Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (290 page)
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Authors: Ann Radcliffe
Another circumstance, rendering Dutch towns freer from noise than others of equal traffic, is the little use which is made of waggons and carts, even where some sort of land carriage must be employed. Heavy commodities are usually carried about the streets on sledges; and almost the greatest noise is, when the driver of one of these, after having delivered his load, meaning to render himself a prodigy of frolicsomeness, stands upon the hinder edges of his sledge, and then, preventing himself from falling backward by his hold of the reins, is drawn rapidly through the admiring crowd.
We were long enough at Rotterdam, during three visits, to see how well it is provided with avenues towards the country and along the banks of the Maese. To one of these the way is over the two
Heads,
or chief canals, each of which you cross for a doight, or half a farthing, in boats that are continually passing between the two sides. This little voyage saves a walk of about three hundred yards to the nearest bridge. The boats will hold twenty or thirty persons, and the profit of them is very considerable to the City government, which applies the money to public purposes. Each boat is worked by one man, who pulls it over by a rope in a about two minutes.
Many of the inhabitants have what they call garden-houses upon these walks, and upon a semicircular road, which passes on the land side of the city; but the most wealthy have seats at greater distances, where they can be surrounded with grounds, and make the display of independent residences.
Upon the whole, Rotterdam has from its situation many conveniences and delights, and from its structure some magnificence, together with a general neatness; but is, for the most part, desicient in elegance, and its beauties have too much the air of prettinesses. The canals are indisputably fine, crowned with lofty terraces, and deep enough to carry large vessels into the centre of the city.
BETWEEN Rotterdam and this place we commenced our travelling in trechtschuyts, which are too well known to need description. The fare is at the rate of about a penny per mile, and a trifle more hires the
roof,
which is a small separate chamber, nearest to the stern of the vessel, lighted by windows on each side. In engaging this, you have an instance of the accuracy of the Dutch in their minutest transactions; a formal printed receipt, or ticket, is given for the few pence which it costs, by a commissary, who has no other business than to regulate the affairs of the trechtschuyts at his gate of the city. We could never learn what proportion of the fare is paid as a tax to the State, but it is said to be a considerable part; and not only these schuyts, but the ferries, the post waggons, and the pilotage throughout the United States, are made contributory to the public funds.
The punctuality of the departure and arrival of the trechtschuyts is well known, and justifies the Dutch method of reckoning distances, which is by hours, and not by leagues or miles. The canals being generally full to the brim, the top of the vessel is above the level of the adjoining country, and the view over it is of course extensive; but the houses and gardens, which are best worth seeing, are almost always upon the banks of the canal. We passed several such in the way to Delft, towards which the Rotterdam merchants have their favourite seats; but Dutch gardens are rather to be noticed by an Englishman as curiosities, than as luxuries. It is not only by the known ill taste of their ornaments, but by the effects of climate and the soil, that gardens are deprived of value, in a country, where the moisture is so disproportioned to the heat, that the verdure, though bright, has no fragrance, and the fruit, at its utmost size, scarcely any flavour.
A passage of two hours brought us to Delft, which we had expected to find a small and ill-inhabited place, knowing it to be not now occupied by any considerable trade. Our inn, we supposed, must be within a few minutes walk. We proceeded, however, through one street for half a mile, and, after some turnings, did not reach our inn, though we were led by the nearest way, in less than twenty minutes. During all this time we were upon the terraces of clear canals, amongst excellent houses, with a small intermixture of shops and some public buildings. The mingled admiration and weariness, which we felt here, for the first time, have been, however, often repeated; for if there is a necessity for saying what is the next distinction of Dutch towns, after their neatness, their size must be insisted upon. There are Dutch villages, scarcely marked in a map, which exceed in size some of the county towns in England.
Maesland Sluice,
a place opposite to the Brill, is one. And here is Delft, a place with scarcely any other trade than consists in the circulation of commodities from Rotterdam through some neighbouring villages; which is not the seat of any considerable part of the national government, and is inferior, in point of situation, to all the surrounding towns. Delft, thus undistinguished, fills a large circumference, with streets so intricately thick, that we never went from our inn without losing our way.
