SKETCHES IN HOLLAND AND SCANDINAVIA.*

THE author says truly that these Sketches are alight; but they are vivid and picturesque, and convey a more distinct impres- sion of Holland and Scandinavia than many larger works. A book so small and so attractive may well be a delight to the reviewer, who has often to complain, especially in reading books of travel, that the matter resembles Falstaff's halfpennyworth of bread and the words his "intolerable deal of sack." Every one, no doubt, who is familiar with De Amici's delightful volume about Holland, will know that there is a great deal more to be told of that country than Mr. Hare has vouchsafed to tell. Notes of Travel in Norway and Sweden do but touch the surface of things, and convey the impressions of a passing traveller. They do this, however, with a skilful hand, and show the eye for beauty that marks a literary artist.

Suppose we start with Mr. Hare on his journey, and follow his steps to the end of it ; not, indeed, diverging into bye- ways, nor lingering with him in public buildings and picture- galleries, but noting such prominent objects in nature and art as may be said to give a character to the volume. In doing this, we shall give Mr. Hare's descriptions of persons and places as far as possible in his own words, but without always con- fining them within quotation-marks. When the writer of this paper speaks in his own person the difference will be obvious enough.

The inspection of Holland began at Breda, which, with its houses wonderfully varied in outline and with every shade of delicate colour, conveyed a stronger impression than any Dutch city did afterwards. Pitiful it was, however, to see the magnifi- cent church thickly covered with whitewash, suggestive of what would be found afterwards throughout the Calvinistic churches of Holland, probably the most neglected in Europe. Zealand, with its four islands, is dependant on human care for its exist- ence. If neglected for six months, the whole country would be under the sea again, as these islands have been already in times gone by. Three centuries ago, Schonwen was submerged and every living creature drowned. Soon after, Noordt Beveland was submerged and remained for several years under water, only the points of the church spires being visible ; and in the present century Walcheren and Tholen have suffered a like fate. Bergen-op-Zoom is, perhaps, worth a visit, with its historic memories and bright white houses. Thence the train is taken to the handsome town of Middleburg, which was also once under water. The whole land here is watery and flat, and the most noticeable objects are the peasant women with square gold ornaments, something like closed golden books, universally worn on each side of the face. One would like to linger at Dort, famous for its Synod, at which the Calvinists, having pro- claimed themselves as infallible as the Pope, banished a hundred Arminian ministers, sentenced Grotius and Hoogerbeets to be imprisoned for life, and the septuagenarian, Van Olden Barne- veldt, to be beheaded. Grotius, somewhat after the fashion of Falstaff, but with better fortune, escaped from his persecutors in a chest, which had been brought into the prison with his books and linen.

The impression formed of Rotterdam was not favourable ; the

• Sketches in HoUand and Scandinavia. By Augustus J. C. Hare. London : Smith, Elder, and Co.

traveller thought it the most odious place he was ever in— immense, filthy, and not very picturesque. Pleasant it was therefore, to escape to the Hague, most delightful of little capitals, with its comfortable hotels and cheerful surroundings :

"It is said that the Hague, more than any other place, may recall what Versailles was just before the great Revolution. It has thoroughly the aspect of a little royal city. Without any of the crowd and bustle of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, it is not dead like the smaller towns of Holland ; indeed, it even seems to have a quiet gaiety, without dissipation, of its own. All around are parks and gardens, whence wide streets lead speedily through the new town of the rich bourgeoisie to the old central town of stadholders, where a beautiful lake, the Vijver, or fish-pond, comes as a surprise, with the- eccentric old palace of the Binnenhof rising straight oat of its waters. We had been told it was picturesque, but were prepared for nothing so charming as the variety of steep roofs and towers, the clear reflections, the tufted islet, and the beautiful colouring of the whole scene of the Viktor."

From the Hague we go to Delft, which Pepys called "a most sweet town, with bridges and a river in every street." It has scarcely changed, we are told, for two hundred years ; and the view of this town of storks and clipped trees by Van der Meer might have been painted yesterday. Without lingering in the melan- choly and mildewed little University town of Leyden, with its grass-grown streets, damp houses, and canals green with weed, let us take the train to Haarlem, and listen to the famous. organ, which, with its discordant noises, grievously dis- appointed the traveller ; yet we are generally told that it is one of the largest and most perfect instruments in the world. The finest of organs, however, like the meanest, is dependent on an organist. The want of reverence in this great church of St. Bavo was conspicuous. The men kept their hats on and smoked, which seems a common habit in church, as it is every- where else, in Holland. Haarlem is as famous for its bulbs as for its organ, and in the months of April and May the country round is a garden of beauty. "Tulips are more cultivated than any other flowers, as ministering most to the national craving for colour ; but times are changed since a single bulb of L'Amiral Liefkenshoch' sold for 4,500 florins, one of 'Viceroy'

for 4,200, and one of Semper Augustus ' for l3,000."' Amsterdam was a disappointment, for anything more unlike- Venice it would be difficult to imagine ; and the unique reputation of Broek for daintiness and cleanliness is not accepted by Mr. Hare, who found little remarkable in it, except even

a greater sense of dampness and ooziness than in the other Dutch villages. Alkmaar, on the other hand—the prettiest place in the country, which was visited soon afterwards—is said to.

