Holland

HOLLAND is the most usual English name of the country which is nationally designated the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Koningrijk der Nederlaηderi). The word, which is popularly explained as if it were Hollowland, and referred to the same physical fact which has given rise to the terms Netherlands and the Low Countries, appears in an older form as Holtland, and is thus evidently equivalent to Wood-land. In French the usual expression is Pays-Bas, and in German Niederlande.

There is no country in Europe in which the character of the territory has exercised so great an influence on the inhabitants as in the Netherlands; and, on the other hand, no people has so extensively modified the condition of its territory as the Dutch. In a description of Holland, consequently, the greatest importance must be attached to the physical conformation of the country as it was and is; and most of the peculiarities of the political and social condition of the people must be considered in conuexion with this conformation.

The size of Holland, being subject to perpetual diminution and increase, cannot be indicated by a definite figure except as at some definite period; on the one hand, there is loss of area still going on in consequence of the erosion of the coasts, and, on the other hand, this is more than counterbalanced by a continual acquisition of new ground due more especially to “impoldering ’’and draining operations. In 1833 the surface of the Netherlands was only 2,270,959 hectares (5,611,860 acres, 8768 square miles); on the 20th Oct. 1877, at the time of the conclusion of the cadastral survey, it was 3,297,268 hectares (8,148,020 acres, 12,731 square miles).

The kingdom extends from 53° 32' 2Γ ’ (Groningen Cape on Rottum Island) to 50° 45' 49" N. lat. (Mesch in the province of Limburg), and from 3° 23' 27" (Sluis in the province of Zealand) to 7° 12' 20" E. long. (Langak-kerschans in the province of Groningen). The greatest length from north to south, viz,, that from Rottum Island to Eysden near Maestricht is estimated at 164 miles, and the greatest breadth from south-west to north-east, or from Zwin near Sluis to Losser in Overyssel at 144 miles. If the Zuyder Zee, the parts of Prussia which encroach on the eastern side, and the projecting portions of Limburg and Zealand are disregarded, the general form is almost an oblong. With the exception of Greece and Great Britain, no country of Europe has so many inlets of the sea as Holland.

The Netherlands are bounded on the E. by the Prussian provinces of Hanover, Westphalia, and the province of the Rhine, and on the S. by the Belgian provinces of Liége, Limburg, Antwerp, and East and West Flanders. A purely geographical boundary is formed to the W. and the N. by the North Sea, at the N.E. corner by the Dollart, and from Stevensweert southward to the extreme corner of Limburg (near Eysden) by the Maas or Meuse. Natural ethnographic frontiers, such as occur where two neighbouring peoples of different origin, race, character, customs, and language are sharply marked off from each other, do not exist in the case of the Netherlands. The Low German element, indeed, of which the Netherlands form as it were the kernel, spreads beyond Dutch limits both north-east along the coast of the German Ocean and south-west into Belgium.

As regards the seaward boundary—the coasts, rivermouths, and islands—it is necessary, for a just comprehension of its character and of its influence on the formation of the soil, to bear in mind that the coasts of the Netherlands shared in the general vicissitudes of the southern shores of the German Ocean at the time when the English Channel was still closed. Three periods may be distinguished in the history of these changes. During the first a row of dunes was formed on the sandy tongue of land which, beginning at Ostend, cut off and formed into an inland lake a portion of the German Ocean, at that time washing the diluvial strata; these are still indicated along the Dutch and the German coasts by a series of dune-formations, sandbanks, and islands. In the second period the separation between ocean and lake was still maintained, the river-water gained the upper hand over the sea-water in the lake, the matter brought down by the river began to settle, and the morasses and beds of marsh-plants, reeds, and rushes {derrie) were formed which are now found above the old sand beds and below the present clay beds. When in the third period the coasts subsided, the dunes were here and there carried away by the rise of the waters, portions of the land were submerged, and, mud being extensively piled up by the sea, the fertile clay (zeekleι) of the maritime provinces was formed, and at the same time the mouths of the rivers were changed in position. And all this took place on a still greater scale when the limestone rocks which united Calais and Dover at last gave way and the great ocean with its heavier incidence of billows and tides drove into the smaller sea. According to Dr Hartogh Heys van Zouteveen, 150,000 hectares (370,670 acres) of land were lost on the coast of the German Ocean, 385,000 hectares (951,390 acres) on the Zuyder Zee and the Wadden, 8432 hectares (20,836 acres) in the Dollart, 10,000 hectares (24,711 acres) in the Biesbosch, and about 27,000 hectares (66,720 acres) more in other parts. According to Dr Staring, the province of Groningen, even during the 18th and 19th centuries, has been harassed with inundations once in every 155 years, Utrecht and North Holland south of the Y once in 83 years, South Holland once in 55 years, Friesland, Overyssel, North Holland north of the Y, and the coast of North Brabant every 40 years; while the Netherlands in general have been visited by such disasters in 1702, 1715, 1717, 1741, 1755, 1756, 1791, 1808, 1809, and 1825, or on an average once in every eleven years. In this last period, however, of the history of the land the lordship of man ultimately began to make itself felt. The formation of the first dykes to prevent inundations was quickly followed by the construction of a connected system of earthen ramparts, behind which the country lies secure, while at the same time hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land have been recovered from the sea. The area gamed from 1833 to 1877 has been already stated. The following table shows the amount reclaimed by endyking down to the dates given :— [table]

To return to the present condition of the seaboard of the Netherlands,—it follows from what has been said that it consists (1) of coasts still protected by dunes or fringed with sandbanks and islands indicating the direction of ancient lines of dunes; (2) of low coasts of seaclay provided with dykes which in more than one quarter have been repeatedly extended so as to enclose land conquered from the sea (the sea-polders); and finally (3) of some high diluvial strata which rise far enough above the level of the sea to make dykes unnecessary. The dunes follow the west and north-west coast almost without a break, except in a few quarters where they have been removed and their place supplied by dykes or rubble, as in North Holland between Huisduinen and Nieuwe Diep and between Kamp and Fetten, in South Holland on Voorne, and in Zealand on Schouwen and Walcheren, where the famous Westkappel dyke unites the village of Westkappel with the watering-place of Dornburg. The breadth of the line of dunes naturally varies greatly—from 600 to 7000 feet; and there is a similar variety in the height of the individual dunes proper, called dune-hills (duinheuvels) as compared with the dune pans (dιdnpanιιen) or depressions. The elevation of the High Blinkert near Haarlem (196 feet) is an extreme exception, for the average is not more than 50 or 60 feet even in the case of the high dunes which lie nearest the shore and are known as “sea-runners” (zeelooper) or the “shore-ridge” (strandreeks). The dunes show a tendency, except where the Dutch prevent it by planting wood or sand-oats, to wear away on the side towards the sea, and to “overstuiven” or drift off on the landward side. There is, indeed, a general degradation of the coast, and à recession towards the east, corresponding to the subsidence which may be observed along the German seaboard, and probably traceable also, in part at least, to the Channel current, which at mean tide has a velocity of 14 or 15 inches per second, and especially during strong west or north-west winds carries off large quantities of material. This alteration of coast-line appears at Loosduinen, where the moor or fenland formerly developed behind the dunes now crops out on the shore amid the sand, being pressed to the compactness of lignite by the weight of the sand drifted over it. Again, the remains of the Roman camp at Brittenburg or Huis te Britten, which originally lay within the dunes and, after being covered by them, emerged again in 1520, were, in 1694, 1600 paces out to sea, opposite Katwijk; while, besides Katwijk itself, several other villages of the west coast, as Dornburg, Scheveningen, Egmond, have continually to be removed further inland. Two things special to Holland are worthy of particular notice, the artificial formation of dunes, as at Koegras, Callantsoog, Petten, Katwijk, Scheveningen, and Zandvoort, and the carrying away of the sand (afzan-derij, “offsanding ,1 ) by ship or rail, as in the “Westland,” for example, to the south of the Hague, to serve elsewhere for engineering operations and the improving of the soil. Mingled with marsh-earth the sand forms a soil suited to the culture of flower-bulbs; with clay it produces that excellent soil for vegetable gardens for which the Westland is so famous. It must be further remarked that both the “dune pans,” which are naturally marshy through their defective drainage, and the “geest” grounds—that is, the grounds along the foot of the downs—have been in various places either planted with wood or turned into arable and pasture land; while the numerous springs at the base of the dunes rise at such a height above the ordinary level of the country that the water is conveyed by canals to the great cities, and an improvement is thus effected at once in the agricultural condition of the coast-land and in the sanitary condition of the cities.

The sea-dykes are found along the northern coasts, the coasts of the provinces which border on the Zuyder Zee, and the coasts of the islands of Zealand and South Holland so far as they are not protected by dunes. Only in a few places, it will be seen, are the sea-dykes unnecessary; as for example, in Friesland between Stavoren and Olde Mirdum (the bold and steep Roυde and Mirduιn cliffs) and near Doornspijk, 3 miles south of Elburg, where there are high grounds which stretch 6 miles to the south-west of Harderwijk. The earthen dykes are protected by stoneslopes and by piles, and at the more dangerous points also by “zinkstukken” (sinking pieces), artificial structures of bulrushes, reeds, and branches, laden with stones, and measuring some 400 yards in circuit, by means of which the current is to some extent turned aside. The Westkappel dyke already mentioned is 12,468 ft. long and 23 high, has a seaward slope of 300 ft., and is protected by rows of piles and basalt blocks. On its ridge, 39 ft. broad, there is not only a roadway but a service railway. When it is remembered that the woodwork is infested by the pile worm (Teredo navalis), tlιe ravages of which were discovered in 1731, the enormous expense incurred in the construction and maintenance of the 1550 miles of sea-dykes now existing may be imagined. The cost of construction is not overestimated at 150,000,000 guilders or £12,500,000.

The Dutch islands may be divided into two main classes —(1) those surrounded on all sides by the German Ocean or its inlets, and (2) those surrounded entirely or in great part by river arms, and separated by these from the mainland or from each other. The first division again comprises two groups—(a) the islands Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Amelιnd, Schiermonnikoog, and Rottum, which stretch in a long arc from the north point of North Holland to the mouth of the Ems, and indicate the old coast-line, so that they belong to the same physico-geographical group with the islands along the German coast; and (5) the islands Wieringen, Marken, Urk, and Schokland, which are the relics of the stretch of country formerly comprising the present bed of the Zuyder Zee. In the second class are to be reckoned the delta of the river Yssel (Camper Island) and the islands belonging to the contiguous deltas of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, including the island of Betuwe between the Rhine and the Waal and the archipelago of South Holland and Zealand.

As the river mouths of Holland must also be regarded as gulfs or inlets of the sea, they may be noticed here. The average breadth of the Haringvliet at Helvoetsluys is 8860 ft. and at Goedereede 18,045; that of the West Scheldt at Ter Neuzen 15,420 ft., and at Flushing (Vlissingen) 13,780; that of the East Scheldt at the harbour of Goes 13,780, and at the harbour of Zierikzee 13,450; and that of the Roompot 21,650 to 29,530 ft.

The varying characteristics of the coasts in different places give rise to correspondingly different industries. As regards trade and navigation, the west coasts with their shallows and sandbanks can be approached only by small vessels of light draught (visscherspinken) unless where access is afforded by the inlets of the sea, especially the mouth of the West Scheldt at Flushing, that of the East Scheldt at Zierikzee, the Brouwershaven inlet between the islands of Schouwen and Goeree, the Goeree inlet at Helvoetsluys, the Marsdiep at the Helder, and the mouth of the Ems at Delfzijl, or where a way has been opened up by engineering works as at Rotterdam and Amsterdam (by the new waterway to the sea and the canal to Ymuiden). As we proceed from south-west to north-east the places along the coast become less and less important: in the provinces of Groningen and Friesland the approach to the mainland is obstructed by the Wadden or Shallows; and on the coast of the Zuyder Zee are those harbours, for the most part rendered useless by alluvial accretions, which have been so well described by Havard in his Villes Mortes du Zuyderzee. Along the greater part of these coasts the population is engaged in the fisheries rather than in trade, especially when the neighbourhood of a great town (as Alkmaar for Egmond, Haarlem for Zandvoort, Leyden for Katwijk, the Hague for Scheveningen) secures a good market or a ready means of exportation. Many fishing villages on the west coast, e.g., Scheveningen, Dornburg, and Zandvoort, have in recent years acquired repute as watering-places with both natives and foreigners.

The availability of the flat coasts for trade and navigation is to a large extent dependent on the range of the rise and fall of the tides. As shown in the following table, this steadily decreases from south-west to north-east. In the Zuyder Zee it is naturally very small. [table]

The Shallows (Wadden) of the German Ocean between Groningen and Friesland and the islands Rottum, Schiermonnikoog, and Ameland are usually left in great measure dry at ebb-tide.

The elevation of the surface of the country ranges from about 650 ft. above to 16 or 20 ft. below the Amsterdam zero, which marks the mean high-water level in the Y in front of the city. The circumstance that so much of it is below the sea-level necessarily exercises a very important influence on the drainage, the climate, and the sanitary condition of the country, as well as on its defence by means of inundation. From the history of the formation of the soil already given, and from the course of the rivers, it may be gathered that the low grounds are in the west, and the higher in the south and east. According to the relief map published by the minister of war (scale 1: 600,000), the provinces of North and South Holland, the western portion of Utrecht as far as the Vaart Rhine, Zealand, except the southern part of Zealand-Flanders, and also the north west corner of North Brabant, all lie, with the exception of the dunes, below the Amsterdam zero; while the eastern portion of the country, except a small strip along the Zuyder Zee in the provinces of Guelderland, Overyssel, and Friesland, as well as the lands in the neighbourhood of the Dollart, is situated above it. The regular slope of the ground from south-east to north west, and the position of the highest and the lowest points, are indicated by the same authority. At Vaals, in the extreme south-east, the altitude is 656 ft., at Valkenberg 525, at St Pietersberg near Maestricht

403, at the Imbosch near Dieren and the Hettenheuvel near Heerenberg respectively 360 and 345, at Meerwijk near Nimeguen 318, at Apeldoorn 233, at Zeist 164, at Oldenzaal 154, at Wageningschenberg and Grebsσhenberg respectively 151 and 131, at Hoenderloo and Kootwijk in the Veluwe 118 and 98, at Groenlo 78, in the “high fens” of Drenthe near Barge 85, at Lochen and Almelo 39, at Coevorden 31, at Steenwijk and Boertange 19, at Groningen 18, at Heerenveen 0 - 65. Below the Amsterdam zero lie naturally many impoldered districts, especially the marshes and meres which have been drained dry, as for example the Schermer and Purmer polders and the Haarlem lake, which are respectively — 10’66, — 12’46, — 13'61, the Schieveen polder near Schiedam — 16’27, the polders at Wo ’ ''rugge, the Bergschenhoek, and the Zuidplas - 16’86, — 17’58, and — 18’49.

Of equal importance with the relief of the country is the geological composition of the soil. It is evident from the history of the origin of the land that Quaternary formations—alluvium and diluvium—must be well represented. In fact they constitute no less than 99’9 per cent, of the surface of the Netherlands, only ’ 1 per cent, thus remaining for all the older formations—the Tertiary and the Secondary, including the extremely limited Jurassic.

To the alluvial strata belong, in the first place, the fen (veen) strata, which are subdivided into low fens, high fens, marsh fens, and the “dalgronden” or “reclaimed high fens.” The low fens, which are found in Groningen, Friesland, Overyssel, North and South Holland, and North Brabant (about the Langstraat), have been formed of aquatic plants, and, in the upper layers, of moss; their elevation is that of the mean sea-level; from them the “short turf,” the best quality of peat, is obtained by dredging, and, when the standing water which collects after the peat has been dug out has been drained off, they may be turned into very productive arable land. The subsoil, on which the fertility then depends, consists usually of clays and alluvial sand or dune strata, rarely of diluvial sand strata. These low fens extend to no less than 904,597 acres, or about 11 per cent, of the surface. The high fens, of which the greater part have been “disfenned” or stripped of peat, are found in Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overyssel, and the “Peel” or Marsh of North Brabant, in the more elevated plains or valleys. They have been formed of trees, heath-plants, and moss, and furnish the softer, inferior kind of peat, the “long turf.” As the removal of the peat has been followed by the construction of canals to carry off the standing water, the high fens are of course free from marshes, but, resting as they do almost everywhere on diluvial gravel and sand, they do not furnish so fertile a soil as the low fens. They comprise 226,107 acres, or only about 2‘8 per cent, of the surface of the country. The marsh fens are composed almost exclusively of a few species of sedge or carex, and constitute, not only in their method of formation, but also in their character and situation, the transition between the high and the low fens. They are widely scattered, especially along small streams which carry off water mingled with fenny materials, and are nowhere more numerously represented than in Drenthe, wher , e all the drainage is of this character. The marsh fens occupy 168,551 acres, considerably less than the high fens. The “dalgronden” are formed where regular peat-fields are laid out along specially constructed canals, and the denuded surface is usually grubbed up for arable or pasture land, or on rare occasions planted with wood. They comprise about 207,576 acres, and naturally increase in proportion to the decrease of the high fens. We shall return to these “dalgronden” in connexion with the canals. Besides the fens, the clay lands and certain of the sand-strata belong to the alluvium. The clays—which furnish the richest arable soils, the most luxuriant meadowland, and in some places the material for bricks and earthenware—may be divided into the sea-clay, the river-clay, the stream-clay or green earth, and the old sea-clay of the districts recovered from the water. The exceptionally fertile sea-clay in the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, North and South Holland, and Zealand occupies no less than 1,676,860, or about 20 per cent, of the surface, while the river-clay, naturally situated along the banks of the larger rivers, takes up 854,284 acres, or about 10 per cent. The boundary between the sea-clay and the river-clay is formed in the case of these rivers by the maximum high-water line. The streamclay or green earth, which is found, as the former name implies, on the banks of the smaller rivers or streams, is formed of course on a much smaller scale, and consists of a stratum on an average from 3 to 5 feet thick, resting almost exclusively on the sand diluvium, from which it is occasionally separated by a fenny stratum. It occurs in the east, of Drenthe, Overyssel, and Guelderland, along the small tributaries of the Vecht, along the Vecht, Regge, and Schipbeek in Overyssel, and in like manner in North Brabant along the Dommel, Aa, Mark, and other unimportant streams. The green earth not unfrequently contains iron ore; from this the metal is extracted in Overyssel and Guelderland, and it is asserted that in thirty years the natural processes replace the excavated mineral. The stream deposits occupy about 2 per cent, of the surface—157,187 acres. Finally the old sea-clay of the reclaimed districts covers 127,518 acres, or 1⅜ per cent, of the surface. As already stated, the subsoil of the low fens is not everywhere clay. It is so in the main in the provinces of North and South Holland, where the drainage operations were consequently much more remunerative than in Friesland, and in the east of Utrecht, where the fens rested upon sand. Estimating the total area of the recovered districts at 197,690 acres, about five-eighths of this consists of old sea-clay; and these portions, such as the Haarlem lake grounds, the Beemster and Purmer polders in North Holland, and the Nieuwkoop and Zuidplas polders in South Holland, are reckoned among the richest and most fertile. How these low-lying areas have been endyked and drained, surrounded by canals and kept dry by gigantic steam-pumps, has been explained under the heading Haarlem Lake.

The alluvial sand-strata (to be distinguished from the diluvial sand) may be divided into (1) sand-drifts, (2) river-sand, riverdowns, and “heibanen,” and (3) old sea-sand and the sea-dunes with the geest-grounds. The last of these classes has already been considered in dealing with the sea-coast. The rivers bring down their sand as well as their gravel, not so much from the more elevated districts as from the diluvial valleys in which they have excavated their channels. The beds of the rivers themselves consist likewise of sand, mingled here and there with gravel or rolled and polished pebbles, and, where the current is not too strong, covered with a layer of clay. If sand has been accumulated, on the shore, the wind soon transforms it after the retreat of the river into hillocks or river-dunes. When these contain a proportion of clay they are more fertile than the sea-dunes. They occur on both sides of the Guelderland Yssel (between Zalk and Oest), and on the Waal below Hulhuizen and opposite Rossum; and various eminences in other parts of the country, such as Agnietenberg near Zwolle, and the heights near Deventer, near Grafthorst opposite Kämpen, and along the Meuse between Venlo and Mook, must be considered as of similar origin. “Heibanen,” i.e., heath-tracks, so called on account of their sterility, are beds of river gravel easily distinguished from the diluvial gravel by the smooth, worn, and uniform appearance produced ages ago by the action of the current. They are found, for example, in the Betuwe, about Avezaat, and between Lienden and Waddenoijen. Sand-drifts are dune formations originated by the action of the wind on the diluvial sand, where in one way or other it has been stripped of the heath-crust. They extend to 179,220 acres, or about 2∣ per cent, of the surface. The fen strata occupy in all 1,508,300 acres, or 18⅜ per cent.; the clay strata 2,815,850 acres, or about 35 per cent.; the alluvial sand strata 475,477 acres, or about 6 per cent.; and the whole alluvium 4,799,627 acres, or 59 per cent.

The diluvial or sand and gravel strata of the Netherlands are far from being of such economic importance as the alluvial strata. The agricultural products—mainly buckwheat and rye—are neither so abundant nor so valuable as the wheat and rape-seed of the clay soils; and neither stock-breeder nor dairy-farmer obtains so satisfactory results. The boundary of the diluvial strata maybe roughly indicated by a line running through Winschoten, Groningen, Dokkum, Leeuwarden, Heerenveen, Steenwijk, Zwolle, Elburg, the coast of the Zuyder Zee, Naarden, Utrecht, Rhenen, Bois-le-Duc, Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom, and Antwerp. South and east of this line lies the diluvium, for the most part on the surface, except in the places already mentioned where the fens, the river-clay, the stream deposits, and the sand-drifts are situated, or in the extreme south and east where the older strata make their appearance. To the north and west of the line the only diluvial strata are those of the Zuyder Zee islands: in Texel, Wieringen, and Urk the soil is of diluvial origin; and this probably holds true also in whole or in part in Vlieland, Ameland, and Terschelling.

The diluvial formations are subdivided into gravel-strata and sand-strata. To the former belong (1) the Scandinavian, diluvium, in which occur granites and chalk flints derived from Scandinavia, situated to the north of the Overyssel Vecht(that is, in Groningen, Drenthe, the south-west of Friesland, and the islands); (2) the mixed diluvium, which, besides the Scandinavian gravel contains stone-grit from Munster, the Teutoburger Wald, and the districts along the Rhine (it is situated between the Vecht and the Rhine, in Overyssel, Utrecht, the Gooiland, and Guelderland); (3) the Rhine diluvium, destitute of granite, but with many fragments of white quartz, basalt, and other kinds of stone from the mountains along the river between Bonn and Coblentz (it lies between the Waal and the Meuse); (4) the Meuse diluvium, containing materials brought from the mountains higher up the stream; and finally (5) the Limburg flint diluvium, like the preceding variety destitute of any plutonic or volcanic rocks, but nevertheless consisting almost exclusively of flints occurring in the neighbouring chalk formation.

The sand-diluvium, which is of later date than the gravel, is found in great level stretches at the foot of the hills of diluvial gravel, and contains no pebbles or coarse gravel. It also occurs in the maritime provinces under all the marine and fluvial formations. According to some authorities it owes its origin to the influence of rain, or frost, or wind; according to others it has been formed by the sea like the Kempen sand and that of the dunes, and then transported by the south-westerly currents.

In the diluvium must also be included the loess, which occupies a large proportion of the province of Limburg. The whole diluvium comprises 3,308,330 acres, or about 40⅜ per cent, of the country, distributed thus:—Scandinavian 4⅜ per cent., mixed diluvium 4⅜, Rhine and Meuse diluvium and Limburg flint diluvium 1, loess 1⅜, and lastly the sand diluvium, which includes the diluvial riverbanks, 2,376,770 acres, or about 29 per cent.

