instrument. Dutch masters-good Jan Steen, Paul Potter, Wouvermans-may be seen daily, except Monday, on payment of a small sum, M. Nottebohn possesses an excellent private collection of the modern Dutch and Flemish schools. Half a day will suffice to see all that is remarkable in Rotterdam. The architectural details of the church, though much mutilated, are fine, and, like almost all the great churches of Holland, have been too much neglected. In this and other Dutch churches it will be remarked that the coats of arms on the monuments are all defaced: this was the act of the French republicans during their occupation of There are so many English here, Holland. The tower affords an exten- that the language is very generally sive view of the country around, which, spoken and understood. They have in the direction of Delft and Gouda, as two churches; a Presbyterian church, in many other parts of Holland, is which has existed more than two cenalmost equally divided between land turies, and an Episcopalian, on the E. and water. It is truly debateable side of the Haring-vliet, surmounted ground-intersected in all directions by by the arms of Queen Anne and the canals, and trees in straight avenues, Duke of Marlborough: these, though its flat surface dotted with farm and served by ministers from Great Britain, summer houses, while an occasional form part of the National Church essteeple and a number of windmills tablishment, the salaries being paid alone break the level line of a Dutch by the Dutch government. The Scotch horizon. Presbyterian church is on the Schottsche Dijk. The other public buildings are, the Exchange, where business is transacted daily at 3 (scientific persons visiting Rotterdam should see the collection of philosophical instruments, and the library, in the room above it), - the Stadhuis or Town Hall, a large new building with a Composite portico, and the house formerly occupied by the East India Company, on the Boompjes, close to the Hôtel des Pays-Bas, turned into warehouses since the company was broken up; but none of them deserve either minute description or examination. The philosopher Bayle, when exiled from France, ended his days here, in one of the houses on the Boompjes. The Dockyard is inferior to that of Amsterdam, and on a much smaller scale than similar establishments in England. It is shown to strangers on producing an order from a respectable householder. A relic is preserved here of the successful attack made by the Dutch upon the English fleet in the Medway, 1667, when they burnt the magazines at Chatham, along with several men-of-war. It is a portion of the stern of the Royal Charles, the Admiral's ship, which was captured by them. The Pictures bequeathed to the town by M. Boymans, consisting of works of The water of the Maas, which is drunk here, will cause considerable annoyance to persons unaccustomed to it: travellers should avoid it (§ 6). In the suburbs are many places of entertainment, with Gardens, not unlike tea - gardens in England, except that some of them are frequented by the higher classes of citizens, and partake of the nature of a club. Here are found billiard and ball rooms, skittlegrounds, refreshments of various kinds, and much smoking. There is a public walk outside the Ooster (eastern) gate, called Plantage, whence a good view is obtained of Rotterdam. There are several Clubs here, where English as well as continental newspapers are taken in; a stranger may be introduced by a member, and generally by the master of the hotel. This was the native place of Adrian van der Werf, van der Neer, Netscher, and Zachtleeven, painters, and of James Crofts, Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles II. by Lucy Waters. The Post Office (het Postkantoor) is on the Wijnhaven, in the Wijnstraat. Curiosities from China and Japan may be purchased of De Groot, 342, Hoogstraat, opposite the Walloon church. Trekschuiten (§5) start nearly every | longitudinal timber bearings, and the hour in the day to Delft and the Hague; cost of each Eng. mile of single line of the fare to the Hague is 20 stivers. railway laid was 23947. 10s. Diligences daily to Utrecht, Nijmegen, Gouda, Antwerp, and Breda. Steamboats to Nijmegen every morning in summer; every other morning during the rest of the year. Those of the New Dusseldorf Company are best. (See R. 12.) Steamers daily to Moerdijk in 3 hours; to Middelburg, in Zealand, in 9; twice a day to Dort; to Gouda and back daily; 6 times a month to Havre and Dunkirk; to London every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday; to Antwerp daily, in 8 to 10 hours (see R. 18); to Bois le Duc (Hertogenbosch) daily, in 8 hours; to Hull once a week. A steam ferry-boat plies across the Maas to Katendrecht every hour, starting from a point a little below the town: the fare is 15 cents. The island of IJsselmonde, which here forms the 7. bank of the Maas, though but 15 m. long by 7 wide, is said to be surrounded and intersected by dykes measuring 200 m. in length. ROUTE 