Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)

by Ann Radcliffe

  The Stadtholder’s library was accidentally shut, owing to the illness of the librarian; the picture gallery was open, but of paintings we have resolved to exempt our readers from any mention. The former is said to contain eight thousand volumes, and fourteen thousand prints in portfolios. Among the illuminated M SS. in vellum is one, used by the sanguinary Catherine De Medicis and her children; and another, which belonged to Isabella of Castille, the grandmother of Charles the Fifth. What must be oddly placed in a library is a suit of armour of Francis the First, which was once in the cabinet of Christina of Sweden. Though this collection is the private property of the Prince, the librarian is permitted to lend books to persons, known to him and likely to use them advantageously for science.

  We passed a long morning in walking through the streets of this place, which contain probably more magnificent houses than can be found in the same space in any city of Northern Europe. The Grand Voorhout is rather, indeed, two series of palaces than a street. Between two broad carriage-ways, which pass immediately along the sides, are several alleys of tall lime trees, canopying walks, first laid out by Charles the Fifth, in 1536, and ordered to be carefully preserved, the placard being still extant, which directs the punishment of offenders against them. It would be tedious to mention the many splendid buildings in this and the neighbouring streets. Among the most conspicuous is the present residence of the British Ambassadors, built by HUGUETAN, the celebrated banker of LOUIS the FOURTEENTH, and that of the Russian Minister, which was erected by the Pensionary BARNEVELDT. But the building, which was intended to exceed all others at the Hague, is the Hotel of the Prince of NASSAU WEILBOURG; who, having married the sister of the Prince of ORANGE, bought, at an immense expence, eight good houses, facing the Voorhout, in order to erect upon their scite a magnificent palace. What has been already built of this is extremely fine, in the crescent form; but a German, arriving to the expenditure of a Dutch fortune, probably did not estimate it by Dutch prices. It was begun eighteen years since, and, for the last twelve, has not proceeded.

  Superb public buildings occur at almost every step through the Hague. At one end of the terrace, on which we were lodged, is the Doelen, a spacious mansion, opening partly upon the Tournois Veld, or Place of Tournaments. The burgesses here keep their colours, and, what is remarkable, still preserve the insignia of the Toison d’Or, given to them by CHARLES the FIFTH. Our WILLIAM the THIRD being admitted, at ten years of age, to the right of a burgess here, was invested with this order by the Burgomaster. At the other end of the terrace is the palace, built for Prince MAURICE of NASSAU, upon his return from the government of Brazil, by KAMPFEN, Lord of Rambroek, architect of the Stadthouse at Amsterdam. The interior of this building was destroyed by fire, in the commencement of the present century; but, the stately walls of stone and brick being uninjured, the rooms were restored by the proprietors, assisted by a lottery. It is an instance of the abundance of buildings here, that this palace is now chiefly used as a place of meeting, for the oeconomical branch of the society of Haerlem, and for a society, instituted here, for the encouragement of Dutch poetry.

  The number of public buildings is much increased by the houses, which the eighteen towns provide for their Deputies, sent to the States of the Province. These are called the Logements of the several towns; and there has been a great deal of emulation, as to their magnificence. Amsterdam and Rotterdam have the finest.

  The churches are not remarkable for antiquity, or grandeur. A congregation of English Protestants have their worship performed, in the manner of the Dissenters, in a small chapel near the Vyver, where we had the satisfaction to hear their venerable pastor, the Rev. Dr. M’CLEAN.

  The residence of a Court at the Hague renders the appearance of the inhabitants less national and characteristic than elsewhere. There are few persons in the streets, who, without their orange cockades, might not be mistaken for English; but ribbons of this colour are almost universal, which some wear in their hats, and some upon a button-hole of the coat. The poorest persons, and there are more poor here than elsewhere, find something orange-coloured to shew. Children have it placed upon their caps; so that the practice is carried to an extent as ridiculous, as the prohibition was in 1785, when the magistrates ordered, that nothing orange-coloured should be worn, or shewn, not even fruits, or flowers, and that carrots should not be exposed to sale with the ends outwards.

