DELFT.

Between Rotterdam and this place we commenced our travelling in

trechtschuyts, which are too well known to need description. The fare

is at the rate of about a penny per mile, and a trifle more hires the

_roof_, which is a small separate chamber, nearest to the stern of the

vessel, lighted by windows on each side. In engaging this, you have an

instance of the accuracy of the Dutch in their minutest transactions; a

formal printed receipt, or ticket, is given for the few pence which it

costs, by a commissary, who has no other business than to regulate the

affairs of the trechtschuyts at his gate of the city. We could never

learn what proportion of the fare is paid as a tax to the State, but

it is said to be a considerable part; and not only these schuyts, but

the ferries, the post waggons, and the pilotage throughout the United

States, are made contributory to the public funds.

The punctuality of the departure and arrival of the trechtschuyts is

well known, and justifies the Dutch method of reckoning distances,

which is by hours, and not by leagues or miles. The canals being

generally full to the brim, the top of the vessel is above the level

of the adjoining country, and the view over it is of course extensive;

but the houses and gardens, which are best worth seeing, are almost

always upon the banks of the canal. We passed several such in the way

to Delft, towards which the Rotterdam merchants have their favourite

seats; but Dutch gardens are rather to be noticed by an Englishman as

curiosities, than as luxuries. It is not only by the known ill taste

of their ornaments, but by the effects of climate and the soil, that

gardens are deprived of value, in a country, where the moisture is so

disproportioned to the heat, that the verdure, though bright, has no

fragrance, and the fruit, at its utmost size, scarcely any flavour.

A passage of two hours brought us to Delft, which we had expected to

find a small and ill-inhabited place, knowing it to be not now occupied

by any considerable trade. Our inn, we supposed, must be within a few

minutes walk. We proceeded, however, through one street for half a

mile, and, after some turnings, did not reach our inn, though we were

led by the nearest way, in less than twenty minutes. During all this

time we were upon the terraces of clear canals, amongst excellent

houses, with a small intermixture of shops and some public buildings.

The mingled admiration and weariness, which we felt here, for the first

time, have been, however, often repeated; for if there is a necessity

for saying what is the next distinction of Dutch towns, after their

neatness, their size must be insisted upon. There are Dutch villages,

scarcely marked in a map, which exceed in size some of the county

towns in England. _Maesland Sluice_, a place opposite to the Brill,

is one. And here is Delft, a place with scarcely any other trade than

consists in the circulation of commodities from Rotterdam through some

neighbouring villages; which is not the seat of any considerable part

of the national government, and is inferior, in point of situation, to

all the surrounding towns. Delft, thus undistinguished, fills a large

circumference, with streets so intricately thick, that we never went

from our inn without losing our way.

The _Doolen_, one of the best inns in Holland, is a large building of

the sixteenth century, raised by the Spaniards, and first intended

to be a convent; but, having been used by the burghers of Delft for

public purposes, during the struggle of the Province against Spain,

it is now venerable as the scene of their councils and preparations.

In the suite of large apartments, which were used by them, some of the

city business is still transacted, and in these strangers are never

entertained. Behind, is a bowling-green, in which the burghers to this

day perform their military exercises; they were so employed when we

came in; and it was pleasing to consider, that their inferiority to

their ancestors, in point of martial appearance, was the result of the

long internal peace secured by the exertions of the latter.

Over two arches of the building is the date of its erection, 1565,

the year in which the destruction of all families, professing the

Protestant religion either in France or Spain, is supposed to have been

agreed upon at Bayonne between the sovereigns of the two countries,

and one year preceding the first measures of confederate resistance

in the Low Countries, which that and other efforts of persecution

produced. One of these arches communicates with the rooms so long used

by the burghers; and our hostess, an intelligent woman, accompanied

us through them. The first is ornamented with three large pictures,

representing several of the early burghers of the Commonwealth, either

in arms or council. A portrait of BARNEVELDT is marked with the date

and the painter's name, "MICHAEL MIEREVELD _delineavit ac perfunctoriè

pinxit, 1617_," one year before the flagitious arrest of BARNEVELDT, in

defiance of the constitution of the provinces, by MAURICE of ORANGE. A

piece, exhibiting some of the burghers in arms, men of an handsome and

heroic appearance, is also dated, by having 1648 painted on a drum;

that, which shews them in council, has a portrait of GROTIUS, painted

when he was seventeen. His face is the seventh from the right hand in

the second row.

