medy the evils which the country has suffered. The duration of these evils, and the difficulty of remedying them, will only increase and realize my glory.

"To effect these objects, I have occasion for the entire confidence of the nation, their complete devotion, and all the talents of the distinguished men whom it contains, but particularly of you, gentlemen, whose zeal, talents, and patriotism, are well known.

"I am at this moment appealing to the good and faithful Hollanders, before the deputies of the provinces and principal cities of the kingdom, I see them around me with pleasure. Let them bear to their fellow-citizens the assurance of my solicitude and affection: let them carry the same testimony of these sentiments to Amsterdam; that city, which is the honour of commerce, and of the country: that city, which I wish to call my good and faithful capital, though the Hague will always remain the residence of the sovereign. Let them also carry the same assurances to their fellow-citizens, and the deputies of that neighbouring city, the prosperity of which I hope very soon to renew, and whose inhabitants I distinguish.

"It is by these sentiments, gentlemen; it is by the union of all orders of people in the state, and by that of my subjects among themselves; it is by the devotion of each individual to his duties, the only basis of real honour assigned to men; but principally by the unanimity which has hitherto preserved these provinces from all dangers and calamities, and which has ever been their shield, that I expect the tranquillity, safety, and glory of the nation, and the happiness of my life."

The king has given general satisfaction by the choice he has made of the persons he has nominated to fill the public offices; and if the wishes of one who trespassed a little irregularly upon their shores can avail, the brave, frugal, and indefatigable Hollanders will derive happiness, and, when peace is restored to Europe, prosperity under their new government.

The revenue attached to the stadtholderate was nominally 18,000. per annum ; but by the great patronage and influence belonging to it, no doubt it must have been considerably augmented, as also by the revenues arising from other hereditary territories of the stadtholders; but after all, the income of the stadtholderate was scarcely sufficient to support the dignity of the situation, powerful and important as it at last became. The king, in addition to his revenue, has an enormous private fortune: the savings which he has effected in the state reconcile the Dutch to this liberal, but perhaps not excessive allowance made for the support of his dignity.

How the Hague could be called a village, in all its meridian splendor, is a matter of surprise: it derived its name from s'Cravenhage, or the Count's Wood, on account of a wood which formerly grew here, and which formed, some centuries since, a part of the domains of the Counts of Holland. The following anecdote will show the simplicitly which reigned in this great and beautiful city in former times. When Louisa de Coligni was coming to be married to Prince William at the Hague, the Dutch sent an open post-waggon to meet her, and she entered the city seated on a plank: towards the latter end of Prince Maurice's days, and during Frederic-Henry's lifetime, the Hague became a very agreeable place, and the resort of people of the first distinction.

In my rambles round this city, I was much impressed with the elegance and spaciousness of the buildings; every object seemed to have partaken of the spirit and magnificence of a court. But there was a solemnity in the splendor. It reminded one of looking into a magnificent ball-room after the greater part of the company had departed, and the lustres were dying away. If the Orange family had been entitled to sympathy, the scene would have led me to feel and think for them. Its noble buildings, its spacious streets, gracefully built, shaded with trees, and divided by canals, the variety of surrounding scenery, its proximity to the sea, its elevated situation, and the purity of its air, render the Hague the most charming town in Holland. The first place I visited was the palace of the last of the stadtholders. It is a vast pile of houses, many of them somewhat ancient, surrounded by a canal, without which and a pipe, paradise itself would have no charms for a Dutchman: over the canal are several drawbridges; and the whole has a very pleasing effect seen from the spot where I took the view of it. On one side of a quadrangle is part of a new palace, built by the late stadtholder, and which, had it been finished, would have been handsome and princely; but the troubles in Holland have prevented its completion.

In part of this building there is a noble gothic hall, much resembling Westminster-Hall, and very large; on each side little shops were arranged, similar to those in Exeter 'Change: it is con

verting into a chapel for the king. There were here formerly the prince's cabinet of natural history and museum of rarities, consisting of a tolerable collection of shells, petrefactions, precious stones, fossils, minerals, and birds. This collection has been removed to Paris, although, from all I could learn, scarcely worthy of so much trouble: it, however, furnished the first elements of knowledge to Camper, one of the most profound geniuses which the United Provinces ever produced, and also Professor Pallas, who has been called the Pliny of Russia. The French offered to re-sell this cabinet to the Dutch government, who declined becoming the purchasers; a tolerable proof of its inferiority. The prince's cabinet of pictures was very select and valuable, and was enriched by the productions of Titian, Holbein, Rembrandt, Vandyk, Gerard Dow, Metzio, Polemburgh, and other illustrious artists. On the confiscation of the property of the exiled Stadtholder, the Dutch government, for the purpose of promoting the polite arts, formed this collection of pictures, esteemed one of the most valuable in Europe, into a national gallery, set apart an annual sum for the augmentation of it, and deposited it in a fine suite of apartments in the House in the Wood, where a director of ability, and assistants, were appointed to superintend it: but the French soon afterwards transferred the best of them to that magnificent depot of the fruits of conquest, the Louvre at Paris. The first person sent by Napoleon to select for his gallery was unequal to his office, and left some excellent works behind him, which, upon a second shaking of the tree" by another and more able inspector, were collected, and sent off to that colossal collector of works of art. Amongst several landscapes by Vernet was the finest he ever painted, the subject, the waterfall of Tivoli. It is a curious circumstance that there is not one fine private collection at the Hague.