The older formations, which occupy a very limited area, occur in the east of Guelderland and Overyssel, in the south of Limburg, and in Zealand-Flanders. That they also form the substratum elsewhere, e.g., in Zealand and Brabant, is not improbable. The area of the Tertiary strata is 3425, and of the Secondary 3746 acres.

As regards the capabilities of the soil, Holland does not hold an exceptionally favourable position,—34 per cent of the country consisting of good and about 2 per cent, of inferior clay land, while more than 45 per cent, is poor and partially reclaimed sand, and fully 18 ’ 5 per cent, is covered with fens. The following figures show the account to which the soil is actually turned :—64 ’ 3 per cent, consists of arable and pasture land, gardens, hay-fields, and orchards; 6 per cent, is occupied by water and roads; 7 per cent, is woodland; 0 - 7 is covered with buildings; and the rest, or 22 per cent, must consequently be assigned to the waste lands, shores, and dunes, the reed-beds, heaths, and fens. The extent of this uncultivated area is of course being gradually diminished by the more general employment of improved methods of drainage, by prevention of the progress of the sand-drifts, by reclamation of the fens, by the extension of facilities for the carriage of manures, and by the parcelling out of the mark-lands or commons which are now used only as public pastures or for the digging of turf (plaggen). The distribution of the cultivated lands in the several provinces is considered below in connexion with the density of the population.

The Netherlands are watered by three main rivers—the Rhine, the Meuse or Maas, and the Scheldt or Schelde, besides a great number of smaller streams. How the Rhine breaks up into Rhine and Waal, Rhine and Yssel, Crooked Rhine and Lek, Old Rhine and Vecht, and finally reaches the sea at Katwijk, may be seen from the map; and also how the Meuse at Gorcum forms a junction with the Waal, flowing on to Dort under the name of the Merwede, and thence continuing to the sea between the South Holland Islands and South Holland, under the names of the North, the Old, and the New Meuse. There too may be traced the course of the Scheldt, with its broad mouths bounding the Zealand Islands and separating them from the mainland of Flanders, or that of the Yssel by Deventer, Zutphen, and Kämpen to the Zuyder Zee. These great rivers render very important service as water-ways, as the following statistics may show :— [table]

The depths are those of the fairway. The mean velocity seldom exceeds 4 , 9 feet, but rises to 6 ’ 4 feet when the river is high. In the lower reaches of the streams the velocity and slope are of course affected by the tides. In the Waal ordinary high water is perceptible as far up as Bommel; in the Lek the maximum limits of ordinary and spring tides are at Vianen and at Kuilenburg respectively, in the Yssel above the Katerveer and past Wijhe, and in the Meuse near Heusden and at Well. The following table shows the fall at ebb and flood tide respectively in the rivers named :— [table]

The total length of the navigable channels is 1135 miles, but in certain places sand-banks and shallows not unfrequently impede the shipping traffic at low water during the summer. As a drawback to the services rendered by the rivers must be mentioned the damage inflicted by their inundations and ice-drifts, for protection against which river-dykes were constructed as early as the days of the Romans, and, in the lower reaches, more especially in the course of the llth, 12th, and 13th centuries. It is only in a few places—for example, on the right-hand side of the Rhine—that elevated banks are found. Elsewhere between the dykes and the stream lie “forelands" or “outwerders,” which are usually submerged in winter. That the rivers cannot at all times, any more than the sea, be kept under control by the dykes is shown by the floods of 1775, 1776, 1784, 1799, 1809, 1820^ 1861, &c.

The smaller streams are often of great importance. Except where they rise in the fens, they call into life a strip of fruitful verdure in the midst of the barren sand, and thus lead to the existence of many villages. The low-lying spaces at the confluences, being readily laid under water, have been not unfrequently chosen as sites for fortresses. As a matter of course, the streams are also turned to account in connexion with the canal system,—the Holland Yssel, the Gouwe, the Rotte, the Schie, the Spaarne, the Zaan, the Amstel, the Dieze, the Amer, the Mark, the Vecht, the Zwarte Water (Black-water), the Kuinder, and the numerous Aas in Drenthe and Groningen being the most important in this respect. Largely by means of these natural water-ways the Dutch have formed for themselves a network of canals, small and great, the united length of which amounts to 1522 miles. The canals differ greatly in character in the different provinces. In North Brabant and Limburg the Zuid Willemsvaart (South William’s canal) unites Maestricht via Weert and Helmond with Bois le Duc •(’s Hertogenbosch), communicates by aside branch with Eindhoven, and has a connexion with the canal from Maestricht to Liège. In Zealand the canals give the towns of the interior communication with the sea or the river mouths; for example, canals lead respectively from Terneuzen to Sas van Gent and to Ghent, from Middleburg to Veere and from Middleburg to Flushing, from Goes to the Eastern Scheldt, and from Zierikzee also to the Eastern Scheldt. The canal from Hansweert to Wenιeldinge has been cut to allow ships to pass between the East and the West Scheldt. In South Holland many canals serve the like purpose; thus the Voorn canal unites the Haringvliet with the New Meuse, which does not allow the passage of large vessels above Briel; and similarly on account of the many banks and shallows in front of Helvoetsluys a new waterway has been opened up to Rotterdam by widening the channel of the Scheur north of Rozenburg, and cutting across the Hoek van Holland. The Goeree inlet unites that place with the Haringvliet. Of a different character is the Zederik canal, which unites the principal river of central Holland—the Lek—(at Vianen) by means of the Linge with the Merwede (at Gorcum). As Rotterdam has its new water-way, so in North Holland Amsterdam is connected with Nieuwe Diep by the canal via Purmerend and Alkmaar; and, this canal being too shallow for the largest class of vessels in cargo, the canal to Ymuiden has been constructed across Holland-op-zyn-smalst (t.e., Holland at its narrowest). Amsterdam is further connected with the Vecht by the Keulsche Vaart, and with the Lek and the Zederik canal via Utrecht by the Vaart Rhine. In the province of Guelderland Nijkerk inlet unites that town with the sea, and Apeldoorn communicates with Hattem north-east through the Grift canal and south-east with the Yssel through the Dieren canal. A totally different character belongs to the canals in the east and north-east of the country, where, in the absence of great rivers, they form the only water-ways which render possible the drainage of the fens and the export of peat, and unite the lesser streams with each other. Thus in Overyssel the Willemsvaart connects Zwolle and the Zwarte Water with the Yssel, the Dedemsvaart connects the Vecht with the Zwarte Water near Hasselt, and a canal connects Almelo with Zwolle. In Drenthe the Smildervaart or Drenther Hoofdvaart unites Assen with Meppel, and receives on the eastern side the drainage canals of the Drenthe fens (the Orange canal, the Beilerstroom, and the Hoogeveen Vaart), while the North Willemsvaart unites Assen with Groningen. In the province of Groningen the chief town communicates with Delfzijl and the Dollart both by the Damsterdiep and by the new ship canal, while the canal to Wιnschoten brings it into connexion with the flourishing fen colonies, such as Wildervank and Veendanι, which have sprung up in the east of the province and in Drenthe. In Friesland, finally, there are three ship canals :—that from Harlingen to the Lauwer Zee via Franeker, Leeuwarden, and Dokkum; that from Leeuwarden to the Lemmer, whence there is a busy traffic with Amsterdam; and that from Stroobos in the east of the province (in connexion with Groningen) to Stavoren in the southwest. It would be superfluous to enumerate the barge canals by which almost all the large towns communicate with each other; and it is equally unnecessary to mention all the lakes, which exist in great numbers, especially in Friesland and Groningen, and are connected with rivers or streamlets. Those of Friesland are of note for the abundance of their fish and their beauty of situation, on which last account the Uddelermeer in Guelderland is also celebrated. The Roekanje Lake near Briel is remarkable for the strong chalky solution which covers even the growing reeds with a hard crust. Many of the lakes are nothing more than deep pits or marshes from which the peat has been extracted.

The climate of Holland is such as might be conjectured from its geographical position and its generally low level. Situated in the temperate zone between 50° and 53° N. lat., it shows a difference in the lengths of day and night extending in the north to nine hours, and there is a correspondingly wide range of temperature; it also belongs to the region of variable winds. The following table, from the observations of Professor C. D. Buys Ballot, the well-known director of the Meteorological Institute at Utrecht, shows the average temperatures and the barometric heights re corded there during 1849-1878 [table]

The mean annual temperature was 9 ’ 91° C., or 49∙83° Fahr.

How largely the westerly winds predominate is shown by the following statistics. On an average of ten years 5 per cent, of the winds were N., 5 N.N.W., 7 N.W., 6 W.N.W., 7 W., 10 W.S.W., 12 S.W., 7 S.S.W. (total 59 per cent.), and 7 S., 5 S.S.E., 5 S.E., 2 E S.E., 3 E., 6 E.N.E., 8 N.E., 5 N.N.E. (total 41 per cent.). The west winds of course increase the moisture, and moderate both the winter cold and the summer heat, while the east winds blowing over the Continent have an opposite influence. The following table, derived from observations taken at Utrecht, shows that, as might be expected, the rainfall is large :— [table]

It cannot be said that the climate is particularly good; indeed to strangers it is rather the reverse of pleasant. Fevers, colds, and, when proper precautions are not taken, chest disease and consumption, are results of the changeableness of the weather, which may alter completely within a single day. The heavy atmosphere likewise, and the necessity of living within doors or in confined localities, cannot but exercise an influence on the character and temperament of the inhabitants. Only of certain districts, however, can it be said that they are positively unhealthy; to this category belong some parts of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, where the inhabitants are exposed to the exhalations from the marshy ground, and the atmosphere is burdened with the sea-fogs. To what extent the healthiness of the different provinces varies may be seen from the following table of the annual death-rate for the twenty-five y ears from 1840to1865 :—· [table]

For the whole kingdom the annual death-rate was 1 in 36 ’ 73—that for the males being 1 in 35 49, and for the females 1 in 38 ’ 14.

That the density of the population must, apart from other causes, increase through the acquisition and cultivation of new land, and that it visibly differs very greatly according to the difference of the soil in the different provinces, may be seen from the following table, wherein the increase of the percentage of cultivable land and of the population is indicated :— [table]

The greater density of population in the Holland provinces as compared with Drenthe cannot be explained, however, merely by the character of the soil; the variety of industries and the great number of large towns contribute to the inequality. All the towns with 100,000 inhabitants and upwards (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague) are situated in the provinces of Holland; of the 36 communes with more than 10,000, 9 are in Holland, none in Drenthe; of the 35 communes between 10,000 and 4000, 9 are in Holland and 2 in Drenthe. The reason why in the west, and especially in the district between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, there is such a clustering of large towns, only surpassed in a few parts of England and Belgium, is to be found in the facilities there afforded for earning a subsistence. Holland is emphatically a country of large towns. According to the census of 1869 there were forty∙four which had a population of upwards of 5000. The greatest of all was Amsterdam, with 256,154 inhabitants; and next in order came Rotterdam, with 113,734. Two others had upwards of 50,000, the Hague and Utrecht, respectively 81,881 and 57,085; Arnheim, Leyden, Haarlem, Groningen, and Maestricht were all above 25,000; and Bois-le-duc, Delft, Dort, and Leeuwarden above 20,000. The five towns of Nimeguen, Gouda, Helder, Deventer, and Zwolle had each between 15,000 and 20,000; and Breda, Zutphen, Zaandam, Amersfoort, and Kempen were all above 10,000, though less than 15,000. Since that date many of these have considerably increased in size. In 1879 Amsterdam had about 300,000 inhabitants, Rotterdam 140,000, the Hague 100,000, and Utrecht 70,000.

As the density of the population varies within the narrow limits of the Netherlands, so varies likewise the origin of the people. Although ethnographically the whole population belongs to the Indo-Germanic family, or more definitely to the Teutonic branch of it, the descendants of the Frisians may be clearly distinguished in the north-west. The mouths of the Meuse separate these from the descendants of the Franks, who pushed eastward across the Meuse but never settled beyond the Waal, while the territory of the Saxons, who came later from the east, extends no further than to the Utrecht Vecht. The descendants of the Saxons consequently lie between those of the two first-named peoples, although naturally much commingling has taken place between Frisians and Saxons, and Saxons and Franks, especially in the towns and on the newly-acquired lands. The representatives of the Semitic stock (Portuguese or German Jews), though their influence is not unimportant, number only 50,000 or 60,000, of whom about 40,000 reside at Amsterdam. The descendants of the three Teutonic peoples above named are very slightly distinguished from each other by their physical, intellectual, and moral characteristics, and all the less so because the Dutch type is not itself strongly marked and bears the traces of foreign commixture; for many Flemings and Brabanters settled in the country at the time of the revolt against Spain, many Germans, Englishmen, and Scandinavians during the prosperity of the republic, and many Frenchmen after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The differences most clearly discernible are in the old local laws, in the peculiar customs, and above all in the dialects. Among these last must be distinguished the Holland dialect (Hollandsch) spoken in the provinces of Holland and part of Utrecht; the Zealand dialect (Zeeuwsch, in Staats Flanders inclining towards Flemish); the Brabantine (modified), also spoken in a part of Limburg and the south of Guelderland; the Lower Rhenish, which is again subdivided into the Guelderland, the Overyssel, and the Drenthe dialects; and, finally, the Groningen dialect. The peasant or country Frisian forms a completely separate language with a literature of its own. It has not been at all satisfactorily determined in what parts of the Netherlands the remains of a pre-German population are to be found, nor to what extent they are to be distinguished from the Germans by the form of the skull; but investigations are being carried on in this department of inquiry, and a map is being prepared to indicate the boundaries of the various dialects.

- The government of the Netherlands·is regulated by the constitution of 1815, revised in 1848, under which the king’s person is inviolable and the ministers are responsible. The crown is hereditary in both the male and the female line according to primogeniture; but it is only on the complete extinction of the male line that females can come to the throne. The crown prince or heir apparent is the first subject of the king, and bears the title of the Prince of Orange. The king alone has executive authority. To him belong the ultimate direction of foreign affairs, the power to declare war and peace and to make treaties and alliances, the supreme command of the army and navy, the supreme administration of the finances and of the colonies and other possessions of the kingdom, and the prerogative of mercy. By the provisions of the same constitution he establishes the ministerial departments, and shares the legislative power with the first and second chambers. The heads of the departments to whom the especial executive functions are entrusted are eight in number,—ministers respectively of the interior, of public works (the “waterstaat,” including trade and industry, railways, post-ofiice, &c. ), of justice, of finance, of war, of marine, of the colonies, and of foreign affairs. They are appointed and dismissed at the pleasure of the king, usually determined, however, as in all constitutional states, by the will of the nation as indicated by its representatives. The members of the first chamber are chosen by the provincial states from among those who bear the greatest burden of direct taxation in each province, the proportion of persons thus eligible being 1 to every 3000 of the population. North Brabant sends 5, Guelderland 5, South Holland 7, North Holland 6, Zealand 2, Utrecht 2, Friesland 3, Overyssel 3, Groningen 2, Drenthe 1, Limburg 3—or altogether 39. The duration of parliament is nine years, a third of the members retiring every three years. The retiring members are eligible for re-election. The members of the second chamber are chosen in the electoral districts by all citizens of full age who pay direct taxes varying according to local circumstances from 20 to 160 guilders. One member is elected for every 45,000 of the population. At present (1880) there are eighty-six; they must be at least thirty years old, and they cease to be members if they take a salaried Government appointment. They discuss all laws, and have the right of proposing amendments. Their teπn is four years, but they are re-eligible. All communications from the king to the states-general and from the states to the king, as well as all general measures relating to internal administration or to foreign possessions, are first submitted to the consideration of the council of state, which also has the right of making suggestions to the king in regard to subjects of legislation and administration. The king appoints the vice-president of the council, which consists of fourteen members; he is himself the president, and can name councilors, to the number of not more than fifteen, for special service.

The provincial administration is entrusted to the provincial ] states, which are returned by direct election by the same electors < as vote for the second chamber. The term is for six years, but ι part of the members retire every three years. The president of the 1 assembly is the royal commissioner for the province. As the provincial states only meet a few times in the year, they name a committee of deputy-states to which the management of current general business is entrusted, and which at the same time administers the affairs of the communes. At the head of every commune stands a communal council, whose members are chosen by the inhabitants for a definite number of years. The president of the communal council, the burgomaster, is named by the king in every instance for six years, and along with the magistrate to be chosen by and from the members of the council is charged with the ordinary administration. The provinces, as already stated, are eleven in number (the grandduchy of Luxembourg, over which the king has control, is not incorporated with the kingdom); the number of communes at 31st December 1878 was 1128.

The administration of justice is entrusted (1) to the high council, the supreme court of the whole kingdom, which holds its sessions at the Hague, and is the tribunal for all high Government officials and for the members of the states-general; (2) to the five courts of justice for criminal cases, and for appeal in more important police and civil cases; (3) to courts established in each arrondissement; (4) to cantonal judges appointed over a group of communes, whose jurisdiction is restricted to claims of small amount (under 200 guilders), and to breaches of police regulations, and who at the same time look after the interests of minors.

The following statement of the revenue for the year ending the middle of 1878, and of the expenditure for 1877, is taken from the Staats Courant for 1879, No. 6 [table]

The following table shows the revenue and expenditure for the provinces and communes, and the contributions received from the Dutch Indies [table]

We append the total receipts of the ten years 1868-77, including the ordinary revenue, the Indian contributions, balances from previous budgets, proceeds of sale of domains, &c., and the total expenditure for the same years, including, besides the ordinary budget, the outlays in payment of annuities, in funding and discharging debt, in railway extension, &c. :— [table]

The amount expended on the war and marine departments is given above. The standing army consists of infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and gendarmerie, forming together a force of 60,000 men, with 3000 horses. Less than half, however, is kept in arms the whole year. The soldiers are raised partly by voluntary enlistment, and partly by conscription. In 1876, 1877, and 1878 the conscripts amounted to 10,808, 10,878, and 10,772 respectively. They are selected from the males who have entered their twentieth year and are not exempted for special reasons. The term of service in time of peace is five years, but may be extended in time of war; the conscript recruits, however, so far as the number of volunteers permits, are kept under arms for a few months only. A portion of the annual contingent is appropriated to the marine service. In the communes there are “schutterijen,” militia “trainbands,” which in time of war serve for the defence of the country, and at all times for the maintenance of order. Their actual term of service lasts only five years, but every male inhabitant from his twenty-fifth to his thirty-fourth year is liable to be called out. On the 1st of January 1879 there were of these on duty, in 88 communes, 212 companies, or 41,714 men, including 573 officers.

The strength of the navy in 1879 was—home service, 17 ships with 3162 men; Indian military marine, 23 ships with 1793 hands; auxiliary squadron, 4 ships with 900 hands; in the West Indies, 2 ships with 206 men. The fleet for the protection of the “seagates,” or estuaries, coasts, roadsteads, and rivers on the 1st August 1878 amounted to 61 ships, of which 23 were armour-plated; 21 ships for general service, of which 2 were armour-plated; besides 7 guardships and tenders and 7 training vessels. The strength of the marine corps was in July 1878 returned at 2055, and the number of guns carried by the navy at about 500.

In accordance with the law of April 18, 1874, the military and naval defences are supported by a system of fortification which embraces the following lines :—the Nieuwe Hollandsche water-line from the Zuyder Zee by Utrecht, the Lek, and the Merwede, through the district of Altena to the New Merwede; the line of the Guelders valley and the Lower Betuwe; the lines of the Hollandsche Diep and the Volkerak, of the mouth of the Meuse and the Haringvliet, and of the Helder; the works for the protection of the river-crossings and the reception of troops on the Yssel, the Waal, and the Meuse; the Amsterdam line from the German Ocean, near Ymuiden, to the Zuyder Zee and the Nieuwe Hollandsche water-line; the southern water-line from the Meuse above St Andries to the Amer below Geertruidenberg; and the works on the Western Scheldt. As already mentioned, in many cases the fortifications can be supplemented by extensive inundations.

The inhabitants of Holland enjoy full religious as well as political liberty. Not only is the free profession of his religious opinions guaranteed to every one by the constitution; the same protection is accorded to all the various ecclesiastical bodies; all the adherents of the different creeds have equal civil and political rights, and equal claims to public offices, dignities, and appointments; and all denominations possess perfect freedom of administration in everything relating to their religion and its exercise.

At the census of 1869 the population was classified thus as regards [table]

Altogether there are about 2800 churches and chapels. The following table shows the percentage of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in the several provinces:— [table]

From this it appears that in the north-east the Protestant creed greatly preponderates, and that the majority of the Roman Catholics are found in the south, while both are fairly represented in the central provinces. That in the last fifty years there has been over the whole population a steady increase in the proportion of Protestants and Jews, and a corresponding decrease of Roman Catholics, is evident from the following table :— [table]

The government of each of the Protestant bodies (with the exception of the Baptists, who have no central authority) is in the hands of an assembly or “synod” of deputies from the provincial judicatures. In the case of the Reformed Church the affairs of the community are entrusted to the provincial synods. The provinces are subdivided into “classes,” and the classes again into “circles” (ringen), each circle comprising from 5 to 25 congregations, and each congregation being governed by a “church council” or session. The provincial synods are composed of ministers and elders deputed by the classes; and these are composed of the ministers belonging to the particular class and an equal number of elders appointed by the local sessions. The meetings of the circles have no administrative character, but are mere brotherly conferences. The financial management in each congregation is entrusted to a special court (kerk-voogdij) composed of “notables” and church wardens. In every province there is besides, in the case of the Reformed Church, a provincial committee of supervision for the ecclesiastical administration. For the whole kingdom this supervision is entrusted to a common “collegium” or committee of supervision, which meets at the Hague, and consists of 11 members named by the provincial committee and 3 named by the synod. Some congregations have within recent years withdrawn from provincial supervision, and have thus free control of their own financial affairs. As a Roman Catholic province Holland is divided into 5 dioceses—the archbishopric of Utrecht, and the suffragan bishoprics of Haarlem, Bois le Duc, Breda, and Roermund, which are severally divided into deaneries (dekanaten).

The various denominations are subsidized by the state. The total thus expended in 1877 was £65,654.

Primary education is being more widely diffused year after year, and at the same time receiving increased support from the state. While in 1868 there were 3675 schools, attended by 437,311 pupils, and conducted by 10,375 teachers, the corresponding figures for 1877 were respectively 3813, 522,861, and 12,292; and while in 1858 the state, the provinces, and the communes expended only 1,278,894 guilders (==ls. 8d. sterling) on the schools, the expenditure for education in 1877 was 7,271,484 guilders. In 1875, 1876, and 1877 there were 841, 848, and 847 in every thousand boys between six and eight years of age at school, and 786, 796, and 803 out of every thousand girls; and from nine to eleven years of age 881, 890, and 910 out of every thousand boys, and 812, 815, and 827 out of every thousand girls. There is thus a steady decrease of non-attendance. The improvement of primary education is shown by the growing decrease in the proportion of conscripts who could neither read nor write: from 1846 to 1858 this was 22 - 82 per cent.; 1859-62, 19-79; 1863-67, 1774; 1868-71, 15 46; 1872-76, 13 13; and in 1876 only 11*99 per cent. There are no bilingual schools in Holland, and teachers discourage the use of the dialects. 1

For secondary education there were in 1877 39 “burgher schools” (partly day schools, partly night schools), with 372 teachers and 4319 pupils; 43 industrial art and technical schools, with 203 teachers and 4145 pupils; 53 higher class “burgher schools/’ having courses of 5 or 6, of 4, and of 3 years, with 620 teachers and 4000 pupils; the polytechnic school, with 12 professors and 13 teachers, and attended by 319 pupils; and the national school of agriculture at Wageningen, with 100 pupils. Schools of navigation were maintained at Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Helder, Terschelling, Vlieland, Harlingen, Schiermonnikoog,∙ Groningen, Delfzijl, and Veendam, with a total of 536 pupils and 26 instructors. The secondary school for girls (with courses of 5 and of 4 or 3 years) were 12 in number, and had about 900 pupils and a teaching staff of 140. For secondary education in 1876 the state expended 933,721 guilders, the provinces 24,329, and the communes 906,618, making a total of 1,864,668, or £155,389 sterling.