  The distinctions between political classes are very strongly marked and preserved in Holland. We were informed, that there are some villages, in which the wearing of a cockade, and others, in which the want of one, would expose a passenger, especially a native, to insults. In the cities, where those of both parties must transact business together, the distinction is not much observed. In Amsterdam, the friends of the Stadtholder do not wear cockades. For the most part, the seamen, farmers and labouring classes in the towns are attached to the Orange family, whose opponents are chiefly composed of the opulent merchants and tradesmen.

  A history, or even a description of the two parties, if we were enabled to give it, would occupy too much space here; but it may be shortly mentioned, that the original, or chief cause of the dissension was, as might be expected, entirely of a commercial nature. The English interest had an unanimous popularity in Holland, about the year 1750. In the war of 1756, the French, having sustained a great loss of shipping, employed Dutch vessels to bring the produce of their American islands to Europe, and thus established a considerable connection with the merchants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Court of Versailles took care, that the stream of French wealth, which they saw setting into the United Provinces, should carry with it some French politics; while the wealth itself effected more than all their contrivance, and gradually produced a kindness for France, especially in the province of Holland, through which it chiefly circulated. The English Ministers took all Dutch ships, having French property on board; and the popularity of England was for a time destroyed. Several maritime towns, probably with some instigation from France, demanded a war against England. The friends of the Stadtholder prevented this; and from that time the Prince began to share whatever unpopularity the measures of the English Ministers, or the industry of the English traders, could excite in a rival and a commercial country.

  The capture of the French West India islands soon after removed the cause of the dispute; but the effects of it survived in the jealousy of the great cities towards the Stadtholder, and were much aggravated by the losses of their merchants, at the commencement of hostilities between England and the United Provinces, in 1780. The Dutch fleet being then unprepared to sail, and every thing, which could float, having been sent out of the harbours of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to intercept their trading ships, the fortunes of many of the most opulent houses in Holland were severely shook, and all their members became the enemies of the Stadtholder.

  If to these circumstances it is added, that the province of Holland, which pays fifty-eight parts of every hundred, levied by taxes, has an ambition for acquiring greater influence in the general government, than is bestowed by its single vote, we have probably all the original causes of the party distinctions in Holland, though others may have been incorporated with others, during a long series of events and many violent struggles of the passions.

  The Stadtholder, who has had the misfortune to attract so much attention by his difficulties, is said to be a man of plain manners and sound understanding, neither capable of political intrigue, nor inclined to it. His office requires, especially during a war, a great deal of substantial, personal labour, to which he devotes himself earnestly and continually, but which he has not the vigour to bear, without an evident oppression of spirits. We saw him at a parade of the Guards, and it is not necessary to be told of his labours to perceive how much he is affected by them. It is scarcely possible to conceive a countenance more expressive of a mind, always urged, always pressed upon, and not often receiving the relief of complete confidence in its efforts. His person is short and extremely c
orpulent; his air in conversation modest and mild. This attendance upon the parade is his chief exercise, or relaxation at the Hague, where he frequently passes ten of the hours between five in a morning and nine at night in his cabinet. He comes, accompanied by one or two officers, and his presence produces no crowd. When we had viewed the parade and returned home, we saw him walking under our windows towards the Voorhout, accompanied by an officer, but not followed by a single person.

  Conversation does not turn so much upon the family of the Stadtholder, as that we could acquire any distinct opinions of the other parts of it. Of his humanity and temper, there was sufficient proof, in 1787, when he returned to the Hague and was master of the persons of those, who had lately banished him. Indeed, the conduct of both parties, with respect to the personal safety of their adversaries, was honourable to the character of the nation. The States of Holland, during the prevalence of their authority, did not pretend, according to the injustice of similar cases, to any right of destroying the friends of the Stadtholder, who were in their hands; the Stadtholder, when he returned, and when the public detestation of his adversaries was at an height, which would have permitted any measures against them, demanded no other retribution, than that seventeen, named in a lift, should be declared incapable of holding offices under the Republic.

