"Thrice was the attack renewed with ever-increasing rage—thrice repulsed with unflinching fortitude. The storm continued four hours long. 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-hand conflicts on the ramparts, passed steadily to and fro from the arsenals to the fortifications, constantly supplying their fathers, husbands, and brothers with powder and ball. Thus, every human being in the city that could walk had become a soldier. At last darkness fell upon the scene. The trumpet of recall was sounded, and the Spaniards, utterly discomfited, retired from the walls, leaving at least one thousand dead in the trenches, while only thirteen burghers and twenty-four of the garrison lost their lives. Thus was Alkmaar preserved for a little longer—thus a large and well-appointed army signally defeated by a handful of men fighting for their firesides and altars. Ensign Solis, who had mounted the breach for an instant, and miraculously escaped with life, after having been hurled from the battlements, reported that he had seen 'neither helmet nor harness,' as he looked down into the city; only some plain-looking people, generally dressed like fishermen. Yet these plain-looking fishermen had defeated the veterans of Alva....

"The day following the assault, a fresh cannonade was opened upon the city. Seven hundred shots having been discharged, the attack was ordered. It was in vain; neither threats nor entreaties could induce the Spaniards, hitherto so indomitable, to mount the breach. The place seemed to their imagination protected by more than mortal powers, otherwise how was it possible that a few half-starved fishermen could already have so triumphantly overthrown the time-honoured legions of Spain. It was thought, no doubt, that the Devil, whom they worshipped, would continue to protect his children. Neither the entreaties nor the menaces of Don Frederic were of any avail. Several soldiers allowed themselves to be run through the body by their own officers, rather than advance to the wails, and the assault was accordingly postponed to an indefinite period."

What seemed at first an unfortunate accident turned the scale. A messenger bearing despatches from the Prince of Orange fell into Spanish hands and Don Frederic learned that the sea was to be let in. Motley continues: "The resolution taken by Orange, of which Don Frederic was thus unintentionally made aware, to flood the country far and near rather than fail to protect Alkmaar, made a profound impression upon his mind. It was obvious that he was dealing with a determined leader, and with desperate men. His attempt to carry the place by storm had signally failed, and he could not deceive himself as to the temper and disposition of his troops ever since that repulse. When it should become known that they were threatened with submersion in the ocean, in addition to all the other horrors of war, he had reason to believe that they would retire ignominiously from that remote and desolate sand hook, where, by remaining, they could only find a watery grave. These views having been discussed in a council of officers, the result was reached that sufficient had been already accomplished for the glory of the Spanish arms. Neither honour nor loyalty, it was thought, required that sixteen thousand soldiers should be sacrificed in a contest, not with man, but with the ocean.

"On the 8th of October, accordingly, the siege, which had lasted seven weeks, was raised, and Don Frederic rejoined his father in Amsterdam. Ready to die in the last ditch, and to overwhelm both themselves and their foes in a common catastrophe, the Hollanders had at last compelled their haughty enemy to fly from a position which he 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 the ship comes nearer there is the additional interest of wondering how the apparently landlocked harbour is to be entered, a long green bar seeming to stretch unbrokenly from side to side. At the last minute the passage is revealed, and one glides into this romantic port. I put Hoorn next to Middelburg in the matter of charm, but seen from the sea it is of greater fascination. In many ways Hoorn is more remarkable 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 party dining in the saloon of a white and exceedingly comfortable-looking yacht, some thirty or forty yards away. Two neat maids continually passed from the galley to the saloon, and laughter came over the water. The yacht was from Arnheim, its owner having all the appearance of a retired East Indian official. In the distance was a tiny sailing boat with its sail set to catch what few puffs of wind were moving. Its only occupant was a man in crimson trousers, the reflection from which made little splashes of warm colour in the pearl grey sea. At Hoorn there seems to be a tendency to sail for pleasure, for as we came away a party of chattering girls glided out in 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 the harbour, which might be considered to have the shape of a horn. The city as she used to be (now dwindled to something less, although the cheese industry makes her prosperous enough and happy enough) was called by the poet Vondel the trumpet and capital of the Zuyder Zee, 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 Dutch port, for the first to discover the passage round that headland and to give it its style was Willem Schouten, a Hoorn sailor. It was another Hoorn sailor, Abel Tasman, who discovered Van Diemen's Land (now called after him) and also New Zealand; and a third, Jan Pieters Coen (whose statue may be seen at Hoorn) who founded the Dutch dominions in the East 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 a great feat in 1572, when De Sonoy, the Prince of Orange's general, was fighting De Bossu, the Spanish Admiral, off the Y, just at the beginning of the siege of Haarlem. An unexpected force of Spaniards from Amsterdam overwhelmed the few men whom De Sonoy had mustered for the defence of the Diemerdyk. I quote Motley's account: "Sonoy, who was on his way to their rescue, was frustrated in his design by the unexpected faint-heartedness of the volunteers whom he had enlisted at Edam. Braving a thousand perils, he advanced, almost unattended, in his little vessel, but only to witness the overthrow and expulsion of his band. It was too late for him singly to attempt to rally the retreating troops. They had fought well, but had been forced to yield before superior numbers, one individual of the little army having performed prodigies of valour. John Haring, of Hoorn, had planted himself entirely alone upon the dyke, where it was so narrow between the Y on the one side and Diemer Lake on the other, that two men could hardly stand abreast. Here, armed with sword and shield, he had actually opposed and held in check one thousand of the enemy, during a period long enough to enable his own men, if they had been willing, to rally, and effectively to repel the attack. 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 in the entrenchments to make good their retreat. He then plunged into the sea, and, untouched by spear or bullet, effected his escape. Had he been a Greek or a Roman, a Horatius or a Chabras, his name would have been famous in history—his statue erected in the market-place; for the bold Dutchman on his dyke had manifested as much valour in a sacred cause as the most classic heroes of antiquity."

Then came the siege of Haarlem, and then the siege of Alkmaar. Hoorn's turn followed, but Hoorn was gloriously equal to it in the hands of Admiral Dirckzoon, whose sword is in the Alkmaar museum, and whose tomb 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 sail of all denominations, was lying off and on in the neighbourhood of Hoorn and Enkhuyzen. After a short and general engagement, nearly all the Spanish fleet retired with precipitation, closely pursued by most of the patriot Dutch vessels. Five of the King's ships were eventually taken, the rest effected their escape. Only the Admiral remained, who scorned to yield, although his forces had thus basely deserted him. His ship, the 'Inquisition,' for such was her insolent appellation, was far the largest and best manned of both the fleets. Most of the enemy had gone in pursuit of the fugitives, but four vessels of inferior size had attacked the 'Inquisition' at the commencement of the action. Of these, one had soon been silenced, while the other three had grappled themselves inextricably to her sides and prow. The four drifted together, before wind and tide, a severe and savage action going on incessantly, during which the navigation of the ships was entirely abandoned. No scientific gunnery, no military or naval tactics were displayed or required in such a conflict. It was a life-and-death combat, such as always occurred when Spaniard and Netherlander met, whether on land or water. Bossu and his men, armed in bullet-proof coats of mail, stood with shield and sword on the deck of the 'Inquisition,' ready to repel all attempts to board. The Hollander, as usual, attacked with pitch hoops, boiling oil, and molten lead. Repeatedly they effected their entrance to the Admiral'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 without intermission through the whole night. The vessels, drifting together, struck on the shoal called the Nek, near Wydeness. In the heat of the action the occurrence was hardly heeded. In the morning twilight, John Haring, of Hoorn, the hero who had kept one thousand soldiers at bay upon the Diemer dyke, clambered on board the 'Inquisition,' and hauled her colors down. The gallant but premature achievement cost him his life. He was shot through the body and died on the deck of the ship, which was not quite ready to strike her flag. In the course of the forenoon, however, it became obvious to Bossu that further resistance was idle. The ships were aground near a hostile coast, his own fleet was hopelessly dispersed, three-quarters of his crew were dead or disabled, while the vessels with which he was engaged were constantly recruited by boats from the shore, which brought fresh men and ammunition, and removed their killed and wounded. At eleven o'clock Admiral Bossu surrendered, and with three hundred prisoners was carried into Holland. Bossu was himself imprisoned at Hoorn, in which city he was received, on his arrival, with great demonstrations of popular hatred."

