Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature

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Chapter XXXVII Holland's Decline in the Eighteenth Century. Fielding, Smollett, Goldsmith, Southey and Henry Taylor

Like Greece, like Palestine, like Rome and like every nation that has contributed to the development of the world's history, Holland had its rise, its glory and its decline. The rise of the Netherlands goes as far back as the origin of the Flemish cities, and the development of democracy which began with the crusades. The glorious period is for the Southern Netherlands that from 1300 until the last half of the sixteenth century when the Spanish armies began their devastation, and for the Northern provinces, the present Netherlands, from the eighty-years war, until, after the period of William III, the stadholder of Holland and the King of England. During the eighteenth century we see the decline, and with the French revolution, the downfall, of the great Republic. It seems to be a fact with every leading nation in the world's history, that each nation has a certain time of overabundant energy, a triumphant spirit of enthusiasm that brings it to the highest development of human society in its epoch, but that after this period of nearly super-human endeavor, there comes a period of apparent exhaustion, of inertia, like that of old age in human life and it has never happened in history that any one of those nations, in which the energy of the human race has for a certain period attained its high-

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est expression, has in a later period and for a second time regained that leadership. Holland in the eighteenth century was in her time of decline, approaching to her downfall, with a future certainty of some revival in the nineteenth century but never destined to regain the leading position which it had held for centuries up to the death of that greatest of all the Princes of Orange, William III, King of England. On the contrary England in the eighteenth century was growing very fast. The eighteenth century marks for England the accession of the British empire to world power; it is the age of Samuel Johnson, the age of Sir Joshua Reynolds of Hogarth and of Gainsborough, ending in triumphs even over the short but desperate empire of Napoleon. The Nelson-monument on Trafalgar Square in the center of London indicates the very place where for the time being the centre of the world's trade and industry was to be found. Greece was once the leader of the world in art and literature, but the great task of Greece once having been performed the time of Pericles never will come back; the Roman empire of ‘divus Augustus,’ that gave to the world its system of civil law, passed away, never to return; the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, which christianized and educated Western Europe, and left an everlasting blessing, is only an event in the history of many centuries ago; the French empire of ‘le Roy Soleil’is no more, its vanity only being reflected in the ever-changing fashion of to day; Holland spent its best blood and its greatest energy in securing freedom and toleration for the civilized world, but after having performed this grand task, it may hold a respectable position among the nations of Europe, but the time of its glory, the time of William the Silent and Maurice, of Frederick Henry and Will-

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iam III, of Rembrandt and Vondel, of Tromp and De Ruyter, will never come back; England at the height of its world empire and Germany as its rival may continue for a while, but old Europe as a whole, devouring itself by the most horrible war in history, sees already coming the time, if it has not come yet, in which America will lead the world; the overwhelming energy of the New World, the American spirit of today, absorbing elements from all the nations of the earth, reuniting the human race in her national life after a dissecting process of many centuries in the old world, presents today an incomparable aspect of leadership, such as only our modern development has been able to produce. Such is the unchangeable logic of history, and as sure as the sun rises in the East and walks through heaven until she sets in the West, so sure is the course of the World's history from its beginning in the Eastern empires of Babylon and Egypt, taking its course through the European continent from Greece to the British Isles, until its light is seen on Manhattan and Plymouth Rock, and its full glory comes over a tremendous new continent, brightening the valleys of the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains and developing a world-empire between the Atlantic and the Pacific; an empire not of fighting monarchs always greedy to conquer by brute force, but an empire of the most advanced civilization which the world has ever seen.

Such being the case, we cannot be surprised by the fact that since the beginning of the eighteenth century, England exerted more influence on Holland than Holland on England, and more especially that the latter influence has been very limited indeed.

Of course the spirit of decline was not felt in equal proportion in every department of national life.

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There was no longer in Holland any more, any such fighting and dominating, triumphant spirit either in the army or in the navy; great generals and admirals were lacking; most Dutch families, grown wealthy by trade and industry were now resting on their victories in beautiful houses along the canals of Amsterdam and along the rivers in the country. But the universities (especially that of Leyden), with their beautiful libraries and laboratories maintained pretty well their old fame, and remained among the best centers of learning and scholarship in the world. So it happened that even during the eighteenth century hundreds of English and specially of Scotch students, came to Leyden to follow for some years special courses at the University. Amongst these English students at the University of Leyden we find at least two men who became prominent in English literature. Henry Fielding and Oliver Goldsmith, and at least two others, Smollett and Southey, who show in their works impressions obtained directly from Holland. Henry Fielding (1707-1754), one of England's first novelists, well known for his Tom Jones, ‘the boisterous, easy-going, masculine Henry Fielding,’ th1e greatest contrast with the ‘sentimentalist, water-drinker and vegetarian Richardson,’ the satirist in literature, as Hogarth was in art, after having studied at Eton College, was sent to the University of Leyden to finish his education. ‘When most of his companions,’ says his biographer Leslie Stephen in the first volume of his works, ‘went to Oxford or Cambridge, Fielding for some reason was sent to Leyden. He lost no time, we are assured, in placing himself under the celebrated Vitriarius, then professor of civil law, and was assiduous in attending lectures and taking notes. The selection of Leyden seems rather curious, as one

