. " OfThomas à Kempis, the recluse of Deventer: "A fine fellow, but hazy, and weak betimes. He and his school tend (as some one has well said)to make humility and humiliation change places. " Finally, of the Bible:"The three best translations of the Bible, in my opinion, are, in orderof merit, the English, the Dutch, and Diodati's Italian version. Asto Luther, he is admirable in rendering the prophets. He says eitherjust what the prophets _did say_, or that which you see at once they_might have said_. " Leyden has two vast churches, St. Peter's and St. Pancras's. Bothare immense and unadorned, I think that St. Pancras's is the lightestchurch I was ever in. St. Peter's ought to be filled with memorials ofthe town's illustrious sons, but it has few. As I have said elsewhere, I asked in vain for the grave of Jan Steen, who was buried here. It was at Leyden that I saw my first Kermis, or fair, seven years ago, and ate my first poffertjes and wafelen. Writing as a foreigner, in noway concerned with the matter, I may express regret that the Kermisis not what it was in Holland. Possibly were one living in Holland, one would at once join the anti-Kermis party; but I hope not. InAmsterdam the anti-Kermis party has succeeded, and though one maystill in that city at certain seasons eat wafelen and poffertjes, the old glories have departed, just as they have departed from somany English towns which once broke loose for a few nights everyyear. Even Barnet Fair is not what it was. Noise seems to be the principal objection. Personally, I never sawany drunkenness; and there is so little real revelry that one turnsone's back on the naphtha lamps in this town and that, in Leyden andthe Hoorn, Apeldoorn and Middelburg, with the sad conviction that thetimes are out of joint, and that Teniers and Ostade and Brouwer, werethey reborn to-day, would probably either have to take to paintingChristmas supplements or earn their living at a reputable trade. Itis not that the Dutch no longer drink, but that they now do it withmore privacy. The travelling temples reserved for the honour of poffertjes andwafelen are the most noticeable features of any Kermis. They aredivided, quite like restaurants, into little cubicles for separateparties. Flowers and ferns make them gay; the waiters may even wearevening dress, but this is a refinement which would have annoyed JanSteen; on the tables is white American cloth; and curtains of colouredmaterial and muslin, with bright ribbons, add to the vivacity of theoccasion. To eat poffertjes and wafelen is no light matter: one mustregard it as a ritual. Poffertjes come first--these are little round pancakey blobs, twistedand covered with butter and sugar. Then the wafelen, which areoblong wafers stamped in a mould and also buttered and sugared. Youeat twenty-four poffertjes and two wafelen: that is, at the firstonset. Afterwards, as many more as you wish. Lager beer is drunk withthem. Some prefer Frambozen lemonade. To eat them is a duty; to see them cooked is a joy. I have watchedthe cooks almost for hours. The poffertjes are made by hundreds atonce, in a tray indented with little hollows over a fire. The cookis continually busy in twisting the little dabs of paste into thehollows and removing those that are ready. The wafelen are baked iniron moulds (there is one in Jan Steen's "Oyster Feast") laid ona rack in the fire. The cook has eight moulds in working order atonce. When the eighth is filled from the pail of batter at his side, the first is done; and so on, ceaselessly, all day and half the night, like a natural law. A woman stands by to spread butter and sugar, and the plate is whiskedaway in a moment. The Americans boast of their quick lunches; but Iam convinced that they borrowed celerity in cooking and serving fromsome Knickerbocker deviser of poffertjes and wafelen in the earlydays of New York. I wonder that Washington Irving omitted to say so. Chapter VIII Leyden's Painters, a Fanatic and a Hero Rembrandt of the Rhine--His early life at Leyden--Jan Steen--Jan van Goyen--Brewer and painter--Pictures for beer--Jan Steen's grave--His delicacy and charm--His native refinement--A painter of hands--Jan Steen and Morland--Jan Steen and Hogarth--The Red Sea--The Flood--Jan of Leyden--The siege of Münster--Gigantic madness--Gerard Dou--Godfrey Schalcken--Frans van Mieris--William van Mieris--Gabriel Metsu--Beckford's satire--Leyden's poor pictures--The siege of Leyden--Adrian van der Werf. Leyden was the mother of some precious human clay. Among her sons wasthe greatest of Dutch painters, Rembrandt van Rijn; the most lovableof them, Jan Steen; and the most patient of them, Gerard Dou. Of Rembrandt's genius it is late in the day to write, nor have I thepower. We have seen certain of his pictures at The Hague; we shallsee others at Amsterdam. I can add nothing to what is said in thoseplaces, but here, in Leyden (which has ten thousand stuffed birds, and not a single picture by her greatest son), one may dwell uponhis early days and think of him wandering as a boy in the surroundingcountry unconsciously absorbing effects of light and shade. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606, probably ina house at the corner of the Weddesteg, near the Wittepoort, on thebank of the Rhine. It was the same year that gave England _Macbeth_and _King Lear_. His father was a miller, his mother the daughterof a Leyden baker: it was destined that the son of these simple folkshould be the greatest painter that the north of Europe has produced. They did not foresee such a fate, but they seem sufficiently to haverealised that their son had unusual aptitude for him to be sent tostudy law at the University. But he meant from the first to paint, and when he should have been studying text-books he was studyingnature. The old miller, having a wise head, gave way, and Rembrandtwas allowed to enter the studio of Jacob van Swanenburgh. That wasprobably in 1622, when he was sixteen; in 1624 he knew so much morethan Swanenburgh had ever dreamed of that he passed on to Amsterdam, to see what could be learned from Peter Lastman. But Lastman was oflittle use, and Rembrandt soon returned to Leyden. There he set up his own studio, painting, however, at his father'shouse--possibly even in the mill itself--as much as he could; and forseven years he taught younger men at Leyden his secrets. He remainedat Leyden until 1631, moving then again to Amsterdam and beginningthe greatest period of his life. At Leyden he had painted much andetched much; perhaps the portrait of himself in a steel gorget, at The Hague, is his finest Leyden picture. It was not until 1632, the year in which he married his Saskia, that the first of his mostfamous works, "The School of Anatomy, " was painted. Yet Leyden mayconsider that it was she that showed the way; she may well be proud. Rembrandt's later life belongs to Amsterdam; but Leyden had otherillustrious sons who were faithful to her to the end. Chief of thesewas Jan Steen. Harmens the miller, as we have seen, became the father of a boy namedRembrandt in 1606; it was twenty years later that Steen the brewerrejoiced over the birth of a son called Jan. Of Jan's childhood we know nothing, but as a young man he was sentby his father to Utrecht to study under Nicholas Knupfer. Then hepassed on to Adrian van Ostade and probably to Adrian Brouwer, withboth of whom and Frans Hals we saw him carousing, after his wont, in apicture by Brouwer in Baron Steengracht's house at The Hague. Finallyhe became the pupil of Jan van Goyen, painter of the beautiful"Valkhof at Nymwegen, " No. 991 in the Ryks Museum, a picture whichalways makes me think of Andrew Marvell's poem on the Bermudas. Likemany another art pupil, Jan Steen married his master's daughter. Jan van Goyen, I might add, was another of Leyden's sons. He was bornin 1596 and he died at The Hague in 1666, while London was sufferingunder the Plague. Jan Steen seems to have intended to make brewing his staff andpainting merely his cane; but good nature and a terrible thirst weretoo much for him. From brewing he descended to keeping a tavern, "in which occupation, " to quote Ireland, "he was himself his bestcustomer". After a while, having exhausted his cellar, he tookseriously to painting in order to renew it, paying for his liquorwith his brush. Thus "for a long time his works were to be foundonly in the hands of dealers in wine". Who, after this, shall havethe hardihood to speak evil of the grape? Jan is not supposed to have lived at Leyden after his marriage toMargaretta van Goyen, in 1649, until 1669, when his father died. In1672 he is known to have taken a tavern at Leyden at the Lange Brug. Of the intervening years little is known. He was probably at Haarlempart of the time and at The Hague part of the time, In 1667 he paidhis rent--only twenty-nine florins--with three pictures "painted wellas he was able". Margaretta died in 1669--a merry large woman we mustsuppose her from her appearance in Jan's pictures, and the mother offour or five children who may often be seen in the same scenes. Janmarried again in 1673 and died in 1697. He was buried in St. Peter's Church, Leyden, leaving more than fivehundred pictures to his name. The youth who, in the absence of thekoster, accompanied me through St. Peter's Church, so far from knowingwhere Jan Steen was buried, had never even heard his name. (And atthe Western Church in Amsterdam, where Rembrandt is said to have beenburied, his resting-place cannot be pointed out. But never a Dutchadmiral's grave is in doubt. ) For all his roystering and recklessness, for all his drinking andexcess, Jan Steen's work is essentially delicate. He painted thesublimated essence of comedy. Teniers, Ostade, Brouwer are coarse andboorish beside him; Metsu and Mieris genteel. Even when he is paintinglow life Jan Steen is distinguished, a gentleman. And now and thenhe touches the springs of tears, so exquisite in his sympatheticunderstanding. He remains the most lovable painter in Holland, andthe tenderest--in a country where tenderness is not easily found. Look, for example, at the two pictures at The Hague which arereproduced opposite pages 74 and 80. The first represents the Steenfamily. The jolly Jan himself is smoking at the table; the old brewerand the elder Mrs. Steen are in the foreground. I doubt if any pictureexists in which the sense of innocent festivity is better expressed. Itis all perhaps rather a muddle: Mrs. Steen has some hard work beforeher if the house is to be restored to a Dutch pitch of cleanlinessand order; but how jolly every one is! Jan himself looks just as weshould expect. The triumph of the "Oyster Feast, " on the opposite page, seems to me tobe the girl kneeling in the corner. Here is drawing indeed. The chargebrought by the mysterious painter in Balzac's story against Pourbus, that one was unable to walk behind the figure in his picture, couldnever hold with Jan Steen. His every figure stands out surroundedby atmosphere, and never more so than in the "Oyster Feast". Again, in the "Cat's Dancing Lesson" (opposite page 158), what drawing thereis in the girl playing the pipe, and what life in the whole scene! It is odd that Jan Steen in Holland, and George Morland in England, both topers, should have had this secret of simple charm so highlydeveloped: one of nature's curious ironies, very confusing to themoralist. In the second Hague picture (opposite page 80) Leyden'sgenial tosspot has achieved a farther triumph--he has painted one ofthe most radiantly delicate figures in all art. One must go to Italyand seek among the early Madonnas to find anything to set beside thesweet Wordsworthian character of this little Dutch girl who feedsthe animals. It was Jan Steen's way to scamp much of every picture; but in everypicture you will find one figure that could not be excelled. Nothingprobably could be more slovenly, more hideously unpainted, than, forexample, the bed and the guitar-case in the "Sick Woman"--No. 2246at the Ryks Museum--opposite page 22. But I doubt if human skillhas ever transcended the painting of the woman's face, or the sheerdrawing of her. Look at her arm and hand--Jan Steen never went wrongwith arms and hands. Look at the hands of the boy playing the pipe inthe picture opposite page 74; look at the woman filling a pipe at thetable. To-day we are accustomed to pictures containing children: theyare as necessary as sunsets to picture buyers: all our figure-painterslavish their talents upon them; but who had ever troubled to painta real peasant child before Jan Steen? It was this rough toper thatshowed the way, and no one since has ever excelled him. Parallels have been drawn between Jan Steen and Hogarth, and thereare critics who would make Jan a moralist too. But I do not see howwe can compare them. Steen did what Hogarth could not, Hogarth didwhat Steen would not. Hogarth is rarely charming, Steen is rarelyotherwise. It is not Hogarth with whom I should associate Jan, butBurns. He is the Dutch Burns--in colour. I wish we had more facts concerning him, for he must have beena great man and humorist. The story is told of Hogarth that onbeing commissioned to paint a scriptural picture of the Red Seafor a too parsimonious patron who had beaten him down and down, herebuked him for his meanness by producing a canvas entirely coveredwith red paint. "But what is this?" the patron asked. "The RedSea--surely. " "Where then are the Israelites?" "They have all crossedover. " "And Pharaoh's hosts?" "They are all drowned. " The story isperhaps an invention; but a somewhat similar joke is credited to JanSteen. His commission was the Flood, and his picture when finishedconsisted of a sheet of water with a Dutch cheese in the midstbearing the arms of Leyden. The cheese and the arms, he pointed out, proved that people had been on the earth; as for Noah and the ark, they were out of the picture. Jan Steen's picture of "A Quaker's Funeral" I have not seen, butaccording to Pilkington it is impossible to behold it and refrain fromlaughter. The subject does not strike one as being in itself mirthful. A century earlier Leyden had produced another Jan, separated fromJan Steen by a difference wide asunder as the poles. Yet a verywonderful man in his brief season, standing high among the world'sgreat madmen. I mean Jan Bockelson, the Anabaptist, known as Jan ofLeyden, who, beginning as pure enthusiast, succumbed, as so many aleader of women has done, to the intoxication of authority, and becamethe slave of grandiose ambition and excesses. Every country has hadits mock Messiahs: they rise periodically in England, not less atthe present day than in the darker ages (hysteria being more powerfulthan light); yet the history of none of these spiritual monarchs cancompare with that of the tailor's son of Leyden. The story is told in many places, but nowhere with such dramaticpicturesqueness as by Professor Karl Pearson in his _Ethic ofFreethought_. "As the illegitimate son of a tailor in Leyden, "says Professor Pearson--Jan's mother was the maid of his father'swife--"his early life was probably a harsh and bitter one. Very younghe wandered from home, impressed with the miseries of his class andwith a general feeling of much injustice in the world. Four years hespent in England seeing the poor driven off the land by the sheep;then we find him in Flanders, married, but still in vague search ofthe Eldorado; again roaming, he visits Lisbon and Lübeck as a sailor, ever seeking and inquiring. Suddenly a new light bursts upon him inthe teaching of Melchior Hofmann [the Anabaptist]; he fills himselfwith dreams of a glorious kingdom on earth, the rule of justice andof love. Still a little while and the prophet Mathys crosses his path, and tells him of the New Sion and the extermination of the godless. " Mathys, or Jan Mathiesen, was a baker of Haarlem, who, constituted anAnabaptist bishop, was preaching the new gospel through the Netherlandsand gathering recruits to the community of God's saints which had beenestablished at Münster. "Full of hope for the future, " says ProfessorPearson, "Jan sets out for Münster to join the saints. Still young, handsome, imbued with a fiery enthusiasm, actor by nature and even bychoice, he has no small influence on the spread of Anabaptism in thatcity. The youth of twenty-three expounds to the followers of Rottmannthe beauties of his ideal kingdom of the good and the true. Withhis whole soul he preaches to them the redemption of the oppressed, the destruction of tyranny, the community of goods, and the rule ofjustice and brotherly love. Women and maidens slip away to the secretgatherings of the youthful enthusiast; the glowing young prophet ofLeyden becomes the centre of interest in Münster. Dangerous, verydangerous ground, when the pure of heart are not around him; whenthe spirit 'chosen by God' is to proclaim itself free of the flesh. "The world has judged Jan harshly, condemned him to endlessexecration. It were better to have cursed the generations ofoppression, the flood of persecution, which forced the toiler torevolt, the Anabaptists to madness. Under other circumstances thenoble enthusiasm, with other surroundings the strong will, of Jan ofLeyden might have left a different mark on the page of history. Draggeddown in this whirlpool of fanaticism, sensuality, and despair, we canonly look upon him as a factor of the historic judgment, a necessaryactor in that tragedy of Münster, which forms one of the most solemnchapters of the Greater Bible. " Gradually Jan rose to be head of the saints, Mathiesen having beenkilled, and none other displaying so much strength of purposeor magnetic enthusiasm. And here his mind gave way. Like somany absolute rulers before and since, he could not resist theecstacies of supremacy. To resume Professor Pearson's narrative:"The sovereign of Sion--although 'since the flesh is dead, gold to himis but as dung'--yet thinks fit to appear in all the pomp of earthlymajesty. He appoints a court, of which Knipperdollinch is chancellor, and wherein there are many officers from chamberlain to cook. Heforms a body-guard, whose members are dressed in silk. Two pageswait upon the king, one of whom is a _son of his grace the bishop ofMünster_. The great officers of state are somewhat wondrously attired, one breech red, the other grey, and on the sleeves of their coatsare embroidered the arms of Sion--the earth-sphere pierced by twocrossed swords, a sign of universal sway and its instruments--whilea golden finger-ring is token of their authority in Sion. The kinghimself is magnificently arrayed in gold and purple, and as insigniaof his office, he causes sceptre and spurs of gold to be made. Goldducats are melted down to form crowns for the queen and himself; andlastly a golden globe pierced by two swords and surmounted by a crosswith the words, 'A King of Righteousness o'er all' is borne beforehim. The attendants of the Chancellor Knipperdollinch are dressed inred with the crest, a hand raising aloft the sword of justice. Nay, even the queen and the fourteen queenlets must have a separate courtand brilliant uniforms. "Thrice a week the king goes in glorious array to the market-placeaccompanied by his body-guards and officers of state, while behind ridethe fifteen queens. On the market-place stands a magnificent thronewith silken cushions and canopy, whereon the tailor-monarch takeshis seat, and alongside him sits his chief queen. Knipperdollinchsits at his feet. A page on his left bears the book of the law, the Old Testament; another on his right an unsheathed sword. Thebook denotes that he sits on the throne of David; the sword thathe is the king of the just, who is appointed to exterminate allunrighteousness. Bannock-Bernt is court-chaplain, and preaches in themarket-place before the king. The sermon over, justice is administered, often of the most terrible kind; and then in like state the king andhis court return home. On the streets he is greeted with cries of:'Hail in the name of the Lord. God be praised!'" Meanwhile underneath all this riot of splendour and power andsensuality, the pangs of starvation were beginning to be felt. Forthe army of the bishop of Münster was outside the city and the siegewas very studiously maintained. The privations became more and moreterrible, and more and more terrible the means of allaying them. Thebodies of citizens that had died were eaten; and then men and womenand children were killed in order that they might be eaten too. Undersuch conditions, is it any wonder that Münster became a city of themad, mad beyond the sane man's wildest dreams of excess? A few of the least demented of Jan's followers at length determinedthat the tragedy must cease, and the city was delivered intothe bishop's hands. "What judgment, " writes Professor Pearson, "his grace the bishop thinks fit to pass on the leaders of Sion atleast deserves record. Rottmann has fallen by St. Martin's Church, fighting sword in hand, but Jan of Leyden and Knipperdollinch arebrought prisoners before this shepherd of the folk. Scoffingly heasks Jan: 'Art thou a king?' Simple, yet endlessly deep the reply:'Art thou a bishop?' Both alike false to their callings--as father ofmen and shepherd of souls. Yet the one cold, self-seeking sceptic, the other ignorant, passionate, fanatic idealist. 'Why hast thoudestroyed the town and _my_ folk?' 'Priest, I have not destroyed onelittle maid of _thine_. Thou hast again thy town, and I can repaythee a hundredfold. ' The bishop demands with much curiosity how thismiserable captive can possibly repay him. 'I know we must die, anddie terribly, yet before we die, shut us up in an iron cage, and sendus round through the land, charge the curious folk a few pence to seeus, and thou wilt soon gather together all thy heart's desire. ' Thejest is grim, but the king of Sion has the advantage of his gracethe bishop. Then follows torture, but there is little to extract, for the king still holds himself an instrument sent by God--thoughit were for the punishment of the world. Sentence is read on thesemen--placed in an iron cage they shall be shown round the bishop'sdiocese, a terrible warning to his subjects, and then brought backto Münster; there with glowing pincers their flesh shall be tornfrom the bones, till the death-stroke be given with red-hot daggerin throat and heart. For the rest let the mangled remains be placedin iron cages swung from the tower of St. Lambert's Church. "On the 26th of January, 1536, Jan Bockelson and Knipperdollinch meettheir fate. A high scaffolding is erected in the market-place, andbefore it a lofty throne for his grace the bishop, that he may gluthis vengeance to the full. Let the rest pass in silence. The mostreliable authorities tell us that the Anabaptists remained calm andfirm to the last. 'Art thou a king?' 'Art thou a bishop?' The ironcages still hang on the church tower at Münster; placed as a warning, they have become a show; perhaps some day they will be treasured asweird mentors of the truth which the world has yet to learn from thestory of the Kingdom of God in Münster. " A living German artist of great power, named Joseph Sattler, toomuch of whose time has recently been given to designing book-plates, produced some few years ago an extraordinary illustrated history of theAnabaptists in Münster. Many artists have essayed to portray madness, but I know of no work more terrible than his. We have travelled far from Leyden's peaceful studios. It is time tolook at the work of Gerard Dou. Rembrandt we have seen was the son ofa miller, Jan Steen of a brewer; the elder Dou was a glazier. His sonGerard was born in Leyden in 1613. The father was so far interestedin the boy's gifts that he apprenticed him to an engraver when hewas nine. At the age of eleven he passed to the studio of a painteron glass, and on St. Valentine's day, 1628, he became a pupil ofRembrandt. From Rembrandt, however, he seems to have learned onlythe charm of contrasts of light and shade. None of the great ruggedstrength of the master is to be seen in his minute and patient work, in which the genius of taking pains is always apparent. "He wouldfrequently, " says Ireland, "paint six or seven days on a hand, and, still more wonderful, twice the time on the handle of a broom. .. . Theminuteness of his performance so affected his sight that he worespectacles at the age of thirty. " Gerard Dou's success was not only artistic; it was alsofinancial. Rembrandt's prices did not compare with those of his pupil, whose art coming more within the sympathetic range and understandingof the ordinary man naturally was more sought after than the Titanicand less comfortable canvasses of the greater craftsman. Dou did exceedingly well, one of his patrons even paying him ayearly honorarium of a thousand florins for the privilege of havingthe refusal of each new picture. "The Poulterer's Shop" at ourNational Gallery is a perfect example of his fastidious minutenessand charm. But he painted pictures also with a tenderer brush. I giveon the opposite page a reproduction of the most charming picture byGerard Dou that I know--"The Young Housekeeper" at The Hague. Thisis a very miracle of painting in every inch, and yet the pains thathave been expended upon the cabbage and the fish are not for a momentdisproportionate: the cabbage and the fish, for all their finish, remain subordinate and appropriate details. The picture is the pictureof the mother and the children. "The Night School"--No. 795 in theRyks Museum at Amsterdam--is, I believe, more generally admired, but"The Young Housekeeper" is the better. "The Night School" might bedescribed as the work of a pocket Rembrandt; "The Young Housekeeper"is the work of an artist of rare individuality and sympathy. At theWallace Collection may be seen a hermit by Dou quite in his bestnocturnal manner. Gerard Dou died at Leyden, where he had spent nearly all his quietlife, in 1676. He is buried at St. Peter's, but his grave does notseem to be known there. Dou had many imitators, some of whom studied under him. One of thechief was Godfried Schalcken of Dort, whose picture of an "Old WomanScouring a Pan" may be seen in the National Gallery, while the WallaceCollection has several examples of his skill. Schalcken seems tohave been a man of great brusquerie, if two stories told by Irelandof his sojourn in England are true. William III. , for example, whensitting for his picture, with a candle in his hand, was suffered bySchalcken to burn his fingers. "One is at a loss, " says Ireland, "todetermine which was most to blame, the monarch for want of feeling, or the painter of politeness. The following circumstance, however, will place the deficiency of the latter beyond controversy. A ladysitting for her portrait, who was more admired for a beautiful handthan a handsome face, after the head was finished, asked him ifshe should take off her glove, that he might insert the hand in thepicture, to which he replied, he always painted the hands from thoseof his valet. " The most attractive picture by Schalcken that I haveseen is a girl sewing by candle light, in the Wallace Collection. Itpairs off with the charming little Gerard Dou at the Ryks--No. 796. Dou said that the "Prince of his pupils" was Frans van Mieris ofDelft, who combined the manner and predilections of his master withthose of Terburg. He was very popular with collectors, but I do notexperience any great joy in the presence of his work, which, with allits miraculous deftness, is yet lacking in personal feeling. Mieris, says Ireland, "was frequently paid a ducat per hour for his works. Hisintimacy and friendship for Jan Steen, that excellent painter andbon vivant, seems to have led him into much inconvenience. After anight's debauch, quitting Jan Steen, he fell into a common drain;whence he was extricated by a poor cobbler and his wife, and, treatedby them with much kindness, he repaid the obligation by presentingthem with a small picture, which, by his recommendation, was soldfor a considerable sum. " The amazingly minute picture of "The Poulterer's Shop" which hangs inthe National Gallery as a pendant to Dou's work with the same title, is by William van Mieris, the son of Dou's favourite pupil. He alsowas born at Leyden, that teeming mother of painters. Frans van Mieris, his father, died at Leyden in 1681; William died at Leyden in 1747. Above the work of Frans van Mieris I would put that of Gabriel Metsu, another of Dou's pupils, and also a son of Leyden, where he was bornin 1630. Upon Metsu's work Terburg, however, exercised more influencethan did Gerard Dou. "The Music Lesson" and "The Duet" at the NationalGallery are good examples of his pleasant painting. Even better ishis work at the Wallace Collection. He died in 1667 in Amsterdam, where one of his best pictures "The Breakfast"--No. 1553 at theRyks--may be seen. There are many fine examples at the Louvre. Hewas always graceful, always charming, with a favourite model--perhapshis wife--the pleasant plump woman who occurs again and again in hiswork. She is in "The Breakfast" (see the opposite page). Mention of Gerard Dou and his pupils reminds me of a little-knownsatire on art-criticism written by "Vathek" Beckford. _BiographicalMemoirs of Extraordinary Painters_ it is called, among the paintersbeing Sucrewasser of Vienna, and Watersouchy of Amsterdam. It isWatersouchy who concerns us, for he was a Dutch figure painter whocarried the art of detail farther than it had been carried before. Iquote a little from Beckford's account of this genius, since it helpsto bring back a day when the one thing most desired by the Englishcollector was a Dutch picture--still life, boors, cows, ruins, ordomestic interior--no matter what subject or how mechanically paintedso long as it was done minutely enough. "Whilst he remained at Amsterdam, young Watersouchy was continuallyimproving, and arrived to such perfection in copying point lace, that Mierhop entreated his father to cultivate these talents, and toplace his son under the patronage of Gerard Dow, ever renowned forthe exquisite finish of his pieces. Old Watersouchy stared at theproposal, and solemnly asked his wife, to whose opinion he alwayspaid a deference, whether painting was a genteel profession for theirson. Mierhop, who overheard their conversation, smiled disdainfullyat the question, and Madam Watersouchy answered, that she believed itwas one of your liberal arts. In few words, the father was persuaded, and Gerard Dow, then resident at Leyden, prevailed upon to receivethe son as a disciple. "Our young artist had no sooner his foot within his master's apartment, than he found every object in harmony with his own disposition. Thecolours finely ground, and ranged in the neatest boxes, the pencilsso delicate as to be almost imperceptible, the varnish in elegantphials, the easel just where it ought to be, filled him with agreeablesensations, and exalted ideas of his master's merit. Gerard Dow onhis side was equally pleased, when he saw him moving about with alldue circumspection, and noticing his little prettinesses at everystep. He therefore began his pupil's initiation with great alacrity, first teaching him cautiously to open the cabinet door, lest anyparticles of dust should be dislodged and fix upon his canvas, andadvising him never to take up his pencil without sitting motionlessa few minutes, till every mote casually floating in the air shouldbe settled. Such instructions were not thrown away upon Watersouchy:he treasured them up, and refined, if possible, upon such refinements. " In course of time Watersouchy gained the patronage of a rich butfrugal banker named Baise-la-Main, who seeing his value, arrangedfor the painter to occupy a room in his house, "Nobody, " Beckfordcontinues, "but the master of the house was allowed to enter thissanctuary. Here our artist remained six weeks in grinding his colours, composing an admirable varnish, and preparing his canvass, for aperformance he intended as his _chef d'oeuvre. _ A fortnight morepassed before he decided upon a subject. At last he determined tocommemorate the opulence of Monsieur Baise-la-Main, by a perspectiveof his counting-house. He chose an interesting moment, when heaps ofgold lay glittering on the counter, and citizens of distinction weresoliciting a secure repository for their plate and jewels. A Muscovitewrapped in fur, and an Italian glistening in brocade, occupied theforeground. The eye glancing over these figures highly finished, wasdirected through the windows of the shop into the area in front ofthe cathedral; of which, however, nothing was discovered, except twosheds before its entrance, where several barbers were represented attheir different occupations. An effect of sunshine upon the counterdiscovered every coin that was scattered upon its surface. On thesethe painter had bestowed such intense labour, that their very legendswere distinguishable. "It would be in vain to attempt conveying, by words, an idea adequateto this _chef d'oeuvre_, which must have been seen to have been dulyadmired. In three months it was far advanced; during which time ourartist employed his leisure hours in practising jigs and minuets onthe violin, and writing the first chapter of Genesis on a watchpaper, which he adorned with a miniature of Adam and Eve, so exquisitelyfinished, that every ligament in their fig-leaves was visible. Thislittle _jeu d'esprit_ he presented to Madam Merian. " Leyden's earliest painter was Lucas Jacobz, known as Lucas van Leyden, who was born in 1494. He painted in oil, in distemper and on glass;he took his subjects from nature and from scripture; he engraved betterthan he painted; and he was the friend of Dürer. Leyden possesses histriptych, "The Last Judgment, " which to me is interesting rather as apiece of pioneering than as a work apart. After settling for a while atMiddelburg and Antwerp, he returned to Leyden, where he died in 1533. In spite of her record as the mother of great painters, Leyden treatspictures with some indifference. The Municipal Museum has little thatis of value. Of most interest perhaps is the Peter van Veen, opposite"The Last Judgment, " representing a scene in the siege of Leyden bythe Spaniards under Valdez in 1574, which has a companion upstairsby Van Bree, depicting the Burgomaster's heroic feat of opportunismin the same period of stress. Adrian Van der Werf was this Burgomaster's name (his monument standsin the Van der Werf park), and nothing but his courage and addressat a critical moment saved the city. Motley tells the story in afine passage. "Meantime, the besieged city was at its last gasp. Theburghers had been in a state of uncertainty for many days; beingaware that the fleet had set forth for their relief, but knowingfull well the thousand obstacles which it had to surmount. They hadguessed its progress by the illumination from the blazing villages;they had heard its salvos of artillery on its arrival at North Aa;but since then, all had been dark and mournful again, hope and fear, in sickening alternation, distracting every breast. They knew thatthe wind was unfavourable, and, at the dawn of each day, every eye wasturned wistfully to the vanes of the steeples. So long as the easterlybreeze prevailed, they felt, as they anxiously stood on towers andhouse-tops that they must look in vain for the welcome ocean. Yet, while thus patiently waiting, they were literally starving; for eventhe misery endured at Harlem had not reached that depth and intensityof agony to which Leyden was now reduced. Bread, maltcake, horse-flesh, had entirely disappeared; dogs, cats, rats, and other vermin wereesteemed luxuries. A small number of cows, kept as long as possible, for their milk, still remained; but a few were killed from day to day, and distributed in minute proportions, hardly sufficient to supportlife among the famishing population. Starving wretches swarmed dailyaround the shambles where these cattle were slaughtered, contendingfor any morsel which might fall, and lapping eagerly the blood asit ran along the pavement; while the hides, chopped and boiled, were greedily devoured. "Women and children, all day long, were seen searching gutters anddung hills for morsels of food, which they disputed fiercely with thefamishing dogs. The green leaves were stripped from the trees, everyliving herb was converted into human food, but these expedients couldnot avert starvation. The daily mortality was frightful, --infantsstarved to death on the maternal breasts, which famine had parchedand withered; mothers dropped dead in the streets, with their deadchildren in their arms. "In many a house the watchmen, in their rounds, found a whole familyof corpses, father, mother and children, side by side; for a disordercalled the plague, naturally engendered of hardship and famine, nowcame, as if in kindness, to abridge the agony of the people. Thepestilence stalked at noonday through the city, and the doomedinhabitants fell like grass beneath it scythe. From six thousandto eight thousand human beings sank before this scourge alone, yetthe people resolutely held out--women and men mutually encouragingeach other to resist the entrance of their foreign foe--an evil morehorrible than pest or famine. [3] "The missives from Valdez, who saw more vividly than the besiegedcould do, the uncertainty of his own position, now poured daily intothe city, the enemy becoming more prodigal of his vows, as he felt thatthe ocean might yet save the victims from his grasp. The inhabitants, in their ignorance, had gradually abandoned their hopes of relief, but they spurned the summons to surrender. Leyden was sublime inits despair. A few murmurs were, however, occasionally heard atthe steadfastness of the magistrates, and a dead body was placedat the door of the burgomaster, as a silent witness against hisinflexibility. A party of the more faint-hearted even assailed theheroic Adrian Van der Werf with threats and reproaches as he passedthrough the streets. "A crowd had gathered around him, as he reached a triangular placein the centre of the town, into which many of the principal streetsemptied themselves, and upon one side of which stood the church ofSt. Pancras, with its high brick tower surmounted by two pointedturrets, and with two ancient lime trees at its entrance. There stoodthe burgomaster, a tall, haggard, imposing figure, with dark visage, and a tranquil but commanding eye. He waved his broad-leaved felt hatfor silence, and then exclaimed, in language which has been almostliterally preserved, 'What would ye, my friends? Why do ye murmur thatwe do not break our vows and surrender our city to the Spaniards?