De Bossu remained in prison for three years. Later he fought for the States. His goblet is preserved at Hoorn. His collar is at Monnickendam and his sword at Enkhuisen.

The room in the Protestant orphanage where De Bossu was imprisoned is still to be seen; and you may see also at the corner of the Grooteoost the houses from which the good wives and housekeepers watched the progress of the battle, and on which a bas-relief representation of the battle was afterwards placed in commemoration.

Two more heroes of Hoorn may be seen in effigy on the facade of the State College, opposite the Weigh House, guarding an English shield. The shield is placed there, among the others, on account of a daring feat performed by two negro sailors in De Ruyter's fleet in the Thames, who ravished from an English ship in distress the shield 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 bending forwards, many of them dignified by black paint and yet not made too grave by it. This black paint blending with the many trees on the canal sides has the same curious charm as at Amsterdam, although there the blackness is richer and more absolute. Even the Hoorn warehouses are things of beauty: one in particular, by the Harbour Tower, with bright green shutters, is indescribably gay, almost coquettish. Hoorn also has the most satisfying little houses I saw in Holland—streets of them. And of all the costumes of Holland I remember most vividly the dead black dress and lace cap of a woman who suddenly turned a corner here—as if she had walked straight from a picture by Elias.

The Harbour Tower is perhaps Hoorn's finest building, its charm being intensified rather than diminished by the hideous barracks close by. St. Jan's Gasthuis has a facade of beautiful gravity, and the gateway of the home for Ouden Vrouwen is perfect. The museum in the Tribunalshof is the most intimate and human collection of curiosities which I saw in Holland—not a fossil, not a stuffed bird, in the building. Among the pictures are the usual groups of soldiers and burgomasters, and the usual fine determined De Ruyter by Bol. We were shown Hoorn's treasures by a pleasant girl who allowed no shade of tedium to cross her smiling courteous face, although the display of these ancient pictures and implements, ornaments and domestic articles must have been her daily work for years. In the top room of all is a curious piece of carved stone on which may be read these inscriptions:—

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 had been disfurnished which give one a very vivid idea of the old good taste of this people and the little palaces of grave art in which they lived.

Thursday is Hoorn's market day, and it is important to be there then if one would see the market carts of North Holland in abundance. We had particularly good fortune since our Thursday was not only market day but the Kermis too. I noticed that the principal attraction of the fair, for boys, was the stalls (unknown at the Kermis both at Middelburg and Leyden) on which a variety of flat cake was chopped with a hatchet. The chopper, who I understand is entitled only to what 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. For they are the Portsmouth and Woolwich of the country. My memories of these twin towns are not too agreeable, for when I was there in 1897 the voyage from Amsterdam by the North Holland canal had chilled me through and through, and in 1904 it rained without ceasing. Nieuwediep is all shipping and sailors, cadet schools and hospitals. The Helder is a dull town, with the least attractive architecture I had seen, cowering beneath a huge dyke but for which, one is assured, it would lie at the bottom of the North Sea. Under rain it is a drearier town than any I know; and ordinarily it is bleak and windy, saved only by its kites, which are flown from the dyke and sail over the sea at immense heights. Every boy has a kite—one more link between Holland and China.

I climbed the lighthouse at The Helder just before the lamp was lit. It was an impressive ceremony. The captain and his men stood all ready, the captain watching the sun as it sunk on the horizon. At the instant it disappeared he gave the word, and at one stride came the light. I chanced 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 the safety of a whole navy seemed to be involved. The light may be seen forty-eight miles away. It is fine to think of all the eyes within that extent of sea, invisible to us, caught almost simultaneously by this 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 for its landlord a poet, and for its head waiter a baritone, and to stay elsewhere would have been a crime. Here is M. Havard's description of these virtuosi: "No one ever sees the landlord the first day he arrives at the hotel. M.B.R. de Breuk is not accessible to ordinary mortals. He lives up among the clouds, and when he condescends to come down to earth he shuts himself up in his own room, where he indulges in pleasant intercourse with the Muses.

"I have no objection to confessing that, although I am a brother in the art, and have stayed several times at his hotel, I have never once been allowed to catch a glimpse of his features. The head-waiter, happily, is just the contrary. It is he who manages the hotel, receives travellers, and arranges for their well-being. He is a handsome fellow, with a fresh complexion, heavy moustache, and one lock of hair artificially arranged on his forehead. He is perfectly conscious of his own good looks, and wears rings on both his hands. Nature has endowed him with a sonorous baritone voice, the notes of which, whether sharp or melodious, he is careful in expressing, because he is charmed with his art, and has an idea that it is fearfully egotistical to conceal such treasures. One note especially he never fails to utter distinctly, and that is the last—the note of payment.

"Sometimes he allows himself to become so absorbed in his art that he forgets the presence in the hotel of tired travellers, and disturbs their slumbers by loud roulades and cadences; or perhaps he is asked to fetch a bottle of beer, he stops on the way to the cellar to perfect the harmony of a scale, and does not return till the patience of the customer is exhausted. But who would have the heart to complain of such small 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 the Amstel in Amsterdam, who might have sat for the Creator to an old master—urbane, efficient, a storehouse of good counsel; and the plump and wide cynic into whose capable and kindly hands one falls at the Oude Doelen at The Hague, that shrewd and humorous reader of men and Americans. I see yet his expression of pity, not wholly (yet perhaps sufficiently) softened to polite interest, when consulted as to the best way in which to visit Alkmaar to see the cheese market. That any one staying at The Hague—and more, at the Oude Doelen—should wish to see traffic in cheese at a provincial town still strikes his wise head as tragic, although it happens every week. I honour him for it and for the exquisite tact with which he retains his opinion and allows you to have yours.

A poet landlord and an operatic head waiter, what are they when all is said beside a friendly hotel porter? He is the Deus ex machina indeed. The praises of the hotel porter have yet to be sung. O Switzerland! the poet might begin (not, probably, a landlord poet) O Switzerland—I give but a bald paraphrase of the spirited original—O Switzerland, thou land of peaks and cow bells, of wild strawberries and nonconformist conventions, of grasshoppers and climbing dons, thou hast strange limitations! Thou canst produce no painter, thou possessest no navy; but thou makest the finest hotel porters in the world. Erect, fair-haired, blue-eyed, tactful and informing, they are 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 has read The Riddle of the Sands to refrain. Had we been there in the nesting 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 the island of Coll, but we were too late, and The Helder had depressed us. It was off the Island of Texel on 31st July, 1653, that Admiral Tromp was killed during his engagement with the English under Monk.

Medemblik, situated on the point of a spur of land between The Helder and Enkhuisen, was once the residence of Radbod and the Kings of Frisia. It is now nothing. One good story at any rate may be recalled there. When Radbod, King of the Frisians, was driven out of Western Frisia in 689 by Pepin of Heristal, Duke and Prince of the Franks (father of Charles Martel and great grandfather of Charlemagne, who completed the conquest of Frisia), the defeated king was considered a convert to Christianity, and the preparations for his baptism were made on a grand scale. Never a whole-hearted convert, Radbod, even as one foot was in the water, had a visitation of doubt. Where, he made bold to ask, were the noble kings his ancestors, who had not, like himself, been offered this inestimable privilege of baptism—in heaven or in hell? The officiating Bishop replied that they were doubtless in hell. "Then," said Radbod, withdrawing his foot, "I think it would be better did I join them there, rather than go alone to Paradise."