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would fancy that the celebrated Vitriarius had little authority in Westminster.’ When writing this, Mr. Stephen probably did not know much about Vitriarius and the condition of law studies at that time. In those days it was the study of the natural law, ‘jus naturae,’ which was considered as the highest and most promising part of the study of law. Whoever wished to be a good scholar in the field of law, had to study the ‘jus naturae.’ And it was just that study, which professor Vitriarius had made a specialty of. When, in the year 1720, Vitriarius, who was at that time professor at Utrecht, accepted the call from Leyden, he opened his courses with an oration ‘de Juris naturae necessitate et utilitate,’ a very vital question in the study of law during the eighteenth century, and it looks very doubtful whether a man like Vitriarius, who was so well up to date for his time, enjoyed little authority in Westminster Hall.’ That Mr. Stephen gives not a single reason for his statement is therefore no surprise.

‘Scotch students of law frequently resorted to Leyden, for example the immortal Boswell, a generation later; and medical students, like Goldsmith and Akenside might go there to attend lectures, or to obtain a degree.’ John Wilkes, too, was sent to Leyden some twenty years afterwards, because his parents were dissenters, and wished to protect him (as they certainly did) from the contamination of English orthodoxy. In Fielding's case, it seems probable that pecuniary considerations were already coming into play; and it appears that as funds became scarce, he speedily returned to London with that famous allowance of 200 pounds a year, which ‘anybody might pay who would.’ About the only reference to his Dutch experiences which I have noticed an Fielding's works

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is a comparison in the Journey from this World to the Next. An offensive smell as he approaches the city of diseases, ‘very much resembled the savour which travellers in summer perceive as they approach to that beautiful village of the Hague, arising from those delicious canals, which, as they consist of standing water, do at that time emit odours greatly agreeable to a Dutch taste,¹ but not so pleasant to any other. Those perfumes, with the assistance of a fair wind, begin to affect persons of quick olfactory nerves at a league's distance, and increase gradually as you approach.’ The comparison may possibly recall Dante, but it does not throw much light upon Fielding's academical career. He refers also, in the essay on the Increase of Robbers, to the rarity and solemnity of capital punishment in Holland.² Fielding studied at Leyden during the years 1726-1728. That all these English students at the University of Leyden, as a rule, profited more from their life among the Dutch people, in the circles of the University, than from the courses of the professors, given either in Dutch or in Latin, can surprise nobody. For students with literary abilities like Fielding, Goldsmith, Boswell, Smollett and others, nothing could be more educative than to observe the customs and habits of a foreign people, in their greater and smaller towns, in the peculiarities of their homes, their dresses, their morals, their religion, their art, and the way they made a living. It made them heed the differences in many respects from what they saw at home; it opened their eyes to the peculiarity of all common things in life, because they learned that all these things could be different and in reality were different among other

1 Here speaks apparently the silly scorn of that innocent pride by which so many an English patriot has brought himself to ridicule.

2 Stephens, Biography of Fielding, Vol. I, p. VII and VIII.

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nations, and it revealed to them the interest of describing the minutest details of life in their novels and poems, in their plays and narratives.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), who studied at Leyden during the years 1754 and 1755, shows the same experience. Hardly anything in his works reminds us of his following the courses of the professors, and on the contrary with keen observation he looks at thousands of things, which he saw everywhere around him, and which made him make an antithesis between what he saw at home, and what he saw among the Dutch people. In a letter to his uncle, Contarine, written from Leyden, ‘he touches humorously on the contrast between the Dutch about him and the Scotch he has just left; describes the phlegmatic pleasures of the country, the ice-boats, and the delights of canal travelling.’ ‘They sail in covered boats drawn by horses,’ he says; ‘and in these you are sure to meet people of all nations.’ There the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, and the English play at cards. Any man who likes company may have it to his taste. ‘For my part, I generally detached myself from all society, and was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country. Nothing can equal its beauty; wherever I turn my eye, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas presented themselves; but when you enter their towns you are charmed beyond description. No misery is to be seen here; every one is usefully employed.’¹ After these quotations Mr. Dobson makes the just remark - Already, it is plain, he was insensibly storing up material for the subsequent ‘Traveller,’² and we may add - He was training himself in seeing things, while he could not help seeing them, because they

