amus into the Son of God, and
Thisbe into the Christian soul, he proceeds with a number of
comparisons; the latter always more impertinent than the former.

I believe it is well known that the actors on the Dutch theatre are
generally tradesmen, who quit their aprons at the hour of public
representation. This was the fact when I was in Holland more than forty
years ago. Their comedies are offensive by the grossness of their
buffooneries. One of their comic incidents was a miller appearing in
distress for want of wind to turn his mill; he had recourse to the novel
scheme of placing his back against it, and by certain imitative sounds
behind the scenes the mill is soon set a-going. It is hard to rival such
a depravity of taste.

I saw two of their most celebrated tragedies. The one was Gysbert Van
Amstel, by Vondel; that is Gysbrecht of Amsterdam, a warrior, who in the
civil wars preserved this city by his heroism. It is a patriotic
historical play, and never fails to crowd the theatre towards Christmas,
when it is usually performed successively. One of the acts concludes
with the scene of a convent; the sound of warlike instruments is heard;
the abbey is stormed; the nuns and fathers are slaughtered; with the aid
of "blunderbuss and thunder," every Dutchman appears sensible of the
pathos of the poet. But it does not here conclude. After this terrible
slaughter, the conquerors and the vanquished remain for _ten minutes_ on
the stage, silent and motionless, in the attitudes in which the groups
happened to fall! and this pantomimic pathos commands loud bursts of
applause.[111]

The other was the Ahasuerus of Schubart, or the Fall of Haman. In the
triumphal entry the Batavian Mordecai was mounted on a genuine Flanders
mare, that, fortunately, quietly received _her_ applause with a lumpish
majesty resembling her rider. I have seen an English ass once introduced
on our stage which did not act with this decorum. Our late actors have
frequently been beasts;--a Dutch taste![112]

Some few specimens of the best Dutch poetry which we have had, yield no
evidence in favour of the national poetical taste. The Dutch poet Katz
has a poem on the "Games of Children," where all the games are
moralised; I suspect the taste of the poet as well as his subject is
puerile. When a nation has produced no works above mediocrity, with them
a certain mediocrity is excellence, and their masterpieces, with a
people who have made a greater progress