Enkhuisen, where one embarks for Friesland, is a Dead City of the Zuyder Zee, with more signs of dissolution than most of them. Once she had a population of sixty thousand; that number must now be divided by ten.

"Above all things," says M. Havard, the discoverer of Dead Cities, "avoid a promenade in this deserted town with an inhabitant familiar with its history, otherwise you will constantly hear the refrain; 'Here was formerly the richest quarter of commerce; there, where the houses are falling into total ruin, was the quarter of our aristocracy,' But more painful still, when we have arrived at what appears the very end of the town, the very last house, we see at a distance a gate of the city. A hundred years ago the houses joined this gate. It took us a walk of twenty minutes across the meadows to arrive at this deserted spot." I did not explore the town, and therefore 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 picture of the bull in the Mauritshuis at The Hague. The year 1625 saw his birth; and it was only twenty-nine years later that he died. While admiring Potter's technical powers, I can imagine few nervous trials more exacting than having to live with his bull intimately in one's room. This only serves to show how temperamental a matter is art criticism, for on each occasion that I have been to the Mauritshuis the bull has had a ring of mute or throbbing worshippers, while Vermeer's "View of Delft" was without a devotee. I have seen, however, little scenes 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 various hospitals, that are in every man's curiosity and talk that travels their country, I was affected with none more than that of the aged seamen 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 and incommodities of the sea, should find a retreat stored with all the eases and conveniences that old age is capable of feeling and enjoying. And here I met with the only rich man that ever I saw in my life: for one of these old seamen entertaining me a good while with the plain stories of his fifty years' voyages and adventures, while I was viewing their hospital, and the church adjoining, I gave him, 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 refused it, he asked me, What he should do with money? for all, that ever they wanted, was provided for them at their house. I left him to overcome 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 she passed by him: which made me reflect upon the fantastic calculation of 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 a beggar; 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. It has, however, this advantage over Hoorn's, its bells are very beautiful. One sees the Dromedary for some miles on the voyage to Stavoren 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, once the home of kings and now a mere haven. A little steamer carries the passengers from Enkhuisen, while the cattle trucks and vans of merchandise cross the Zuyder Zee in a huge railway raft. The steamer takes an hour or a little longer—time enough to have lunch on deck if it is fine, and watch Enkhuisen fading into nothingness and Stavoren rising from the sea.

Before the thirteenth century the Zuyder Zee consisted only of Lake Flevo, south of Stavoren and Enkhuisen, so that our passage then would have been made on land. But in 1282 came a great tempest which drove the German ocean over the north-west shores of Holland, insulating Texel and pouring over the low land between Holland and Friesland. The scheme now in contemplation to drain the Zuyder Zee proposes a dam from Enkhuisen to Piaam, thus reclaiming some 1,350,000 acres for meadow land. Since what man has done man can do, there is little doubt but that the Dutch will carry through this great project.

Concerning Stavoren there is now but one thing to say, and no writer on Holland has had the temerity to avoid saying it. That thing is the story of the widow and the sandbank. It seems that at Stavoren in its palmy days was a wealthy widow shipowner, who once gave instructions to one of her captains, bound for a foreign port, that he should bring back the most valuable and precious thing to be found there, in exchange for the outward cargo. The widow expected I know not what—ivory, perhaps, or peacocks, or chrysoprase—and when the captain brought only grain, she was so incensed that, though the poor of Stavoren implored her to give it them, she bade him forthwith throw it overboard. This he did, and the corn being cursed there sprang up on that spot a sandbank which gradually ruined the harbour and the town. The bank is called The Widow's Corn to this day.

It was near Stavoren that M. Havard engaged in a pleasant and improving conversation with a lock-keeper who had fought with France, and from him learned some curious things about Friesland customs. I quote a little: "When a wife has given birth to a boy and added a son to Friesland, all her female friends come to see her and drink in her room the brandewyn, which is handed round in a special cup or goblet. Each woman brings with her a large tart, all of which are laid out in the room—sometimes they number as many as thirty. The more there are and the finer the cakes the better, because that proves the number of friends. A few days later the new-born Frieslander is taken to church, all the girls from twelve years old accompanying the child and carrying it each in turn. As soon as they reach the church the child is handed to the father, who presents it for baptism. Not a girl in the place would 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 will have a goodly number of little ones.

"'Well and how about betrothals?' 'Ah! ha! that's another thing. The girl chooses the lad. You know the old proverb, 'There are only two things a girl chooses herself—her potatoes and her lover'. You can well imagine how such things begin. They see each other at the kermis, or in the street, or fields. Then one fine day the lad feels his heart beating louder than usual. In the evening he puts on his 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, though of course it is well known why he is there. At last, when bedtime comes, the children retire—even the father and mother go to their room—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 love is uttered. If the girl lets the fire go down, it is a sign she does not care for the lad, and won't have him for a husband. If, on the contrary, she heaps fuel on the fire, he knows that she loves him and 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 never put his foot in the house again. But, in the other, he knows it is all right, and from that day forward he is treated as if he belonged to 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 girl about everywhere; they go to the kermis, skate, and amuse themselves, and no one troubles or inquires about them. Even the girl's parents allow 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 cow certainly presents few difficulties, for the surface of Friesland is speckled thickly with that gentle animal—ample in size and black and white in hue. The only creatures that one sees from the carriage windows on the railway journey are cows in the fields and plovers above them. 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 of Holland are a female republic. Perkin Middlewick (in Our Boys) had made so much money out of pork that whenever he met a pig he was tempted to raise his hat; the Dutch, especially of North Holland and Friesland, should do equal homage to their friend the cow. Edam acknowledges 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 shall stay. At Hindeloopen the journey should be broken for two or three hours. Should, nay must. Hindeloopen (which means stag hunt) has been called the Museum of Holland. All that is most picturesque in Dutch furniture and costume comes from this little town—or professes to do so, 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 furnished exactly in the genuine Hindeloopen manner, and they are exceedingly charming and gay. The smaller of the two has the ordinary blue and white Dutch tiles, with scriptural or other subjects, around the walls to the height of six feet; above them are pure white tiles, to the ceiling, with an occasional delicate blue pattern. The floor is of red and brown tiles. All the furniture is painted very gaily upon a cream or white background—with a gaiety that has a touch of the Orient 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 cabinet of curios and silver ornaments.

The larger room is similiar but more costly. On the wall are fine Delft plates, and seated at the table are wax Hindeloopeners: a man with a clay pipe and tobacco box, wearing a long flowered waistcoat, a crossed white neckcloth and black coat and hat—not unlike a Quaker in festival attire; and his neat and very picturesque women folk are around him. In the cradle, enshrined in ornamentations, is a Hindeloopen baby. More old silver and shining brass here and there, and the same resolute cheerfulness of colouring everywhere. Some of the houses in which such rooms were found still stand at Hindeloopen.

The Dutch once liked puns, and perhaps still do so. Again and again in 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 such spirited invitations. The verses call upon worshippers to run together like deer to hear the word of God.

Within the great church, among other interesting things, are a large number of biers. These also are decorated according to the pretty Hindeloopen usage, one for the dead of each trade. Order even in death. The Hindeloopen baker who has breathed his last must be carried to the grave on the bakers' bier, or the proprieties will wince.

After Hindeloopen the first town of importance on the way to Leeuwarden is Sneek; and Sneek is not important. But Sneek has a water-gate of quaint symmetrical charm, with two little spires—the least little bit like the infant child of the Amsterdam Gate at Haarlem. In common with so many Frisian towns Sneek has suffered from flood. A disastrous inundation overwhelmed her on the evening of All Saints' Day in 1825, when the dykes were broken and the water rushed in to the height of five feet. Such must be great times of triumph for the floating population, who, like the sailor in the old ballad of the sea, may well pity the unfortunate and insecure dwellers in houses. What the number of Friesland's floating population is I do not know; but it must be very large. Many barges and tjalcks are both the birthplace and deathplace of their owners, who know no other home. The cabins are not less intimately cared for and decorated than the sitting-rooms of Volendam and Marken.