1 Austin Dobson, Life of Oliver Goldsmith, p. 35 and 36.

2 Idem., p. 35.

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were so different from what his eyes were accustomed to see and so, as he saw things, he created the possibility of describing them. On the contrary, so far as his life in the University is concerned, his biographer says - ‘Little is known in the way of fact, as to his residence at Leyden. Gaubius, the professor in chemistry, is indeed mentioned in one of his works; but it would be too much to conclude an intimacy from a chance reference. From the account of a fellowcountryman, Dr. Ellis, then a student like himself, he was, as always, frequently pressed for money, often supporting himself by teaching his native language, and then, in the hope of recruiting his finances, resorting to the gambling-table. On one occasion, according to this informant, he had a successful run, but, disregarding the advice of his friend to hold his hand, he lost his gains almost immediately. By and by the old restless longing to see foreign countries, probably dating from the days when he was a pupil under Thomas Byrne, came back with redoubled force. The recent death of the Danish savant and playwright, Baren de Holberg, who in his youth had made the tour of Europe on foot, probably suggested the way; and equipped with a small loan from Dr. Ellis he determined to leave Leyden. Unhappily, in passing a florist's, he saw some rare bulbs, which he straightway transmitted to his Uncle Contarine. His immediate resources being thus disposed of, he quitted Leyden in February, 1755, with only one clean shirt and no money in his pocket.’¹

What Goldsmith later in his poem The Traveller wrote about Holland is this:

To men of other minds² my fancy flies,
Embosomed in the deep, where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand

1 Dobson, Life of Oliver Goldsmith, p. 36.

2 He turns from France to Holland.

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Where the broad ocean leans against the land

 

And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,

 

Lift the tall rampire,¹ artificial pride

 

Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,

 

The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,

 

Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,

 

Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore;

 

While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,

 

Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;

 

The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,

 

The willow-tufted bank, the gliding plain

 

A new creation rescued from his reign.

 

 

 

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil

 

Impels the native to repeated toil,

 

Industrious habits in each bosom reign,

 

And industry begets the love of gain.

 

Hence all the good from opulence that springs,

 

With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,

 

Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts

 

Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;

 

But view them closer, craft and fraud appear;

 

Even liberty itseif is bartered here:

 

At gold's superior charms all freedom flies.

 

The needy sell it and the rich man buys.

 

A land of tyrants and a den of slaves,

 

Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,

 

And, calmly bent, to servitude conform,

 

Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.

 

 

 

Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old!

 

Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold,

 

War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;

 

How much unlike the sons of Britian now!

These verses show clearly the master mind of Goldsmith in keen observation. His eyes were open for the glory of the Dutch Republic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and his admiration is unrestricted. But at the same time he saw the decline of

1 ‘Rampire, the wall of a dyke or canal.’ - Ed. of Goldsmith's works.

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Holland, and how England was now what the Netherlands were before. No historian could describe it better than we see it reflected in the mirror of the poet's mind, and expressed in these inspired lines. In reading them, we feel a contact with the author of The Deserted Village, and The Vicar of Wakefield. How different are the impressions which another English author of the same period, viz., Smollett, wrote down from a trip through the Netherlands in the eighteenth century! Tobias George Smollett (1720-1771) is considered to be one of the four great English novelists of the mid-eighteenth century, the other three being Richardson, Fielding and Sterne. In one of his best novels, Peregrine Pickle, considered by his biographers to be, for a great part, autobiography, his hero makes a trip through the Netherlands. As Peregrine Pickle was published in 1751, and Smollett was travelling in France during the year before, it is very probable that he came back from France through Belgium and Holland. In that case, he stayed in Holland only for a very short time, and while writing his novel his impressions must have been lively and written down during, or immediately after the trip. And this is just what we find in Peregrine Pickle's trip through Holland. He comes from France, travels through Belgium, and in Chapters 64 and 65 he describes how he arrived at Rotterdam, went from that place to the Hague, Amsterdam and Leyden and returned to Rotterdam, whence he went back to England. This description is remarkable in more than one respect; remarkable for what he sees in Holland, and still more remarkable for what he passes by without ever noticing; remarkable for the kind of people that he comes in contact with, and the places of entertainment he chooses during his short visit. To begin with, in

