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wander over the water, which yields with a slight plash to the movement of the boat; you notice the white, red, or black sails that enliven the solitude of the canals the prairies where cows, covered in spring with warm blankets, gravely chew the damp grass; the beautiful marsh birds, which are seen nowhere else; the women silently washing the linen; or the continuous fringe of châteaux, country houses, and gardens that lines the canal banks.

water, as if to drink. At night, if you stand near the tiller you enjoy a spectacle that has some grandeur about it. The mills with folded wings which seem to be gazing on the stars, the placid light of the moon on the tranquil waters, the innocent attitude of the small houses slumbering on the banks of the canal, and from which a cock-crow is audible now and then-all this reveals to you one of the rustic sides of Dutch life.

The scenery of Holland has often been Holland is not only the country where you accused of monotony; but possibly persons find the most water, but also the one where have not looked twice at it. Here you must you find the most motionless water. The not seek variety on the earth, but in the sky. canals are arrested rivers, and this serenity of Look up the sky is more diversified in the the water is related to that of the manners, Netherlands than anywhere in France. Those habitations, and countenances. Near the towns, immense clouds, with their thousand shapes, Chinese pavilions are built on the canal banks, their changing colours and rapid wings, impart where people meet in fine weather to drink tea a singular movement to the landscape. But and coffee. Some of these pavilions, whose the land and the water are not without diver-roofs are covered with varnished and glistening sity. The nature of the Netherlands is photo- tiles, bathe their base in water with a joyous graphic, clear, positive, and delicate, abound- air. In these nests, which repose under an ing in minute and charming details. Individ- | abundant verdure, domestic happiness seeks a ual property is neither imprisoned nor hidden; refuge. The stranger who wanders about alone the fields are walled by water. In these ditches | regards with an eye of envy these little retreats, that take the place of hedgerows, a perfect which are so proud of their cleanliness, and aquatic flora is expanded, not less rich or look at themselves in the canal like a girl varied than the terrestrial flora. In spring before a looking glass. Here the ladies apply the sombre surface of the canals is studded themselves to needle-work, while looking with little white flowers, soon to be joined by out at the passing boats and travellers; while the lily and the iris; it is the festival of the for the men the hours evaporate in rings waters. There is not a plant, however small, of smoke. It has long been remarked how in this cold and damp vegetable nature, which naturally a pipe hung from a Dutch mouth, has not its day of beauty. Nor is life absent and most local habits are based on the hygienic from the scene. On the banks of the canal conditions of the climate. Beneath the foggy marches from distance to distance a sturdy lad, sky of the Netherlands, a necessity was felt to and at times a bending woman, painfully towing produce smoke against smoke; it is a sort of a boat along. These wooden houses lodge fami- local homoeopathy. Some physiologists have lies, which are born, live, and die in them. asserted that tobacco smoke befogged the intelOften you may see a mother sitting near the lect, but this observation is contradicted by the tiller, and gravely giving her infant the breast. Dutchman, who lives in a cloud, and whose mind The Dutchman is so naturally a sailor, that once is more precise, positive, and clear in its details on the water he never looks as if he wished to than that of any other people. If this opium of reach his destination. The feeling which these the North does not contribute to vagueness of persons, cradled at their birth on the sleeping ideas, it might possibly lull the brain to sleep. waters of the canals, know the least, is impatience. You meet, now and then, a boatwoman after Rubens' taste, who, proud of her embonpoint and second youth, casts around her a cold and resolute glance, like the queen of the waters. In these travelling-houses dwell domestic animals, which have become, as it were, amphibious, and have the calm faces of their masters. Between the lights the surface of the canals is changed into a mirror, in which all nature laves and purifies its image. On the banks, the trees, wearied by the heat of the day, dip the end of their leaves into the

Less loquacious and more contemplative than the southern Frenchman, the Dutchman is silent, but he is not taciturn. Gay nations are not always happy nations; there are some men who laugh on the same principle as children sing when crossing a wood by night-to overcome their fears. In Holland we find what thinkers born in periods of moral agitation never attain, and what Dante soughtpeace. It is not rare to notice on little wayside hostelries the inscription Pax intrantibus! We might say that life is like the water of the canals-it does not flow. Be it illusion or

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reality, it seemed to us that the hour struck here more slowly than in France, and it is ushered into life with a song. The carillons produce, at a certain distance, and on the water, an effect difficult to describe. The whole character of Old Holland is found in these solemn peals, in these Eolian voices, which the fathers heard, and their sons will hear after them. At Utrecht, a thoroughly Protestant town, the chimes play a hymn according to the reformed ritual. This puritan gentleness, these notes which the bells clash out in the air, harmonize with the calm and reposed hues of the scenery. The gardens that border the water are kept up, gravelled, and raked with extreme care, and trees loaded with fruit offer a pleasing variety to the slightly monotonous character of the verdure.

