1 Fenelon, _The Adventures of Telemachus_, Book III, where we find
stated in a footnote that the description of the Phoenician town,
Tyre, actually depicts Amsterdam.
2 Described by Dr. Hofstede de Groot under numbers 656, 761, 857,
1211, 1334, and reproduced by Lippmann—Hofstede de Groot, 1st series
163, 3d series 23, 1st series 72, 2d series 79 and 8.
3 The statement of a sharp-eyed contemporary, the English ambassador,
Sir William Temple, is here of interest and applies in the first
place to Amsterdam, then exceeding in importance all the other Dutch
towns: “It is evident, to those who have read the most, and
travelled the farthest, that no country can be found either in the
present age (i.e. 1672), or upon record of any story, where so vast
a trade has been managed, as in the narrow compass of the four
maritime Provinces of this commonwealth (i.e. the Dutch Republic):
nay, it is generally esteemed that they have more shipping belong to
them, than there does to the rest of Europe.” (_Observations on the
United Provinces_, Chap. VI, p. 182).
4 It is interesting to note here the following opinions of a
contemporary, Sir William Temple: “There are some customs or
dispositions, that seem to run generally through all these degrees
of men among the them; as great frugality, and order, in their
expenses. Their common riches lie in every man’s having more than
he spends; or, to say it more properly, in every man’s spending less
than he has coming in, be that what it will: nor does it enter into
men’s heads among them, that the common port or course of expence
should equal the revenue and, when this happens, they think at least
they have lived that year to no purpose; and the train of it
discredits a man among them, as much as any vicious or prodigal
extravagance does in other countries. This enables every man to
bear their extreme taxes, and makes them less sensible than they
would be in other places.” (_Observations upon the United
Provinces_, Chap. IV, p. 158.)
5 Sir William Temple writes in 1672: “It is hardly to be imagined, how
all the violence and sharpness, which accompanies the differences of
religion in other countries, seems to be appeased or softened here,
by the general freedom which all men enjoy, either by allowance or
connivance. No man can here complain of pressure in his conscience.
The power of religion among them, where it is, lies in every man’s
heart.” (_Observations_, Chap. V, p. 180.)