The higher education is provided for in the four universities of Leyden (founded in 1575), Utrecht (1636), Groningen (1614), and Amsterdam (1877), with 45, 34, 31, and 41 professors, and 627, 401, 189, and 389 students respectively. Instruction is also given by about 100 teachers to 1400 pupils in various seminaries and theological schools; the number of Latin or grammar schools and gymnasia in 1877—78 was 51, with 240 teachers and 1503 pupils. The total cost of the higher education amounted to 1,057,694 guilders.

A national institution at Leyden for the study of the languages, geography, and ethnology of the Dutch Indies has given place to communal institutions of the same nature at Delft and at Leyden, founded in 1864 and 1877. Military and naval instruction are provided for by corps schools, by a training battalion at Kämpen, an artillery training company at Schoonhoven, and scientific courses for the several corps, by the royal military academy (founded 1828), the “school of war” for officers, the royal navy institute at Willemsoord (1856), and by training ships at Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Helvoetsluys for apprentice boatswains, sailors, cabin-boys, pilots, and engineers. For the education of medical practitioners, civil and military, the more important institutions are the national obstetrical college at Amsterdam, the national veterinary school at Utrecht, the national college for military physicians at Amsterdam, and the establishment at Utrecht for the training of military apothecaries for the East and West Indies.

Of the numerous institutions in Holland for the encouragement of the sciences and the fine arts, the following are strictly national —the royal academy of sciences (1855), the royal Netherlands meteorological institute (1854), the national academy of the plastic arts, the royal school of music, the national archives, the royal picture gallery at the Hague, and the national gallery of modern masters in the Pavilion at Haarlem, the national museum of antiquities, the national museum of ethnography at Leyden, the τoyal collection of curiosities at the Hague, &c. Provincial scien tific societies exist at Middelburg, Utrecht, Bois le Duc, and Leeuwarden, and there are private and municipal associations, institutions, and collections in a large number of the smaller towns. Among others of general utility are the society for the service of the community {Maatschappij tot nut van ’ t algemeen, 1784), and the geographical society at Amsterdam (1873), Teyler’s Stichting or foundation, and the society of industry at Haarlem, the loyal institute of languages, geography, and ethnology of the Dutch Indies (1851) and the Indian society at the Hague, the royal institute of engineers at Delft (1848), the association for the encouragement of music at Amsterdam, &c.

The agricultural methods vary according as the soils are sandy or clay. In the first the “three-crop” system (two crops of rye and one of buckwheat) differs widely from the careful Flemish method of cultivation, in which even the pastures are manured. On the clay there is still greater variety both in the modes of treatment and in the amount of care bestowed on weeding and draining. The produce of the land is thus very different in the various provinces for the same soil. The general value of the crops is gradually rising, as may be seen from the following statistics, in which the higher figures cannot be altogether ascribed to the greater extent of land brought under cultivation: improved education and the influence of local associations for the advancement of the interests of agriculture have contributed to the result. In 1851-60 there was under cultivation in grain and other marketable crops 1,637,512 acres, in 1861-70 1,770,890 acres, and in 1871-75 1,860,850 acres. The total value of the crops was £8,311,666 in 1851, £13,445,672 in 1862, £15,870,586 in 1871, and £19,001,598 in 1875. Of the total acreage just mentioned about 25'9 per cent, was devoted to rye, 17'3 to potatoes, 13 - 5 to oats, 8'6 to buckwheat, 7 to beans and pease, 7'1 to barley, 5 to rape seed, 3 to flax and hemp, 0 - 8 to madder, 0’6 to garden seeds, 0 2 to tobacco; while the rest is set apart for the special cultivation of chicory, hops, beetroot, mangold wurzel, market-garden produce, flowers, pharmaceutical plants, grapes, &c. The woods or rather the plantations, covering 6 per cent., consist·—of (1) the so-called forest timber (opgaandhout; French, arbres de haute futaie),—including the beech, oak, elm, poplar, birch, ash, willow, and coniferous trees; and (2) the copse wood (akkermaal or hak-hout),—embracing the alder, willow, beech, oak, &c. This forms no unimportant branch of the national wealth.

Stock-breeding varies in the different provinces. For cattle, Friesland and North and South Holland take the lead as regards both quality and numbers; sheep are best in Texel and North Holland, and most numerous in Drenthe, where their preponderance is due to the number of commons which still remain unbroken up. Pigs, for which the low lauds are peculiarly favourable, are reared in all the provinces. Goats, mainly kept for their milk, are most numerous in Guelderland and North Brabant. Guelderland, Friesland, Zealand, and Groningen possess the greatest number of horses. Poultry, especially fowls, are generally kept. Bee culture is mainly carried on in buckwheat and heath districts (Guelderland, Overyssel, Drenthe, the Gooiland, and Utrecht). A bee market is held at Veenendaal in Utrecht. Stock breeding is mainly carried on along with dairy-farming and hay-making on the alluvial soils; and there the cereal crops give way to fodder plants. The permanent pasture in recent years extends to some 2⅜ millions of acres, and clover, artificial meadows, &c., occupy about 400,000. The production of milk, butter, and cheese amounts to the value of 90 millions of guilders (ls∙ ’ 8d. each); butcher meat produces 35 millions, and wool, hides, fowls, and game 10 millions; while horse-breeding also yields a total of 10 millions. In 1870 the number of horses was 252,200; cattle, 1,410,800; sheep, 900,200; goats, 156,900; and pigs, 329,100; whereas in 1876 the horses numbered 268,000; cattle, 1,439,257; sheep, 891,090; goats, 150,000; and pigs, 352,000. The value of this live stock in 1870 was £22,087,375, and in 1876 £29,799,905.

In the densely peopled Netherlands, with no extensive forests, hunting forms rather an amusement than a means of subsistence, the only exception being the pursuit of wild-fowl (ducks, geese, and snipes). Hares, partridges, wood-snipes, finches, and thrushes are the only form of game; a few roebucks and deer are found in Overyssel and Guelderland; rabbits are numerous in the dunes, and sea-gulls’ eggs are gathered in the north of Texel, which consequently bears the name of Eijerland He., Eggland).

Much more important as a means of subsistence are the fisheries, which, however, are not at present in a flourishing state. They are divided into the “deep-sea fishery” (buitengaatsch) in the German Ocean, and the “inner” fisheries (binnengaatsch) in the Zuyder Zee, the rivers of Zealand, and the inland waters. The deep-sea fishery may be further divided into the great (the so-called “saltherring”) fishery, mainly carried on from Vlaardingen and Maassluis, and the “fresh-herring” fishery, chiefly pursued at Scheveningen, Katwijk, and Noordwijk. The deep-sea fisheries also yield cod and flat fish. In the Zuyder Zee flat fish, herrings, anchovies, and shrimps are caught off the islands uf Urk and Marken and the coast towns of Vollenhove, Kämpen, Harderwijk, Huizen, and Vollendern; and there are oyster banks near Texel. In the Zealand rivers oysters 1 See Geschiedkundig overzigt van het lager onderwijs in Nederland, Leyden, 1849; De wet op het lager onderwys, met aanteekeningen door S. Blaupot ten Cate en A. Moens, Gron., 1879; and Dr J. Stein Parvé, Organisation de l’instruction primaire, secondaire, et supérieure dans le roy. des Pays-Bas, Leyden, 1878.

and mussels are obtained at Bruinisse, Philippine, and Graauw, and anchovies at Bergen-op-Zoorn; while salmon, perch, and pike are caught in the Meuse, the Lek, and the Merwede, and eels in the Frisian lakes. The fisheries not only supply the great local demand, but allow exports to the value of £250,000.

The numbers of men and vessels employed are as follows:— [table]

In 1877 the produce (in cwts.) amounted to— [table]

To obtain a correct idea of the trade of the Netherlands greater attention than would be requisite in the case of other countries must be paid to the inland traffic. It is impossible to state the value of this in definite figures, but an estimate may be formed of its extent from the number of ships which it employs in the rivers and canals, and from the quantity of produce brought to the public markets or daily transported by thousands of carts and delivered by the peasant direct to the salesman. Of the market traffic, even in places of secondary rank, the following facts may give some idea. There are yearly brought to market at Gorcum and Hoorn from 10,000 to 13,000 head of cattle; at Barneveld, more than 20,000 sheep; at Alkmaar about 10 million and at Hoorn 5⅜ million tb cheese; at Delft 1⅜ million tb butter and 2 million tb cheese; at Meppel 3 million tb butter; at Leeuwarden 9 to 11 million lb butter, 2 million tb cheese, and 7⅜ million lb of grain and seeds; at the Overyssel markets Zwolle, Deventer, and Kämpen, and at Steenwijk and Almelo, 7⅜ million lb butter; at Utrecht 770,000 and at Groningen 330,000 bushels of grain and seeds. The turn-over at the cattle market at Leyden in 1877 was £639,278. In 1877 there were 7 00 steamboats afloat on the rivers and canals in the service of the inland traffic.

The foreign trade, although less than it was formerly, still continues to be considerable in proportion to the size of the country. In 1878 the merchant marine consisted of 1277 vessels of 958,652 cubic metres (the register ton is equal to 2'83 cubic metres); of which 79 were steamships of about 200,000 cubic metres. In 1877 there entered 8166 vessels with 3,000,000 tons, and cleared 4936 vessels with 1,800,000 tons; to which must be added 20,500 vessels with 2,400,000 tons, which came down the rivers in cargo from foreign countries, and 11,850 vessels, with 1,500,000 tons, w hich passed the frontier upward bound.

The extent of the trade and its increase or decrease from year to year is shown approximately in the following table — [table]

The six ports which take the largest share in the foreign trade are Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Helder, Dort, Schiedam, and Harlingen; at a considerable distance follow Groningen, Middelbur«*, Vlaardingen, Purmerend, Zaandam, Edam, Zwolle, Kämpen, and Delfzijl. The returns of recent years show best in the case of the South Holland towns; but it must be kept in view that the direct imports, the so-called “proper trade,” are most important at Amsterdam, while a great part of the commercial business at Rotterdam belongs to the commission and transit trade. For exports Rotterdam is by far the most important, sending out nearly thrice as much as Amsterdam.

An examination of its lists of exports and imports will show that Holland receives from its colonies its spiceries, coffee, sugar, tobacco, indigo, cinnamon; from England, Prussia, and Belgium its manufactured goods and coals; grain from the Baltic provinces, Archangel, and the ports of the Black Sea; pease and beans from Prussia, timber from Norway and the basin of the Rhine, yarn from England, wine from France, hops from Bavaria and Alsace; while in its turn it sends its colonial wares to Germany, its agricultural produce to the London market, its fish to Belgium and Germany, and its cheese to Fiance, Belgium, and Hamburg, as well as England. The briskest trade is carried on with Germany and England; thin follow Java, France, Russia, the United States, &c.

The mineral resources of Holland give no encouragement to industrial activity, with the exception of the coal mining in Limburg, the smelting of iron ore in four furnaces in Overyssel and Guelderland, the use of stone and gravel in the making of dykes and roads and of clay in brick works and potteries, the quarrying of stone at St Pietersberg, &c. Still the industry of the country has developed itself in a remarkable manner since the separation of Belgium, and that in spite of the lack of iron and coal, and the rivalry of other productive forms of labour. The greatest activity is shown in the cotton industry, which especially flourishes in Twenthe (in Overyssel) and also at Haarlem and Veenendaal. In the manufacture of woollen goods Tilburg ranks first, followed by Leyden, Utrecht, and Eindhoven; that of half woollens is best developed at Roermond and Helmond. The cotton and woollen manufactures together furnish employment to 20,000 hands. The linen manufacture is carried on especially in Meierij van den Bosch, Helmond, Boxtel, Woensel, &c. Even iron works and ma<dιine factories have greatly increased since the free importation of the raw material was permitted—for example, at Amsterdam and at Fijenoord opposite Rotterdam; and in this department more than 6000 workers are employed throughout the country. It need hardly be said that shipbuilding is of no small importance in the Netherlands, not only in the greater but also in the smaller towns along the rivers and canals; and it is naturally associated with ropespinning and other auxiliary crafts. Among the less noteworthy branches of industry are the making of cigars and snuff, especially at Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Kämpen; diamond-cutting at Amsterdam; beetroot-sugar refining at Amsterdam; papermaking in the Veluwe, on the Zaan, and in Limburg; shoemaking and leather-tanning in Brabant (Langstraat); mat-plaiting and broom-making at Genemuiden and Blokzijl; the manufacture of glass, crystal, and earthenware at Maestricht; carpet-weaving at Deventer; working in gold and silver in North and South Holland and on a smaller scale at Schoonhoven; and the distillation of brandy, gin, and liqueurs at Schiedam, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. The number of hands occupied in the manufactories throughout the whole of the Netherlands is estimated at about 100,000, of whom three-fourths are settled in North and South Holland, North Brabant, and Overyssel. The following table shows how great has been the industrial development of the last thirty years :— [table]

As the development of trade and industry and agriculture was promoted by the improvement of education and the abolition of transit and export dues and the lessening of import dues, so also has it been advanced by the improvement of the means of communication, and of the postal and telegraph systems. The waterways of the country have been already considered. The roads are divided into national or royal roads, placed directly under the control of the “waterstaat” and supported by the state; provincial roads, under the direct control of the states of the provinces, and almost all supported by the provincial treasuries; communal and polder roads, maintained by the communal authorities and the polder boards; and finally, private roads. The system of national roads, mainly constructed between 1821 and 1827, but still in process of extension, brings into connexion nearly all the towns. The construction of railways was long deferred and slowly accomplished: the “Holland Railway” was laid down in 1839-47, the Rhine Railway in 1843-56, the Aix-Maestricht-Landen line in 1853-56, and the Dutch-Belgian in 1853-54. All the other lines, e.g., that from Maestricht to Liège, the Central Railway, the Nimeguen line, the Almelo-Salzberg line, the State Railway system, &c., have been constructed since 1861, a large number of them having been opened about 1863 and 1864. A great improvement has in consequence been effected in the communication. The town of Utrecht, which is the centre both of the country and of the railway system, may be approached by six different lines. From Amersfoort, Zutρhen, Zwolle, Hengelo, Boxtel, Rosendaal, Venlo, and Maestricht lines stretch out in four directions, while Groningen, Leeuwarden, Meppel, Enschede, Hilversum, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Uitgeest, the Hague, Rotterdam, Moerdijk, Breda, Tilburg, and Eindhoven are each the meeting place of three lines. With foreign countries the Netherlands communicate from Groningen by the Winschoten and Nieuwe Sehans line; from Overyssel by the Almelo-Salzberg line; from Guelderlaιid by the Arnhem-Emmerik and Nimeguen-Cleves lines, from Limburg by the Gennep-Goch, Venlo-Gladbach, and Maestricht-Aix-la-Chapelle lines; and in the south with Belgium by the Terneuzen-Ghent, Hulst-St-Nikolaas, Rosendaal-Antwerp, Tilburg-Turnhout, Eindhoven-Hassel t, Maestricht-Liège, &c. Among ’the lines at present projected or in construction may be mentioned the works at Amsterdam by which the Holland Railway along the Y is to be brought into connexion with the Eastern Railway and the Rhine Railway; the line between Zaandam and Enkhuizen via Purmerend and Hoorn; the Groningen-Delfzijl line; and those from Zwolle to Almelo, and from Rotterdam or Schiedam by Vlaardingen to Maassluisand the mouth of the New Waterway.

The extent of the mail service routes was 26,898 miles in 1873, and 29,773 miles in 1877; and in the same years the post-office staff numbered 3026 and 3525 respectively. The number of letters (exclusive of newspapers, printed matter, and official letters), which in 1850 was only 7,000,000, had increased by 1877 to 50,000,000. The number of inland post-cards rose from 4,000,000 in 1871 to about 10,000,000 in 1877; the number of inland newspapers was in 1860 about 5,000,000, and in 1877 about 27,000,000. The following are the statistics for 1853 and 1877 of the national telegraph system, originated in 1852 :— [table]

The Dutch colonies, originally mere trading communities, have so much increased in importance, through the cultivation of their Various vegetable products, the reclaiming of their waste lands, and the working of their mines, that they cannot be left altogether out of view in considering the trade and finances of the mother country. The Dutch colonies in the East Indies, situated between 30° N. lat. and 6° S lat., and between 95° and 141° E. long., comprise an area of 600,000 square miles, with a population of about 23,000,000, among which are 35,000 Europeans, 319,000 Chinese, 15,000 Arabs, and 10,000 other immigrant Asiatics. For convenience of supervision they are divided into the Great Sunda (Soenda) Islands, the Smaller Sunda Islands, and the Moluccas—a division which is based neither on political nor on ethnological considerations, nor on the phenomena of animal or vegetable distribution. The Great Sunda Islands are Java, Sumatra, Celebes, and Borneo, all with subsidiary islands; the Smaller Sunda Islands comprise Bali, Lombok, Soem-bawa, Flores, Sandalwood Island, and Timor; the Moluccas include Halmaheira, Ceram, Burn (Boeroe), Amboyna, Banda, and the south-eastern groups, besides Western New Guinea. The West Indian possessions of Holland include Dutch Guiana or the government of Surinam, and the Dutch Antilles or the government of Curaçoa and its dependencies (St Eustatius, Saba, the southern half of St Martin, Curaçoa, Bonaire, and Aruba), a total area of 60,000 square miles, with 90,000 inhabitants, of whom a small portion are Europeans, and the rest negroes and other people of colour, Chinese, and other emigrants. The East Indian possessions yield an annual average contribution, as already stated, of over £800,000; the West Indian, on the other hand, require aid to the amount of £500,000 or £600,000 yearly.

The character of the Dutch people may be largely explained by their history, the conformation of the country, their means of subsistence, their strife with the sea, and their struggles to maintain their independence against Spain and against hostile neighbours. The love of freedom and independence is the leading element in their character; the peculiarity of their soil has constrained them to be industrious and economical; their contest against the sea, their wars, and their distant expeditions, have trained them to bravery and self-possession; and their liberality has been stimulated by the disasters which, falling upon one to-day, might be the lot of any other to-morrow: Of course the virtues of the Dutch are apt to be distorted to vices: their composure not seldom becomes indifference; their tendency to reflexion makes them laggard in action and delicient in enterprise; their love of liberty degenerates into an extravagant sense of independence that is more concerned about rights than about duties. Sociability is by no means a dominant characteristic of the Dutch; they speak little and laugh less. But their appearance and expression give a poor indication of their sterling qualities. Their general sincerity and uprightness are evident to every one λvhose own respectability gains him admission, on terms of familiar intercourse, to the respectable circles of Dutch society.

Bibliography.—The first place in a bibliography of Holland is due to the Alge-nιeene Statistιek van Nederland (Leyden, 1st part, 1870.2d part,1873). a work of much vaster compass than is indicated by its title,—consisting, as it does, of separate articles on every scientific aspect of the country, contributed by specialists of high authority. The geodetic portion, for example is furnished by J. H. A. Kuijper; Dr H. Hurtogh Heys van Zouteveen t> eats of the soil, rivers, islands, <fcc,, the geology,and the fauna· the flora is described by Professor Hugo de Yries, Dr C. Μ. van der Sande Lacosta, and Professor W F. R. Sur in gar; the meteorology is by P∣ofessor C. H. D. Buys Ballot, the account of the provinces and communes by Professor S. visseιing, and the vital statistics by Μ. von Baumhauer. As supplements to this, their greatest work, the Government Society for Statistics also publish Bi}dragen en Medeueelingen voor die Stat, van het Kon. der Neder!anden; Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkundig Jaarboekje; and'Stat. Jaar∙ boek voor het Ron. dτ NederlancL·n. The following are convenient manuals :— Dr A. A. van Heusden. Handbook der Aardrijkskιιnde. <tc. van het Kon. der Niederlanden, Haarlem, 1866, J. Kuijper, Nederland, zone Provincien en Kolonien, Leeuwarden, 1878, Rijkens, Aardrijkskunde van Nederland, Groningen, 1879; Μ. H. J. Plautenga. Militaire Aardrijkskunde ran Nederland, new ed., 1880; J Craandijk and P A. Schipperus, Schotten met pen en pot'ood, Haarlem, 1874. Tiιe excellent works of W. C. A Staring—De Bodenι can Nederland, Haarlem, 1856-60, Natuurkunde <n Volksrlιjt van Nederland, Amsterdam, 1870; and Voorιnaals en thans, Haarlem, 1877—are of a more descriptive cast. For the fauna and flora of the country the reader may consult Professor Schlegel, De dieren van Nederland, Haarlem. 1862; C. A. J. A.Oudemans. De Flora van Nederland, Haarlem, 1871-74. Van Halls. Neer!ands Ph>ntenschat, Gron., 1855. Among the more recent of foreign publications in tccard to Holland the following rank high·—Alph. Esquι.os. La Néerlande et la rie Hollandaise, Paris, 1859 (English tιanslation, Dutch at Home. London. 1863) J G. Kohl, Reisen in den Niederlanden, Leipsic, 1850. Dr A. wild. Die Niederlande: ihre Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Leipsic, 1862: Henry Havard, La Hollande Pittoresque: Voyage aujr villes mortes du Zuiderzee. Palis. 1874, Les Frontières Menacées, Paiis, 1876; and Au coeur du Pu s, Paris 1878, and E<lmondo de Amicis, olanda (Dutch translation by D. Lodccsen, Ncdeiland en zijne bι∣coners, Leyden, 1876). The most important maps and atlases are the topographic maps of the kingdom of the Netherlands, isueιl by the W..r Department, tire Hague, 62 sheets, 11∣hogr. scale 1:50,000; the Waterstaats Kaart ran Nederland (1:50,000). issued by th -Ministry of the ln erior under the supervision of P Caland and H. Rodi de Loo; W, C. II. Staring's Geologische Kaart. executed by the topographical office of the war Department (1:200,000); Kaart voor de Natuurkunde en VolksvHjt∖, and Landbouιckaart ran het Ron. der Nederlanden (1:200,000); J. Kuijper, Gemeente Atlas van Nederland,. naar officieele bronnen ontιcorpen (1205 communal maps and one large general map); and Natuur en Staathuishoudkundige Atlas van Nederland. There arethree g>>o<i gazetteers;—A. J. van der Aa, Aardrijksk Wo'<>rdenboek, Gouda. 1855: S. Gille Heringa, Handwoordenboek van Nederland. 3d ed., Utrecht, 1874; and P. H. Witkan>p Aardrijksk. Woo>∙den-boek can Nederland, Thiel, 1871-76. (C. Μ. K.)

PART II.—HISTORY.

The oldest inhabitants of Holland of whom anything is known were of Celtic origin; so much may be gathered from scanty remains found in cairns, from a few proper names, such as Nimeguen (Nimwegen) and Walcheren, and from the Druid altars found in that island. In Caesar’s day the whole district between the Rhine and the Scheldt was occupied by Belgae, the bravest of Celts, while the Betaw, the “good meadow,” the Insula Batavorum, was peopled by a portion of the Germanic tribe of the Chatti, and provided first the stoutest foes and then the most serviceable allies of the Roman empire. But if the Batavi were the most distinguished of the Germanic tribes in the country, the “free Frisians” (see Frisians), who filled the whole northern portion of it, were by far the most important; in addition to them, and mostly on the borderland, were others, Usipetes, Bructeri, Sicambri, Chamavi,. Eburones, and the like, of whom we know little but the names.

