A Wanderer in Holland

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The true father of the Reformation-Printing paves the way-The Hout-Laoco?n and his sons-The siege of Haarlem-Dutch fortitude-The real Dutch courage-The implacable Alva-Broken promises-A tonic for Philip-The women of Haarlem-A pledge to mothers

out Hillegom. The beds are too formal, too exactly parallel, to be beautiful, except as sheets of scarlet or yellow; for careless beauty one must look to the heaps of blossoms piled up in the corners (la

-Market,

bout Page 129the third Sunday in April. One should be in Holland then. It is no country for hot weather: it ha

in the great Bubble period. Thousands of florins were given for a single bulb. The bulb, however, did not always change hands, often serving merely as a gambling basis; it even may not have existed at all. Among genuine connoisse

nd won the prize of 100,000 florins offered for a blossom of pure nigritude by the Horticultural Society of Haarlem. Hence the addition of

les filles d

ule dans les ve

filles de l'auro

s les fill

s les fill

s avant tout le

retty confusion of blossoms as in our villages. You never see the cottager at work among his roses; once his necessary labours are over, he smokes and talks to his neighbours: to grow flowers for ?sthetic reasons were too ornamental, too unproductive a hobby. ?sthetically the Dutch are dead, or are al

thing of the past. Here is the account of a typical formal garden, near Utrecht: "The large divisions of the garden are made by tall and thick hedges of beech, hornbeam, and oak, variously shaped, having been tied to frames and thus trained, with the aid of the shears, to the desired form. The smaller divisions are made by hedges of yew and box, which in thickness and density resemble walls of brick. Grottoes and fountains are some of the principal ornaments. The grottoes are Page 131adorned with masses of calcareous stuff,

sts, chiefly of Italian marble, some of them of exquisite workmanship. Several large urns and vases certainly do honour t

nd which seemed to me so attractiv

e by passing among every variety of tulip and hyacinth, through air made sweet and heavy by these flowers. Just outside Haarlem the road passes the tiniest deer park that ev

arden with the merest suggestion of a boundary. For the Dutch do not like walls or hedges. This level open land having no natural secrecy, it seems as if its inhabitants had decided there should be no artificial secrecy either. W

ure and Rest), Niet Zoo Quaalyk (Not so Bad), Myn Genegenhied is Voldaan (My Desire is Satisfied), Mijn Lust en Leven (My Pleasure and Life), Vriendschap en Gezelschap (Friendship and Sociability), Vreugde bij Vrede (Joy with Peace), Groot Genoeg (Large Enough), Buiten Zorg (Without Care). These names at any r

rey North Sea beyond. From the high points one sees inland not onl

roote

nes B

in the Boymans

otherwise can be gained by steam-tram, and where, Page 133says the author of Through Noord-Holland, "the billowing is strong and strengthening". The same author te

raction; but Through Noord-Holland is an agreeable exception in that it covers all the ground between Amsterdam and the Helder, and is constructed in a peculiar sport of Babel. In Dutch it is I have

gners will soon be an attraction for tourists. For were not it those large extensive quiet heatheries those rustling green woods and those quiet low meadows which inspired our great painters to bring their fascinating landscapes on the cloth? Had not that bloomy sky and that sunny mysterious light, those soft green meadows with their mul

od, flourishing in the middle of the seventeenth century-and that is all. But he had a very cunning hand and an interesting mind, as the few pictures to his name attest. In the same room at the Ryks Museum where the portrait hang

tch Protestants, as I remarked at Utrecht, have shown singular efficiency in denuding religion of its external graces and charm. There is no church so beautiful but they would reduce it to bleak and arid cheerlessness. Place even the cathedral of Chartre

ctangular building as he can, to attach no sanctity to it, there is an incongruity when the same attitude is maintained amid beautiful Gothic arches. The result is that Dutch churches are more than chilling. In the s

another. They have a common monotony of internal aridity: one distinguishes them, if at all, by some accidental possession-Gouda, for example, by its s