We saw at Edam certain odd characters formed in Nature's wayward moods. Sneek also possessed a giant named Lange Jacob, who was eight feet tall and the husband of Korte Jannetje (Little Jenny), who was just half that height. People came from great distances to see this couple. And at Sneek, in the church of St. Martin, is buried a giant of more renown and prowess—Peter van Heemstra, or "Lange Pier" as he was called from his inches, a sea ravener of notable ferocity, whose two-handed sword is preserved at Leeuwarden—although, as M. Havard says, what useful purpose a two-handed sword can serve to an admiral on a small ship baffles reflection.

Bolsward, Sneek's neighbour, is another amphibious town, with a very charming stadhuis in red and white, crowned by an Oriental bell tower completely out of keeping with the modern Frisian who hears its voice. This constant occurrence of Oriental freakishness in the architecture of Dutch towns, in contrast with Dutch occidental four-square simplicity and plainness of character, is an effect to which one never quite grows accustomed.

Bolsward's church, which is paved with tomb-stones, among them some very rich ones in high relief—too high for the comfort of the desecrating foot—has a fine carved pulpit, some oak stalls of great antiquity and an imposing bell tower.

It is claimed that the Frisians were the first Europeans to smoke pipes. Whether or not that is the case, the Dutch are now the greatest smokers. Recent statistics show that whereas the annual consumption of tobacco 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 smoking population at 30 per cent. of the total—allowing thus for women, children and non-smokers—this means that every Dutch smoker consumes about eight ounces of tobacco a week, or a little more than an ounce a day.

I excepted women and children, but that is wrong. The boys smoke too—sometimes pipes, oftenest cigars. At a music hall at The Hague I watched a contest in generosity between two friends in a family party as to which should supply a small boy in sailor suit, evidently the son of the host, with a cigar. Both won.

Fell, writing in 1801, says that the Dutch, although smoke dried, were not then smoking so much as they had done twenty years before. The Dutchmen, he says, "of the lower classes of society, and not a few in the higher walks of life, carry in their pockets the whole apparatus which is necessary for smoking:—a box of enormous size, which frequently 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 tube of the pipe; a cover of brass wire for the bowl, to prevent the ashes or 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, in the most offensive form in which it can be exhibited, is, that the smoke of this transatlantic weed preserves them from many disorders to which they are liable from the moisture of the atmosphere of their country, and enables them to bear cold and wet without inconvenience."

Fell supports this curious theory by relating that when, soaked by a storm, he arrived at an inn at Overschie, the landlord offered him a pipe of tobacco to prevent any bad consequences. Fell, however, having none of his friend Charles Lamb's affection for the friendly traitress, declined it with asperity.

Ireland has an ingenious theory to account for the addiction of the Dutch to tobacco. It is, he says, the succedaneum to purify the unwholesome exhalations of the canals. "A Dutchman's taciturnity forbids his complaining; so that all his waking hours are silently employed in casting forth the filthy puff of the weed, to dispel the more filthy stench of the canal."

Ireland's view was probably an invention; but this I know, that the Dutch cigar and the Dutch atmosphere are singularly well adapted to each other. I brought home a box of a brand which was agreeable in Holland, and they were unendurable in the sweet air of Kent.

The cigar is the national medium for consuming tobacco, cigarettes being practically unknown, and pipes rare in the streets. My experience of the Dutch cigar is that it is a very harmless luxury and a very persuasive one. After a little while it becomes second nature to drop 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 another case of second nature to smoke them practically continuously. Of these cigars, 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 the trade is probably strong enough to resist effectually the impost on the weed which was recently threatened by a daring Minister, if ever it is attempted. The pretty French custom of giving tobacco licences to the widows of soldiers is not adopted here; indeed I do not see that it could be, for the army is only 100,000 strong. In times of stress it might perhaps be advisable to send the tobacconists out to fight, and keep the soldiers to mind as many of their shops as could be 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 flat green meadows unrelieved save for the frequent isolated homesteads, in which farm house, dairy, barn, cow stalls and stable are all under one great roof that starts almost from the ground. On the Essex flats the 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. For the rest—cows and plovers, plovers and cows.

Friesland's capital, Leeuwarden, might be described as an English market town, such as Horsham in Sussex, scoured and carried out to its highest power, rather than a small city. The cattle trade of Friesland has here its headquarters, and a farmer needing agricultural implements must fare to Leeuwarden to buy them. The Frisian farmer certainly does need them, for it is his habit to take three crops of short hay off his meadows, rather than one crop of long hay in the English manner.

Not only cattle but also horses are sold in Leeuwarden market. The Frisian horse is a noble animal, truly the friend of man; and the Frisians are fond of horses and indulge both in racing and in trotting—or "hardraverij" as they pleasantly call it. I made a close friend of a Frisian mare on the steamer from Rotterdam to Dort. At Dort I had to leave her, for she was bound for Nymwegen. A most charming creature.

Leeuwarden is large and prosperous and healthy. What one misses in it is any sense of intimate cosiness. One seems to be nearer the elements, farther from the ingratiating works of man, than hitherto in any Dutch town. The strong air, the openness of land, the 180 degrees of sky, the northern sharpness, all are far removed from the solace of the chimney corner. It is a Spartan people, preferring hard health to overcoats; and the streets and houses reflect this temperament. They are clean and strong and bare—no huddling or niggling architecture. Everything also is bright, the effect largely of paint, but there must be something very antiseptic in this Frisian atmosphere.

The young women of Leeuwarden—the fair Frisians—are tall and strong and fresh looking; not exactly beautiful but very pleasant. "There go good wives and good mothers," one says. Their Amazonian air is accentuated by the casque of gold or silver which fits tightly over their heads and gleams through its lace covering: perhaps the most curious head-dress in this country of elaborate head-dresses, and never so curious as when, on Sundays, an ordinary black bonnet, bristling with 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 one climbs the Oldehof and looks down on the city on a sunny day—as I did—the glint of a metal casque continually catches the eye. These head-dresses are of some value, and are handed on from mother to daughter for generations. No Dutch woman is ever too poor to lay by a 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 of the little silver ornaments—the windmills, and houses, and wagons, and boats—which once decorated Dutch sitting-rooms as a matter of course, and are now prized by collectors, were made in Leeuwarden.

The city's architectural jewel is the Chancellerie, a very ornate but quite successful building dating from the sixteenth century: first the residence of the Chancellors, recently a prison, and now the Record Office of Friesland. Not until the Middelburg stadhuis shall we see anything more cheerfully gay and decorative. The little Weigh House is in its own way very charming. But for gravity one must go to the Oldehof, a sombre tower on the ramparts of the city. Once the sea washed its very walls.

To the ordinary traveller the most interesting things in the Leeuwarden museum, which is opposite the Chancellerie, are the Hindeloopen rooms which I have described in the last chapter; but to the antiquary it offers great entertainment. Among ancient relics which the spade has revealed are some very early Frisian tobacco pipes. Among the pictures, for the most part very poor, is a dashing Carolus Duran and a very beautiful little Daubigny.

Affiliated to the museum is one of the best collections of Delft china in Holland—a wonderful banquet of blue. This alone makes it necessary 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 and forwards over the streams, like frogs. Children abound in Friesland: the towns are filled with boys and girls; but one sees few babies. In Holland the very old and the very young are alike invisible.