2. ROTTERDAM TO AMSTERDAM, BY THE HAGUE, LEIDEN, AND HAARLEM.RAILROAD (IJZEREN-SPOORWEG). About 52 Eng. m. 5 trains a day; to the Hague, 13 m., in 45 min.; to Amsterdam in 2 hrs. This railway, the first that was constructed in Holland, is due to the enterprise of a public company, called "The Railway Company of Holland." The difficulties of construction arising from the peculiar physical character of the locality were the least that the company had to contend against, owing to the hostility of the proprietors of the land. The company was formed, 1837, at Amsterdam, and the part between Haarlem and Amsterdam was opened 20th Sept. 1839. The engineer was the Chevalier F. W. Conrad. The gauge is 6 ft. Eng., from centre to centre of the rails, which rest upon Trekschuiten to Delft in 2 hrs. The old road to Delft is pleasantly varied with villas and gardens, and runs for a considerable distance alongside of the canal, as, indeed is the case with most roads in Holland. Terminus at Rotterdam outside the Delft gate; rt. Overschie; 1. lies Delfshaven on the Maas. Schiedam Stat.-(Inn, Doelen.) The town is on the 1., surrounded by windmills, and enveloped in everlasting smoke, rising from its distilleries of gin (jenever, i. e. juniper). See P. 25. DELFT. Stat.-Inn, Gouden Molen (Golden Mill). On the Schie, 8 m. from Rotterdam, 18,000 inhab.; and said to derive its name from delven, to dig. This town, "the parent of pottery," has been supplanted, even in Holland itself, in its chief article of produce, to which it has given a name (Delft-ware, in Dutch plateel), by the superior manufactures of England, and the improved taste introduced by Wedgwood in the making of pottery. All the earthenware now made here is of the coarser kind, and does not employ more than 200 persons. The streets appear empty and dull, but there is enough to amuse a traveller for an hour or two. His Pepys, in his Diary, 18th May, 1660, describes the sights of Delft ::- To the church, where Van Tromp lies entombed, with a fine monument. epitaph is concluded thus:-'Tandem bello Anglico tantum non victor, certe invictus, vivere et vincere desiit.' There is a sea-fight cut in marble, with the smoke the best expressed that ever I saw in my life. From thence to the great church, that stands in a fine great market-place over against the Stadthouse; and there I saw a stately tomb of the old Prince of Orange, of marble and brass, wherein, among other varieties, there are the angels with their trumpets, expressed as it were crying. Here were very fine organs in both the churches. It is a most sweet town, with bridges and a river in every street." The New Church (b. 1381) in the great square contains the costly monument, clustered with columns and rich in marble, but in very bad taste, erected by the United Provinces to the memory of William I., Prince of Orange, who was assassinated at Delft, 10th July, 1584. His statue in marble, in full armour, with sword and sceptre, reclines upon the tomb; and at his feet is the figure of his favourite little dog, whose affection saved his master's life from the midnight attack of some Spanish assassins, who had planned to murder him while asleep in his camp, near Mechlin, 1572. The Spaniards, advancing stealthily under cover of the darkness, had nearly reached the tent, when the vigilance of the dog, whose instinct appears to have told him that they were enemies, detected their approach. He instantly jumped upon the bed, and, by barking violently and tearing off the clothes with his teeth and feet, roused his master in time to enable him to escape. The faithful animal pined to death after his master's decease. The inscription on the tomb makes mention of the dog's attachment. There is a second and better statue of the prince under the arch at the head of the tomb, in a sitting posture. Beneath is the burial vault of the present royal family of Holland. Here also is the simple monument of GROTIUS, who was a native of Delft, and is interred in this church. This church contains a fine organ. In the Old Church (Oude Kerk), which has a leaning tower, is the monument of Admiral Tromp, the veteran of 32 sea-fights, who conquered the English fleet under Blake, in the Downs, 1652, and afterwards sailed through the channel with a broom at his masthead, to signify that he had swept the sea of the English. He was killed at last in an engagement, represented in bas-relief on his tomb, between Schevening and the mouth of the Maas, in which the English were victorious. In the same church are buried Piet Hein, who from a fisher-lad of Delshaven rose to be admiral, captured the Spanish silver fleet, and died for his country; and Leeuwenhoek, the naturalist, also a native of Delft. The Grand Pensionary Heinsius, the friend and fellow-councillor of Marlborough and Eugene, was also born here. The house in which William Prince of Orange (born at Dillenburg in Nassau) was assassinated is nearly opposite to the W. end of the Old Church; it is called the Prinssenhof, and is