A Wanderer in Holland

Ha

tures-The Municipal Museum-Baron Steengracht's collection-The Mesdag treasures-French romantics at The Hague-The Binnenhof-John van Olden Barneveldt-Man's cruelty to man-The churches-The fish m

n the rushes in his swamps are governed by the same law. The carelessness of nature is offensive to him; he moulds and trains on every hand, as one may see on the railway journey to The Hague. Trees he endures only so long as they are obedient and equidistant: he likes them in av

aze cattle luxuriantly where sand and pebbles and salt once made a desert, has perhaps the right to feel that everything in nature would be the better for a little manipul

at part of the basis of the strength of the dykes is imparted by interwoven willow boughs, which are constantly being renewed under the vigilant eyes of the dyke inspectors. For the rest, the inveterate trimming of trees must be a comparatively modern custom, for many of the old landscapes depict carele

ll. Servants one never saw, nor any waiter proper; one's every need was carried out by a very small and very Page 65enthusiastic boy. "Is the hroom good, sare?" he asked, as he flung open the door of the bedroom with a superb flourish. "Is the sham good, sare?" he asked as he laid a

el? Was not the management excellent? Had we any complaints? And yet-see-once she had a star and now it was gone. Could we not help to regain it? He

f misfortune this little world holds! While some of us are indulging our right to be unhappy over a thousand trivial matters

never to have had a star at all. But I did not ask. The old lady's

Dutch cities. But it is not conspicuously Dutch, and is interesting rather for its Page 66pictures and for its score of historic building

wn that renders it unique: cosmopolitan and elegant; catholic in its tastes; indulg

transmission of bells in a country where bells are really honoured. On its north side is the Vyverberg with pleasant trees and a row of spacious and perfectly

t works of the two greatest Dutch painters, Rembrandt of the Rhine and Vermeer of Delft. I

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s the "School of Anatomy ". Holland has not always retained Page 67her artists' best, but in the case of Rembrandt and Hals, Jan Steen and Vermeer, she has made no mistakes. Rembrandt's "School of Anatomy," his "Night Watch," and his portrait of Elizabeth Bas are all in Holland. I can remember no landscape in Holland in the manner of that in our National Gallery in which, in conformity with the taste of certain picture buyers, he dropped in an inessential Tobias and Angel; but for the f

s they would probably say the "Night Watch". But I fancy that a finer quality went to the making of the "Scho

auty is retained; but the "View of Delft" must be seen in the original before one can speak of it at all. Its appeal is more intimate than any other old Dutch Page 68landscape that I know. I say old, because modern painters have a few scenes which soothe one hardly less-two or three of Matthew Maris's, and Mauve's again and again. But before Maris

k of a Dutchman. No other Dutch painter could compass such liquid clarity, such cool surfaces. Indeed, none of the others seem to have tried: a different ideal was theirs. Apart, however, from the question of technique, upon which I am not entitled to speak, the picture has to me human inte

he girl's head is his "New Testament Allegory," a picture which I think I dislike more than any other, so false see

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e pleasantest pictures which he ever signed; Ruisdael's "View of Haarlem" and Terburg's portraits. I single these out. But when I think of the marvels of painting that remain, of which I have said not a word, I am only too con

ution of the neighbouring Doelen hotel may be studied by the curious-from its earliest days, when it was a shooting gallery, to its present state of spaciousness and repute, basking in its prosperity and cherishing the proud

ch rests on the easel. No collection of modern Dutch art is complete without a sombre study of Gothic arches by this great artist. All his work

e are Jan Steen's family group, which, however, for all its wonderful drawing, is not in his most interesting manner; a very deft Metsu, "The Sick Child"; a horse by Albert Cuyp; a characteristic gr

r many years, and his collection, by representing in every example the taste of a single connoisseur, has thus the additional interest of unity. Mesdag's own paintings are mostly of the sea-a grey sea with a few fishing boats, very true, very quiet and simple. How many times he and James Maris painted Scheveningen's shore probably no one could compu

in the blue jacket-for example, be abstracted from those well-guarded walls, whereas it is just conceivable that one could select from these crowded little Mesdag rooms something that might not be missed. I hesitated long between a delicate Matthew Maris, the very essence of quietude, in which a girl stands by a stove, cooking; Delacroix's wonderful stu

onquered. And then I made a final examination, and chose No. 64-a totally new choice-a little lovely Corot,

who began by being an old master)

hich apples ever were painted; a Monticelli; a scene of hills by Georges Michel which makes one wish he had painted the Sussex Downs; a beautiful chalk drawing by Millet; s

ith a sure eye. No visitor to The Hague who cares anything for painting should miss it; and ind

thirteenth century-also Emperor of Germany and father of Florence V., who built the great hall of the knights (into which, however, one may penetrate only on Thursdays), and whose tomb we shall see in Alkmaar church. The Stadtholders made the Binnenhof their headquarters; but the present Royal Palace is half a mile north-west of it. Other buildings have been added from time to ti

eveldt walked composedly to the place of execution, prepared before the great saloon of the court-house. If, as it is not improbable, at the approach of death in the midst of life and health, when the intellect is in full vigour, and every nerve, sense and fibre is strung to the highest pitch of tension, a foretaste of that which is to come is sometimes given to man, and his over-wrought mind is enabled to grasp at one single effort the events of his whole past life-if, at this moment and on this spot, where Barneveldt was now to suffer a felon's death,-where he had first held out his fostering hand to the infant

mortal life; and kneeling down on the bare Page 74boards, he was supported by his servant, while the minister, John Lamotius, delivered a prayer. When prepared for the block, he turned to the spectators and said, with a loud and firm

blood, or carried away morsels of the blood-stained wood and sand; a few were even found to sell these as relics. Th

r stating the time and manner of it, and his long period of service to his country, the resolution concludes, 'a man of great activity, diligence, me