The
Doolen,
one of the best inns in Holland, is a large building of the sixteenth century, raised by the Spaniards, and first intended to be a convent; but, having been used by the burghers of Delft for public purposes, during the struggle of the Provinces against Spain, it is now venerable as the scene of their councils and preparations. In the suite of large apartments, which were used by them, some of the city business is still transacted, and in these strangers are never entertained. Behind, is a bowling-green, in which the burghers to this day perform their military exercises: they were so employed when we came in; and it was pleasing to consider, that their inferiority to their ancestors, in point of martial appearance, was the result of the long internal peace secured by the exertions of the latter.
Over two arches of the building is the date of its erection, 1565, the year in which the destruction of all families, professing the Protestant religion either in France or Spain, is supposed to have been agreed upon at Bayonne between the sovereigns of the two countries, and one year preceding the first measures of confederate resistance in the Low Countries, which that and other efforts of persecution produced. One of these arches communicates with the rooms so long used by the burghers; and our hostess, an intelligent woman, accompanied us through them. The first is ornamented with three large pictures, representing several of the early burghers of the Commonwealth, either in arms or council. A portrait of BARNEVELDT is marked with the date and the painter’s name, ‘“MICHAEL MIEREVELD
delineavit ac perfunctoriè pinxit,
1617,”’ one year before the flagitious arrest of BARNEVELDT, in defiance of the constitution of the provinces, by MAURICE of ORANGE. A piece, exhibiting some of the burghers in arms, men of an handsome and heroic appearance; is also dated, by having 1648 painted on a drum; that, which shews them in council, has a portrait of GROTIUS, painted when he was seventeen. His face is the seventh from the right hand in the second row.
Beyond this room are others containing several score of small cupboards, on the doors of each of which are two or three blazonries of arms. Here are deposited some parts of the dress and arms of an association of Arquesbusiers, usual in all the Dutch towns; the members of which society assemble annually in October, to shoot at a target placed in a pavilion of the old convent garden. The marksman takes his aim from the farthest room; and between him and the mark are two walls, perforated two feet and a half in length, and eight inches in breadth, to permit the passage of the shot. A man stands in the pavilion, to tell where the ball has struck; and every marksman, before he shoots, rings a bell, to warn this person out of the way. He that first hits a white spot in the target, has his liquor, for the ensuing year, free of excise duty; but, to render this more difficult, a stork is suspended by the legs from a string, which, passing down the whole length of the target, is kept in continual motion by the agitation of the bird. It did not appear whether the stork has any other share in this ancient ceremony, which is represented in prints of considerable date. It is held near the ground, out of the way of the shot, and is certainly not intended to be hurt, for the Dutch have no taste for cruelty in their amusements. The stork, it is also known, is esteemed by them a fort of tutelary bird; as it once was in Rome, where ASELLUS SEMPRONIUS RUFUS, who first had them served at an entertainment, is said to have lost the Praetorship for his sacrilegious gluttony. In these trivial enquiries we passed our first evening at Delft.
Early the next morning, a battalion of regular troops was reviewed upon a small plain within the walls of the town. The uniform is blue and red, in which the Dutch officers have not quite the smart appearance of ours. One of these, who gave the word to a company, was a boy, certainly not more than fifteen, whose shrill voice was ludicrously heard between the earnest shouts of the others. The firing was very exact, which is all that we can tell of the qualities of a review.
Delft was a place of early importance in the United Provinces, being one of the six original cities, that sent deputies to the States of the province; a privilege, which, at the instance of their glorious WILLIAM the First of ORANGE, was afterwards properly extended to twelve others, including Rotterdam and the Brill. Yet it is little celebrated for military events, being unfortified, and having probably always obeyed the fortune of the neighbouring places. The circumstance which gives it a melancholy place in history, is the murder of the wise and beneficent Prince who founded the republic. His palace, a plain brick building, is still in good repair, where strangers are always shewn the staircase on which he fell, and the holes made in the wall by the shot that killed him. The old man, who keeps the house, told the story with as much agitation and interest as if it had happened yesterday. ‘“The prince and princess came out of that chamber — here stood the prince, here stood the murderer; when the prince stepped here to speak to him about the passport, the villain fired, and the prince fell all along here and died. Yes, so it was — there are the holes the balls made.”’ Over one of these, which is large enough to admit two fingers, is this inscription:
‘“
Hier onder staen de Teykenen der Kooglen daar meede Prins Willem van Orange is doorschootten op
10 July, A. 1584.”’
To this detestable action the assassin acknowledged himself to have been instigated by the proclamation of Philip the Second, offering a reward for its perpetration. The princess, who had the wretchedness to witness it, had lost her father and her former husband in the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France, which, though contrived by Catherine and Charles the Ninth of that country, is believed to have been the consequence of their interview at Bayonne, with Isabella, the wife of the same Philip.
