Visit to the cabinets of pictures in Antwerp.--Monsieur Van
Lencren’s collection.--The Canon Knyff’s house and gallery of
paintings.--The Canon himself.--His domestic felicity.--Revisit the
cathedral.--Grand service in honour of St. John the
Baptist.--Mynheer Van den Bosch, the organist’s astonishing flashes
of execution.--Evening service in the cathedral.--Magical effect of
the music of Jomelli.--Blighted avenues.--Slow travelling.--Enter
the United Provinces.--Level scenery.--Chinese prospects.--Reach
Meerdyke.--Arrival at the Hague.
Antwerp, 23rd June, 1780.
After breakfast this morning I began my pilgrimage to all the cabinets
of pictures in Antwerp. First, I went to Monsieur Van Lencren’s, who
possesses a suite of apartments, lined, from the base to the cornice,
with the rarest productions of the Flemish school. Heaven forbid I
should enter into a detail of their niceties! I might as well count the
dew-drops upon the most spangled of Van Huysum’s flower-pieces, or the
pimples on their possessor’s countenance; a very good sort of man,
indeed; but from whom I was not at all sorry to be delivered.
My joy was, however, of short duration, as a few minutes brought me into
the court-yard of the Canon Knyff’s habitation; a snug abode, well
furnished with ample fauteuils and orthodox couches. After viewing the
rooms on the first floor, we mounted an easy staircase, and entered an
ante-chamber, which they who delight in the imitations of art rather
than of nature, in the likenesses of joint stools and the portraits of
tankards, would esteem most capitally adorned: but it must be confessed,
that amongst these uninteresting performances are dispersed a few
striking Berghems and agreeable Polembergs. In the gallery adjoining,
two or three Rosa de Tivolis merit observation; and a large Teniers,
representing the Hermit St. Anthony surrounded by a malicious set of
imps and leering devilesses, is well calculated to display the whimsical
buffoonery of a Dutch imagination.
I was enjoying this strange medley, when the canon made his appearance;
and a most prepossessing figure he has, according to Flemish ideas. In
my humble opinion, his reverence looked a little muddled or so; and, to
be sure, the description I afterwards heard of his style of living
favours not a little my surmises. This worthy dignitary, what with his
private fortune and the good things of the church, enjoys a spanking
revenue, which he contrives to get rid of in the joys of the table and
the encouragement of the pencil.
His servants, perhaps, assist not a little in the expenditure of so
comfortable an income; the canon being upon a very social footing with
them all. At four o’clock in the afternoon, a select party attend him in
his coach to an ale-house about a league from the city; where a table,
well spread with jugs of beer and handsome cheeses, waits their arrival.
After enjoying this rural fare, the same equipage conducts them back
again, by all accounts, much faster than they came; which may well be
conceived, as the coachman is one of the brightest wits of the
entertainment.
My compliments, alas! were not much appreciated, you may suppose, by
this jovial personage. I said a few favourable words of Polemberg, and
offered up a small tribute of praise to the memory of Berghem; but, as I
could not prevail upon Mynheer Knyff to expand, I made one of my best
bows, and left him to the enjoyment of his domestic felicity.
In my way home, I looked into another cabinet, the greatest ornament of
which was a most sublime thistle by Snyders, of the heroic size, and so
faithfully imitated that I dare say no Ass could see it unmoved. At
length, it was lawful to return home; and as I positively refused
visiting any more cabinets in the afternoon, I sent for a harpsichord of
Rucker, and played myself quite out of the Netherlands.
It was late before I finished my musical excursion, and I took advantage
of this dusky moment to revisit the cathedral. A flight of starlings had
just pitched on one of the pinnacles of the tower, whose faint chirpings
were the only sounds that broke the evening stillness. Not a human form
appeared at any of the windows around; no footsteps were audible in the
opening before the grand entrance; and during the half hour I spent in
walking to and fro, one solitary Franciscan was the only creature that
accosted me. From him I learned that a grand service was to be performed
next day in honour of St. John the Baptist, and the best music in
Flanders would be called forth on the occasion, so I determined to stay
one day longer at Antwerp.
Having taken this resolution, I availed myself of a special invitation
from Mynheer Van den Bosch, the first organist of the place, and sat
next to him in his lofty perch during the celebration of high mass. The
service ended, I strayed about the aisles, and examined the innumerable
chapels which decorate them, whilst Mynheer Van den Bosch thundered and
lightened away upon his huge organ with fifty stops.
When the first flashes of execution had a little subsided, I took an
opportunity of surveying the celebrated Descent from the Cross. This has
ever been esteemed the master-piece of Rubens, which, large as it is,
they pretend here that Old Lewis Baboon[2] offered to cover with gold. A
swingeing St. Christopher, fording a brook with a child on his
shoulders, cannot fail of attracting attention. This colossal personage
is painted on the folding-doors which defend the grand effort of art
just mentioned from vulgar eyes; and here Rubens has selected a very
proper subject to display the gigantic boldness of his pencil.