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Rotterdam he puts up, not in a real Dutch hotel but ‘in an English house of entertainment,’ the company which he is introduced to consists in the main of Englishmen ‘to the number of twenty or thirty, Englishmen of all ranks and degrees, from the merchant to the perriwigmaker's prentice.’ From Rotterdam he goes to the Hague ‘in the Treckskuyt.’ The very evening of the day of his arrival, if we believe him, he went to the reception of the Prince and Princess ‘without any introduction.’ Next day he saw the Foundery, the Stadhouse, the Spinhuys, Vauxhall and Count Bentinck's gardens, but tells nothing about all these except the names, and the fact that he saw them. On the contrary, when in the evening he goes to what he calls ‘the French comedy,’ he tells us about some dirty and silly pieces, which were represented, and which show the character of the place he went to, and his refined taste in telling all about it in shameless realistic style. From the Hague to Amsterdam he goes in a post-waggon, with an introduction to an English merchant. The theatre and the night-houses are the things he goes there to see. About the latter he tells us that they were called ‘Spuyl, or music-houses, which, by the connivance of the magistrates, are maintained for the recreation of those who might attempt the chastity of creditable women if they were not provided with such conveniences. To one of those night-houses did our traveller repair under the conduct of the English merchant.’ There he ‘made up to a sprightly French girl who sat in seeming expectation of a customer,’ and danced with her to the music of ‘a scurvy organ’ until a sailor came in to put up a fight with him about the girl, hardly escaping the chance of being killed. From Amsterdam to Haerlem he goes again with the

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‘skuyt.’ At Haerlem he only takes dinner and then departs for Leyden, ‘where they met with some English students who treated them with great hospitality.’ All he tells about that hospitality is that his friend had a heavy dispute. ‘After they had visited the Physic Garden, the University, the Anatomic Hall and every other thing that was recommended to their view, they returned to Rotterdam and held a consultation upon the method of transporting themselves to England.’ As far as Leyden is concerned, he speaks not another word about anything except the dispute in the circle of his own friends. When I read these experiences on a trip through Holland of Peregrine Pickle, alias Tobias Smollett, it reminds me of a little joke I had one time with one of my English friends in the Primrose Club at London. Sitting around a comfortable English fireplace, and talking about Holland, one of my younger friends, trying to tease me, said to me, ‘Do you really wear wooden shoes when you live in Holland?’ I said, ‘Why, don't you know what the Dutch people make those wooden shoes for?’ He said, ‘No, I don't.’ ‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘they make those wooden shoes for all the young Englishmen of good standing who visit Holland, and do nothing there but just walk in the mud.’ Smollett certainly was one of them, according to his own narrative. Last summer, being in Brussels for a few days, just before the war started, I observed unwillingly a couple of the same kind of young English gentlemen. I had been looking through picture galleries, and through a large bookstore of antique and modern books for a whole day. A young, clever and well-educated antiquarian had been kind enough to accompany me, and help me to buy some things I liked, and consequently I invited him for dinner to my hotel. After

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dinner we were sitting in front of the Grand Hotel, smoking our cigars and drinking our demi-tasse. Our conversation was in French, simply because my friend spoke neither Dutch nor English. After a while two young Englishmen, well-dressed, took seats just in back of us, and hearing some of our French talk, they apparently concluded that nobody understood their English, and began to talk very frankly to each other about their experiences of the night before. ‘If I had thought,’ said one of them, ‘that you cared so much for that girl, I might just as well have taken the other one.’ ‘Why,’ said the other one, ‘let us forget all about it; this is a pleasure trip, let us have another drink.’ Just in the style of Smollett! They, too, needed some wooden shoes. And yet, this muddy realistic style of Smollett has been able to start a whole school of realistic novels, and in our own time some of the most famous novelists go much deeper even through the mud than Smollett did. There must be some attractive side, some idealism in the very realistic style, and there is - there is a kind of straightness, a heroism, a defiance of all hypocrisy, heroic especially when carried through with a brazen face and without any shame whatever. Not to be a hypocrite, to love the truth, to stand like a man, knowing and willing what he is doing, whatever it may be, this has some charming attraction, and finds always a beautiful black background in the despicable hypocrisy to be found to some degree everywhere. It takes the form of a war against a world of lies, in an endeavor to be truthful and straight. But its weak side is apparent. Smollett shows it in describing his trip through Holland. He sees nothing but mud, he walks always in it, his eyes are hardly for a moment on anything else. Compared with a vile hireling of pub-

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lic opinion like Dryden, Smollett is a man, a character, confessing that he is walking in the mud and standing for it without shame or repentance, and with a stubborn heroic smile, a forerunner of Dickens and even of Byron, although this sublime name might be abused in this connection. But the result, at least in this case, for Smollett and for what we might expect from a description of a journey through the Netherlands, is very poor indeed. How different from what Goldsmith in his short poem gives! How different also from the impressions which Southey got during his visit in Holland!