From 28 to 47 a.d. a struggle went on between the Romans and the Frisians, which ended in the latter year in the complete reduction of the tribe by the vigour of Domitius Corbulo; the Batavi and Frisians were probably, in the earlier days of their connexion with Rome, admitted, if not to the more honourable position of “socii,” at least to the lower grade of “auxilia,” their relation to the empire doubtless varying from time to time. This friendly state of things did not last long; for in 70 a.d. Rome had dismissed her Batavian cohorts, and had turned Claudius Civilis, the “Mithridates of the West,” into a bitter foe. This remarkable patriot had served for many years in the armies of Rome, and had learnt the secrets of the imperial strength and weakness. Taking advantage of the wrongs of Germans and Gauls, and skilfully using the divisions within the empire, he displayed high statesmanlike ability, while his energy and success in war placed him in the rank of great captains. He declared for Vespasian against Vitellius, and grouped together Celt and Teuton in an effort to sweep the tyrant Roman out of Gaul. At first all went well with them, and the Romans were driven out of all modern Holland, Belgium, and from the left bank of the Rhine as far as Alsace. Then the Roman power began to assert itself once more. An able general, Cerealis, was sent into the north-west, and after a chequered and exhausting struggle, in which both suffered greatly, the Batavian hero gave way. Peace was made on easy terms; Civilis laid down arms, and the Batavians submitted and resumed their old position towards Rome. The Batavian island was lined with forts, and became for the Romans the frontier between Gaul and German; much as in far later days the Spanish Netherlands were the barrier between the Dutch and the French.

For a time all was quiet on this north-western frontier, till late in the 3d century the Franks appeared (see Franks). In the course of the 5th century the Salian Franks had occupied a great part of the Netherlands, and when Hlodowig (Clovis) was lifted (481) on his warriors’ shields, they were possessors of South Holland, the Velu we, Utrecht, Brabant, Antwerp, Limburg, Liége, Hainault, Namur, and Luxembourg. After his death (511) these districts for the most part belonged to the Austrasian kingdom. Behind the Salians came the Saxons, who had made themselves felt in the Batavian island by the middle of the 4th century; in the course of the 5th and 6th centuries they had settled firmly in Overyssel and Drenthe, lying between the Frisians to the north and the Franks to the south. There they shared, in alliance with the Frisians, the varying fortunes of that struggle against the Frankish power which lasted 400 years, and was ended only by the genius and persistency of Charles the Great.

The first Christian church in the Netherlands was founded in the time of Dagobert I., who had reduced the Frisians and Saxons at the town of Wiltenberg, afterwards Utrecht, between 622 and 632. But the true apostle of the Netherlands was Willibrord the Northumbrian, first bishop of that see (695). He made Utrecht the centre from which Christian light spread across a wide circle of heathendom; and under the protection of Pippin of Heristal, the new faith was so firmly planted in those parts, that when Willibrord died Limburg, North Brabant, Utrecht, and other districts had accepted the faith of the Franks. After Willibrord, Christianity had in that part of Europe another stout champion, Wolfram of Sens, who had nearly persuaded the Frisian king, Radbod, to be a Christian; and lastly in 755, St Boniface, “the apostle of the Germans,” was martyred at Dokkum in Friesland while preaching among the heathen. Towards the end of the century the stern methods of Charles the Great completed the conversion of the Netherlands.

As an integral part of the Frankish empire, the land under Charles and his immediate successors was divided into “landschafts” and “gaus,” ruled over by dukes and counts, by the side of whom the church also asserted her territorial rights. Hence sprang the dukedom of Brabant, the countships of Flanders, Holland, Guelderland, and the bishopric of Utrecht; and these, under the later Carolings, were independent in all but the name. Ecclesiastically the northern portion of the Netherlands, with South Holland and part of Zealand, was under the bishop of Utrecht; while the eastern districts were under the Saxon bishops of Münster and Osnabrück, and the southern parts under the Frankish bishops of Cologne, Liége, and Doornick. The original dukedoms were subdivided politically into countships, and geographically into gaus; each gau had a chief town, girt with a wall, wherein count and judges administered justice; such towns were also market-places.

These districts were again subdivided into marks or villages, each with its headman, who acted as judge in lesser and local cases. These gaus were Frisian in the north, Saxon in the middle (about Drenthe, &c.), and Frankish in the south.

In the great partition of Verdun (843), Lothar, eldest son of Louis the Pious, became lord of North Brabant (a< c it is now called), Guelderland, Limburg, and all modern Belgium; Charles the Bald got Flanders and part of Zealand, while Louis the German had whatever lay on the right bank of the Rhine: this district (called Lotharingia in the days of his son Lothar II.) thus became a borderland between Gaul and Germany. When Lothar II. died without heirs in 869, his uncle Charles the Bald got all the northern Netherlands, with Friesland; but the Mersen agreement (870) redistributed these lands,—to Louis the German the districts south of the present Zuyder Zee, including Utrecht and the Veluwe; to Charles the Bald, Holland, Zealand, and modern Belgium, Eventually in 879 Louis, son of Louis the German, got these districts also. In 912 they accepted Charles the Simple of France as overlord; in 924 Henry I. brought them again under German lordship; afterwards Otto the Great granted them as a fief to his brother Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, who, dividing the land into Upper aud Lower Lotharingia, set Gottfried, count of Verdun, over the latter as duke, and himself took the title of archduke. Thus, during this period, the Netherlands from 843 to 869 were a part of Lotharingia (as it came to be called); from 869 to 870 they were under French lordship, from 870 to 879 partly French partly German, from 879 to 912 altogether German, from 912 to 924 French again, and finally after 924 German.

Throughout this time the country was swamp below and woodland above; and though much forest was cleared from time to time, it was still a difficult tangle, with little communication except down the rivers and by the old Roman roads. Yet, backward as they were, the Netherlands were rich enough to attract the Northmen, who ravaged the shores and river sides, and carried with them southward many a willing Saxon and Frisian warrior. Under Louis the Pious they got firm footing on the coast, and received the district from Walcheren up to the Weser as a group of fiefs under the emperors; they even took and sacked Utrecht. In 873 Rolf, founder of Normandy, seized Walcheren; in 880 the Northmen took Nimeguen, and spread up the left bank of the Rhine as far as Cologne; in the chapel of the Great Charles at Aix they stabled horses and held heathen revel, till bribed to withdraw by Charles the Fat. Their great leader Siegfried had the emperor’s daughter to wife, with lands in Friesland; he was willing to become a Christian, though this put no stop to his demands; “as the lands granted him hitherto produced no wine,” he demanded also Rhine towns and districts for the sake of their vintages. His father-in-law, however, sent instead men to murder him, and, this being done, the lord ship of the Northmen in the Netherlands came to an end.

The effect of these viking incursions on Frankish feudalism was great. “Eighty years of plunder and murder," says Gerlache (Essai sur les grandes Époques, p. 94), “had turned the fields into a wilderness; the towns rose like oases in the desert; the wealth of the monasteries perished; the people were either slain with the sword or had taken to the sword as robbers; all the elements of political life, kingship, nobility, clergy, were confounded together, and every tie of civil society relaxed.” The impoverished natives took rèfuge under the nobles, whose power made great advance. Now arose, too, a new title of nobility, that of margrave,—each margrave being bound to defend a piece of frontier, receiving in return an almost complete independence: such was the marquis of Antwerp, who guarded the mouth of the Scheldt. The towns also became as sanctuaries against the ravager; the serf who took refuge there presently became free; the burghers began to trade, and found encouragement in their traffic even from the Northmen themselves.

Thus the whole district came to be covered with prosperous towns; it was also divided into independent lordships, among which the countship of Holland, as it soon afterwards was called, was the most prominent and important. The title “count of Holland” does not appear in history till the 11th century. In the latter part of the 9th century there was a certain Count Dirk, to whom, early in the 10th, Charles the Simple granted the abbey of Egmond near Alkmaar. Of his history almost nothing is known; he was dead before 942, as there exists still a document of that year signed by Dirk II. Dirk II. was a man of weight; he got for his younger son the archbishopric of Treves, and Arnulf his elder son married a kinswoman of the emperor Otto II. He himself received in 983 a broad district, that now covered by the Zuyder Zee, from Texel to the north, and the mainland southward down to Nimeguen. He died in 988; and Arnulf was count till 993. His son, Dirk HI., a boy, on his accession found things in great confusion; the fiefs held under France were gone, and much besides. But the young count was full of vigour, and grew at last so strong that in 1018 the emperor ordered the duke of Nether Lotharingia to crush him. Dirk, however, completely defeated his assailant, and not only retained the disputed lands and powers, but added thereto Bodegrave, the Merwede, and Swammerdam, as fiefs of the church at Utrecht. It is here that the true history of Holland begins; for.Dirk III. now firmly settled himself in this district, and became lord of the rich woodland (“Holt-land,” i.e. i Holland) on the Rhine and Meuse. Having also subdued the Frisians and set his brother over them, he next went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and after his return in 1034 ruled in peace till his death in 1039. His son, Dirk IV., was also a man of vigour; he began the long strife with the counts of Flanders as to the lordship over Walcheren and the other islands of Zealand, the quarrel was important, as dealing with the borderland between French and German overlordship. This strife, which lasted 400 years, did not at first break out into actual warfare, because both Dirk and Baldwin V. of Flanders had a common danger in the emperor Henry III., who in 1046 occupied the lands in dispute; but while other opponents gave in, Dirk, after the manner of his house, stood out, and in the winter of 1047 with his light boats took the imperial fleet, ruined the imperial army, and dictated his own terms. In 1049, in a fresh contest with the bishop of Utrecht and his allies, Dirk met with his death at Dort. His brother, Floris I., succeeded, and carried on the quarrel; in 1061 he was slain on the battlefield, after having won a decisive victory over the bishop His son, Dirk V., was a child, and the neighbouring princes thought the end of the house of Holland at hand; and though the boy had stout friends, especially Robert “the Frisian,” who had married his widowed mother, his prospects were at first very gloomy. The battle of Cassel, however, in 1072, in which Robert the Frisian defeated Philip of France and Richilda of Flanders, secured his possessions for Dirk, who henceforth saw better days, and ruled in peace till his death in 1091. . His son, Floris II., the Fat, had also peace, and at his death in 1122 left Holland in great prosperity. His widow, . Petronilla of Saxony, governed for her young son Dirk VI., and continued the joint resistance of Holland and Saxony to the Franconian emperors. But when, on the death of Henry V., Lothair of Saxony became emperor, this quarrel came to an end, and the fortunes of the house of Holland rose greatly; the Frisian Ostergow and Westergow were transferred from the bishop of Utrecht to Count Dirk in 1125. The Hohenstaufen, on the contrary, favoured the bishop, and gave back the two “gows”; and thus, with gain and loss, Dirk VI. ruled till he died in 1157. It was in his time that Holland sent out her first colonists; invited by Adolf of Holstein and Albert the Bear of Brandenburg, Hollanders settled on the Elbe and the Havel, and by their skill in reclaiming marshlands, and their thrift and vigour, created a flourishing district out of a waste of wood and water.

Floris III., the next count, allied himself with Frederick Barbarossa, thus reversing the traditional policy of his house. He was less fortunate than his fathers; the count of Flanders carried off a slice of his territory; he scarcely held his own against West Friesland and Groningen; his reign was marked by the great flood of 1170, which swept over Holland, Friesland, and Utrecht, and helped to form the Zuyder Zee. Later in life Floris followed the emperor on crusade, and soon after the death of the latter, perished in 1190 of pestilence at Antioch. His son, Dirk VII., had a stormy time, losing rather than gaining in the long-run. He died in 1203, leaving an only daughter, Ada, with whom came up the question as to female succession to a male fief. Zealand mainly declared for William, the late count’s brother, while Holland went with Ada; by 1206, however, William had beaten down all opposition, and was undisputed count. He sided with the emperor Otto IV., and was present at Bouvines (1214), where Philip Augustus crushed the allied forces of Otto, John of England, Flanders, Holland, and Brabant. Soon after this William changed sides, and, attaching himself to Philip Augustus, accompanied Louis to England. After King John’s death he joined the fourth crusade, in which his men distinguished themselves greatly at the siege of Damietta in 1219. Returning thence he reigned in peace till his death in 1224. His reign is notable by reason of the civic charters he granted,—one to Geertruidenberg in 1213, another celebrated one to Middelburg in Zealand in 1217. These charters were the models on which later ones were framed; they secured the existing liberties of towns, gave the burghers the right of being ruled by law, and established equal justice within the walls.

William was succeeded by Floris IV , murdered at Corbie in 1235; his son, William II., was a man of mark. Pope Innocent IV. having deposed Frederick II., and wanting a prince to set up against the Hohenstaufen, thought that the young count of Holland might serve, and accordingly had him elected king of the Romans by an assembly composed chiefly of German ecclesiastics. He took Aix-la-Chapelle, and was there crowned king in 1248; and after Frederick’s death in 1250 he had a considerable party in Germany. His foreign ambitions were, however, crossed by troubles at home, and before he received the imperial crown he perished in West Friesland, going down, horse and armour, through the ice. It was he who fixed the seat of government at the Hague. His successor was Floris V., a babe. The father had been a young man of unusual promise, ruined by German politics; the son was destined to play a considerable part in Netherland history. Hitherto Holland had dealt only with smaller neighbours, Flanders, Friesland, Utrecht, or Guelderland; henceforward she takes part in European questions, interfering in the great strife between Edward I. of England and France. For when he came of age Floris allied himself closely with the English king, and secured great trading advantages for his people; the staple of wool was placed at Dort, and the Hollanders and Zealanders got fishing rights on the English coast. To balance the power of the nobles, which more and more took the form of oppression, he also granted charters to towns (notably to Amsterdam), and forwarded their growth. In 1296, finding that Edward of England was dealing with his rival of Flanders, Floris joined Philip the Fair of France; but this act and his severities towards the nobles led to a conspiracy, to which he fell a victim; the burghers and people, who knew him to be their best friend, took such vengeance on his slayers as permanently reduced the power of the nobles.

John I., his son, was in England when his father was murdered; he was a feeble boy in body and mind, married to the daughter of Edward I. His reign was a struggle between Zealand, led by Wolfart van Borselen, and Holland, guided by John of Avennes, the young count’s guardian and next heir. In 1299 Van Borselen was killed by the Hollanders, and soon after Count John died. John of Avennes was at once recognized as count by the Hollanders, and with John I. ended the first line of counts, after a rule of nearly 400 years. Europe has perhaps never seen an abler series of princes; excepting the last, there is not one weak man among them; they were ready fighters, brave crusaders, handsome well-built persons, with high chivalrous gifts tainted with corresponding chivalrous vices; they were all ready to advance the commerce of the country; they were the friends of the people, the supporters of the growing towns. They made their marsh lands fertile, and raised Holland to be a companion of kings.

During this time Holland became independent of the imperial authority. The fragments of Nether Lorraine, Holland, Guelderland, Utrecht, Brabant, and Flanders paid little heed to their nominal lord; Holland especially, so far from the centre of the empire, so nearly forgotten in the greater troubles of Italy or Switzerland, was left to herself. She made her own laws, imposed river-dues (a recognized imperial right), named her own officers, held high court of justice, coined money, made peace or war at will. Even the de jure authority of the empire over Holland is a matter of doubt, much debated by publicists and historians. The independent development of the country took, as we have said, a municipal form; and as the constitutions of her cities have throughout affected her history, they demand some consideration. Before the 14th century there were in Holland no estates, nor any general political life; the count was all powerful. Over the country districts he set his “baljews” or bailiffs, and in towns and villages his “schouts” or local judges. In the 13th century, when any greater matter had to be discussed in a city, all citizens were summoned by ring of the great bell to the public square, and there decided the question by democratic vote. Justice was administered “by a man’s peers,” according to the Saxon code in the east, the Frisian in the north, and the Frankish or Salian in the south,— each district having also its several uses or customs. Taxation for the count’s benefit was styled his “beden” or prayer for supplies, and fell chiefly on the towns. And as the towns paid most, and were generally built on the count’s lands, they claimed his protection, receiving charters and liberties from him in return for their dues and levies of men. In time the vague civic democracy gave place to an oligarchical government. While the Flemjsh towns were opposed to their feudal lord, in the north it was the other way; the counts of Holland were with the cities against the other classes of society. Consequently, though the Dutch towns began later, they in the end enjoyed far more steady prosperity than their southern neighbours. Thus under William II. and Floris V., Dort and Delft, Haarlem, Alkmaar, Middelburg, Leyden, Schiedam, and others began their prosperous career. Each of these cities was at first ruled by the count’s “schepenen” or judges, supported by councillors, one from each quarter of the town, from whom sprang the title of burgomaster, by which they became known in later days. The “schepenen” administered justice, while the councillors or burgomasters attended to civil affairs, and by degrees threw the judges into the background. Peace and defence were entrusted to a local militia, armed with the cross-bow. Dort was the earliest of these prosperous towns; it enjoyed a very strict stapleright; the commerce of the northern districts was compelled to pass through its market. Two centuries later came the prosperity of Amsterdam, and with it the European fame of Dutch butter and cheese; then the wealth arising from the herring-fishery, of which the centre was Enkhuysen. In the 14th century the chief towns had joined the Hansa, and though that exclusive body in the 15th century ejected them, they far more than recovered the loss of their trade through the newly opened worlds of India and America.

When John of Avennes succeeded in 1299 as first count of the house of Hainault, the Hollanders were willing to receive him, the Zealanders not; and a long struggle between the provinces ensued. In 1301 he coerced Utrecht into alliance, and got the bishopric for his brother Guy. In 1304 the Flemings were driven out of Holland, and John II. was for a few .months real lord of the county. He died that year, and was succeeded by his son William III., “the Good” (1304-1337), who made peace with Flanders in 1323, settled the outstanding quarrel between Holland and Zealand, united the Amstelland and its city Amsterdam to his territories, encouraged civic life, and developed the resources of his country. He also entered into close relations with the states of Europe, having married Johanna of Valois, niece of the French king; in 1323 the emperor Louis the Bavarian wedded his daughter Margaret, and in 1328 his third daughter, Philippa of Hainault, was given to Edward III. of England. William III. was in all respects a great prince, and an acute statesman. In 1337 he died, and was succeeded by his son William IV., who was killed fighting against the Frisians in 1315. He left no children, and the question as to the succession now brought on Holland a time of violent civil commotions. -The county was claimed by Margaret, William’s eldest sister, as well as by Philippa of Hainault, or, in other words, by Edward III. of England. Margaret eventually succeeded, siding with the older nobles, and being, therefore, not well received by the towns. These are the days in which came up the famous parties of “Kabbeljaus” and ‘.‘Hoeks,” the “Cods” and the “Hooks,” the fat burgher fish and the sharp steel-pointed nobles who wanted to catch and devour them. After much buffeting and many changes of fortune, Margaret resigned her lordship in 1349 in favour of her second son William, but again resumed it in 1350. Then the struggle between nobles and cities broke into open war. Edward III. came to Margaret’s aid, winning a sea fight off Veere in 1351; a few weeks later the Hooks and the English were defeated by William and the Cods at Vlaardingen—an overthrow which ruined Margaret’s cause. She made peace with het son in 1354, and died two years later. He, however, shortly after fell mad; so that in 1358 the Hooks had to call in his younger brother, Albert of Bavaria, to be stadtholder or “ruwaard” in his stead; he ruled well, and restored some order to the land. In the latter part of his life he went over to the Cods, a step which led to another outbreak of civil war which lasted until 1395. In 1404 he died, and was succeeded by his son William VI. who upheld the Hooks with all his power, and secured their ascendency. He died in 1417, leaving only a daughter, Jacoba (or Jacqueline), wife of John of France, who died that same year. Again was Holland rent with civil strife; the Hooks, as before, readily accepting a female sovereign, while the Cods declared for John of Liége. Jacoba was granddaughter of Philip of Burgundy, who behaved very ill towards her; her romantic and sad life has rendered her the most picturesque figure in all the history of Holland; she struggled long against her powerful kinsfolk, nor did she know happiness till near the end of her life, when she abandoned the unequal strife, and found repose with Francis of Borselen, ruwaard of Holland, her fourth husband. Him Philip the Good of Burgundy craftily seized, and thereby in 1433 Jacoba was compelled to cede her rights over the counties of Holland, Zealand, Friesland, and Hainault. Consequently, at her death in 1436, as she left no children, Philip seized on all her lands. He already held much of the Netherlands; he had inherited Flanders and Artois, had bought Namur, had seized Brabant, with Limburg, Antwerp, and Mechlin; he now got Holland, Zealand, and Hainault, with a titular lordship over Friesland; a few years later he became lord also of Luxembourg. By this incorporation with the possessions of the house of Burgundy, the commercial and artistic life of Holland was quickened, but political liberties suffered; for the rule of the “good duke” was far from being good. It was a time of luxury and show, of pageants and display, of the new and brilliant Order of the Golden Fleece (1430), and of the later days of feudalism, with all its brilliancy, corruption, and Recline in the presence of the new monarchical spirit of Europe. Duke Philip on his accession declared that the privileges and constitutions of Holland, to which he had taken oath as ruwaard for Jacoba, should be null, unless he chose to confirm them as count. From that moment till the latter part of the next century the liberties of the Netherlands were treated with contempt. Holland, however, at first contented herself with growing material prosperity: her herring fishery, rendered more valuable than ever by the curing process discovered or introduced by Beukelzoon, brought her fresh wealth; and her fishermen were unconsciously laying the foundations of her maritime greatness. It was in the days of Duke Philip that Lorenz Koster of Haarlem contributed his share to the discovery of printing; the arts and learning of the Renaissance began to flourish greatly. The Burgundian dukes rivalled their contemporaries the Medici; under them grew up the Flemish school of painters, headed by the Van Eycks and Memling; architecture advanced as stately churches and town-houses were built; the dukes collected priceless manuscripts, founded libraries, and encouraged authors. But this speedy growth in art and letters belonged more to Flanders and Brabant than to Holland or Zealand.

In short, throughout the Burgundian time Holland plays but an insignificant part; and it may merely be remarked that the friendship of the dukes for the nobility did that class more harm than their hostility to civic liberties hurt the towns; for the lavish waste of Philip’s court impoverished the nobles, and the wars of Charles destroyed them. After their days the Netherlands nobility were never again powerful. The church also suffered: it was enriched and corrupted by Philip, and was consequently very loyal to him; but his favour instead of strengthening it made the Reformation necessary. The cities, though oppressed and heavily taxed, grew stronger; and, when Duke Charles perished at Nancy, they at once stood out for their rights, and obliged his sole heir the duchess Mary, not unwillingly, to grant them the “Great Privilege” of March 1477, which affirmed the power of the cities and provinces to hold diets, and reserved to the estates a voice in the declaration of war, and authority to approve of the choice she might make of a husband. It was declared that natives alone might hold high office; no new taxes should be laid without the approval of the estates; one high court of justice was established for Holland, Zealand, and Friesland; the Dutch language was made official. Thus came to an end the centralizing despotism of the Burgundian dukes. This period is also remarkable for a reconstruction of the civic government, and for the appearance of the States General, first summoned ’ by Philip the Good. In t⅛e states of Holland many nobles sat in person, though they had but one collective vote. At first all towns, larger and smaller, also sent representatives, but after a time the smaller ceased to appear, and only such larger cities as Dort, Haarlem, Leyden, Amsterdam, Gouda, were represented, each having one vote. The president was the “advocatus,” or “vogt,” of the country, afterwards styled “the pensionary,” an officer regarded as the champion of the estates against the counts. In Zealand and elsewhere, clergy, nobles, and cities sat separately, each order having a single vote. The estates, under the Burgundians, had little power; they could not even control the taxation. Duke Philip in 1464 summoned them to meet him at Bruges, and, though some of the more distant held aloof, the majority obeyed. These States General, however, expressed no national feeling or union of the provinces: that was a far later state of things.