After I had most dutifully surveyed all his productions in this church,
I walked half over Antwerp in quest of St. John’s relics, which were
moving about in procession. If my eyes were not much regaled by the
saint’s magnificence, my ears were greatly affected in the evening by
the music which sang forth his praises. The cathedral was crowded with
devotees, and perfumed with incense. A motet, in the lofty style of
Jomelli, performed with taste and feeling, transported me to Italian
climates; and I grieved, when a cessation dissolved the charm, to think
that I had still so many tramontane regions to pass before I could in
effect reach that classic country. Finding it was in vain to expect
preternatural interposition, and perceiving no conscious angel or
Loretto-vehicle waiting in some dark consecrated corner to bear me away,
I humbly returned to my hotel.
Monday, June 26th.--We were again upon the pavé, rattling and jumbling
along between clipped hedges and blighted avenues. The plagues of Egypt
have been renewed, one might almost imagine, in this country, by the
appearance of the oak trees: not a leaf have the insects spared. After
having had the displeasure of seeing no other objects for several hours
but these blasted rows, the scene changed to vast tracts of level
country, buried in sand and smothered with heath; the particular
character of which I had but too good an opportunity of intimately
knowing, as a tortoise might have kept pace with us without being once
out of breath.
Towards evening, we entered the dominions of the United Provinces, and
had all their glory of canals, treck-schuyts, and windmills, before us.
The minute neatness of the villages, their red roofs, and the lively
green of the willows which shade them, corresponded with the ideas I had
formed of Chinese prospects; a resemblance which was not diminished upon
viewing on every side the level scenery of enamelled meadows, with
stripes of clear water across them, and innumerable barges gliding
busily along. Nothing could be finer than the weather; it improved each
moment, as if propitious to my exotic fancies; and, at sun-set, not one
single cloud obscured the horizon. Several storks were parading by the
water-side, amongst flags and osiers; and, as far as the eye could
reach, large herds of beautifully spotted cattle were enjoying the
plenty of their pastures. I was perfectly in the environs of Canton, or
Ning Po, till we reached Meerdyke. You know fumigations are always the
current recipe in romance to break an enchantment; as soon, therefore,
as I left my carriage and entered my inn, the clouds of tobacco which
filled every one of its apartments dispersed my Chinese imaginations,
and reduced me in an instant to Holland.
Why should I enlarge upon my adventures at Meerdyke? To tell you that
its inhabitants are the most uncouth bipeds in the universe would be
nothing very new or entertaining; so let me at once pass over the
village, leave Rotterdam, and even Delft, that great parent of pottery,
and transport you with a wave of my pen to the Hague.
As the evening was rather warm, I immediately walked out to enjoy the
shade of the long avenue which leads to Scheveling, and proceeded to the
village on the sea coast, which terminates the perspective. Almost every
cottage door being open to catch the air, I had an opportunity of
looking into their neat apartments. Tables, shelves, earthenware, all
glisten with cleanliness; the country people were drinking tea, after
the fatigues of the day, and talking over its bargains and contrivances.
I left them to walk on the beach, and was so charmed with the vast azure
expanse of ocean, which opened suddenly upon me, that I remained there a
full half hour. More than two hundred vessels of different sizes were in
sight, the last sunbeam purpling their sails, and casting a path of
innumerable brilliants athwart the waves. What would I not have given to
follow this shining track! It might have conducted me straight to those
fortunate western climates, those happy isles which you are so fond of
painting, and I of dreaming about. But, unluckily, this passage was the
only one my neighbours the Dutch were ignorant of. It is true they have
islands rich in spices, and blessed with the sun’s particular attention,
but which their government, I am apt to imagine, renders by no means
fortunate.
Abandoning therefore all hopes of this adventurous voyage, I returned
towards the Hague, and looked into a country-house of the late Count
Bentinck, with parterres and bosquets by no means resembling, one should
conjecture, the gardens of the Hesperides. But, considering that the
whole group of trees, terraces, and verdure were in a manner created out
of hills of sand, the place may claim some portion of merit. The walks
and alleys have all the stiffness and formality which our ancestors
admired; but the intermediate spaces, being dotted with clumps and
sprinkled with flowers, are imagined in Holland to be in the English
style. An Englishman ought certainly to behold it with partial eyes,
since every possible attempt has been made to twist it into the taste of
his country.
I need not say how liberally I bestowed my encomiums on Count Bentinck’s
tasteful intentions; nor how happy I was, when I had duly serpentized
over his garden, to find myself once more in the grand avenue. All the
way home, I reflected upon the unyielding perseverance of the Dutch, who
raise gardens from heaps of sand, and cities out of the bosom of the
waters. I had, almost at the same moment, a whimsical proof of the
thrifty turn of this people; for just entering the town I met an
unwieldy fellow--not ill clad--airing his carcase in a one-dog chair.
The poor animal puffed and panted, Mynheer smoked, and gaped around him
with the most blessed indifference.