--afate more horrible than the agony which she now endures. I tell you Ihave made an oath to hold this city, and may God give me strength tokeep my oath! I can die but once; whether by your hands, the enemy's, or by the hand of God. My own fate is indifferent to me, not so thatof the city intrusted to my care. I know that we shall starve ifnot soon relieved; but starvation is preferable to the dishonoureddeath which is the only alternative. Your menaces move me not; mylife is at your disposal; here is my sword, plunge it into my breast, and divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease your hunger, but expect no surrender, so long as I remain alive. '" Leyden was at last relieved by William of Orange, who from hissick-bed had arranged for the piercing of the dykes and letting inenough water to swim his ships and rout the Spaniards. Out of tribulation comes good. For their constancy and endurancein the siege the Prince offered the people of Leyden one oftwo benefits--exemption from taxes or the establishment of aUniversity. They took the University. Chapter IX Haarlem Tulip culture--Early speculation--The song of the tulip--Dutch gardening new and old--A horticultural pilgrimage--The Haarlem dunes--Gardens without secrets--Zaandvoort--_Through Noord-Holland_ and its charms--The church of St. Bavo--Whitewash _v_. Mystery--The true father of the Reformation--Printing paves the way--The Hout--Laocoön and his sons--The siege of Haarlem--Dutch fortitude--The real Dutch courage--The implacable Alva--Broken promises--A tonic for Philip--The women of Haarlem--A pledge to mothers--The great organ--Three curious inhabitants--The Teyler Museum--Frans Hals--A king of abundance--Regent pieces--The secondary pictures in the Museum--Dirck Hals--Van der Helst--Adrian Brouwer--Nicolas Berchem--Ruisdael--The lost mastery--Echoes of the past. Haarlem being the capital of the tulip country, the time to visitit is the spring. To travel from Leyden to Haarlem by rail in Aprilis to pass through floods of colour, reaching their finest qualityabout Hillegom. The beds are too formal, too exactly parallel, to bebeautiful, except as sheets of scarlet or yellow; for careless beautyone must look to the heaps of blossoms piled up in the corners (laterto be used on the beds as a fertiliser), which are always beautiful, and doubly so when reflected in a canal. From a balloon, in theflowering season, the tulip gardens must look like patchwork quilts. Tulip Sunday, which represents the height of the season (correspondingto Chestnut Sunday at Bushey Park) is about the third Sunday inApril. One should be in Holland then. It is no country for hot weather:it has no shade, the trains become unbearable, and the canals arevery unpleasant. But in spring it is always fresh. Tulip cultivation is now a steady humdrum business, very differentfrom the early days of the fashion for the flower, in the seventeenthcentury, when speculators lost their heads over bulbs as thoroughly asover South-Sea stock in the great Bubble period. Thousands of florinswere given for a single bulb. The bulb, however, did not always changehands, often serving merely as a gambling basis; it even may not haveexisted at all. Among genuine connoisseurs genuine sales would ofcourse be made, and it is recorded that a "Semper Augustus" bulb wasonce bought for 13, 000 florins. At last the Government interfered;gambling was put down; and "Semper Augustus" fell to fifty florins. It was to Haarlem, it will be remembered, that the fair Frisiantravelled with Cornelius van Baerle's solitary flower in _La TulipeNoire_, and won the prize of 100, 000 florins offered for a blossomof pure nigritude by the Horticultural Society of Haarlem. Hence theaddition of the Tulipa Nigra Rosa Baerleensis to the list of desirablebulbs. Dumas puts into the mouth of Cornelius a very charming songof the tulip:-- Nous sommes les filles du feu secret, Du feu qui circule dans les veines de la terre; Nous sommes les filles de l'aurore et de la rosée, Nous sommes les filles de l'air, Nous sommes les filles de l'eau; Mais nous sommes avant tout les filles du ciel. The Dutch are now wholly practical. Their reputation as gardeners hasbecome a commercial one, resting upon the fortunate discovery that thetulip and the hyacinth thrive in the sandy soil about Haarlem. Forflowers as flowers they seem to me to care little or nothing. Theircottages have no pretty confusion of blossoms as in our villages. Younever see the cottager at work among his roses; once his necessarylabours are over, he smokes and talks to his neighbours: to growflowers for æsthetic reasons were too ornamental, too unproductivea hobby. Æsthetically the Dutch are dead, or are alive only in thematter of green paint, which they use with such charming effect ontheir houses, their mills and their boats. What is pretty is old--asindeed is the case in our own country, if we except gardens. ModernDutch architecture is without attraction, modern Delft porcelain athing to cry over. If any one would know how an old formal Dutch garden looked, there isa model one at the back of the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam. But the artis no more practised. A few circular beds in the lawn, surroundedby high wire netting--that is for the most part the modern notionof gardening. In an interesting report of a visit paid to theNetherlands and France in 1817 by the secretary of the CaledoniaHorticultural Society and some congenial companions, may be readexcellent descriptions of old Dutch gardening, which even then wasa thing of the past. Here is the account of a typical formal garden, near Utrecht: "The large divisions of the garden are made by tall andthick hedges of beech, hornbeam, and oak, variously shaped, havingbeen tied to frames and thus trained, with the aid of the shears, tothe desired form. The smaller divisions are made by hedges of yew andbox, which in thickness and density resemble walls of brick. Grottoesand fountains are some of the principal ornaments. The grottoes areadorned with masses of calcareous stuff, corals and shells, someof them apparently from the East Indies, others natives of our ownseas. The principal grotto is large, and studded with thousands ofcrystals and shells. We were told that its construction was the labourof twelve years. The fountains are of various devices, and thoughold, some of them were still capable of being put in action. Frogsand lizards placed at the edgings of the walks, and spouting waterto the risk of passengers, were not quite so agreeable; and otherfigures were still in worse taste. "There is a long berceau walk of beech, with numerous windows oropenings in the leafy side wall, and many statues and busts, chiefly ofItalian marble, some of them of exquisite workmanship. Several largeurns and vases certainly do honour to the sculptor. The subjects ofthe bas-relief ornaments are the histories of Saul and David, and ofEsther and Ahasuerus. " I saw no old Dutch garden in Holland which seemed to me so attractiveas that at Levens in Westmorland. It is important at Haarlem to take a drive over the dunes--the billowy, grassy sand hills which stretch between the city and the sea. If itis in April one can begin the drive by passing among every varietyof tulip and hyacinth, through air made sweet and heavy by theseflowers. Just outside Haarlem the road passes the tiniest deer parkthat ever I saw--with a great house, great trees, a lawn and a handfulof deer all packed as close as they can be. Now and then one sees astork's nest high on a pole before a house. On leaving the green and luxuriant flat country a climbing pavé roadwinds in and out among the pines on the edge of the dunes; past littlevillas, belonging chiefly to Amsterdam business men, each surrounded bya naked garden with the merest suggestion of a boundary. For the Dutchdo not like walls or hedges. This level open land having no naturalsecrecy, it seems as if its inhabitants had decided there should beno artificial secrecy either. When they sit in their gardens theylike to be seen. An Englishman's first care when he plans a countryestate is not to be overlooked; a Dutchman would cut down every treethat intervened between his garden chair and the high road. Fun has often been made of the names which the Dutch merchants giveto their country houses, but they seem to me often to be chosen withmore thought than those of similar villas in our country. Here area few specimens: Buiten Gedachten (Beyond Expectation), Ons Genoegen(Our Contentment), Lust en Rust (Pleasure and Rest), Niet Zoo Quaalyk(Not so Bad), Myn Genegenhied is Voldaan (My Desire is Satisfied), Mijn Lust en Leven (My Pleasure and Life), Vriendschap en Gezelschap(Friendship and Sociability), Vreugde bij Vrede (Joy with Peace), GrootGenoeg (Large Enough), Buiten Zorg (Without Care). These names at anyrate convey sentiments which we may take to express their owners'true feelings in their owners' own language; and as such I preferthem to the "Chatsworths" and "Belle-vues, " "Cedars" and "Towers, "with which the suburbs of London teem. In a small inland street inBrighton the other day I noticed a "Wave Crest". The dunes extend for miles: an empty wilderness of sand with thegrey North Sea beyond. From the high points one sees inland not onlyHaarlem, just below, but the domes and spires of Amsterdam beyond. One may return to Haarlem by way of Bloemendaal, a green valleywith shady walks and a good hotel; or extend the drive to Haarlem'swatering-place Zaandvoort, which otherwise can be gained by steam-tram, and where, says the author of _Through Noord-Holland_, "the billowingis strong and strengthening". The same author tells us also that"the ponnies and asses have a separated standing-place, whilstsevere stipulations warrant the bathers for trouble of the animalsand their driver". Of this book I ought perhaps to say more, for I am greatly indebtedto it. Most of the larger towns of Holland have guides, and forthe most part they are written in good English, albeit of Dutchextraction; but _Through Noord-Holland_ is an agreeable exceptionin that it covers all the ground between Amsterdam and the Helder, and is constructed in a peculiar sport of Babel. In Dutch it is Ihave no doubt an ordinary guide-book; in English it is something farmore precious. The following extract from the preface to the secondedition ought to be quoted before I borrow further from its pages:-- Being completed with the necessary alterations and corrections Isend it into the world for the second time. As it will be publishedbesides in Dutch also in French and English, the aim of the editionwill surely be favoured, and our poor misappreciated country thatso often is regarded with contempt by our countrymen as well as byforeigners will soon be an attraction for tourists. For were not itthose large extensive quiet heatheries those rustling green woods andthose quiet low meadows which inspired our great painters to bringtheir fascinating landscapes on the cloth? Had not that bloomy skyand that sunny mysterious light, those soft green meadows with theirmulti-coloured flowers, through which the river is streaming as asilver band, had not all this a quieting influence to the agitated mindof many of us, did not it give the quiet rest and did not it whisperto you; here . .. Here is it good? And for this our country we wantto be a reliable guide by the directions of which we can savely start. With Zaandvoort we may associate Dirck van Santvoort who painted theportrait of the curious girl--No. 2133 at the Ryks Museum--reproducedopposite page 236. Of the painter very little is known. He belongsto the great period, flourishing in the middle of the seventeenthcentury--and that is all. But he had a very cunning hand and aninteresting mind, as the few pictures to his name attest. In the sameroom at the Ryks Museum where the portrait hangs is a large group ofladies and gentlemen, all wearing some of the lace which he dearlyloved to paint. And in one of the recesses of the Gallery of Honouris a quaint little lady from his delicate brush--No. 2131--wellworth study. Haarlem's great church, which is dedicated to St. Bavo, is oneof the finest in Holland. All that is needed to make it perfectis an infusion of that warmth and colour which once it possessedbut of which so few traces have been allowed to remain. The DutchProtestants, as I remarked at Utrecht, have shown singular efficiencyin denuding religion of its external graces and charm. There isno church so beautiful but they would reduce it to bleak and aridcheerlessness. Place even the cathedral of Chartres in a Dutchmarket-place, and it would be a whitewashed desert in a week, whilelittle shops and houses would be built against its sacred walls. Thereis hardly a great church in Holland but has some secular domicileclinging like a barnacle to its sides. The attitude of the Dutch to their churches is in fact very much thatof Quakers to their meeting-houses--even to the retention of hats. Butwhereas it is reasonable for a Quaker, having made for himself asplain a rectangular building as he can, to attach no sanctity to it, there is an incongruity when the same attitude is maintained amidbeautiful Gothic arches. The result is that Dutch churches are morethan chilling. In the simplest English village church one receivessome impression of the friendliness of religion; but in Holland--ofcourse I speak as a stranger and a foreigner--religion seems to bea cold if not a repellent thing. One result is that on looking back over one's travels throughHolland it is almost impossible to disentangle in the memory onewhitewashed church from another. They have a common monotony ofinternal aridity: one distinguishes them, if at all, by some accidentalpossession--Gouda, for example, by its stained glass; Haarlem by itsorgan, and the swinging ships; Delft by the tomb of William the Silent;Utrecht by the startling absence of an entrance fee. At Haarlem, as it happens, one is peculiarly able to study cause andeffect in this matter of Protestant bleakness, since there standsbefore the door of this wonderful church, once a Roman Catholictemple, drenched, I doubt not, in mystery and colour, a certainsignificant statue. To Erasmus of Rotterdam is generally given the parentage of theReformation. Whatever his motives, Erasmus stands as the forerunnerof Luther. But Erasmus had his forerunner too, the discoverer ofprinting. For had not a means of rapidly multiplying and cheapeningbooks been devised, the people, who were after all the back-bone ofthe Reformation, would never have had the opportunity of themselvesreading the Bible--either the Vulgate or Erasmus's New Testament--andthus seeing for themselves how wide was the gulf fixed between Christand the Christians. It was the discovery of this discrepancy whichprepared them to stand by the reformers, and, by supporting them andurging them on, assist them to victory. Stimulated by the desire to be level with Rome for his own earlyfetters, and desiring also an antagonist worthy of his satiricalpowers, Erasmus (or so I think) hit independently upon the need fora revised Bible. But Luther to a large extent was the outcome of histimes and of popular feeling. A spokesman was needed, and Lutherstepped forward. The inventor of printing made the way possible;Erasmus showed the way; Luther took it. Now the honour of inventing printing lies between two claimants, Laurens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem (the original of this statue) andGutenburg of Mayence. The Dutch like to think that Coster was the man, and that his secret was sold to Gutenburg by his servant Faust. Be thatas it may--and the weight of evidence is in favour of Gutenburg--itis interesting as one stands by the statue of Coster under the shadowof Haarlem's great church to think that this was perhaps the trueparent of that great upheaval, the true pavior of the way. Whatever Coster's claim to priority may be, he certainly was a printer, and it is only fitting that Haarlem should possess so fine a libraryof early books and MSS. As it does. Another monument to Coster is to be seen in the Hout, a wood of whichHaarlem is very proud. It has a fine avenue called the SpanjaardsLaan, and is a very pleasant shady place in summer, hardly inferiorto the Bosch at The Hague. "The delightful walks of the Hout, " saysthe author of _Through Noord-Holland_, "and the caressing song of thenightingale and other birds, do not only invite the Haarlemmers to it, but the citizens of the neighbouring towns as well. " On the border of the wood is a pavilion which holds the collectionsof Colonial curiosities. In front of the pavilion (I quote again from_Through Noord-Holland_, which is invaluable), "stands a casting ofLaskson and his sons to a knot, which has been manufactured in thelast centuries before Christ. The original has been digged up at Romein 1500. " Shade of Lessing! The cannon-ball embedded in the wall of the church, which the sacristanshows with so much interest, recalls Haarlem's great siege in 1572--asiege notable in the history of warfare for the courage and enduranceof the townspeople against terrible odds. The story is worth tellingin full, but I have not space and Motley is very accessible. But Isketch, with his assistance, its salient features. The attack began in mid-winter, when Haarlem Mere, a great lake in theeast which has since been drained and poldered, was frozen over. Forsome time a dense fog covered it, enabling loads of provisions andarms to be safely conveyed into the city. Don Frederic, the son of the Duke of Alva, who commanded the Spanish, began with a success that augured well, a force of 4, 000 men whichmarched from Leyden under De la Marck being completely routed. Amongthe captives taken by the Spaniards, says Motley, was "a gallantofficer, Baptist Van Trier, for whom De la Marck in vain offeredtwo thousand crowns and nineteen Spanish prisoners. The propositionwas refused with contempt. Van Trier was hanged upon the gallowsby one leg until he was dead, in return for which barbarity thenineteen Spaniards were immediately gibbeted by De la Marck. Withthis interchange of cruelties the siege may be said to have opened. "Don Frederic had stationed himself in a position opposite to thegate of the Cross, which was not very strong, but fortified by aravelin. Intending to make a very short siege of it, he establishedhis batteries immediately, and on the 18th, 19th, and 20th Decemberdirected a furious cannonade against the Cross-gate, the St. John'sgate, and the curtain between the two. Six hundred and eighty shotswere discharged on the first, and nearly as many on each of the twosucceeding days. The walls were much shattered, but men, women, and children worked night and day within the city, repairing thebreaches as fast as made. They brought bags of sand, blocks of stone, cart-loads of earth from every quarter, and they stripped the churchesof all their statues, which they threw by heaps into the gaps. Theysought thus a more practical advantage from those sculptured saintsthan they could have gained by only imploring their interpositionThe fact, however, excited horror among the besiegers. Men who weredaily butchering their fellow-beings, and hanging their prisoners incold blood, affected to shudder at the enormity of the offence thusexercised against graven images. "After three days' cannonade, the assault was ordered, Don Fredericonly intending a rapid massacre, to crown his achievements at Zutphenand Naarden. The place, he thought, would fall in a week, and afteranother week of sacking, killing, and ravishing, he might sweep onto 'pastures new' until Holland was overwhelmed. Romero advanced tothe breach, followed by a numerous storming party, but met with aresistance which astonished the Spaniards. The church bells rang thealarm throughout the city, and the whole population swarmed to thewalls. The besiegers were encountered not only with sword and musket, but with every implement which the burghers' hands could find. Heavystones, boiling oil, live coals, were hurled upon the heads of thesoldiers; hoops, smeared with pitch and set on fire, were dexterouslythrown upon their necks. Even Spanish courage and Spanish ferocitywere obliged to shrink before the steady determination of a wholepopulation animated by a single spirit. Romero lost an eye in theconflict, many officers were killed and wounded, and three or fourhundred soldiers left dead in the breach, while only three or four ofthe townsmen lost their lives. The signal of recall was reluctantlygiven, and the Spaniards abandoned the assault. "Don Frederic was now aware that Haarlem would not fall at his feetat the first sound of his trumpet. It was obvious that a siege mustprecede the massacre. He gave orders, therefore, that the ravelinshould be undermined, and doubted not that, with a few days' delay, the place would be in his hands. " The Prince of Orange then made, from Sassenheim, another attempt torelieve the town, sending 2, 000 men. But a fog falling, they losttheir way and fell into the enemy's hands. "De Koning, " says Motley, "second in command, was among the prisoners. The Spaniards cut off hishead and threw it over the walls into the city, with this inscription:'This is the head of Captain De Koning, who is on his way withreinforcements for the good city of Haarlem'. The citizens retortedwith a practical jest, which was still more barbarous. They cut off theheads of eleven prisoners and put them into a barrel, which they threwinto the Spanish camp. A label upon the barrel contained these words:'Deliver these ten heads to Duke Alva in payment of his tenpenny tax, with one additional head for interest'. " Day after day the attack continued and was repulsed. Meanwhile, unknown to the Spaniards, the besieged burghers were silentlyand swiftly building inside the ravelin a solid half-moon shapedbattlement. On the 31st of December, the last day of 1572, the greatassault was made. "The attack was unexpected, but the forty or fiftysentinels defended the walls while they sounded the alarm. The tocsinbells tolled, and the citizens, whose sleep was not apt to be heavyduring that perilous winter, soon manned the ramparts again. Thedaylight came upon them while the fierce struggle was still at itsheight. The besieged, as before, defended themselves with musketand rapier, with melted pitch, with firebrands, with clubs andstones. Meantime, after morning prayers in the Spanish camp, thetrumpet for a general assault was sounded. A tremendous onset was madeupon the gate of the Cross, and the ravelin was carried at last. TheSpaniards poured into this fort, so long the object of their attack, expecting instantly to sweep into the city with sword and fire. Asthey mounted its wall they became for the first time aware of thenew and stronger fortification which had been secretly constructed onthe inner side. The reason why the ravelin had been at last concededwas revealed. The half moon, whose existence they had not suspected, rose before them bristling with cannon, A sharp fire was instantlyopened upon the besiegers, while at the same instant the ravelin, which the citizens had undermined, blew up with a severe explosion, carrying into the air all the soldiers who had just entered it sotriumphantly. This was the turning point. The retreat was sounded, andthe Spaniards fled to their camp, leaving at least three hundred deadbeneath the walls. Thus was a second assault, made by an overwhelmingforce and led by the most accomplished generals of Spain, signallyand gloriously repelled by the plain burghers of Haarlem. " Cold and famine now began to assist the Spaniards, and the townsfolkwere reduced to every privation. The Spaniards also suffered and DonFrederic wished to raise the siege. He suggested this step to hisfather, but Alva was made of sterner stuff. He sent from Nymwegen agrim message: "'Tell Don Frederic, ' said Alva, 'that if he be notdecided to continue the siege till the town be taken, I shall nolonger consider him my son, whatever my opinion may formerly havebeen. _Should he fall in the siege_, I will myself take the field tomaintain it; and when we have both perished, the Duchess, my wife, shall come from Spain to do the same. ' Such language was unequivocal, and hostilities were resumed as fiercely as before. The besiegedwelcomed them with rapture, and, as usual, made daily the mostdesperate sallies. In one outbreak the Haarlemers, under cover of athick fog, marched up to the enemy's chief battery, and attempted tospike the guns before his face. They were all slain at the cannon'smouth, whither patriotism, not vainglory, had led them, and lay deadaround the battery, with their hammers and spikes in their hands. Thesame spirit was daily manifested. As the spring advanced, the kine wentdaily out of the gates to their peaceful pasture, notwithstanding allthe turmoil within and around; nor was it possible for the Spaniardsto capture a single one of these creatures, without paying at leasta dozen soldiers as its price. 'These citizens, ' wrote Don Frederic, 'do as much as the best soldiers in the world could do. '" The whole story is too dreadful to be told; but events proved theimplacable old soldier to be right. Month after month passed, assaultafter assault was repulsed by the wretched but indomitable burghers;but time was all on the side of the enemy. On July 12th, after thefrustration again and again of hopes of relief from the Prince ofOrange, whose plans were doomed to failure on every occasion, the citysurrendered on the promise of complete forgiveness by Don Frederic. The Don, however, was only a subordinate; the Duke of Alva had otherviews. He quickly arrived on the scene, and as quickly his presencemade itself felt. "The garrison, during the siege, had been reducedfrom four thousand to eighteen hundred. Of these the Germans, sixhundred in number, were, by Alva's order, dismissed, on a pledgeto serve no more against the King. All the rest of the garrisonwere immediately butchered, with at least as many citizens. .. . Fiveexecutioners, with their attendants, were kept constantly at work; andwhen at last they were exhausted with fatigue, or perhaps sickened withhorror, three hundred wretches were tied two and two, back to back, and drowned in the Haarlem Lake. At last, after twenty-three hundredhuman creatures had been murdered in cold blood, within a city whereso many thousands had previously perished by violent or by lingeringdeaths; the blasphemous farce of a pardon was enacted. Fifty-sevenof the most prominent burghers of the place were, however, exceptedfrom the act of amnesty, and taken into custody as security for thefuture good conduct of the other citizens. Of these hostages some weresoon executed, some died in prison, and all would have been eventuallysacrificed, had not the naval defeat of Bossu soon afterwards enabledthe Prince of Orange to rescue the remaining prisoners. Ten thousandtwo hundred and fifty-six shots had been discharged against the walkduring the siege. Twelve thousand of the besieging army had died ofwounds or disease during the seven months and two days between theinvestment and the surrender. In the earlier part of August, afterthe executions had been satisfactorily accomplished, Don Fredericmade his triumphal entry, and the first chapter in the invasion ofHolland was closed. Such was the memorable siege of Haarlem, an eventin which we are called upon to wonder equally at human capacity toinflict and to endure misery. "Philip was lying dangerously ill at the wood of Segovia, when thehappy tidings of the reduction of Haarlem, with its accompanyingbutchery, arrived. The account of all this misery, minutely detailedto him by Alva, acted like magic. The blood of twenty-three hundredof his fellow-creatures--coldly murdered by his orders, in a singlecity--proved for the sanguinary monarch the elixir of life: he drankand was refreshed. '_The principal medicine which has cured hisMajesty, _' wrote Secretary Cayas from Madrid to Alva, 'is the joycaused to him by the _good news_ which you have communicated of _thesurrender of Haarlem_. '" I know nothing of the women of Haarlem to-day, but in the sixteenthcentury they were among the bravest and most efficient in theworld, and it was largely their efforts and example which enabledthe city to hold out so long. Motley describes them as a corps ofthree hundred fighting women, "all females of respectable character, armed with sword, musket, and dagger. Their chief, Kenau Hasselaer, was a widow of distinguished family, and unblemished reputation, about forty-seven years of age, who, at the head of her amazons, participated in many of the most fiercely contested actions of thesiege, both within and without the walls. When such a spirit animatedthe maids and matrons of the city, it might be expected that the menwould hardly surrender the place without a struggle. " Haarlem still preserves the pretty custom of hanging lace bythe doors of houses which the stork is expected to visit or hasjust visited. Its origin was the humanity of the Spanish general, during this great siege, in receiving a deputation of matrons fromthe town and promising protection from his soldiery of all women inchildbed. Every house was to go unharmed upon which a piece of lacesignifying a confinement was displayed. This was a promise with whichthe Duke of Alva seems not to have interfered. The author of _Through Noord-Holland_ thus eloquently describes theeffect of Haarlem's great organ--for long the finest in the world:"Vibrating rolls the tone through the church-building, followedby sweet melodies, running through each register of it; now onehears the sound of trumpets or soft whistling tunes then again pianomusic or melancholical hautboy tunes chiming as well is deceivinglyimitated. " Free recitals are given on Tuesdays and Thursdays fromone to two. On other days the organist can be persuaded to play fora fee. Charles Lamb's friend Fell paid a ducat to the organist andhalf a crown to the blower, and heard as much as he wanted. He foundthe vox humana "the voice of a psalm-singing clerk". Other travellershave been more fortunate. Ireland tells us that when Handel playedthis organ the organist took him either for an angel or a devil. Among Haarlem's architectural attractions is the very interesting MeatMarket, hard by the great church, one of the most agreeable piecesof floridity between the Middelburg stadhuis and the Leeuwardenchancellerie. There is also the fine Amsterdam Gate, on the roadto Amsterdam. In the Teyler Museum, on the Spaarne, is a poor collection ofmodern oil paintings, some good modern water colours and a very finecollection of drawings by the masters, including several Rembrandts. Inthis room one may well plan to spend much time. One of the best Israelsthat I saw in Holland is a little water-colour interior that is hunghere. I asked one of the attendants if they had anything by MatthewMaris, but he denied his existence. James he knew, and William; butthere was no Matthew. "But he is your most distinguished artist, "I said. It was great heresy and not to be tolerated. To the ordinaryDutchman art begins with Rembrandt and ends with Israels. This perhapsis why Matthew Maris has taken refuge in St. John's Wood. And now we come to Haarlem's chief glory--which is not Coster theprinter, and not the church of Bavo the Saint, and not the tulipgardens, and not the florid and beautiful Meat Market; but the painterFrans Hals, whose masterpieces hang in the Town Hall. I have called Hals the glory of Haarlem, yet he was only an adoptedson, having been born in Antwerp about 1580. But his parents weretrue Haarlemers, and Frans was a resident there before he reachedman's estate. The painter's first marriage was not happy; he was even publiclyreprimanded for cruelty to his wife. In spite of the birth of hiseldest child just thirty-four weeks earlier than the proprietiesrequire, his second marriage seems to have been fortunate enough. Somethink that we see Mynheer and Myvrouw Hals in the picture--No. 1084in the Ryks Museum--which is reproduced on the opposite page. If thisjovial and roguish pair are really the painter and his wife, they werea merry couple. Children they had in abundance; seven sons, five ofwhom were painters, and three daughters. Abundance indeed was Hals'special characteristic; you see it in all his work--vigorous, carelessabundance and power. He lived to be eighty-five or so. Mrs. Hals, after a married life of fifty years, continued to flourish, with theassistance of some relief from the town, for a considerable period. In the Haarlem Museum may be seen a picture of Hals' studio, paintedby Berck Heyde, in 1652, containing portraits of Hals himself, thenabout seventy, and several of his old pupils--Wouvermans, Dirck Hals, his brother, four of his sons, the artist himself and others. Halstaught also Van der Helst, whose work at times comes nearest to hisown, Verspronk, Terburg and Adrian van Ostade. To see the work of Hals at his best it is necessary to visit Holland, for we have but little here. The "Laughing Cavalier" in the WallaceCollection is perhaps his best picture in a public gallery inEngland. But the Haarlem Museum is a temple dedicated to his fame, and there you may revel in his lusty powers. The room in which his great groups hang is perhaps in effect morefilled with faces than any in the world. Entering the door one isimmediately beneath the bold and laughing scrutiny of a host of genialmasterful arquebusiers, who make merry on the walls for all time. Sucha riot of vivid portraiture never was! Other men have painted singleheads as well or better: but Hals stands alone in his gusto, hisabundance, his surpassing brio. It is a thousand pities that neitherLamb nor Hazlitt ever made the journey to Haarlem, because only theyamong our writers on art could have brought a commensurate gusto tothe praise of his brush. I have reproduced one of the groups opposite page 150, but the resultis no more than a memento of the original. It conveys, however, an impression of the skill in composition by which the group ismade not only a collection of portraits but a picture too. If suchgroups there must be, this is the way to paint them. The Dutch inthe seventeenth century had a perfect mania for these commemorativecanvases, and there is not a stadhuis but has one or more. Rembrandt's"Night Watch" and Hals' Haarlem groups are the greatest; but oneis always surprised by the general level of excellence maintained, and now and then a lesser man such as Van der Helst climbs very nighthe rose, as in his "De Schuttersmaaltyd" in the "Night Watch" roomin the Ryks Museum. The Corporation pieces of Jan van Ravesteyn inthe Municipal Museum at The Hague are also exceedingly vivid; whileJan de Bray's canvases at Haarlem, in direct competition with Hals', would be very good indeed in the absence of their rivals. Among other painters who can be studied here is our Utrecht friend Janvan Scorel, who has a large "Adam and Eve" in the passage and a famous"Baptism of Christ"; Jan Verspronk of Haarlem, Hals' pupil, who has avery quiet and effective portrait (No. 210) and a fine rich group ofthe lady managers of an orphanage; and Cornelius Cornellessen, also ofHaarlem, painter of an excellent Corporation Banquet. In the collectionare also a very charming little Terburg (No. 194) and a fascinatingunsigned portrait of William III. As a pale and wistful boy. Haarlem was the mother or instructor of many painters. There is DirckHals, the brother of Frans, who was born there at the end of thesixteenth century, and painted richly coloured scenes of fashionableconvivial life. He died at Haarlem ten years before Frans. A greaterwas Bartholomew van der Helst, who was Hals' most assimilativepupil. He was born at Haarlem about 1612, and is supposed to havestudied also under Nicolas Elias. His finest large work is undoubtedlythe "Banquet" to which I have just referred, but I always associatehim with his portrait of Gerard Bicker, Landrichter of Muiden, thatsplendid tun of a man, No. 1140 in the Gallery of Honour at the RyksMuseum (see opposite page 86). One of his most beautiful paintingsis a portrait of a woman in our National Gallery, on a screen in thelarge Netherlands room: a picture which shows the influence of Eliasnot a little, as any one can see who recalls Nos. 897 and 899 in theRyks Museum--two very beautiful portraits of a man and his wife. Haarlem and Oudenarde both claim the birth of Adrian Brouwer, a painterof Dutch topers. As to his life little is known. Tradition says thathe drank and dissipated his earnings, while his work is evidence thathe knew inn life with some particularity; but his epitaph calls him"a man of great mind who rejected every splendour of the world andwho despised gain and riches". Brouwer, who was born about 1606, was put by his mother, a dressmaker at Haarlem, into the studio ofFrans Hals. Hals bullied him, as he bullied his first wife. Escapingto Amsterdam, Brouwer became a famous painter, his pictures beingacquired, among others, by Rembrandt in his wealthy days, and byRubens. He died at Antwerp when only thirty-three. We have nothingof his in the National Gallery, but he is represented at the WallaceCollection. At Haarlem was born also, in 1620, Nicolas Berchem, painter of charmingscenes of broken arches and columns (which he certainly never saw inhis own country), made human and domestic by the presence of peopleand cows, and suffused with gentle light. We have five of his picturesin the National Gallery. Berchem's real name was Van Haarlem. Oneday, however, when he was a pupil in Van Goyen's studio, his fatherpursued him for some fault. Van Goyen, who was a kindly creature, as became the father-in-law of Jan Steen, called out to his otherpupils--"Berg hem" (Hide him!) and the phrase stuck, and became hisbest-known name. Nicolas married a termagant, but never allowed herto impair his cheerful disposition. Haarlem was the birthplace also of Jacob van Ruisdael, greatest ofDutch landscape painters. He was born about 1620. His idea was tobe a doctor, but Nicolas Berchem induced him to try painting, and wecannot be too thankful for the change. His landscapes have a deep andgrave beauty: the clouds really seem to be floating across the sky;the water can almost be heard tumbling over the stones. Ruisdaeldid not find his typical scenery in his native land: he travelled inGermany and Italy, and possibly in Norway; but whenever he painteda strictly Dutch scene he excelled. He died at Haarlem in 1682; andone of his most exquisite pictures hangs in the Museum. I do not giveany reproductions of Ruisdael because his work loses so much in theprocess. At the National Gallery and at the Wallace Collection he iswell represented. Walking up and down beneath the laughing confidence of these manybold faces in the great Hals' room at Haarlem I found myself repeatingLongfellow's lines:-- He has singed the beard of the King of Spain, And carried away the Dean of Jaen And sold him in Algiers. Surely the hero, Simon Danz, was something such a man as Halspainted. How does the ballad run?