After Mary of Burgundy had granted the Great Privilege, the provinces warmly supported her against Louis XL; they approved her union with Maximilian of Austria in August 1477, though it brought them no rest; for the old parties still survived, and Hooks and Cods fought savagely in almost every town. Maximilian had allied himself with the Cods, and the Hooks were defeated at Leyden and Dort, and finally in their last stronghold, Utrecht, of which city the archduke was made temporal protector in 1483. Before that time (March 1482) Mary of Burgundy had died, and Maximilian, acting for his son Philip, became governor of the Netherlands. After fresh Hook and Cod troubles at Haarlem, he finally made peace with France in December 1482, and after the death of Louis XL brought the Flemings to complete obedience by the peace of Frankfort in 1489. The provinces were still very uneasy, partly through the turbulence of the Hooks, partly because of the autocratic character of his rule, and partly through the so-called “Bread and Cheese” war, caused by famine in the northern provinces. War with France also complicated matters, and the government over the Netherlands was entrusted to Albert of Saxony. In 1494 Maximilian, having been elected emperor, laid down his office as guardian, and bad Philip the Handsome declared of age. He was at once accepted by Brabant, and the estates of Holland even let him sweep away the Great Privilege. He ruled over them quietly, and got back their English trade. In 1496 he married Joanna of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and afterwards heiress to the new monarchy of Spain. On Philip’s death in 1506, leaving two sons, Charles and Ferdinand, and four daughters, Maximilian again became guardian for his grandson Charles, then but six years old; he named Margaret of Savoy, his daughter, governess of the Netherlands in 1507.

In 1515 Charles was. declared of age, and received the homage of Holland and Zealand, Brabant and Flanders, as Count Charles II. In consequence of his friendly relations with Francis I. of France, Henry of Nassau, his comrade and trusted follower, was wedded to Claude, sister of Philibert, prince of Orange, and from this union springs the great house of Orange-Nassau. On his accession to the Spanish and imperial thrones successively, Charles continued his aunt Margaret of Savoy as governess of the Netherlands, with a privy council to assist her.

He brought all the provinces under one hand, having in 1524 become lord of Friesland by purchase, and in 1528 acquired the temporalities of Utrecht. He now ruled over seventeen provinces: that is, over four duchies— Brabant, Guelderland, Limburg, and Luxembourg; seven counties—Flanders, Artois, Hainault, Holland, Zealand, Namur, and Zutphen; the margraviate of Antwerp; and five lordships—Friesland, Mechlin, Utrecht, Overyssel, and Groningen, with the Ommeland.

After the death in 1530 of Margaret, who had continued to act for him with her accustomed wisdom and prudence, Charles V. at first treated the provinces with studied moderation: he redressed some of their griefs, reformed the administration and the coinage, issued sumptuary edicts, regulated their commerce, while he also re-enacted the severe laws against heresy, and gave full powers to the supreme court of Holland—a body completely under his control. He then appointed his sister Mary, queen of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands. She had at first no easy task; for the provinces had on hand a war with Denmark, and Anabaptist troubles at home; before long also she had to ask for increased supplies; and while the Hollanders granted a large annual subsidy, they refused her a hearth tax which she demanded. Similar monetary questions in 1539 produced that famous struggle between the court and Ghent which was only ended by the personal intervention of the emperor; after punishing severely the rebellious burghers, he passed on into Holland, and in 1540, in defiance of the acknowledged rights of the provinces, established a foreigner, René of Chalons, prince of Orange, as stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht. He thus forced on them that great family which has both shed lustre on the history of Holland, and defended there and elsewhere the liberties of Europe. René himself ruled but a short time; he perished in France in 1544, leaving his territories to a little cousin, William of Nassau.

In 1545-46 the estates gave the emperor men and money for his war against the Protestant princes of Germany; after Mühlberg, the Netherlanders hoped that they might now be freed from the foreign troops Charles had quartered among them. He, however, had other plans on hand, and determined to place permanently in the provinces 4000 horse, entirely at his own orders; he also laid before the estates in 1548 a scheme of incorporation, which aimed at making the Netherlands an integral portion of the empire, under the name of the circle of Burgundy, and which he abandoned only after the refusal of the seven electors to make Philip king of the Romans. In 1549 he revisited the provinces and called Philip thither also, that they might see their future master; the young prince swore to maintain their rights and customs; and so began between the Netherlands and him the formal relation which under circumstances elsewhere related (vol. v. 416, 417) became so real on October 25, 1555.

After appointing Margaret of Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V., to be regent in the Netherlands, in 1559 Philip set sail for Spain, leaving, in spite of the remonstrances of the estates, 4000 foreign troops, nominally to protect the frontiers, really to check the independence of the people, and to support the policy of religious persecution which had been resolved on. The real direction of all affairs was in the hands of the Burgundian churchman Antony Perrenot, bishop of Arras (afterwards so well known as Cardinal Granvella), who was chief of the “consulta” or secret council of three. A sharp attack on the Reformers now began. The first step, the proposal (which had originated with Charles) to reorganize the bishoprics of the Netherlands, was announced at once. Hitherto ecclesiastical affairs had been in the charge of four bishops,—Arras, Cambray, Tournay, Utrecht,—the last under the archbishop of Cologne, the others under Rheims. It was proposed now to establish a new and national hierarchy, independent of Germany and France, with three archbishops and fifteen bishops —Mechlin, the chief archbishopric, having under it Antwerp, Herzogenbusch, Roermond, Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres; Cambray, with Tournay, Arras, St Omer, and Namur; Utrecht, with Haarlem, Middelburg, Leeuwarden, Groningen, and Deventer. Each bishop was to appoint nine new prebendaries to help him in his diocese; of the nine two should be inquisitors, specially told off to sniff' out and hunt down heresy. Nor was this all; it was believed that not merely would these new bishoprics strengthen the old episcopal inquisition, but that a more stringent form of inquisition was to be introduced, organized after the Spanish system, which had been long known for its efficient severity. The Netherlanders regarded the change, in fact, as part of a general plan for the subjection of the provinces from abroad,*by means of foreign troops and ecclesiastics, with contempt of their feelings, rights, and liberties. All classes—nobles, clergy, burghers, peasants—disliked the new ecclesiastical system, and regarded Granvella, who became first archbishop of Mechlin, with detestation. Though the Spanish troops were withdrawn in 1560, the ferment was not quieted; the nobles were uneasy, and, finding their position uncertain between the court and the populace, began to form confederacies and to head the resistance. Even such leading men as William of Orange, who tried to mediate between Government and the provinces, were driven into opposition; in 1561 Granvell·a’s overbearing acts alienated them still more, and Orange and Horn withdrew from the council. Even Margaret felt she could no longer rule with Granvella at her side; and he at last, seeing that a crisis was coming on, withdrew into Burgundy in 1563. Now things were easier; party badges were dropped, and men felt cooler.

But at this moment the long labours of the Council of Trent were ending; and, when in 1565 it finally promulgated its decrees, Philip determined to enforce their acceptance throughout his dominions. Accordingly, he now made a more vehement attack on the Reformers; and then it was that, in 1566, the Netherland nobles, led by Count Brederode, signed the famous “Compromise,” with which the open rebellion of the provinces begins. Orange, Egmont, and Horn stood aloof. When, in their first interview with the regent, the nobles appeared on foot, in sedulously plain guise and without arms, Berlay-mont standing by her side begged her not to be alarmed, “for they were but a pack of beggars;” and the phrase being overheard, at Brederode’s banquet that night it was gaily adopted by the young nobles as a party name, “les gueux,” and it became the fashion for patriots to wear beggar’s garb, and a medal round the neck, bearing Philip's image on one side and a wallet on the other, with two hands crossed, and the legend “Fidèles au roy jusqu’ à la besace.” Orange, Egmont, and Horn, who dropped in on the revelry at Brederode’s house, joined the merry scene and drank the beggars’ health.

To deprecate Philip’s anger at the “Compromise,” the council of state sent the marquis of Bergen and Horn’s brother, the lord of Montigny, Knights of the Golden Fleece and men of high repute, to Spain, where Philip received them kindly, but took good care that they should never again see their homes. Meanwhile he gathered forces with which to suppress the disturbances, which had become very serious. Open air preachings, guarded by armed men, were taking place throughout the provinces, and raised the excitement to such a height that it at last found vent in iconoclastic tumults, similar to those of France. This gave the court party only too good an excuse; it could now interpose with authority on behalf of public order. Matters threatened war. Margaret played with the discontented nobles, having orders from Spain to decoy and capture the chief men, and so to break up the confederacy. Hereon Orange withdrew into. Holland; Horn, in moody opposition, conscious of his integrity, retired to his country house; while Egmont still hovered, a bright flutterer, round the fatal taper of the court. The confederacy was in fact broken up; and Margaret saw with satisfaction a considerable body of German mercenaries enter the provinces to inflict punishment, in all its ghastliest and most brutal forms, on the iconoclasts. In 1567 it came to blows: the undisciplined rabble of Calvinists,, who tried to raise the siege of Valenciennes, were cut to pieces by the troops of Egmont and other loyal nobles. William of Orange withdrew to Nassau, after vainly warning Egmont of the imminent peril which he ran.

In spite of Margaret, who assured Philip that the heretics were completely pat down, and their worship abolished, and that consequently there was no need of an army, and that on the contrary the time for mercy had come, the plan for the utter subjugation of the provinces was adhered to, and the duke of Alva, already famous for his harshness and bigotry, was named commander of the forces, with almost unlimited powers. He set forth in May 1567, and all hopes of peace or mercy fled before him. There was a great and desperate exodus of the inhabitants; thousands took refuge in England, Germany, and Denmark, carrying with them, it was thought, the last relics of their faith and party. The nobles’ confederacy had already been broken up; now the popular movement was dispersed, despair and helplessness alone remained to greet the cold Spaniard and his train of orthodox executioners. He entered the Netherlands with about 20,000 men, all tried troops, ready for any cruelties. Their weakness lay in the fact that they were after all mere mercenaries,—Spaniards, Italians, Germans,—and as such ever ready for a mutiny, if pay fell short, or if there were none to plunder.

Egmont and Horn were arrested at once; the Council of Troubles—the “Blood-tribunal”—was established; Margaret, thrust aside by the imperious general, resigned her weary office, and carried away with her the last hopes of the wretched people. Alva was now appointed governorgeneral, and the executions of his council filled the land with blood. Orange was outlawed on his non-appearance; it was about this time that he declared his conversion to Calvinism, and so fitted himself in every respect to lead the people when the time came. The hostilities of 1568 led to the execution of Egmont and Horn. Though the Gueux under Louis of Nassau won a considerable victory over the Spaniards at Heiligerlee, the arrival of Alva compelled him to raise the siege of Groningen, and to withdraw towards the Ems. At Jemmingen Louis was at last utterly defeated, and though the prince of Orange did his utmost to raise the country, and skilfully avoided a fatal battle, the campaign ended in his being obliged to withdraw out of the country. Alva was now at the highest point of his success; his statue, cast from cannon taken at Jemmingen, was set up at Antwerp; the exodus of the inhabitants continued incessantly, especially to England. The advice of Admiral Coligny, that the provinces should wage war from the sea, was hardly listened to at the first. In 1570, however, Orange turned his attention that way, and his little navy under William de la Marek annoyed Spanish commerce and took rich prizes. In 1572, being unable to find refuge in any ports,—for neither England, nor Denmark, nor Sweden, would allow them harbourage, and they were treated not merely as rebels but as pirates,—William de la Marek, with his “Water-Beggars,” suddenly seized on Briel, at the mouth of the Meuse, and the face of the struggle began from that moment to change. Alva, partly from the general requirements of his position, partly from lack of funds and desire of his recently-imposed tenth penny, had at this moment driven the Netherlanders to desperation. He was engaged in a struggle with Brussels and Utrecht, in which city, to punish the inhabitants, he had collected his Spanish soldiery from all the neighbouring towns. The news of the capture of Briel woke him from his security. Flushing also fell into the hands of the “Water-Beggars,” who surprised under its walls a rich convoy from Spain. About the same time, Louis of Nassau, who had been at La Rochelle with the Huguenots, and had received help and encouragement from Charles IX. of France, suddenly seized Mons in Hainault, thus giving the French sympathizers with the revolt the means of entering safely into the Walloon provinces. Alva, now seriously alarmed, withdrew from Zealand the whole of the forces with which he had intended to check the movement of the “Water-Beggars,” in order that he might repair the great breach thus made in his southern system of defence, and so left the province free to develop its resistance. Holland followed quickly, Enkhuizen setting the example; so that, within three months of the capture of Briel, Amsterdam was the only town in Holland in the hands of the Spaniards. In Friesland also the revolt spread far and wide. The states of Holland met, and, acting under advice of Philip of Marnix, lord of St Aldegonde, the prince’s deputy, declared that William of Orange was, by Philip’s nomination, stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland; they also declared their intention to raise money for the costs of war and the relief of Mons, and affirmed again the liberties of the provinces; finally they named the rough and ready William de la Marck captain-general— a man whose prompt and practical daring would supply the qualities which the caution and apparent irresolution and timidity of William of Orange seemed unlikely to provide for the emergency.

Meanwhile Alva pressed the siege of Mons; French help failed utterly to relieve Louis of Nassau, nor could William of Orange either force his way through the Spanish lines or induce Alva to fight. At this moment came tidings of the massacre of St Bartholomew, and the prince, seeing that all hope of aid from France was utterly at an end, bade his brother make the best terms he could, and withdrew beyond the Rhine and thence into Holland. Mons at once capitulated, and Alva, passing on to Mechlin, pitilessly sacked that wealthy city. Thence he pressed forward to the north; Zutphen was taken, the towns of Guelderland and Friesland submitted, and for a while nothing seemed to stay his career of conquest and revenge. The prince of Orange was powerless; but - the despair caused by the cruel destruction of Naarden roused a spirit which even Alva could not tame, and the famous siege of Haarlem, lasting through the winter of 1572 till July 1573, cost 12,000 Spanish troops, and gave the insurgent provinces time to breathe. A great mutiny among Alva’s troops still more hindered the work of subjugation. The repulse of Don Frederick of Toledo, Alva’s son, from Alkmaar, the capture of Geertruidenberg by the Dutch, and Admiral Dirkson’s great victory over Alva’s fleet, entirely changed the aspect of affairs, and saved the towns of North Holland. Alva, who had come as far as Amsterdam, returned to Brussels, and thence, obtaining his recall, bade farewell to his government. During the six years it had lasted, his executioners bad put to death 18,000 persons, to say nothing of the victims in cities captured by his troops; the Spaniards plundered where they could, and considered the whole wealth of the Netherlands their lawful prey, forfeited by rebellion. But his pitiless severity only served to raise up a stubbornness of civic resistance, against which the tried discipline of the Spanish soldiery, and the consummate skill of their commander, reckoned to be the first general in Europe, were powerless.

Don Louis of Requesens, grand-commander of Castile, was appointed Alva’s successor, and after a brief and deceptive lull the war went on. In January 1574, by the fall of Middelburg, the Spaniards lost their last hold on Walcheren and on Zealand, while by the splendid defence of Leyden, unparalleled in the history of heroic endurance, their efforts in another direction were effectually frustrated. After fruitless negotiations with Philip, the estates of Holland, in November 1574, formally offered to William “the Silent,” prince of Orange, full authority by land and sea, with the title of governor or regent. Conferences were also held, with a view to peace, at Breda; and on their failure, in summer 1575, Holland and Zealand drew up articles of union, and an ordinance for their joint government under the prince of Orange. By it he received supreme command in war and absolute authority in all matters of defence, the control of all money voted by the estates, the maintenance of the laws as count, in the king’s name, the ultimate appointment (after nomination by the estates) of all judicial officers. He undertook to protect Calvinism, and to suppress all religion at variance with the gospel,” while he forbade all inquisition into private opinions. These terms accepted, William became, in spite of their nominal recognition of Philip, the true prince of the two provinces. Still this union, brought about by the prince’s personal character and ability, and by the popular faith in him, was distasteful to the larger cities. Already we may note the beginnings of that party division which was afterwards so prominent, and divided Holland between the lιnd-party, popular, quasi-monarchical, Calvinistic, headed by the Orange-Nassau family, and the sea-party, the town-party, headed by the burghers of Amsterdam, Arminian, civic, and aristocratic.

Meanwhile the grand-commander made a successful attempt on the Zealand coast. His troops took Duivelaud, and laid siege to Zierikzee, chief town of Schouwen, and key of the whole coast. The two provinces, unable to relieve the place, were driven to consider their position. So long as they paid any allegiance to Philip of Spain, agιinst whom they were struggling for life, they could never get much help from any other prince, nor were they strong enough to assert their own sovereignty. Three powers lay near them the empire, already connected with them by old relations, and by the family connexion of the house of Orange; France, with her restless Valois dukes, ready for any venture, whether in Poland, England, or Holland; and, lιstly, England, whose queen knew well that Philip was her foe, and that the Low Countries might effectually hinder his efforts against her. The provinces, though William had suggested it, refused to deal with the emperor, and turned to Elizabeth; she brought them little real help, and they seemed to be on the very brink of ruin when fever carried Requesens off in March 1576.

The breathing space thus gained enabled them to strengthen their union under William; but before the question respecting the position of the duke of Anjou could be settled, the siege of Zierikzee drew to an end. Boisot perished in a too gallant attempt to break the leaguer, and the town yielded. Things looked ill for the patriots, and Zealand would have been at the mercy of the conqueror, had not another great mutiny neutralized the success of the victors; the Spanish and Walloon troops left Zealand and, headed, as usual, by their “eletto,” marched into the richer plains of Brabant, seizing Alost, whence they threatened both Brussels and Antwerp. One of the results of the panic they caused in Brabant was the capture of Ghent by William. Brussels was only saved from being pillaged by them by the vigour of the inhabitants, who armed in their own defence. Suffering under a powerless administrative, and smarting from the curse of the foreign soldiery, the southerners now began to wish for freedom and union with the other provinces. The broad liberality of Orange, moderating the Calvinism of the people, enabled the two groups to draw together. In October 1576 a congress of the States General of the provinces met at Ghent; the council of state at Brussels was forcibly dissolved; the frightful “Spanish Fury” at Antwerp struck such terror into all hearts that a treaty was concluded in November 1576 under the title of the “Pacification of Ghent.” It was received with great enthusiasm; in it the provinces agreed first to eject the foreigner, then to meet in States General and regulate all matters of religion and defence; it was stipulated that nothing should be done against the Catholic religion; the Spanish king’s name was still used; the prince of Orange was recognized only as stadtholder of Holland and Zealand. All the seventeen provinces accepted the Pacification; and for a brief space the “United Provinces” really did exist.

Early in January 1577 the “Union of Brussels” was put forth. The document engaged all who joined to help in ejecting the foreign troops, in carrying out the Pacification, in maintaining the Catholic faith, in recognizing Philip’s sovereignty, in defending the liberties and constitutions of the provinces. It was eagerly adopted; and even Holland and Zealand made no demur. When the paper, crowded with signatures, was laid before Don John of Austria, who meanwhile had arrived as regent, he also accepted it; and on the 17th February 1577 was signed the “Perpetual Edict,” which ratified the Pacification of Ghent. Not till the troops were gone should Don John be received as governor-general. Philip II. ratified the Edict a few weeks later.

Yet, after all, unity did not ensue from it. The natural divergency between north and south at once appeared; in character, in interests, above all, in religion, they had little in common; and when William of Orange refused to publish the edict in Holland and Zealand he was warmly supported by these provinces. This is perhaps the real point at which Dutch independence begins. Don John ente-ed Brussels in triumph, and, by conciliation and winning manners, had already broken up the union; the whole of the southern provinces withdrew from it at once, and that well-marked difference in political life, which, after so many changes, still distinguishes Belgian from Dutchman, was from that moment made clear. Yet, though Don John had achieved so much, the result, after all, disappointed him; he was surrounded by difficulties, suspicions, and plots; he saw the failure of his larger schemes, and only the partial success of his effort to reduce the Netherlands; he recognized the dangers which the abilities and rivalry of William of Orange were preparing for him. This was soon shown in the seizure of Antwerp citadel by the patriots, and in the destruction of the hated fortifications, so long the sign and efficient cause of their subjection. Other castles, such as that of Ghent, were razed to the ground as soon as the fall of Antwerp citadel was known. Still less was Don John pleased by the election of his rival as ruwaard of Brabant, and by his enthusiastic reception at Brussels. The States General (7th December 1577)declared strongly against Don John’s authority.

It was clear war must begin again; and the patriots raised an army nearly 20,000 strong, which was utterly defeated by Don John and Alexander Farnese, at Gembloux near Namur. But their campaign was wasted on isolated movements and town-taking, while William of Orange fell back unmolested to Antwerp. A sudden illness, so sudden as to arouse the common suspicion of poison, carried off the conqueror of Lepanto (1st October Γ578), and Alexander of Parma succeeded him in the government.

The struggle had now entirely passed into the southern provinces; Holland and Zealand were left to gather strength; the recovery of Amsterdam (1-578) removed the one hindrance to their prosperity. While the south trusted to foreign help, some John Casimir, or duke of Anjou, the north quietly consolidated itself. In January 1579 was proclaimed the famous “Union of Utrecht.” The document professed to make no changes; it would but carry out the Pacification of Ghent by a closer junction of Holland and Zealand with Friesland, Guelderland with Zutphen, Utrecht, Overyssel, Groningen; united as one, these provinces should still retain their local uses and privileges So long as the archduke Matthias, who had been appointed governor-general in 1577, remained, his authority would be respected; on his withdrawal in 1580 the States General named as stadtholder William of Orange, who had already exercised the real authority over the provinces. A considerable number of southern cities, Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges, and others, as well as some of the nobles, also joined this union. Thus did the United Provinces at last come definitely into being.

During the next five years Spain devoted her efforts to the southern provinces alone; the union was unmolested. The Walloon provinces were reconciled to Spain; the others, with exception of Holland and Zealand, had accepted the duke of Anjou as their sovereign; Holland and Zealand had proclaimed William of Orange as their chief, though he did not finally accept sovereign poweκ and the title of count till August 1582, by a sort of cross division, the seven northern provinces, meeting at the Hague, had (26th July 1581 ) made an “Act of Abjuration,” and had issued their “Declaration of Independence,” the five naming Anjou, the two William, as their sovereign in Philip’s stead. Then Holland and Zealand framed an independent constitution, conservative of their ancient liberties, as expressed in the “Great Privilege of the Lady Mary;” they declared themselves a free country, severed alike from Spain and from the empire.

But Spain was not yet ready to take up this challenge; and meanwhile she resorted to other weapons. A scandalous proclamation, offering rewards and honours to any ruffian who would serve church and king by murdering William of Orange, was now issued; and, roused by the double inducement, after many unsuccessful attempts, a paltry wretch (10th July 1584) succeeded in assassinating the greatest man of his age, the worthy “Father William” of the Dutch, and the only ruler in the world’s history who may fairly be compared with Washington.