now a barrack. After crossing the court, a small door on the rt. leads to the spot where the murder was committed. The identical staircase which he was about to ascend after dinner, and the passage where the murderer Balthazar Geraarts stood,—so near to his victim that the pistol must almost have touched his body,-will assuredly be looked upon with interest by every traveller. An inscription, on a stone let into the wall, records the event; and 3 holes, bored in another stone below it, pass for the identical marks of the fatal bullets which killed him. He expired in the arms of his sister, and his wife (the daughter of Coligny, who had been murdered in a similar manner, and in her sight, at the St. Bartholemew massacre). last words of the hero were, "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, ayez pitié de moi et de ce pauvre peuple!" In the month after his assassination the states of Holland met at Delft, and placed his son Maurice, then a youth of 17, at the head of affairs. The On an island surrounded by canals, near the entrance of the town, is the State Arsenal of Holland, an extensive and gloomy building, looking like a fortress, and ornamented with the arms of the ancient Dutch republic. It was originally the Dutch East India House. Ökey, Barkstead, and Corbet, the regicides, settled at Delft. They were seized in an alehouse here by Sir George Downing, the English envoy at the Hague, sent to London, and executed at Tyburn. Between Delft and the Hague (about 43 m.) the trekschuit will be found an agreeable and good conveyance. The canal from Delft to Leiden is by many considered as being the Fossa Corbulonis, and probably a part of the ancient excavation has been adopted. Corbulus employed his soldiers in exca vating this canal in order to unite the Rhine and the Maes. (Tacitus, Annal., 11, 20.) The country is even more thickly spread over with cottages, villas, country seats, and gardens (§ 13), than on the other side of Delft. On the left of the canal and high road, but on the right of the railroad, appears the spire of the church of Ryswyk, near which the famous treaty of peace was signed (1697) between England, France, Holland, Germany, and Spain, in a house of the Prince of Orange, now removed; its site is marked by an obelisk. 24 m. THE HAGUE. Stat. (La Haye, in French; S'Gravenhage in Dutch; Haag in German.) Inns : - Hôtel Bellevue, near the park, comfortable; bed, 1 fl. 20 c.; double-bedded room, 2 fl.; dinner, 2 fl. (dear); tea, 60 c.; breakfast, 70 c.; wax lights, 40 c.; table d'hôte at 4. Oude Doelen, very comfortable. Nieuwe Doelen, complaints of the attendance. (Doel is the Dutch for the bull's eye in the target, derived from times when archery was the favourite amusement, and the inn the place of resort for the various companies or guilds of marksmen when the contest was decided.) Hôtel de l'Europe, in the Lange Houtstraat, close to the Museum bed, 1 fl.; breakfast (without meat or eggs), 60 c.; table d'hôte, 13 fl. Maréchal Turenne; Keizershof (Imperial Hotel); Twee Steden (Two Towns); Heerenlogement (Gentleman's Lodging). The population is 64,000. Though long the residence of the Stadtholders, and now of the King of Holland, up to the beginning of the present century the Hague ranked only as a village, because it had neither corporation nor walls, and did not return members to the States General; Louis Bonaparte, however, during his rule, conferred on it the privileges of a city. Other Dutch cities owe their rise to commerce or manufactures; this to the residence of a court, the presence of the Government and States General, and the abode of foreign ministers. Its origin may be traced to a hunting-seat of the Counts of Holland, built here in 1250; and its name to the Counts' Hedge (S" Graven Hage) surrounding their park. The principal streets are, the Voorhout, lined with trees and bordered with splendid hotels; the Prinssengracht, Kneuterdijk, and Noord Einde. The Vijverberg (hill of the fish-pond) is a square or place, with avenues of trees forming a shady promenade on the one side, and a piece of water on the other. It is in Holland alone that so gentle a rise in the ground as is here perceptible would be dignified with the name of a hill. On the S. side of the Vijverberg stands the Binnenhof, so called because it formed the "inner court" of the Count's palace, an irregular building of various dates. The Gothic hall in the centre of it, now used for the drawing of the lottery (Loterijzaal), and criminal court (Hoog Geregtshof), is the oldest building in the Hague, and the only remaining fragment of the original palace of the Counts of Holland. It is a fine room, with a pointed roof, supported by a Gothic framework of wood, somewhat in the style of that of Westminster Hall. It possesses some interest in an historical point of view; since, upon a scaffolding erected opposite to the door, on a level with the top of the steps, the virtuous and inflexible Barneveldt, Grand Pensionary of Holland, was beheaded in 