-- A DUTCH PICTURE. Simon Danz has come home again, From cruising about with his buccaneers; He has singed the beard of the King of Spain, And carried away the Dean of Jaen And sold him in Algiers. In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles And weathercocks flying aloft in air, There are silver tankards of antique styles, Plunder of convent and castle, and piles Of carpets rich and rare. In his tulip garden there by the town Overlooking the sluggish stream, With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown The old sea-captain, hale and brown, Walks in a waking dream. A smile in his gray mustachio lurks Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain. And the listed tulips look like Turks, And the silent gardener as he works Is changed to the Dean of Jaen. The windmills on the outermost Verge of the landscape in the haze, To him are towers on the Spanish coast, With whisker'd sentinels at their post, Though this is the river Maese. But when the winter rains begin, He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, And old sea-faring men come in, Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin, And rings upon their hands. They sit there in the shadow and shine Of the flickering fire of the winter night, Figures in colour and design Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, Half darkness and half light. And they talk of their ventures lost or won, And their talk is ever and ever the same, While they drink the red wine of Tarragon, From the cellars of some Spanish Don, Or convent set on flame. Restless at times, with heavy strides He paces his parlour to and fro; He is like a ship that at anchor rides, And swings with the rising and falling tides And tugs at her anchor-tow. Voices mysterious far and near, Sound of the wind and sound of the sea, Are calling and whispering in his ear, "Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here? Come forth and follow me!" So he thinks he shall take to the sea again, For one more cruise with his buccaneers; To singe the beard of the King of Spain, And capture another Dean of Jaen And sell him in Algiers. One thought leads to another. It is impossible also to remain longin the great Hals' room of the Museum without meditating a littleupon the difference between these arquebusiers and the Dutch of thepresent day. Passing among these people, once so mighty and ambitious, so great in government and colonisation, in seamanship and painting, and seeing them now so material and self-centred, so bound withintheir own small limits, so careless of literature and art, so intentupon the profits of the day and the pleasures of next Sunday, one hasa vision of what perhaps may be our own lot. For the Dutch are verynear us in kin, and once were nigh as great as we have been. Are we, in our day of decadence, to shrivel thus? "There but for the graceof God goes England"--is that a reasonable utterance? One sees the difference concretely as one passes from these manyCorporation and Regent pieces in the galleries of Holland to theliving Dutchmen of the streets. I saw it particularly at Haarlemon a streaming wet day, after hurrying from the Museum to theCafé Brinkmann through some inches of water. At a table opposite, sipping their coffee, were two men strikingly like two of Frans Hals'arquebusiers. Yet how unlike. For the air of masterful recklessness hadgone, that good-humoured glint of power in the eye was no more. Halshad painted conquerors, or at any rate warriors for country; thesecoffee drinkers were meditating profit and loss. Where once wasauthority is now calculation. I quote a little poem by Mr. Van Lennep of Zeist, near Utrecht, which shows that the Dutch, whatever their present condition, havenot forgotten:-- The shell, when put to child-like ears, Yet murmurs of its bygone years, In echoes of the sea; The Dutch-born youngster likes the sound, And ponders o'er its mystic ground And wondrous memory. Thus, in Dutch hearts, an echo dwells, Which, like the ever-mindful shells, Yet murmurs of the sea: That sea, of ours in times of yore, And, when De Ruyter went before, Our road to victory. Chapter X Amsterdam The Venice of the North--The beauty of gravity--No place for George Dyer--The Keizersgracht--Kalverstraat and Warmoes Straat--The Ghetto--Pile-driving--Erasmus's sarcasm--The new Bourse--Learning the city--Tramway perplexities--The unnecessary guide--The Royal Palace--The New Church--Stained glass--The Old Church--The five carpets--Wedding customs--Dutch wives to-day and in the past--The Begijnenhof--The new religion and the old--The Burgerweesmeisjes--The Eight Orange Blossoms--Dutch music halls--A Dutch Hamlet--The fish market--Rembrandt's grave--A nation of shopkeepers--_Max Havelaar_--Mr. Drystubble's device--Lothario and Betsy--The English in Holland and the Dutch in England--Athleticism--A people on skates--The chaperon's perplexity--Love on the level. Amsterdam is notable for two possessions above others: its oldcanals and its old pictures. Truly has it been called the Veniceof the North; but very different is its sombre quietude from thesunny Italian city among the waters. There is a beauty of gaietyand a beauty of gravity; and Amsterdam in its older parts--on theKeizersgracht and the Heerengracht--has the beauty of gravity. InVenice the canal is of course also the street: gondolas and barcasare continually gliding hither and thither; but in the Keizersgrachtand the Heerengracht the water is little used. One day, however, I watched a costermonger steering a boat-load of flowers under abridge, and no words of mine can describe the loveliness of theirreflection. I remember the incident particularly because flowers arenot much carried in Holland, and it is very pleasant to have thisimpression of them--this note of happy gaiety in so dark a setting. An unprotected roadway runs on either side of the water, which makesthe houses beside these canals no place for Charles Lamb's friend, George Dyer, to visit in. Accidents are not numerous, but a companyexists in Amsterdam whose business it is to rescue such odd dippersas horses and carriages by means of elaborate machinery devised forthe purpose. Only travellers born under a luckier star than I areprivileged to witness such sport. In the main Amsterdam is a city of trade, of hurrying business men, of ceaseless clanging tramcars and crowded streets; but on theKeizersgracht and the Heerengracht you are always certain to findthe old essential Dutch gravity and peace. No tide moves the sullenwaters of these canals, which are lined with trees that in springform before the narrow, dark, discreet houses the most delicate greentracery imaginable; and in summer screen them altogether. These housesare for the most part black and brown, with white window frames, and they rise to a great height, culminating in that curious steppedgable (with a crane and pulley in it) which is, to many eyes, thesymbol of the city. I know no houses that so keep their secrets. Inevery one, I doubt not, is furniture worthy of the exterior: oldpaintings of Dutch gentlemen and gentlewomen, a landscape or two, a girl with a lute and a few tavern scenes; old silver windmills; andplate upon plate of serene blue Delft. (You may see what I mean in theSuasso rooms at the Stedelijk Museum. ) I have walked and idled in theKeizersgracht at all times of the day, but have never seen any realsigns of life. Mats have been banged on its doorsteps by clean Dutchmaidservants armed with wicker beaters; milk has been brought in hugecans of brass and copper shining like the sun; but of its life properthe gracht has given no sign. Its true life is houseridden, behindthose spotless and very beautiful lace curtains, and there it remains. One of the wittiest of the old writers on Holland (of whom I saidsomething in the second chapter), Owen Feltham the moralist, describesin his _Brief Character of the Low Countries_ an Amsterdam house ofthe middle of the seventeenth century. Thus:-- When you are entered the house, the first thing you encounter is aLooking-glasse. No question but a true Embleme of politick hospitality;for though it reflect yourself in your own figure, 'tis yet no longerthan while you are there before it. When you are gone once, it flattersthe next commer, without the least remembrance that you ere were there. The next are the vessels of the house marshalled about the room likewatchmen. All as neat as if you were in a Citizen's Wife's Cabinet;for unless it be themselves, they let none of God's creatures loseany thing of their native beauty. Their houses, especially in their Cities, are the best eye-beautiesof their Country. For cost and sight they far exceed our English, but they want their magnificence. Their lining is yet more richthan their outside; not in hangings, but pictures, which even thepoorest are there furnisht with. Not a cobler but has his toyes forornament. Were the knacks of all their houses set together, therewould not be such another _Bartholmew_-Faire in _Europe_. .. . Their beds are no other than land-cabines, high enough to need a ladderor stairs. Up once, you are walled in with Wainscot, and that is gooddiscretion to avoid the trouble of making your will every night;for once falling out else would break your neck perfectly. But ifyou die in it, this comfort you shall leave your friends, that youdy'd in clean linnen. Whatsoever their estates be, their houses must be fair. Therefore from_Amsterdam_ they have banisht seacoale, lest it soyl their buildings, of which the statelier sort are sometimes sententious, and in thefront carry some conceit of the Owner. As to give you a taste in these. Christus Adjutor Meus; Hoc abdicato Perenne Quero; Hic Medio tuitus Itur. Every door seems studded with Diamonds. The nails and hinges hold aconstant brightnesse, as if rust there was not a quality incident toIron. Their houses they keep cleaner than their bodies; their bodiesthan their souls. Goe to one, you shall find the Andirons shut up innet-work. At a second, the Warming-pan muffled in Italian Cutworke. Ata third the Sconce clad in Cambrick. The absence of any lively traffic on the canals, as in Venice, has thiscompensation, that the surface is left untroubled the more minutelyto mirror the houses and trees, and, at night, the tramcars on thebridges. The lights of these cars form the most vivid reflectionsthat I can recollect. But the quiet reproduction of the stately blackfaçades is the more beautiful thing. An added dignity and repose arenoticeable. I said just now that one desired to learn the secret ofthe calm life of these ancient grachts. But the secret of the actualhouses of fact is as nothing compared with the secret of those otherhouses, more sombre, more mysterious, more reserved, that one sees inthe water. To penetrate their impressive doors were an achievement, a distinction, indeed! With such a purpose suicide would lose halfits terrors. For the greatest contrast to these black canals, you must seek theKalverstraat and Warmoes Straat. Kalverstraat, running south from theDam, is by day filled with shoppers and by night with gossipers. Nostreet in the world can be more consistently busy. Damrak is of coursealways a scene of life, but Damrak is a thoroughfare--its populationmoving continually either to or from the station. But those who usethe Kalverstraat may be said almost to live in it. To be there isan end in itself. Warmoes Straat, parallel with Damrak on the otherside of the Bourse, behind the Bible Hotel, is famous for its giganticrestaurant--the hugest in Europe, I believe--the Krasnapolsky, a palaceof bewildering mirrors, and for concert halls and other accessoriesof the gayer life. But this book is no place in which to enlarge uponthe natural history of Warmoes Straat and its southern continuation, the Nes. For the principal cafés, as distinguished from restaurants, you mustseek the Rembrandt's Plein, in the midst of which stands the master'sstatue. The pavement of this plein on Sunday evening in summer isalmost impassable for the tables and chairs that spread over it andthe crowds overflowing from Kalverstraat. But there is still to be mentioned a district of Amsterdam whichfrom the evening of Friday until the evening of Saturday is morepopulous even than Kalverstraat. This is the Jews' quarter, whichhas, I should imagine, more parents and children to the square footthan any residential region in Europe. I struggled through it atsundown one fine Saturday--to say I walked through it would be toomisleading--and the impression I gathered of seething vivacity isstill with me. These people surely will inherit the earth. Spinoza was a child of this Ghetto: his birthplace at 41 WaterlooPlein is still shown; and Rembrandt lived at No. 4 Jodenbree Straatfor sixteen years. A large number of the Amsterdam Jews are diamond cutters andpolishers. You may see in certain cafés dealers in these stones turningover priceless little heaps of them with the long little finger-nailwhich they preserve as a scoop. Amsterdam may be a city builded on the sand; but none the less will itendure. Indeed the sand saves it; for it is in the sand that the woodenpiles on which every house rests find their footing, squelching throughthe black mud to this comparative solidity. Some of the piles are aslong as 52 ft. , and watching them being driven in, it is impossible tobelieve that stability can ever be attained, every blow of the monkeyaccounting for so very many inches. When one watches pile-driving inEngland it is difficult to see the effect of each blow; but duringthe five or fewer minutes that I spent one day on Damrak observingthe preparation for the foundations of a new house, the pile must havegone in nearly a foot each time, and it was very near the end of itsjourney too. In course of years the black brackish mud petrifies notonly the piles but the wooden girders that are laid upon them. Pile-driving on an extensive scale can be a very picturesquesight. Breitner has painted several pile-driving scenes, one of whichhangs in the Stedelijk Museum at Amsterdam. Statistics are always impressive. I have seen somewhere the numberof piles which support the new Bourse and the Central Station; butI cannot now find them. The Royal Palace stands on 13, 659. Erasmusof Rotterdam made merry quite in the manner of an English humoristover Amsterdam's wooden foundations. He twitted the inhabitants withliving on the tops of trees, like rooks. But as I lay awake fromdaybreak to a civilised hour for two mornings in the Hotel Weimar atRotterdam--prevented from sleeping by the pile-driving for the hotelextension--I thought of the apologue of the pot and the kettle. I referred just now to the new Bourse. When I was at Amsterdam in 1897, the water beside Damrak extended much farther towards the Dam than itdoes now. Where now is the new Bourse was then shipping. But the newBourse looks stable enough to-day. As to its architectural charms, opinions differ. My own feeling is that it is not a style that willwear well. For a permanent public building something more classic isprobably desirable; and at Amsterdam, that city of sombre colouring, I would have had darker hues than the red and yellow that have beenemployed. The site of the old Bourse is now an open space. It is stated that the kindly custom of allowing the children ofAmsterdam the run of the Bourse as a playground for a week every yearis some compensation for the suppression of the Kermis, but anotherstory makes the sanction a perpetual reward for an heroic deed againstthe Spaniards performed by a child in 1622. My advice to any one visiting Amsterdam is first to study a map of thecity--Bædeker gives a very useful one--and thus to begin with a generalidea of the lie of the land and the water. With this knowledge, andthe assistance of the trams, it should not appear a very bewilderingplace. The Dam is its heart: a fact the acquisition of which willhelp very sensibly. All roads in Amsterdam lead to the Dam, and alllead from it. The Dam gives the city its name--Amstel dam, the damwhich stops the river Amstel on its course to the Zuyder Zee. It alsogives English and American visitors opportunities for facetiousnesswhich I tingle to recall. Every tram sooner or later reaches the Dam:that is another simplifying piece of information. The course of eachtram may not be very easily acquired, but with a common destinationlike this you cannot be carried very far wrong. One soon learns that the trams stop only at fixed points, and waitsaccordingly. The next lesson, which is not quite so simple, is thatsome of these points belong exclusively to trams going one way andsome exclusively to trams going the other. If there is one thingcalculated to reduce a perplexed foreigner in Amsterdam to rage anddespair, it is, after a tiring day among pictures, to hail a halfempty tram at a fixed point, with _Tram-halte_ written on it, andbe treated to a pitying smile from the driver as it rushes by. Uponsuch mortifications is education based; for one then looks again morenarrowly at the sign and sees that underneath it is a little arrowpointing in the opposite direction to which one wished to go. Onethen walks on to the next point, at which the arrow will be pointinghomewards, and waits there. Sometimes--O happy moment--a double arrowis found, facing both ways. It is on the Dam that guides will come and pester you. The guidecarries an umbrella and offers to show Amsterdam in such a way as tosave you much money. He is quite useless, and the quickest means ofgetting free is to say that you have come to the city for no otherpurpose than to pay extravagantly for everything. So stupendous anidea checks even his importunity for a moment, and while he stillreels you can escape. The guides outside the Ryks Museum who offer topoint out the beauties of the pictures are less persistent. It wouldseem as if they were aware of the unsoundness of their case. Thereis no need to reply to these at all. On the Dam also is the Royal Palace, which once was the stadhuis, but in 1808 (when Amsterdam was the third city of the French Empire)was offered to Louis Napoleon for a residence. Queen Wilhelminaoccasionaly stays there, but The Hague holds her true home. Theapartments are florid and not very interesting; but if the ascent ofthe tower is permitted one should certainly make it. It is interestingto have Amsterdam at one's feet. Only thus can its peculiar positionand shape be understood: its old part an almost perfect semicircle, with canal-arcs within arcs, and its northern shore washed by the Y. Also on the Dam is the New Church, which is to be seen more for thetomb of De Ruyter than for any architectural graces. The old sea dog, whose dark and determined features confront one in Bol's canvasesagain and again in Holland, reposes in full dress on a cannon amidsymbols of his victories. Close by, in the Royal Palace, are some ofthe flags which he wrested from the English. Other admirals also liethere, the Dutch naval commander never having wanted for honour inhis own country. The New Church, where the monarchs of Holland are crowned, has a verylarge new stained-glass window representing the coronation of QueenWilhemina--one of the most satisfying new windows that I know, butquite lacking in any religious suggestion. That poet who considereda church the best retreat, because it is good to contemplate Godthrough stained glass, would have fared badly in Holland. The New Church is new only by comparison with the Old. It was builtin 1410, rebuilt in 1452 and 1645. Amsterdam's Old Church, on theother side of Warmoes Straat, dates from 1300. The visitor to theNew Church is handed a brief historical leaflet in exchange for histwenty-five cents, and is left to his own devices; but the Old Churchhas a koster who takes a pride in showing his lions and who deprecatesgifts of money. An elderly, clean-shaved man with a humorous mouth, he might be taken for Holland's leading comedian. Instead, he displaysecclesiastical treasures, of which in 1904 there were fewer than usual, two of the three fine old windows representing the life of the Virginbeing under repair behind a screen. The tombs and monuments are notinteresting--admirals of the second rank and such small fry. It is in the Old Church that most of the weddings of Amsterdam arecelebrated. Thursday is the day, for then the fees are practicallynothing; on other days to be married is an expense. The kosterdeplores the modern materialism which leads so many young men to besatisfied with the civil function; but the little enclosure, like asmall arena, in which the church blesses unions, had to me a hardlyless business-like appearance than a registry office. The comedianoverflows with details. For the covering of the floor, he explains, there are five distinct carpets, ranging in price from five gueldersto twenty-five for the hire, according to the means or ostentationof the party. Thursdays are no holiday for the church officials, onecouple being hardly united before the horses of the next are pawingthe paving stones at the door. I saw on one Thursday three bridal parties in as many minutes. Thehappy bride sat on the back seat of the brougham, immediately beforeher being two mirrors in the shape of a heart supporting a bouquet ofwhite flowers. Contemplating this simple imagery she rattles to theecclesiastical arena and the sanctities of the five, ten, fifteen, twenty or twenty-five guelder carpet. After, a banquet and jokes. This is the second banquet, for when the precise preliminaries of aDutch engagement are settled a betrothal feast is held. Friends arebidden to the wedding by the receipt of a box of sweets and a bottleof wine known as "Bride's tears". For the wedding day itself there isa particular brand of wine which contains little grains of gold. TheDutch also have special cake and wine for the celebration of births. The position of the Dutch wife is now very much that of the wifein England; but in Holland's great days she ruled. Something ofher quality is to be seen in the stories of Barneveldt's widowand Grotius's wife, and the heroism and address of the widow KenauHasselaer during the siege of Haarlem. Davies has an interesting pageor two on this subject: "To be master of his own house is an ideawhich seems never to have occurred to the mind of a genuine Dutchman;nor did he often commence any undertaking, whether public or private, without first consulting the partner of his cares; and it is even said, that some of the statesmen most distinguished for their influence inthe affairs of their own country and Europe in general, were accustomedto receive instructions at home to which they ventured not to gocounter. But the dominion of these lordly dames, all despotic though itwere, was ever exerted for the benefit of those who obeyed. It was theearnest and undaunted spirit of their women, which encouraged the Dutchto dare, and their calm fortitude to endure, the toils, privations, andsufferings of the first years of the war of independence against Spain;it was their activity and thrift in the management of their privateincomes, that supplied them with the means of defraying an amountof national expenditure wholly unexampled in history; and to theirinfluence is to be ascribed above all, the decorum of manners, and thepurity of morals, for which the society of Holland has at all timesbeen remarkable. But though they preserved their virtue and modestyuncontaminated amid the general corruption, they were no longer ableto maintain their sway. The habit which the Dutch youth had acquired, among other foreign customs, of seeking amusement abroad, renderedthem less dependent for happiness on the comforts of a married life;while, accustomed to the more dazzling allurements of the women ofFrance and Italy, they were apt to overlook or despise the quiet andunobtrusive beauties of those of their own country. Whether they didnot better consult their own dignity in emancipating themselves fromthis subjection may be a question; but the fact, that the decline ofthe republic and of the female sex went hand in hand, is indubitable. " To return to Amsterdam's sights, the church which I remember with mostpleasure is the English Reformed Church, which many visitors neversucceed in finding at all, but to which I was taken by a Dutch lady whoknew my tastes. You seek the Spui, where the electric trams start forHaarlem, and enter a very small doorway on the north side. It seemsto lead to a private house, but instead you find yourself in a verybeautiful little enclosure of old and quaint buildings, exquisitelykept, each with a screen of pollarded chestnuts before it; in the midstof which is a toy white church with a gay little spire that might havewandered out of a fairy tale. The enclosure is called The Begijnenhof, or Court of the Begijnen, a little sisterhood named after St. Begga, daughter of Pipinus, Duke of Brabant, --a saint who lived at the endof the seventh century and whose day in the Roman Catholic Calendaris December 17. The church was originally the church of these nuns, but when the oldreligion was overthrown in Amsterdam, in 1578, it was taken from them, although they were allowed--as happily they still are--to retainpossession of the court around it. In 1607 the church passed into the possession of a settlement ofScotch weavers who had been invited to Amsterdam by the merchants, and who had made it a condition of acceptance that they should have aconventicle of their own. It is now a resort of English church-goingvisitors on Sunday. Most of Holland's churches--as of England's--once belonged to Rome, andit is impossible to forget their ancient ownership; but I remember noother case where the new religion is practised, as in the Begijnenhof, in the heart of the enemy's camp. In the very midst of the homesof the quiet sweet Begijnen sisters are the voices of the usurpingReformers heard in prayer and praise. One little concession, however, was made by the appropriators ofthe chapel. Until as recently as 1865 a special part of the buildingthe original Roman consecration of which had not been nullified wasretained by the sisterhood in which to bury their dead. The ceremonywas very impressive. Twelve of the nuns carried their dead companionthree times round the court before entering the church. But all that isover, and now they must seek burial elsewhere, without their borders. One may leave the Begijnenhof by the other passage into Kalverstraat, and walking up that busy street towards the Dam, turn down theSt. Lucien Steeg, on the left, to another of Amsterdam's homes ofancient peace--the municipal orphanage, which was once the Conventof St. Lucien. The Dutch are exceedingly kind to their poor, and theorphanages and almshouses (Oudemannen and Oudevrouwen houses as theyare called) are very numerous. The Municipal Orphanage of Amsterdam isamong the most interesting; and it is to this refuge that the girlsand boys belong whom one sees so often in the streets of the city incurious parti-coloured costume--red and black vertically divided. TheAmsterdamsche burgerweesmeisjes, as the girls are called, make inprocession a very pretty and impressive sight--with their whitetippets and caps above their dresses of black and red. This reminds me that one of the most agreeable performances thatI saw in any of the Dutch music halls (which are not good, andwhich are rendered very tedious to English people by reason of theinterminable interval called the Pause in the middle of the evening), was a series of folk songs and dances by eight girls known as theOrange Blossoms, dressed in different traditional costumes of thenorth and south--Friesland, Marken, and Zeeland. They were quitecharming. They sang and danced very prettily, as housewives, as fishergirls, but particularly as Amsterdamsche burgerweesmeisjes. In the music halls both at Amsterdam and Rotterdam I listened to comicsingers inexorably endowed with too many songs apiece; but I saw alsosome of those amazing feats of acrobatic skill and exhibitions of cleanstrength which alone should cause people to encourage these placesof entertainment, where the standard of excellence in such displaysis now so high. I did not go to the theatre in Holland. My Dutch wastoo elementary for that. My predecessor Ireland, however, did so, and saw an amusing piece of literalness introduced into _Hamlet_. Inthe impassioned scene, he tells us, between the prince and his mother, "when the hero starts at the imagined appearance of his father, hiswig, by means of a concealed spring, jumped from 'the seat of hisdistracted brain, ' and left poor Hamlet as bare as a Dutch willowin winter. " The Oude Kerk has very beautiful bells, but Amsterdam is no place inwhich to hear such sweet sounds. The little towns for bells. Near thechurch is the New Market, with the very charming old weigh-house withlittle extinguisher spires called the St. Anthonysveeg. Here the fishmarket is held; and the fish market of a city like Amsterdam shouldcertainly be visited. The Old Market is on the western side of theDam, under the western church. "It is said, " remarks the author of_Through Noord-Holland_, "that Rembrandt has been buried in thischurch, though his grave has never been found. " Napoleon's sarcasm upon the English--that they were a nation ofshopkeepers--never seemed to me very shrewd: but in Holland onerealises that if any nation is to be thus signally stigmatised itis not the English. As a matter of fact we are very indifferentshopkeepers. We lack several of the needful qualities: we lackforesight, the sense of order and organised industry, and the strengthof mind to resist the temptations following upon a great coup. Anation of shopkeepers would not go back on the shop so completely aswe do. No nation that is essentially snobbish can be accurately summedup as a nation of shopkeepers. The French for all their distractinggifts of art and mockery are better shopkeepers than we, largelybecause they are more sensibly contented. They take short views andlive each day more fully. But the Dutch are better still; the Dutchare truly a nation of shopkeepers. [4] If one would see the Amsterdam merchant as the satirist sees him, the _locus classicus_ is Multatuli's famous novel _Max Havelaar_, where he stands delightfully nude in the person of Mr. Drystubble, head of the firm of Last and Co. , Coffee-brokers, No. 37 LaurierCanal. _Max Havelaar_ was published in the early sixties to drawattention to certain scandals in Dutch colonial administration, and ithas lived on, and will live, by reason of a curious blend of vivacityand intensity. Here is a little piece of Mr. Drystubble's mind:-- Business is slack on the Coffee Exchange. The Spring Auction willmake it right again. Don't suppose, however, that we have nothingto do. At Busselinck and Waterman's trade is slacker still. It isa strange world this: one gets a deal of experience by frequentingthe Exchange for twenty years. Only fancy that they have tried--Imean Busselinck and Waterman--to do me out of the custom of LudwigStern. As I do not know whether you are familiar with the Exchange, I will tell you that Stern is an eminent coffee-merchant in Hamburg, who always employed Last and Co. Quite accidentally I found thatout--I mean that bungling business of Busselinck and Waterman. Theyhad offered to reduce the brokerage by one-fourth per cent. Theyare low fellows--nothing else. And now look what I have done to stopthem. Any one in my place would perhaps have written to Ludwig Stern, "that we too would diminish the brokerage, and that we hoped forconsideration on account of the long services of Last and Co. " I have calculated that our firm, during the last fifty years, has gained four hundred thousand guilders by Stern. Our connexiondates from the beginning of the continental system, when we smuggledColonial produce and such like things from Heligoland. No, I won'treduce the brokerage. I went to the Polen coffee-house, ordered pen and paper, and wrote:-- "That because of the many honoured commissions received from NorthGermany, our business transactions had been extended"--(it isthe simple truth)--"and that this necessitated an augmentation ofour staff"--(it is the truth: no more than yesterday evening ourbookkeeper was in the office after eleven o'clock to look for hisspectacles);--"that, above all things, we were in want of respectable, educated young men to conduct the German correspondence. That, certainly, there were many young Germans in Amsterdam, who possessedthe requisite qualifications, but that a respectable firm"--(it isthe very truth), --"seeing the frivolity and immorality of young men, and the daily increasing number of adventurers, and with an eye tothe necessity of making correctness of conduct go hand in hand withcorrectness in the execution of orders"--(it is the truth, I observe, and nothing but the truth), --"that such a firm--I mean Last and Co. , coffee-brokers, 37 Laurier Canal--could not be anxious enough inengaging new hands. " All that is the simple truth, reader. Do you know that the youngGerman who always stood at the Exchange, near the seventeenth pillar, has eloped with the daughter of Busselinck and Waterman? Our Mary, like her, will be thirteen years old in September. "That I had the honour to hear from Mr. Saffeler"--(Saffeler travelsfor Stern)--"that the honoured head of the firm, Ludwig Stern, hada son, Mr. Ernest Stern, who wished for employment for some time ina Dutch house. "That I, mindful of this"--(here I referred again to the immoralityof _employés_, and also the history of that daughter of Busselinckand Waterman; it won't do any harm to tell it)--"that I, mindful ofthis, wished, with all my heart, to offer Mr. Ernest Stern the Germancorrespondence of our firm. " From delicacy I avoided all allusion to honorarium or salary; yetI said:-- "That if Mr. Ernest Stern would like to stay with us, at 37 LaurierCanal, my wife would care for him as a mother, and have his linenmended in the house"--(that is the very truth, for Mary sews andknits very well), --and in conclusion I said, "that we were a religiousfamily. " The last sentence may do good, for the Sterns are Lutherans. I postedthat letter. You understand that old Mr. Stern could not very well givehis custom to Busselinck and Waterman, if his son were in our office. When _Max Havelaar_ gets to Java the narrative is less satisfactory, so tangential does it become, but there are enough passages in themanner of that which I have quoted to keep one happy, and to show howentertaining a satirist of his own countrymen at home "Multatuli"(whose real name was Edward Douwes Dekker) might have been had hebeen possessed by no grievance. The book, which is very well worth reading, belongs to the literatureof humanity and protest. Its author had to suffer much acrimoniousattack, and was probably called a Little Hollander, but the fragmentfrom an unpublished play which he placed as a motto to his book showshim to have lacked no satirical power to meet the enemy:-- _Officer_. --My Lord, this is the man who murdered Betsy. _Judge_. --He must hang for it. How did he do it? _Officer_. --He cut up her body in little pieces, and salted them. _Judge_. --He is a great criminal. He must hang for it. _Lothario_. --My Lord, I did not murder Betsy: I fed and clothed andcherished her. I can call witnesses who will prove me to be a good man, and no murderer. _Judge_. --You must hang. You blacken your crime by yourself-sufficiency. It ill becomes one who . .. Is accused of anythingto set up for a good man. _Lothario_, --But, my Lord, . .. There are witnesses to prove it;and as I am now accused of murder. .. . _Judge_. --You must hang for it. You cut up Betsy--you salted thepieces--and you are satisfied with your conduct--three capitalcounts--who are you, my good woman? _Woman_. --I am Betsy. _Lothario_. --Thank God! You see, my Lord, that I did not murder her. _Judge_. --Humph!--ay--what!--What about the salting? _Betsy_. --No, my Lord, he did not salt me:--on the contrary, he didmany things for me . .. He is a worthy man! _Lothario_. --You hear, my Lord, she says I am an honest man! _Judge_. --Humph!--the third count remains. Officer, remove theprisoner, he must hang for it; he is guilty of self-conceit. Shopkeeping--to return to Amsterdam--is the Dutch people's life. Anidle rich class they may have, but it does not assert itself. It ishidden away at The Hague or at Arnheim. In Amsterdam every one is busyin one trade or another. There is no Pall Mall, no Rotten Row. Thereis no Bond Street or Rue de la Paix, for this is a country wheremoney tries to procure money's worth, a country of essentials. Norhas Holland a Lord's or an Oval, Epsom Downs or Hurlingham. Perhaps the quickest way to visualise the differences of nationsis to imagine them exchanging countries. If the English were tomove to Holland the whole face of the land would immediately bechanged. In summer the flat meadows near the towns, now given up tocows and plovers, would be dotted with cricketers; in winter withfootball-players. Outriggers and canoes, punts and house-boats, wouldbreak out on the canals. In the villages such strange phenomena asidle gentlemen in knickerbockers and idle ladies with parasols wouldsuddenly appear. To continue the list of changes (but not for too long) the trainswould begin to be late; from the waiting-rooms all free newspaperswould be stolen; churches would be made more comfortable; hundredsof newspapers would exist where now only a handful are sufficient;the hour of breakfast would be later; business would begin later;drunken men would be seen in the streets, dirt in the cottages. If the Dutch came to England the converse would happen. The athleticgrounds would become pasture land; the dirt of our slums and thegentry of our villages would alike vanish; Westminster Abbey wouldbe whitewashed; and . .. But I have said enough. It must not be thought that the Dutch play no games. As a matterof fact they were playing golf, as old pictures tell, before it hadfound its way to England at all; and there are now many golf clubs inHolland. The Dutch are excellent also at lawn tennis; and I saw theyouth of Franeker very busy in a curious variety of rounders. Thereare horse-racing meetings and trotting competitions too. But thenation is not naturally athletic or sporting. It does not even walkexcept on business. In winter, however, the Dutch are completely transformed. No soonerdoes the ice bear than the whole people begin to glide, and swirl, and live their lives to the poetry of motion. The canals thenbecome the real streets of Amsterdam. A Dutch lady--a mother anda grandmother--threw up her hands as she told me about the skatingparties to the Zuyder Zee. The skate, it seems, is as much the enemyof the chaperon as the bicycle, although its reign is briefer. Uponthis subject I am personally ignorant, but I take that gesture ofalarm as final. And yet M. Havard, who had a Frenchman's eye and therefore knew, says that if Etna in full eruption were taken to Holland, at the endof the week it would have ceased even to smoke, so destructive toenthusiasm is the well-disciplined nature of the Dutch woman. M. Havard referred rather to the women of the open country than thedwellers in the town. I can understand the rural coolness, for Hollandis a land without mystery. Everything is plain and bare: a man in aballoon would know the amours of the whole populace. What chance hasCupid when there are no groves? But let Holland be afforested and herdaughters would keep Etna burning warmly enough; for I am persuadedthat it is not that they are cold but that the physical developmentof the country is against them. Chapter XI Amsterdam's Pictures Dutch art in the palmy days--The Renaissance--A miracle--What Holland did for painting--The "Night Watch"--Rembrandt's isolation--Captain Franz Banning Cocq--Elizabeth Bas--The Staalmeesters--If one might choose one picture--Vermeer of Delft again--Whistler--"Paternal Advice"--Terburg--The romantic Frenchmen again--The Dutch painter's ideal--The two Maris--Old Dutch rooms--The Six Collection--"Six's Bridge" and the wager--The Fodor Museum. The superlative excellence of Dutch painting in the seventeenthcentury has never been explained, and probably never will be. Theordinary story is that on settling down to a period of independence andcomparative peace and prosperity after the cessation of the Spanishwar, the Dutch people called for good art, and good art came. Butthat is too simple. That a poet, a statesman or a novelist should beproduced in response to a national desire is not inconceivable; forpoets, statesmen and novelists find their material in the air, as wesay, in the ideas of the moment. They are for the most part productsof their time. But the great Dutch painters of the seventeenth centurywere expressing no real idea. Nor, even supposing they had done so, is it to be understood how the demand for them should yield such asupply of unsurpassed technical power: how a perfectly disciplinedhand should be instantly at the public service. That Holland in an expansive mood of satisfaction at her success shouldhave wished to see groups of her gallant arquebusiers and portraits ofher eminent burghers is not to be wondered at, and we can understandthat respectable painters of such pictures should arise in some forceto supply the need--just as wherever in this country at the present daythere are cricketers and actresses, there also are photographers. Thatpainters of ordinary merit should be forthcoming is, as I have said, no wonder: the mystery is that masters of technique whose equal hasnever been before or since should have arisen in such numbers; thatin the space of a few years--between say 1590 and 1635--should havebeen born in a country never before given to the cultivation of thearts Rembrandt and Jan Steen, Vermeer and De Hooch, Van der Helstand Gerard Dou, Fabritius and Maes, Ostade and Van Goyen, Potter andRuisdael, Terburg and Cuyp. That is the staggering thing. Another curious circumstance is that by 1700 it was practically allover, and Dutch art had become a convention. The gods had gone. Notuntil very recently has Holland had any but half gods since. It may of course be urged that Italy had witnessed a somewhat similarphenomenon. But the spiritual stimulus of the Renaissance among thenaturally artistic southerners cannot, I think, be compared with thestimulus given by the establishment of prosperity to these cold andmaterial northerners. The making of great Italian art was a gradualprocess: the Dutch masters sprang forth fully armed at the firstword of command. In the preceding generation the Rembrandts had beenmillers; the Steens brewers; the Dous glaziers; and so forth. Butthe demand for pictures having sounded, their sons were prepared tobe painters of the first magnitude. Why try to explain this amazingevent? Let there rather be miracles. I have said that the great Dutch painters expressed no idea; and yetthis is not perfectly true. They expressed no constructive idea, inthe way that a poet or statesman does; but all had this in common, that they were informed by the desire to represent things--intimateand local things--as they are. The great Italians had gone to religionand mythology for their subjects: nearer at hand, in Antwerp, Rubenswas pursuing, according to his lights, the same tradition. The greatDutchmen were the first painters to bend their genius exclusivelyto the honour of their own country, its worthies, its excesses, itsdomestic virtues, its trivial dailiness. Hals and Rembrandt lavishedtheir power on Dutch arquebusiers and governors of hospitals, Dutchburgomasters and physicians; Ostade and Brouwer saw no indignity inpainting Dutch sots as well as Dutch sots could be painted; De Hoochintroduced miracles of sunlight into Dutch cottages; Maes paintedold Dutch housewives, and Metsu young Dutch housewives, to the life;Vermeer and Terburg immortalised Dutch ladies at their spinets; AlbertCuyp toiled to suffuse Dutch meadows and Dutch cows with a goldenglow; Jan Steen glorified the humblest Dutch family scenes; GerardDou spent whole weeks upon the fingers of a common Dutch hand. Inshort, art that so long had been at the service only of the Churchand the proud, became suddenly, without losing any of its divinity, a fireside friend. That is what Holland did for painting. It would have been a great enjoyment to me to have made this chapter acompanion to the Ryks Museum: to have said a few words about all thepictures which I like best. But had I done so the rest of the bookwould have had to go, for all my space would have been exhausted. Andtherefore, as I cannot say all I want to say, I propose to say verylittle, keeping only to the most importunate pictures. Here and therein this book, particularly in the chapters on Dordrecht, Haarlem, and Leyden's painters, I have already touched on many of them. The particular shining glory of the Ryks Museum is Rembrandt's"Night Watch, " and it is well, I think, to make for that pictureat once. The direct approach is down the Gallery of Honour, whereone has this wonderful canvas before one all the way, as near lifeas perhaps any picture ever painted. It is possible at first to bedisappointed: expectation perhaps had been running too high; thefigure of the lieutenant (in the yellow jerkin) may strike one asa little mean. But do not let this distress you. Settle down on oneof the seats and take Rembrandt easily, "as the leaf upon the tree";settle down on another, and from the new point of view take him easily, "as the grass upon the weir". Look at Van der Helst's fine company ofarquebusiers on one of the side walls; look at Franz Hals' company ofarquebusiers on the other; then look at Rembrandt again. Every minutehis astounding power is winning upon you. Walk again up the Galleryof Honour and turning quickly at the end, see how much light there isin the "Night Watch". Advance upon it slowly. .. . This is certainlythe finest technical triumph of pigment that you have seen. What aglow and greatness. After a while it becomes evident that Rembrandt was the only manwho ought to have painted arquebusiers at all. Van der Heist andFrans Hals are sinking to the level of gifted amateurs. Why did notRembrandt paint all the pictures? you begin to wonder. And yet theHals and the Van der Helsts were so good a little while ago. Hals and Van der Helst are, however, to recover their own again; forthe "Night Watch, " I am told, is to be moved to a building especiallyerected for it, where the lighting will be more satisfactory thanconnoisseurs now consider it. Perhaps it is as well. It is hard tobe so near the rose; and there are few pictures in the recesses ofthe Gallery of Honour which the "Night Watch" does not weaken; someindeed it makes quite foolish. It is not of course really a night watch at all. Captain FranzBanning Cocq's arquebusiers are leaving their Doelen in broad day;the centralisation of sunlight from a high window led to the mistake, and nothing now will ever change the title. How little these careless gallant arquebusiers, who paid thepainter-man a hundred florins apiece to be included in the picture, can have thought of the destiny of the work! Of Captain Franz BanningCocq as a soldier we know nothing, but as a sitter he is hardly secondto any in the world. But it is not the "Night Watch" that I recall with the greatestpleasure when I think of the Ryks Rembrandts. It is that wise andserene old lady in the Van der Poll room--Elizabeth Bas--who sits therefor all time, unsurpassed among portraits. This picture alone is wortha visit to Holland. I recall also, not with more pleasure than the"Night Watch, " but with little less, the superb group of syndics in theStaalmeester room. It is this picture--with the "School of Anatomy"at The Hague--that in particular makes one wish it had been possiblefor all the Corporation pieces to have been from Rembrandt's brush. Itis this picture which deprives even Hals of some of his divinity, andmakes Van der Helst a dull dog. If ever a picture of Dutch gentlemenwas painted by a Dutch gentleman it is this. Having seen the "Night Watch" again, it is a good plan to study theGallery of Honour. To pick out one's favourite picture is here notdifficult: it is No. 1501, "The Endless Prayer, " by Nicolas Maes, ofwhich I have said something in the chapter on Dordrecht, the painter'sbirthplace. Its place is very little below that of Elizabeth Bas, by Maes's master. It is always interesting in a fine gallery to ask oneself which singlepicture one would choose before all others if such a privilege wereoffered. The answer if honest is a sure revelation of temperament, forone would select of a certainty a picture satisfying one's prevailingmoods rather than a picture of any sensational character. In otherwords, the picture would have to be good to live with. To choose fromthousands of masterpieces one only is a very delicate test. If the Dutch Government, stimulated to gratitude for the encomiasticcharacter of the present book, were to offer me my choice of theRyks Museum pictures I should not hesitate a moment. I should takeNo. 