One of the first things that I noticed at Leeuwarden was the presence of a new bird. Hitherto I had seen only the familiar birds that we know at home, except for a stork here and there and more herons than one catches sight of in England save in the neighbourhood of one of our infrequent heronries. But at Leeuwarden you find, sweeping and plaining over the canals, the beautiful tern, otherwise known as the sea swallow, white and powerful and delicately graceful, and possessed of a double portion of the melancholy of birds of the sea. Of the bittern, 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 to St. Jacobie Parochie, a little village in the extreme north-west, where I proposed to take a walk upon the great dyke. It was a chilly morning, and I was glad to be inside the compartment as we rattled along the road. The only other occupant was a young minister in a white tie, puffing comfortably at his cigar, which in the manner of so many Dutchmen he seemed to eat as he smoked. For a while we were raced—and for a few yards beaten—by two jolly boys in a barrow drawn by a pair of gallant dogs who foamed past us ventre a terre with six inches of flapping tongue.

The introduction into England of dogs as beasts of draught would I suppose never be tolerated. A score of humanitarian societies would spring into being to prevent it: possibly with some reason, for one has little faith in the considerateness of the average English costermonger or barrow-pusher. And yet the dog-workers of the Netherlands seem to be cheerful beasts, wearing their yoke very easily. I have never seen one, either in Holland or Belgium, obviously distressed or badly treated. Why the English dog should so often be a complete idler, and his brother across the sea the useful ally of man, is an ethnological problem: the reason lying not with the animals but with the nations. The Flemish and Dutch people are essentially humble and industrious, without ambitions beyond their station. The English are a dissatisfied folk who seldom look upon their present position as permanent. The English dog is idle because his master, always hoping for the miracle that shall make him idle too, does not really set his hand to the day's work and make others join him; the Netherlandish dog is busy because his master does not believe in sloth, and having no illusions as to his future, knows that only upon a strenuous youth and middle age can a comfortable old age be built. Countries that have not 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 who live only for themselves, and the idle rich or well-to-do who live also for others—in other words the busybodies. The third nation is the real enemy, for an altruist who has time on his hands can do enormous mischief between breakfast and lunch. It is this class that would at once make it impossible for a strong dog to help in drawing a poor man's barrow. The opportunity would be irresistible to them. The resolutions they would pass! The votes of thanks to the lieutenant-colonels in the chair!

It was on this little journey to St. Jacobie Parochie that I saw my first stork. Storks' nests there had been in plenty, but all were empty. But at Wier, close to St. Jacobie Parochie, was a nest on a pole beside the road, and on this nest was a stork. The Dutch, I think, have no more endearing trait than their kindness to this bird. Once at any rate their solicitude was grotesque, although serviceable, for Ireland tells of a young stork with a broken leg for which a wooden leg was substituted. Upon this jury limb the bird lived happily for thirty years.

The stork alone among Dutch birds is sacred, but he is not alone in feeling 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 in the golden evening laden with game—for Jan Weenix to paint.

St. Jacobie Parochie on a fine Sunday morning is no place for a sensitive man. The whole of the male population of the village had assembled by the church—not, I fancy, with any intention of entering it—and every eye among them probed me like a corkscrew. It is an out of the world spot, to which it is possible no foreigner ever before penetrated, and since their country was a show to me I had no right to object to serve as a show to them. But such scrutiny is not comfortable. I hastened to the sea.

One reaches the sea by a path across the fields to an inner dyke with a high road upon it, and then by another footpath, or paths, beside green ditches, to the ultimate dyke which holds Neptune in check. As I walked I was continually conscious of heavy splashes just ahead of me, which for a while I put down to water-rats. But chancing to stand still I was presently aware of the proximity of a huge green frog, the largest I 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 of the water, into which he jumped at a movement of my hand. Walking then more warily I saw that the banks on either side were populous with these monsters; and sometimes it needed only a flourish of the handkerchief to send a dozen simultaneously into the ditch. I am glad we 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 of black stones, beneath the sea-level; then a stratum of large red bricks; then turf. The willow branches are invisible, within. The land hereabout is undoubtedly some distance below sea-level, but it is impossible either here or anywhere in Holland to believe in the old and venerable story of the dyke plugged by an heroic thumb to the 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 to understand. My reply conveyed my nationality to him. "Ah," he said, "Eenglish. Do it well with you?" I said that it did excellently well. He walked on until he met half a dozen other men, some hundred yards away, when I saw him pointing to me and telling them of the long conversation he had been enjoying with me in my own difficult tongue. It was quite clear from their interest that the others were conscious of the honour of having a real linguist among them.

Another day I went to Harlingen. I had intended to reach the town by steam-tram, but the time table was deceptive and the engine stopped permanently at a station two or three miles away. Fortunately, however, a curtained brake was passing, and into this I sprang, joining two women and a dominie, and together we ambled very deliberately into the quiet seaport. Harlingen is a double harbour—inland and maritime. Barges from all parts of Friesland lie there, transferring their goods a few yards to the ocean-going ships bound for England and the world, although Friesland does not now export her produce as once she did. Thirty years ago much of our butter and beef and poultry 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 and cordage, sailors and stevedores lounge against posts as only those that follow the sea can do. I had some beef and bread, in the Dutch midday manner, in the upper room of an inn overlooking the harbour, while two shipping-clerks played a dreary game of billiards. Beyond the dyke lay the empty grey sea, with Texel or Vlieland a faint dark line on 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 upon him and seen his pictures, as M. Havard did. But he is no more, and I found no one to tell me of the fate of his collection. Possibly it is still to be seen: certainly other visitors to Harlingen should be more energetic than I was, and make sure. Here is M. Havard's account of Mr. Bos and an evening at his house: "Mr. Bos started in life as a farm-boy—then became an assistant in a shop. Instead of spending his money at the beer-houses he purchased books. He educated himself, and being provident, steady, industrious, he soon collected sufficient capital to start in business on his own account, which he did as a small cheesemonger; but in time his business prospered, and to such an extent that one day he awoke to find himself one of the greatest and richest merchants of Harlingen.

"Many under these circumstances would have considered rest was not undeserved; but Mr. Bos thought otherwise. He became passionately fond of the arts. Instead of purchasing stock he bought pictures, then the books necessary to understand them, and what with picking up an engraving here and a painting there he soon became possessed of a most interesting collection, and of an artistic knowledge sufficient for all purposes. But to appreciate the virtue (the term is not too strong) of this aimable man, one should know the difficulties he had to surmount before gaining his position. It is no joke when one lives in a town like Harlingen to act differently from other people. Tongues are as well hung there as in any small French town. Instead of encouraging this brave collector, they laughed at and ridiculed him. His taste for the arts was regarded as a mania. In fact, he was looked upon as a madman, and even to this day, notwithstanding his successful career, he is looked upon as no better than a lunatic. Happily a taste for art gives one joys that makes the remarks of fools and idiots pass like water off a duck's back.

"When we called on Mr. Bos he was absent; but as soon as Madame Bos was made acquainted with our names we received a most cordial reception. She is, however, a most charming woman, combining both amiability and affability, with a venerable appearance; and, notwithstanding her immense fortune and gold plate, still wears the large Frison cap of the good old times. She was anxious to do the honours 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 at his house, which we did in the Frison fashion—that is to say, that whilst examining the pictures we were compelled to devour sundry plates 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 touched me greatly. 'You think, sir,' said Mr. Bos, 'that because I do not understand French, I have not read the books you have written on our National Arts. Pray undeceive yourself, for here is a translation of it,' The old gentleman then placed before me a complete manuscript translation of the work, which he had had made specially for himself."

