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162

COURT OF THE STADTHOLDER.

The plain manner in which the Prince of Orange and his family resided at this palace, is thus described by the late ingenious Mr. Ireland. The reception we met with

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as strangers, was highly flattering. It was the character "of Englishmen that was our passport. Expressing our "wish to see the prince, the court being then full, we "were addressed by a gentleman (whom we afterwards "found to be Lord Athlone) through whose politeness we gained admission, and were with great affability noticed by the prince. He is short in stature, with much elegance and familiarity in his manner, not unlike our

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royal family. The princess and her daughter, who is "about eighteen, appeared in the room: their dresses "were very plain, and they had no other mark of supe"riority than a train-bearer. So little ceremony is ob"served in the exterior of the house, that just without "the door of the apartment, where the prince was giving "audience (which was open), a woman was on her knees "scrubbing the staircase."

Upon my return to my hotel at one o'clock, the dinner hour, I found a very agreeable party, composed of foreigners from different countries, and an excellent table d'hote: over the chimney-piece was a good equestrian portrait of the famous Duke of Cumberland, who lodged at this house occasionally during the campaigns of 1747.

JAUNT TO SCHEVELING.

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After dinner, in company with a very amiable gentlemanlike Englishman, whom I met at the table d'hote, I set off in one of the carriages, many of which are always ready to convey passengers, for about the value of sixpence English, for Scheveling, a village which every traveller should visit, on account of the beauty of the avenue leading to it, which is nearly two miles, perfectly straight, and thickly planted with beech, limes, and oaks; at the end of which superb vista the church of Scheveling appears. On the sandy ground on each side of this avenue are several birch thickets, and it abounds with the aiera canescens, hippophae rhamnoides, a singular dwarf variety of ligustrum vulgare (Privet), the true arundo epigejos of Linnæus (that is, calamagrostis), and a number of heath plants, mixed with others usually found in marshes. Scarcely is there so small a spot, where Flora presents such opposite variety, and which the fluctuating moisture of the soil can alone account for. Among the rarer species are convallaria multiflora, and polygonatum, with gentiana cruciata, which is not a native of England.

The Dutch value this beautiful avenue as much as they do their Wood, and great care is taken to preserve it from violation. At the entrance, in a most romantic spot, is the turnpike-gate, where all passengers, except the fishermen of Scheveling, pay a fraction of a farthing for permis

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SCHEVELING DESCRIBED,

sion to enter; and here are stuck up orders, threatening with punishment those who may attempt to injure in the smallest degree this consecrated forest. At short intervals, cautionary inscriptions are placed in conspicuous situations, to warn mischievous " apple munching urchins" from cutting the smallest twig.

Constantine Huygens, brother of the celebrated mathematician and mechanist of that name, had the honor of designing this avenue, in which there are many stately trees, upwards of a century and a half old: a terrible storm which took place a few years since, laid about fifty of these noble objects low, to the great grief and consternation of the country. Here, and perhaps here only, throughout Holland, the traveller may be gratified by the sounds of a running brook. The foot paths on each side were crowded with pedestrians of both sexes, in their holiday clothes; and the slanting rays of a brilliant sun flashing through openings in the branches of the limes, beech trees, and oaks, upon a crowd of merry faces, jolting in the most whimsical carts and waggons, to their favourite spot of carousal, had a very pleasing and picturesque effect.

The village is very neat and pretty; at the end of the vista, large sand-hills rising near the base of the church,

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