2527--"Woman Reading a Letter" (damaged), by Vermeer of Delft. Youwill see a reproduction in black and white on the opposite page;but how wide a gulf between the picture and the process block. Thejacket, for example, is the most lovely cool blue imaginable. This picture, apart from its beauty, is interesting as an illustrationof the innovating courage of Vermeer. Who else at that date would haveplaced the woman's head against a map almost its own colour? Manypersons think that such daring began with Whistler. It is, however, Terburg who most often suggests Whistler. Vermeer had, I think, a rarer distinction than Terburg. Vermeer would never have paintedsuch a crowded group (however masterly) as that of Terburg's "Peace ofMunster" in our National Gallery; he could not have brought himselfso to pack humanity. Among all the Dutch masters I find no suchfastidious aristocrat. He, Vermeer, has another picture at the Ryks--"De brief"(No. 2528)--which technically is wonderful; but the whole effect isartificial and sophisticated, very different from his best transparentmood. Any mortification, by the way, which I might suffer from the knowledgethat No. 2527 can never be mine is allayed by the knowledge, equallycertain, that it can never be any one else's. Money is powerlesshere. To the offer of a Rothschild the Government would return asemphatic a negative as to a request from me. The room in which is Vermeer's "Reader" contains also Maes's "SpinningWoman" (see page 230), two or three Peter de Hoochs and the best JanSteen in the Ryks. It is indeed a room to linger in, and to returnto, indefinitely. De Hooch's "Store Room" (No. 1248), of which Ihave already spoken, is in one of the little "Cabinet piece" rooms, which are not too well lighted. Here also one may spend many hours, and then many hours more. The "Peace of Munster" has been called Terburg's masterpiece:but the girl in his "Paternal Advice, " No. 570 at the Ryks, seemsto me a finer achievement. The grace and beauty and truth of herpose and the miraculous painting of her dress are unrivalled. Yetjudged as a picture it is, I think, dull. The colouring is dingy, time has not dealt kindly with the background; but the figure ofthe girl is perfect. I give a reproduction opposite page 190. Itwas this picture, in one of its replicas, that Goethe describes inhis _Elective Affinities_: a description which procured for it theprobably inaccurate title "Parental Advice". We have a fine Terburg in our National Gallery--"The Music Lesson"--andhere too is his "Peace of Munster, " which certainly was a great featof painting, but which does not, I think, reproduce his peculiarcharacteristics and charm. These may be found somewhere between "TheMusic Lesson" and the portrait next the Vermeer in the smallest ofthe three Dutch rooms. Even more ingratiating than "The Music Lesson"is "The Toilet" at the Wallace Collection. Terburg might be called apocket Velasquez--a description of him which will be appreciated atthe Ryks Museum in the presence of his tiny and captivating "Helenavan der Schalcke, " No. 573, one of the gems of the Cabinet pieces(see opposite page 290), and his companion pictures of a man and hiswife, each standing by a piece of red furniture--I think Nos. 574and 575. The execution of the woman's muslin collar is among the mostdexterous things in Dutch art. From the Ryks Museum it is but a little way (past the model Dutchgarden) to the Stedelijk Museum, where modern painting may bestudied--Israels and Bosboom, Mesdag and James Maris, Breitner andJan van Beers, Blommers and Weissenbruch. There is also one room dedicated to paintings of the Barbizon school, and of this I would advise instant search. I rested my eyes here foran hour. A vast scene of cattle by Troyon (who, such is the povertyof the Dutch alphabet, comes out monstrously upon the frame asTroijon); a mysterious valley of trees by Corot; a wave by Courbet;a mere at evening by Daubigny--these are like cool firm hands uponone's forehead. The statement Nothing graceful, wise, or sainted, -- That is how the Dutchman painted, is so sweeping as to be untrue. Indeed it is wholly absurd. The truthsimply is that one goes to Dutch art for the celebration of factwithout mystery or magic. In other words, Dutch painting is paintingwithout poetry; and it is this absence of poetry which makes theromantic Frenchmen appear to be such exotics when one finds them inHolland, and why it is so pleasant in Holland now and then to tastetheir quality, as one may at the Stedelijk Museum and in the MesdagCollection at The Hague. We must not forget, however, that under the French influence certainmodern Dutch painters have been quickened to celebrate the fact _with_poetry. In a little room adjoining the great French room at theStedelijk Museum will be found some perfect things by living or veryrecent artists for whom Corot did not work in vain: a mere by JamesMaris, with a man in a blue coat sitting in a boat; a marsh undera white sky by Matthew Maris; a village scene by the same exquisitecraftsman. These three pictures, but especially the last two, are intheir way as notable and beautiful as anything by the great names inDutch art. On the ground floor of the Stedelijk Museum is the series of roomsnamed after the Suasso family which should on no account be missed, butof which no notice is given by the Museum authorities. These rooms arefurnished exactly as they would have been by the best Dutch families, their furniture and hangings having been brought from old houses inthe Keizersgracht and the Heerengracht. The kitchen is one of theprettiest things in Holland--with its shining brass and copper, itsdelicate and dainty tiles and its air of cheerful brightness. Some ofthe carving in the other rooms is superb; the silver, the china, theclocks are all of the choicest. The custodian has a childlike interestin secret drawers and unexpected recesses, which he exhibits with agusto not habitual in the Dutch cicerone. For the run of these oldrooms a guelder is asked; one sees the three rooms on the other sideof the entrance hall for twenty-five cents, the church and museum unitof Holland. But they are uninteresting beside the larger suite. Theyconsist of an old Dutch apothecary's shop and laboratory; a madhousecell; and the bedroom of a Dutch lady who has just presented her lordwith an infant. We see the mother in bed, a doctor at her side, andin the foreground a nurse holding the baby. Except that the costumesand accessories are authentic the tableau is in no way superior toan ordinary waxwork. At the beginning of the last chapter I said that the Keizersgracht andHeerengracht do not divulge their secrets; they present an impassiveand inscrutable front, grave and sombre, often black as night, beyondwhich the foreigner may not penetrate. But by the courtesy of thedescendants of Rembrandt's friend Jan Six, in order that pleasure intheir collection of the old masters may be shared, No. 511 Heerengrachtis shown on the presentation of a visiting card at suitable hours. Heremay be seen two more of the rare pictures of Vermeer of Delft--hisfamous "Milk Woman" and a Dutch façade in the manner of Peter de Hooch, with an added touch of grave delicacy and distinction. Peter de Hoochis himself represented in this little gallery, but the picture is inbad condition. There is also an interesting and uncharacteristicallydramatic Nicolas Maes called "The Listener". But the pride of thehouse is the little group of portraits by Rembrandt. It was, by the way, at Burgomaster Six's house at Elsbroekthat Rembrandt's little etching called "Six's Bridge" wasexecuted. Rembrandt and his friend had just sat down to dinner whenit was discovered that there was no mustard. On a servant being sentto buy or borrow some, Rembrandt made a bet that he would completean etching of the bridge before the man's return. The artist won. Another little private collection, which has now become a regularresort, with fixed hours, is that known as the Fodor Museum, atNo. 609 Keizersgracht; but I do not recommend a visit unless one isabsolutely a glutton for paint. Chapter XII Around Amsterdam: South and South-East Dutch railways--Amsterdam as a centre--Town and country--Milking time--Scotch scenery in Holland--Hilversum--Laren--Anton Mauve--Buckwheat Sunday--Dress in Holland--Naarden's hour of agony--The indomitable Dutch--_Through Noord-Holland_ again--Muiderberg--Muiden's Castle. The Dutch have several things to learn from the English; and there arecertain lessons which we might acquire from them. To them we mightimpart the uses of the salt-spoon, and ask in return the secret ofpunctuality on the railways. The Dutch railways are admirable. The trains come in to the minute andgo out to the minute. The officials are intelligent and polite. Thecarriages are good. Every station has its waiting-room, where youmay sit and read, and drink a cup of coffee that is not only hot andfresh but is recognisably the product of the berry. It is impossible totravel in the wrong train. It is very difficult not to get out at theright station. The fares are very reasonable. The stationmasters arethe only visible and tangible members of the Dutch aristocracy. Thedisposition of one's luggage is very simple when once it has beenmastered. The time tables are models of clarity. The only blot on the system is the detestable double fastening to thecarriage doors, and the curious fancy, prevalent on the Continent, thata platform is a vanity. It is a perpetual wonder to me that some of thewider Dutch ever succeed in climbing into their trains at all; and yetafter accomplishing one's own ascent one discovers them seated therecomfortably and numerously enough, showing no signs of the struggle. Travellers who find the Dutch tendency to closed windows a trial beyondendurance may be interested to know that it is law in Holland that ifany passenger wish it the window on the lee side may be open. With theknowledge of this enactment all difficulty should be over--providedthat one has sufficient strength of purpose (and acquaintance withthe Dutch language) to enforce it. All this preamble concerning railways is by way of introduction tothe statement (hinted at in the first chapter) that if the travellerin Holland likes, he can see a great part of the country by staying atAmsterdam--making the city his headquarters, and every day journeyinghere and there and back again by train or canal. A few little neighbouring towns it is practically necessary to visitfrom Amsterdam; and for the most part, I take it, Leyden and Haarlemare made the object of excursions either from Amsterdam or The Hague, rather than places of sojourn, although both have excellent quietinns much more to my taste than anything in the largest city. Indeed Ifound Amsterdam's hotels exceedingly unsatisfactory; so much so thatthe next time I go, when the electric railway to Haarlem is open, I am proposing to invert completely the usual process, and, stayingat Haarlem, study Amsterdam from there. For the time being, however, we must consider ourselves at Amsterdam, branching out north or south, east or west, every morning. A very interesting excursion may be made to Hilversum, returning bythe steam-tram through Laren, Naarden and Muiden. The rail runs atfirst through flat and very verdant meadows, where thousands of cowsthat supply Amsterdam with milk are grazing; and one notices againthe suddenness with which the Dutch city ends and the Dutch countrybegins. Our English towns have straggling outposts: new houses, scaffold poles, cottages, allotments, all break the transition fromcity to country; the urban gives place to suburban, and suburban torural, gradually, every inch being contested. But the Dutch towns--eventhe great cities--end suddenly; the country begins suddenly. In England for the most part the cow comes to the milker; but inHolland the milker goes to the cow. His first duty is to bind theanimal's hind legs together, and then he sets his stool at his sideand begins. Anton Mauve has often painted the scene--so often that atmilking time one looks from the carriage windows at a very galleryof Mauves. I noticed this particularly on an afternoon journey fromAmsterdam to Hilversum, between the city and Weesp, where the meadows(cricket grounds _manqués_) are flat as billiard tables. The train later runs between great meres, some day perhaps to bereclaimed, and then dashes into country that resembles very closelyour Government land about Woking and Bisley--the first sand and firsthat we have seen in Holland. It has an odd and unexpected appearance;but as a matter of fact hundreds of square miles of Holland in thesouth and east have this character; while there are stretches ofDutch heather in which one can feel in Scotland. All about Naarden and Hilversum are sanatoria, country-seats andpleasure grounds, the softening effect of the pines upon the strongair of the Zuyder Zee being very beneficial. Many of the heightshave towers or pavilions, some of which move the author of _ThroughNoord-Holland_ to ecstasies. As thus, of the Larenberg: "The mostcharming is the tower, where one can enjoy a perspective that onlyrarely presents itself. We can see here the towers of Nijkerk, Harderwijk, Utrecht, Amersfoort, Bunschoten, Amsterdam and manyothers. " And again, of a wood at Heideheuvel: "The perspective beautyhere formed cannot be said in words". Hilversum is the Chislehurst of Holland--a discreet and wealthy suburb, where business men have their villas amid the trees. It is a pleasantspot, excellent from which to explore. The author of _Through Noord-Holland_ thus describes Laren, whichlies a few miles from Hilversum and is reached by tram: "Surrounded byarable land and hilly heathery it is richly provided with picturesquespots; country-seats, villas, ordinary houses and farms are followingone another. For those who are searching for rest and calmness is thisvillage very recommendable. " But to say only that is to omit Laren'sprincipal claim to distinction--its fame as the home of Anton Mauve. No great painter of nature probably ever adapted less than Mauve. Hispictures, oils and water-colours alike, are the real thing, very true, very beautiful, low-toned, always with a touch of wistfulness andmelancholy. He found his subjects everywhere, and justified them bythe sympathy and truth of his exquisite modest art. Chiefly he painted peasants and cows. What a spot of red was to Corot, the blue linen jacket of the Dutch peasant was to his disciple. Inever hear the name of Mauve without instantly seeing a black andwhite cow and a boy in a blue jacket amid Holland's evening green. At Laren Mauve's fame is kept sweet by a little colony of artists, who like to draw their inspiration where the great painter drew his. North of Laren, on the sea coast, is the fishing village of Huizen, where the women have a neat but very sedate costume. They wear whitecaps with curved sides that add grace to a pretty cheek. Having, however, the odd fancy that a flat chest is more desirable than arounded one, they compress their busts into narrow compass, strivingas far as possible to preserve vertical lines. At the waist a plethoraof petticoats begins, spreading the skirts to inordinate width andemphasising the meagreness above. The sombre attire of the Huizen women is a contrast to most of thetraditional costumes of Holland, which are charming, full of gaycolour and happy design. The art of dress seems otherwise to be deadin Holland to-day; In the towns the ordinary conventional dress isdull; and in the country it is without any charm. Holland as a whole, omitting the costumes, cannot be said to have any more knowledge ofclothes than we have. It is only by the blue linen jackets of the menin the fields that the situation is saved and the Dutch are provedour superiors. How cool and grateful to the eyes this blue jacketcan be all admirers of Mauve's pictures know. Naarden and Muiden are curiously mediæval. The steam-tram has beenrushing along for some miles, past beer gardens and villas, whensuddenly it slows to walking pace as we twist in and out over thebridges of a moat, and creeping through the tunnel of a rampart arein the narrow streets of a fortified town. Both Naarden and Muidenare surrounded by moats and fortifications. Naarden's crowning hour of agony was in 1572, since it had themisfortune to stand in the path of Don Frederic on his way fromZutphen, where not a citizen had been left alive, to Amsterdam. Thestory of the surrender of the city to Don Romero under the pledgethat life and property should be respected, and of the dastardly andfiendish disregard of this pledge by the Spaniards, is the most ghastlyin the whole war. From Motley I take the account of the tragedy:-- "On the 22nd of November a company of one hundred troopers was sent tothe city gates to demand its surrender. The small garrison which hadbeen left by the Prince was not disposed to resist, but the spirit ofthe burghers was stouter than their walls. They answered the summonsby a declaration that they had thus far held the city for the Kingand the Prince of Orange, and, with God's help, would continue soto do. As the horsemen departed with this reply, a lunatic, calledAdrian Krankhoeft, mounted the ramparts, and discharged a culverineamong them. No man was injured, but the words of defiance, and theshot fired by a madman's hand, were destined to be fearfully answered. "Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the place, which was at best farfrom strong, and ill provided with arms, ammunition, or soldiers, despatched importunate messages to Sonoy, and to other patriot generalsnearest to them, soliciting reinforcements. Their messengers cameback almost empty-handed. They brought a little powder and a greatmany promises, but not a single man-at-arms, not a ducat, not a pieceof artillery. The most influential commanders, moreover, advised anhonourable capitulation, if it were still possible. "Thus baffled, the burghers of the little city found their proudposition quite untenable. They accordingly, on the 1st of December, despatched the burgomaster and a senator to Amersfoort, to make terms, if possible, with Don Frederic. When these envoys reached the place, they were refused admission to the general's presence. The armyhad already been ordered to move forward to Naarden, and they weredirected to accompany the advance guard, and to expect their reply atthe gates of their own city. This command was sufficently ominous. Theimpression which it made upon them was confirmed by the warning voicesof their friends in Amersfoort, who entreated them not to return toNaarden. The advice was not lost upon one of the two envoys. Afterthey had advanced a little distance on their journey, the burgomaster, Laurentszoon, slid privately out of the sledge in which they weretravelling, leaving his cloak behind him. 'Adieu; I think I will notventure back to Naarden at present, ' said he calmly, as he abandonedhis companion to his fate. The other, who could not so easily deserthis children, his wife, and his fellow-citizens in the hour of danger, went forward as calmly to share in their impending doom. "The army reached Bussum, half a league distant from Naarden, inthe evening. Here Don Frederic established his headquarters, andproceeded to invest the city. Senator Gerrit was then directed toreturn to Naarden, and to bring out a more numerous deputation on thefollowing morning, duly empowered to surrender the place. The envoyaccordingly returned next day, accompanied by Lambert Hortensius, rector of a Latin academy, together with four other citizens. Beforethis deputation had reached Bussum, they were met by Julian Romero, who informed them that he was commissioned to treat with them on thepart of Don Frederic. He demanded the keys of the city, and gave thedeputation a solemn pledge that the lives and property of all theinhabitants should be sacredly respected. To attest this assurance, Don Julian gave his hand three several times to Lambert Hortensius. Asoldier's word thus plighted, the commissioners, without exchanging anywritten documents, surrendered the keys, and immediately afterwardsaccompanied Romero into the city, who was soon followed by five orsix hundred musketeers. "To give these guests an hospitable reception, all the housewivesof the city at once set about preparations for a sumptuous feast, to which the Spaniards did ample justice, while the colonel and hisofficers were entertained by Senator Gerrit at his own house. Assoon as this conviviality had come to an end, Romero, accompanied byhis host, walked into the square. The great bell had been meantimeringing, and the citizens had been summoned to assemble in the GastHuis Church, then used as a town hall. In the course of a few minutes500 had entered the building, and stood quietly awaiting whatevermeasures might be offered for their deliberation. Suddenly a priest, who had been pacing to and fro before the church door, entered thebuilding and bade them all prepare for death; but the announcement, the preparation, and the death, were simultaneous. The door wasflung open, and a band of armed Spaniards rushed across the sacredthreshold. They fired a single volley upon the defenceless herd, and then sprang in upon them with sword and dagger. A yell of despairarose as the miserable victims saw how hopelessly they were engaged, and beheld the ferocious faces of their butchers. The carnage withinthat narrow space was compact and rapid. Within a few minutes allwere despatched, and among them Senator Gerrit, from whose table theSpanish commander had but just risen. The church was then set on fire, and the dead and dying were consumed to ashes together. "Inflamed but not satiated, the Spaniards then rushed into thestreets, thirsty for fresh horrors. The houses were all rifled oftheir contents, and men were forced to carry the booty to the camp, who were then struck dead as their reward. The town was then firedin every direction, that the skulking citizens might be forced fromtheir hiding-places. As fast as they came forth they were put todeath by their impatient foes. Some were pierced with rapiers, somewere chopped to pieces with axes, some were surrounded in the blazingstreets by troops of laughing soldiers, intoxicated, not with wine butwith blood, who tossed them to and fro with their lances, and derived awild amusement from their dying agonies. Those who attempted resistancewere crimped alive like fishes, and left to gasp themselves to deathin lingering torture. The soldiers becoming more and more insane, asthe foul work went on, opened the veins of some of their victims, anddrank their blood as if it were wine. Some of the burghers were for atime spared, that they might witness the violation of their wives and, daughters, and were then butchered in company with these still moreunfortunate victims. Miracles of brutality were accomplished. Neitherchurch nor hearth was sacred. Men were slain, women outraged at thealtars, in the streets, in their blazing homes. The life of LambertHortensius was spared out of regard to his learning and genius, but hehardly could thank his foes for the boon, for they struck his only sondead, and tore his heart out before his father's eyes. Hardly any manor woman survived, except by accident. A body of some hundred burghersmade their escape across the snow into the open country. They were, however, overtaken, stripped stark naked, and hung upon the treesby the feet, to freeze, or to perish by a more lingering death. Mostof them soon died, but twenty, who happened to be wealthy, succeeded, after enduring much torture, in purchasing their lives of their inhumanpersecutors. The principal burgomaster, Heinrich Lambertszoon, wasless fortunate. Known to be affluent, he was tortured by exposing thesoles of his feet to a fire until they were almost consumed. On promisethat his life should be spared he then agreed to pay a heavy ransom;but hardly had he furnished the stipulated sum when, by expressorder of Don Frederic himself, he was hanged in his own doorway, and his dissevered limbs afterwards nailed to the gates of the city. "Nearly all the inhabitants of Naarden, soldiers and citizens, werethus destroyed; and now Don Frederic issued peremptory orders that noone, on pain of death, should give lodging or food to any fugitive. Helikewise forbade to the dead all that could now be forbidden them--agrave. Three weeks long did these unburied bodies pollute the streets, nor could the few wretched women who still cowered within such housesas had escaped the flames ever move from their lurking-places withouttreading upon the festering remains of what had been their husbands, their fathers, or their brethren. Such was the express command of himwhom the flatterers called the 'most divine genius ever known'. Shortlyafterwards came an order to dismantle the fortifications, which hadcertainly proved sufficiently feeble in the hour of need, and to razewhat was left of the city from the surface of the earth. The work wasfaithfully accomplished, and for a long time Naarden ceased to exist. " The Naarden of to-day sprang from the ruins. Mendoza's comment uponthe siege ran thus: "The sack of Naarden was a chastisement whichmust be believed to have taken place by express permission of aDivine Providence; a punishment for having been the first of theHolland towns in which heresy built its nest, whence it has takenflight to all the neighbouring cities". None the less, "the heartsof the Hollanders, " says Motley, "were rather steeled to resistancethan awed into submission by the fate of Naarden"; as Don Fredericfound when he passed on to besiege Haarlem and later Alkmaar. To Muiderburg, between Naarden and Muiden, I have not been, andtherefore with the more readiness quote my indispensable author:-- In summer is Muiderberg by its situation at the Zuiderzee a favouritelittle spot and very recommendable for nervous people. The numberof those who sought cure and found it here is enormous. It is thevacation-place by excellence. There is a church with square towerand organ. About the tower, the spire of which is failing, variousopinions go round how this occured, by war, by shooting or storm. The beautiful beech-grove in the center of the village, where a lotof forest-giants are rising in the sky in severe rows, is a favoriteplace, in the middle of which is a hill with fine pond. A couple of years ago Geertruida Carelsen wrote in her Berlin lettersthat Muiderberg perhaps is the only bathing-place where sea and woodare united. There are three well-known graveyards. Of Muiden's very picturesque moated castle--the ideal castle ofa romance--Peter Cornellissen Hooft, the poet and historian, wasonce custodian. It was built in the thirteenth century and restoredby Florence V. , who was subsequently incarcerated there. As theNoord-Holland guide-book sardonically remarks, "He will never havethought that he built his own prison by it". Chapter XIII Around Amsterdam: North To Marken--An _opera-bouffe_ island--Cultivated and profitable simplicity--Broek-in-Waterland--Cow-damp--The two doors--Gingerbread and love--Dead cities--Monnickendam--The overturned camera--Dutch phlegm--Brabant the quarrelsome--Edam--Holland's great churches--Edam's roll of honour--A beard of note--A Dutch Daniel Lambert--A virgin colossus--A ship-owner indeed--The mermaid--Volendam--Taciturnity and tobacco--Purmerend--The land of windmills--Zaandam--Green paint at its highest power--A riverside inn--Peter the Great. An excursion which every one will say is indispensable takes one toMarken (pronounced Marriker); but I have my doubts. The island maybe reached from Amsterdam either by boat, going by way of canal andreturning by sea, or one may take the steam-tram to Monnickendam orEdam, and then fall into the hands of a Marken mariner. To escapehis invitations to sail thither is a piece of good fortune that fewvisitors succeed in achieving. Marken in winter wears perhaps a genuine air; in the season of touristsit has too much the suggestion of _opera bouffe_. The men's costume iscomic beyond reason; the inhabitants are picturesque of set design;the old women at their doorways are too consciously the owners ofquaint habitations, glimpses of which catch the eye by well-studiedaccident. I must confess to being glad to leave: for either one wasintruding upon a simple folk entirely surrounded by water; or thesimple folk, knowing human nature, had made itself up and sent outits importunate young from strictly mercenary motives. In eithercase Marken is no place for a sensitive traveller. The theory thatthe Marken people are savages is certainly a wrong one; they havecarried certain of the privileges of civilisation very far and cantake care of themselves with unusual cleverness. Moreover, no savagewould cover his legs with such garments as the men adhere to. What is wrong with Marken is that for the most part it subsistson sight-seers, which is bad; and it too generally suggests thata stage-manager, employed by a huge Trust, is somewhere in thebackground. It cannot be well with a community that encourages itschildren to beg of visitors. The women, however, look sensible: fine upstanding creatures with along curl of yellow hair on each side of their faces. One meets themnow and then in Amsterdam streets, by no means dismayed by the trafficand bustle. Their head-dresses are striking and gay, and the frontof their bodices is elaborately embroidered, the prevailing coloursbeing red and pink. Bright hues are also very popular within doors onthis island, perhaps by way of counteracting the external monotony, the Marken walls being washed with yellow and hung with Delft plates, while the furniture and hangings all have a cheerful gaiety. The island is flat save for the mounds on which its villages are built, each house standing on poles to allow the frequent inundations of thewinter free way. If one has the time and money it is certainly betterto visit Marken in a fishing-boat than in the steamer--provided thatone can trust oneself to navigators masquerading in such bloomers. The steamers from Amsterdam pause for a while at Broek andMonnickendam. Broek-in-Waterland, to give it its full title, is oneof the quaintest of Dutch villages. But unfortunately Broek alsohas become to some extent a professional "sight". Its cleanliness, however, for which it is famous, is not an artificial effect attainedto impress visitors, but a genuine enough characteristic. The housesare gained by little bridges which, with various other idiosyncrasies, help to make Broek a delight to children. If a company of childrenwere to be allowed to manage a small republic entirely alone, thewhimsical millionaire who fathered the project might do worse thanbuy up this village for the experiment. In the model dairy farm of Broek, through which visitors file duringthe time allowed by the steam-boat's captain, things happen as theyshould: the cows' tails are tied to the roof, and all is spick andspan. The author of _Through Noord-Holland_ tells us that among thedairy's illustrious visitors was an Italian duchess from Livornowho ordered cheese for herself, for the Princess Borghese and forthe Duke of Ceri. Everything in the farm, he adds, "is glimmeringand glittering". One of the phenomena of Broek is thus explained by the same ingeniousauthor: "By beholding the dark-tinted columns attentively one seessomething dull here and there. In the year 1825, when the great floodinundated whole Broek, men as well as cattle flied into the church, which lies so much higher and remained quite free of water. By theexhalations of the cows, the cow-damp, has the wood been blemished andmade dull at many places, chamois nor polish could help, the dullnessremained. " The church has beauties to set against the phenomenon ofcow-damp, and among them a very elaborate carved pulpit in variouspreclious woods, and some fine lamps. Ireland tells us that the front doors of many of Broek's housesare opened only twice in their owners' lives--when they marry andwhen they die. For the rest the back door must serve. The custom isnot confined to Broek, but is found all over North Holland. Theseceremonial front doors are often very ornate. It was also at Broekthat Ireland picked up his information as to the best means of winningthe Dutch heart. "Laughable as it may seem, a safe expedient to insurethe affections of the lower class of these lasses, is to arm yourselfwell with gingerbread. The first question the lover is asked afterknocking at the door, when the parents are supposed to be in bed, is, 'Have you any gingerbread?' If he replies in the affirmative, hefinds little difficulty in gaining admission. A second visit ensureshis success, and the lady yields. " I can add a little to this. When a young man thinks of courting hefirst speaks to the parents, and if they are willing to encouragehim he is asked to spend the evening with their daughter. They thendiscreetly retire to bed and leave the world to him. Under his arm isa large cake, not necessarily of gingerbread, and this he deposits onthe table, with or without words. If he is acceptable in the girl'seyes she at once puts some more peat on the fire. He then knows thatall is well with him: the cake is cut, and Romance is king. But if thefire is not replenished he must gather up his cake and return to hishome. A very favourite Dutch picture represents "The Cutting of theCake". I have heard that the Dutch wife takes her husband's left arm;the Dutch fiancee her lover's right. Monnickendam, on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, is now a desolate sleepyspot; once it was one of the great towns of Holland, at the time whenThe Hague was a village. I say Zuyder Zee, but strictly speaking itis on the Gouwzee, the name of the straits between Monnickendam andMarken. It is here, in winter, when the ice holds, that a fair is held, to which come all Amsterdam on skates, to eat poffertjes and wafelen, Monnickendam affords our first sight of what are called verymisleadingly the "Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee, " meaning merely townswhich once were larger and busier. Monnickendam was sufficientlyimportant to fit out a fleet against the Spanish in 1573, underCornelius Dirckszoon (whose tomb we saw at Delft) and capture Bossuin the battle of Hoorn. To-day Monnickendam suggests nothing so little as a navalengagement. People live there, it is true, but one sees very few ofthem. Only in an old English market town on a hot day--such a town asPetworth, for example, in Sussex--do you get such desertion and quietand imperturbability. Monnickendam has, however, a treasure that fewEnglish towns can boast--its charming little stadhuis tower, one ofthe prettiest in Holland, with a happy peal of bells, and mechanicalhorses in action once an hour; while the tram line running right downthe main street periodically awakens the populace. When last I visited Monnickendam it was by steam-tram; and at a littlehalf-way station, where it is necessary to wait for another tram, our engine driver, stoker and guard were elaborately photographedby an artist who seemed to be there for no other purpose. He placedhis tripod on the platform; grouped the officials; gave them--andincidentally a score of heads protruding from the carriages--asufficient exposure, and was preparing another plate when anincoming tram dashed up so unexpectedly as to cause him to jump, and, in jumping, to overturn his tripod and precipitate the cameraunder the carriage wheels. Now here was a tragedy worthy of serioustreatment. A Frenchman would have danced with rage; an Englishmanwould have wanted to know whose fault it was and have threatenedreprisals. But the Dutchman merely looked a little pained, a littlesurprised, and in a minute or two was preparing a friendly group ofthe officials of the tram which had caused the accident. I do not putthe incident forward as typical; but certainly one may travel far inHolland without seeing exhibitions of temper. I mentioned the nation'sequability to the young Dutchman in the canal boat between Rotterdamand Delft. "Ah!" he said, "you should go to Brabant. They fight enoughthere!" I did go to Brabant, but I saw no anger or quarrelsomeness;yet I suppose he had his reasons. The steam-tram to Monnickendam runs on to Edam, whence one may commandboth Volegdam and Purmerend. Edam is famous for its cheese, but thetraveller in Holland as a rule reserves for Alkmaar cheese market hisinterest in this industry; and we will do the same. Broadly speakingEdam sends forth the red cheeses, Alkmaar the yellow; but no hardand fast line can be drawn. Were it not for its cheese market Edamwould be as "dead" as Monnickendam, but cheese saves it. It was oncea power and the water-gate of Amsterdam, at a time when the only wayto the Dutch capital was by the Zuyder Zee and the Y. Edam is at themouth of the Y, its name really being Ydam. The size of its GrooteKerk indicates something of this past importance, for it is immense:a Gothic building of the fourteenth century, cold and drear enough, but a little humanised by some coloured glass from Gouda, often invery bad condition. In the days when this church was built Edam hadtwenty-five thousand inhabitants: now there are only five thousand. It is difficult to lose the feeling of disproportion between the sizeof the Dutch churches and that of the villages and congregations. Thevillages are so small, the churches so vast. It is as though thechurches were built to compensate for the absence of hills. From anyone spire in Holland one must be able to see almost all the others. The stained glass in Edam's great church has reference rather toHolland's temporal prosperity than to religion. More interesting isthe room over the southern door, which was used first for a prison, and later for a school, the library of which still may be seen. Edampossesses in addition to the immense church of St. Nicholas a littlechurch of the Virgin, with a spire full of bells, badly out of theperpendicular. The town has also some interesting old houses, one ortwo of great beauty, and many enriched by quaint bas-reliefs. The stadhuis is comparatively modern and not externallyattractive. Within, however, Edam does honour to three fantasticfigures who once were to be seen in her streets--Peter Dircksz, Jan Cornellissen and Trijntje Kever, portraits of whom grace thetown hall. Their claims to fame are certainly genuine, althoughunexpected. Peter's idiosyncrasy was a beard which had to be loopedup to prevent it trailing in the mud; Jan, at the age of forty-two, when the artist set to work upon him, weighed thirty-two stones andsix pounds; while Trijntje was a maiden nine feet tall and otherwiseample. Peter and Trijntje were, I believe, true children of Edam, but Jan was a mere import, having conveyed his bulk thither fromFriesland. Like our own Daniel Lambert, he kept an inn. One ofTrijntje's shoes is also preserved--liker to a boat than anything else. I have by no means exhausted Edam's roll of honour. Shipowner Osterlenmust be added--a burgher, who, in 1682, when his portrait was painted, could point (and in the canvas does point, with no uncertain finger, )to ninety-two ships of which he was the possessor. And a legend ofEdam tells how once in 1403, when the country was inundated by thesea, some girls taking fresh water to the cows saw and captureda mermaid. Her (like the lady in Mr. Wells's story) they dressedand civilised, and taught to sow and spin, but could never maketalk. Possibly it is this mermaid who, caught in a fisherman's net, is represented in bas-relief (as the fish that pleases all tastes)on one of the facades of Edam, with accompanying verses which mustnot be translated, embodying comments upon the nature of the haul byvarious typical and very plain-spoken members of society--a soldierand a schoolmaster, a monk and a fowler, for example. Edam has yet another hero. On the Dam bridge are iron-backed bencheswhich never grow rusty. "One owes this particularity, " says _ThroughNoord-Holland_, "to the invention of an Edamer about 1569, who alsotook his secret with him into the grave. " To the little fishing village of Volendain, paradise of quaintcostumes and gay prettinesses, artists invariably resort. Like muchof Monnickendam, and indeed almost all Dutch seaside settlements, thevillage is, if not below sea-level, almost invisible from the water, on account of an obliterating dyke. At the Helder one can considerthe rampart reasonable, but here, where there is no foe but the ZuyderZee, it may seem fantastic. If we lived there in winter, however, theprecaution would soon be justified, for the Zuyder Zee can on occasionroar like a lion. It is odd to reflect that Volendam, Monnickendam andMarken may become ordinary inland hamlets in the midst of green fieldsif the great scheme for draining the Zuyder Zee is carried through. If the people and village of Volendam are to be described