[12] So little do we know of a country so worth knowing, that we
daily commit ourselves by speaking of it as Holland. The kingdom of
the Netherlands, as now constituted, is divided into ten counties or
provinces, and two of these are respectively called North and South
Holland. The former is the territory here alluded to; it includes
neither Leiden, nor the Hague, nor Rotterdam. To speak of the
Netherlands as Holland, corresponds to calling England Devonshire or
Cheshire, and this particular terminology is the more amusing to the
natives because with them it is a shibboleth of vulgarity. There never
was a kingdom of Holland, except from 1806-1810, under Napoleonic
rule, when the Dutch had lost their independence through that most
dangerous scourge of nations, internal division.