The celebrated Three Crowns Battery--Hamlet’s grave--The Sound
and its dues--To Fredericksborg--Iceland ponies--Denmark
an equine paradise--From Copenhagen to Kiel--Tidemann, the
Norwegian painter--Pictures at Düsseldorf--The boiling
of the porridge--Düsseldorf theatricals--Memorial of
Dutch courage--Young heroes--An attempt to describe the
Dutch language--The Amsterdam canals--Half-and-half in
Holland--Want of elbow-room--A New Jerusalem--A sketch for
Juvenal--The museum of Dutch paintings--Magna Charta of Dutch
independence--Jan Steen’s picture of the _fête_ of Saint
Nicholas--Dutch art in the 17th century--To Zaandam--Traces
of Peter the Great--Easy travelling--What the reeds seemed to
whisper.
The name of the steamer which took me past the celebrated Three
Crowns Battery, and along to the pretty low shores of Zealand to
Elsineur (Helsingör), was the _Ophelia_, fare three marks. In the
Marielyst Gardens, which overhang the famed Castle of Kronborg, is
a Mordan’s-pencil-case-shaped pillar of dirty granite, miscalled
“Hamlet’s grave.” Yankees often resort here, and pluck leaves from the
lime-trees overhanging the mausoleum, for the purpose of conveyance to
their own country.
But this is not the only point of interest for Brother Jonathan. Look
at the Sound yonder, refulgent in the light of the evening sun, with
the numberless vessels brought up for the night, having been warned by
the bristling cannon to stop, and pay toll. I don’t wonder that those
scheming, go-ahead people, object to the institution altogether--albeit
the proceeds are a vital question for Denmark. On the steamer, I fell
into conversation with a Danish pilot about this matter. I found that
he, like others of his countrymen, was very slow to acknowledge that
ships are forced to stop opposite the castle. He said that only ships
bound to Russia do so, because the Czar insists on their having their
papers _viséd_ by the Danish authorities before they are permitted to
enter his ports.[3]
Finding there was no public conveyance to Fredericksborg, which I
purposed visiting, I must fain hire a one-horse vehicle at the Post.
It was a sort of mail phaeton, of the most cumbrous and unwieldy
description--I don’t know how much dearer than in Norway--so slow,
too. On the road we pass the romantic lake of Gurre, the scene of King
Valdemar’s nightly hunt. Some storks remind the traveller of Holland.
Right glad I was when we at length jogged over divers drawbridges
spanning very green moats, and through sundry gates, and emerged upon a
large square, facing the main entrance to the castle.
The private apartments, I found, were, by a recent regulation,
invisible, as his Majesty has taken to living a good deal here. But I
was shown the chapel, in which all the monarchs of Denmark are crowned,
gorgeous with silver, ebony, and ivory; and the Riddersaal over it,
one hundred and sixty feet long, with its elaborate ceiling, and many
portraits: and, marvellous to relate, the custodian would have nothing
for his trouble but thanks. In the stable were several little Iceland
ponies, which looked like a cross between the Norsk and Shetland
races. They were fat and sleek, and, no doubt, have an easy time of
it; indeed, Denmark is a sort of equine paradise. What well-to-do
fellows those four strapping brown horses were that somnambulized with
the diligence that conveyed us to Copenhagen. That their slumbrous
equanimity might not be disturbed, the very traces were padded, and,
instead of collars, they wore broad soft chest-straps. The driver told
me they cost three hundred and fifty dollars each. That flat road,
passing through numerous beech-woods was four and a-half Danish miles
long, equal to twenty English, and took us more than four hours to
accomplish.
Bidding adieu to Copenhagen, I returned by rail to Korsör, and embarked
in the night-boat _Skirner_, from thence to Kiel. As the name of the
vessel, like almost every one in Scandinavia, is drawn from the old
Northern mythology, I shall borrow from the same source for an emblem
of the stifling state of the atmosphere in the cabin. “A regular
Muspelheim!” said I to a Dane, as I pantingly look round before turning
in, and saw every vent closed. A fog retarded our progress, and it
was not till late the next afternoon that I found myself in Hamburg.