in aphrase, they may be called better Markeners in a better Marken. Thedecoration of the pointed red-roofed houses is similar; there is thesame prevailing and very ingratiating passion for blue Delft--anda very beautiful blue too; the clothes of the men and women have afamily resemblance. But Volendam is in every way better--althoughits open drain is a sore trial: it is more human, more natural. Themen hold the record for Dutch taciturnity. They also smoke morepersistently and wear larger sabots than I saw anywhere else, leaving them outside their doors with a religious exactitude thatsuggests that the good-wives of Volendam know how to be obeyed. Thewomen discard the Marken ringlets and richness of embroidery, but inthe matter of petticoats they approach the Scheveningen and Huizenstandards. Their jewellery resolves itself into a coral necklace, while the men wear silver buttons--both coming down from mother todaughter, and father to son. The fishing fleet of Volendam sails as far as the North Sea, but itis always in Volendam by Saturday morning. Hence if you would seethe Volendam fishermen in their greatest strength the time to visitthe little town is at the end of the week or on Sunday. The day for Purmerend is Tuesday, because then the market is held, in the castle plein, among mediæval surroundings. To this market theneighbourhood seems to send its whole population, by road and water, in gay cart and comfortable wherry. According to my unfailing informantin these regions, the Purmerend stadhuis, in order "to aggrandise thecheese market, " was in 1633 "set back a few meters by screwing-force". The excursion to Marken and the excursion to Edam and its neighbourhoodtake each a day; but between Amsterdam and Zaandam, just off the greatNorth Canal, steamers ply continually, and one may be there in halfan hour. The journey must be made, because Zaandam is superficiallythe gayest town in Holland and the capital of windmill land. In anhour's drive (obviously no excursion for Don Quixote) one may passhundreds. These mills do everything except grind corn. For the mostpart the Dutch mills pump: but they also saw wood, and cut tobacco, and make paper, and indeed perform all the tasks for which in countriesless windy and less leisurely steam or water power is employed. The onewindmill in Holland which always springs to my mind when the subject ismentioned is, however, not among Zaandam's legions: it is that solitaryand imposing erection which rises from the water in the Coolsingelin Rotterdam. That is my standard Dutch mill. Another which I alwaysrecall stands outside Bergen-op-Zoom, on the way to Tholen--all white. The Dutch mill differs from the English mill in three importantrespects: it is painted more gaily (although for England whitepaint is certainly best); it has canvas on its sails; and it isoften thatched. Dutch thatching is very smooth and pretty, like anantelope's skin; and never more so than on the windmills. Zaandam lies on either side of the river Zaan, here broad and placidand north of the dam more like the Thames at Teddington, say, thanany stretch of water in Holland. A single street runs beside theriver for about a mile on both banks, the houses being models ofsmiling neatness, picked out with cheerful green paint. At Zaandamgreen paint is at its greenest. It is the national pigment; butnowhere else in Holland have they quite so sure a hand with it. Tothe critics who lament that there is no good Dutch painting to-day, I would say "Go to Zaandam". Not only is Zaandam's green the greenest, but its red roofs are the reddest, in Holland. A single row of treesruns down each of its long streets, and on the other side of eachare illimitable fields intersected by ditches which on a cloudlessafternoon might be strips of the bluest ribbon. We sat for an hour in the garden of "De Zon, " a little inn on the westbank half-way between the dam and the bridge. The landlady brought uscoffee, and with it letters from other travellers who had liked hergarden and had written to tell her so. These she read and purred over, as a good landlady is entitled to do, while we watched the bargesfloat past and disappear as the distant lock opened and swallowed them. South of the dam the interest is centred in the hut where for awhile in 1697 Peter the Great lived to see how the Dutchmen builttheir ships. The belief that no other motive than the inspection ofthis very uninteresting cottage could bring a stranger hither isa tenet of faith to which the Zaandamer is bound with shackles ofiron. The moment one disembarks the way to Peter's residence beginsto be pointed out. Little boys run before; sturdy men walk beside;old men (one with a wooden leg) struggle behind. It was later thatthe Czar crossed to England and worked in the same way at Deptford;but no visitor to Deptford to-day is required to see his lodging there. The real interest of Zaandam is not its connection with Peter theGreat but the circumstance that it was the birthplace of Anton Mauve, in 1838. He died at Arnheim in 1888, Neither Zaandam nor Arnheimhonours him. Chapter XIV Alkmaar and Hoorn, The Helder and Enkhuisen To Alkmaar by canal--The Cheese Market--The Weigh House clock--Buyers and sellers--The siege of Alkmaar--To Hoorn by sea--A Peaceful harbour--Hoorn's explorer sons--John Haring's bravery--The defeat of De Bossu--Negro heroes--Hoorn's streets--and museum--Market day--and Kermis--Nieuwediep--The Helder--The Lighthouse--Hotel characters--The praise of the porter--Texel--Medemblik--King Radbod's hesitancy--Enkhuisen--Paul Potter--Sir William Temple and the old philosopher--The Dromedary. If the weather is fine one should certainly go to Alkmaar by canal. Thejourney by water, on a steamer, is always interesting and intenselyinvigorating. It is only one remove from the open sea, so flat isthe country, so free the air. Alkmaar's magnet is its cheese market, which draws little companies oftravellers thither every Friday in the season. To see it rightly onemust reach Alkmaar on the preceding afternoon, to watch the arrivalof the boats from the neighbouring farms, and see them unload theiryellow freight on the market quay. The men who catch the cheeses areexceedingly adroit--it is the nearest thing to an English game thatis played in Holland. Before they are finally placed in position thecheeses are liberally greased, until they glow and glitter like orangefires. All the afternoon the boats come in, with their collectionsfrom the various dairies on the water. By road also come cheeses inwagons of light polished wood painted blue within; and all the whilethe carillon of the beautiful grave Weigh House is ringing out itslittle tunes--the wedding march from "Lohengrin" among them--and thelittle mechanical horsemen are charging in the tourney to the blast ofthe little mechanical trumpeter. At one o'clock they run only a singlecourse; but at noon the glories of Ashby-de-la-Zouche are enacted. By nine o'clock on the Friday morning the market square is coveredwith rectangular yellow heaps arranged with Dutch systematic orderand symmetry, many of them protected by tarpaulins, and the squareis filled also with phlegmatic sellers and buyers, smoking, smoking, unceasingly smoking, and discussing the weather and the cheese, the cheese and the Government. Not till ten may business begin. Instantly the first stroke of tensounds the aspect of the place is changed. The Government and theweather recede; cheese emerges triumphant. Tarpaulins are stripped off;a new expression settles upon the features both of buyers and sellers;the dealers begin to move swiftly from one heap to another. They feelthe cheeses, pat them, listen to them, plunge in their scoops andremove a long pink stick which they roll in their fingers, smell ortaste and then neatly replace. Meanwhile, the seller stands by with anair part self-satisfaction, part contempt, part pity, part detachment, as who should say "It matters nothing to me whether this fussy fellowthinks the cheese good or not, buys it or not; but whether he thinksit good or bad, or whether he buys, or leaves it, it is still thebest cheese in Alkmaar market, and some one will give me my price". The seller gnaws his cigar, the buyer asks him what he asks. The buyermakes an offer. The seller refuses. The buyer increases it. The sellereither refuses or accepts. In accepting, or drawing near acceptance, he extends his hand, which the buyer strikes once, and then pausing, strikes again. Apparently two such movements clench the bargain;but I must confess to being a bad guide here, for I could find noabsolute rule to follow. The whole process of Alkmaar chafferingis exceedingly perplexing and elusive. Otherwise the buyer walksaway to other cheeses, the seller by no means unconscious of hismovements. A little later he returns, and then as likely as not histerms are accepted, unless another has been beforehand with him andbought the lot. Not until half-past ten strikes may the weighing begin. At that hourthe many porters suddenly spring into activity and hasten to theWeigh House with their loads, which are ticketed off by the masterof the scales. The scene is altogether very Dutch and very interesting; and one shouldmake a point of crossing the canal to get a general view of the market, with the river craft in the foreground, the bustling dealers behind, and above all the elaborate tower and facade of the Weigh House. Alkmaar otherwise is not of great interest. It has a large lightchurch, bare and bleak according to custom, with very attractive greencurtains against its whitewash, in which, according to the authorof _Through Noord-Holland_, is a tomb containing "the entrails ofCount Florence the Fifth". Here also is a model of one of De Ruyter'sships. Alkmaar also possesses a charming Oude Mannen en Oude VrouwenHuis (or alms house, as we say) with white walls and a very prettytower; quiet, pleasant streets; and on its outskirts a fine woodcalled the Alkmaarder Hout. In the Museum, which is not too interesting, is a picture of thesiege of Alkmaar, an episode of which the town has every right tobe proud. It was the point of attack by the Duke of Alva and his sonafter the conquest of Haarlem--that hollow victory for Spain which wasmore costly than many defeats. Philip had issued a decree threateningthe total depopulation of Holland unless its cities submitted tothe charms of his attractive religion. The citizens of Alkmaar werethe first to defy this proclamation. Once again Motley comes to ouraid with his vivid narrative: "The Spaniards advanced, burned thevillage of Egmont to the ground as soon as the patriots had left it, and on the 21st of August Don Frederic, appearing before the walls, proceeded formally to invest Alkmaar. In a few days this had been sothoroughly accomplished, that, in Alva's language, 'it was impossiblefor a sparrow to enter or go out of the city'. The odds were somewhatunequal. Sixteen thousand veteran troops constituted the besiegingforce. Within the city were a garrison of _eight hundred_ soldiers, together with _thirteen hundred_ burghers, capable of bearingarms. The rest of the population consisted of a very few refugees, besides the women and children. Two thousand one hundred able-bodiedmen, of whom only about one-third were soldiers, to resist sixteenthousand regulars! "Nor was there any doubt as to the fate which was reserved for them, should they succumb. The Duke was vociferous at the ingratitudewith which his _clemency_ had hitherto been requited. He complainedbitterly of the ill success which had attended his monitory circulars;reproached himself with incredible vehemence, for his previousmildness, and protested that, after having executed only twenty-threehundred persons at the surrender of Haarlem, besides a few additionalburghers since, he had met with no correspondent demonstrations ofaffection. He promised himself, however, an ample compensation for allthis ingratitude in the wholesale vengeance which he purposed to wreckupon Alkmaar. Already he gloated in anticipation over the havoc whichwould soon be let loose within those walls. Such ravings, if inventedby the pen of fiction, would seem a puerile caricature; proceeding, authentically, from his own, they still appear almost too exaggeratedfor belief. 'If I take Alkmaar, ' he wrote to Philip, 'I am resolvednot to leave a single creature alive; the knife shall be put to everythroat. Since the example of Harlem has proved of no use, _perhapsan example of cruelty_ will bring the other cities to their senses, 'He took occasion also to read a lecture to the party of conciliationin Madrid, whose counsels, as he believed, his sovereign was beginningto heed. Nothing, he maintained, could be more senseless than the ideaof pardon and clemency. This had been sufficiently proved by recentevents. It was easy for people at a distance to talk about gentleness;but those upon the spot knew better. _Gentleness had produced nothing_, so far; violence alone could succeed in future. 'Let your Majesty, ' hesaid, 'be disabused of the impression, that with kindness anything canbe done with these people. Already have matters reached such a pointthat many of those born in the country, who have hitherto advocatedclemency, are now undeceived, and acknowledge their mistake. Theyare of opinion _that not a living soul should be left in Alkmaar, but that every individual should be put to the sword_. '. .. "Affairs soon approached a crisis within the beleaguered city. Dailyskirmishes, without decisive result, had taken place outside thewalls. At last, on the 18th of September, after a steady cannonadeof nearly twelve hours, Don Frederic at three in the afternoon, ordered an assault. Notwithstanding his seven months' experience atHaarlem, he still believed it certain that he should carry Alkmaarby storm. The attack took place at once upon the Frisian gate, and upon the red tower on the opposite side. Two choice regiments, recently arrived from Lombardy, led the onset, rending the air withtheir shouts, and confident of an easy victory. They were sustainedby what seemed an overwhelming force of disciplined troops. Yetnever, even in the recent history of Haarlem, had an attack beenreceived by more dauntless breasts. Every living man was on the walls, The storming parties were assailed with cannon, with musketry, withpistols. Boiling water, pitch and oil, molten lead, and unslaked lime, were poured upon them every moment. Hundreds of tarred and burninghoops were skilfully quoited around the necks of the soldiers, whostruggled in vain to extricate themselves from these fiery ruffs, while as fast as any of the invaders planted foot upon the breach, theywere confronted face to face with sword and dagger by the burghers, who hurled them headlong into the moat below. "Thrice was the attack renewed with ever-increasing rage--thricerepulsed with unflinching fortitude. The storm continued four hourslong. During all that period, not one of the defenders left his post, till he dropped from it dead or wounded. The women and children, unscared by the balls flying in every direction, or by the hand-to-handconflicts on the ramparts, passed steadily to and fro from the arsenalsto the fortifications, constantly supplying their fathers, husbands, and brothers with powder and ball. Thus, every human being in the citythat could walk had become a soldier. At last darkness fell upon thescene. The trumpet of recall was sounded, and the Spaniards, utterlydiscomfited, retired from the walls, leaving at least one thousanddead in the trenches, while only thirteen burghers and twenty-fourof the garrison lost their lives. Thus was Alkmaar preserved for alittle longer--thus a large and well-appointed army signally defeatedby a handful of men fighting for their firesides and altars. EnsignSolis, who had mounted the breach for an instant, and miraculouslyescaped with life, after having been hurled from the battlements, reported that he had seen 'neither helmet nor harness, ' as he lookeddown into the city; only some plain-looking people, generally dressedlike fishermen. Yet these plain-looking fishermen had defeated theveterans of Alva. .. . "The day following the assault, a fresh cannonade was opened uponthe city. Seven hundred shots having been discharged, the attack wasordered. It was in vain; neither threats nor entreaties could inducethe Spaniards, hitherto so indomitable, to mount the breach. The placeseemed to their imagination protected by more than mortal powers, otherwise how was it possible that a few half-starved fishermen couldalready have so triumphantly overthrown the time-honoured legions ofSpain. It was thought, no doubt, that the Devil, whom they worshipped, would continue to protect his children. Neither the entreaties nor themenaces of Don Frederic were of any avail. Several soldiers allowedthemselves to be run through the body by their own officers, ratherthan advance to the wails, and the assault was accordingly postponedto an indefinite period. " What seemed at first an unfortunate accident turned the scale. Amessenger bearing despatches from the Prince of Orange fell intoSpanish hands and Don Frederic learned that the sea was to be letin. Motley continues: "The resolution taken by Orange, of which DonFrederic was thus unintentionally made aware, to flood the countryfar and near rather than fail to protect Alkmaar, made a profoundimpression upon his mind. It was obvious that he was dealing witha determined leader, and with desperate men. His attempt to carrythe place by storm had signally failed, and he could not deceivehimself as to the temper and disposition of his troops ever sincethat repulse. When it should become known that they were threatenedwith submersion in the ocean, in addition to all the other horrors ofwar, he had reason to believe that they would retire ignominiouslyfrom that remote and desolate sand hook, where, by remaining, theycould only find a watery grave. These views having been discussed ina council of officers, the result was reached that sufficient had beenalready accomplished for the glory of the Spanish arms. Neither honournor loyalty, it was thought, required that sixteen thousand soldiersshould be sacrificed in a contest, not with man, but with the ocean. "On the 8th of October, accordingly, the siege, which had lastedseven weeks, was raised, and Don Frederic rejoined his father inAmsterdam. Ready to die in the last ditch, and to overwhelm boththemselves and their foes in a common catastrophe, the Hollanders hadat last compelled their haughty enemy to fly from a position whichhe had so insolently assumed. " Every one is agreed that Hoorn should be approached by water, because it rises from the sea like an enchanted city of the East, with its spires and its Harbour Tower beautifully unreal. And as theship comes nearer there is the additional interest of wondering howthe apparently landlocked harbour is to be entered, a long green barseeming to stretch unbrokenly from side to side. At the last minutethe passage is revealed, and one glides into this romantic port. Iput Hoorn next to Middelburg in the matter of charm, but seen fromthe sea it is of greater fascination. In many ways Hoorn is moreremarkable as a town, but more of my heart belongs to Middelburg. I sat on the coping of the harbour at sundown and watched a merry partydining in the saloon of a white and exceedingly comfortable-lookingyacht, some thirty or forty yards away. Two neat maids continuallypassed from the galley to the saloon, and laughter came overthe water. The yacht was from Arnheim, its owner having all theappearance of a retired East Indian official. In the distance wasa tiny sailing boat with its sail set to catch what few puffs ofwind were moving. Its only occupant was a man in crimson trousers, the reflection from which made little splashes of warm colour in thepearl grey sea. At Hoorn there seems to be a tendency to sail forpleasure, for as we came away a party of chattering girls glided outin the care of an elderly man--bound for a cruise in the Zuyder Zee. It is conjectured that Hoorn took its name from the mole protecting theharbour, which might be considered to have the shape of a horn. Thecity as she used to be (now dwindled to something less, althoughthe cheese industry makes her prosperous enough and happy enough)was called by the poet Vondel the trumpet and capital of the ZuyderZee, the blessed Horn. He referred particularly to the days of Tromp, whose ravaging and victorious navy was composed largely of Hoorn ships. Cape Horn, at the foot of South America, is the name-child of the Dutchport, for the first to discover the passage round that headland and togive it its style was Willem Schouten, a Hoorn sailor. It was anotherHoorn sailor, Abel Tasman, who discovered Van Diemen's Land (now calledafter him) and also New Zealand; and a third, Jan Pieters Coen (whosestatue may be seen at Hoorn) who founded the Dutch dominions in theEast Indies, and thus changed the whole character of his own country, leading to that orientalising to which I have so often referred. A more picturesque hero was John Haring of Hoorn, who performed agreat feat in 1572, when De Sonoy, the Prince of Orange's general, was fighting De Bossu, the Spanish Admiral, off the Y, just at thebeginning of the siege of Haarlem. An unexpected force of Spaniardsfrom Amsterdam overwhelmed the few men whom De Sonoy had musteredfor the defence of the Diemerdyk. I quote Motley's account: "Sonoy, who was on his way to their rescue, was frustrated in his designby the unexpected faint-heartedness of the volunteers whom he hadenlisted at Edam. Braving a thousand perils, he advanced, almostunattended, in his little vessel, but only to witness the overthrowand expulsion of his band. It was too late for him singly to attemptto rally the retreating troops. They had fought well, but had beenforced to yield before superior numbers, one individual of the littlearmy having performed prodigies of valour. John Haring, of Hoorn, had planted himself entirely alone upon the dyke, where it was sonarrow between the Y on the one side and Diemer Lake on the other, that two men could hardly stand abreast. Here, armed with swordand shield, he had actually opposed and held in check one thousandof the enemy, during a period long enough to enable his own men, if they had been willing, to rally, and effectively to repel theattack. It was too late, the battle was too far lost to be restored;but still the brave soldier held the post, till, by his devotion, he had enabled all those of his compatriots who still remained inthe entrenchments to make good their retreat. He then plunged intothe sea, and, untouched by spear or bullet, effected his escape. Hadhe been a Greek or a Roman, a Horatius or a Chabras, his name wouldhave been famous in history--his statue erected in the market-place;for the bold Dutchman on his dyke had manifested as much valour ina sacred cause as the most classic heroes of antiquity. " Then came the siege of Haarlem, and then the siege of Alkmaar. Hoorn'sturn followed, but Hoorn was gloriously equal to it in the hands ofAdmiral Dirckzoon, whose sword is in the Alkmaar museum, and whosetomb is at Delft. Motley shall tell the story: "On the 11th October, however, the whole patriot fleet, favored by a strong easterly breeze, bore down upon the Spanish armada, which, numbering now thirty sailof all denominations, was lying off and on in the neighbourhoodof Hoorn and Enkhuyzen. After a short and general engagement, nearly all the Spanish fleet retired with precipitation, closelypursued by most of the patriot Dutch vessels. Five of the King'sships were eventually taken, the rest effected their escape. Onlythe Admiral remained, who scorned to yield, although his forces hadthus basely deserted him. His ship, the 'Inquisition, ' for such washer insolent appellation, was far the largest and best manned of boththe fleets. Most of the enemy had gone in pursuit of the fugitives, but four vessels of inferior size had attacked the 'Inquisition' atthe commencement of the action. Of these, one had soon been silenced, while the other three had grappled themselves inextricably to her sidesand prow. The four drifted together, before wind and tide, a severeand savage action going on incessantly, during which the navigation ofthe ships was entirely abandoned. No scientific gunnery, no militaryor naval tactics were displayed or required in such a conflict. Itwas a life-and-death combat, such as always occurred when Spaniardand Netherlander met, whether on land or water. Bossu and his men, armed in bullet-proof coats of mail, stood with shield and swordon the deck of the 'Inquisition, ' ready to repel all attempts toboard. The Hollander, as usual, attacked with pitch hoops, boilingoil, and molten lead. Repeatedly they effected their entrance to theAdmiral's ship, and as often they were repulsed and slain in heaps, or hurled into the sea. "The battle began at three in the afternoon, and continued withoutintermission through the whole night. The vessels, drifting together, struck on the shoal called the Nek, near Wydeness. In the heat of theaction the occurrence was hardly heeded. In the morning twilight, John Haring, of Hoorn, the hero who had kept one thousand soldiersat bay upon the Diemer dyke, clambered on board the 'Inquisition, 'and hauled her colors down. The gallant but premature achievement costhim his life. He was shot through the body and died on the deck of theship, which was not quite ready to strike her flag. In the course ofthe forenoon, however, it became obvious to Bossu that furtherresistance was idle. The ships were aground near a hostile coast, his own fleet was hopelessly dispersed, three-quarters of his crewwere dead or disabled, while the vessels with which he was engagedwere constantly recruited by boats from the shore, which brought freshmen and ammunition, and removed their killed and wounded. At eleveno'clock Admiral Bossu surrendered, and with three hundred prisonerswas carried into Holland. Bossu was himself imprisoned at Hoorn, inwhich city he was received, on his arrival, with great demonstrationsof popular hatred. " De Bossu remained in prison for three years. Later he fought for theStates. His goblet is preserved at Hoorn. His collar is at Monnickendamand his sword at Enkhuisen. The room in the Protestant orphanage where De Bossu was imprisoned isstill to be seen; and you may see also at the corner of the Grooteoostthe houses from which the good wives and housekeepers watched theprogress of the battle, and on which a bas-relief representation ofthe battle was afterwards placed in commemoration. Two more heroes of Hoorn may be seen in effigy on the façade ofthe State College, opposite the Weigh House, guarding an Englishshield. The shield is placed there, among the others, on account ofa daring feat performed by two negro sailors in De Ruyter's fleetin the Thames, who ravished from an English ship in distress theshield at her stern and presented it to Hoorn, their adopted town, where it is now supported by bronze figures of its captors. Hoorn's streets are long and cheerful, with houses graciously bendingforwards, many of them dignified by black paint and yet not made toograve by it. This black paint blending with the many trees on thecanal sides has the same curious charm as at Amsterdam, although therethe blackness is richer and more absolute. Even the Hoorn warehousesare things of beauty: one in particular, by the Harbour Tower, withbright green shutters, is indescribably gay, almost coquettish. Hoornalso has the most satisfying little houses I saw in Holland--streetsof them. And of all the costumes of Holland I remember most vividlythe dead black dress and lace cap of a woman who suddenly turned acorner here--as if she had walked straight from a picture by Elias. The Harbour Tower is perhaps Hoorn's finest building, its charmbeing intensified rather than diminished by the hideous barracksclose by. St. Jan's Gasthuis has a façade of beautiful gravity, andthe gateway of the home for Ouden Vrouwen is perfect. The museumin the Tribunalshof is the most intimate and human collection ofcuriosities which I saw in Holland--not a fossil, not a stuffed bird, in the building. Among the pictures are the usual groups of soldiersand burgomasters, and the usual fine determined De Ruyter by Bol. Wewere shown Hoorn's treasures by a pleasant girl who allowed no shadeof tedium to cross her smiling courteous face, although the displayof these ancient pictures and implements, ornaments and domesticarticles must have been her daily work for years. In the top roomof all is a curious piece of carved stone on which may be read theseinscriptions:-- This most illustrious Prince, Henry Lord Darnley, King of Scotland, Father to our Soveraigne Lord King James. He died at the age of 21. The most excellent Princesse Marie, Queen of Scotland, Mother of our Soveraigne, Lord King James. She died 1586, and entombed at West Minster. It would be interesting to know more of this memorial. In another room are two carved doors from a house in Hoorn that hadbeen disfurnished which give one a very vivid idea of the old goodtaste of this people and the little palaces of grave art in whichthey lived. Thursday is Hoorn's market day, and it is important to be there thenif one would see the market carts of North Holland in abundance. Wehad particularly good fortune since our Thursday was not only marketday but the Kermis too. I noticed that the principal attraction ofthe fair, for boys, was the stalls (unknown at the Kermis both atMiddelburg and Leyden) on which a variety of flat cake was choppedwith a hatchet. The chopper, who I understand is entitled only towhat he can sever with one blow, often fails to get any. Nieuwediep and The Helder, at the extreme north of Holland, are one, and interesting only to those to whom naval works are interesting. Forthey are the Portsmouth and Woolwich of the country. My memories ofthese twin towns are not too agreeable, for when I was there in 1897the voyage from Amsterdam by the North Holland canal had chilled methrough and through, and in 1904 it rained without ceasing. Nieuwediepis all shipping and sailors, cadet schools and hospitals. The Helderis a dull town, with the least attractive architecture I had seen, cowering beneath a huge dyke but for which, one is assured, it wouldlie at the bottom of the North Sea. Under rain it is a drearier townthan any I know; and ordinarily it is bleak and windy, saved onlyby its kites, which are flown from the dyke and sail over the sea atimmense heights. Every boy has a kite--one more link between Hollandand China. I climbed the lighthouse at The Helder just before the lamp was lit. Itwas an impressive ceremony. The captain and his men stood all ready, the captain watching the sun as it sunk on the horizon. At the instantit disappeared he gave the word, and at one stride came the light. Ichanced at the moment to be standing between the lantern and the sea, and I was asked to move with an earnestness of entreaty in which thesafety of a whole navy seemed to be involved. The light may be seenforty-eight miles away. It is fine to think of all the eyes withinthat extent of sea, invisible to us, caught almost simultaneously bythis point of flame. I did not stay at Nieuwediep but at The Helder. Thirty years ago, however, one could have done nothing so inartistic, for then, according to M. Havard, the Hotel Ten Burg at Nieuwediep had forits landlord a poet, and for its head waiter a baritone, and to stayelsewhere would have been a crime. Here is M. Havard's descriptionof these virtuosi: "No one ever sees the landlord the first day hearrives at the hotel. M. B. R. De Breuk is not accessible to ordinarymortals. He lives up among the clouds, and when he condescends to comedown to earth he shuts himself up in his own room, where he indulgesin pleasant intercourse with the Muses. "I have no objection to confessing that, although I am a brother inthe art, and have stayed several times at his hotel, I have neveronce been allowed to catch a glimpse of his features. The head-waiter, happily, is just the contrary. It is he who manages the hotel, receivestravellers, and arranges for their well-being. He is a handsomefellow, with a fresh complexion, heavy moustache, and one lock of hairartificially arranged on his forehead. He is perfectly conscious ofhis own good looks, and wears rings on both his hands. Nature hasendowed him with a sonorous baritone voice, the notes of which, whether sharp or melodious, he is careful in expressing, becausehe is charmed with his art, and has an idea that it is fearfullyegotistical to conceal such treasures. One note especially he neverfails to utter distinctly, and that is the last--the note of payment. "Sometimes he allows himself to become so absorbed in his art that heforgets the presence in the hotel of tired travellers, and disturbstheir slumbers by loud roulades and cadences; or perhaps he is asked tofetch a bottle of beer, he stops on the way to the cellar to perfectthe harmony of a scale, and does not return till the patience of thecustomer is exhausted. But who would have the heart to complain of suchsmall grievances when the love of song is stronger than any other?" I had no such fortune in Holland. No hotel proprietor rhymed for me, no waiter sang. My chief friends were rather the hotel porters, of whom I recall in particular two--the paternal colossus at theAmstel in Amsterdam, who might have sat for the Creator to an oldmaster--urbane, efficient, a storehouse of good counsel; and the plumpand wide cynic into whose capable and kindly hands one falls at theOude Doelen at The Hague, that shrewd and humorous reader of men andAmericans. I see yet his expression of pity, not wholly (yet perhapssufficiently) softened to polite interest, when consulted as to thebest way in which to visit Alkmaar to see the cheese market. Thatany one staying at The Hague--and more, at the Oude Doelen--shouldwish to see traffic in cheese at a provincial town still strikes hiswise head as tragic, although it happens every week. I honour himfor it and for the exquisite tact with which he retains his opinionand allows you to have yours. A poet landlord and an operatic head waiter, what are they when allis said beside a friendly hotel porter? He is the _Deus ex machinâ_indeed. The praises of the hotel porter have yet to be sung. OSwitzerland! the poet might begin (not, probably, a landlord poet) OSwitzerland--I give but a bald paraphrase of the spirited original--OSwitzerland, thou land of peaks and cow bells, of wild strawberriesand nonconformist conventions, of grasshoppers and climbing dons, thou hast strange limitations! Thou canst produce no painter, thoupossessest no navy; but thou makest the finest hotel porters in theworld. Erect, fair-haired, blue-eyed, tactful and informing, theyare the true friends of the homeless!--And so on for many strophes. To Texel I did not cross, although it is hard for any one who hasread _The Riddle of the Sands_ to refrain. Had we been there in thenesting season I might have wandered in search of the sea birds'and the plovers' eggs, just for old sake's sake, as I have in theisland of Coll, but we were too late, and The Helder had depressedus. It was off the Island of Texel on 31st July, 1653, that AdmiralTromp was killed during his engagement with the English under Monk. Medemblik, situated on the point of a spur of land between The Helderand Enkhuisen, was once the residence of Radbod and the Kings ofFrisia. It is now nothing. One good story at any rate may be recalledthere. When Radbod, King of the Frisians, was driven out of WesternFrisia in 689 by Pepin of Heristal, Duke and Prince of the Franks(father of Charles Martel and great grandfather of Charlemagne, whocompleted the conquest of Frisia), the defeated king was considereda convert to Christianity, and the preparations for his baptism weremade on a grand scale. Never a whole-hearted convert, Radbod, even asone foot was in the water, had a visitation of doubt. Where, he madebold to ask, were the noble kings his ancestors, who had not, likehimself, been offered this inestimable privilege of baptism--in heavenor in hell? The officiating Bishop replied that they were doubtlessin hell. "Then, " said Radbod, withdrawing his foot, "I think it wouldbe better did I join them there, rather than go alone to Paradise. " Enkhuisen, where one embarks for Friesland, is a Dead City of theZuyder Zee, with more signs of dissolution than most of them. Once shehad a population of sixty thousand; that number must now be dividedby ten. "Above all things, " says M. Havard, the discoverer of Dead Cities, "avoid a promenade in this deserted town with an inhabitant familiarwith its history, otherwise you will constantly hear the refrain;'Here was formerly the richest quarter of commerce; there, wherethe houses are falling into total ruin, was the quarter of ouraristocracy, ' But more painful still, when we have arrived at whatappears the very end of the town, the very last house, we see at adistance a gate of the city. A hundred years ago the houses joinedthis gate. It took us a walk of twenty minutes across the meadowsto arrive at this deserted spot. " I did not explore the town, andtherefore I cannot speak with any authority of its possessions;but I saw enough to realise what a past it must have had. At Enkhuisen was born Paul Potter, who painted the famous pictureof the bull in the Mauritshuis at The Hague. The year 1625 saw hisbirth; and it was only twenty-nine years later that he died. Whileadmiring Potter's technical powers, I can imagine few nervous trialsmore exacting than having to live with his bull intimately in one'sroom. This only serves to show how temperamental a matter is artcriticism, for on each occasion that I have been to the Mauritshuis thebull has had a ring of mute or throbbing worshippers, while Vermeer's"View of Delft" was without a devotee. I have seen, however, littlescenes of cattle by Potter which were attractive as well as masterly. Sir William Temple, in his _Observations upon the United Provinces_gives a very human page to this old town: "Among the many and varioushospitals, that are in every man's curiosity and talk that travelstheir country, I was affected with none more than that of the agedseamen at Enchuysen, which is contrived, finished, and ordered, as if it were done with a kind intention of some well-natured man, that those, who had passed their whole lives in the hardships andincommodities of the sea, should find a retreat stored with allthe eases and conveniences that old age is capable of feeling andenjoying. And here I met with the only rich man that ever I saw inmy life: for one of these old seamen entertaining me a good whilewith the plain stories of his fifty years' voyages and adventures, while I was viewing their hospital, and the church adjoining, I gavehim, at parting, a piece of their coin about the value of a crown:he took it smiling, and offered it me again; but, when I refusedit, he asked me, What he should do with money? for all, that everthey wanted, was provided for them at their house. I left him toovercome his modesty as he could; but a servant, coming after me, saw him give it to a little girl that opened the church door, as shepassed by him: which made me reflect upon the fantastic calculationof riches and poverty that is current in the world, by which a man, that wants a million, is a Prince; he, that wants but a groat, is abeggar; and this a poor man, that wanted nothing at all. " Hoorn's Harbour Tower, as I have said, has a charm beyond description;but Enkhuisen's--known as the Dromedary--is unwieldly and plain. Ithas, however, this advantage over Hoorn's, its bells are verybeautiful. One sees the Dromedary for some miles on the voyage toStavoren and Friesland. Chapter XV Friesland: Stavoren to Leeuwarden Enkhuisen to Stavoren--Draining the Zuyder Zee--The widow and the sandbank--Frisian births and courtships--Hindeloopen--Quaint rooms and houses--A pious pun--Biers for all trades--Sneek--Barge life--Two giants--Bolsward--The cow--A digression on the weed. The traveller from Amsterdam enters Free Frisia at Stavoren, oncethe home of kings and now a mere haven. A little steamer carriesthe passengers from Enkhuisen, while the cattle trucks and vans ofmerchandise cross the Zuyder Zee in a huge railway raft. The steamertakes an hour or a little longer--time enough to have lunch on deck ifit is fine, and watch Enkhuisen fading into nothingness and Stavorenrising from the sea. Before the thirteenth century the Zuyder Zee consisted only ofLake Flevo, south of Stavoren and Enkhuisen, so that our passagethen would have been made on land. But in 1282 came a great tempestwhich drove the German ocean over the north-west shores of Holland, insulating Texel and pouring over the low land between Holland andFriesland. The scheme now in contemplation to drain the Zuyder Zeeproposes a dam from Enkhuisen to Piaam, thus reclaiming some 1, 350, 000acres for meadow land. Since what man has done man can do, there islittle doubt but that the Dutch will carry through this great project. Concerning Stavoren there is now but one thing to say, and no writeron Holland has had the temerity to avoid saying it. That thing is thestory of the widow and the sandbank. It seems that at Stavoren in itspalmy days was a wealthy widow shipowner, who once gave instructionsto one of her captains, bound for a foreign port, that he shouldbring back the most valuable and precious thing to be found there, in exchange for the outward cargo. The widow expected I know notwhat--ivory, perhaps, or peacocks, or chrysoprase--and when thecaptain brought only grain, she was so incensed that, though the poorof Stavoren implored her to give it them, she bade him forthwith throwit overboard. This he did, and the corn being cursed there sprang upon that spot a sandbank which gradually ruined the harbour and thetown. The bank is called The Widow's Corn to this day. It was near Stavoren that M. Havard engaged in a pleasant and improvingconversation with a lock-keeper who had fought with France, and fromhim learned some curious things about Friesland customs. I quotea little: "When a wife has given birth to a boy and added a son toFriesland, all her female friends come to see her and drink in her roomthe _brandewyn_, which is handed round in a special cup or goblet. Eachwoman brings with her a large tart, all of which are laid out in theroom--sometimes they number as many as thirty. The more there areand the finer the cakes the better, because that proves the number offriends. A few days later the new-born Frieslander is taken to church, all the girls from twelve years old accompanying the child and carryingit each in turn. As soon as they reach the church the child is handedto the father, who presents it for baptism. Not a girl in the placewould renounce her right to take part in the little procession, for it is a subject of boasting when she marries to be able to say, 'I have accompanied this and that child to its baptism'. Besides, it is supposed to ensure happiness, and that she in her turn willhave a goodly number of little ones. "'Well and how about betrothals?' 