1618, at the age of 72. This event is a stain on the character of Prince Maurice of Nassau; but it is not true, as some have asserted, that he looked on from a side window during his rival's execution. The people beheld it with tears; many came to gather the sand wet with his blood, to keep it carefully in phials; and the crowd of those who had the same curiosity continued next day, notwithstanding_all they could do to hinder them. Chambers of the States General or Dutch parliament, and several of the public offices, are situated in the Binnenhof. The public are freely admitted to the debates of the Second Chamber. The Between the Buitenhof (Outer Court) and the Vijverberg is an old gate-tower, called Gevangepoort (prison-gate), remarkable as the place in which Cornelius De Witt was confined, 1672, on a false charge of conspiring to assassinate the Prince of Orange. The populace, incited to fury by the calumnies circulated against him and his brother John, the Grand Pensionary, broke into the prison at a moment when the latter had been enticed hither by a report that his brother's life was in danger, dragged them forth, and literally tore them to pieces, with ferocity more befitting wild beasts than human beings. The State Prisons, besides the interest they possess from historical associations, are curious, on account of "the tortures inflicted on the prisoners (within the last two centuries), not surpassed in cruelty even at Venice in its worst times: the rack, the pulley, the oubliettes, &c., are still shown."-L. Fm. A few yards from the spot where the De Witts were murdered, in the Kneuterdijk, opposite the Hartogstraatje, may be seen the modest mansion of the Grand Pensionary De Witt, who, though the first citizen of the richest country in the world, and perhaps the profoundest statesman in Europe, baffling the encroaching policy of France, and frightening London with the roar of his cannon in the Thames, was never seen in public but in the most homely dress, kept only a single servant, and rarely made use of a coach. Barneveldt lived in a house which now forms part of the hotel of the Minister of Finance in the Lang Voorhout. The Picture Gallery and Museum are situated in the building called the Maurits Huis, from Prince Maurice of Nassau, Governor of Brazil, and afterwards of Cleve, by whom it was built. It is between the Plein and the Vijver. They are open to the public daily, except Sunday, from 9 to 3, on Saturday from 10 to 1. The Picture Gallery is almost entirely confined to the works of Dutch masters, and contains some of their finest works. It is not possible to point out the rooms which contain the works here mentioned, as there is nothing to distinguish the rooms. The numbers are those of 1848. The most remarkable pictures are, Paul Potter: (123.) Young Bull, his masterpice, remarkable as one of the few examples in which the artist painted animals as large as life. "There can not be a greater contrast to a very generalised mode of treatment than that displayed in the celebrated picture of 'The Bull,' by P. Potter, which approaches the nearest to deception of any really fine work of art I have seen. The painter seems to have omitted nothing that he saw in nature which art could represent, and yet its reality is free from any still-life unpleasantness. It is admired for its truth, but to a cultivated eye it has that something more than mere truth that is indispensable to a work of art; it has great taste throughout-displayed no less in the general arrangement of the masses and forms than in the most minute particulars. The grandeur of the sky, and the beautiful treatment of the distant meadow, show that the painter had the power of seizing the finest characteristics of the large features of nature, while the exquisite manner in which the beautiful forms of the leaves of a dock, and their colours, compose with one of the legs of the young bull, display as fine an eye for her most intricate beauties. Throughout the picture, indeed, we see that the hand has been directed by the eye of a consummate artist, and not merely by a skilful copyist." Prof. Leslie, R.A. This picture was carried to Paris by the French, and was classed by them fourth in value of all the paintings then in the Louvre; the Transfiguration, by Raphael, ranking first; the Communion of St. Jerome, by Domenichino, second; and Titian's Peter Martyr, third. They who know those three great works will probably be startled at the place thus assigned to this picture. Potter's Bull has been valued at 50007.; the Dutch government, it is stated, offered Napoleon 4 times that sum if he would consent to suffer it to remain at the Hague. D. T.-(124). The Cow drinking; "finely painted, remarkable for the strong reflection in the water." R.* Rembrandt. (127.) A Surgeon, Professor Tulp, attended by his Pupils, proceeding to dissect a Dead Body. Though an unpleasing subject, it is a Paul from Sir Joshua Reynolds' "Tour in Holland The quotations marked R. are derived and Flanders." |