Some few hours later I was under the roof of mine host of the “Three
Crowns,” at Düsseldorf, where I purposed paying a visit to Tidemann,
the Norwegian painter. Unfortunately, he was not returned from his
summer travels, so that I could not deliver to him the greeting I had
brought him from his friends in the Far North. His most recent work,
which I had heard much of, the “Wounded Bear-hunter returning Home,
having bagged his prey,” was also away, having been purchased by the
King of Sweden. At the Institute, however, I saw several sketches and
paintings by this master.
Anna Gulsvig is evidently the original of the “Grandmother telling
Stories.”
Bagge’s “Landscape in Valders,” and Nordenberg’s “Dalecarlian Scenes,”
brought back for a moment the land I had quitted to my mind and vision.
“The Mother teaching her Children,” and “The Boiling of the Porridge,”
also by Tidemann, proclaim him to be the Teniers of Norway. Though
while he catches the national traits, he manages to represent them
without vulgarity. But perhaps this lies in the nature of the thing.
The heavy-built Dutchman anchored on his square flat island of mud
can’t possibly have any of that rugged elevation of mind, or romance of
sentiment, that would belong to the child of the mountain and lake.
The school of Düsseldorf--if such it can be called--has turned out some
great artists, _e.g._, Kaulbach and Cornelius; but the place has never
been itself since it lost its magnificent collection of pictures, which
now grace the Pinacothek at Munich.
As I sipped a cup of coffee in the evening, I read a most grandiloquent
account of the prospects of the Düsseldorf Theatre for the ensuing
winter. The first lover was perfection, while the tragedy queen was
“unübertrefflich” (not to be surpassed). The part of tender mother
and matron was also about to be taken by a lady of no mean theatrical
pretensions. This self-complacency of the inhabitants of the smaller
cities is quite delightful.
On board the steamer to Emmerich was a family of French Jews, busily
engaged, not in looking about them, but in calculating their expenses,
though dressed in the pink of fashion.
Here I am at Amsterdam. In the Grand Place is a monument in memory of
Dutch bravery and obstinacy evinced in the fight with Belgium. This
has only just been erected, with great fêtes and rejoicings. Well, to
be sure! this reminds me of the Munich obelisk, in memory of those
luckless thirty thousand Bavarians who swelled Napoleon’s expedition
to Russia, and died in the cause of his insatiable ambition. “Auch sie
starben für das Vaterland” is the motto.
V. Ruyter and V. Speke are both monumented in the adjoining church.
The former, who died at Syracuse from a wound, is described in the
inscription as “Immensi tremor Oceani,” and owing all to God, “et
virtuti suæ.”
The warlike spirit of Young Amsterdam seems to be effectually excited
just now. As I passed through the Exchange at a quarter to five P.M.,
the merchants were gone, and in their room was an obstreperous crowd
of _gamins_, armed “with sword and pistol,” like Billy Taylor’s true
love (only they were sham), and thumping their drums, and the drums
thumping the roof, and the roof and the drum together reverberating
against the drum of my ear till I was fairly stunned. “Where are the
police?” thought I, escaping from the hubbub with feelings akin to what
must have been those of Hogarth’s enraged musician, or of a modern
London householder, fond of quiet, with the Italian organ-grinders
rending the air of his street. Dutch is German in the Somersetshire
dialect; so I managed to comprehend, without much difficulty, the short
instructions of the passers-by as to my route to various objects of
interest. By-the-bye, here is the house of Admiral de Ruyter, next to
the Norwegian Consulate. Over the door I see there is his bust in stone.
As I pass along the canals, it puzzles me to think how the Dutchman
can live by, nay, revel in the proximity of these seething tanks of
beastliness and corruption. That notion about the pernicious effects of
inhaling sewage effluvia must be a myth, after all, and the sanitary
commission a regular job. Indeed, I always thought so, after a
conversation I once had with a fellow in London, the very picture of
rude health, who told me he got his living by mudlarking and catching
rats in the sewers, for which there was always a brisk demand at
Oxford and Cambridge, in term time. Look at these jolly Amsterdamers.