'Ah! ha! that's another thing. Thegirl chooses the lad. You know the old proverb, 'There are onlytwo things a girl chooses herself--her potatoes and her lover'. Youcan well imagine how such things begin. They see each other at the_kermis_, or in the street, or fields. Then one fine day the ladfeels his heart beating louder than usual. In the evening he puts onhis best coat, and goes up to the house where the girl lives. "The father and mother give him a welcome, which the girls smile at, and nudge each other. No one refers to the reason for his visit, thoughof course it is well known why he is there. At last, when bedtimecomes, the children retire--even the father and mother go to theirroom--and the girl is left alone at the fireside with the young man. "They speak of this and that, and everything, but not a word of loveis uttered. If the girl lets the fire go down, it is a sign she doesnot care for the lad, and won't have him for a husband. If, on thecontrary, she heaps fuel on the fire, he knows that she loves himand means to accept him for her affianced husband. In the first case, all the poor lad has to do is to open the door and retire, and neverput his foot in the house again. But, in the other, he knows it isall right, and from that day forward he is treated as if he belongedto the family. ' "'And how long does the engagement last?' "'Oh, about as long as everywhere else--two, three years, more or less, and that is the happiest time of their lives. The lad takes his girlabout everywhere; they go to the _kermis_, skate, and amuse themselves, and no one troubles or inquires about them. Even the girl's parentsallow her to go about with her lover without asking any questions. '" A Dutch proverb says, "Take a Brabant sheep, a Guelderland ox, a Flemish capon and a Frisian cow". The taking of the Frisian cowcertainly presents few difficulties, for the surface of Frieslandis speckled thickly with that gentle animal--ample in size and blackand white in hue. The only creatures that one sees from the carriagewindows on the railway journey are cows in the fields and plovers abovethem. Now and then a man in his blue linen coat, now and then a heron;but cows always and plovers always. Never a bullock. The meadows ofHolland are a female republic. Perkin Middlewick (in _Our Boys_)had made so much money out of pork that whenever he met a pig hewas tempted to raise his hat; the Dutch, especially of North Hollandand Friesland, should do equal homage to their friend the cow. Edamacknowledges the obligation in her municipal escutcheon. Stavoren may be dull and unalluring, but not so Hindeloopen, the third station on the railway to Leeuwarden, where we shallstay. At Hindeloopen the journey should be broken for two or threehours. Should, nay must. Hindeloopen (which means stag hunt) has beencalled the Museum of Holland. All that is most picturesque in Dutchfurniture and costume comes from this little town--or professes to doso, for the manufacture of spurious Hindeloopen cradles and stoofjes, chairs and cupboards, is probably a recognised industry. In the museum at Leeuwarden are two rooms arranged and furnishedexactly in the genuine Hindeloopen manner, and they are exceedinglycharming and gay. The smaller of the two has the ordinary blue andwhite Dutch tiles, with scriptural or other subjects, around thewalls to the height of six feet; above them are pure white tiles, tothe ceiling, with an occasional delicate blue pattern. The floor isof red and brown tiles. All the furniture is painted very gaily upona cream or white background--with a gaiety that has a touch of theOrient in it. The bed is hidden behind painted woodwork in the wall, like a berth, and is gained by a little flight of movable steps, also radiant. I never saw so happy a room. On the wall is a cabinetof curios and silver ornaments. The larger room is similiar but more costly. On the wall are fineDelft plates, and seated at the table are wax Hindeloopeners: a manwith a clay pipe and tobacco box, wearing a long flowered waistcoat, a crossed white neckcloth and black coat and hat--not unlike a Quakerin festival attire; and his neat and very picturesque women folkare around him. In the cradle, enshrined in ornamentations, is aHindeloopen baby. More old silver and shining brass here and there, and the same resolute cheerfulness of colouring everywhere. Some ofthe houses in which such rooms were found still stand at Hindeloopen. The Dutch once liked puns, and perhaps still do so. Again and againin their old inscriptions one finds experiments in the punning art, On the church of Hindeloopen, for example, are these lines:-- Des heeren woord Met aandacht hoort Komt daartoe met hoopen Als hinden loopen. The poet must have had a drop of Salvationist blood in his veins, for only in General Booth's splendid followers do we look for suchspirited invitations. The verses call upon worshippers to run togetherlike deer to hear the word of God. Within the great church, among other interesting things, are a largenumber of biers. These also are decorated according to the prettyHindeloopen usage, one for the dead of each trade. Order even indeath. The Hindeloopen baker who has breathed his last must be carriedto the grave on the bakers' bier, or the proprieties will wince. After Hindeloopen the first town of importance on the way to Leeuwardenis Sneek; and Sneek is not important. But Sneek has a water-gate ofquaint symmetrical charm, with two little spires--the least littlebit like the infant child of the Amsterdam Gate at Haarlem. In commonwith so many Frisian towns Sneek has suffered from flood. A disastrousinundation overwhelmed her on the evening of All Saints' Day in 1825, when the dykes were broken and the water rushed in to the heightof five feet. Such must be great times of triumph for the floatingpopulation, who, like the sailor in the old ballad of the sea, maywell pity the unfortunate and insecure dwellers in houses. What thenumber of Friesland's floating population is I do not know; but itmust be very large. Many barges and tjalcks are both the birthplaceand deathplace of their owners, who know no other home. The cabinsare not less intimately cared for and decorated than the sitting-roomsof Volendam and Marken. We saw at Edam certain odd characters formed in Nature's waywardmoods. Sneek also possessed a giant named Lange Jacob, who was eightfeet tall and the husband of Korte Jannetje (Little Jenny), who wasjust half that height. People came from great distances to see thiscouple. And at Sneek, in the church of St. Martin, is buried a giantof more renown and prowess--Peter van Heemstra, or "Lange Pier" as hewas called from his inches, a sea ravener of notable ferocity, whosetwo-handed sword is preserved at Leeuwarden--although, as M. Havardsays, what useful purpose a two-handed sword can serve to an admiralon a small ship baffles reflection. Bolsward, Sneek's neighbour, is another amphibious town, with a verycharming stadhuis in red and white, crowned by an Oriental belltower completely out of keeping with the modern Frisian who hearsits voice. This constant occurrence of Oriental freakishness inthe architecture of Dutch towns, in contrast with Dutch occidentalfour-square simplicity and plainness of character, is an effect towhich one never quite grows accustomed. Bolsward's church, which is paved with tomb-stones, among themsome very rich ones in high relief--too high for the comfort of thedesecrating foot--has a fine carved pulpit, some oak stalls of greatantiquity and an imposing bell tower. It is claimed that the Frisians were the first Europeans to smokepipes. Whether or not that is the case, the Dutch are now the greatestsmokers. Recent statistics show that whereas the annual consumption oftobacco by every inhabitant of Great Britain and Ireland is 1. 34 lb. , and of Germany 3 lb. , that of the Dutch is 7 lb. Putting the smokingpopulation at 30 per cent. Of the total--allowing thus for women, children and non-smokers--this means that every Dutch smoker consumesabout eight ounces of tobacco a week, or a little more than an ouncea day. I excepted women and children, but that is wrong. The boys smoketoo--sometimes pipes, oftenest cigars. At a music hall at The Hague Iwatched a contest in generosity between two friends in a family partyas to which should supply a small boy in sailor suit, evidently theson of the host, with a cigar. Both won. Fell, writing in 1801, says that the Dutch, although smoke dried, werenot then smoking so much as they had done twenty years before. TheDutchmen, he says, "of the lower classes of society, and not a few inthe higher walks of life, carry in their pockets the whole apparatuswhich is necessary for smoking:--a box of enormous size, whichfrequently contains half a pound of tobacco; a pipe of clay or ivory, according to the fancy or wealth of the possessor; if the latter, instruments to clean it; a pricker to remove obstructions from the tubeof the pipe; a cover of brass wire for the bowl, to prevent the ashesor sparks of the tobacco from flying out; and sometimes a tinderbox, or bottle of phosphorus, to procure fire, in case none is at hand. "The excuse of the Dutch for their lavish attachment to tobacco, inthe most offensive form in which it can be exhibited, is, that thesmoke of this transatlantic weed preserves them from many disordersto which they are liable from the moisture of the atmosphere of theircountry, and enables them to bear cold and wet without inconvenience. " Fell supports this curious theory by relating that when, soaked by astorm, he arrived at an inn at Overschie, the landlord offered hima pipe of tobacco to prevent any bad consequences. Fell, however, having none of his friend Charles Lamb's affection for the friendlytraitress, declined it with asperity. Ireland has an ingenious theory to account for the addiction of theDutch to tobacco. It is, he says, the succedaneum to purify theunwholesome exhalations of the canals. "A Dutchman's taciturnityforbids his complaining; so that all his waking hours are silentlyemployed in casting forth the filthy puff of the weed, to dispel themore filthy stench of the canal. " Ireland's view was probably an invention; but this I know, that theDutch cigar and the Dutch atmosphere are singularly well adapted toeach other. I brought home a box of a brand which was agreeable inHolland, and they were unendurable in the sweet air of Kent. The cigar is the national medium for consuming tobacco, cigarettesbeing practically unknown, and pipes rare in the streets. My experienceof the Dutch cigar is that it is a very harmless luxury and a verypersuasive one. After a little while it becomes second nature todrop into a tobacconist's and slip a dozen cigars into one's pocket, at a cost of a few pence; and the cigars being there, it is anothercase of second nature to smoke them practically continuously. Of thesecigars, which range in price from one or two cents to a few pence each, there are hundreds if not thousands of varieties. The number of tobacconists in Holland must be very great, and thetrade is probably strong enough to resist effectually the impost onthe weed which was recently threatened by a daring Minister, if everit is attempted. The pretty French custom of giving tobacco licencesto the widows of soldiers is not adopted here; indeed I do not seethat it could be, for the army is only 100, 000 strong. In times ofstress it might perhaps be advisable to send the tobacconists out tofight, and keep the soldiers to mind as many of their shops as couldbe managed, shutting up the rest. Chapter XVI Leeuwarden and Neighbourhood An agricultural centre--A city of prosperity and health--The fair Frisians--Metal head-dresses--Silver work--The Chancellerie--A paradise of blue china--Jumping poles--The sea swallow--A Sunday excursion--Dogs for England--The idle busybodies--The stork--A critical village--The green crop--The dyke--A linguist--Harlingen--A Dutch picture collector--Franeker--The Planetarium--Dokkum's bad reputation--A discursive guide-book--Bigamy punished--A husband-tamer--Boxum's record--Sjuck's short way--The heroic Bauck--A load of exorcists--Poor Lysse. In an hour or two the train brings us to Leeuwarden, between flatgreen meadows unrelieved save for the frequent isolated homesteads, in which farm house, dairy, barn, cow stalls and stable are all underone great roof that starts almost from the ground. On the Essex flatsthe homesteads have barns and sheltering trees to keep them company:here it is one house and a mere hedge of saplings or none at all. Forthe rest--cows and plovers, plovers and cows. Friesland's capital, Leeuwarden, might be described as an Englishmarket town, such as Horsham in Sussex, scoured and carried out to itshighest power, rather than a small city. The cattle trade of Frieslandhas here its headquarters, and a farmer needing agricultural implementsmust fare to Leeuwarden to buy them. The Frisian farmer certainly doesneed them, for it is his habit to take three crops of short hay offhis meadows, rather than one crop of long hay in the English manner. Not only cattle but also horses are sold in Leeuwarden market. TheFrisian horse is a noble animal, truly the friend of man; andthe Frisians are fond of horses and indulge both in racing and introtting--or "hardraverij" as they pleasantly call it. I made a closefriend of a Frisian mare on the steamer from Rotterdam to Dort. AtDort I had to leave her, for she was bound for Nymwegen. A mostcharming creature. Leeuwarden is large and prosperous and healthy. What one misses in itis any sense of intimate cosiness. One seems to be nearer the elements, farther from the ingratiating works of man, than hitherto in any Dutchtown. The strong air, the openness of land, the 180 degrees of sky, thenorthern sharpness, all are far removed from the solace of the chimneycorner. It is a Spartan people, preferring hard health to overcoats;and the streets and houses reflect this temperament. They are clean andstrong and bare--no huddling or niggling architecture. Everything alsois bright, the effect largely of paint, but there must be somethingvery antiseptic in this Frisian atmosphere. The young women of Leeuwarden--the fair Frisians--are tall and strongand fresh looking; not exactly beautiful but very pleasant. "Therego good wives and good mothers, " one says. Their Amazonian air isaccentuated by the casque of gold or silver which fits tightly overtheir heads and gleams through its lace covering: perhaps the mostcurious head-dress in this country of elaborate head-dresses, and neverso curious as when, on Sundays, an ordinary black bonnet, bristlingwith feathers and jet, is mounted on the top of it. That, however, is a refinement practised only by the middle-aged and elderly women:the young women wear either the casque or a hat, never both. If oneclimbs the Oldehof and looks down on the city on a sunny day--as Idid--the glint of a metal casque continually catches the eye. Thesehead-dresses are of some value, and are handed on from mother todaughter for generations. No Dutch woman is ever too poor to lay bya little jewellery; and many a domestic servant carries, I am told, twenty pounds worth of goldsmith's work upon her. Once Leeuwarden was famous for its goldsmiths and silversmiths, but the interest in precious metal work is not what it was. Many ofthe little silver ornaments--the windmills, and houses, and wagons, and boats--which once decorated Dutch sitting-rooms as a matter ofcourse, and are now prized by collectors, were made in Leeuwarden. The city's architectural jewel is the Chancellerie, a very ornatebut quite successful building dating from the sixteenth century:first the residence of the Chancellors, recently a prison, and nowthe Record Office of Friesland. Not until the Middelburg stadhuisshall we see anything more cheerfully gay and decorative. The littleWeigh House is in its own way very charming. But for gravity one mustgo to the Oldehof, a sombre tower on the ramparts of the city. Oncethe sea washed its very walls. To the ordinary traveller the most interesting things in the Leeuwardenmuseum, which is opposite the Chancellerie, are the Hindeloopen roomswhich I have described in the last chapter; but to the antiquary itoffers great entertainment. Among ancient relics which the spadehas revealed are some very early Frisian tobacco pipes. Among thepictures, for the most part very poor, is a dashing Carolus Duranand a very beautiful little Daubigny. Affiliated to the museum is one of the best collections of Delftchina in Holland--a wonderful banquet of blue. This alone makes itnecessary to visit Leeuwarden. All about Leeuwarden the boys have jumping poles for the ditches, and you may see dozens at a time, after school, leaping backwards andforwards over the streams, like frogs. Children abound in Friesland:the towns are filled with boys and girls; but one sees few babies. InHolland the very old and the very young are alike invisible. One of the first things that I noticed at Leeuwarden was the presenceof a new bird. Hitherto I had seen only the familiar birds that weknow at home, except for a stork here and there and more herons thanone catches sight of in England save in the neighbourhood of one ofour infrequent heronries. But at Leeuwarden you find, sweeping andplaining over the canals, the beautiful tern, otherwise known as thesea swallow, white and powerful and delicately graceful, and possessedof a double portion of the melancholy of birds of the sea. Of thebittern, which is said to boom continually over the Friesland meres, I caught no glimpse and heard no sound. From Leeuwarden I rode one Sunday morning by the steam-tram toSt. Jacobie Parochie, a little village in the extreme north-west, where I proposed to take a walk upon the great dyke. It was a chillymorning, and I was glad to be inside the compartment as we rattledalong the road. The only other occupant was a young minister in awhite tie, puffing comfortably at his cigar, which in the manner ofso many Dutchmen he seemed to eat as he smoked. For a while we wereraced--and for a few yards beaten--by two jolly boys in a barrowdrawn by a pair of gallant dogs who foamed past us _ventre à terre_with six inches of flapping tongue. The introduction into England of dogs as beasts of draught wouldI suppose never be tolerated. A score of humanitarian societieswould spring into being to prevent it: possibly with some reason, for one has little faith in the considerateness of the averageEnglish costermonger or barrow-pusher. And yet the dog-workers ofthe Netherlands seem to be cheerful beasts, wearing their yoke veryeasily. I have never seen one, either in Holland or Belgium, obviouslydistressed or badly treated. Why the English dog should so often be acomplete idler, and his brother across the sea the useful ally of man, is an ethnological problem: the reason lying not with the animals butwith the nations. The Flemish and Dutch people are essentially humbleand industrious, without ambitions beyond their station. The Englishare a dissatisfied folk who seldom look upon their present position aspermanent. The English dog is idle because his master, always hopingfor the miracle that shall make him idle too, does not really set hishand to the day's work and make others join him; the Netherlandishdog is busy because his master does not believe in sloth, and havingno illusions as to his future, knows that only upon a strenuous youthand middle age can a comfortable old age be built. Countries that havenot two nations--the idle and rich and the poor and busy--as we have, are, I think, greatly to be envied. Life is so much more genuine there. England indeed has three nations: the workers, the idle rich wholive only for themselves, and the idle rich or well-to-do who livealso for others--in other words the busybodies. The third nationis the real enemy, for an altruist who has time on his hands cando enormous mischief between breakfast and lunch. It is this classthat would at once make it impossible for a strong dog to help indrawing a poor man's barrow. The opportunity would be irresistibleto them. The resolutions they would pass! The votes of thanks to thelieutenant-colonels in the chair! It was on this little journey to St. Jacobie Parochie that I sawmy first stork. Storks' nests there had been in plenty, but all wereempty. But at Wier, close to St. Jacobie Parochie, was a nest on a polebeside the road, and on this nest was a stork. The Dutch, I think, have no more endearing trait than their kindness to this bird. Onceat any rate their solicitude was grotesque, although serviceable, forIreland tells of a young stork with a broken leg for which a woodenleg was substituted. Upon this jury limb the bird lived happily forthirty years. The stork alone among Dutch birds is sacred, but he is not alone infeeling secure. The fowler is no longer a common object of the country, as he seems to have been in Albert Cuyp's day, when he returned inthe golden evening laden with game--for Jan Weenix to paint. St. Jacobie Parochie on a fine Sunday morning is no place for asensitive man. The whole of the male population of the village hadassembled by the church--not, I fancy, with any intention of enteringit--and every eye among them probed me like a corkscrew. It is anout of the world spot, to which it is possible no foreigner everbefore penetrated, and since their country was a show to me I had noright to object to serve as a show to them. But such scrutiny is notcomfortable. I hastened to the sea. One reaches the sea by a path across the fields to an inner dyke with ahigh road upon it, and then by another footpath, or paths, beside greenditches, to the ultimate dyke which holds Neptune in check. As I walkedI was continually conscious of heavy splashes just ahead of me, whichfor a while I put down to water-rats. But chancing to stand still Iwas presently aware of the proximity of a huge green frog, the largestI have ever seen, who sat, solid as a paper weight, close beside me, with one eye glittering upon me and the other upon the security ofthe water, into which he jumped at a movement of my hand. Walkingthen more warily I saw that the banks on either side were populouswith these monsters; and sometimes it needed only a flourish of thehandkerchief to send a dozen simultaneously into the ditch. I am gladwe have not such frogs at home. A little frog is an adorable creature, but a frog half-way to realising his bovine ambition is a monster. The sea dyke is many feet high. Its lowest visible stratum is ofblack stones, beneath the sea-level; then a stratum of large redbricks; then turf. The willow branches are invisible, within. Theland hereabout is undoubtedly some distance below sea-level, but itis impossible either here or anywhere in Holland to believe in theold and venerable story of the dyke plugged by an heroic thumb tothe exclusion of the ocean and the safety of the nation. As I lay on the bank in the sun, listening to a thousand larks, with all Friesland on one hand and the pearl grey sea on the other, a passer-by stopped and asked me a question which I failed tounderstand. My reply conveyed my nationality to him. "Ah, " he said, "Eenglish. Do it well with you?" I said that it did excellentlywell. He walked on until he met half a dozen other men, some hundredyards away, when I saw him pointing to me and telling them of thelong conversation he had been enjoying with me in my own difficulttongue. It was quite clear from their interest that the others wereconscious of the honour of having a real linguist among them. Another day I went to Harlingen. I had intended to reach the town bysteam-tram, but the time table was deceptive and the engine stoppedpermanently at a station two or three miles away. Fortunately, however, a curtained brake was passing, and into this I sprang, joiningtwo women and a dominie, and together we ambled very deliberatelyinto the quiet seaport. Harlingen is a double harbour--inland andmaritime. Barges from all parts of Friesland lie there, transferringtheir goods a few yards to the ocean-going ships bound for Englandand the world, although Friesland does not now export her produceas once she did. Thirty years ago much of our butter and beef andpoultry sailed from Harlingen. The town lies in the savour of the sea. Masts rise above the houses, ship-chandlers' shops send forth the agreeable scent of tar andcordage, sailors and stevedores lounge against posts as only thosethat follow the sea can do. I had some beef and bread, in the Dutchmidday manner, in the upper room of an inn overlooking the harbour, while two shipping-clerks played a dreary game of billiards. Beyond thedyke lay the empty grey sea, with Texel or Vlieland a faint dark lineon the horizon. Nothing in the town suggested the twentieth century, or indeed any century. Time was not. I wish that Mr. Bos had been living, that I might have called uponhim and seen his pictures, as M. Havard did. But he is no more, andI found no one to tell me of the fate of his collection. Possibly itis still to be seen: certainly other visitors to Harlingen should bemore energetic than I was, and make sure. Here is M. Havard's accountof Mr. Bos and an evening at his house: "Mr. Bos started in life asa farm-boy--then became an assistant in a shop. Instead of spendinghis money at the beer-houses he purchased books. He educated himself, and being provident, steady, industrious, he soon collected sufficientcapital to start in business on his own account, which he did as asmall cheesemonger; but in time his business prospered, and to suchan extent that one day he awoke to find himself one of the greatestand richest merchants of Harlingen. "Many under these circumstances would have considered rest was notundeserved; but Mr. Bos thought otherwise. He became passionately fondof the arts. Instead of purchasing stock he bought pictures, thenthe books necessary to understand them, and what with picking up anengraving here and a painting there he soon became possessed of a mostinteresting collection, and of an artistic knowledge sufficient for allpurposes. But to appreciate the virtue (the term is not too strong) ofthis aimable man, one should know the difficulties he had to surmountbefore gaining his position. It is no joke when one lives in a townlike Harlingen to act differently from other people. Tongues are aswell hung there as in any small French town. Instead of encouragingthis brave collector, they laughed at and ridiculed him. His tastefor the arts was regarded as a mania. In fact, he was looked upon as amadman, and even to this day, notwithstanding his successful career, he is looked upon as no better than a lunatic. Happily a taste forart gives one joys that makes the remarks of fools and idiots passlike water off a duck's back. "When we called on Mr. Bos he was absent; but as soon as MadameBos was made acquainted with our names we received a most cordialreception. She is, however, a most charming woman, combiningboth amiability and affability, with a venerable appearance; and, notwithstanding her immense fortune and gold plate, still wears thelarge Frison cap of the good old times. She was anxious to do thehonours of the collection in person, and immediately sent for her son, so that we might receive every information. "Mr. Bos returned home the same evening, and at once came on board, and would not leave until we had promised to spend the evening athis house, which we did in the Frison fashion--that is to say, thatwhilst examining the pictures we were compelled to devour sundryplates of _soeskrahelingen_, a kind of pastry eaten with cheese;also to empty several bottles of old wine. "A slight incident that occurred shortly before our departure touchedme greatly. 'You think, sir, ' said Mr. Bos, 'that because I do notunderstand French, I have not read the books you have written on ourNational Arts. Pray undeceive yourself, for here is a translation ofit, ' The old gentleman then placed before me a complete manuscripttranslation of the work, which he had had made specially for himself. " The special lion of Franeker, which I visited on my way back fromHarlingen, is the Planetarium of Eisa Eisinga, a mathematician andwool-comber, who constructed it alone in his back parlour between 1774and 1781. Interest in planetaria is, I should say, an acquired taste;but there can be no doubt as to the industry and ingenuity of thisinventor. The wonders of the celestial law are unfolded by a verytired young woman, whose attitude to the solar system is probablysimilar to that of Miss Jellyby to Africa. After her lecture onestumbles upstairs to see the clock-work which controls the spheres, and is then free once more. Franeker is proud also of her tombstones in the great church, butit is, I fancy, Eisa Eisinga whom she most admires. She was oncethe seat of an honourable University, which Napoleon suppressed in1811. Her learning gone, she remains a very pleasant and clean littletown. By some happy arrangement all the painting seems to be done atonce--so different from London, where a fresh façade only serves toemphasise a dingy one. But although the quality of the paint can becommended, the painters of Franeker are undoubtedly allowed too muchliberty. They should not have been permitted to spread their colouron the statues of the stadhuis. The principal street has an avenue of elm trees down its midst, in the place where a canal would be expected; but canals traversethe town too. Upon the deck of a peat barge I watched a small gravechild taking steady and unsmiling exercise on a rocking horse. I did not go to Dokkum, which lies at the extreme north ofFriesland. Mr. Doughty, the author of an interesting book of Dutchtravel, called _Friesland Meres_--he was the first that ever burstinto these silent canals in a Norfolk wherry--gives Dokkum a verybad character, and so do other travellers. It seems indeed always tohave been an unruly and inhospitable town. As long ago as 853 it wasresisting the entry of strangers. The strangers were Saint Bonifaceand his companion, whom Dokkum straightway massacred. King Pepinwas furious and sent an army on a punitive mission; while Heavensupplemented Pepin's efforts by permanently stigmatising the peopleof the town, all the men thenceforward being marked by a white tuftof hair and all the women by a bald patch. At Leeuwarden is a patriotic society known as the "Vereenigung totbevordering van vreemdelingenverkeer, " whose ambition, as theirtitle suggests, is to draw strangers to the town; and as part oftheir campaign they have issued a little guide to Leeuwarden and itsenvirons, in English. It is an excellent book. The preface beginsthus:-- The travelling-season, which causes thousands of people to leavetheir homes and hearths, has come round again. Throughout Europe silkstrings are being prepared to catch human birds of passage with. IsFrisia--Old Frisia--to lag behind? Impossible! Natural conditionas well as population and history give to our province a right toclaim a little attention and to be a hostess. We beg to refer tothe words of a Frenchman, M. Malte-Brun (quoted by one of the bestFrisian authors), the English translation of which words runs asfollows: "Eighteen centuries saw the river Rhine change its course, and the Ocean swallow its shores, but the Frisian nation has remainedunchanged, and from an historical point of view deserves being takenan interest in by the descendants of the Franks as well as of theAnglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians. " It is not often to a Frenchman that the author of this guide has togo for his purple patches. He is capable of producing them himself, and there seems also always to be a Frisian poet who has said theright thing. Thus (of Leeuwarden): "It is surrounded by splendidfertile meadows, to all of which, though especially to those lyingnear the roads to Marssum and Stiens, may be applied the words ofthe Frisian poet Dr. E. Halbertsma:-- 'Sjen nou dat lân, hwer jy op geane, Dat ophelle is út gulle sé; Hwer binne brûsender lânsdouwen, Oerspriede mei sok hearlik fé?' ('Behold the soil you are walking on, The soil, snatched from the waves; Where are more luxurious meadows, Where do you find such cattle?') The farmer, living in the midst of this fine natural scenery, is tobe envied indeed: if the struggle for life does not weigh too heavilyupon him, his must be a life happier than that of thousands of otherpeople. Living and working with his own family and servants attachedto him, he made the right choice when he chose to breed his cattleand improve his grounds to the best of his power. The parlour-windowslook out on the fields: the gay sight they grant has its effect on themood of those inside. The peasant sees and feels the beauty of life, and it makes him thankful, and gives him courage to struggle and towork on, where necessity requires it. " I gather from the account of Leeuwarden that the justices of thatcity once knew a crime when they saw one--none quicklier. In 1536, for example, they punished Jan Koekebakken in a twinkling for thedastardly offence of marrying a married woman. This was his sentence:-- We command that the said Jan Koekebakken, prisoner, be conductedby the executioner from the Chancery to Brol-bridge, and that he beput into the pillory there. He shall remain standing there for twohours with a spindle under each arm, and with the letter in which hepledged faith to the said Aucke Sijbrant hanging from his neck. Heshall remain for ever within the town of Leeuwarden, under penaltyof death if he should leave it. Done and pronounced at Leeuwarden April 29th, 1536. But the best part of the guide-book is its rapid notes on the villagesaround Leeuwarden, to so many of which are curious legends attached. AtMarssum, close at hand, was born the English painter of Roman life, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Here also was born the ingenious EisaEisinga, who constructed the Franeker planetarium in the intervalsof wool-combing. At Menaldum lived Mrs. Van Camstra van Haarsma, a husband-tamer and eccentric, of whom a poet wrote:-- She breaks pipe and glass and mug, When he speaks as suits a man; And instead of being cross, He is gentler than a lamb. When in fury glow her eyes, He keeps silent . .. Isn't he wise? When not hen-pecking her husband this powerful lady was rearing wildanimals or corresponding with the Princess Caroline. At Boxum, was fought, on 17th January, 1586, hard by the church, the battle of Boxum, between the Spaniards and the Frisians. TheFrisians were defeated, and many of them massacred in the church;but their effort was very brave, and "He also has been to Boxum"is to this day a phrase applied to lads of courage. Another saying, given to loud speakers, is "He has the voice of the Vicar of Boxum, "whose tones in the pulpit were so dulcet as to frighten the birdsfrom the roof, and, I hope, sinners to repentance. At Jelsum is buried Balthazar Becker, the antagonist of superstitionand author of _The Enchanted World_. Near by was Martena Castle, where Alderman Sjuck van Burmania once kept a crowd of assailantsat bay by standing over a barrel of gunpowder with a lighted brandwhile he offered them the choice of the explosion or a feast. Hencethe excellent proverb, "You must either fight or drink, said Sjuck". At Berlikum was the castle of Bauck Poppema, a Frisian lady cast inan iron mould, who during her husband's absence in 1496 defended thestronghold against assailants from Groningen. Less successful thanSjuck, after repelling them thrice she was overpowered and thrown intoprison. While there she produced twins, thus proving herself a womanno less than a warrior. "When the people of Holland glorify Kenau, "says the proverb, "the Frisians praise their Bauck. " Kenau we have met:the heroic widow of Haarlem who during the siege led a band of threehundred women and repelled the enemy on the walls again and again. Near Roodkerk is a lake called the Boompoel, into which a coachand four containing six inside passengers, all of them professionalexorcists, disappeared and was never seen again. The exorcists had cometo relieve the village of the ghost of a miser, and we must presume hadfailed to quiet him. Near Bergum, at Buitenrust farm, is the scene ofanother tragedy by drowning, for there died Juffer Lysse. This maiden, disregarding too long her father's dying injunction to build a chapel, was naturally overturned in her carriage and drowned. Ever sincehas the wood been haunted, while the bind-weed, a haunting flower, is in these parts known as the Juffer Lysse blom. From these scraps of old lore--all taken from the little Leeuwardenguide--it will be seen that Friesland is rich in romantic traditionsand well worthy the attention of any maker of sagas. Chapter XVII Groningen to Zutphen Fresh tea--Dutch meals--The Doelens--Groningen--Roman Catholic priests--The boys' penance--Luther and Erasmus--The peat country--Folk lore--Terburg--Thomas à Kempis--Zwolle--The wild girl--Kampen--A hall of justice indeed--An ideal holiday-place--The wiseacres--Urk--Sir Philip Sidney--Zutphen--The scripture class--The wax works--Dutch public morality. I remember the Doelen at Groningen for several reasons, all of themthoroughly material. (Holland is, however, a material country. ) FirstI would put the very sensible custom of providing every guest whohas ordered tea for breakfast with a little tea caddy. At the footof the table is a boiling urn from which one fills one's teapot, and is thus assured of tea that is fresh. So simple and reasonable ahabit ought to be the rule rather than the exception: but never haveI found it elsewhere. This surely is civilisation, I said. The Doelen was also the only inn in Holland where an inclusive bottleof claret was placed before me on the table; and it was the only innwhere I had the opportunity of eating ptarmigan with stewed apricots--avery happy alliance. Good however as was the Groningen dinner, it was a Sunday dinner at theLeeuwarden Doelen which remains in my memory. This also is a friendlyunspoiled northern inn, where the bill of fare is arranged with anice thought to the requirements of the Free Frisian. I kept no noteof the meal, but I recollect the occurrence at one stage of plovers'eggs (which the Dutch eat hot, dropping them into cold water for aninstant to ensure the easy removal of the shell), and at another, some time later, of duckling with prunes. The popularity of the name Doelen as a Dutch sign might have a wordof explanation. Doelen means target, or shooting saloon; and shootingat the mark was a very common and useful recreation with the Dutchin the sixteenth century. At first the shooting clubs met only toshoot--as in the case of the arquebusiers in Rembrandt's "Night Watch, "who are painted leaving their Doelen; later they became more socialand the accessories of sociability were added; and after a whilethe accessories of sociability crowded out the shooting altogether, and nothing but an inn with the name Doelen remained of what beganas a rifle gallery. At Groningen, which is a large prosperous town, and the birthplaceboth of Joseph Israels and H. W. Mesdag, cheese and dairy produce areleft behind. We are now in the grain country. Groningen is largerthan Leeuwarden--it has nearly seventy thousand inhabitants--and itsevening light seemed to me even more beautifully liquid. I sat for along time in a cafe overlooking the great square, feeding a very greedyand impertinent terrier, and alternately watching an endless game ofbilliards and the changing hue of the sky as day turned to night andthe clean white stars came out. In Holland one can sit very long incafes: I had dined and left a table of forty Dutchmen just settlingdown to their wine, at six o'clock, with the whole evening before me. Groningen takes very good care of itself. It has trams, excellentshops and buildings, a crowded inland harbour, and a spreading parkwhere once were its fortifications. The mounds in this park were thefirst hills I had seen since Laren. The church in the market square isimmense, with a high tower of bells that kept me awake, but had none ofthe soothing charm of Long John at Middelburg, whose praises it willsoon be my privilege to sound. The only rich thing in the whitewashedvastnesses of the church is the organ, built more than four hundredyears ago by Rudolph Agricola of this province. I did not hear it. At Groningen Roman Catholic priests become noticeable--so differentin their stylish coats, square hats and canes, from the blue-chinnedkindly slovens that one meets in the Latin countries. (In the trainnear Nymwegen, however, where the priests wear beavers, I travelledwith a humorous