Robert Southey (1774-1843), well known as a poet, and famous for his Life of Nelson and his Life of Wesley, spent several weeks in the Netherlands during the year 1825, and he gives his impressions from that trip in several of his letters written from Holland.¹ To Henry Taylor he wrote on March 28, 1825: ‘I want to see Holland, which is a place of man's making, country as well as towns. I want monastic books, which it is hopeless to look for in England, and which there is every probability of finding at Brussels, Antwerp, or Leyden. In the course of three or four weeks, going sometimes by trekschuits and sometimes upon wheels, we might see the principal places of the Dutch Netherlands, visit the spot where Sir Philip Sidney fell, talk of the Dousas and Scaliger at Leyden, and obtain such a general notion of the land as would enable us better to understand the history of the Low Country wars.’

On May 2, 1825, he wrote to the same man: ‘You do not expect enough from Holland. It is a marvellous country in itself, in its history, and in the

1 John Dennis, Robert Southey - The story of his life written in his letters. London and New York, 1894, p. 326, v.v.

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men and works which it has produced. The very existence of the country is at once a natural and a moral phenomenon. Mounteneer as I am, I expect to feel more in Holland than in Switzerland. Instead of climbing mountains, we shall have to ascend church-towers. The panorama from that at Harlem is said to be one of the most impressive in the world. Evening is the time for seeing it to the most advantage.

‘I have not yet forgotten the interest which Watson's Histories of Philip II and III excited in me when a school-boy. They are books which I have never looked in since; but I have read largely concerning the Dutch war against the Spanjards, on both sides, and there is no part of Europe which could be so interesting to me as historical ground. Perhaps my persuits may have made me more alive than most men to associations of this kind; but I would go far to see the scene of any event which has made my heart throb with a generous emotion, or the grave of any one whom I desire to meet in another state of existence.’

‘To Holland,’ says Dennis, ‘Southey went accordingly, and at Leyden he was laid up with a bad foot and for three weeks was hospitably entertained by the poet Bilderdÿk and his poet wife, who, as we have seen, had translated Roderick.’¹ William Bilderdÿk (1756-1831) was one of the greatest poets, scholars, historians, Holland ever produced; the four greatest men in Dutch literature are Jacob van Maerland (1235-1295), Joost van den Vondel (1587-1678), Jacob Cats (1577-1660), and Willem Bilderdÿk. During the French Revolution, Bilderdÿk was banished from his own country, and lived for some time

1 Dennis, Robert Southey, p. 328.

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in England, where he got acquainted with Southey. Nowhere could Southey have found a man better acquainted with Holland and its history, and in the letters of Southey one can feel on almost every page the influence of Bilderdÿk. The most popular edition of Bilderdÿk's poetical works is that in fifteen volumes, with an addition of three volumes of verses written by Mrs. Bilderdÿk. Besides that, he wrote a History of the Netherlands, published after his death, in thirteen volumes.

Being at Leyden with Mr. and Mrs. Bilderdÿk, Southey wrote to his wife on June 30, 1825: ‘You will now expect to hear something of the establishment into which I have been thus - unluckily shall I say, or luckily? - introduced. The house is a good one, in a cheerful street, with a row of trees and a canal in front - large, and with everything good and comfortable about it. The only child, Lodewÿk Willem, is at home, Mr. Bilderdÿk being as little fond of schools as I am. The boy has a peculiar and to me an interesting countenance. He is evidently of a weak constitution; his dress neat but formal, and his behaviour towards me amusing from his extreme politeness, and the evident pleasure with which he receives any attempt on my part to address him, or any notice that I take of him at table. A young vrouw waits at table. I wish you could see her, for she is a much odder figure than Maria Rosa (‘a Portuguese servant,’ says Dennis) appeared on her first introduction, only not so cheerful a one. Her dress is black and white, perfectly neat and not more graceful than a Beguine's. The cap, which is very little, and has a small front not projecting farther than the green shade which I wear sometimes for my eyes, comes down to the roots of her hair, which is

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all combed back on the forehead; and she is as white and wan in complexion as her cap; slender and not ill-made; and were it not for this utter paleness, she would be rather handsome. Another vrouw, who appears more rarely, is not in such plain dress, but is quite as odd in her way. Nothing can be more amusing than Mr. Bilderdÿk's conversation. Dr. Bell is not more full of life, spirits and enthusiasm; I am reminded of him every minute. He seems delighted to have a guest who can understand, and will listen to him; and he is not a little pleased at discerning how many points of resemblance there are between us. For he is as laborious as I have been; has written upon as many subjects; is just as much abused by the Liberals in his country as I am in mine, and does contempt them as heartily and as merrily as I do. I am growing intimate with Mrs. Bilderdÿk, about whom her husband, in the overflowing of his spirits, tells me everything. He is very fond of her, and very proud of her, as well he may be, and on her part she is as proud of him.’