I verily believe it would be the death of them if you separated them
from their stinking canals, or transported them to some airy situation,
with a turbulent river hurrying past. Custom is second nature, and
that has doubtless much to do with it: but the nature of the liquids
poured down the inner man perhaps fortifies Mynheer against the evil
effects of the semi-solid liquid of the canals. Just after breakfast
I went into the shop of the celebrated Wijnand Fockink, the Justerini
and Brooks of Amsterdam, to purchase a case of liqueurs, when I heard
a squabby-shaped Dutchman ask for a glass of half-and-half. It is
astonishing, I thought with myself, how English tastes and habits are
gaining ground everywhere. Of course he means porter and ale mixed. The
attendant supplied him with the article he wanted, and it was bolted at
a gulp.
Dutch half-and-half, reader, is a dram of raw gin and curaçoa, in equal
portions.
What a crowd of people, to be sure. “Holland is over-peopled,” said a
tradesman to me. “Why, sir, you can have a good clerk for 20_l._ per
annum. The land is ready to stifle with the close packing.”
“Yes,” said I, “so it appears. That operation going on under the bridge
is a fit emblem of the tightness of your population.”
As I spoke, I pointed to a man, or rather several men, engaged in a
national occupation: packing herrings in barrels. How closely they were
fitted, rammed and crammed, and then a top was put on the receptacle,
and so on, _ad infinitum_.
We are now in the Jewish quarter. “Our people,” as the Israelites are
wont to call themselves, formerly looked on Amsterdam as a kind of New
Jerusalem. Indeed, they are a very important and numerous part of the
population. The usual amount of dirt and finery, young lustrous eyes,
and old dingy clothes, black beards and red beards, small infants and
big hook noses, are jumbled about the shop-doors and in the crowded
thoroughfares. Here are some fair peasant girls, Frieslanders, I
should think, or from beyond the Y, judging by their helmet-shaped
head-dresses of gold and silver plates, with the little fringe of lace
drawn across the forehead, just over the eyebrows, the very same that
Gerard Dow and Teniers have placed before us. If they were not Dutch
women, and belonged to a very wide-awake race, I should tremble for
them, as they go staring and sauntering about in rustic simplicity,
for fear of that lynx-eyed Fagan with the Satyr nose and leering eye
fastened upon them, who is clearly just the man to help to despoil them
of their gold and silver, or something more precious still, in the way
of his trade.
As we walk through the streets, the chimes, that ever and anon ring
out from the old belfries, remind us that we are in the Low Countries;
and if that were not sufficient, the showers of water on this bright
sunny day descending from the house-sides, after being syringed against
them by some industrious abigail, make the fact disagreeably apparent
to the passer-by. This will prepare me for my visit to Broek; not that
there is so much to be seen there--and Albert Smith has brought the
place bodily before us--but if one left it out, all one’s friends that
had been there would aver, with the greatest possible emphasis and
solemnity, that I had omitted seeing _the_ wonder of Holland. So I
shall _do_ it, if all be well.
Here is the Trippenhuus, or Museum of Dutch paintings, situated, of
course, on a canal. Van der Helst’s picture of the “Burgher Guard
met to celebrate the Treaty of Münster”--the Magna Charta of Dutch
independence, pronounced by Sir Joshua to be the finest of its kind
in the world--of course claims my first attention. The three fingers
held up, emblematic of the Trinity, is the continental equivalent to
the English taking Testament in hand upon swearing an oath. But as
everybody that has visited Amsterdam knows all about this picture, and
those two of Rembrandt’s, the “Night-watch,” and that other of the
“Guild of Cloth Merchants,” this mention of them will suffice.
That picture is Jan Steen’s “Fête of St. Nicholas,” a national festival
in Holland. The saint is supposed to come down the chimney, and shower
bonbons on the good children, while he does not forget to bring a rod
for the naughty child’s back.
De Ruyter is also here, with his flashing eye, contracted brow, and
dark hair. While, of course, the collection is not devoid of some of
Vandervelde’s pictures of Holland’s naval victories when Holland was a
great nation.
There must have been great genius and great wealth in this country
wherewith to reward it, in the seventeenth century. In this very town
were born Van Dyk, Van Huysum, and Du Jardin; in Leyden, G. Douw,
Metzu, W. Mieris, Rembrandt, and J. Steen. Utrecht had its Bol and
Hondekoeter; while Haarlem, which was never more than a provincial town
with 48,000 inhabitants, produced a Berghem, a Hugtenberg, a Ruysdael,
a Van der Helst, and a Wouvermans.