old voluptuary who took snuff at every station and wasas threadbare as one likes a priest to be. ) Looking into the new RomanCatholic church at Groningen I found a little company of restless boys, all eyes, from whom at regular intervals were detached a reluctantand perfunctory couple to do the Stations of the Cross. I came assomething like a godsend to those that remained, who had no one tosupervise them; and feeling it as a mission I stayed resolutelyin the church long after I was tired of it, writing a little andexamining the pictures by Hendriex, a modern painter too much afterthe manner of the Christmas supplement--studied the while by thisband of scrutinising penitents. I hope I was as interesting andbeguiling as I tried to be. And all the time, exactly opposite theRoman Catholic church, was reposing in the library of the Universityno less a treasure than the New Testament of Erasmus, with marginalnotes by Martin Luther. There it lay, that afternoon, within call, while the weary boys pattered from one Station of the Cross to another, little recking the part played by their country in sapping the powerof the faith they themselves were fostering, and knowing nothing ofthe ironical contiguity of Luther's comments. By leaving Groningen very early in the morning I gained another proofof the impossibility of rising before the Dutch. In England one caneasily be the first down in any hotel--save for a sleepy boots orwaiter. Not so in Holland. It was so early that I am able to saynothing of the country between Groningen and Meppel, the capital ofthe peat trade, save that it was peaty: heather and fir trees, shallowlakes and men cutting peat, as far as eye could reach on either side. Here in the peat country I might quote a very pretty Dutch proverb:"There is no fuel more entertaining than wet wood and frozen peat:the wood sings and the peat listens". The Dutch have no lack of folklore, but the casual visitor has not the opportunity of collecting verymuch. When there is too much salt in the dish they say that the cook isin love. When a three-cornered piece of peat is observed in the fire, a visitor is coming. When bread has large holes in it, the baker issaid to have pursued his wife through the loaf. When a wedding morningis rainy, it is because the bride has forgotten to feed the cat. I tarried awhile at Zwolle on the Yssel (a branch of the Rhine), because at Zwolle was born in 1617 Gerard Terburg, one of the greatestof Dutch painters, of whom I have spoken in the chapter on Amsterdam'spictures. Of his life we know very little; but he travelled to Spain(where he was knighted and where he learned not a little of use inhis art), and also certainly to France, and possibly to England. AtHaarlem, where he lived for a while, he worked in Frans Hals' studio, and then he settled down at Deventer, a few miles south of Zwolle, married, and became in time Burgomaster of the town. He died atDeventer in 1681. Zwolle has none of his pictures, and does notappear to value his memory. Nor does Deventer. How Terburg lookedas Burgomaster of Deventer is seen in his portrait of himselfin the Mauritshuis at The Hague. It was not often that the greatDutch painters rose to civic eminence. Rembrandt became a bankrupt, Frans Hals was on the rates, Jan Steen drank all his earnings. Of allTerburg's great contemporaries Gerard Dou seems to have had most senseof prosperity and position; but his interests were wholly in his art. Terburg is not the only famous name at Zwolle. It was at the monasteryon the Agneteberg, three miles away, that the author of _The Imitationof Christ_ lived for more than sixty years and wrote his deathlessbook. I roamed through Zwolle's streets for some time. It is a bright town, with a more European air than many in Holland, agreeable drives andgardens, where (as at Groningen) were once fortifications, and a veryfine old gateway called the Saxenpoort, with four towers and fivespires and very pretty window shutters in white and blue. The GrooteKerk is of unusual interest. It is five hundred years old and famousfor its very elaborate pulpit--a little cathedral in itself--and anorgan. Zwolle also has an ancient church which retains its originalreligion--the church of Notre Dame, with a crucifix curiously protectedby iron bars. I looked into the stadhuis to see a Gothic council room;and smoked meditatively among the stalls of a little flower market, wondering why some of the costumes of Holland are so charming andothers so unpleasing. A few dear old women in lace caps were present, but there were also younger women who had made their pretty headsugly with their decorations. At Zwolle M. Havard was disappointed to find no wax figure of thefamous wild girl found in the Cranenburg Forest in 1718. She roamedits recesses almost naked for some time, eluding all capture, but wasat last taken with nets and conveyed to Zwolle. As she could not beunderstood, an account of her was circulated widely, and at lengtha woman in Antwerp who had lost a daughter in 1702 heard of her, and on reaching Zwolle immediately recognised her as her child. Themagistrates, accepting the story, handed the girl to her affectionateparent, who at once set about exhibiting her throughout the countryat a great profit. The story illustrates either the credulity ofmagistrates or the practical character of some varieties of maternallove. Kampen, nearer the mouth of the Yssel, close to Zwolle, isexceedingly well worth visiting. The two towns are very different:Zwolle is patrician, Kampen plebeian; Zwolle suggests wealth andlight-heartedness; at Kampen there is a large fishing population and noone seems to be wealthy. Indeed, being without municipal rates, it is, I am told, a refuge of the needy. Any old town that is on a river, andthat river a mouth of the Rhine, is good enough for me; but when it isalso a treasure house of mediæval architecture one's cup is full. AndKampen has many treasures: beautiful fourteenth-century gateways, narrow quaint streets, a cheerful isolated campanile, a fine church, and the greater portion of an odd but wholly delightful stadhuis inred brick and white stone, with a gay little crooked bell-tower andstatues of great men and great qualities on its facade. For one possession alone, among many, the stadhuis must be visited--itshalls of justice, veritable paradises of old oak, with a very wonderfulfireplace. The halls are really one, divided by a screen; in one half, the council room, sat the judges, in the other the advocates, and, I suppose, the public. The advocates addressed the screen, on theother side of which sat Fate, in the persons of the municipal fathers, enthroned in oak seats of unsurpassed gravity and dignity, amid allthe sombre insignia of their office. The chimney-piece is an imposingmonument of abstract Justice--no more elaborate one can exist. Solomonis there, directing the distribution of the baby; Faith and Truth, Law, Religion and Charity are there also. Never can a tribunal have had amore appropriate setting than at Kampen. The Rennes judiciaries shouldhave sat there, to lend further ironical point to their decision. The stadhuis has other possessions interesting to anti-quaries:valuable documents, gold and silver work, the metal and leather squirtsthrough which boiling oil was projected at the enemies of the town;while an iron cage for criminals, similar, I imagine, to that inwhich Jan of Leyden was exhibited, hangs outside. Travellers visit Kampen pre-eminently to see the stadhuis chimney-pieceand oak, but the whole town is a museum. I wish now that I had arrangedto be longer there; but unaware of Kampen's charms I allowed but ashort time both for Zwolle and itself. On my next visit to HollandKampen shall be my headquarters for some days. Amid the restfulnessof mediævalism, the friendliness of the fishing folk and the breezesof the Zuyder Zee, one should do well. A boat from Amsterdam to Kampensails every morning. Despite its Judgment Hall and its other merits Kampen is the DutchGotham. Any foolishly naive speech or action is attributed toKampen's wise men. In one story the fathers of the town place themunicipal sundial under cover to protect it from the rays of thesun. In another they meet together to deliberate on the failure ofthe water pipes and fire engines during a fire, and pass a rule that"on the evening preceding a fire" all hydrants and engines must beoverhauled. M. Havard gives also the following instance of Kampensagacity. A public functionary was explaining the financial state ofthe town. He asserted that one of the principal profits arose fromthe tolls exacted on the entrance of goods into the town. "Eachgate, " said the ingenious advocate, "has brought in ten millionflorins this year; that is to say, with seven gates we have gainedseventy million florins. This is a most important fact. I thereforepropose that the council double the number of gates, and in this waywe shall in future considerably augment our funds. " The Irishman who, when asked to buy a stove that would save half his fuel, replied thathe would have two and save it all, was of the same school of logic. From Kampen the island of Urk may be visited: but I have not beenthere. In 1787, I have read somewhere, the inhabitants of Urk decidedto form a club in which to practise military exercises and the use ofarms. When the club was formed it had but one member. Hence a Dutchsaying--"It is the Urk club". Nor did I stay at Deventer, but hastened on to Zutphen with my thoughtsstraying all the time to the grey walls of Penshurst castle in Kentand its long galleries filled with memories of Sir Philip Sidney--thegentle knight who was a boy there, and who died at Arnheim of awound which he received in the siege of Zutphen three and a quartercenturies ago. At Naarden we have seen how terrible was the destroying power of theSpaniards. It was at Zutphen that they had first given rein to theirlust for blood. When Zutphen was taken by Don Frederic in 1572, at thebeginning of the war, Motley tells us that "Alva sent orders to his sonto leave _not a single man alive in the city_, and to burn every houseto the ground. The Duke's command was almost literally obeyed. DonFrederic entered Zutphen, and without a moment's warning put the wholegarrison to the sword. The citizens next fell a defenceless prey; somebeing stabbed in the streets, some hanged on the trees which decoratedthe city, some stripped stark naked, and turned out into the fieldsto freeze to death in the wintry night. As the work of death becametoo fatiguing for the butchers, five hundred innocent burghers weretied two and two, back to back, and drowned like dogs in the riverYssel. A few stragglers who had contrived to elude pursuit at first, were afterwards taken from their hiding-places, and hung upon the_gallows by the feet_, some of which victims suffered four days andnights of agony before death came to their relief. " On the day that I was in Zutphen it was the quietest town I hadfound in all Holland--not excepting Monnickendam between the arrivalof the steam-trams. The clean bright streets were empty and still:another massacre almost might just have occurred. I had Zutphen tomyself. I could not even find the koster to show me the church;and it was in trying door after door as I walked round it that Icame upon the only sign of life in the place. For one handle at lastyielding I found myself instantly in a small chapel filled with manyyoung women engaged in a scripture class. The sudden irruption of anembarrassed and I imagine somewhat grotesque foreigner seems to havebeen exactly what every member of this little congregation was mostdesiring, and I never heard a merrier or more spontaneous burst oflaughter. I stood not upon the order of my going. The church is vast and very quiet and restful, with a large plainwindow of green glass that increases its cool freshness; whilethe young leaves of a chestnut close to another window add to thiseffect. The koster coming at last, I was shown the ancient chainedlibrary in the chapter house, and he enlarged upon the beauties of ametal font. Wandering out again into this city of silence I found inthe square by the church an exhibition of wax works which was to beopened at four o'clock. Making a note to return to it at that hour, I sought the river, where the timber is floated down from the Germanforests, and lost myself among peat barges and other craft, and walkedsome miles in and about Zutphen, and a little way down a tricklingstream whence the view of the city is very beautiful; and by-and-byfound myself by the church and the wax works again, in a town thatsince my absence had quite filled with bustling people--four o'clockhaving struck and the Princess of the Day Dream having (I suppose)been kissed. The change was astonishing. Wax works always make me uncomfortable, and these were no exception;but the good folk of Zutphen found them absorbing. The murderers stoodalone, staring with that fixity which only a wax assassin can compass;but for the most part the figures were arranged in groups with dramaticintent. Here was a confessional; there a farewell between lovers;here a wounded Boer meeting his death at the bayonet of an Englishdastard; there a Queen Eleanor sucking poison from her husband'sarm. A series of illuminated scenes of rapine and disaster might bestudied through magnifying glasses. The presence of a wax bust ofZola was due, I imagine, less to his illustrious career than to theuntoward circumstances of his death. The usual Sleeping Beauty heavedher breast punctually in the centre of the tent. In one point only did the exhibition differ from the wax works ofthe French and Italian fairs--it was undeviatingly decent. Therewere no jokes, and no physiological models. But the Dutch, I shouldconjecture, are not morbid. They have their coarse fun, laugh, and get back to business again. Judged by that new short-cut toa nation's moral tone, the picture postcard, the Dutch are quitesound. There is a shop in the high-spirited Nes Straat at Amsterdamwhere a certain pictorial ebullience has play, but I saw none otherof the countless be-postcarded windows in all Holland that shouldcause a serious blush on any cheek; while the Nes Straat specimenswere fundamentally sound, Rabelaisian rather than Armand-Sylvestrian, not vicious but merely vulgar. Chapter XVIII Arnheim to Bergen-op-Zoom Arnheim the Joyous--A wood walk--Tesselschade Visscher and the Chambers of Rhetoric--Epigrams--Poet friends--The nightingale--An Arnheim adventure--Ten years at one book--Dutch and Latin--Dutch and French--A French story--Dutch and English--_The English Schole-Master_--Master and scholar--A nervous catechism--Avoiding the birch--A riot of courtesy--A bill of lading--Dutch proverbs--The Rhine and its mouths--Nymwegen--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu again--Painted shutters--The Valkhof--Hertogenbosch--Brothers at Bommel--The hero of Breda--Two beautiful tombs--Bergen-op-Zoom--Messrs. Grimston and Red-head--Tholen--The Dutch feminine countenance. At Arnheim we come to a totally new Holland. The Maliebaan and thepark at Utrecht, with their spacious residences, had prepared us alittle for Arnheim's wooded retirement; but not completely. Rotterdamis given to shipping; The Hague makes laws and fashions; Leydenand Utrecht teach; Amsterdam makes money. It is at Arnheim that theretired merchant and the returned colonist set up their home. It isthe richest residential city in the country. Arnheim the Joyous wasits old name. Arnheim the Comfortable it might now be styled. It is the least Dutch of Dutch towns: the Rhine brings a bosky beautyto it, German in character and untamed by Dutch restraining hands. TheDutch Switzerland the country hereabout is called. Arnheim recallsRichmond too, for it has a Richmond Hill--a terrace-road above ashaggy precipice overlooking the river. I walked in the early morning to Klarenbeck, up and down in a vastwood, and at a point of vantage called the Steenen Tafel looked downon the Rhine valley. Nothing could be less like the Holland of theearlier days of my wanderings--nothing, that is, that was around me, but with the farther bank of the river the flatness instantly beginsand continues as far as one can see in the north. It was a very beautiful morning in May, and as I rested now andthen among the resinous pines I was conscious of being traitorous toEngland in wandering here at all. No one ought to be out of Englandin April and May. At one point I met a squirrel--just such a nimbleshort-tempered squirrel as those which scold and hide in the topbranches of the fir trees near my own home in Kent--and my sense ofguilt increased; but when, on my way back, in a garden near ArnheimI heard a nightingale, the treachery was complete. And this reminds me that the best poem of the most charming figure inDutch literature--Tesselschade Visscher--is about the nightingale. Thestory of this poetess and her friends belongs more properly toAmsterdam, or to Alkmaar, but it may as well be told here while theArnheim nightingale--the only nightingale that I heard in Holland--isplaining and exulting. Tesselschade was the daughter of the poet and rhetorician RoemerVisscher. She was born on 25th March, 1594, and earned her curious namefrom the circumstance that on the same day her father was wrecked offTexel. In honour of his rescue he named his daughter Tesselschade, or Texel wreck, thereby, I think, eternally impairing his right tobe considered a true poet. As a matter of fact he was rather anepigrammatist than a poet, his ambition being to be known as theDutch Martial. Here is a taste of his Martial manner:-- Jan sorrows--sorrows far too much: 'tis true A sad affliction hath distressed his life;-- Mourns he that death hath ta'en his children two? O no! he mourns that death hath left his wife. I have said that Visscher was a rhetorician. The word perhaps needsa little explanation, for it means more than would appear. In thosedays rhetoric was a living cult in the Netherlands: Dutchmen andFlemings played at rhetoric with some of the enthusiasm that we keepfor cricket and sport. Every town of any importance had its Chamberof Rhetoric. "These Chambers, " says Longfellow in his _Poets andPoetry of Europe_, "were to Holland, in the fifteenth century, whatthe Guilds of the Meistersingers were to Germany, and were numerousthroughout the Netherlands. Brussels could boast of five; Antwerpof four; Louvain of three; and Ghent, Bruges, Malines, Middelburg, Gouda, Haarlem, and Amsterdam of at least one. Each Chamber had itscoat of arms and its standard, and the directors bore the titleof Princes and Deans. At times they gave public representationsof poetic dialogues and stage-plays, called _Spelen van Sinne_, or Moralities. Like the Meistersingers, they gave singular titlesto their songs and metres. A verse was called a _Regel_; a strophe, a _Clause_; and a burden or refrain, a _Stockregel_. If a half-verseclosed as a strophe, it was a _Steert_, or tail. _Tafel-spelen_, and _Spelen van Sinne_, were the titles of the dramatic exhibitions;and the rhymed invitation to these was called a _Charte_, or _Uitroep_(outcry). _Ketendichten_ (chain-poems) are short poems in which thelast word of each line rhymes with the first of the line following;_Scaekberd_ (checkerbourd), a poem of sixty-four lines, so rhymed, that in every direction it forms a strophe of eight lines; and_Dobbel-steert_ (double-tail), a poem in which a double rhyme closeseach line. [5] "The example of Flanders was speedily followed by Zeeland andHolland. In 1430, there was a Chamber at Middelburg; in 1433, atVlaardingen; in 1434, at Nieuwkerk; and in 1437, at Gouda. Eveninsignificant Dutch villages had their Chambers. Among others, onewas founded in the Lier, in the year 1480. In the remaining provincesthey met with less encouragement. They existed, however, at Utrecht, Amersfoort, Leeuwarden, and Hasselt. The purity of the languagewas completely undermined by the rhyming self-called Rhetoricians, and their abandoned courses brought poetry itself into disrepute. Alldistinction of genders was nearly abandoned; the original abundance ofwords ran waste; and that which was left became completely overwhelmedby a torrent of barbarous terms. " Wagenaer, in his "Description of Amsterdam, " gives a copy of apainter's bill for work done for a rhetorician's performance atthe play-house in the town of Alkmaar, of which the following isa translation:-- "Imprimis, made for the Clerks a Hell; Item, the Pavilion of Satan; Item, two pairs of Devil's-breeches; Item, a Shield for the Christian Knight; Item, have painted the Devils whenever they played; Item, some Arrows and other small matters. Sum total; worth in all xii. Guilders. "Jaques Mol. "Paid, October viii. , 95 [1495]. " Among the Dutch pictures at the Louvre is an anonymous workrepresenting the Committee of a Chamber of Rhetoric. Roemer Visscher, the father of the poetess, was a leading rhetoricianat Amsterdam, and the president of the Eglantine Chamber of theBrother's Blossoming in Love (as he and his fellow-rhetoricianscalled themselves). None the less, he was a sensible and clever man, and he brought up his three daughters very wisely. He did not makethem blue stockings, but saw that they acquired comely and usefularts and crafts, and he rendered them unique by teaching them toswim in the canal that ran through his garden. He also was enabledto ensure for them the company of the best poetical intellects ofthe time--Vondel and Brederoo, Spiegel, Hooft and Huyghens. Of these the greatest was Joost van den Vondel, a neighbour ofVisscher's in Amsterdam, the author of "Lucifer, " a poem from whichit has been suggested that Milton borrowed. Like Izaak Walton Vondelcombined haberdashery with literature. Spiegel was a wealthy patronof the arts, and a president, with Visscher, of the Eglantine Chamberwith the painfully sentimental name. Constantin Huyghens wrote lightverse with intricate metres, and an occasional epigram. Here is one:-- _On Peter's Poetry_. When Peter condescends to write, His verse deserves to see the _light_. If any further you inquire, I mean--the candle or the fire. Also a practical statesman, it was to Huyghens that Holland owes thebeautiful old road from The Hague to Scheveningen in which Jacob Catsbuilt his house. Among these friends Anna and Tesselschade grew into culturedwomen of quick and sympathetic intellect. Both wrote poetry, butTesselschade's is superior to her sister's. Among Anna's early workwere some additions to a new edition of her father's _Zinne-Poppen_, one of her poems running thus in the translation by Mr, Edmund Gossein the very pleasant essay on Tesselschade in his _Studies in theLiterature of Northern Europe_:-- A wife that sings and pipes all day, And never puts her lute away, No service to her hand finds she; Fie, fie! for this is vanity! But is it not a heavenly sight To see a woman take delight With song or string her husband dear, When daily work is done, to cheer? Misuse may turn the sweetest sweet To loathsome wormwood, I repeat; Yea, wholesome medicine, full of grace, May prove a poison--out of place. They who on thoughts eternal rest, With earthly pleasures may be blest; Since they know well these shadows gay, Like wind and smoke, will pass away. Tesselschade, who was much loved by her poet friends, disappointedthem all by marrying a dull sailor of Alkmaar named AlbertKrombalgh. Settling down at Alkmaar, she continued her intercoursewith her old companions, and some new ones, by letter. Among her newfriends were Barlaeus, or Van Baerle, the first Latinist of the day, and Jacob Cats. When her married life was cut short some few yearslater, Barlaeus proposed to the young widow; but it was in vain, as she informed him by quoting from Cats these lines:-- When a valvèd shell of ocean Breaks one side or loses one, Though you seek with all devotion You can ne'er the loss atone, Never make again the edges Bite together, tooth for tooth, And, just so, old love alleges Nought is like the heart's first troth. These are Tesselschade's lines upon the nightingale in Mr. Gosse'shappy translation:-- THE WILD SONGSTER. Praise thou the nightingale, Who with her joyous tale Doth make thy heart rejoice, Whether a singing plume she be, or viewless wingèd voice; Whose warblings, sweet and clear, Ravish the listening ear With joy, as upward float The throbbing liquid trills of her enchanted throat; Whose accents pure and ripe Sound like an organ pipe, That holdeth divers songs, And with one tongue alone sings like a score of tongues. The rise and fall again In clear and lovely strain Of her sweet voice and shrill, Outclamours with its songs the singing springing rill. A creature whose great praise Her rarity displays, Seeing she only lives A month in all the year to which her song she gives. But this thing sets the crown Upon her high renown, That such a little bird as she Can harbour such a strength of clamorous harmony. Arnheim presents after dinner the usual scene of contentedmovement. The people throng the principal streets, and every one seemshappy and placid. The great concert hall, Musis Sacrum, had not yetbegun its season when I was there, and the only spectacle which thetown could muster was an exhibition of strength by two oversized boys, which I avoided. At Arnheim, I should relate, an odd thing happened to mycompanion. When she was there last, in 1894, she had need to obtainlinseed for a poultice, and visited a chemist for the purpose. Hewas an old man, and she found him sitting in the window studying hisEnglish grammar. How long his study had lasted I have no notion, but heknew less of our tongue than she of his, and to get the linseed was noeasy matter. Ten years passed and recollection of the Arnheim chemisthad clean evaporated; but chancing to look up as we walked through thetown, the sight of the old chemist seated in his shop-window poringover a book brought the whole incident back to her. We stepped to thewindow and stole a glance at the volume: it was an English Grammar. Hehad been studying it ever since the night of the linseed poultice. It was, we felt, an object-lesson to us, who during the same intervalhad taken advantage of every opportunity of neglecting the Dutchtongue. That tongue, however, is not attractive. Even those who have spokenit to most purpose do not always admire it. I find that Kasper vanBaerle wrote: "What then do we Netherlanders speak? Words from aforeign tongue: we are but a collected crowd, of feline origin, driven by a strange fatality to these mouths of the Rhine. Why, since the mighty descendants of Romulus here pitched their tents, choose we not rather the holy language of the Romans!" We may consider Dutch a harsh tongue, and prefer that all foreignersshould learn English; but our dislike of Dutch is as nothing comparedwith Dutch dislike of French as expressed in some verses by Bilderdykwhen the tyranny of Napoleon threatened them:-- Begone, thou bastard-tongue! so base--so broken-- By human jackals and hyenas spoken; Formed of a race of infidels, and fit To laugh at truth--and scepticise in wit; What stammering, snivelling sounds, which scarcely dare, Bravely through nasal channel meet the ear-- Yet helped by apes' grimaces--and the devil, Have ruled the world, and ruled the world for evil! But French is now the second language that is taught in Dutchschools. German comes first and English third. The Dutch language often resembles English very closely; sometimesso closely as to be ridiculous. For example, to an English travellerwho has been manoeuvring in vain for some time in the effort to getat the value of an article, it comes as a shock comparable only tobeing run over by a donkey cart to discover that the Dutch for "Whatis the price?" is "Wat is de prijs?" The best old Dutch phrase-book is _The English Schole-Master_, thecopy of which that lies before me was printed at Amsterdam by JohnHouman in the year 1658. I have already quoted a short passage fromit, in Chapter II. This is the full title:-- The English Schole-Master; or Certaine rules and helpes, whereby the natives of the Netherlandes, may bee, in a short time, taught to read, understand, and speake the English tongue. By the helpe whereof the English also may be better instructed in the knowledge of the Dutch tongue, than by any vocabulars, or other Dutch and English books, which hitherto they have had, for that purpose. There is internal evidence that the book was the work of a Dutchmanrather than an Englishman; for the Dutch is better than the English. Iquote (omitting the Dutch) part of one of the long dialogues betweena master and scholar of which the manual is largely composed. Muchof its interest lies in the continual imminence of the rod and theskill of the child in saving the situation:-- M. In the meane time let me aske you one thing more. Have you not into-day at the holy sermon? S. I was there. M. Who are your witnesses? S. Many of the schoole-fellowes who saw me can witnes it. M. But some must be produced. S. I shall produce them when you commaund it. M. Who did preach? S. Master N. M. At what time began he? S. At seven a clock. M. Whence did he take his text? S. Out of the epistle of Paul to the Romanes. M. In what chapter? S. In the eighth. M. Hitherto you have answered well: let us now see what follows. Haveyou remembred anything? S. Nothing that I can repeat. M. Nothing at al? Bethink (your self) a little, and take heed thatyou bee not disturbed, but bee of good courage. S. Truly master I can remember nothing. M. What, not one word? S. None at all. M. I am ready to strike you: what profit have you then gotten? S. I know not, otherwise than that perhaps I have in the mean timeabstained from evill. M. That is some what indeed, if it could but so be that you have keptyour self wholy from evill. S. I have abstained so much as I was able. M. Graunt that it bee so, yet you have not pleased God, seeing it iswritten, depart from evill and doe good, but tell mee (I pray thee)for what cause principally did you goe thither? S. That I might learne something. M. Why have you not done so? S. I could not. M. Could you not, knave? yea you would not, or truly you have notaddicted your self to it. S. I am compelled to confesse it. M. What compelleth you? S. My Conscience, which accuseth me before God. M. You say well: oh that it were from the heart. S. Truly I speak it from myne heart. M. It may bee so: but goe to, what was the cause that you haveremembred nothing? S. My negligence: for I attended not diligently. M. What did you then? S. Sometimes I slept. M. So you used to doe: but what did you the rest of the time? S. I thought on a thousand fooleries, as children are wont to doe. M. Are you so very a child, that you ought not to be attentive toheare the word of God? S. If I had bin attentive, I should have profitted something. M. What have you then meritted? S. Stripes. M. You have truly meritted them, and that very many. S. I ingenuously confess it. M. But in word only I think. S. Yea truly from myne heart. M. Possibly, but in the meane time prepare to receive stripes. S. O master forgive it, I beseech you, I confes I have sinned, butnot of malice. M. But such an evill negligence comes very neare wickedness (malice). S. Truly I strive not against that: but nevertheles I implore yourclemencie through Jesus Christ. M. What will you then doe, if I shall forgive you? S. I will doe my dutie henceforth, as I hope. M. You should have added thereto, by God's helpe: but you care littlefor that. S. Yea master, by God's help, I will hereafter doe my duty. M. Goe to, I pardon you the fault for your teares: and I forgive ityou on this condition, that you bee myndful of your promise. S. I thank you most Courteous master. M. You shall bee in very great favour with mee, if you rememberyour promise. S. The most good and great God graunt that I may. M. That is my desire, that hee would graunt it. Here is another dialogue. Whether the riot of courtesy displayed init was typical of either England or Holland at that time I cannot say;but in neither country are we now so solicitous:-- _Salutations at meeting and parting. _ Clemens. David. C. God save you David. D. And you also Clemens. C. God save you heartily. D. And you also, as heartily. C. How do you? D. I am well I thank God; at your service: and you Clemens, how isit with you? well? C. I am also in health: how doth your father and mother? D. They are in good health praised be God. C. How goes it with you my good friend? D. It goeth well with mee, goes it but so well with you. C. I wish you good health. D. I wish the same to you also. C. I salute you. D. And I you also. C. Are you well? are you in good health? D. I am well, indeed I am in good health, I am healthful, and inprosperity. C. That is good. That is well. That is pleasing to me. That makethmee glad. I love to hear that. I beseech you to take care of yourhealth. Preserve your health. D. I can tarry no longer now. I am in haste to be gone. I must go. Ihave need of my time. I cannot abide standing here. Fare you wellGod be with you. God keep you still. I wish your health may continue. C. And you also my loving friend, God protect you. God guide you. Godbee with you. May it please you in my behalf, heartily to salute yourwife and children. D. I will do your message. But I pray, commend mee also to your fatherand mother. At the end of the book are some forms, in Dutch and English, ofmercantile letters, among them a specimen bill of lading of which Iquote a portion as an example of the gracious way in which businesswas done in old and simpler days:-- I, J. P. Of Amsterdam, master under God of my ship called the SaintPeter at this present lying ready in the river of Amsterdam to sailewith the first goode winde which God shall give toward London, wheremy right unlading shal be, acknowledge and confes that I have receavedunder the hatches of my foresaid ship of you S. J. , merchaunt, to wit:four pipes of oile, two chests of linnen, sixteen buts of currents, one bale of canvase, five bals of pepper, thirteen rings of brassewyer, fiftie bars of iron, al dry and wel conditioned, marked withthis marke standing before, all which I promise to deliver (if Godgive me a prosperous voyage with my said ship) at London aforesaid, to the worshipful Mr. A. J. To his factour or assignes, paying forthe freight of the foresaid goods 20 fs. By the tun. Quaintness and humour are not confined to the ancient phrase-books. AnEnglish-Dutch conversational manual from which the languages are stilllearned has a specimen "dialogue" in a coach, which is opened by thegentleman remarking genially and politely to his fellow-passenger, a lady, "Madame, shall we arrange our legs". It occurs to me that very little Dutch has found its way into thesepages. Let me therefore give the first stanza of the national song, "Voor Vaderland en Vorst":-- Wien Neêrlandsch bloed in de aderen vloeit, Van vreemde smetten vrij, Wiens hart voor land en Koning gloeit, Verhef den sang als wij: Hij stel met ons, vereend van zin, Met onbeklemde borst, Het godgevallig feestlied in Voor Vaderland en Vorst. These are brave words. A very pedestrian translation runs thus:-- Who Ne'erland's blood feel nobly flow, From foreign tainture free, Whose hearts for king and country glow, Come, raise the song as we: With breasts serene, and spirits gay, In holy union sing The soul-inspiring festal lay, For Fatherland and King. And now a specimen of really mellifluous Dutch. "Howwould you like, " is the timely question of a daily paperthis morning, as I finish this chapter, "to be hit by a'snellpaardelooszoondeerspoorwegpitroolrijtung?' That is what wouldhappen to you if you were run down by a motor-car in Holland. The namecomes from 'snell, ' rapid; 'paardeloos, ' horseless; 'zoondeerspoorweg, 'without rails; 'pitroolrijtung, ' driven by petroleum. Only a Dutchmancan pronounce it. " Let me spice this chapter by selecting from the pages of proverbs inDutch and English a few which seem to me most excellent. No nationhas bad proverbs; the Dutch have some very good ones. Many cows, much trouble. Even hares pull a lion by the beard when he is old. Men can bear all things, except good days. The best pilots are ashore. Velvet and silk are strange herbs: they blow the fire out of thekitchen. It is easy to make a good fire of another's turf. It is good cutting large girths of another man's leather. High trees give more shadow than fruit. An old hunter delighteth to hear of hunting. It hath soon rained enough in a wet pool. God giveth the fowls meat, but they must fly for it. An idle person is the devil's pillow. No hen so witty but she layeth one egg lost in the nettles. It happeneth sometimes that a good seaman falls overboard. He is wise that is always wise. When every one sweeps before his own house, then are the streets clean. It is profitable for a man to end his life, before he die. Before thou trust a friend eat a peck of salt with him. It's bad catching hares with drums. The pastor and sexton seldom agree. No crown cureth headache. There is nothing that sooner dryeth up than a tear. Land purchase and good marriage happen not every day. When old dogs bark it is time to look out. Of early breakfast and late marriage men get not lightly the headache. Ride on, but look about. Nothing in haste, but to catch fleas. To return to Arnheim: of the Groote Kerk I remember only the verydelicate colouring of the ceiling, and the monument of Charles vanEgmont, Duke of Guelders. I had grown tired of architecture: it seemedgoodlier to watch the shipping on the river, which at Arnheim may becalled the Rhine without hesitation. All the traffic to Cologne mustpass the town. Hitherto one had had qualms about the use of the word, having seen the Rhine under various aliases in so many places. TheMaas at Rotterdam is a mouth of the Rhine; but before it can becomethe Rhine proper it becomes the Lek, What is called the true mouth ofthe Rhine is at Katwyk. At Dordrecht again is another of the Rhine'smouths, the Waal, which runs into the old Maas and then into thesea. The Yssel, still another mouth of the Rhine, which I saw atKampen on its way into the Zuyder Zee, breaks away from the parentriver just below Arnheim. As a matter of fact all Holland is on theRhine, but the word must be used with care. If one would study Dutch romantic scenery I think Nymwegen on the wholea better town to stay in than Arnheim. It is simpler in itself, richerin historic associations, and the country in the immediate east isvery well worth exploring--hill and valley and pine woods, with quaintvillages here and there; and, for the comfortable, a favourite hotelat Berg en Daal from which great stretches of the Rhine may be seen. To see Nymwegen itself to greater advantage, with its massed housesand towers presenting a solid front, one must go over the iron bridgeto Lent and then look back across the river. At all times the oldtown wears from this point of view an interesting and romantic air, but never so much as at evening. Some versions of "Lohengrin" set the story at Nymwegen; but theLohengrin monument is at Kleef, a few miles above the confluence ofthe Rhine and the Waal, the river on which Nymwegen stands. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was at Nymwegen in 1716, drew an oddcomparison between that town and the English town of Nottingham. IfEdinburgh is the modern Athens there is no reason why Nottinghamshould not be the English Nymwegen. Lady Mary writes to her friendSarah Chiswell: "If you were with me in this town, you would be readyto expect to receive visits from your Nottingham friends. No twoplaces were ever more resembling; one has but to give the Maese thename of the Trent, and there is no distinguishing the prospects--thehouses, like those of Nottingham, built one above another, and areintermixed in the same manner with trees and gardens. The tower theycall Julius Cæsar's has the same situation with Nottingham Castle;and I cannot help fancying I see from it the Trent-field, Adboulton, &c. , places so well known to us. 