Protestant bleakness, since there stands before the door of this wonderful church, once a Roma

multiplying and cheapening books been devised, the people, who were after all the back-bone of the Reformation, would never have had the opportunity of themselves reading the Bible-either the Vulgate or Erasmus's New Testament-and thus se

r so I think) hit independently upon the need for a revised Bible. But Luther Page 136to a large extent was the outcome of his times and of popular

k that Coster was the man, and that his secret was sold to Gutenburg by his servant Faust. Be that as it may-and the weight of evidence is in favour of Gutenburg-it is interesting

as a printer, and it is only fitting that Haarlem should p

y pleasant shady place in summer, hardly inferior to the Bosch at The Hague. "The delightful walks of the Hout," says the author of Through Noord-Holland,

e again from Through Noord-Holland, which is invaluable), "stands a casting of Laskson and his sons to a knot, which has been

n 1572-a siege notable in the history of warfare for the courage and endurance of the townspeople against terrible odds. The story i

has since been drained and poldered, was frozen over. For some time a dense fog co

en by the Spaniards, says Motley, was "a gallant officer, Baptist Van Trier, for whom De la Marck in vain offered two thousand crowns and nineteen Spanish prisoners. The proposition was refused with contempt. Van Trier was

Page 138shots were discharged on the first, and nearly as many on each of the two succeeding days. The walls were much shattered, but men, women, and children worked night and day within the city, repairing the breaches as fast as made. They brought bags of sand, blocks of stone, cart-loads of earth from every quarter, and they stripped the churches of all their statues, which they threw by h

tonished the Spaniards. The church bells rang the alarm throughout the city, and the whole population swarmed to the walls. The besiegers were encountered not only with sword and musket, but with every implement which the burghers' hands could find. Heavy stones, boiling oil, live coals, were hurled upon the heads of the soldiers; hoops, smeared with pitch and set on fire, were dexterously thrown upon their necks. Even Spa

. It was obvious that a siege must precede the massacre. He gave orders, therefore, that the ravelin

off his head and threw it over the walls into the city, with this inscription: 'This is the head of Captain De Koning, who is on his way with reinforcements for the good city of Haarlem'. The citizens retorted with a practical jest, which was still more barbarous. T

emselves with musket and rapier, with melted pitch, with firebrands, with clubs and stones. Meantime, after morning prayers in the Spanish camp, the trumpet for a general assault was sounded. A tremendous onset was made upon the gate of the Cross, and the ravelin was carried at last. The Spaniards poured into this fort, so long the object of their attack, expecting instantly to sweep into the city with sword and fire. As they mounted its wall they became for the first time aware of the new and stronger fortification which had been secretly constructed on the inner side. The reason why the ravelin had been at last conceded was revealed. The hal

myself take the field to maintain it; and when we have both perished, the Duchess, my wife, shall come from Spain to do the same.' Such language was unequivocal, and hostilities were resumed as fiercely as before. The besieged welcomed them with rapture, and, as usual, made daily the most desperate sallies. In one outbreak the Haarlemers, under cover of a thick fog, marched up to the enemy's chief battery, and attempted to spike the guns before his face. They were all slain at the cannon's mouth, whither patriotis

lsed by the wretched but indomitable burghers; but time was all on the side of the enemy. On July 12th, after the frustration again and again of hopes of reli

re tied two and two, back to back, and drowned in the Haarlem Lake. At last, after twenty-three hundred human creatures had been murdered in cold blood, within a city where so many thousands had previously perished by violent or by lingering deaths; the blasphemous farce of a pardon was enacted. Fifty-seven of the most prominent burghers of the place were, however, excepted from the act of amnesty, and taken into custody as security for the future good conduct of the other citizens. Of these hostages some were soon executed, some died in prison, and all would have been eventually sacrificed, had not the naval defeat of Bossu soon afterwards ena

by Alva, acted like magic. The blood of twenty-three hundred of his fellow-creatures-coldly murdered by his orders, in a single city-proved for the sanguinary monarch the elixir of life: he drank and was re

three hundred fighting women, "all females of respectable character, armed with sword, musket, and dagger. Their chief, Kenau Hasselaer, was a widow of distinguished family, and unblemished reputation, about forty-seven years of age, who, at the head of her amaz

e Spanish general, during this great siege, in receiving a deputation of matrons from the town and promising protection from his soldiery of all women in childbed. Every ho

r soft whistling tunes then again piano music or melancholical hautboy tunes chiming as well is deceivingly imitated." Free recitals are given on Tuesdays and Thursdays from one to two. On other days the organist can be persuaded to play for a fee. Charles Lamb's friend Fell paid a ducat

eat church, one of the most agreeable pieces of floridity between the Middelburg stadhuis and

er and Hi

ns

cture in th

One of the best Israels that I saw in Holland is a little water-colour interior that is hung here. I asked one of the attendants if they had anything by Matthew Maris, but he denied his Page 145existence. James he knew, and William; but there was no

e church of Bavo the Saint, and not the tulip gardens, and not the florid and beauti