  One of the best excursions from the Hague is made to the Maison du Bois, a small palace of the Prince of ORANGE, in a wood, which commences almost at the northern gate of the town. This wood is called a park, but it is open to the public roads from Leyden, Haerlem and Amsterdam, which pass through its noble alleys of oak and beech. It is remarkable for having so much attracted the regard of Philip the Second, that, in the campaign of 1574, he ordered his officers not to destroy it; and is probably the only thing, not destined for himself, of which this ample destroyer of human kind and of his own family ever directed the preservation. LOUIS the FOURTEENTH, probably having heard the praises of this care, left the mall of Utrecht to be a monument of similar tenderness, during an unprovoked invasion, which cost ten thousand lives.

  The apartments of the Maison du Bois are very variously furnished. The best are fitted up with a light grey sattin, imbossed with Chinese birds and plants, in silk and feathers of the most beautiful tints; the window curtains, screens and coverings of the sophas and chairs are the same, and the frames of the latter are also of Chinese workmanship. Nothing more delicate and tasteful can be conceived; but, that you may not be quite distracted with admiration, the carpets are such as an English merchant would scarcely receive into a parlour. The furniture of the state bedchamber is valuable, and has once been splendid; a light balustrade of curious Japan work, about three feet high, runs across the room, and divides that part, in which the bed stands, from the remainder. The Princess’s drawing-room, in which card parties are sometimes held, is well embellished with paintings, and may be called a superb apartment; but here again there is an instance of the incompleteness, said to be observable in the furniture of all rooms, out of England. Of four card tables two are odd ones, and literally would be despised in a broker’s shop in London. The great glory of the house is the Salle d’Orange, an oblong saloon of noble height, with pannels, painted by nine celebrated painters of the Flemish and Dutch schools, among whom VAN TULDEN, a pupil of RUBENS, has observed his manner so much in a workshop of Vulcan and in a figure of Venus forming a trophy, that they have been usually attributed to his master. The subjects on the pannels and ceiling are all allegorical, and complimentary, for the most part, to the Princes of the House of Orange, especially to FREDERIC HENRY, the son of the first WILLIAM and the grandson of the Admiral COLIGNY. It was at the expence of his widow, that the house was built and the saloon thus ornamented.

  Almost all the rooms are decorated with family portraits, of which some have just been contributed by the pencil of the Hereditary Princess. A large piece represents herself, taking a likeness of the Princess her mother-in-law, and includes what is said to be an admirable portrait of her husband. On the six doors of the grand cabinet are six whole lengths of ladies of the House of Orange, exhibited in allegorical characters. The doors being covered by the paintings, when that, by which you have entered, is shut, you cannot tell the way back again. A portrait of LOUISA DE COLIGNY, the widow of William the First, is enriched with a painter’s pun; she is presented by Hope with a branch of an orange tree, containing only one orange; from which the spectator is to learn, that her son was her only hope.

  The most delightful outlet from the Hague is towards Schevening, a village on the seashore, nearly two miles distant, the road to which has been often and properly celebrated as a noble monument of tasteful grandeur. Commencing at the canal, which surrounds the Hague, it proceeds to the village through a vista so exactly straight, that the steeple of Schevening, the central object at the end of it, is visible at the first entrance. Four rows of lofty elms are planted along the road, of which the two central lines form this perfect and most picturesque vista; the others shelter paths on each side of it, for foot passengers.

  The village itself, containing two or three hundred houses of fishermen and peasants, would be a spectacle, for its neatness, any where but in Holland. There is no square, or street of the most magnificent houses in London, that can equal it for an universal appearance of freshness. It is positively bright with cleanliness; though its only street opens upon the sea, and is the resort of hundreds of fishermen. We passed a most delightful day at a little inn upon the beach, sometimes looking into the history of the village, which is very antient; then enquiring into its present condition; and then enjoying the prospect of the ocean, boundless to our view, on one side, and appearing to be but feebly restrained by a long tract of low white coast on the other.

