se than wit; more good
nature than good humour, and more wealth than pleasure: where a man
would chuse rather to travel than to live; shall find more things to
observe than desire; and more persons to esteem than to love. But
the same qualities and dispositions do not value a private man and
a state, nor make a conversation agreeable, and a government great:
nor is it unlikely, that some very great King might make but a very
ordinary private gentleman, and some very extraordinary gentleman
might be capable of making but a very mean Prince."

Among other travellers who have summed up the Dutch in a few
phrases is Sir Thomas Overbury, the author of some witty characters,
including that very charming one of a Happy Milk Maid. In 1609 he
thus generalised upon the Netherlander: "Concerning the people: they
are neither much devout, nor much wicked; given all to drink, and
eminently to no other vice; hard in bargaining, but just; surly and
respectless, as in all democracies; thirsty, industrious, and cleanly;
disheartened upon the least ill-success, and insolent upon good;
inventive in manufactures, and cunning in traffick: and generally,
for matter of action, that natural slowness of theirs, suits better
(by reason of the advisedness and perseverance it brings with it)
than the rashness and changeableness of the French and Florentine
wits; and the equality of spirits, which is among them and Switzers,
renders them so fit for a democracy: which kind of government, nations
of more stable wits, being once come to a consistent greatness,
have seldom long endured."

Many Englishmen have travelled in Holland and have set down the record
of their experiences, from Thomas Coryate downwards. But the country
has not been inspiring, and Dutch travels are poor reading. Had
Dr. Johnson lived to accompany Boswell on a projected journey we
should be the richer, but I doubt if any very interesting narrative
would have resulted. One of Johnson's contemporaries, Samuel Ireland,
the engraver, and the father of the fraudulent author of _Vortigern_,
wrote _A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of
France_, in 1789, while a few years later one of Charles Lamb's
early "drunken companions," Fell, wrote _A Tour through the Batavian
Republic_, 1801; and both of these books yield a few experiences
not without interest. Fell's is the duller. I quote from them now
and again throughout this volume, but I might mention here a few of
their