. His mother visited Maurice to ask his pardon. "Why," said he, "how is this-you value your son more than your husband! You did not ask pardon for

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d abandoned him. Davies sums up the case thus: "The escutcheon of Maurice is bright with the record of many a deed of glory; the fabric of his country's greatness raised by his father, strengthened and beautified by himself; her armies created the masters of military science to t

h of John and Cornelius de Witt. The massacre occurred two hundred and thirty-three years ago-in 1672. Cornelius de Witt was wrongfully accused of an attempt to procure the assa

is feet, and implored him with floods of tears not to risk unnecessarily a life so precious. But his anxiety for his brother, with whom he had ever lived on terms of the tenderest affection, proved stronger than their remonstrances; and setting out on foot, attended by his

d among the crowd collected before the prison doors the report, that the torture inflicted on Cornelius de Witt was a mere pretence, and that he had only escaped the death he deserved because the judges favoured his crime. Then, enteri

protection of the gaol, and called out to arms six companies of burgher guards. But in the latter they only added fresh hosts to the enemies of the unfortunate captives. One company in especial, called the 'Company of the Blue Flag,' was animated with a spirit of deadly vengeance against

er guards took occasion from thence to demand of the Council of State, that the soldiers should be drawn off from their station, in order to protect the houses from pillage. First a verbal order, and on Tilly's refusing obedience to such

n Bankhem, a sheriff of The Hague, they assailed the prison door with axes and sledge-hammers, threatening to kill all the inmates if it were not instantly opened. Terrified, or corrupted, the gaoler obeyed their behests. On gaining admittance they rushed to an upper room, where they found their victims, who had th

treet, trampled under foot, and beaten to death. Meanwhile, John de Witt, after receiving a severe wound on the head with the butt-end of a musket, was brought by Verhoef, bleeding and bare-headed, before the furious multitude. One Van Soenen immediately thrust a pike into his face, while another of the miscreants s

uggest, were perpetrated on the bodies of these noble and virtuous citizens; nor was it till night put an end t

ague the tomb of the De Wit

ey were timed to fall at intervals of a few seconds-a form of torture imported, I believe, from China, and after some hours ending inevitably in madness and death. Beside such a refinement the rack is a mere trifle and the Gevangenpoort's branding irons and thumb screws become only

church is particularly interesting. From the Groote Kerk's tower one may, however, see a vast deal of country around The Hague-a landscape containing much greenery-and in the west the architectural monsters of Scheveningen only too visible. We shall reach Scheveningen in the next c

to walk up and down after dinner is the national form of recreation. There are in the large cities a few theatres and music halls, and in the smaller, concerts in the summer; but for the most part the streets

n. But the book-shops testify to the popularity of translations from other nations and also of foreign books in the original. The latest French and German fiction is always obtainable. Among translations from the English in 1904 I noticed a considerable number of copies of the Sherlock Holmes tales and also of two or three of Miss Corelli's works. These for adul

st of the city, with a few deer and many tall and unpollarded

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the pavilion in which he may reasonably have supposed he was as much entitled to order tea as any of the groups enjoying that beverage at the little tables within the enclosure, wh

ll worth seeing for its Chinese and Japanese decorations alone-apart from historical associations and mural paintings. For mural paintings unless they are very quiet I must confess to caring nothing, nor does a bed on which a temporal prince breathed his last, or his first, move me to an

e one may think of Mat. Prior, who was secretary to our Ambassador f

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ne of Art, the other of Nature; that of Art is a Waggon or Ship, or a monster mixt of both like the Hippocentaure who was half man and half horse; this Engin hath wheels and sails that will hold above twenty people, and goes with the wind, being drawn or mov'd by nothing else, and will run, the wind being good, and the sails hois'd up, above fifteen miles an ho

year and the day of the month mentioned, which is not yet 200 years ago; and the story is this: That the Countess walking about her door after dinner, there came a Begger-woman with two Children upon her back to beg alms, the Countess asking whether those children were her own, she answer'd, she had them both at one birth, and by one Father, who was her husband. The Countess would not only not give her an

any children at one birth as there were days in the year in which the conversation occurred-namely three, for the encounter was on January 3rd. Or so I have somewhere read. But it is more amusing to believe in the greater number, especially as a Dutch author h

. "This strange history," he says, "will seem incredible (I suppose) to all read

d with Veritas, we le