I was much delighted with the Voorhout, considered the principal street, in which are many elegant and classical buildings, forming complete contrasts to the leaning, mercantile structures of Rotterdam. In this street the most elegant houses are those which formerly belonged to the Prince Wielburgh, who married the last Prince of Orange's sister, and to the French ambassador, formerly occupied

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by the British minister: but the most beautiful part of the Hague is the Vyverburg; it is a vast oblong square, adorned with a noble walk or mall, strowed with broken shells, and shaded by avenues of trees on one side, and on the other by the palace, and a large basin of water called the Vyver, almost a quarter of a mile in length, variegated by an island of poplars in its centre. This mall is the place of fashionable resort, and, on the evening of the day I saw it, was adorned with several groups of lovely women attired in the French fashion, which generally prevails amongst the genteel families in Holland. Besides these there are many other very noble ones, and all remarkably clean, but the canals are almost all of them green and stagnant, and at this season emitted an unpleasant effluvia. Here, as in many cities in France, the armorial ensigns of distinguished families, which used to dignify the front of their dwellings, have been cut away, and many a shield remains despoiled of its quarterings. Some of them, since the new order of things has occurred, have been restored. In a square planted on all sides with trees the parade is held.

As Lady Wortley Montagu, in her accustomed sprightliness of style, has mentioned with some appearance of disgust, the white fishy faces of the Dutch women, I beg to observe, that at the Hague I saw several very pretty females: in general they possessed transparent delicacy of countenance, but as generally wanted expression. An English gentleman who had just returned from Italy, where he had been accustomed for several years to the warm voluptuous brunettes of that beautiful country, was uncommonly delighted with the fair faces of the Dutch ladies; but female beauty does not begin to expand itself till after the imprisonment and regimen of the nursery are past. Pretty and healthy children are rarely to be seen in Holland: in general they look pale and squalid, owing to an abominable system followed in rearing them; they are accostomed for the first two or three months to respire the atmosphere of a room, the windows of which are never opened to receive the freshness of the morning air; to wash them with refreshing cold water would be considered as certain infanticide; the miserable infant is swathed round with flannel rollers, until it

becomes as motionless as a mummy; and over these ligatures there is always a vast flannel wrapper folded three or four times round the body, and fastened at the bottom of its feet: afterwards, for many months it is loaded with woollen garments, and when at length it is permitted to try for what purpose legs were originally constructed, it is cased in an additional wrapping of flannel, to prevent the dreaded consequences of freely inhaling the salubrious air.

As it was summer, I can only speak from information of an equally vile and destructive custom, which obtains in the winter, of suffering the children to sit over the chauffepies or stoves, which frequently supplants the ruddy tints of health by a white parboiled appearance. I saw several of these chauffepies, from which the little pots that in cold weather contain the burning turf, had been withdrawn, used by the ladies as footstools. Whilst the men warm themselves with the smoke of tobacco from above, the ladies, to recompense themselves for not using that indulgence, take care to fumigate themselves below, by placing, in the proper season, these ignited stoves under their petticoats, and resemble the glow-worm, which carries his fire in his tail: the cats and kittens, from the genial warmth of the climate, are glad to take shelter in this warm mysterious sanctuary. The ladies and the lower classes of females are always remarkably neat about the feet; the petticoats of the latter are in general very short, display a well-proportioned leg, clean blue stockings, and a slipper without any heel-piece, or sabot.

In my way to the palace in the Wood, near this square, I passed by a vast triumphal arch made of wood, painted to imitate stone, and adorned with a number of complimentary inscriptions in Latin, in honour of the king and queen, who passed through it on the 23d of June last, when they made their public entry; and in a vast field adjoining to the wood was a lofty temporary obelisk of the same materials, which formed one of the principal objects of a magnificent fête recently given by the French commander in chief in honour of their majesties, which was conducted in the highest style of Parisian taste. The day when I visited the wood was remarkably fine; this spot, so dear to the Dutch, is nearly two

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