Again Southey writes to his wife from Leyden, July 7, 1825: ‘This is our manner of life: At eight in the morning Lodewÿck knocks at my door. My movements in dressing are as regular as clock work, and when I enter the adjoining room breakfast is ready on a sofa-table, which is placed for my convenience close to the sofa. There I take my place, seated on one cushion, and with my leg raised on another. The sofa is covered with black plush. The family take coffee, but I have a jug of boiled milk. Two sorts of cheese are on the table, one of which is very strong, and highly flavored with cummin and cloves; this is called Leyden cheese, and is eaten at breakfast laid in thin slices on bread and butter. The

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bread is soft, in rolls, which have rather skin than crust; the butter very rich, but so soft that it is brought in a pot to table, like potted meat. Before we begin Mr. B. takes off a little gray cap, and a silent grace is said, not longer than it ought to be; when it is over, he generally takes his wife's hand. They sit side by side opposite me; Lodewÿck at the end of the table. About ten o'clock Mr. Dousa comes and dresses my foot, which is swathed in one of my silk handkerchiefs. I bind a second round the bottom of the pantalon, and if the weather be cold, I put on a third; so that the leg has not merely a decent but rather a splendid appearance. After breakfast and tea, Mrs. B. washes up the china herself at the table. Part of the morning Mr. B. sits with me. During the rest I read Dutch, or, as at present, retire into my bedroom and write. Henry Taylor calls in the morning, and is always pressed to dine, which he does twice or thrice in the week. We dine at half past two or three, and the dinners, to my great pleasure, are altogether Dutch. You know I am a valiant eater, and having retained my appetite as well as my spirits during this confinement, I eat everything which is put before me. The dinner lasts very long - strawberries and cherries always follow. After coffee, they leave me to an hour's nap. Tea follows. Supper at half past nine, when Mr. B. takes milk, and I a little cold meat with pickles, or the gravy of the meat preserved in a form like jelly, and at half past ten I go to bed. My host's conversation is amusing beyond anything I ever heard. I cannot hope to describe it so as to make you conceive it. The matter is always so interesting, that it would alone suffice to keep one's attention on the alert; his manner is beyond expression animated, and his language the most extraordinary

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that can be imagined. Even my French cannot be half so odd. It is English pronounced like Dutch and with such a mixture of other languages, that it is an even chance whether the next word that comes be French, Latin or Dutch, or one of either tongues shaped into an English form. Sometimes the oddest imaginable expressions occur. When he would say: ‘I was pleased,’ he says: ‘I was very pleasant;’ and instead of saying that a poor woman was wounded, with whom he was overturned in a stage-coach in England, he said she was severely blessed. Withal, whatever he says is so full of information, vivacity, and character, and there is such a thorough good nature, kindness and frankness about him, that I never felt myself more interested in any man's company. The profits of literature here are miserably small. In that respect I am in relation to them what Sir Walter Scott is in relation to me. I can never sufficiently show my sense of the kindness which I am experiencing here. Think what a difference it is to be confined in a hotel, with all the discomforts, or to be in such a family as this, who show by every word and every action that they are truly pleased in having me under their roof.’

On the 16th of July, Southey wrote from Amsterdam a letter to his daughter, Miss Katherine Southey, at his home at Keswick, in which he says:

‘Thursday I settled my business as to booksellers - Oh, joy! when that chest of glorious folios shall arrive at Keswick - the pleasure of unpacking, of arranging them on the new shelves that must be provided, and the whole year's repast after supper which they will afford!’

‘Yesterday our kind friends (Mr. and Mrs. Bilderdÿk) accompanied us a little way in the trekschuit

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on our departure, and we parted with much regret on both sides. If Mr. Bilderdÿk can muster spirits for the undertaking, they will come and pass a summer with me, - which of all things in the world would give me most pleasure, for never did I meet with more true kindness than they have shown me, or with two persons who have in so many essential respects so entirely pleased me. Lodewÿk, too, is a very engaging boy, and attached himself greatly to me; he is the only survivor of eight children, whom Mr. Bilderdÿk has had by his present wife, and of seven by the first! I can truly say that, unpleasant as the circumstance was which brought me under their roof, no part of my life ever seemed to pass away more rapidly or more pleasantly.’

So far I quote from the letters of Southey.