In Holland the horticultural art has created a season which nature did not indicate. Man has made an autumn here by introducing the productions which are the ornament and crown of that season. In South Holland especially, grapes flourish, the fruit of which is destined for England. The Netherlands gardeners have ever excelled in the art of accelerating the ripening of fruit, and they are even said to have taught other people the management | of hothouses. The Dutch autumn under glass is rich in melons, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables of which Batavia was ignorant.

The

In Holland the towns and villages touch one another, and this is a consequence of the slight extent of territory. The houses are small, discreet, and circumspect; you notice in the habitations, as in the character of the inhabitants, that moderation of tastes and desires which is the philosophy of happiness. Dutch do not suffer like the Belgians from the whitewashing malady; they leave their houses the pleasant colour of the bricks. This red colour, combined with the verdure of the trees, the dark blue of the canals, and the gold of the sun, gives the towns, and often the villages, in the Netherlands a holiday aspect. A widely spread taste, especially among the women, is that for flowers, for here home life is a poem, and all means are sought to idealize it. We had already noticed in Flanders that moral habits were trained with the love of flowers; in the Netherlands it is an inclination which is becoming general. A rose expanding behind a clean and thoroughly transparent Dutch window resembles the perfumed soul of the house. These domestic gardens are sometimes perfect conservatories, so rich and varied does the flora appear. One of the most admired plants in Holland is the hyacinth, and there is 2D SERIES, VOL. II.

any quantity of varieties; the Sephrane (white), the Unique Rose, the Jenny Lind, the Mind your Eyes (red), the Amiable Shepherdess, the Othello, which latter is of a dark and tragic colour, as suiting the Moor of Venice. If transplanted to other countries, these bulbs degenerate; true children of Batavia, they only find pleasure in Holland.

Behind the curtain of flowers a young maiden face may be glimpsed, which hides itself, though after having been seen. The women of the Netherlands are curious as all the daughters of Eve, but it is a curiosity which is hidden behind a species of green frame work, called in Dutch horritje. It is the habit to look at what is going on the street, not in the street itself, but in two mirrors set at an angle, which reflect objects, and deserve the name the local idiom has given them, that of "spies." A blonde Hollandaise, or even a brunette (for black hair is not rare in the Netherlands), will sit for hours gazing on what is going on outside. This silent image of movement and life harmonizes with their character. Dutch beauties are timid and diaphanous, and their faces resemble the waters of the canal sleeping before their windows. We all know the repu

tation of still waters, but here internal passions are kept in check, as we were told, by the regularity of life and simplicity of manners.

Nothing is lacking to the peaceful and contemplative joy of the houses in the small towns or villages of Holland when the stork by chance builds its nest upon them.

In this country the same naïve and touching respect is shown the stork as in other places is shown to the swallow. The stork, in fact, is a swallow on a large scale; it wages war with frogs, toads, rats, and lizards, that useful war which the guest of our chimney-pots and old châteaux carries on with insects. Storks are, moreover, regarded as birds of good omen, and you need have no fear as to them being killed. Happy the roof near which they deign to settle, happier still the one they select as their domicile! Perches and artificial shelter are even constructed to attract them, for a stork's nest is the crown of the house. In some parts of Holland if a stork breaks its leg by any accident, it is supplied with a wooden one.

The abundance of water ever ready to hand necessarily produced habits of cleanliness in Holland. Without speaking of Broek, that curious village which seems detached from a Chinese vase, we found everywhere, even among the poor, articles of tin or copper which cleaning had converted into silver and gold. In Belgium a few prizes for cleanliness were

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instituted, but in Holland people are cleanly | without knowing why, and do not require the interferences of a Monthyon. The general toilet of the houses is performed on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; on these days of schoonmaking (general cleaning), the street belongs to the servants, and they may be seen drawing and emptying buckets of water with a species of exaltation. These girls, generally so calm, suddenly change their character, and they might be called the Bacchantes of cleanliness. In Holland the walls are brushed, as a coat is brushed elsewhere; both the out and in sides of the houses are washed, rubbed, and dried with peculiar care.

A HYMN.

[James Thomson, born at Ednam, on the Tweed, 11th September, 1700; died at Richmond, near London, 27th August, 1748. Educated for the ministry, but adopted literature as a profession. Author of The Seasons; The Castle of Indolence; Liberty; Britannia;

and other poems. He also wrote several plays: Sophonisba: Agamemnon; Tancred and Sigismunda; Edward and Eleanora: Coriolanus; and, in conjunction with Mallet, The Masque of Alfred, which contained the still popular song of "Rule Britannia." "Thomson is the best of our descriptive poets; for he gives most of the poetry of natural description."—Wm. Hazlitt.]

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these,
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks-
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In winter, awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand

That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes:
Oh talk of him in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And
ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise-whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft-roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to him-whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the great Shepherd reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves; and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night his praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove;

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