In proof of the _sharpness_ of the Amsterdamers, I may mention that
most of the diamonds of Europe are cut here.
Next day, I took the steamer to Zaandam, metamorphosed by us into
Saardam, pretty much on the same principle, I suppose, that an
English beefsteak becomes in the mouths of the French a “biftek.” The
tumble-down board-house, with red tile roof, built by the semi-savage
Peter, in 1632, will last all the longer for having been put in a
brick-case by one of the imperial Russian family. I always look on
Peter’s shipwright adventures, under the name of Master Baas, as a
great exaggeration. He perhaps wanted to make his subjects take up the
art, but he never had any serious thoughts of carpentering himself. He
only was here three days, and, as the veracious old lady who showed the
place told me, he built this house himself, so what time had he for the
dockyards? When some of your great folks go to the Foundling Hospital,
and eat the plum-pudding on Christmas-day, or visit Woolwich and taste
the dietary, and seem to like it very much, that is just such another
make-believe.
“Nothing is too little for a great man,” was the inscription on the
marble slab over the chimney-piece, placed there by the very hand
of Alexander I. of Russia. In the room are two cupboards, in one of
which Peter kept his victuals, while the other was his dormitory.
If Peter slept in that cupboard, and if he shut the door of it, all
I have to say is, the ventilation must have been very deficient, and
how he ever survived it is a wonder. The whole hut is comprised in two
rooms. In the other room are two pictures of the Czar. In the one,
presented in ’56 by Prince Demidoff, the Czar, while at work, axe in
hand, is supposed to have received unwelcome intelligence from Muscovy,
and is dictating a dispatch to his secretary. The finely chiselled
features, pale complexion, and air of refinement, here fathered on
this ruffian, never belonged to him. The other picture, presented by
the munificent and patriotic M. Van der Hoof, is infinitely more to
the purpose, and shows you the man as he really was, and in short, as
he appears in a contemporary portrait at the Rosenborg Slot. Thick,
sensual lips--the very lips to give an unchaste kiss, or suck up
strong waters--contracted brow, bushy eyebrows, coarse, dark hair and
moustache--that is the real man. He wears broad loose breeches reaching
to the knee, and on the table is a glass of grog to refresh him at his
work.
Ten minutes sufficed for me to take the whole thing in, and to get
back in time for the returning steamer, otherwise I should have been
stranded on this mud island for some hours, and there is nought else
to see but a picture in the church of the terrible inundation; the
ship-building days of Zaandam having long since gone by, and passed to
other places.
By this economy of time I shall be enabled to take the afternoon
treckshuit to Broek. A ferry-boat carries us over the Y from
Amsterdam, a distance of two or three hundred yards, to Buiksloot, the
starting-place of the treckshuit, when, to my surprise, each passenger
gives an extra gratuity to the boatman. This shows to what lengths the
fee-system may go. And yet Englishmen persist in introducing it into
Norway, where hitherto it has been unknown. Entering into the little
den called cabin, I settled down and looked around me. On the table
were the Lares, to wit, a brass candlestick, beyond it a brass stand
about a foot high, with a pair of snuffers on it, and then two brasiers
containing charcoal, the whole shining wonderfully bright. Opposite
me, sitting on the puffy cushions, was a substantial-looking peasant,
immensely stout and broad sterned, dressed in a dark jacket and very
wide velveteen trousers. He wore a large gold seal, about the size and
shape of a half-pound packet of moist sugar, and a double gold brooch,
connected by a chain. As the boat seemed a long time in starting, I
emerged again from this odd little shop to ascertain the cause of the
delay, when I found to my surprise that we were already under way. So
noiselessly was the operation effected, that I was not aware of it.
Dragged by a horse, on which sat a sleepy lad, singing a sleepy song,
the boat glided mutely along. The only sound beside the drone of the
boy was the rustling of the reeds, which seemed to whisper, “What an
ass you are for coming along this route. You, who have just come from
the land of the mountain and the flood, to paddle about among these
frogs.” Really, the whole affair is desperately slow, and there is
nothing in the world to see but numerous windmills, with their thatched
roof and sides, whose labour it is to drain the large green meadows
lying some feet below us, on which numerous herds of cows are feeding.