I suppose these quotations to be sufficient to prove how much Southey was under the influence of Bilderdÿk. And that meant something, as everybody who knows Bilderdÿk can easily understand. Bilderdÿk was the greatest Dutch scholar, poet and historian of his time, and Southey was not the only man, indeed, that came under the irresistible charm of his intimate friendship, and unmatched conversation. A considerable circle of the very highest class of students in the University of Leyden, and among them Groen van Prinsterer, who was destined to be the archivist of the House of Orange, and the greatest historian Holland ever had, and who became the leader of the old Orange-party, which revived under his leadership, flocked to the hospitable home of Bilderdÿk for years to listen to his private lectures on Dutch history, and to enjoy his conversation. Southey uses strong language when he says that ‘nothing can be more amusing than Bilderdÿk's conversation,’ that

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‘his conversation is amusing beyond anything I ever heard,’ and ‘I never felt myself more interested in any man's company,’ but we are not surprised at it at all. Southey was not the Only one who spoke that way about Bilderdÿk. Southey's sympathy for the Dutch poet, Jacob Cats (1577-1660), an author much beloved by Bilderdÿk, is without question due to Bilderdÿk. On February 18, 1825, Southey in a letter to Grosvenor Belford says: ‘Do you remember my buying a Dutch grammar in the “cool May” of 1799, and how we were amused at Brinton with the Dutch grammarian who pities himself and loved his good and rich brother? That grammar¹ is in use now; and Cuthbert and I have begun upon Jacob Cats; who in spite of his name, and of the ill-looking and not-much-better-sounding language in which he wrote, I verily believe to have been the most useful poet that any country ever produced. In Bilderdÿk's youth, Jacob Cats was to be found in every respectable house throughout Holland, lying beside the hall Bible. One of his longer poems, which describes the course of female life, and female duties, from childhood to the grave, was in such estimation, that an ornamented edition of it was printed solely for bridal presents. He is, in the best sense of the word, a domestic poet; intelligible to the humblest of his readers, while the dexterity and felicity of his diction make him the admiration of those who are but able to appreciate the merits of his style. And for useful practical morals, maxims for every-day life, lessons that find their way through the understanding to the heart, and fix themselves there, I know of no poet who can be compared to him. Mi Cats inter omnes. Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii!’

1 As early as the year 1700 there were written Dutch grammars in English, for instance one by Sewel, a copy of which is in my library.

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To these words of Southey we may add that Jacob Cats was not at all unknown in England; Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous English painter, in his early youth was delighted in looking at the beautiful engravings in the works of ‘Father Cats’ which may have been the first inspiration for the great artist to devote his life to painting.

But there was still another Englishman of good literary ability, who came largely under the influence of Holland, who lived at Leyden with Southey and even came in close contact with Bilderdÿk. It was Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886), the author of ‘Philip van Artevelde,’ for many years an officer of the English government in the Colonial Department, a friend of Wordsworth and Southey, to whose circle in literature he belongs. In 1823 he made the acquaintance of Southey, which soon afterwards ripened into a warm friendship, and in the year 1825 we find the two friends together in the Netherlands, more especially at Leyden and at the home of Willem Bilderdÿk. Southey, in his letter of July 7, 1825, written at Mr. Bilderdÿk's home, to Mrs. Southey, says: ‘Henry Taylor calls in the morning, and is always pressed to dine, which he does twice or thrice a week.’ During the next year, 1826, ‘Southey paid another short visit to Holland, accompanied by his friends, Henry Taylor and Mr. Rickman.’¹

Probably from Bilderdÿk, and through Bilderdÿk from Southey, he got the inspiration for Dutch history, and more especially for his great theme of Philip van Artevelde, as Bilderdÿk was the greatest Dutch historian of his time, and a man of great attraction in his conversation, as we learn from Southey's letters, quoted above. Six years, from

1 Dennis. Robert Southey, p. 341.

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1828-1834, Henry Taylor is said to have spent in preparing his great play, in two parts, of Philip van Artevelde. Taylor wrote four more plays, Commenus, Edwin the Fair, A Sicilian Summer, and St. Clement's Eve, but it is the two-fold play of Philip van Artevelde that gave Taylor a permanent place in English literature. It certainly was a great theme, that attracted Taylor the more because he saw in the life of his hero the ideas and feelings, and last, not least, the intimate experiences of his own life. The names of Jacob van Artevelde, who was murdered in 1345, and that of his son Philip, who was killed in battle in 1382, stand for a whole epoch in the history and development of Democracy, and are for their own time the representatives of the same great movement in history, at the head of which we find a William the Silent in the Netherlands, a Johannes Althusius at Embden in East-Triesland, a Wycliff and a Cromwell in England, a George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in America. A great movement, in its character social as well as religious and political, a gigantic struggle of the masses of the people against feudalism and aristocracy, in church, in state, and in society; a movement for equality of opportunity, beginning with the crusades, in which many of the nobles were killed, and the free men of the villages (villanei, or villains) got an opportunity to leave their poor homes around the castles of the nobles, to find refuge in the rapidly rising cities; growing more and more strong in the cities, and the leagues of the cities in Flanders and in the Hansa; developing still more under the inspiring religious revival of the Reformation, when the Northern Netherlands got the leadership; leading the way in England to the Commonwealth of Cromwell, until at last it found its final

