so direct, one sighs for a momentary glimpse of the rose window at
Chartres, or even of the too heavily kaleidoscopic patterns of Brussels
Cathedral. No matter, the Gouda windows in their way are very fine,
and in the sixth, depicting the story of Judith and Holofernes, there
is a very fascinating little Duereresque tower on a rock under siege.

If one is taking Gouda on the way from Rotterdam to Amsterdam,
the surrounding country should not be neglected from the carriage
windows. Holland is rarely so luxuriant as here, and so peacefully
beautiful.

Chapter II

The Dutch in English Literature

Hard things against the Dutch--Andrew Marvell's satire--The
iniquity of living below sea-level--Historic sarcasms--"Invent
a shovel and be a magistrate"--Heterogeneity--Foot warmers--A
champion of the Hollow Land--_The Dutch Drawn to the
Life_--Dutch suspicion--Sir William Temple's opinion--and Sir
Thomas Overbury's--Dr. Johnson's project--Dutch courtesy--Dutch
discourtesy--National manners--A few phrases--The origin of
"Dutch News"--A vindication of Dutch courage.

To say hard things of the Dutch was once a recognised literary
pastime. At the time of our war with Holland no poet of any pretensions
refrained from writing at least one anti-Batavian satire, the classical
example of which is Andrew Marvell's "Character of Holland" (following
Samuel Butler's), a pasquinade that contains enough wit and fancy
and contempt to stock a score of the nation's ordinary assailants. It
begins perfectly:--

HOLLAND, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but th' off-scouring of the British sand,
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heav'd the lead,
Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell
Of shipwrackt cockle and the muscle-shell:
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners who have found the ore
They, with mad labour, fish'd the land to shoar
And div'd as desperately for each piece
Of earth, as if't had been of ambergreece;
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roul,
Transfusing into them their dunghil soul.
How did they rivet, with gigantick piles,
Thorough the center their new-catched miles;
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where