SCRUBBING AND MOPPING. 53 and rooms, in scrubbing and mopping their passages which they do from the first to the last blush of day; indeed, cleanliness in their houses is carried to a painful excess. All the strong features of an English Saturday evening, viz. mops, pails, scrubbing-brushes, dusters, fullers' earth, are in active use. every hour of the day, in Holland; and a little hand-garden engine is in perpetual requisition, for washing the outside of the windows. But the aqua-terrene nymphs to whose hands these right useful instruments are committed, appear to be so solicitous of removing every feculent impression of the foot in their white-tiled halls, of giving a brilliant polish to the brass knockers, and of preserving the furniture of the rooms unsullied, that they frequently neglect to purify their own persons; the charms of which are to be often seen mingled with, if not obscured by, the accretions of long neglect and inattention. Some travellers have extended similar remarks to the higher classes of the female sex, but unquestionably with more spleen than truth. I had the honor of being acquainted with many Dutch their persons, ladies of respectability, and found them to be very neat in persons, but my first remark too powerfully applies to the lower orders of the sex: they have no leisure to attend to themselves to them, with a little transposition of the sentiment, may be applied the facetious lines that thus described a once celebrated opposition financier. "It is said that his thoughts have been so long directed be I remember at Amsterdam a servant was very angry cause I would not suffer her to wash my bed-room every day. It might be supposed that in a climate which must be naturally very humid, the natives would prefer having dry rooms as long as possible. Upon some of the canals I saw Rhine boats of extraordinary dimensions; they were principally laden with hardware, and their owners and families resided wholly on board, in a suite of cabins, generally raised upon the deck, which, in point of commodious arrangement, of neatness and comfort, cannot easily be surpassed on shore. Upon the fore and aft part of the deck their ware is exposed to sale, and below are prodigious depots of the same articles. These vessels are frequently six months in their voyage up and down the Rhine, in consequence of their PRINTS OF LORD NELSON. 55 stopping at those cities or towns situated on its banks, where the owners are likely to have a market for their merchandize. The reader will be surprised to hear that in several shops I saw many prints of our illustrious Nelson, in which the artist, in order to prevent the beholder from doubting that he had lost the sight of one eye in the service of his country, had the optic completely removed from its socket, and left a large frightful hole, for the purpose of illustrating this part of his heroic history. 1 At an excellent table d'hote, at the Mareschal de Turenne, I had the happiness of meeting several of my countrymen, who were returning to England after a long and most unjust detention at Verdun; from them I learned that specie was abundant in France, and that Napoleon scarcely admitted any paper to be in circulation; that the roads were no longer farmed, but by the aid of a small additional duty on salt, were put into the finest condition, and that no toll whatever was taken in any part of the empire. They said, that in point of restriction, they were not rigidly treated, but that there were no bounds to the rapacity of those appointed to look after them, particularly of the gens d'armes. 56 DUTCH AND CHINESE. The 'collections of paintings in Rotterdam are not numerous, but very select perhaps no people upon the face of the earth ever displayed a more inveterate and immoveable attachment to every thing of native growth than the Dutch, except the Chinese, who consider improvement as penal innovation, and who confined a native in irons for life, because he ventured to make a boat upon a new construction, by which it sailed faster than any other. This immoveable adhesion to old customs in the Dutch, is the more singular, as from their commercial character, they have been in constant intercourse with the natives of every quarter of the globe, the various produces of which they have brought into their own canals, but not for adoption, imitation, or, generally speaking, for consumption, but solely for profitable re-sale. This spirit, or if you like to call it so, this amor patriæ, is strongly evinced in all their collections of paintings: in only one or two private cabinets in Holland are to be found any productions of the Italian and Venetian schools. The finest private cabinet belongs to M. Vanderpals, a rich and very respectable merchant; it is principally filled by the works of that delightful master Nicholas Berchem, and Linglebach; of the former I shall give a few THE VANDERWERFS." 57 striking anecdotes when I reach Haerlem, the place of his nativity; of the latter I shall briefly speak when I describe Frankfort on the Maine, where he was born. M. Vanderpot, another wealthy merchant, has also a very large and well selected collection of the Dutch and Flemish painters. M. Lockhorst, a gentleman of commercial distinction, has also a fine assortment of picturesof the same school. The proprietors of these valuable productions are always ready with the greatest politeness to gratify strangers with the sight of them. Amongst other artists, Rotterdam has the honour of giving birth to the Chevalier Vanderwerf, who was born in 1659, and received his first instructions from Picolet, a portrait painter; he afterwards studied under Eglon Vanderneer, under whom he made a rapid improvement: he principally confined himself to historical subjects of a small size. The Elector Palatine conceived a great fondness for him, from accidentally seeing some of his performances in that style; this prince honored him with every mark of esteem and beneficence. He conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, ennobled his descendants, presented him with a chain of gold and a medal, and his portrait set with diamonds of I |