Fortunately for the Provinces, and for the world’s liberties, the spirit of William of Orange survived in his second son Maurice, who now, though he was only seventeen and a student at Leyden, and though he had an older brother living in Spain, was at once, chiefly through the influence of that great statesman John Olden Bιrneveldt, named governor of the United Provinces, with a council of st de, and with Count Hohenlohe, his brother-iu-law, as lieutenant-general. He was also, soon after, made stadtholder of Holland and Zealand, while Utrecht was placed under the lord of Villars as stadtholder, Guelderland and Overyssel under the count of Meurs, and Friesland under William of Nassau. Never was any one better fitted for his life’s task than was this boy, thus early called to rule in troubled times. For Maurice of Nassau had all the coldness and calculation of his family, all its ambition, all its firmness apd tenacity of grasp, while he added thereto a quality wanting in the others, a genius for war, and those gifts which go to make what is commonly called a lucky commander—gifts which may be best described by saying that the lucky captain is he who in war leaves least to luck. For over forty years Maurice was the champion of the Provinces; and, if we except his treatment of Barneveldt, we may say that he comes next after his father as a founder of the Dutch republic.

At the outset his antagonist was that formidable captain, Alexander Farnese, who had by this time nearly subdued all the southern provinces, and whose arms proved successful at Ghent (1584) and at Antwerp (1585). The northern provinces, thinking it necessary to call in foreign aid, appealed to Henry III. of France, but the outburst of the “War of the three Henries,” caused by the anxiety of the Guises lest Henry should draw too much towards the heretics, put a stop to all hope of help from that side. Olden Barneveldt, therefore, next crossed over to England with offers to Queen Elizabeth, who, though declining for herself the proffered sovereignty over the Provinces, undertook to appoint a governor-general, and to send over and pay 5000 foot and 1000 horse; in return for which she was to be put in possession of certain cautionary towns. Accordingly, Sir John Norris was at once sent over with the English forces; Sir Philip Sidney was appointed governor of Flushing, and the earl of Leicester was named governorgeneral by the queen. At first Leicester was welcomed with all the joy that his Calvinistic opinions, and his position as favourite and representative of Elizabeth, could elicit in the breasts of men who had now long been struggling for existence, and who, bereft of their great prince, were yearning for some strong hand to guide them. But it did not last: his high pretensions, and his mistress’s haughty tone, joined with his foolish interference with Dutch commerce and with the religious difficulties now beginning to show themselves, soon offended the States General, and neutralized whatever good the active help of England might have promised them. In 1586 Sir Philip Sidney invaded Flanders, and the young stadtholder of Holland gladly served under him. In the same autumn Leicester himself took the field, and marched to meet Parma, who was threatening the provinces from the east. Under the walls of Zutphen Sir Philip Sidney fell; and Leicester, finding his efforts useless, soon raised the siege of that town, and withdrew to the Hague. The rest of his time was spent in bitter quarrels with the estates; Olden Barneveldt and Maurice were united for a time by his marked ill-will towards them both; and so strong did the feeling against him grow, that in 1587 Queen Elizabeth was fain to order his recall. For a while there was great soreness between the countries; the general interest, however, was far stronger than any partial pique, and in the crisis of the Spanish Armada in 1588 the Dutch did very great service to England by resolutely blockading in their ports the transports and army with which Parma had meant to invade the English shores. In the same year Maurice had the satisfaction of seeing the English and Dutch repulse the famous duke from the walls of Bergen-op-Zoom. In 1589, on the other hand, the English garrison of Geertruidenberg betrayed that important place, the doorway out of Brabant into Holland, into Parma’s hands, and laid the United Provinces open to attack. In other places also the English forces, not yet withdrawn, were an anxiety and danger to the states. Still, from this moment the fortunes of the Dutch began to rise. No contrast could be more striking than that between the Spanish Netherlands and the United Provinces. In the fertile districts of Hainault and Brabant, where climate and soil are good and transit easy, utter ruin alone was seen: wolves and wild dogs swarmed; the land was overrun with weeds and briars; and even the wealthy cities of the past were almost deserted. In the United Provinces, on the contrary, the wellbeing of the country was steadily increasing: every year its hardy seamen brought back fresh wealth; and thousands' of ingenious workers, turning in despair from the hopelessness of their condition in the Spanish Netherlands, brought their skill and industry into the north, which soon became as famous for its manufacturing excellence as for its energy in commerce. It was at this period that, just when the southern cities were languishing and losing ground, the northern burgher life made vigorous growth, and prepared the way for that supremacy of town aristocracy which characterized the history of Holland in the following century.

The year 1590 opened well for the United Provinces: Utrecht joined its fortunes with those of Holland and Zealand; Guelderland and Overyssel made William Louis of Nassau their stadtholder, so strengthening the power of the family; and Breda was recovered by a daring stratagem. The duke of Parma also, with failing health, was called away to oppose the victorious progress of Henry IV. in northern France. In 1591 Prince Maurice sti.l further strengthened himself by taking Zutphen, Deventer, Hulst, and eventually Nimeguen, which secured for him the complete submission of Guelderland. Parma was unable to oppose him effectually, for his troops were again mutinous; he was also once more called off into France. The reputation of Prince Maurice rose now to its highest point: the greatest captain in Europe seemed unable to cope with him, and the vigorous help of Barneveldt still secured him firm support at home. In 1593 he took Geertruidenberg; and in 1594 Groningen, the only stronghold left to the Spaniards in all the Seven Provinces, was reduced.

The appointment of the cardinal archduke Albert as governor of the Spanish Netherlands did not much change the current of affairs; the Dutch now tried to open up a trade with the East Indies, and made some vigorous explorations in Arctic seas. In 1596 the archduke recovered Hulst, which commanded the northernmost parts of Flanders; the Dutch on the other hand, with the English, sacked Cadiz and destroyed the Spanish fleet; and in the next year Maurice inflicted a defeat on the Spaniards at Turnhout, transferred his sphere of action to the Rhine country, and took town after town, making the provinces secure on the side of Zutphen, Overyssel, and Friesland. The year 1598 gave a new aspect to affairs by the conclusion of the Franco-Spanish war in the treaty of Ver vins, and by the death of Philip II. The Dutch, assisted only by the English, and that chiefly by volunteers, were now to bear the whole brunt of the efforts of Spain. In the autumn of 1599 Prince Maurice endeavoured to transfer the war into Germany; and after taking Emmerich in the Cleves country, delivered Bommel from the siege which Mendoza, the Spanish general, was laying to it. But dissatisfaction at home, and the unreadiness of his German allies, forced Maurice to turn his eyes towards Flanders, which he invaded in the summer of 1600. Surprised by the Spaniards in the neighbourhood of Nieuport, Maurice was attacked by the archduke Albert in a most critical position, but, after a long and well-balanced battle, inflicted on him (July 2) a disastrous defeat. Maurice could not, however, take the town, and winter put a stop to the campaign without any great change in the relative position of the belligerents. In 1601 the archduke began the famous siege of Ostend, which lasted three years and two months; the losses on both sides, more especially among the Spanish, were immense. While it continued, the coolness between the States General and Maurice steadily increased; for they thought his cold ambitious nature capable of anything, and saw with fear the paramount influence he had over the army. Their instincts led them to rest on the ships, to prefer peace to war, and commerce to glory. It was during the siege of Ostend that they established the Dutch East India Company in 1602, though its basis had been laid down by a group of Amsterdam traders in 1595.

In 1604 Maurice took S1uis, and Ostend at last fell to Spinola. Thenceforward the mam lines of the struggle by land were simple enough: the Spaniards tried to transfer the seat of war into the United Provinces, and were steadily foiled by Maurice. All the while the States General aimed at peace, though the naval war became vigorous as that on land languished. The sea fight off Gibraltar in 1607 utterly ruined the Spanish fleet, and left her commerce powerless. At last, after long negotiations, which served to emphasize the variance between the patriot party, headed by Barneveldt and Grotius, and the war party, which included the official classes, the army, navy, East India Company, the clergy, and the populace in the towns, a truce for twelve years was signed, on the uti possidetis ground, between Spain and Holland. In the war the Dutch had added Overyssel and Groningen to the union; they held Sluis, Hulst, and other ports on the Flemish side, in what is called “Dutch Flanders”; they had Bergen-op-Zoom, Breda, and Herzogenbusch on the Brabant frontier, and the forts which commanded the Scheldt and strangled Antwerp for the sake of Amsterdam; lastly, they were become lords of the sea, and the chief traders of the world.

After a brief interference in the affairs of Germany, where the intricate question of the Cleves-Juliers succession was already preparing the way for the Thirty Years’ War, Holland settled down into that hot and absorbing theological struggle, which was closely mixed up with political questions, and which stained with a deplorable triumph the last years of the career of Maurice of Nassau. In 1603 Jacob van Hermansen, or, in Latin form, Arminius (see Arminius), had been appointed one of the two professors of theology at Leyden, Francis Gomar being the other. The two men took opposite sides with zeal, Arminius assailing and Gomarus defending the current popular theology. The views of Arminius spread fast among the upper classes, especially in the larger towns, and became the theology of the civic aristocracy; the established opinions were tenaciously supported by the bulk of the clergy, the peasantry, the town populace, the army, and the navy. At their head stood Maurice, ready to use the strength of Calvinistic feeling, to secure his own authority, however little he might care for the tenets of his side; at the head of the other party, more philosophical, less in earnest perhaps, was Barneveldt, with the town traders. King James of England as yet supported the Calvinists, and with Archbishop Abbot influenced greatly the proceedings of the famous synod of Dort (1618) in favour of Prince Maurice and the anti-Remonstrants. The results of the synod enabled the prince for his own political purposes to crush the aristocratic party. Barneveldt and Grotius (another leading Remonstrant) were seized, and in spite of all his great services to his country, his venerable age, and his past support of Maurice, the pensionary was brought to an infamous trial and executed at the Hague in 1619. Grotius afterwards escaped from prison and took refuge in France. The silenced Remonstrants, finding that there was no hope of toleration for them, left the country in great numbers, and formed a prosperous settlement in Holstein in 1621, where they founded the town of Frederickstadt on the Eider.

In 1621 the truce with Spain came to an end, and the Dutch were at once involved in the vortex of the Thirty Years’ War, which had now been going on for a couple of years. Spinola, after taking Juliets, attempted Bergen-op-Zoom, hoping thereby to open a passage into Zealand; he was, however, foiled by Maurice. About this time a great coolness sprang up between Holland and England, the beginning of the deadly rivalry which lasted so long.

King James, was eager to gain his objects Λvithout fighting, and to be on friendly terms with Spain; he and Laud were opposed to the Calvinism of the Dutch, and disliked their form of church government; and commercial jealousy was already beginning to arise. Successes and losses were evenly balanced in the war: the Dutch recaptured Juliers and took Cleves, while Spinola, after great losses caused by the gallant defence of the English, in 1625 took Breda. A few days before the town fell Maurice died, leaving the Spaniards in the heart of his territories, and the Dutch vexed with religious and domestic factions.

His brother, Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau, succeeded him as stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, Guelderland, Utrecht, and Overyssel. The war by land became utterly spiritless, though by sea the Dutch still asserted their maritime supremacy. By land the chief operations were the siege and capture by Frederick Henry of Herzogenbuscb, Maestricht, and Wesel in 1628; by sea the Dutch interfered, much against the popular feeling, to assist the French court against the Huguenots at La Rochelle. They blockaded Dunkirk, whence Spanish privateers had been wont to harass their commerce; under Piet Heyn of Delftshaven, boldest of their sea-captains, they vexed the Spanish coasts, captured Spanish war ships, carried off their “silver fleet,” and finally in 1631 won near Tholen a brilliant victory over a great Spanish fleet commanded by Count John of Nassau, who was endeavouring to make a descent on the Zealand coast.

In this year the States, feeling that the moderation of the stadtholder was honest and salutary, that his influence . alone seemed able to quiet the rage of religious faction, and that his military operations had secured the confidence of the provinces, took the important, and, as it turned out, the unwise step of securing to his infant son the reversion of all his great offices of stadtholder, captain, and admiralgeneral. The Calvinists were willing to grant so much to the head of their party, and made no objection to the introduction of the principle of hereditary succession; while the Remonstrants, discerning that Frederick Henry, like his brother before him, was personally more favourable to their tenets than to those of their adversaries, accepted the measure in the hope that when permanently established as their prince he would carry out those tolerant views which he was known to hold.

In 1632 he justified their confidence by his masterly siege and capture of Maestricht, in defiance of all the efforts of the Spanish and imperial generals; Namur, Luxembourg, and eastern Brabant were laid under contribution in consequence, and the States defended from danger of attack towards the east. As the war dragged on after the death of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, France and Holland drew more together, and in 1635 an alliance and partition treaty was made between them, in which it was proposed that the Spaniards should be driven out of the Netherlands, which should be made an independent state, guaranteed by the allies; that France should receive, as her share, the seacoast up to Blankenberg, together with Thionville and Namur; and that a corresponding portion should be given to Holland; if this scheme of an independent state proved a failure, then France and Holland should divide the whole district between them. The joint operations consequent on this agreement proved a failure: Frederick Henry had always been opposed to the alliance, and probably did not wish its success; the divergence between him and the States General at this time gave Cardinal Richelieu the opportunity of restoring the Remonstrant party in Holland, and makiιig it French in sympathy, in opposition to the House of Orange—a combination of which Louis XIV. afterwards made great use. In 1637 the stadtholder recovered Breda, though the gain was balanced by the loss of Roermond and other places; and in 1638 the war was favourable to the Spaniards. In 1639, however, a series of great naval triumphs under Tromp and De Witt turned the scale in favour of the Dutch.

In 1640, on the death of Count Henry of Nassau, stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen, the latter province chose Frederick Henry as its stadtholder, and he thus became chief of six out of the seven United Provinces; in the next year he was able to arrange the marriage of his son William with Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I. of England, a match devised by the queen-mother of France, while a refugee in Holland, in order to increase the ill-will between Richelieu and the stadtholder. Thus began the dynastic relation between the Stewarts and the house of Orange, which led to such great results before the end of the century. The States General were not too well pleased with this alliance, and looked shyly at Henrietta Maria when she came over to Holland to get help for Charles L in 1642. They were becoming alarmed at the great power and growing ambition of France under Richelieu, while they sympathized to a great extent with the English Puritans.

All parties, except the French, being now utterly weary of the war, negotiations for peace, long talked of, long prepared for, began in earnest at Münster and Osnabrück. Before their close Frederick Henry died in 1647, and was succeeded in his dignities and offices by his young son William II., and almost immediately afterwards (January 1648), in spite of the opposition of France and the young prince of Orange, the deputies of the Provinces (with exception of Zealand and Utrecht) signed a separate treaty of peace with Spain, which was confirmed and sworn to in May at Münster. It was a complete surrender of everything for which Spain so long had fought. The United Provinces were recognized as free and independent, and Spain dropped all her claims; the uti possidetis basis was adopted in the matter of all conquests; the two contracting parties agreed to respect and keep clear of each other’s trading-grounds; each should pay, in the ports of the other, only such tolls as natives of the other paid; the Scheldt was entirely closed by the States, so that Amsterdam might strangle Antwerp—the chief harbour of the free Provinces thus ruining the chief harbour of those still subject to Spain. And so ended the so-called Eighty Years’ War.

No sooner was the peace concluded than bitter disputes arose between Holland, on the one hand, and the prince of Orange, supported by the army and navy and the smaller provinces, on the other. He was tempted into foolish acts: he arrested six of the deputies of Holland; he even tried to surprise and occupy Amsterdam; he favoured the English royalists, now plentiful in the Provinces, while Amsterdam and Holland inclined towards the Commonwealth. Things went so far that William ∏. had almost destroyed the liberties of the Provinces, and was intent on two schemes, —the resumption of war against Spain, with a partition with France of the Spanish Netherlands, and interference on behalf of Charles II. in England,—when his opportune death by small-pox occurred. A few days afterwards his widow, Mary of England, gave birth to a son, who was destined to be the most distinguished man of his race, William III. of Holland and England.

For a time the death of William II. restored the burgherparty to power, and made Amsterdam the head of the United Provinces. Holland triumphed over Zealand; the house of Orange, friend of the Stewarts, seemed to suffer eclipse with them; and though the royalist mob even at the Hague, set on by a princely rough of the palatine house, made it impossible for the envoys of the English Commonwealth to come to terms with the republic, still the popular monarchical party was in fact powerless in the Provinces for more than twenty years. It was with a view to the security of this aristocratic government that a great assembly of the Provinces was held in 1651, and established that form of rule which Sir William Temple has so well described in his Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

There were four chief elements in that federation :—the terms of the Union of Utrecht (1579); the claims and position of the house of Orange; the sovereignty, within its own borders, of each province; and lastly, the liberties and power of the cities. In the last two the lead was taken by Holland: Holland w as the chief province, and Amsterdam, its capital, the chief city of the union. And these two parts of the federation were at one also in their resistance to the house of Orange, of which the chief strength lay in Zealand. The union was governed, in theory at least, by the States General of the provinces, which met at the Hague, and consisted of a fluctuating number of deputies (sometimes as many as 800), and was supplemented by a permanent council of state, a kind of cabinet composed of twelve deputies from the provinces, and a chamber of accounts. Besides this body each province had its own estates, and each great city its own senate. Thus Amsterdam was ruled by a senate of thirty-six burghers, who kept order, administered justice, raised local taxes. The office of senator was for life, originally by election of the whole body of freemen, but from the 16th century by cooptation, so that the government of the city became a dose oligarchy. The chief towns followed Amsterdam in this direction. The senate elected the deputies of the city to the states of Holland.

The commercial prosperity of the Provinces went on advancing throughout the 17th century; each town had its own work. Flushing received the West India trade; Middelburg was entrepôt for French wines; Terveer was the Scottish and Dort the English staple; Leyden manufactured; Haarlem made linen and mixed stuffs, and grew tulips for profit and pastime; Delft was known for beer and hardware; Zaandam built ships; Enkhuizen caught and cured herrings; Friesland had the Greenland trade; and lastly Amsterdam, recognized chief of Dutch cities, had the East India trade, with that of Spain and the Mediterranean: their whole carrying business reached from t∩e Gulf of Bothnia to the farthest Indies. Their seafaring enterprise received an early scientific impulse from the labours of Coignet and G. Mercator. All questions as to the nature and development of wealth were still in their infancy: it was believed that all depended on balances of actual bullion; and the Spaniards were envied because their ships brought over masses of gold and silver. The “balance of trade,” the establishment of banks at home and colonies abroad, especially mining colonies, a huge carrying trade, the making of goods to be sold for cash only, the discouragement of all imports, and the support of all monopolies—these things, chief elements of what is called the “isolation theory of trade,” guided the politics of the 17th century, gave Holland vast temporary wealth, discouraged her power of production, and eventually have left her impotent among the nations.

At first William the Silent had been governor of the Provinces, nominally at least under the king of Spain; and in the reconstruction he secured his own rights, while the sovereign power was transferred to the States General They took the right of making peace and war, of concluding alliances, of taxing and coining. The governor had all military commands, had power to pardon, and controlled the civil appointments; he represented the dignity of the state, with a court, and guards, and envoys from other lands. Each province had its own stadtholder, an office in name at least derived from the Spanish times; each town had its own pensionary or chief minister. But after the death of William II., the office of stadtholder of Holland was for a time suspended; there was no captain-general or admiral; and the grand pensionary of Holland, first minister of the state, became virtual president of the republic, as we see in the cases of John De Witt and Heinsius.

When the English envoys returned to tell their masters, the Commonwealth, of their failure at the Hague, parliament at once replied by passing the memorable Navigation Act of 1651, which aimed at destroying the carrying-trade of the Provinces. The struggle for the lordship of the seas which ensued, and with which the names of Tromp and Ruyter, Blake, and Monk are so splendidly associated, was waged with equal bravery and nearly equal success on both sides, until 1654, when peace was made by the Amsterdam burgher-party. By the terms of the treaty with Cromwell the Orange-Nassau family was altogether to be excluded from the stadtholderate of Holland, the other Provinces reserving their independence, and the Dutch populace also much disliking the peace. England preserved the honour of her flag, while Holland was seen to be a worthy and equal rival for the command of the sea.

Hostilities between the Dutch and Portuguese respecting their rights in Brazil followed, in which, after each side had done much damage to the other, peace was also made; and Holland in 1658 interfered to save the Danes from Charles Gustavus of Sweden. In 1659 a treaty of peace was made between France, England, and the United Provinces, with a view to the settlement of the Dano-Swedish question, which ended in securing a northern peace in 1660, and in keeping the Baltic waters open for Dutch trade. Since the abolition of the stadtholderate after William’s death in 1650, the centre of authority had lain in the hands of John de Witt, the sagacious leader of the anti-Orange or Amsterdam burgher-party; and he guided the foreign affairs of the provinces in such a way as to secure the fair development of their commerce on every side.

The momentous year 1660 was almost as critical for Holland as for any state of Europe. Charles, in England, having re-enacted the Navigation Act, war again broke out in 1665, and the duke of York took the command of the English fleet. At the beginning of June he met the Dutch admiral Opdam, and, after a close-fought battle off Lowestoft, the English were completely victorious. But so bad was the condition of the home Government in England that in the following year the Dutch had by far the stronger fleet at sea, and for a time held their own in the Channel. The four-days’ battle (June 1-4) between Prince Rupert and Monk on the one side and Ruyter on the other ended in an uncertain victory for the Dutch; but on July 25th they were decidedly defeated off the North Foreland, and driven back to their own shores with immense loss. The English were now masters of the sea; but both parties needed peace, and negotiations began at Breda. In the course of these Ruyter suddenly sailed up the Thames nearly to Gravesend, and struck terror into the very heart of London, which thus became all the more eager for a settlement. In July 1667 a treaty between England and Holland was signed at Breda; and in the following year Sir William Temple accomplished the triple alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden, against the aggressive views of Louis XIV., a hollow affair, and pernicious in its results to those who made it It made Louis XIV. determine to take vengeance on the United Provinces and on the De Witts; it led at once to the humiliation of England by the treaty of Dover (1670), to the overthrow of the Amsterdam party, and to the miserable end of the De Witts; and it eventually raised the prince of Orange to supreme authority in the United Provinces.

From 1668 to 1672 Louis XIV. made ready to destroy the Dutch; and so well had his diplomacy served him that they were left without a friend in Europe. In 1672 the storm broke: the English, without a declaration of war, tried unsuccessfully to intercept the Dutch Mediterranean fleet; and France at once set forth to conquer the hated tradesmen of the north. The States Were ill-prepared on land, though their fleet was strong and ready; party spirit was exceedingly bitter, and the ruling party, well aware that the prince of Orange was very popular with the land forces, had utterly neglected their army. On May 58, 1672, Ruyter fought a great naval battle in South wold Bay (Solebay) against the duke of York and Marshal D’Estrées: the French held aloof, pleased to see the Dutch and English destroy each other: the English suffered most, but, as the Dutch withdrew to their own ports, the others claimed the victory. Meanwhile Louis XIV. crossed the Rhine and threatened Amsterdam (see France). The young prince of Orange alone seemed to rise to the occasion; while others were panic-stricken, sending embassies of submission to the haughty monarch, making preparations for a great flight by sea, William with his miserable army did his best, and aroused so strongly the feelings of the people that Amsterdam, passing from dejection to despair and thence to reckless enthusiasm, rose against the De Witts and foully murdered both in the streets. They had just before proclaimed William stadtholder of Holland with powers unlimited. And thus Louis XIV. destroyed the proud republic, though in so doing he had raised up the most formidable enemy he was destined to encounter. His invasion did not prosper; other nations began to take up the Dutch cause; Germans and Spaniards threatened the embarrassed French army in the Provinces; so that in 1674 France was on the defensive on every side. William of Orange in that year was defeated at Senef, and had to abandon his plan of penetrating into France, and in 1675 the death of Marshal Turenne, and the retirement of the great Condé, turned the tide of war in favour of the Dutch, except on the sea, where the French fleet defeated and destroyed in the Mediterranean (in 1676) the united navies of Holland and Spain. In 1677 negotiations for peace went on, and were hastened by the marriage, at the close of the year, of William of Orange with the Princess Mary, daughter of the duke of York. At last, in 1678, came the great peace of Nimeguen, which secured the independence of the Dutch.