The melancholy excited on this spot is continued by passing from it to the tomb of WILLIAM, in the great church, called the
Nieuwe Kerk.
There the gloomy pageantry of the black escutcheons, above a choir, silent, empty and vast, and the withering remains of colours, won by hands long since gone to their decay, prolong the consideration of the transientness of human worth and happiness, which can so easily be destroyed by the command, or the hand of human villainy.
This tomb is thought to be not exceeded by any piece of sepulchral grandeur in Europe. Standing alone, in a wide choir, it is much more conspicuous and striking than a monumental fabrick raised against a wall, at the same time that its sides are so varied as to present each a new spectacle. It was begun in 1609, by order of the States General, and completed in 1621; the artist, HENDRIK DE KEYZER, receiving 28,000 florins as its price, and 2000 more as a present. The length is
achievements
of the prince.
At the corners, are the statues of Religion, Liberty, Justice, and Fortitude, of which the first rests upon a piece of black marble, on which is inscribed in golden letters the name of CHRIST; and the second holds a cap, with the inscription
Aurea Libertas.
On the four sides of the canopy are the devices of the prince, with the inscriptions JEHOVAH. —
Je maintiendrai Pièté et Justice. — Te vindice, tuta libertas.
— And,
Soevis tranquillus in undis.
There are many other ornaments, which give dignity or elegance to the structure, but cannot be described without tediousness. The wellknown Epitaph is certainly worth transcribing:
D. O. M. et eternae memoriae Gulielmi Nassoviae, supremi Auransionensium Principis, Patr. patriae, qui Belgii fortunis suas posthabuit et suorum; validissimos exercitus aere plurimum privato bis conscripsit, bis induxit; ordinum auspiciis Hispaniae tyrannidem propulit; verae religionis cultum, avitas patriae leges revocavit, restituit; ipsam denique libertatem tantum non assertam, Mauritio principi, paternae virtutis haeredi filio, stabiliendam reliquit. Herois vere pii, prudentis, invicti, quem Philip. II. Hisp. R. Europae timor, timuit; non domuit, non terruit; sed empto percussore fraude nefanda sustulit; Faederat. Belgii provinc. perenni memor. monum. fec.
‘“To GOD the best and highest, and to the eternal memory of William of Nassau, Sovereign Prince of Orange, the father of his country, whose welfare he preferred to that of himself and his family; who, chiefly at his own expence, twice levied and introduced a powerful army; under the sanction of the States repelled the tyranny of Spain; recovered and restored the service of true religion and the ancient laws of the country; and finally left the liberty, which he had himself asserted, to be established by his son, Prince Maurice, the heir of his father’s virtues. The Confederated Belgic Provinces have erected this monument, in perpetual memory of this truly pious, prudent and unconquered Hero, whom Philip II. King of Spain, the dread of Europe, dreaded; never overcame, never terrified; but, with wicked treachery, carried off by means of an hired assassin.”’
The tomb of GROTIUS is in the same church, which is a stately building of brick and stone, but has nothing of the ‘“dim religious light,”’ that sooths the mind in Gothic structures. Upon the steeple are many small bells, the chimes rung upon which are particularly esteemed, both for tone and tune.
On the opposite side of a very large marketplace is the townhouse, an old building, but so fresh and so fantastic with paint, as to have some resemblance to a Chinese temple. The body is coloured with a light, or yellowish brown, and is two stories high to the roof, in which there are two tier of peaked windows, each under its ornament of gilded wood, carved into an awkward resemblance of shells. Upon the front is inscribed, ‘“
Delphensium Curia Reparata,
”’ and immediately over the door ‘“
Reparata
1761.”’
The
Oude Kerk,
or Old Church, is in another part of the town, and is not remarkable, except for the tombs of LEUWENHOEK, PETER HEINE and VAN TROMP. That of LEUWENHOEK has a short inscription, in Latin almost as bad as that of a verse epitaph upon GROTIUS in the other church. He was born, it appears, in October 1632, and died in August 1723. The tombs of HEINE and VAN TROMP are very handsome. There are the effigies of both in white marble, and one of the victories gained by the latter is represented in
alto relievo.
On account of the tombs, both churches are open, during certain hours in the day; and a beadle, or, perhaps, an almsman, is placed in each, who presents a padlocked box, into which money may be put for the poor.