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triumph in the great American Democracy of Washington and Lincoln. This great movement of Democracy had its headquarters during the fourteenth century in the cities of Flanders, Ghent, Bruges, Ypres and in other cities of the Southern Netherlands, and it is during that period that we find the names of the Van Arteveldes written in large characters on the pages of the World's History. It was in the first part of the hundred years' war between England and France (1337-1454). Both the king of France and the king of England tried to get the powerful alliance of Flanders. The count of Flanders was the vassal of the king of France, and chose in the main the side of that country, but the cities of Flanders, suffering under the feudal tyranny of the count and his nobles, found in Edward III (1327-1377), king of England, their ally, for the double reason that they got the wool for their looms from England, in which country they found a great market for their trade, and that they were fighting for their liberties against the Count and his suzerain, the king of France. It was the organizing power of Jacob van Artevelde, who first united the guilds of his city Ghent, then brought about a union of the cities of Flanders, and finally made that famous alliance in the name of nearly all Flanders with Edward the Third in the year 1339, an alliance which soon afterwards was joined by the Count of Holland. It was the first great accomplishment of Democracy in modern times. Battles were fought, victories gained, and Artevelde himself after a few years was murdered in 1345 but his great work is a milestone in the history of Democracy forever.

Forty years later, his son, Philip van Artevelde, appears in the midst of the continuous struggle on the stage of the world's history. Born about the year

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1340, Philip was only a boy of five years when his father was murdered, and although little is known about it, it seems that the intimate friendship of King Edward III gave a safe refuge to the rest of the family in England for some time. Probably in England Philip came under the influence of the Lollards, as the followers of John Wicliff were called, at least he is said to have lived for a long time the ascetic life of the Lollards;¹ until the time came in 1380 that the Democracy in Flanders, in a time of utmost distress, looked for another energetic leader in its struggle against the Count and his nobility. With Philip van Artevelde as their leader, the city of Ghent rose to arms, and in a few days stormed the residence of the Count, the city of Bruges, at the same time the centre of the nobles. The Count Louis de Male hardly escaped with his life, and a great number of the nobles and aristocrats were slain in a furious battle. The Count fled to France to ask for help from the King of that country, and Artevelde, in the footsteps of his father, tried to make an alliance with England. This catastrophe in Flanders was felt through all western Europe, and at the same time we find the uprisings of democracy in the ‘Jacquerie’ at Paris, at Amiens, at Rouen and other places in France, as well as the Wat Tyler insurrection in England.² But while the French King came to the rescue of his Count, the English King stayed behind, and in 1382 Van Artevelde and his citizens were defeated in the terrible battle of Roozebeke, in which 26,000 Flamings were killed, and the corpse of Van Artevelde remained upon the battlefield.

1 H. Pirenne, Histoire de Belguique, II, p. 208.

2 ‘Les Gantois fomentèrent les insurrections françaises de Ferrier-Mars 1382’ and ‘ceux de Gant étaient allés de ceux de Rouen.’ Pirenne, p. 211.

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This is the short, heroic and tragic story of the leadership of Philip van Artevelde, which inspired Henry Taylor, and which he worked out in detail, interwoven with a characteristic love story, in his tragedy in two parts called Philip van Artevelde.

Writing about this two-fold play, Aubrey de Vere says:

‘Mr. Taylor's poetry is pre-eminently that of action, as Lord Byron's is that of passion; or rather, it includes action as well as passion, thus corresponding with Milton's definition of tragic poetry as “high actions and high passions best describing.” It is this peculiarity which has made him succeed in drama which most of our modern poets have attempted, but almost all unsuccessfully.’¹ In his autobiography, Taylor tells us: ‘Miss Bremer, the Swedish novelist, told me that it (viz., the Philip van Artevelde) had been translated into Swedish and brought on the stage with great success at Stockholm.’²

Philip van Artevelde was the most successful thing in Taylors life.

‘The sale was rapid and as the edition had numbered only 500 copies, another had to be put in preparation without delay. Lansdowne House and Holland House, then the great receiving houses of London society, opened their gates wide. In that society I found that I was going by the name of my hero; and one lady, more fashionable than well-informed, sent me an invitation addressed to ‘Philip van Artevelde, Esq.’³

Concerning the way in which Taylor received his first suggestion to choose this subject, he tells us: ‘In the spring of 1828, I was meditating another drama;

1 Aubrey de Vere, Essays chiefly on poetry, p. 267.

2 Henry Taylor, Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 32.

3 Autobiography, I, p. 196.

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and Southey, after dissuading me from founding one upon the story of Patkul, suggested that of Philip van Artevelde, which I at once adopted.’¹ And Southey undoubtedly got his inspiration on this subject from Bilderdÿk, who was most enthusiastic about the earlier history of the Netherlands.

1 Autobiography, I, p. 109.