The aggressive policy of Louis XIV., in the years which followed the peace of Nimeguen, enabled William to lay the basis of the famous confederacy which changed the whole front of European politics. Brandenburg, Denmark, and England sided with the French king; while the league of Augsburg (1686), following directly after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, placed William at the head of the resistance to French domination. The league was joined by the emperor, Spain, the United Provinces, Sweden, Bavaria, and other German princes. The accession of James II. to the throne of England made it easy for the stadtholder to keep up close relations with the malcontents in church and state, who regarded him and the Princess Mary as the natural successors to the English throne. On the birth of the prince of Wales the antiCatholic feeling in England at last grew so strong that William was able to interfere with success; while the diversion of the attention of Louis XIV. from Holland to the Rhine relieved the timid rulers of Amsterdam from all anxiety. The Revolution of 1688 ensued, and England became, under William’s strong rule, the chief member of the great coalition against France. In the grand alliance of 1689-90 he clearly sacrificed Dutch to English interests, and carried through his policy in spite of great irritation in Holland and Zealand. His power seemed almost autocratic, and the States impotent. Henceforward their part in history becomes quite secondary compared with that of England, and we may refer for details of the great wars to the articles England and France.

In 1690 Waldeck, commanding the Dutch, was defeated by Luxembourg at Fleurus; and the Anglo-Dutch fleet was also severely handled off Beachy Head by the French, who inflicted terrible losses on Dutch commerce. In 1691 the French took Mons; in 1692 the allied ships ruined Tourville’s fleet off La Hogue, and recovered the command of the sea. On land the allies fared ill: Louis took Namur, and after a hard-fought battle William was defeated at Steenkirk; in 1693 the Dutch shared in the defeat of Neerwinden, and were not fortunate even on the sea. In 1695 the tide of affairs had turned, and William retook Namur, his greatest triumph after the battle of the Boyne. Negotiations for peace, first attempted in 1694, led to the peace of Ryswick in 1697, in which William was recognized by France as king of England, the Dutch obtaining a favourable commercial treaty, and the right to garrison the Netherland barrier-towns. Holland was still an important factor in the balancing system rendered necessary by the ambition of France. Louis XIV., however, held himself little bound by the peace. In 1701 he elbowed the Dutch troops out of the barriertowns; he defied England by recognizing James III. on the death of his father; and it was clear to all that another war was imminent, when William III. died in 1702. He had been made hereditary stadtholder in five of the Provinces in 1672; but as he left no children as heirs, the old opposition of Holland to his house again sprang up, and, led by the grand pensionary Heinsius, Amsterdam successfully asserted her independence, and ruled throughout the coming struggle against Fra^hce with energy and credit.

When war was declared in 1702, Marlborough was named commander-in-chief of English and Dutch troops, and thenceforward became the chief man in the famous “triumvirate” of Marlborough, Heinsius, and Prince Eugene. Tn 1703 the Dutch invaded Flanders, and fought the drawn battle of Eckeren; in 1704 they and the English took Gibraltar; in the same year they took part in the great battle of Blenheim. In 1705 Marlborough led them into the Netherlands; but, hampered by the deputies of the States, he achieved little. In 1706 he won the battle of Ramillies, and swept the French out of the Netherlands; in 1708 came Oudenarde, and after it an unsuccessful attempt of Louis XIV. to detach the Dutch from the alliance; in 1709 the terrible battle of Malplaquet and the capture of Mons. After this great changes followed in England, and Marlborough’s power came to an end. Negotiations for peace, often tried before, drew towards success in 1712, and in 1713 the peace of Utrecht was signed. While France received Aire, St Venant, Bethune, and Douay, the Spanish Netherlands were formally handed over to the United Provinces, which in their turn passed them on, after conclusion of a barrier treaty, to Austria; henceforth they are known as the Austrian Netherlands. A favourable commercial treaty was also made between the Dutch and France. The peace of Utrecht made the republic almost as powerful on shore as she had been by sea; at the same time it taught her that the great powers around her would use her resources for war, and abandon her when they wanted peace: she therefore determined henceforth to stand clear of all foreign complications. With 1713 the importance of Holland in European politics comes almost to an end.

The ruling party in the States took an active part in securing George I. on the throne of England; and on the death of Louis XIV. in 1715, the old ill-will between France and the provinces died entirely out, so that they were secure in a position of tranquillity; they also brought to a fair conclusion their difficulties with Austria on the subject of the Netherlands barrier. These, however, began again when in 1723 the emperor set on foot the Ostend East India Company, which was at once regarded as an offensive rival by the Amsterdam merchants. For the sake of crushing this competition the States in 1731 consented to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI. In 1743 they joined England in supporting the claims of Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary, and fell consequently into complications with France, which invaded the barrier country. In 1744 they granted a subsidy in money and put 20,000 men in the field, and became a member of the Quadruple Alliance with Austria, England, and Saxony. In 1745 the Provinces took their part in the rout of Fontenoy, after which Marshal Saxe overran the Austrian Netherlands, while England and Holland were alike paralysed by the Jacobite rising in Scotland. The States lost every barrier-town, and lay defenceless before the French, who in 1747 entered Dutch Flanders, and made an easy conquest. And now the Orange party, supported by English aid, began to lift its head. The Provinces had fallen so low that all men began to wish for a dictator. Accordingly Prince William Charles Henry Friso was proclaimed stadtholder, captain, and admiral-general of Zealand at Terveer, under the title of William IV. The movement thus begun spread like wildfire; all Zealand accepted him with enthusiasm, and Holland was not far behind; even at Amsterdam and the Hague the popular feeling was too strong to be resisted, and the Government had to give way. William IV. became captain and admiral-general of the whole union, and stadtholder of the Seven Provinces; a little later these offices were declared hereditary in both male and female lines.

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, though it nominally restored things to their old estate, could not efface the mischief and humiliation which the war had caused to Holland. Nor ,were affairs mended by the death of the stadtholder William IV. in 1751, who, though dull and quiet, did his best to develop the commercial and manufacturing prosperity of the States. His widow, Anne of England, daughter of George II., carried on the government for her son William V. She showed but little aptitude for the post of regent, and the Provinces had great difficulty in standing clear of the European complications of the Seven Years’ War. They did so, however, and after her death in 1759 were on better terms with England, which had urged them to take up the cause of Frederick the Great. In 1766 William V. was declared to be of age; irresolute and weak, he was entirely under the command of his old preceptor Louis of Brunswick, and his wife Frederica Wilhelmina, niece of Frederick the Great. His rule is only distinguished for the springing up of several learned societies, and for the stimulus, derived partly from England partly from France, given to scientific inquiries. In other respects the influences of England and France were not propitious to the Provinces. In the American War of Independence William sympathized with the English court against the French and the revolted colonies, while the Dutch people warmly embraced the other side. Hence arose again old maritime disputes. The Provinces quarrelled at home over the relative importance of army and navy, and strengthened neither. So things went on from 1776 to 1780, when the famous “Armed Neutrality,” with which the Continental states replied to the demands of England on the seas, drew the Provinces once more into the arena of European politics. After a division of the States, in which four were on one side and three on the other, the United Provinces decided to adopt the Neutrality, and threw in their lot with France and Russia against England. But though war broke out at once, nothing could cure the violence of party spirit—the stadtholder and the court party going with the English, and neutralizing all the warlike efforts of the “patriot” party. In 1781 Dutch commerce was utterly paralysed; the other powers set on the Provinces, and took each its part. Their West India Islands were seized, and it seemed as if they could do nothing in their own defence. At last, however, an indecisive but not inglorious action with Admiral Parker at the Dogger Bank roused the national spirit, and the Orange party lost ground everywhere. In 1782 the Provinces recognized the independence of the United States of America; with generous sympathy the aged commonwealth saluted the rising republic of the West, which was destined to take its share also in the ruin of Dutch trade. In 1783 the States made an inglorious peace with England, in which the English got right of "free traffic with the Dutch East India colonies.

The patriot party was so much excited by this long series of blunders and humiliations that the fall of the house of Orange seemed imminent, and the king of Prussia had to interfere on behalf of his kinsfolk. In 1784 the States were in trouble with a new antagonist; the emperor Joseph II. sought to compel them to acquiesce in the reopening of the mouths of the Scheldt, so as to restore some of its ancient prosperity to Antwerp. But as neither party was able to fight, a peace was patched up iu 1785, though its terms, as usual, were very humiliating to the States. The resistance against the princess of Orange continued to increase in violence, until in 1787 the Prussians again interfered, occupying Amsterdam, reinstating the stadtholder, who had been driven out, and com pelling the states to ally themselves, much against their will, with England and Prussia.

Under their sway the Dutch passivelyremained, and when the French Revolution came they stood neutral as long as they could between it and the kings; it was not till Dumouriez had overrun all the Austrian Netherlands in 1792, and had determined to secure justice to Antwerp by forcing open the passage of the Scheldt, that they were drawn into the strife. On the death of Louis XVI. in 1793 the national convention at once declared war against both England and the Provinces. Their first campaign against the Dutch under Dumouriez failed: the invaders were arrested before Willemstadt, and ultimately were compelled to retreat. But in the autumn of 1793 Jourdan restored Hie credit of the French arms in the Austrian Netherlands. In 1794 Pichegru brilliantly completed the conquest of Belgium, and before the end of the year invaded the Provinces. The very severe frost of that winter gave his army easy passage over all the rivers and low-lying lands, which still formed the chief defence of the states; he occupied Amsterdam, and with his hussars crossed the ice and took the Dutch fleet as it lay at the Texel; the stadtholder fled (1795) to England; and the shattered remains of the duke of York’s army having reached Bremen returned home in disgrace. The republican party in the Provinces now reorganized the government so as to bring it into close harmony with that of Paris. A new constitution was framed; the ancient system of representative government, the stadtholderate, and the offices of captain and admiral-general were all swept away; a fair and open representation was established; and the Batavian republic came into being in close alliance with France. The French with one hand delivered the Provinces from a worn-out system of government, and with the other seized on a substantial return for their assistance. The new constitution, so excellent in appearance, soon proved a delusion. One change of government succeeded another: after the States General came a national convention; then in 1798 a constituent assembly with an executive directory; then chambers of representatives; then a return to the earlier system under the names of the eight provincial and one central commissions (1801).

The peace of Amiens gave the country a little rest, and the Dutch got back the Cape of Good Hope and their South American colonies: it was, however, but the brief and deceptive lull between two storms; when war began again England once more swept away all she had restored. In 1805 Bonaparte, with his usual high hand, imposed on them a new constitution, and set Schimmelpenninck over them with the ancient title of grand pensionary. In the next year . Napoleon added Holland to the ring of great fiefs with which he surrounded his imperial system, and forced an unwilling brother, Louis, to be king of an unwilling people. Worthy of a better fate, the excellent king of Holland did all in his power to protect his new subjects from the crushing friendship of his brother; but his efforts were in vain, and he withdrew to Vienna. In 1810 Napoleon annexed all Holland to the empire, declaring that it was “in the nature of things nothing but a portion of France.” In 1813 the change in the affairs of Europe encouraged the Dutch to join the general revolt, when they established a limited monarchy. The prince of Orange was recalled from England, and entered Amsterdam amidst the utmost enthusiasm. An assembly of notables met and declared him king with the title of William I., king of the Netherlands, in 1814. By the treaty of Paris Belgium was united to Holland, and the seventeen provinces were again forcibly joined together under one prince. It was settled that the house of Orange should have the hereditary sovereignty, with a fairly liberal constitution. To make up to the new king for the loss of his territories in Germany, the grand duchy of Luxembourg, with the exception of the town and fortress of Luxembourg, was handed over to him as his private possession, not as a part of the kingdom; the bishopric of Liége and the duchy of Bouillon also went with it. The episode of the “Hundred Days,” though it delayed the conclusion of the very complicated arrangements involved in these transfers, gave the new kingdom an opportunity of distinguishing itself: it was the first point of attack, and met the crisis with vigour. The Dutch troops under William, eldest son of the new king, took considerable part in the short and striking campaign which was closed on June 18, 1815, by the final victory of Waterloo.

The allied powers now founded in Holland and Belgium what they hoped would be a solid and permanent kingdom as a barrier against France. It was felt that Napoleon had shown Europe the importance of this district in connexion with his scheme for European domination. The new kingdom under the house of Orange was therefore the subject of great and anxious consideration at Vienna. The king, an hereditary sovereign, received full executive powers, and the initiative in proposing laws. He had also the power of appointing his own council of state. As a legislative body there were the States-General, divided into two chambers; each province had also its own local states. Freedom of worship and political equality were secured for all.

A highly artificial arrangement like this, however, could not stand long, if Europe came to throw off the trammels of the monarchical reaction, and to give freer course to those liberal tendencies which had survived the drama of the . French Revolution. In religious belief, in laws and usages, in language, in interests, the Belgic and Batavian provinces had little in common. Their inhabitants were different races, with instincts and feelings not merely diverse but opposed. The Belgic provinces spoke French or Walloon, the Batavians, Dutch. The Belgians were strict Catholics, while the Dutch were Protestants. The Dutch were chiefly a commercial and seafaring people, with interests in distant lauds and colonial possessions; the Belgians were agriculturists, except where their abundance of minerals made them manufacturers. The Dutch connected themselves with Germany and (though often only by way of rivalry) with England; the Belgians drew their chief inspirations from France, and connected themselves with the French in traditions, religion, and commercial interests. Such a diversity could not possibly stand the brunt of any great politicalmovement; especially as the Dutch were oppressive towards their Belgian partners in the kingdom. Accordingly we find that in 1830 the revolution at Faris at once aroused the strongest sympathy at Brussels. The dull obstinacy of William I. had emphasized the divergence, and his narrow and antiquated policy rendered an outburst inevitable.

The revolt at Brussels, which began on the 25th August 1830, spread instantly throughout the whole of Belgium. After a short struggle in November, a conference of France, England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, sitting in London at the request of William I., proposed an armistice, to which both parties agreed. In the following January the conference attempted to settle the terms of a separation, and proposed that Holland should have Luxembourg and part of the left bank of the Scheldt; this the Dutch accepted, while the provisional Government at Brussels protested against it. The assembly at Brussels constructed a new and liberal constitution, with a broad representative government, liberty of teaching, of the press, of public meeting; and in April 1831 the crown was offered to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who, after ascertaining that he would be recognized by England and France, did not hesitate to accept it (see Belgium). This -appointment caused the utmost irritation at the Hague, and the Dutch suddenly invaded Belgium; the opportune appearance of a French army checked the Dutch advance, and gave diplomacy time to interfere. The citadel of Antwerp, however, was still in Dutch hands, and the allied powers used in vain all their influence to persuade William I. to give it up to the Belgians. War was hereon declared, and France and England blockaded the Dutch ports, while a French army attacked the citadel, and, after a sharp struggle, compelled it to capitulate: The forts of Lillo and Liefkenshoek were left in the hands of the Dutch; on May 21, 1833, there was signed at London by the plenipotentiaries of Holland on one side, and those of England and France on the other, a convention in which William I. engaged not to recommence hostilities against Belgium, and to leave the Scheldt navigation open, till the relation between the two countries should be definitely settled by treaty. The final settlement of outstanding questions, however, was not reached till six years later, when Limburg and the eastern part of Luxembourg were secured to Holland, and heavy tolls were imposed on the navigation of the Scheldt; then the two kingdoms finally parted company on the 19th of April 1839.

In the following year William I. resigned his crown to his son William II., who reigned in peace till his death in 1849, when he was succeeded by his eldest son William HL, who' still reigns. The wave of revolution which passed over Europe in 1848 had in Holland comparatively little effect: the constitution of 1814 was revised, and the tranquillity of the country secured. Iιi 1853, after the establishment by the papacy of Catholic bishoprics in England and Holland, a considerable excitement arose, which resulted in the accession to power of a moderate, liberal, and entirely Protestant cabinet, and in the main the Protestant-liberal party has guided the country for the last quarter of a century. The Dutch took but a secondary part in the disputes between France and Germany as to Dutch Luxembourg, which by the treaty of London (1867) was declared neutral, and guaranteed to Holland. Recently they have been engaged in a very vexatious and wasteful war with the sultan of Acheen, their neighbour on the island of Sumatra.

The chief of the older authorities for the history of Holland are :— Melis Stoke (c. 1305); Willelmus Procurator, 1332; Beka, Chronicon Ultraject, 1350; John of Leyden; Froissart; Monstrelet; Velius, Chronyk van Hoorn·, Gorte Chronijkje van Hollant, 973-1466; Groote Chronyk van Holland·, Annales rerum gestarum in Holl'andia, 1481-83; Olivier de la Marche, Mémoires·, Meteren, Historia Belgica, nostri potissimum temporis, 1597; Tbuanus, Historia sui temporis, libri Ixxx.; Grotius, De antiquitate rcip. Batavicoe, 1610; Guicciardini, Omnis Belgii, sive inferioris Germaniae regionis, descriptio, 1613; Hollandioe Selandioeque descriptio, 1630; Snoygou-danus (Snoius), De republ. Batav. libri xiU., 1620; Boxhoorn, Theatrum, seu Hollandioe comitatus et urbium nova descriptio, 1632; Potitijk Handtboekskn van der Staat van , t Ncderlandt, 1650; Strada, Delia guerra di Fiandra, 1638; Hooft, Nederlandsche Historie ; Bor, Oorsprong, Begin, en Verνolgh der Nederlandsche Oorlogcn ; Aitzema, Saken van Staat en Oorlogh in ende omirent de VereenigdeNederlanden (1621-69), 1669-72; Brandt, Lijf en Bcdrijf van Michiel de Raiter, 1687; Historie derReformatic, 1671-1704; DeWitt, Brieven. Among the more modern works areWicquefort, L’Histoire des Provinces Unies des Pays-Bas (the Hague, 1719-43, 2 vols., with a large collection of diplomatie documents; new edition, by Chais van Buren, Amsterd., 1861-75); Wagenaar, De Vadcrlandsche Historie (Amsterd., 1749- 1760, 21 vols.; supplement to 1790, ibid. 1789-90, 3 vols.; and continuation from 1776 to 1802, ibid. 1788-1810, 48 vols.); Bilderdijk, Geschiedenis des Vaderlands (Leyden, 1832-39, 12 vols.); Leo, Zwölf Bücher Niederländischer Geschichte (Halle, 1832-35, 2 vols.); J. C. de Jonge, Geschiedenis van het Ned. Zeewezen (the Hague, 1833-48, 10 vols.); J. P. Arend, Algemeene Geschiedenisdes Vaderlands (Amsterd., 1840, &c., continued by Bees, Brill, and VanVloten); Groen van Prinsterer, Geschiedenis van het Vaderland (Leyden, 1846, 4th ed., Amsterd., 1874, 4 vols., from a Calvinistic point of view); and Archives ou Correspondance inédite de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau (Leyden, 1841-62); Gerlache, Essai sur les grandes Époques de notre histoire nationale (1852), auA. Histoire du royaume des Pays-Bas depuis 1814 jusqu’en 1830 (3 vols., 1859); Nuijens, Algemeene Geschied. des Ncderlandschen Volks (Amsterd., 1872-78, 15 vols., from the Roman Catholic point of view); J. van Lennip, DcGesch. van Nederland (Leyden, 1878); W. Moll and J. ter Gouw, Nederland. Gesch. en Volksleven (Leyden, 1878; this and the previous work are of a popular cast); J. A. Fruin, De Nederlandsche IVetbockentot op 1 Jan. 1876 (Utrecht, 1878); Nippold, Dier<imisch-k<dholischc Kirche im Königreich der Nederlande (Leipsic, 1877); Wenzelberger, Gesch. der Niederlande (in Heeren and Uckert’s series, Gotha, 1878-79); Kemper, Gesch. van Niederland na 1830 (Amsterd., 1873-76). For English readers the older works of Grattan, History of the Netherlands (Lardner’s series), and Davies, History of Holland (3 vols., 1841), have been cast completely into the shade by Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic (Lond., 1856), and The United Netherlands (Lond., 1861-68). A Repertorium der verhandk en bijdragen betr. de gesch. des vaderlands in tijdsch. versehenen appeared at Leyden, 1863, and a Register van acad. dissertation., having the same scope, in 1866. (G. W. K.)

PART III.—LANGUAGE.

. Of the Low German tribes the Old Saxons, the Anglo-Saxons, the Franks, and the Frisians played a specially important part both in north-western Europe in general and in the Low Countries in particular; and accordingly it is with these tribes that we have in the first place to do when investigating the origin and development of the Dutch language. A great many dialects formerly existed side by side on Dutch ground, and many of them still live on the lips of the people; but they all belonged to one or other of three well-defined groups—Frisian, Saxon, and Frankish.

In the earliest times about which records have come down to us, the Frisian dialect, in various shades of difference indeed, occupied a very extensive area. It was the language universally spoken in the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, and North Holland. But in Groningen the Frisian has been superseded by the Saxon, and in North Holland by the Low Frankish dialect; and the three leading dialects of the Dutch are now distributed in Holland nearly as follows:—(1) Saxon in Groningen, Drenthe, Overysse], and the county of Zutphen; (2) Frisian (more or less corrupt in the towns) in Friesland; and (3) Low Frankish in Guelderland (excepting the county of Zutphen), Utrecht, North and South Holland, Zealand, North Brabant, and Limburg.

In Groningen and North Holland the Frisian dialect has left more or less marked traces of its former predominance in the pronunciation, vocabulary, and phraseology of the present spoken language. During a considerable period laws, ordinances, contracts, and similar documents were drawn up in the various provinces in the peculiar dialect of each, and many of these documents, especially in Frisian, have come down to our time. The inhabitants of the northern provinces, however, had neither superiority of culture nor political preponderance enough to secure the assimilation of the adjoining populations. The occupants of the tract in which Low Frankish was spoken were much more favourably situated; and that dialect has in the end ousted the two others, and become the speech, both oral and written, of cultured Dutchmen.

From the documents collected by Müllenhoff and Scherer, and from many others, it is evident that between the 8th and the 12th century the different German dialects served as vehicles of literary composition, and this, it appears, must also have been the case in the Netherlands. It may therefore be safely taken for granted that, among the libri Teuihonice scripti referred to in the act given in the year 1202 by the papal legate Guido for the organization of the bishopric of Liége, there were some written in the vernacular, ⅜.e., in Low Frankish, which after the subjugation of the Frisians and Saxons by the Franks was the idiom of the victors. Whatever pains Charlemagne took to raise the dignity of the German language, the practice, prevailing at the time and long afterwards, of using Latin in official documents emanating from the authorities, prevented the predominant form of speech from encroaching to any considerable extent on the other dialects. Still it is in this period that we must seek the first indications of the future victory of the Frankish dialect over the two others. And in course of time the Franks strengthened their political pre-eminence by a superiority of a different character, which, added to the first, went far to secure to the Frankish dialect the prerogative of being the universal vehicle of cultured thought, written and spoken, throughout the Netherlands. The barbarous victors could not resist the humanizing influence of the higher culture resulting from a lengthened intercourse with the Romans. And when, after a considerable lapse of time, the new idiom, thus born from Latin, began to be employed in the composition of literary productions, the influence of these writings soon made itself sensibly felt in the southern Netherlands. The inhabitants of ancient Belgium had always continued in close intercourse with their brethren in France; and the literary productions put forth in France, especially after the crusades, soon began to engage the attention of the opulent citizens of the thriving towns of Flanders and other parts of the southern Netherlands, and were diligently translated by them into their own tongue. Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht in their turn were connected with the southern Netherlands by many close ties. The language spoken in the southern and-in the northern Netherlands was the same for all practical purposes; and so it happened that the French literary works and their Flemish reproductions attracted no small share of attention also in the northern Netherlands. The “Dietsch” dialect, in which the oldest and most popular works, such as Reynard the Fox and the works of Jacob van Maerlant, dating from the close of the 13th century, were composed, became the model speech for every one who wanted to address a larger public than that of his immediate vicinity. It was in this. Dietsch dialect that Melis Stoke, an inmate of the monastery of Egmond, composed his Rhymed Chronicle (c. 1305).