Beyond this room are others containing several score of small

cupboards, on the doors of each of which are two or three blazonries

of arms. Here are deposited some parts of the dress and arms of an

association of Arquesbusiers, usual in all the Dutch towns; the members

of which society assemble annually in October, to shoot at a target

placed in a pavilion of the old convent garden. The marksman takes his

aim from the farthest room; and between him and the mark are two walls,

perforated two feet and a half in length, and eight inches in breadth,

to permit the passage of the shot. A man stands in the pavilion, to

tell where the ball has struck; and every marksman, before he shoots,

rings a bell, to warn this person out of the way. He that first hits

a white spot in the target, has his liquor, for the ensuing year,

free of excise duty; but, to render this more difficult, a stork is

suspended by the legs from a string, which, passing down the whole

length of the target, is kept in continual motion by the agitation of

the bird. It did not appear whether the stork has any other share in

this ancient ceremony, which is represented in prints of considerable

date. It is held near the ground, out of the way of the shot, and is

certainly not intended to be hurt, for the Dutch have no taste for

cruelty in their amusements. The stork, it is also known, is esteemed

by them a sort of tutelary bird; as it once was in Rome, where ASELLUS

SEMPRONIUS RUFUS, who first had them served at an entertainment, is

said to have lost the Prætorship for his sacrilegious gluttony. In

these trivial enquiries we passed our first evening at Delft.

Early the next morning, a battalion of regular troops was reviewed upon

a small plain within the walls of the town. The uniform is blue and

red, in which the Dutch officers have not quite the smart appearance

of ours. One of these, who gave the word to a company, was a boy,

certainly not more than fifteen, whose shrill voice was ludicrously

heard between the earnest shouts of the others. The firing was very

exact, which is all that we can tell of the qualities of a review.

Delft was a place of early importance in the United Provinces, being

one of the six original cities, that sent Deputies to the States of

the province; a privilege, which, at the instance of their glorious

WILLIAM the First of ORANGE, was afterwards properly extended to twelve

others, including Rotterdam and the Brill. Yet it is little celebrated

for military events, being unfortified, and having probably always

obeyed the fortune of the neighbouring places. The circumstance which

gives it a melancholy place in history, is the murder of the wife and

beneficent Prince who founded the republic. His palace, a plain brick

building, is still in good repair, where strangers are always shewn the

staircase on which he fell, and the holes made in the wall by the shot

that killed him. The old man, who keeps the house, told the story with

as much agitation and interest as if it had happened yesterday. "The

Prince and Princess came out of that chamber--there stood the Prince,

here stood the murderer; when the Prince stepped here to speak to him

about the passport, the villain fired, and the Prince fell all along

here and died. Yes, so it was--there are the holes the balls made."

Over one of these, which is large enough to admit two fingers, is this

inscription:

"_Hier onder staen de Teykenen der Kooglen daar meede Prins Willem van

Orange is doorschootten op_ 10 July, A. 1584."

To this detestable action the assassin acknowledged himself to have

been instigated by the proclamation of Philip the Second, offering a

reward for its perpetration. The Princess, who had the wretchedness to

witness it, had lost her father and her former husband in the massacre

of St. Bartholomew in France, which, though contrived by Catherine

and Charles the Ninth of that country, is believed to have been the

consequence of their interview at Bayonne, with Isabella, the wife of

the same Philip.

The melancholy excited on this spot is continued by passing from it to

the tomb of WILLIAM, in the great church, called the _Nieuwe Kerk_.

There the gloomy pageantry of the black escutcheons, above a choir,

silent, empty and vast, and the withering remains of colours, won by

hands long since gone to their decay, prolong the consideration of the

transientness of human worth and happiness, which can so easily be

destroyed by the command, or the hand of human villainy.

This tomb is thought to be not exceeded by any piece of sepulchral

grandeur in Europe. Standing alone, in a wide choir, it is much more

conspicuous and striking than a monumental fabric raised against a

wall, at the same time that its sides are so varied as to present each

a new spectacle. It was begun in 1609, by order of the States General,

and completed in 1621; the artist, HENDRIK DE KEYZER, receiving 28,000

florins as its price, and 2000 more as a present. The length is 20

feet, the breadth 15, and height 27. A bronze statue of the Prince,

sitting in full armour, with his sword, scarf, and commander's staff,

renders one side the chief; on the other is his effigy in white marble,

lying at full length; and at his feet, in the same marble, the figure

of the dog, which is said to have refused food from the moment of its

master's death. Round the tomb, twenty-two columns of veined or black

Italian marble, of the Doric order, and, with bases and capitals of

white marble, support a roof or canopy, ornamented with many emblems,

and with the _achievements_ of the Prince.

