DAVIES' HISTORY OF HOLLAND.
A GOOD history of the Low Countries requires a combined ability : for the main subject involves a critical exposition of social, municipal, and political advancement ; whilst here and there are mingled events of stirring interest, and in Holland indi- vidual exploits of more than heroic character, with a patriotic resistance of tyranny and persecution unrivalled in the annals of mankind. In the regions bordering the lower part of the Rhine and its embouchures, the origin of the municipal, manufacturing, and commercial systems of modern Europe may be traced, if not as early as in Italy, with more of interest to the Northern nations, upon whose institutions and society they directly operated. An investigation into these germs of our industrial or trading society as opposed to the landed or aristocratical classes, would task the acumen of the political philosopher ; as a history of the different trades and arts which originated with the Flemings and Dutch— among which it may suffice to enumerate the fisheries and the woollen trades, linen-paper-making, printing, and oil-painting- would require the research of an accomplished antiquary. To paint the political outbreaks of the " mutinous Flemings" in the earlier period of their government, to narrate the struggle of the Dutch against the cold-blooded Ring Pamir and his atrocious General ALVA, might afford subjects worthy of a LIVY or a Scorn To narrate the wars and politics of the Princes of the house of Orange against England and France, and to trace the rise, progress, and decay of the Dutch colonial and mercantile prosperity, might worthily employ a Hums or an ADAM SMITH. A history of this description would be an addition to any literature ; but a history of Holland on any well-considered plan, and tolerably executed, would fill up a vacuum in ours, for we have no popular history of Holland.
This want Mr. DAMES is not exactly fitted to supply ; for he does not seem to apprehend what are the true characteristics of Dutch history, or how far it is connected with that of Flanders. Instead of briefly passing over the personal histories of the early Counts of Holland, he narrates their wars, marriages, and diplo- macies, at considerable length, neglecting those things which form the national character and glory of the people : which is much the same as if a person writing the recent history of London should pass over the Panic of 1825, the Spa Fields riots, the formation of Joint Stock Companies for such various objects, and all the great improvements in the City, to tell the story of each Lord Mayor. In every history the people are too much slighted, or put into appendices ; but in many countries during the darker ages, it must be owned that the people were a uniform mass of sluggishness, like the Northern Sells of the present day. What there was of character or enterprise was chiefly centred in the monarchy, the nobility, and the church. In the Low Countries, on the contrary, the people and the municipalities were all in all : their industry, skill, and commercial enterprise, spread the benefits of trade over Europe, and gave an importance to their governors which mere extent of territory would never have enabled them to possess. They not only could do without their rulers, but very often did.
It is not merely in an ill-considered plan that Mr. DAVIES is deficient. He wants the historical mind. His style is often verbose and inflated, smacking of public-meeting or after-dinner oratory ; his logic is loose, and his perception not exact. We know from C/ESAR'S Commentaries, that the " wild and barbarous races, (feris barbarisque nationibus,) inhabiting the marshy islands formed by the mouths of the Rhine, were in a condition below that of the Hottentots, living on fish and the eggs of birds; " qui piscibus atque ovis avium vivere existimantur"; nor would the country permit of even pasturage till Dutch industry had been applied to it. Yet Mr. Deviss, to indulge in a needless display of eloquence, applies to the Batavians what CmsAs and TACITUS say of the Germans
generally; is not true, if he means by this phrase the ancient inhabitants of these islands, and if he means some other people, is nothing to the purpose. Even when his authorities give him facts, he must make a gratuitous supposition directly opposed to them-
" Florence the Fat ended his tranquil reign of thirty years, in the spring of 1121. He is represented to us as tall and large in stature, of gentle and affable manners, and a placable and benevolent disposition ; he excelled all his fore- fathers, as well in riches as in virtue ; his tournaments were celebrated for their splendour and costliness; and we may suppose that during his reign the Hollanders made no inconsiderable advances in freedom, the arts, commerce, and perhaps even literature : if so, however, it is left unnoticed by the early chroniclers, who have rather given us a record of the vices, ignorance, and superstition of men, than traced their first steps towards virtue and know- ledge."
The present volume brings down the history of Holland from the tenth century to 1573, when ALVA, wearied by the ill success of his attempts, withdrew from his government : and as the pro- gress of the story becomes connected with greater events, the work of Mr. DAMES becomes more valuable ; for he is clear and fluent, and excels more in narrative, where the facts are ready to his hand, than he does in exposition or criticism. As a specimen of his better style, we will take his
CHARACTER AND CRUELTY OP ALVA..
In the November of this year, Alva quitted the Netherlands; leaving behind him a name which has become a byword of hatred, scorn, and execration- He is described as tall and spare in person ; his countenance long and pallid, with eyes deeply sunk in the forehead, and expressive of harshness and aus- terity ; insolent to an excess towards his equals and inferiors; overbearing and opiniated, but penetrating, sagacious, and eloquent; devotedly faithful to hit i sovereign ; it is yet remarkable that, though employed and trusted for sixty years by Philip and his father, be possessed not the smallest share of the affection of either. In ability and experience he stood unrivalled among the commanders of his age ; but, while firm and fertile in resources in adversity, he was puffed. up by prosperity to a height of arrogance amounting to folly. Ac- customed from his earliest years to serve in the barbarous wars waged by his country against the Moors, and in Italy, France, and Hungary, he had learned to look on human suffering, and to trample on the rights and shed the blood, of mankind, with a remorseless and reckless indifference which seems hardly credible. Were the pages of Italian and American history closed to us, we might indeed hesitate to believe even the grave and upright historians of the time, in the accounts they have tram mitts 1 of the ferocious cruelties which the Spaniards continually practised, and to which Alva gave his connivance and encouragement. During the six years that he had governed the Nether- lands, 18,000 persons had perished by the hand of the executioner, besides the numbers massacred at Naarden, Zutpheu, and other conquered cities, and those whom the Spanish soldiers put to death in the wantonness of impunity. The amount of profits from confiscated estates was said to be 8,000,000 of guilders yearly ;. nor was the property of hospitals, almshouses, or orphan-asylums, spared in the general plunder. The Spaniards were accustomed to take what- ever they chose, without payment, observing that every thing in the Nether- lands belonged to them, as forfeited for rebellion : the smallest resistance was followed by instant death ; the husbands and fathers who attempted to protect their families from their brutality, were slaughtered oa the spot ; some they flayed alive, and used their skins for drums; others had their flesh torn off with red-hot pincers; and others were roasted before a slow fire, to force them to reveal their treasures. Even the ashes of the dead were not left in peace, but disinterred and burnt, under the pretext that they had died without confession. One man was condemned and put to death because he had afforded shelter for a single night to his only son, proscribed for heresy ; another for bestowing a morsel of food on the widow of a person executed for the same cause ; a female of high rank, eighty-four years of age, was publicly beheaded at Utrecht, iu the presence of Alva, for having on one occasion received a Reformed preacher into her house ; and many rich and noble ladies were stripped of their possessions for holding communication with their husbands, who had been outlawed as fugitives.
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