The special lion of Franeker, which I visited on my way back from Harlingen, is the Planetarium of Eisa Eisinga, a mathematician and wool-comber, who constructed it alone in his back parlour between 1774 and 1781. Interest in planetaria is, I should say, an acquired taste; but there can be no doubt as to the industry and ingenuity of this inventor. The wonders of the celestial law are unfolded by a very tired young woman, whose attitude to the solar system is probably similar to that of Miss Jellyby to Africa. After her lecture one stumbles 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, but it is, I fancy, Eisa Eisinga whom she most admires. She was once the seat of an honourable University, which Napoleon suppressed in 1811. Her learning gone, she remains a very pleasant and clean little town. By some happy arrangement all the painting seems to be done at once—so different from London, where a fresh facade only serves to emphasise a dingy one. But although the quality of the paint can be commended, the painters of Franeker are undoubtedly allowed too much liberty. They should not have been permitted to spread their colour on 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 traverse the town too. Upon the deck of a peat barge I watched a small grave child taking steady and unsmiling exercise on a rocking horse.

I did not go to Dokkum, which lies at the extreme north of Friesland. Mr. Doughty, the author of an interesting book of Dutch travel, called Friesland Meres—he was the first that ever burst into these silent canals in a Norfolk wherry—gives Dokkum a very bad character, and so do other travellers. It seems indeed always to have been an unruly and inhospitable town. As long ago as 853 it was resisting the entry of strangers. The strangers were Saint Boniface and his companion, whom Dokkum straightway massacred. King Pepin was furious and sent an army on a punitive mission; while Heaven supplemented Pepin's efforts by permanently stigmatising the people of the town, all the men thenceforward being marked by a white tuft of hair and all the women by a bald patch.

At Leeuwarden is a patriotic society known as the "Vereenigung tot bevordering van vreemdelingenverkeer," whose ambition, as their title suggests, is to draw strangers to the town; and as part of their campaign they have issued a little guide to Leeuwarden and its environs, in English. It is an excellent book. The preface begins thus:—

The travelling-season, which causes thousands of people to leave their homes and hearths, has come round again. Throughout Europe silk strings are being prepared to catch human birds of passage with. Is Frisia—Old Frisia—to lag behind? Impossible! Natural condition as well as population and history give to our province a right to claim a little attention and to be a hostess. We beg to refer to the words of a Frenchman, M. Malte-Brun (quoted by one of the best Frisian authors), the English translation of which words runs as follows: "Eighteen centuries saw the river Rhine change its course, and the Ocean swallow its shores, but the Frisian nation has remained unchanged, and from an historical point of view deserves being taken an interest in by the descendants of the Franks as well as of the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians."

It is not often to a Frenchman that the author of this guide has to go for his purple patches. He is capable of producing them himself, and there seems also always to be a Frisian poet who has said the right thing. Thus (of Leeuwarden): "It is surrounded by splendid fertile meadows, to all of which, though especially to those lying near the roads to Marssum and Stiens, may be applied the words of the Frisian poet Dr. E. Halbertsma:—

'Sjen nou dat lan, hwer jy op geane, Dat ophelle is ut gulle se; Hwer binne brusender lansdouwen, Oerspriede mei sok hearlik fe?'

('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 to be envied indeed: if the struggle for life does not weigh too heavily upon him, his must be a life happier than that of thousands of other people. Living and working with his own family and servants attached to him, he made the right choice when he chose to breed his cattle and improve his grounds to the best of his power. The parlour-windows look out on the fields: the gay sight they grant has its effect on the mood of those inside. The peasant sees and feels the beauty of life, and it makes him thankful, and gives him courage to struggle and to work on, where necessity requires it."

I gather from the account of Leeuwarden that the justices of that city once knew a crime when they saw one—none quicklier. In 1536, for example, they punished Jan Koekebakken in a twinkling for the dastardly offence of marrying a married woman. This was his sentence:—

We command that the said Jan Koekebakken, prisoner, be conducted by the executioner from the Chancery to Brol-bridge, and that he be put into the pillory there. He shall remain standing there for two hours with a spindle under each arm, and with the letter in which he pledged faith to the said Aucke Sijbrant hanging from his neck. He shall remain for ever within the town of Leeuwarden, under penalty of 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 villages around Leeuwarden, to so many of which are curious legends attached. At Marssum, close at hand, was born the English painter of Roman life, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Here also was born the ingenious Eisa Eisinga, who constructed the Franeker planetarium in the intervals of 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 wild animals 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. The Frisians 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 birds from the roof, and, I hope, sinners to repentance.

At Jelsum is buried Balthazar Becker, the antagonist of superstition and author of The Enchanted World. Near by was Martena Castle, where Alderman Sjuck van Burmania once kept a crowd of assailants at bay by standing over a barrel of gunpowder with a lighted brand while he offered them the choice of the explosion or a feast. Hence the excellent proverb, "You must either fight or drink, said Sjuck".

At Berlikum was the castle of Bauck Poppema, a Frisian lady cast in an iron mould, who during her husband's absence in 1496 defended the stronghold against assailants from Groningen. Less successful than Sjuck, after repelling them thrice she was overpowered and thrown into prison. While there she produced twins, thus proving herself a woman no 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 three hundred women and repelled the enemy on the walls again and again.

Near Roodkerk is a lake called the Boompoel, into which a coach and four containing six inside passengers, all of them professional exorcists, disappeared and was never seen again. The exorcists had come to relieve the village of the ghost of a miser, and we must presume had failed to quiet him. Near Bergum, at Buitenrust farm, is the scene of another 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 since has 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 Leeuwarden guide—it will be seen that Friesland is rich in romantic traditions and 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 a 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 them thoroughly material. (Holland is, however, a material country.) First I would put the very sensible custom of providing every guest who has ordered tea for breakfast with a little tea caddy. At the foot of 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 a habit ought to be the rule rather than the exception: but never have I found it elsewhere. This surely is civilisation, I said.

The Doelen was also the only inn in Holland where an inclusive bottle of claret was placed before me on the table; and it was the only inn where I had the opportunity of eating ptarmigan with stewed apricots—a very happy alliance.

Good however as was the Groningen dinner, it was a Sunday dinner at the Leeuwarden Doelen which remains in my memory. This also is a friendly unspoiled northern inn, where the bill of fare is arranged with a nice thought to the requirements of the Free Frisian. I kept no note of the meal, but I recollect the occurrence at one stage of plovers' eggs (which the Dutch eat hot, dropping them into cold water for an instant 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 word of explanation. Doelen means target, or shooting saloon; and shooting at the mark was a very common and useful recreation with the Dutch in the sixteenth century. At first the shooting clubs met only to shoot—as in the case of the arquebusiers in Rembrandt's "Night Watch," who are painted leaving their Doelen; later they became more social and the accessories of sociability were added; and after a while the accessories of sociability crowded out the shooting altogether, and nothing but an inn with the name Doelen remained of what began as a rifle gallery.

At Groningen, which is a large prosperous town, and the birthplace both of Joseph Israels and H.W. Mesdag, cheese and dairy produce are left behind. We are now in the grain country. Groningen is larger than Leeuwarden—it has nearly seventy thousand inhabitants—and its evening light seemed to me even more beautifully liquid. I sat for a long time in a cafe overlooking the great square, feeding a very greedy and impertinent terrier, and alternately watching an endless game of billiards and the changing hue of the sky as day turned to night and the clean white stars came out. In Holland one can sit very long in cafes: I had dined and left a table of forty Dutchmen just settling down to their wine, at six o'clock, with the whole evening before me.

Groningen takes very good care of itself. It has trams, excellent shops and buildings, a crowded inland harbour, and a spreading park where once were its fortifications. The mounds in this park were the first hills I had seen since Laren. The church in the market square is immense, with a high tower of bells that kept me awake, but had none of the soothing charm of Long John at Middelburg, whose praises it will soon be my privilege to sound. The only rich thing in the whitewashed vastnesses of the church is the organ, built more than four hundred years ago by Rudolph Agricola of this province. I did not hear it.