'Tis true, the fortifications makea considerable difference. .. . " Nymwegen reminded me of nothing but itself. It is in reality two towns:a spacious residential town near the station, with green squares, and statues, and modern houses (one of them so modern as to beemploying a vacuum cleaner, which throbbed and panted in the gardenas I passed); and the old mediæval Nymwegen, gathered about one ofthe most charming market places in all Holland--a scene for comicopera. The Dutch way of chequering the shutters in blue and yellow(as at Middelburg) or in red and black, or red and white, is herepractised to perfection. The very beautiful weigh-house has red andblack shutters; the gateway which leads to the church has them too. Never have I seen a church so hemmed in by surrounding buildings. Thelittle houses beset it as the pigmies beset Antæus. After somedifficulty I found my way in, and wandered for a while among its whiteimmensities. It is practically a church within a church, the regionof services being isolated in the midst, in the unlovely Dutch way, within hideous wooden walls. It is very well worth while to climb thetower and see the great waterways of this country beneath you. Theprospect is mingled wood and polder: to the east and south-east, shaggy hills; to the west, the moors of Brabant; to the north, Arnheim's dark heights. Nymwegen has many lions, chief of which perhaps is the Valkhof, in the grounds above the river--the remains of a palace of theCarlovingians. It is of immense age, being at once the oldest buildingin Holland and the richest in historic memories. For here livedCharlemagne and Charles the Bald, Charles the Bold and Maximilianof Austria. The palace might still be standing were it not for thedestructiveness of the French at the end of the eighteenth century. Apicture by Jan van Goyen in the stadhuis gives an idea of the Valkhofin his day, before vandalism had set in. As some evidence of the town's pride in her association with thesegreat names the curfew, which is tolled every evening at eight o'clock, but which I did not hear, is called Charlemagne's Prayer. The façadeof the stadhuis is further evidence, for it carries the statues ofsome of the ancient monarchs who made Nymwegen their home. Within the stadhuis is another of the beautiful justice halls whichHolland possesses in such profusion, the most interesting of whichwe saw at Kampen. Kampen's oak seats are not, however, more beautifulthan those of Nymwegen; and Kampen has no such clock as stands here, distilling information, tick by tick, of days, and years, and sun, and moon, and stars. The stadhuis has also treasures of tapestryand Spanish leather, and a museum containing a very fine collectionof antiquities, including one of the famous wooden petticoats ofNymwegen--a painted barrel worn as a penance by peccant dames. From Nymwegen the train took me to Hertzogenbosch, or Bois le Duc, the capital of Brabant. It is from Brabant, we were told by a proverbwhich I quoted in my first chapter on Friesland, that one shouldtake a sheep. Great flocks of sheep may be seen on the Brabant moors, exactly as in Mauve's pictures. They are kept not for food, for theDutch dislike mutton, but for wool. Bois le Duc has the richest example of mediæval architecture inHolland--the cathedral of St. John, a wonderful fantasy in stone, rich not only without, but, contrary to all Dutch precedent, withintoo; for we are at last again among a people who for the most partretain the religion of Rome. The glass of the cathedral is poor, but there is a delicate green pattern on the vaulting which is verycharming. The koster is proudest of the pulpit, and of a figure ofthe Virgin "which is carried in procession through the town everyevening between July 7th and 16th". But I was not interested so much in particular things as in thecathedral as a whole. To be in the midst of this grey Gothicenvironment was what I desired, and after a little difficulty Iinduced the koster to leave me to wander alone. It was the firstchurch in Holland with the old authentic thrill. Bois le Duc (as it is more simple to call it) is a gay town withperhaps the most spirited market place in the country. The stalls haveeach an awning, as in the south of Europe, and the women's heads aregarlanded with flowers. I like this method of decoration as littleas any, but it carries with it a pleasant sense of festivity. From Bois le Duc one may go due north to Utrecht and Amsterdam, passingon the way Bommel, with its tall and impressive tower rising from itsmidst. Or one may keep to the western route and reach Walcheren. Thatis my present course, and Bommel may be left with a curious storyof the Spaniards in 1599. "Two brothers who had never seen, and hadalways been inquiring for, each other, met at last by chance at thesiege, where they served in two different companies. The elder, whowas called Hernando Diaz, having heard the other mentioned by the nameof Encisso, which was his mother's surname, and which he had takenthrough affection, a thing common in Spain, put several questions tohim concerning a number of family particulars, and knew at last bythe exactness of his answers that he was the brother he had been solong seeking after; upon which both proceeding to a close embrace, a cannon ball struck off both their heads, without separating theirbodies, which fell clinging together. " Helvoet, on the way to Tilburg, is the scene of an old but honourablestory. Ireland tells us that George the Second, being detained bycontrary winds on his return from Hanover, reposed at Helvoet until thesea should subside. While there he one day stopped a pretty Dutch girlto ask her what she had in her basket. "Eggs, mynheer. " "And what is theprice?" "A ducat a piece, mynheer. " "Are eggs so scarce then inHolland?" "No. Mynheer, but kings are. " At Tilburg I did not tarry, but rode on to Breda (which is pronouncedwith all the accent on the second syllable) and which is famousfor a castle (now a military school) and a tomb. The castle, a verybeautiful building, was built by Count Henry of Nassau. On becoming indue course the property of William the Silent, it was confiscated bythe Duke of Alva. How it was won back again is a story worth telling. The great achievement belonged to a simple boatman namedAdrian. Whether or not he had read or heard of the Trojan horse is notknown, but his scheme was not wholly different. Briefly he recommendedPrince Maurice to conceal soldiers in his peat boat, under the peats, to be conveyed as peat into the Spanish garrison. The plan was approvedand Captain Heranguière was placed in charge of it. The boat was laden and Adrian poled it into the fortress; and allwas going well until the coldness of the night set the soldierscoughing. All were affected, but chiefly Lieutenant Hells, who, vainlyattempting to be silent, at last implored his comrades to kill himlest he ruin the enterprise. Adrian, however, prevented this grimnecessity by pumping very hard and thus covering the sound. It had been arranged that the Prince should be outside the city ata certain hour. Just before the time Heranguière and his men sprangout of their hiding, killed the garrison, opened the gates, and thecastle was won again, Heranguière was rewarded by being made governorof Breda; Adrian was pensioned, and the boat was taken from its nativeelements and exalted into an honoured position in the castle. When, however, the Spanish general Spinola recaptured Breda, one of hisfirst duties was to burn this worthy vessel. The jewel of Breda, which is a spreading fortified town, is thetomb of Count Engelbert I. Of Nassau, in one of the chapels of thegreat church. The count and his lady, both sculptured in alabaster, lie side by side beneath a canopy of black marble, which is borneby four warriors also of alabaster. On the canopy are the arms andaccoutrements of the dead Count. The tomb, which was the work ofVincenz of Bologna in the sixteenth century, is wholly satisfying inits dignity, austerity and grace. To the font in Breda cathedral William III. Attached the privilegeof London citizenship. Any child christened there could claim therights of a Londoner, the origin of the sanction being the presence ofEnglish soldiers at Breda and their wish that their children shouldbe English too. Whether or not the Dutch guards who were helping theEnglish at the end of the seventeenth century had a similar privilegein London I do not know. Late one Saturday evening I watched in a milk shop at Breda aconscientious Dutch woman at work. She had just finished scrubbing thefloor and polishing the brass, and was now engaged in laying littlepaths of paper in case any chance customer should come in over nightand soil the boards before Sunday. I thought as I stood there howimpossible it would be for an English woman tired with the week to situp like this to clean a shop against the next day. Sir William Templehas a pleasant story illustrating at once the inherent passion forcleanliness in the Dutch women and also their old masterfulness. Ittells how a magistrate, paying an afternoon call, was received at thedoor by a stout North Holland lass who, lest he should soil the floor, took him bodily in her arms and carried him to a chair; sat him in it;removed his boots; put a pair of slippers on his feet; and then ledhim to her mistress's presence. Bergen-op-Zoom has its place in history; but it is a dull town infact. Nor has it beautiful streets, with the exception of that whichleads to the old Gevangenpoort with its little painted towers. Imust confess that I did not like Bergen-op-Zoom. It seemed to mecuriously inhospitable and critical; which was of course a wrongattitude to take up towards a countryman of Grimston and Redhead; Whoare Grimston and Redhead? I seem to hear the reader asking. Grimstonand Redhead were two members of the English garrison when the Princeof Parma besieged Bergen-op-Zoom in 1588, and it was their cunningwhich saved the town. Falling intentionally into the Prince's handsthey affected to inform him of the vulnerability of the defences, and outlined a scheme by which his capture of a decisive positionwas practically certain. Having been entrusted with the conduct ofthe attack, they led his men, by preconcerted design, into an ambush, with the result that the siege was raised. All being fair in love and war one should, I suppose, be at the feetof these brave fellows; but I have no enthusiasm for that kind ofthing. At the same time there is no doubt that the Dutch ought to, and therefore I am the more distressed by Bergen-op-Zoom's rudenessto our foreign garb. Bergen had seen battle before the siege, for when it was held by theSpanish, at the beginning of the war, a naval engagement was held offit in the Scheldt, between the Spanish fleet and the Beggars of theSea, whom we are about to meet. The victory was to the Beggars. Later, in 1747, Bergen was besieged again, this time by the French and muchmore fiercely than by the Spaniards. From Bergen-op-Zoom we went to Tholen, passing the whitest of windmillson the way. Tholen is an odd little ancient town gained by a tramwayand a ferry. Head-dresses here, as at Bois le Duc, are very muchover-decorated with false flowers; but in a little shop in one of thenarrow and deserted streets we found some very pretty lace. We found, also on the edge of the town, a very merry windmill; and we had lunchat an inn window which commanded the harnessing of the many marketcarts, into every one of which climbed a stolid farmer and a wifebrimming with gossip. In the returning steam-tram from Tholen to Bergen-op-Zoom was aDutch maiden. So typical was she that she might have been a compositeportrait of all Dutch girls of eighteen--smooth fair features, a veryclear complexion, prim clothes. A friend getting in too, she talked;or rather he talked, and she listened, and agreed or dissented veryquietly, and I had the pleasure of watching how admirably adaptedis the Dutch feminine countenance for the display of the nuancesof emotion, the enregistering of every thought. Expression afterexpression flitted across her face and mouth like the alternate shadowand sun in the Weald on a breezy April day. A French woman's manyvivacious and eloquent expressions seem to come from within; but theDutch present a placid sensitised surface on which their companions'conversation records the most delicate tracery. This girl's littlereluctant smiles were very charming, and we were at Bergen-op-Zoomagain before I knew it. Chapter XIX Middelburg The friendly Zeelanders--A Spanish heritage--Deceptive Dutch towns--The Abbey Hotel--The Abbey of St. Nicholas--Middelburg's art--Sentimental songs--The great Tacius--The siege of Middelburg--A round-faced city--When disfigurement is beauty--Green paint--Long John--Music in the night--Foolish Betsy--The Stadhuis--An Admiral and stuffed birds--The law of the paving-stones--Veere--The prey of the sea--A mammoth church--Maximilian's cup. With Middelburg I have associated, for charm, Hoorn; but Middelburgstands first. It is serener, happier, more human; while the nature ofthe Zeelander is to the stranger so much more ingratiating than thatof the North Hollander. The Zeelander--and particularly the Walcherenislander--has the eccentricity to view the stranger as a naturalobject rather than a phenomenon. Flushing being avowedly cosmopolitandoes not count, but at Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, you may, although the only foreigner there, walk about in the oddest clothesand receive no embarrassing attentions. It is not that the good people of Walcheren are quicker to seewhere their worldly advantage lies. They are not schemers orfinanciers. The reason resides in a native politeness, a heritage, some have conjectured, from their Spanish forefathers. One sees hintsof Spanish blood also in the exceptional flexibility and good carriageof the Walcheren women. Whatever the cause of Zeeland's friendliness, there it is; and in Middelburg the foreigner wanders at ease, almostas comfortable and self-possessed as if he were in France. And it is the pleasantest town to wander in, and an astonishinglylarge one. A surprising expansiveness, when one begins to explore them, is an idiosyncrasy of Dutch towns. From the railway, seeing a churchspire and a few roofs, one had expected only a village; and beholdstreet runs into street until one's legs ache. This is peculiarlythe case with Gorinchem, which is almost invisible from the line;and it is the case with Middelburg, and Hoorn, and many other townsthat I do not recall at this moment. My advice to travellers in Walcheren is to stay at Middelburg ratherthan at Flushing (they are very nigh each other) and to stay, moreover, at the Hotel of the Abbey. It is not the best hotel in Holland asregards appointment and cuisine; but it is certainly one of thepleasantest in character, and I found none other in so fascinatinga situation. For it occupies one side of the quiet square enclosedby the walls of the Abbey of St. Nicholas (or Abdij, as the Dutchoddly call it), and you look from your windows through a grove oftrees to the delicate spires and long low facade of this ancientHouse of God, which is now given over to the Governor of Zeeland, to the library of the Province, and to the Provincial Council, whomeet in fifteenth century chambers and transact their business on_nouveau art_ furniture. What the Abbey must have been before it was destroyed by fire we canonly guess; but one thing we know, and that is that among its treasureswere paintings by the great Mabuse (Jan Gossaert), who once roysteredthrough Middelburg's quiet streets. Another artist of Middelburg wasAdrian van der Venne, who made the quaint drawings for Jacob Cats'symbols, of which we have seen something in an earlier chapter. Butthe city has never been a home of the arts. Beyond a little tapestry, some of which may be seen in the stadhuis, and some at the Abbey, it made nothing beautiful. From earliest times the Middelburgers weremerchants--wool merchants and wine merchants principally, but alwaystradespeople and always prosperous and contented. A tentoonstelling (or exhibition) of copper work was in progress whenI was there last summer; but it was not interesting, and I had betterhave taken the advice of the Music Hall manager, in whose groundsit was held, and have saved my money. His attitude to _repoussé_work was wholly pessimistic, part prejudice against the craftof the metal-worker in itself, but more resentment that florinsshould be diverted into such a channel away from comic singers andacrobats. Seated at one of the garden tables we discussed Dutch tastein varieties. The sentimental song, he told me, is a drug in Holland. Anythingrather than that. No matter how pretty the girl may be, she mustnot sing a sentimental song. But if I wished to witness the onlyway in which a sentimental song would "go down, " I must visit hisperformance that evening--reserved seats one, fifty, --and hear thegreat Tacius. He drew from his pocket a handbill which was at thatmoment being scattered broadcast over Middelburg. It bore the nameof this marvel, this solver of the sentimental riddle, and beneathit three interrogation marks. The manager winked. "That, " he said, "will excite interest. " We went that evening and heard Tacius--a portly gentleman in a balldress and a yellow wig, who after squeaking five-sixths of a love songin a timid falsetto which might pass for a woman's voice, roared outthe balance like a bull. He brought down the house. Like most other Dutch towns Middelburg had its period of siege. Butthere was this difference, that Middelburg was held by the Spanish andbesieged by the Dutch, whereas the custom was for the besiegers to beSpanish and the besieged Dutch. Middelburg suffered every privationcommon to invested cities, even to the trite consumption of ratsand dogs, cats and mice, Just as destruction seemed inevitable--forthe Spanish commander Mondragon swore to fire it and perish with itrather than submit--a compromise was arranged, and he surrenderedwithout dishonour, the terms of the capitulation (which, however, Spain would not allow him to carry out) being another illustrationof the wisdom and humanity of William the Silent. Middelburg has never known a day's suffering since her siege. Alocal proverb says, "Goed rond, goed Zeeuwsch"--very round, veryZeelandish--and an old writer--so M. Havard tells us--describesMiddelburg as a "round faced city". If by round we mean not onlycircular but also plump and comfortable, we have Middelburg and itssons and daughters very happily hit off. Structurally the town isround: the streets curve, the Abbey curves; seen from a balloon orthe summit of the church tower, the plan of the city would revealitself a circle. And there is a roundness also in the people. Theysmile roundly, they laugh roundly, they live roundly. The women and girls of Middelburg are more comely and winsome than anyin Holland. Their lace caps are like driven snow, their cheeks shinelike apples. But their way with their arms I cannot commend. The sleeveof their bodices ends far above the elbow, and is made so tight thatthe naked arm below expands on attaining its liberty, and by constantand intentional friction takes the hue of the tomato. What, however, is to our eyes only a suggestion of inflammation, is to the Zeelander abeauty. While our impulse is to recommend cold cream, the young bloodsof Middelburg (I must suppose) are holding their beating hearts. Theseare the differences of nations--beyond anything dreamed of in Babel. The principal work of these ruddy-armed and wide-hipped damsels seemsto be to carry green pails on a blue yoke--and their perfect fitnessin Middelburg's cheerful and serene streets is another instance ofthe Dutch cleverness in the use of green paint. These people painttheir houses every year--not in conformity with any written law, but upon a universal feeling that that is what should be done. Tothis very pretty habit is largely due the air of fresh gaiety thattheir towns possess. Middelburg is of the gayest. Greenest of all, as I have said, is perhaps Zaandam. Sometimes they paint too freely, even the trunks of trees and good honest statuary coming under thebrush. But for the most part they paint well. It is not alone the cloistral Gothic seclusion in which the Abbey hotelreposes that commends it to the wise: there is the further allurementof Long John. Long John, or De Lange Jan, is the soaring tower of theAbbey church, now the Nieuwe Kerk. So long have his nearly 300 feetdominated Middelburg--he was first built in the thirteenth century, and rebuilt in the sixteenth--that he has become more than a structureof bricks and copper: a thinking entity, a tutelary spirit at oncethe pride and the protector of the town. His voice is heard more oftenthan any belfry beneath whose shadow I have lain. Holland, as we haveseen, is a land of bells and carillons; nowhere in the world are thefeet of Time so dogged; but Long John is the most faithful sleuth ofall. He is almost ahead of his quarry. He seems to know no law; heset out, I believe, with a commission entitling him to ring his oneand forty bells every seven and a half minutes, or eight times in thehour; but long since he must have torn up that warranty, for he isnow his own master, breaking out into little sighs of melancholy orwistful music whenever the mood takes him. I have never heard suchprofoundly plaintive airs as his--very beautiful, very grave, verydeliberate. One cannot say more for persistent chimes than this--thatat the Abbey hotel it is no misfortune to wake in the night. Long John has a companion in Foolish Betsy. Foolish Betsy is thestadhuis clock, so called (Gekke Betje) from her refusal to keep timewith the giant: another instance of the power which John exerts overthe town, even to the wounding of chivalry. The Nieuwe Kerk wouldbe nothing without its tower--it is one of the barest and leastinteresting churches in a country which has reduced to the finestpoint the art of denuding religion of mystery--but the stadhuiswould still be wonderful even without its Betsy, There is nothingelse like it in Holland, nothing anywhere quite so charming in itsshameless happy floridity. I cannot describe it: the building is toocomplicated, too ornate; I can only say that it is wholly captivatingand thoroughly out of keeping with the Dutch genius--Spanish influenceagain apparent. Beneath the eaves are four and twenty statues of theCounts of Holland and Zeeland, and the roof is like a mass-meetingof dormer windows. In addition to the stadhuis museum, which is dedicated to the historyof Middelburg and Zeeland, the town has also a municipal museum, toolargely given over to shells and stuffed birds, but containing alsosuch human relics as the wheel on which Admiral de Ruyter as a boyhelped his father to make rope, and also the first microscope andthe first telescope, both the work of Zacharias Jansen, a Zeelandmathematician. More interesting perhaps are the rooms in the oldZeeland manner, corresponding to the Hindeloopen rooms which wehave seen at Leeuwarden, but lacking their cheerful richness ofornamentation. It is certainly a museum that should be visited, albeit the stuffed birds weigh heavily on the brow. After all, Middelburg's best museum is itself. Its streets andhouses are a never-ending pleasure. Something gladdens the eye atevery turn--a blue and yellow shutter, a red and black shutter, a turret, a daring gable, a knot of country people, a fat Zeelandbaby, a milk-can rivalling the sun, an old woman's lace cap, a youngwoman's merry mouth. Only in two respects is the town unsatisfactory, and both are connected with its streets. The liberty given to eachhouseholder to erect an iron fence across the pavement at each limitof his property makes it necessary to walk in the road, and the _pavé_of the road is so rough as to cause no slight suffering to any one inthin boots. M. Havard has an amusing passage on this topic, in whichhe says that the ancient fifteenth-century punishment for maritalinfidelity, a sin forbidden by the municipal laws no less than byHeaven, was the supply by the offending man of a certain number ofpaving stones. After such an explanation, the genial Frenchman adds, we must not complain:-- Nos pères ont péchés, nos pères ne sont plus, Et c'est nous qui portons la peine de leurs crimes. The island of Walcheren is quickly learned. From Middelburg onecan drive in a day to the chief points of interest--Westcapelle andDomburg, Veere and Arnemuiden. Of these Veere is the jewel--Veere, once Middelburg's dreaded rival, and in its possession of a clearsea-way and harbour her superior, but now forlorn. For in theseventeenth century Holland's ancient enemy overflowed its barriers, and the greater part of Veere was blotted out in a night. What remainsis a mere symbol of the past; but there is enough to loiter in withperfect content, for Veere is unique. Certainly no little town is sogood to approach--with the friendliness of its red roofs before oneall the way, the unearthly hugeness of its church and the magic ofits stadhuis tower against the blue. The church, which is visible from all parts of the island, is immense, in itself an indication of what a city Veere must have been. Itrises like a mammoth from the flat. Only the east end is now used forservices; the vast remainder, white and naked, is given up to batsand the handful of workmen that the slender restoration funds make itpossible to employ. For there is some idea of Veere's church being oneday again in perfect repair; but that day will not be in our time. Theravages of the sea only emptied it: the sea does not desecrate. Itwas Napoleon who disgraced the church by converting it into barracks. Other relics of Veere's past are the tower at the harbour mouth (itsfellow-tower is beneath the sea) and the beautifully grave Scotch houseon the quay, once the centre of the Scottish wool trade of these parts. The stadhuis also remains, a dainty distinguished structure which mightbe the infant daughter of the stadhuis at Middelburg. Its spire has aslender aerial grace; on its façade are statues of the Lords of Veereand their Ladies, Within is a little museum of antiquities, one ofwhose most interesting possessions is the entry in the Veere register, under the date July 2nd, 1608, of the marriage of Hugo Grotius withMaria Reygersbergh of Veere, whom we have seen at Loevenstein assistingin her husband's escape from prison. The museum is in the charge of ablond custodian, a descendant of sea kings, whose pride in the goldengoblet which Maximilian of Burgundy, Veere's first Marquis, gave tothe town in 1551, is almost paternal. He displays it as though itwere a sacred relic, and narrates the story of Veere's indignationwhen a millionaire attempted to buy it, so feelingly as to fortifyand complete one's suspicions that money after all is but dross andthe love of it the root of evil. Chapter XX Flushing Middelburg once more--The Flushing baths--Shrimps and chivalry--A Dutch boy--Charles V. At Souburg--Flushing and the Spanish yoke--Philip and William the Silent--The capture of Brill--A far-reaching drunken impulse--Flushing's independence--Admiral de Ruyter--England's Revenge--The Middelburg kermis--The aristocracy of avoirdupois--The end. It is wiser I think to stay at Middelburg and visit Flushing fromthere than to stay at Flushing. One may go by train or tram. Inhot weather the steam-tram is the better way, for then one can godirect to the baths and bathe in the stillest arm of the sea thatI know. Here I bathed on the hottest day of last year, 1904, amongmerry albeit considerable water nymphs and vivacious men. These Ifound afterwards should have dwelt in the water for ever, for theyemerged, dried and dressed, from the machines, something less thanordinary Batavians. I perhaps carried disillusionment also. For safe bathing the Flushing baths could not well be excelled, butI never knew shore so sandy. To rid one's self of sand is almost animpossibility. With each step it over-tops one's boots. Returning to Middelburg from Flushing one evening, in the steam-tram, we found ourselves in a compartment filled with happy countrypeople, most of them making for the kermis, then in full swing inthe Middelburg market place. A pedlar of shrimps stood by the doorretailing little pennyworths, and nothing would do but the countrymanopposite me must buy some for his sweetheart. When he had bought themhe was for emptying them in her lap, but I tendered the wrapper of mybook just in time: an act of civility which brought out all his nativefriendliness. He offered us shrimps, one by one, first peeling themwith kindly fingers of extraordinary blackness, and we ate enough tosatisfy him that we meant well: and then just as we reached Middelburg, he gave me a cigar and walked all the way to the Abbey with me, watching me smoke it. It was an ordeal; but I hope, for the honourof England, that I carried it through successfully and convinced himthat an Englishman knows what to do with courtesy when he finds it. In the same tram and on the very next seat to us was the pleasantestlittle boy that I think I ever saw: a perfect miniature Dutchman, with wide black trousers terminating in a point, pearl buttons, a tight black coat, a black hat, and golden neck links after theZeeland habit. He was perhaps four, plump and red and merry, and hismother, who nursed his baby sister, was immensely proud of him. Someone pressed a twopenny bit into his hand as he left the car, and Iwatched him telling the great news to half a dozen of the women whowere waiting by the side of the road, while his face shone like thesetting sun. They got off at Souburg, the little village between Flushing andMiddelburg where Charles V. Was living in 1556, after his abdication, before he sailed for his last home. It is odd to have two suchassociations with Souburg--the weary emperor putting off the purple, and the little Dutch boer bursting jollily through black velvet. Flushing played a great part in the great war. It was from Flushingthat Charles V. Sailed in 1556; from Flushing that Philip II. Sailed in1559; neither to return. It was Flushing that heard Philip's farewellto William of Orange, which in the light of after events may be calledthe declaration of war that was to release the Netherlands from thetyranny of Spain and Rome. "As Philip was proceeding on board the shipwhich was to bear him for ever from the Netherlands, his eyes lightedupon the Prince. His displeasure could no longer be restrained. Withangry face he turned upon him, and bitterly reproached him for havingthwarted all his plans by means of his secret intrigues. Williamreplied with humility that everything which had taken place had beendone through the regular and natural movements of the states. Uponthis the King, boiling with rage, seized the Prince by the wrist, and, shaking it violently, exclaimed in Spanish, 'No los estados, ma vos, vos, vos!'--Not the estates, but you, you, you!--repeatingthrice the word 'vos, ' which is as disrespectful and uncourteous inSpain as 'toi' in French. " That was 26th August, 1559. Philip's fleet consisted of ninety ships, victualled, among other articles, with fifteen thousand capons, andladen with such spoil as tapestry and silks, much of which had tobe thrown overboard in a storm to lighten the labouring vessels. Itseemed at one time as if the fleet must founder, but Philip reachedSpain in safety, and hastened to celebrate his escape, and emphasisehis policy of a universal religion, by an extensive _auto da fé_. Flushing did not actually begin the war, in 1572, after the captureof Brill at the mouth of the Maas, by the Water Beggars under De laMarck, but it was the first town to respond to that invitation ofrevolt against Alva and Spain. The foundations of the Dutch Republicmay have been laid at Brill, but it was the moral support of Flushingthat established them. The date of the capture of Brill was April 1st, and Alva, who was thenat Brussels, suffered tortures from the Belgian wits. The word Brill, by a happy chance, signifies spectacles, and a couplet was sung tothe effect that On April Fool's Day Duke Alva's spectacles were stolen away; while, says Motley, a caricature was circulated depicting Alva'sspectacles being removed from his nose by De la Marck, while the Dukeuttered his habitual comment "'Tis nothing. 'Tis nothing. " What, however, began as little more than the desperate deed of somehungry pirates, to satisfy their immediate needs, was soon turnedinto a very far-reaching "something, " by the action of Flushing, whose burghers, under the Seigneur de Herpt, on hearing the news ofthe rebellion of Brill, drove the Spanish garrison from the town. Anumber of Spanish ships chancing to arrive on the same day, bringingreinforcements, were just in time to find the town in arms. Had theylanded, the whole revolt might have been quelled, but a drunken loaferof the town, in return for a pot of beer, offered to fire a gun at thefleet from the ramparts. He was allowed to do so, and without a wordthe fleet fell into a panic and sailed away. The day was won. It mightalmost be said that that shot--that pot of beer--secured the freedomof the Netherlands. Let this be remembered when John Barleycorn isbefore his many judges. A little later Brill sent help, and Flushing's independence wassecure. Motley describes this band of assistants in a picturesquepassage:-- "The expedition seemed a fierce but whimsical masquerade. Every man inthe little fleet was attired in the gorgeous vestments of the plunderedchurches, in gold-embroidered cassocks, glittering mass-garments, orthe more sombre cowls and robes of Capuchin friars. So sped the earlystandard bearers of that ferocious liberty which had sprung from thefires in which all else for which men cherish their fatherland hadbeen consumed. So swept that resolute but fantastic band along theplacid estuaries of Zeeland, waking the stagnant waters with theirwild beggar songs and cries of vengeance. "That vengeance found soon a distinguished object. Pacheco, thechief engineer of Alva, who had accompanied the Duke in his marchfrom Italy, who had since earned a world-wide reputation as thearchitect of the Antwerp citadel, had been just despatched in hasteto Flushing to complete the fortress whose construction had beenso long delayed. Too late for his work, too soon for his safety, the ill-fated engineer had arrived almost at the same moment withTreslong and his crew. He had stepped on shore, entirely ignorant ofall which had transpired, expecting to be treated with the respectdue to the chief commandant of the place, and to an officer high inthe confidence of the Governor-general. He found himself surrounded byan indignant and threatening mob. The unfortunate Italian understoodnot a word of the opprobrious language addressed to him, but he easilycomprehended that the authority of the Duke was overthrown. "Observing De Ryk, a distinguished partisan officer and privateersmanof Amsterdam, whose reputation for bravery and generosity was knownto him, he approached him, and drawing a seal ring from his fingerkissed it, and handed it to the rebel chieftain. By this dumb-showhe gave him to understand that he relied upon his honor for thetreatment due to a gentleman. De Ryk understood the appeal, and wouldwillingly have assured him, at least, a soldier's death, but he waspowerless to do so. He arrested him, that he might be protected fromthe fury of the rabble; but Treslong, who now commanded in Flushing, was especially incensed against the founder of the Antwerp citadel, and felt a ferocious desire to avenge his brother's murder upon thebody of his destroyer's favourite. "Pacheco was condemned to be hanged upon the very day of hisarrival. Having been brought forth from his prison, he beggedhard but not abjectly for his life. He offered a heavy ransom, buthis enemies were greedy for blood, not for money. It was, however, difficult to find an executioner. The city hangman was absent, and theprejudice of the country and the age against the vile profession hadassuredly not been diminished during the five horrible years of Alva'sadministration. Even a condemned murderer, who lay in the town gaol, refused to accept his life in recompence for performing the office. Itshould never be said, he observed, that his mother had given birthto a hangman. When told, however, that the intended victim was aSpanish officer, the malefactor consented to the task with alacrity, on condition that he might afterwards kill any man who taunted himwith the deed. "Arrived at the foot of the gallows, Pacheco complained bitterly ofthe disgraceful death designed for him. He protested loudly that hecame of a house as noble as that of Egmont or Hoorn, and was entitledto as honourable an execution as theirs had been. 'The sword! thesword!' he frantically exclaimed, as he struggled with those whoguarded him. His language was not understood, but the name of Egmontand Hoorn inflamed still more highly the rage of the rabble, whilehis cry for the sword was falsely interpreted by a rude fellow who hadhappened to possess himself of Pacheco's rapier, at his capture, andwho now paraded himself with it at the gallows foot. 'Never fear foryour sword, Señor, ' cried this ruffian; 'your sword is safe enough, and in good hands. Up the ladder with you, Señor; you have no furtheruse for your sword. ' Pacheco, thus outraged, submitted to his fate. Hemounted the ladder with a steady step, and was hanged between twoother Spanish officers. "So perished miserably a brave soldier, and one of the mostdistinguished engineers of his time; a man whose character andaccomplishments had certainly merited for him a better fate. Butwhile we stigmatize as it deserves the atrocious conduct of a fewNetherland partisans, we should remember who first unchained the demonof international hatred in this unhappy land, nor should it ever beforgotten that the great leader of the revolt, by word, proclamation, example, by entreaties, threats, and condign punishment, constantlyrebuked and, to a certain extent, restrained the sanguinary spiritby which some of his followers disgraced the noble cause which theyhad espoused. " Flushing's hero is De Ruyter, whose rope-walk wheel we saw atMiddelburg, and whose truculent lineaments have so often frowned atus from the walls of picture gallery and stadhuis throughout thecountry--almost without exception from the hand of Ferdinand Bol, or a copyist. Scratch a sea-dog and you find a pirate; De Ruyter, who stands in stonefor all time by Flushing harbour, lacking the warranty of war wouldhave been a Paul Jones beyond eulogy. You can see it in his strongbrows, his determined mouth, his every line. It is only two hundredand thirty-seven years, only seven generations, since he was in theThames with his fleet, and London was panic-stricken. No enemy hasbeen there since. The English had their revenge in 1809, when theybombarded Flushing and reduced it to only a semblance of what it hadbeen. Among the beautiful buildings which our cannon balls destroyedwas the ancient stadhuis. Hence it is that Flushing's stadhuis to-dayis a mere recent upstart. Flushing does little to amuse its visitors after the sun has left thesea; and we were very glad of the excuse offered by the Middelburgkermis to return to our inland city each afternoon. The Middelburgkermis is a particularly merry one. The stalls and roundabouts fillthe market square before the stadhuis, packed so closely that therevolving horses nearly carry the poffertje restaurants round withthem. The Dutch roundabouts, by the way, still, like the English, retain horses: they have not, like the French, as I noticed at threefairs in and about Paris last autumn, taken to pigs and rabbits. I examined the Middelburg kermis very thoroughly. Few though theexhibits were, they included two fat women. Their booths stood onopposite sides of the square, all the fun of the fair between them. Inthe west was Mile. Jeanne; in the east the Princess Sexiena. Jeannewas French, Sexiena came from the Fatherland. Both, though rivals, used the same poster: a picture of a lady, enormous, décolletée, highly-coloured, stepping into a fiacre, to the cocher's intensealarm. Before one inspected the rival giantesses this community ofadvertisement had seemed to be a mistake; after, its absurdity was onlytoo apparent, for although the Princess was colossal, Mile. Jeanaewas more so. Mile. Jeanne should therefore have employed an artistto make an independent allurement. Both also displayed outside the booths a pair of corsets, but here, I fancy, the advantage was with Mlle. Jeanne, although such were thedistractions of the square that it was difficult to keep relativesizes in mind as one crossed it. We visited the Princess first and found her large enough. She gasped ona dais--it was the hottest week of the year. She was happy, she said, except in such warmth. She was not married: Princes had sighed forher in vain. She rode a bicycle, she assured us, and enjoyment in theincredulity of her hearers was evidently one of her pleasures. Hermanager listened impatiently, for our conversation interrupted hisroutine; he then took his oath that she was not padded, and bade herexhibit her leg. She did so, and it was like the mast of a ship. I dropped five cents into her plate and passed on to Mlle. Jeanne. ThePrincess had been large enough; Mlle. Jeanne was larger. She woreher panoply of flesh less like a flower than did her rival. Herexpression was less placid; she panted distressfully as she fannedher bulk. But in conversation she relaxed. She too was happy, exceptin such heat. She neither rode a bicycle nor walked--save two orthree steps. As her name indicated, she too was unmarried, although, her manager interjected, few wives could make a better omelette. Butmen are cowards, and such fortresses very formidable. As we talked, the manager, who had entered the booth as blasé anentrepreneur as the Continent holds, showed signs of animation. Intime he grew almost enthusiastic and patted Mlle. 's arms with pride. Heassisted her to exhibit her leg quite as though its glories were alsohis. The Princess's leg had been like the mast of a ship; this waslike the trunk of a Burnham beech. And here, at Flushing, we leave the country. I should have liked tohave steamed down the Scheldt to Antwerp on one of the ships thatcontinually pass, if only to be once more among the friendly francswith their noticeable purchasing power, and to saunter again throughthe Plantin Museum among the ghosts of old printers, and to stand fora while in the Museum before Van Eyck's delicious drawing of SaintBarbara. But it must not be. This is not a Belgian book, but a Dutchbook; and here it ends. NOTES [1] The whole dress worn by the Prince on this tragical occasion isstill to be seen at The Hague in the National Museum. --_Motley_. [2] The house now called the Prinsen Hof (but used as a barrack)still presents nearly the same appearance as it did in 1584. --_Motley_. [3] Mendoza's estimate of the entire population as numbering onlyfourteen thousand before the siege is evidently erroneous. It wasprobably nearer fifty thousand. --_Motley_. [4] Since writing the above passage I am reminded by a correspondentthat Louis XIV. Described the Dutch as a nation of shopkeepers andNapoleon merely borrowed and adapted the phrase. [5] "With the Rederijkern, " Longfellow adds, "Hood's amusing 'NocturnalSketch' would have been a Driedobbelsteert, or a poem with threetails;-- Even is come; and from the dark park, hark, The signal of the setting sun, one gun! And six is sounding from the chime, prime time To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain. Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things Such as with his poetic tongue Young sung. "