possess the cleanliness usually attributed to Broek. "The streets,. formed of bricks fitted close together, are absolutely spotless, and every house-front shines fresh from the mop or the syringe." By the way, while staying at Amsterdam, the tourist is recom- mended to visit the island of Marken, in the Zuider Zee—a, huge meadow—where the peasant women pass their whole lives without ever seeing anything beyond their island. The costumes here are picturesque, the men wearing red woollen shirts, brown vests, wooden shoes, fur caps, and gold buttons to their collars- and knickerbockers ; the women, embroidered stomachers, which are handed down for generations, and enormous white caps,. lined with brown, to show off the lace, and their own hair flowing over their shoulders and backs. Zwolle, a charming old town, and the birthplace of Terburg, allures the traveller with its excellent hotel. Thence, if it please him to pass through Friesland, "the cow paradise," he will reach its ancient capital, Leeuwarden, saddest and gloomiest of the towns of Holland, where the women console themselves by wearing golden helmets, said to be worth £25 or £30 each :—

"As late as the sixteenth century this province was for the most part uninhabited—savage and sandy, and overrun by wolves. But three hundred years of hard work has transformed it into a fertile country, watered by canals, and sprinkled with country houses. Agriculturally it is one of the richest provinces of the kingdom. This is mostly due to its possessing a race of peasant-farmers who never shrink from personal hard work, and who will continue to direct the plough whilst they send their sons to the university to study as lawyers, doctors, or churchmen. These peasant-farmers or boere possess the beklemregt, or right of hiring land on an annual rent, which the landlord can never increase. A peasant can bequeath his right to his heirs, whether direct or collateral. To the land, this system is an indescribable advantage, the cultivators doing their utmost to bring their lands to perfection, because they are certain that no one can take away the advantage from themselves or their descendants."

En route for Denmark Mr. Hare observes that there is probably no pleasure more economical than a summer in Scandinavia, and there is assuredly no pleasure more in.

vigorating. It is better to reach Copenhagen, however, through a stormy sea, with the wild white horses foaming and fretting, than by the unutterably hideous country of Sleswig and of Fnnen, with its dismal peat-mosses, where in early times it was a frequent punishment to bury criminals alive. The air of the capital is indescribably elastic, the atmosphere as clear as that of a tramontana day in an Italian winter. The beech-woods in the neighbourhood are a great attraction, for beech is the principal native tree of the country, and "it is curious that, though the neighbouring Sweden and Norway are so covered with pines, no conifer will grow in Denmark except under most careful cultivation." There is not much to detain us in Mr. Hare's account of Denmark, which we are reminded is, with the exception of England and Belgium, the greatest corn-growing country in Europe, unless we linger for a moment before the Castle of Frederiksborg, which rises from the depths of its beech-woods on three islands, surrounded by a large lake. "It is a dream of architectural beauty to which the great expanse of transparent waters and the deep verdure of the

surrounding woods add a mysterious charm." It was in the courtyard of this castle that Christian TV. slew with his own

hand the Master of the Mint. "He tried to cheat us, but we have cheated him, for we have chopped his head off," said the King.

You can cross in ten minutes from Denmark to Sweden, a pretty, rather than a beautiful country, and compared by the English traveller to an exaggerated Surrey. A long railway journey by day and night through endless forests carries you from Helsingborg to Stockholm, an ugly town in an exquisite situation, with a thousand interesting points of attraction.

Steamers, too, take the traveller everywhere, and no one should omit the expedition to Gripsholm, the Windsor of Sweden, in taking which a summer day may be spent happily indeed.

Arrived in Norway, Mr. Hare finds Christiania a very dull place, and the environs wonderfully pretty. Thence he makes excursions to forests and waterfalls, taking a superficial glance at some characteristics of a land the glories of which are exhaustless. It was agreeable to the temper and pocket to travel 360 miles in great comfort for thirty francs, and interest- ing at the end of the journey to reach Throndtjem, the most northern railway station and the most northern cathedral in Europe

"Barely the cradle of Scandinavian Christianity is one of the most beautiful places in the world ! No one had ever told us about it, and

we went there only because it is the old Throndtjem of sagas and ballads, and expecting a wonderful and beautiful cathedral. But the whole place is a dream of loveliness, so exquisite in the soft silvery morning light on the fyord and delicate mountain ranges, the rich nearer hills covered with bilberries and breaking into steep cliffs— that one remains in a state of transport, which is at a climax while all is engraven upon an opal sunset sky, when an amethystine glow spreads over the mountains, and when ships and haildings meet their double in the still, transparent water. Each wide street of carious low wooden houses displays a new vista of sea, of rocky promontories, of woods dipping into the water ; and at the end of the principal streets is the grey massive cathedral where S. Olaf is buried, and where northern art and poetry have exhausted their loveliest and most pathetic fancies around the grave of the national hero. The Cathedral Garden,' for so the graveyard is called, is most touching. Acres upon acres of graves are all kept—not by officials, but by the families they belong to—like gardens. The tombs are embowered in roses and honeysuckle, and each little green mound has its own vase for cut flowers daily replenished, and a seat for the survivors, which is daily occupied, so that the link between the dead and the living is never broken."

Superficial as these sketches are, for Mr. Hare was but a bird of passage through the countries he describes, they are charm- ing enough in style and colour to attract the most stay-at- home reader, and the woodcuts interspersed with the letterpress add not a little to the value of the book.