At Groningen Roman Catholic priests become noticeable—so different in their stylish coats, square hats and canes, from the blue-chinned kindly slovens that one meets in the Latin countries. (In the train near Nymwegen, however, where the priests wear beavers, I travelled with a humorous old voluptuary who took snuff at every station and was as threadbare as one likes a priest to be.) Looking into the new Roman Catholic church at Groningen I found a little company of restless boys, all eyes, from whom at regular intervals were detached a reluctant and perfunctory couple to do the Stations of the Cross. I came as something like a godsend to those that remained, who had no one to supervise them; and feeling it as a mission I stayed resolutely in the church long after I was tired of it, writing a little and examining the pictures by Hendriex, a modern painter too much after the manner of the Christmas supplement—studied the while by this band of scrutinising penitents. I hope I was as interesting and beguiling as I tried to be. And all the time, exactly opposite the Roman Catholic church, was reposing in the library of the University no less a treasure than the New Testament of Erasmus, with marginal notes 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 power of the faith they themselves were fostering, and knowing nothing of the ironical contiguity of Luther's comments.

By leaving Groningen very early in the morning I gained another proof of the impossibility of rising before the Dutch. In England one can easily be the first down in any hotel—save for a sleepy boots or waiter. Not so in Holland. It was so early that I am able to say nothing of the country between Groningen and Meppel, the capital of the peat trade, save that it was peaty: heather and fir trees, shallow lakes 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 folk lore, but the casual visitor has not the opportunity of collecting very much. When there is too much salt in the dish they say that the cook is in 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 is said to have pursued his wife through the loaf. When a wedding morning is 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 greatest of Dutch painters, of whom I have spoken in the chapter on Amsterdam's pictures. 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 in his art), and also certainly to France, and possibly to England. At Haarlem, 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 at Deventer in 1681. Zwolle has none of his pictures, and does not appear to value his memory. Nor does Deventer. How Terburg looked as Burgomaster of Deventer is seen in his portrait of himself in the Mauritshuis at The Hague. It was not often that the great Dutch painters rose to civic eminence. Rembrandt became a bankrupt, Frans Hals was on the rates, Jan Steen drank all his earnings. Of all Terburg's great contemporaries Gerard Dou seems to have had most sense of prosperity and position; but his interests were wholly in his art.

Terburg is not the only famous name at Zwolle. It was at the monastery on the Agneteberg, three miles away, that the author of The Imitation of Christ lived for more than sixty years and wrote his deathless book.

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 and gardens, where (as at Groningen) were once fortifications, and a very fine old gateway called the Saxenpoort, with four towers and five spires and very pretty window shutters in white and blue. The Groote Kerk is of unusual interest. It is five hundred years old and famous for its very elaborate pulpit—a little cathedral in itself—and an organ. Zwolle also has an ancient church which retains its original religion—the church of Notre Dame, with a crucifix curiously protected by 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 and others so unpleasing. A few dear old women in lace caps were present, but there were also younger women who had made their pretty heads ugly with their decorations.

At Zwolle M. Havard was disappointed to find no wax figure of the famous wild girl found in the Cranenburg Forest in 1718. She roamed its recesses almost naked for some time, eluding all capture, but was at last taken with nets and conveyed to Zwolle. As she could not be understood, an account of her was circulated widely, and at length a woman in Antwerp who had lost a daughter in 1702 heard of her, and on reaching Zwolle immediately recognised her as her child. The magistrates, accepting the story, handed the girl to her affectionate parent, who at once set about exhibiting her throughout the country at a great profit. The story illustrates either the credulity of magistrates or the practical character of some varieties of maternal love.

Kampen, nearer the mouth of the Yssel, close to Zwolle, is exceedingly well worth visiting. The two towns are very different: Zwolle is patrician, Kampen plebeian; Zwolle suggests wealth and light-heartedness; at Kampen there is a large fishing population and no one 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, and that river a mouth of the Rhine, is good enough for me; but when it is also a treasure house of mediaeval architecture one's cup is full. And Kampen 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 in red brick and white stone, with a gay little crooked bell-tower and statues of great men and great qualities on its facade.

For one possession alone, among many, the stadhuis must be visited—its halls of justice, veritable paradises of old oak, with a very wonderful fireplace. 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 the other side of which sat Fate, in the persons of the municipal fathers, enthroned in oak seats of unsurpassed gravity and dignity, amid all the sombre insignia of their office. The chimney-piece is an imposing monument of abstract Justice—no more elaborate one can exist. Solomon is there, directing the distribution of the baby; Faith and Truth, Law, Religion and Charity are there also. Never can a tribunal have had a more appropriate setting than at Kampen. The Rennes judiciaries should have 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 squirts through which boiling oil was projected at the enemies of the town; while an iron cage for criminals, similar, I imagine, to that in which Jan of Leyden was exhibited, hangs outside.

Travellers visit Kampen pre-eminently to see the stadhuis chimney-piece and oak, but the whole town is a museum. I wish now that I had arranged to be longer there; but unaware of Kampen's charms I allowed but a short time both for Zwolle and itself. On my next visit to Holland Kampen shall be my headquarters for some days. Amid the restfulness of mediaevalism, the friendliness of the fishing folk and the breezes of the Zuyder Zee, one should do well. A boat from Amsterdam to Kampen sails every morning.

Despite its Judgment Hall and its other merits Kampen is the Dutch Gotham. Any foolishly naive speech or action is attributed to Kampen's wise men. In one story the fathers of the town place the municipal sundial under cover to protect it from the rays of the sun. In another they meet together to deliberate on the failure of the water pipes and fire engines during a fire, and pass a rule that "on the evening preceding a fire" all hydrants and engines must be overhauled. M. Havard gives also the following instance of Kampen sagacity. A public functionary was explaining the financial state of the town. He asserted that one of the principal profits arose from the tolls exacted on the entrance of goods into the town. "Each gate," said the ingenious advocate, "has brought in ten million florins this year; that is to say, with seven gates we have gained seventy million florins. This is a most important fact. I therefore propose that the council double the number of gates, and in this way we shall in future considerably augment our funds." The Irishman who, when asked to buy a stove that would save half his fuel, replied that he 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 been there. In 1787, I have read somewhere, the inhabitants of Urk decided to form a club in which to practise military exercises and the use of arms. When the club was formed it had but one member. Hence a Dutch saying—"It is the Urk club".

Nor did I stay at Deventer, but hastened on to Zutphen with my thoughts straying all the time to the grey walls of Penshurst castle in Kent and its long galleries filled with memories of Sir Philip Sidney—the gentle knight who was a boy there, and who died at Arnheim of a wound which he received in the siege of Zutphen three and a quarter centuries ago.

At Naarden we have seen how terrible was the destroying power of the Spaniards. It was at Zutphen that they had first given rein to their lust for blood. When Zutphen was taken by Don Frederic in 1572, at the beginning of the war, Motley tells us that "Alva sent orders to his son to leave not a single man alive in the city, and to burn every house to the ground. The Duke's command was almost literally obeyed. Don Frederic entered Zutphen, and without a moment's warning put the whole garrison to the sword. The citizens next fell a defenceless prey; some being stabbed in the streets, some hanged on the trees which decorated the city, some stripped stark naked, and turned out into the fields to freeze to death in the wintry night. As the work of death became too fatiguing for the butchers, five hundred innocent burghers were tied two and two, back to back, and drowned like dogs in the river Yssel. 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 and nights of agony before death came to their relief."

On the day that I was in Zutphen it was the quietest town I had found in all Holland—not excepting Monnickendam between the arrival of the steam-trams. The clean bright streets were empty and still: another massacre almost might just have occurred. I had Zutphen to myself. 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 I came upon the only sign of life in the place. For one handle at last yielding I found myself instantly in a small chapel filled with many young women engaged in a scripture class. The sudden irruption of an embarrassed and I imagine somewhat grotesque foreigner seems to have been exactly what every member of this little congregation was most desiring, and I never heard a merrier or more spontaneous burst of laughter. I stood not upon the order of my going.