  The sea beats furiously upon the beach here, which has no doubt been much raised by art for the defence of the village. There is at least no other way of accounting for its security, since 1574, between which year and the latter end of the preceding century, it sustained six inundations. The first, in 1470, demolished a church; the last washed away an hundred and twenty houses; notwithstanding which, the inhabitants built again upon their stormy shore; and their industry, that, at length, protected them from the sea, enabled them to endure also the more inveterate ravages of the Spaniards. On this beach lie occasionally great numbers of herring busses, too stoutly built to be injured by touching it. We suspect our information to have been exaggerated; but we heard on the spot, that no less than one hundred and five belong to this village of little more than two hundred houses, or are managed by agents in it. About forty were set on float by the tide in the afternoon, and, being hauled by means of anchors beyond a very heavy surf, were out of sight, before we left the place.

  It was amusing to see the persevering, effectual, but not very active exertions of the seamen in this business, which could not often be more difficult than it then was, when a strong wind blew directly upon the shore. We here first perceived, what we had many other opportunities of observing, that, notwithstanding the general admiration of Dutch industry, it is of a nature which would scarcely acquire that name in England. A Dutchman of the labouring class is, indeed, seldom seen unemployed; but we never observed one man working hard, according to the English notion of the term. Perseverance, carefulness, and steadiness are theirs, beyond any rivalship; the vehemence, force, activity and impatience of an English sailor, or workman, are unknown to them. You will never see a Dutchman enduring the fatigue, or enjoying the rest, of a London porter. Heavy burthens, indeed, they do not carry. At Amsterdam, where carriages are even somewhat obnoxious, a cask, holding four or five gallons of liquor, is removed by a horse and a sledge.

  On our way from Schevening, where a dinner costs more than at an hotel in the Hague, we turned a little to the right to see Portland Gardens, once the favourite resort of William and Mary; and said to be laid out in the English taste. They are now a bad specimen even of Dutch gardens. The situation is unusually low, having on one hand the rai
sed bank of the Schevening road, and, on another, the sand hills of the coast. Between these, the moisture of the sea air is held for a long time, and finally drawn down upon the earth. The artificial ornaments are stained and decaying; and the grass and weeds of the neglected plots are capable only of a putrid green. Over walks of a black mould you are led to the orangery, where there is more decay, and may look through the windows of the green-house, to perceive how every thing is declining there. Some pavilions, provided with water spouts, are then to be seen; and, if you have the patience to wait the conclusion of an operation, intended to surprise you, you may count how many of the pipes refuse to perform their office.

  Nearer to the Hague, we were stopped to pay a toll of a few doights; a circumstance which was attended with this proof of civility. Having passed in the morning, without the demand, we enquired why it should be made now. The gatherer replied, that he had seen us pass, but, knowing that we must return by the same way, had avoided giving more trouble than was necessary. This tax is paid for the support of the bank, or digue, over which the road passes; a work, begun on the 1st of May 1664, and finished on the 5th of December 1665, by the assistance of a loan granted for the enterprise. The breadth of the road is thirty-two yards.

  The next day, after seeing the relief of the Stadtholder’s garde du corps, the privates of which wear feathered hats, with uniforms of scarlet and gold, we left the Hague, with much admiration of its pleasantness and quiet grandeur, and took the roof of the trechtschuyt for Leyden.

  1.5. LEYDEN.

  THREE hours pleasant floating along a canal, adorned with frequent country houses, gardens, summer-houses and square balconies, or rather platforms, projecting over the water, within an hand’s breadth of its level, brought us to this city, which was esteemed the second in Holland, before Rotterdam gained its present extent. Leyden is, however, so large, that a traveller is likely to have a walk of half a league to his inn; and those who arrive, as we did, at the time of the fair, may find the procession not very pleasant. We increased our difficulties by turning away from the dirt and incivility of what was called the best inn, and did not afterwards find a better, though such, it seems, might have been had.