, having been born in Antwerp about 1580. But his parents were true Haa

nd Myvrouw Hals in the picture-No. 1084 in the Ryks Museum-which is reproduced on the opposite page. If this jovial and roguish pair are really the painter and his wife, they were a merry couple. Children they had in abundance; seven sons, five of whom were painters, and three daughters. Abund

himself, then about seventy, and several of his old pupils-Wouvermans, Dirck Hals, his brother, four of his sons, the artist himsel

"Laughing Cavalier" in the Wallace Collection is perhaps his best picture in a public gallery in Englan

arquebusiers, who make merry on the walls for all time. Such a riot of vivid portraiture never was! Other men have painted single heads as well or better: but Hals stands alone in his gusto, his abundance, his s

eventeenth century had a perfect mania for these commemorative canvases, and there is not a stadhuis but has one or more. Rembrandt's "Night Watch" and Hals' Haarlem groups are the greatest; but one is always surprised Page 147by the general level of excellence maintained, and now and then a lesser man such as Van der Helst climbs ver

lem, Hals' pupil, who has a very quiet and effective portrait (No. 210) and a fine rich group of the lady managers of an orphanage; and Cornelius Cornellessen, also of Haarlem, painter

. He was born at Haarlem about 1612, and is supposed to have studied also under Nicolas Elias. His finest large work is undoubtedly the "Banquet" to which I have just referred, but I always associate him with his portrait of Gerard Bicker, Landrichter of Muiden, that splendid tun of a man, No. 1140 in the Gallery of Honour at the Ryks Muse

him "a man of great mind who rejected every splendour of the world and who despised gain and riches". Brouwer, who was born about 1606, was put by his mother, a dressmaker at Haarlem, into the studio of Frans Hals. Hals bullied him, as he bullied his first wife. Escaping to

le light. We have five of his pictures in the National Gallery. Berchem's real name was Van Haarlem. One day, however, when he was a pupil in Van Goyen's studio, his father pursued him for some fault. Van Goyen, who was a kindly creature, as

beauty: the clouds really seem to be floating across the sky; the water can almost be heard tumbling over the stones. Ruisdael did not find his typical scenery in his native land: he travelled in Germany and Italy, and possibly in Norway; but whenever he painted a strictly Du

of these many bold faces in the great Hals' room at

he beard of the

away the D

him in

something such a man as Hals pa

ch Pi

has come

about with h

he beard of the

away the D

him in

the Maese, with

ocks flying

er tankards of

nvent and cas

ts rich

ge

garden ther

g the slug

rish cap and

captain, hal

a wakin

his gray mu

hinks of the

ed tulips lo

ent gardene

to the De

lls on the

e landscape

wers on the S

d sentinels a

s is the r

he winter

mokes by the

a-faring m

gray, and wi

upon the

re in the sh

ing fire of th

n colour

y Rembrandt

ness and

of their ventu

k is ever and

nk the red win

lars of some

nt set o

times, with

is parlour

ship that at

h the rising a

at her an

f Arque

the picture in t

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terious fa

wind and soun

and whisperi

! Why staye

th and f

e shall take t

cruise with h

beard of the

e another

him in

ous, so great in government and colonisation, in seamanship and painting, and seeing them now so material and self-centred, so bound within their own small limits, so careless of literature and art, so intent upon the profits of the day and the pleasures of next Sund

from the Museum to the Café Brinkmann through some inches of water. At a table opposite, sipping their coffee, were two men strikingly like two of Frans Hals' arquebusiers. Yet how unlike. For the air of masterful recklessness had gon

, near Utrecht, which shows that the Dutch, what

en put to chi

s of its b

es of t

n youngster l

o'er its m

ndrous

ch hearts, a

the ever-min

murs of

f ours in t

De Ruyter

ad to

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