The church is vast and very quiet and restful, with a large plain window of green glass that increases its cool freshness; while the young leaves of a chestnut close to another window add to this effect. The koster coming at last, I was shown the ancient chained library in the chapter house, and he enlarged upon the beauties of a metal font. Wandering out again into this city of silence I found in the square by the church an exhibition of wax works which was to be opened 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 German forests, and lost myself among peat barges and other craft, and walked some miles in and about Zutphen, and a little way down a trickling stream whence the view of the city is very beautiful; and by-and-by found myself by the church and the wax works again, in a town that since my absence had quite filled with bustling people—four o'clock having 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 stood alone, staring with that fixity which only a wax assassin can compass; but for the most part the figures were arranged in groups with dramatic intent. Here was a confessional; there a farewell between lovers; here a wounded Boer meeting his death at the bayonet of an English dastard; there a Queen Eleanor sucking poison from her husband's arm. A series of illuminated scenes of rapine and disaster might be studied through magnifying glasses. The presence of a wax bust of Zola was due, I imagine, less to his illustrious career than to the untoward circumstances of his death. The usual Sleeping Beauty heaved her breast punctually in the centre of the tent.

In one point only did the exhibition differ from the wax works of the French and Italian fairs—it was undeviatingly decent. There were no jokes, and no physiological models. But the Dutch, I should conjecture, are not morbid. They have their coarse fun, laugh, and get back to business again. Judged by that new short-cut to a nation's moral tone, the picture postcard, the Dutch are quite sound. There is a shop in the high-spirited Nes Straat at Amsterdam where a certain pictorial ebullience has play, but I saw none other of the countless be-postcarded windows in all Holland that should cause a serious blush on any cheek; while the Nes Straat specimens were 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 the park at Utrecht, with their spacious residences, had prepared us a little for Arnheim's wooded retirement; but not completely. Rotterdam is given to shipping; The Hague makes laws and fashions; Leyden and Utrecht teach; Amsterdam makes money. It is at Arnheim that the retired merchant and the returned colonist set up their home. It is the richest residential city in the country. Arnheim the Joyous was its old name. Arnheim the Comfortable it might now be styled.

It is the least Dutch of Dutch towns: the Rhine brings a bosky beauty to it, German in character and untamed by Dutch restraining hands. The Dutch Switzerland the country hereabout is called. Arnheim recalls Richmond too, for it has a Richmond Hill—a terrace-road above a shaggy precipice overlooking the river.

I walked in the early morning to Klarenbeck, up and down in a vast wood, and at a point of vantage called the Steenen Tafel looked down on the Rhine valley. Nothing could be less like the Holland of the earlier days of my wanderings—nothing, that is, that was around me, but with the farther bank of the river the flatness instantly begins and continues as far as one can see in the north.

It was a very beautiful morning in May, and as I rested now and then among the resinous pines I was conscious of being traitorous to England in wandering here at all. No one ought to be out of England in April and May. At one point I met a squirrel—just such a nimble short-tempered squirrel as those which scold and hide in the top branches of the fir trees near my own home in Kent—and my sense of guilt increased; but when, on my way back, in a garden near Arnheim I heard a nightingale, the treachery was complete.

And this reminds me that the best poem of the most charming figure in Dutch literature—Tesselschade Visscher—is about the nightingale. The story of this poetess and her friends belongs more properly to Amsterdam, or to Alkmaar, but it may as well be told here while the Arnheim nightingale—the only nightingale that I heard in Holland—is plaining and exulting.

Tesselschade was the daughter of the poet and rhetorician Roemer Visscher. She was born on 25th March, 1594, and earned her curious name from the circumstance that on the same day her father was wrecked off Texel. In honour of his rescue he named his daughter Tesselschade, or Texel wreck, thereby, I think, eternally impairing his right to be considered a true poet. As a matter of fact he was rather an epigrammatist than a poet, his ambition being to be known as the Dutch 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 needs a little explanation, for it means more than would appear. In those days rhetoric was a living cult in the Netherlands: Dutchmen and Flemings played at rhetoric with some of the enthusiasm that we keep for cricket and sport. Every town of any importance had its Chamber of Rhetoric. "These Chambers," says Longfellow in his Poets and Poetry of Europe, "were to Holland, in the fifteenth century, what the Guilds of the Meistersingers were to Germany, and were numerous throughout the Netherlands. Brussels could boast of five; Antwerp of four; Louvain of three; and Ghent, Bruges, Malines, Middelburg, Gouda, Haarlem, and Amsterdam of at least one. Each Chamber had its coat of arms and its standard, and the directors bore the title of Princes and Deans. At times they gave public representations of poetic dialogues and stage-plays, called Spelen van Sinne, or Moralities. Like the Meistersingers, they gave singular titles to their songs and metres. A verse was called a Regel; a strophe, a Clause; and a burden or refrain, a Stockregel. If a half-verse closed 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 the last 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 closes each line. [5]

"The example of Flanders was speedily followed by Zeeland and Holland. In 1430, there was a Chamber at Middelburg; in 1433, at Vlaardingen; in 1434, at Nieuwkerk; and in 1437, at Gouda. Even insignificant Dutch villages had their Chambers. Among others, one was founded in the Lier, in the year 1480. In the remaining provinces they met with less encouragement. They existed, however, at Utrecht, Amersfoort, Leeuwarden, and Hasselt. The purity of the language was completely undermined by the rhyming self-called Rhetoricians, and their abandoned courses brought poetry itself into disrepute. All distinction of genders was nearly abandoned; the original abundance of words ran waste; and that which was left became completely overwhelmed by a torrent of barbarous terms."

Wagenaer, in his "Description of Amsterdam," gives a copy of a painter's bill for work done for a rhetorician's performance at the play-house in the town of Alkmaar, of which the following is a 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 work representing the Committee of a Chamber of Rhetoric.

Roemer Visscher, the father of the poetess, was a leading rhetorician at Amsterdam, and the president of the Eglantine Chamber of the Brother's Blossoming in Love (as he and his fellow-rhetoricians called themselves). None the less, he was a sensible and clever man, and he brought up his three daughters very wisely. He did not make them blue stockings, but saw that they acquired comely and useful arts and crafts, and he rendered them unique by teaching them to swim in the canal that ran through his garden. He also was enabled to ensure for them the company of the best poetical intellects of the time—Vondel and Brederoo, Spiegel, Hooft and Huyghens.

Of these the greatest was Joost van den Vondel, a neighbour of Visscher's in Amsterdam, the author of "Lucifer," a poem from which it has been suggested that Milton borrowed. Like Izaak Walton Vondel combined haberdashery with literature. Spiegel was a wealthy patron of the arts, and a president, with Visscher, of the Eglantine Chamber with the painfully sentimental name. Constantin Huyghens wrote light verse 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 the beautiful old road from The Hague to Scheveningen in which Jacob Cats built his house.

Among these friends Anna and Tesselschade grew into cultured women of quick and sympathetic intellect. Both wrote poetry, but Tesselschade's is superior to her sister's. Among Anna's early work were some additions to a new edition of her father's Zinne-Poppen, one of her poems running thus in the translation by Mr, Edmund Gosse in the very pleasant essay on Tesselschade in his Studies in the Literature 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, disappointed them all by marrying a dull sailor of Alkmaar named Albert Krombalgh. Settling down at Alkmaar, she continued her intercourse with her old companions, and some new ones, by letter. Among her new friends were Barlaeus, or Van Baerle, the first Latinist of the day, and Jacob Cats. When her married life was cut short some few years later, Barlaeus proposed to the young widow; but it was in vain, as she informed him by quoting from Cats these lines:—

When a valved 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's happy 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 winged voice;