At the corners, are the statues of Religion, Liberty, Justice, and

Fortitude, of which the first rests upon a piece of black marble, on

which is inscribed in golden letters the name of CHRIST; and the second

holds a cap, with the inscription _Aurea Libertas_. On the four sides

of the canopy are the devices of the Prince, with the inscriptions

JEHOVAH.--_Je maintiendrai Piété et Justice._--_Te Vindice, tuta

Libertas._--And, _Sævis tranquillus in Undis_.

There are many other ornaments, which give dignity or elegance to the

structure, but cannot be described without tediousness. The well-known

Epitaph is certainly worth transcribing:

D. O. M. et eternæ memoriæ Gulielmi Nassoviæ, supremi Auransionensium

Principis, Patr. patriæ, qui Belgii fortunis suas posthabuit et

suorum; validissimos exercitus ære plurimum privato bis conscripsit,

bis induxit; ordinum auspiciis Hispaniæ tyrannidem propulit; veræ

religionis cultum, avitas patriæ leges revocavit, restituit; ipsam

denique libertatem tantum non assertam, Mauritio Principi, paternæ

virtutis hæredi filio, stabiliendam reliquit. Herois vere pii,

prudentis, invicti, quem Philip. II. Hisp. R. Europæ timor, timuit;

non domuit, non terruit; sed empto percussore fraude nefanda sustulit;

Fœderat. Belgii provinc. perenni memor. monum. fec.

"To GOD the best and highest, and to the eternal memory of William of

Nassau, Sovereign Prince of Orange, the father of his country, whose

welfare he preferred to that of himself and his family; who, chiefly

at his own expence, twice levied and introduced a powerful army; under

the sanction of the States repelled the tyranny of Spain; recovered

and restored the service of true religion and the ancient laws of the

country; and finally left the liberty, which he had himself asserted,

to be established by his son, Prince Maurice, the heir of his father's

virtues. The Confederated Belgic Provinces have erected this monument,

in perpetual memory of this truly pious, prudent and unconquered Hero,

whom Philip II. King of Spain, the dread of Europe, dreaded; never

overcame, never terrified; but, with wicked treachery, carried off by

means of an hired assassin."

The tomb of GROTIUS is in the same church, which is a stately building

of brick and stone, but has nothing of the "dim religious light," that

sooths the mind in Gothic structures. Upon the steeple are many small

bells, the chimes rung upon which are particularly esteemed, both for

tone and tune.

On the opposite side of a very large market-place is the Town-house,

an old building, but so fresh and so fantastic with paint, as to have

some resemblance to a Chinese temple. The body is coloured with a

light, or yellowish brown, and is two stories high to the roof, in

which there are two tier of peaked windows, each under its ornament of

gilded wood, carved into an awkward resemblance of shells. Upon the

front is inscribed, "_Delphensium Curia Reparata_," and immediately

over the door "_Reparata 1761_."

The _Oude Kerk_, or Old Church, is in another part of the town, and is

not remarkable, except for the tombs of LEUWENHOEK, PETER HEINE and

VAN TROMP. That of LEUWENHOEK has a short inscription, in Latin almost

as bad as that of a verse epitaph upon GROTIUS, in the other church.

He was born, it appears, in October 1632, and died in August 1723.

The tombs of HEINE and VAN TROMP are very handsome. There are the

effigies of both in white marble, and one of the victories gained by

the latter is represented in _alto relievo_. On account of the tombs,

both churches are open, during certain hours in the day; and a beadle,

or, perhaps, an almsman, is placed in each, who presents a padlocked

box, into which money may be put for the poor.

In this town is the chief arsenal of the province of Holland, except

that the magazine of powder is at the distance of about a mile from

it, near the canal to Rotterdam. In 1787, when the dissensions between

the STATES GENERAL and the PRINCE of ORANGE were at their height, a

provincial free corps seized this arsenal, and held it for the States

till the return of the PRINCE of ORANGE to the Hague, a few weeks

afterwards.

Having seen what was pointed out to our notice, at Delft, and learned

that its extensiveness was owing to the residence of a great number

of retired merchants from Rotterdam, we left it in a _trechtschuyt_

for the Hague, having little other notion of it in our minds, than

that it is very dull and very rich, and of a size, for which there is

no recompense to a stranger, except in considering, that its dullness

is the rest of those, who have once been busy, and that its riches

are at least not employed in aggravating the miseries of poverty by

ostentation.