From Holland and Utrecht the Dietsch dialect readily found its way farther north. What the Franks had tried to achieve in times long past was now undertaken by the counts of Holland and the bishops of Utrecht, viz., the total subjection of the northern provinces to their rule. These efforts on the part of the princes just named again made Frankish the dialect of the dominant, Frisian and Saxon the idiom of the conquered race. In this way Dietsch, i.e., Low Frankish, became the predominant dialect all over the Netherlands.

At a time when laws, mutual contracts, and other official documents issued in Friesland between the Vlie and the Lauwers are still drawn up in pure Old Frisian, the treaty by which the citizens of Stavoren recognize Count Floris for their sovereign lord in 1292 is written in Dutch. The contracts drawn up by Frisians on both sides are nearly always in Frisian, even down to the close of the 15th century, though occasionally Dutch was used. In deeds of sale, contracts, Ac., drawn up between 1490 and 1500, we meet with all possible shades and varieties of the Dutch dialect, which is seen to be rapidly gaining ground. Still, this substitution of Dutch for Frisian in documents of this nature by no means proves that Frisian was falling into desuetude among the country population. A good deal of course depended on the persons who were employed to compose the documents above referred to. The historian of Friesland, Gabbema, writing about 1650, bitterly laments the decay of the Frisian tongue; and even foreign writers, such as Conrad Gesner, refer to the fact in a similar way. But in spite of his lamentations Gabbema submits to the pressure of the times and writes his history not in Frisian but in Dutch. Nay, his friend Gysbert Japix, the cultivator par excellence of Frisian, the national poet of Friesland, wrote the introduction to his Friesche Rijmelerije (“Frisian Rhymes ”), and many a manly poem besides, in the same language. They were by no means averse to seeing cultured non-Frisians take cognizance of their literary labours; and to satisfy this ambition, there was no other course open than to employ the language which such eminent men as Marnix, Coornhert, Roemer, Visser, Spiegel, Hooft, Huygens, and Vondel had permanently made the approved vehicle of thought and poetical utterance throughout the Netherlands, more especially after the fall of Antwerp, in 1585, had induced the most highly cultured minds of the southern Netherlands to migrate to Holland. This had been achieved partly by direct endeavours tending to the improvement of the language and the excision of all “foreign dross,” partly by the creation of beautiful works of literary art, and solid contributions to history and erudition. For the language and intellectual culture of Holland had now each attained a stage of advancement where neither imperiously demanded new capabilities in the other. What thus happened in Friesland also took place elsewhere, the same or nearly the same causes bringing about the same results throughout the country.

The language of the Dutch has travelled to their transmarine possessions, without engendering a new dialect either in the East or West Indies. But a very different result might be expected if at any time their East Indian possessions should enter upon an independent career. A kind of mongrel dialect would arise, which may be seen foreshadowed in official papers and letters composed by so-called sinjos, or “half-breeds,” in the island of Java. We may even now point to one such dialect, the speech of the Dutch settlers in the Transvaal and the Orange Territory in South Africa, who have actually begun to raise their clipped Dutch to the dignity of a written language, in which they are now composing works of general literature, and even poems, diligently editing class-books and theological treatises, and printing such newspapers as Den opregten Afrikaander.

Flemish or South Dutch, 7.e., Belgian Dutch, though very nearly allied to North Dutch or the Dutch of Holland, essentially differs from the latter in many important points of detail. In its vocabulary, its phraseology, and the structure of its sentences, it clearly betrays the influence of the French-speaking part of the nation. In a novel by a very popular Flemish author, A. C. van der Cruyssen, printed in bold type in small octavo, and numbering less than 200 pages, the present writer noted far more than 200 cases in which a North-Dutchman would have chosen quite another turn of expression. The South Dutch dialect, which after the fall of Antwerp had remained almost stationary, but which in our days has become a cultured written language through the diligent efforts of various writers of great talent, bears the evident marks of this recent emergence from a state of utter neglect on the part of cultured men, and to a North-Dutchman has an air of simple-minded artlessness and innocent naïveté.

The complexity of origin of the Dutch language is most noticeable in the case of the vowels. In the consonants the Saxon and the Frankish did not differ greatly, and the Frisian has had a much smaller, influence. To the Saxon must be ascribed the dropping of the nasal before s, ∕, th, as well as before δ and v, in vyf (five), sedert (sinthe, since), rnuiden (mouth), in proper names, &c. At the same time there are several words in which the n is preserved,—most of these being borrowed from the Frankish, as ander, künde, Yselmonde in Holland (alongside of Yselmuiden in Overyssel), and gans (for which we have goeze in the Overyssel dialect). The s in the nom. plur. of the vowel stems is only partially retained: side by side there exist in Middle Dutch plural forms like honde, dorpers, kinder, kinde, kyne, which have almost all in later Dutch assumed either s simply, s after the plural form r, or en (originally the plural form of η stems), the s and n being erroneously regarded as a sign of the plural (see infra). On the whole the Frankish influence has been the most potent,—that of the other two tongues being only observable here and there in the terminations, or in a comparatively limited number of words and expressions. The history of the development of the language may be divided into two great periods. In the first, the Middle Dutch, the fuller forms and long vowels of inflexional and derivational suffixes and the final elements of compound words, which are preserved in Gothic and High German, have already become short and unaccented, while at the same time, through the loss of the accent, the final elements have partly lost their significance, and occasionally a notable abbreviation has been effected both in their pronunciation and their orthography. From the Middle Dutch the modern language is distinguished by a greater neglect and confusion of inflexional forms, by the presence of a large number of foreign words introduced about the end of the 15th century, as well as of a multitude of dialect and modern terms, and by the disuse or modified significations of many of the older words.

Of the Middle Dutch we have no remains earlier than the beginning of the 13th century, though Saxon aud Frankish linguistic monuments go back to the 8t⅛ or 9th.

Middle Dutch extends from the 12th century to 1450; then follows a transition period, reaching to 1550, from which date Modern Dutch has prevailed to the present time. In the period last named a subdivision may be made at 1865, the date of the introduction of the new spelling.

In Modern Dutch there is a considerable difference between the latest and the earliest forms. The older language still preserves many words that have now become obsolete, and the style is modelled more closely on that of the classical writers. Towards the end of the 18th century the influence of Van Effen, Stijl, Bilderdijk, and others effected great changes; and while the deflexion largely increased, the Hollandsch dialect began to make itself predominant, especially in regard to the vowels u and y or ij (i). Indeed the main difference between Middle and Modern Dutch is due to the fact that the former is under the influence of Dietsch (the Flemish-Zealand dialect), while in the latter Hollandsch has the supremacy.

In the transition period the language was adulterated by a great number of bastard words and bastard forms derived from French, which obtained currency throughout Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and the southern provinces, from the influence of the court and government of the dukes of Burgundy.

The study of the dialects and grammar of Middle Dutch has not been prosecuted far enough to allow of very detailed statements regarding them. Our principal authorities for the interpretation of the literary remains are the works of De Vries, Verwijs, Verdam, Moltzer, and others. Most of these remains are in Dietsch, as the romances of chivalry, the works of Maerlant, the chronicles and songs; others, as the St Servaas of Van Veldeke, are in the language of the south-east (Limburgsch). Of the mediaeval language, as it was spoken in Utrecht or in the Saxon provinces ® (the countship of Zutphen, Overyssel, and Drenthe), the only remains are in charters and similar documents. Since the Saxon, as is indicated by the conjugation of the verb, has exercised no dominant influence, and the Hollandsch on the other hand is closely connected with the Dietsch, we will only quote as an example of the language a single strophe from Maerlant’s l·Vapene Martyn, with a metrical translation (hitherto unpublished) from the pen of Nicolas Beets (1880). [table]

The Consonants. — As regards the consonants, Dutch in the main does not differ from the other Low German languages. The explosive g and the th are wanting. Instead of the former there is a g with “fricative” pronunciation, and as in High German the iΛhas passed over into d.

Nearly all the final consonants in Middle Dutch are sharpened, and the sharp sounds are graphically represented; in Modern Dutch, on the other hand, the historical development of the language being more distinctly kept in view, and the agreement observed with the inflexional forms, the soft consonant is written more frequently than it is sounded; thus we have Middle Dutch doch, Modern Dutch dag, in analogy with the plural dagen.

The gutturals arc g, k, ch, and Λ. The aspirate sound of the g is of very early date; even in the Old Dutch psalms g interchanges with h (weh side by side with weg, just as in Gothic faheds and faginon, Anglo-Saxon borh and borges, Old Saxon manah and manag). The gh, which in Middle Dutch frequently appears before e and i, served to distinguish the fricative g from the French g ; in later Middle Dutch we find this object lost sight of, and the gh also written before a, o, or u. In Maerlant ghans and ghene both occur. In the 15th century the gh was also employed instead of ch, when people began to observe the etymological agreement of ik lach and si laghen, and in this way arose the spelling ik lagh. This indicated no change in pronunciation. That in Middle Dutch, however, an explosive pronunciation existed (in some words, more especially after n), as well as the aspirated pronunciation, is evident from words like dine, ginc ; this sound did not hold its ground but passed into the nasalized guttural now written ding, ging. The explosive force, however, was preserved where the diminutive suffixae followed immediately after ng, as well as before lijk and some other affixes, and it is now expressed by k (koninkje, jonkman}. In combination with s, g became k(speeksel, fluks from vlug). So also in intensive verbs like bukken, knikkc·n, where the k arose from an explosive g before j of the suffix, and was doubled after the short vowels. In non-intensives, as liggen, zeggen, where the g was aspirated, that letter was doubled in the same way from gj. The Dutch g is besides sometimes derived from the common German g (gans, dag) ; sometimes it is the . Old German h at the end of a word, between vowels, or after liquids (hoog, zuig). Sometimes it is a survival of the compound gw, and exists along with a form in w, as spugen, spuweιι. G arose out of j in kruisigen and other verbs in -igen, just as in Anglo-Saxon. In the beginning of some words in Middle Dutch g passed into/, as jonst for gonst, while Modern Dutch again has gunst. The passage of g into j, and i after a or e, and before a vowel, is found both in Middle Dutch and Modern Dutch: segel becomes zeil i gezegd gezeid. In some words the explosive g has passed into k∙, in others, and indeed the majority, the k, both in the body of the word and as an initial and a final letter, is the common Low German k. After short vowels the k of the compound kj was doubled, and the j dropped off after producing “umlaut” (dekken, wekken). An original k remained as an initial letter before n or r in kring, knijpen, &c., alongside of which we have ring, nijρen, &c., in which the k passed into h and then disappeared. The k also remains undisplaced in the diminutive ken (Taal- en Letterbode, ii. 105). Before t, k became ch in zücht (ziek), wacht (waken).

In Middle Dutch c and k are interchanged without distinction of sound. C is used before vowels except e and i, and before l, n, and r, and at the end of a word (cop, cleem, crane). After n sometimes ck is also employed (ganc and ganck). In later Middle Dutch the ck is more frequent; in other cases k is common (kint, kerke). Frequently we find k as well as c,— never, however, c before e or i, except in French words, where c had the sound of s (dtroen). Sometimes ch (as in cheins, chessen) occurs as well as c (ceins, cessen), where ch represents the palatal sound of the s, which in the more modern language is rather represented by sj (korsjet and corset, sjokken and sokken, &c.). The doubling of the k was indicated by ck (decken), while qu was the ordinary for kw (bequame, quedelen, queue), in Modern Dutch dekken, bekwaam.

In the beginning of words h has lost its original aspirate sound and become a mere breathing, and consequently it has often dropped off both before other consonants and between vowels: thus hring becomes ring (as early as in the Old Frankish psalms), slahan becomes slaan, vliehen in Middle Dutch vlien. In some of these words a d has been afterwards inserted out of a supposed analogy with weak verbs, as e.g., with belien, beltde ; where Modern Dutch has vlieden, geschieden, Middle Dutch had vlien, gescien ; even in Middle Dutch, indeed, geschiede (Modern Dutch geschiedde) was an alternative form with geschach. In the dialects h is frequently prefixed improperly (harm for arm, &c. ). At the end of words the h occasionally kept its fricative sound (hooch, geschach, tooch), as the ch shows. In the verbs tiegen (tiuhan) and tijgen (tihan), which sounded tien and tijen in Middle Dutch, the g has been afterwards introduced into the present stem, probably through the similarity of the sound of the h (ch) in tooch with the ch sound which g acquires as a final consonant, and through the g of the plural preterite togen. Ch did not remain in the preterite of all verbs in Middle Dutch: vlien has vloe as well as υlooch^, alongside of this, however, there is an infinitive vlieghen, also with a preterite vlooch. From the compound hw the h soon dropped off in the Middle Dutch (walvisch, wie, waar), not, however, where the w was vocalized (compare hui with ιvei, hoe with woe in the Saxon; in this last case woe passes further into boe). Before t, h retains its aspirate sound, as in vlucht (ch pronounced as the German ch without i); and g also before t takes the sharp sound of ch, although this is not represented by the spelling in substantives in ∙te, as gebergte, adjectives in -lijk, as genoeglijk, and in the conjugation hij ligt. The ch in sch (pronounced as s: vleesch, pron. vices), derived from the Middle Dutch sc (sk), is a mere orthographical convention; as an initial consonant sch is now pronounced sg (schip), but in the Saxon dialects and in Frisian the old sound is preserved: skip, skool (schola). Sculan has already in Middle Dutch changed the sc into s, and in Modern Dutch it appears as z (zullen). Ch before t, except where it stands for g, is derived from an f (compare gehucht, kocht, sticht, alongside of which we have words in which the f has been retained, as stift and bruiloft, Middle Dutch brulochte). Before s the guttural is assimilated or syncopated: examples are bus (High German buchse), vos (fox), zes, deesem (deegsem).

There is in Dutch a d which corresponds to the English th and the High German d ; it is formed by the tongue and the upper row of teeth; the d, on the other hand, which is like the English d and the High German t is formed by the tongue and the roof of the mouth (or the gums above the teeth). In the Old Frankish psalms ûtferde and ûtferthi still exist side by side, but even then the distinction was probably not a great one; in Middle Dutch th has become d, or the th is retained as a mere orthographical convention. While in the psalms a distinction is still preserved between th and d as a final letter, inasmuch as d passes into t, but th, or d derived from th, remains, d at the end of words always changes in Middle Dutch into t or into dt. Where, however, the d had remained before vowels in the conjugations of the verbs or the inflexions of the nouns, the d was in several words afterwards restored, although the sharp sound was preserved. In other instances the sharp sound of the nominative affected the oblique cases, and all forms acquired the sharp sound which then remained in Modem Dutch {gezant, gezanfen; rit, ritten ; verwant, verwanten) ; and the same change took place especially in indeclinable words, as want, met.

In Middle Dutch a tenuis or spirant before d changes it into t; but whether it be owing to difference of dialect or to inaccuracies of orthography, many instances may be pointed out where this does not occur; thus we find nochtan, ontaen (for onttaen), but along with these also nochdanne, ontdaen. In Modern Dutch this is not the case, but a number of forms are due to the same principle, especially in compounds of prepositions with the article {metten, metier), while in the conjugation of weak verbs also the suffix de turns into te after sharp consonants (legde, lachte, Middle Dutch loech). On account of the sharpening of the d as a final letter, no d is ever found before the suffix -nis, and t even occurs before an afterwards inserted«, as in beeltenis (the same is the case with f, b, v, as vergiffenis for vergifnis).

After o, oe, or ui the d passes into j, though in Middle Dutch instances seldom occur (Middle Dutch ruden, Modern Dutch ruien; Middle Dutch roden, Modern Dutch uitroeien); sometimes it drops out {kwede, kwee). The spoken language goes much farther than the written in this use of j for d; thus dooje, goeje are written doode, goede. In like manner the spoken language has changed d into w after au or ou derived from al or ol ; thus we find the pronunciation ouwe, gouwen, kouw, with the spelling oude, gouden, koude. In the adjectives ouwelijk and kouwelijk the w has become established. Except after vowels in verbs where h has dropped out, whenever there is no preceding consonant, and an r follows either immediately or after an e, d is inserted after l, n, r (kelder, zwaarder, holder, diender, donder), an insertion which is less common in Middle Dutch {helre, solve, donre∙, also, however, dondre). At the end also of words we often have a paragogic d after n where the Middle Dutch kept the n as the final letter (thus iemand, arend ; Middle Dutch ieman, aren); after sharp consonants t is added, as gedrocht, burcht, borst ( High German burs ehe), and also in rnijnent, &c.

B is frequently syncopated as a penultimate consonant before s: thans for thands, volgens for volgends. Asem, wasem, perhaps, have not dropped the d {th) before s, but have changed th into s. While the final t has partly grown out of d, it is partly also the common Low German and English t {tal, laten, haut). Between s and r in words derived from the Romance tongues a t is inserted owing to the common German dislike to sr (stroop from siroρ) ; after n, and also before the suffix -lijk, the introduction of t, which was frequent in the 16th century, is less and less heard, and on this point the written speech is far before the spoken {wezenlijk, cigenlijk are frequently pronounced wezeutlijk, eigentlijk; ordéntelijk alongside of ordelijk at an early date has acquired the t, and afterwards an inserted c, at the same time modifying its signification). In the dialects (Limburg, Brabant, Utrecht) the final t after consonants and vowels is frequently dropped: hij heef {heeft), nie (niet). The compound ts serves in words borrowed from the French to represent the Dutch pronunciation of the French sound ç (falsoen, Fr. façon). While the present language, both in orthography and pronunciation, makes a distinction between s (as in the English sound) and z (as in the English hazel), the Middle Dutch had only s (though in the later MSS. z begins to appear), and Frisian is still in the same position. Before a vowel or w, s has for the most part passed into z, except in those words in which it is followed either by a long or short vowel succeeded by s, or by a short vowel before s or k ; or z was sharpened into s by a t from the preposition ie∙. zoel, zwak, zitten; sissen, suizen, sokken, samen (from tsamen for ie zamen). In foreign words the s usually remains {saluut, soldij). Contrary to the pronunciation, z is written in zestig and zeventig (pronounced sestig, seventig, and in dialects tsestig, tseventig). The z in the middle of a word, after a syllable which originally had no accent, has passed into r: generen, bevrooren; at the same time we have the forms genezen (to heal), bevrozcn, and in the Middle Dutch vroos along with vroor, and kozen with koren. In many cases the meaning has been modified.

Prothesis of s occurs in srnoel for mod. Such forms as slink and link, snebbe and ncbbe, Zwenken and wanken, go back to older forms, and are thus probably doublets of much older date than the breaking off of the German languages from each other.

As in English so in Dutch b is the undisplaced German medial. At the beginning and in the body of a word it has the same sound; at the end it is pronounced as p (see p. 86). In Middle Dutch for the most part b was followed by a vowel (Middle Dutch webbe, Modern Dutch web) ; this vowel fell away in Modern Dutch, but the b remained in the written language. Wherever the b represents -bj it is doubled, just as after a short vowel {krab, krabben). So, too, frequentatives have bb {krabbelen, kibbelen, with which compare Modern Dutch kijven, Middle Lower German kibben; stribbelen side by side with streven ; compare also hebben and heeft, Old Frankish libban, Dutch levcn). After ä or δ + tn, b fell away both as a middle letter and as a final consonant; but this is not as yet general in Middle Dutch; alongside of crom, omme, we find cromp, ombe, while in Modern Dutch we always have lam, krom, dom, om. In substantives ending in m with a preceding long vowel, wherever the diminutive particle je is appended, a p is inserted {kruim, kruirnpje; bloem, blocmpje)∙, but this does not take place after an imperfect vowel where an c is inserted {kam, kammetje). As in English the p has not been displaced, and it has the same sound {paard, post, pink, lap).

For the English f as an initial letter {cf. Sweet, Hist, of English Sounds, p. 78), Modern Dutch as well as Middle Dutch has/ and v. In the body of a word the f passes into υ ( = v in English lover), or is doubled after short vowels {leef, leven; plof, ploffen). At the end and also before consonants after vowels, υ becomes f {hoofd, Middle Dutch hovcd; af, Middle Dutch ave and af). Verbs in -elen have f before e {schuifelen from schuiven). F {υ) is the common German f, and accordingly interchanges with th, as in ofte (Got. aiththau) = English or; but <∕(Got, iba) = English if, reel {filu). Before vowels and l, f is sometimes preserved in pure German words, while in others of the same sort v appears {frisch, verseh·, flink, vlak; fel, rechten); so also in the Old Dutch psalms we find vater along with ∕αder, while in Middle Dutch likewise a similar variation prevails. Usually the precedence of a sharp consonant in Middle Dutch causes the v to become ∕ {mesfal, ontfaen; cf. val and vaen; but also mesval, &c. ).

The combination ft has in Dutch passed into cht, but it appears in the dialects, and was more frequent in Middle Dutch {verkocht, hecht, sticht, achter; verkoft, heft, stift, after). On the other hand in the psalms and. the Glossae Lipsianae, and also in dialectic charters, we find occasionally ft for ht: druften {druhtin), sufte (stem suk), eendraftig (for eendrachtig).

The liquids are unchanged, except m and n in inflexional terminations. In certain other cases l interchanges with n: for example, slak, High German Schnecke; Schevelingen (17th century), Scheveningen, &c. By the I sound a preceding a or e is turned into o, Αsoveτtollig {tal)∙, in some instances 'ol changes into ou, e.g., gored, oxιd, zout ; if the o before e passes into u (see under o), then the solution does not take place {gulden; Middle Dutch hulten, Modem Dutch houten; menigvuldig). In Middle Dutch we have ul, ol, and ou side by side. FL remains with stem vowels, in the suffix -ma (even where it becomes n in High German), as bloem, bezem (High German bcseri), andinAe??i, dat. sing. 3d pers. pron. In other cases it passes into n in inflexional terminations; den (High German dem), geven (1st pers. plu. pres. ); mb becomes mm, and consequently m. In maar, m represents nw {rnνare for ne ware). In drempel, m is inserted.

The r is of very various character. In the first place we have the dental r, agreeing with the Italian r in ragazzo— for example, raad, rust, hart ; and secondly we have the guttural r, only heard in words which had hr in Old. German {ring, ros, reuzel). As the former is a difficult sound for many Dutchmen, especially for those of the Saxon district, the guttural r is used instead, of it. In the Saxon districts we find, besides, a very strong consonant called by Sievers the “cerebral” r {e.g., hard, worst, marsch). Although it is not distinctly audible, a practised observer can hear it, just as in the English letter, hard. The r derived from z belongs to the first class. Through the influence of the r, short vowels are lengthened in Middle Dutch {acrch, aerbeid, for arg, arbeid). Transposition of the r, both before and after the vowel, is frequent in Middle Dutch and in Modern Dutch: godsvrucht, nooddmft, dertig, barnen, kersten {krist). Before r, n was elided in Middle Dutch {mire for minre, &c. ); before m it was assimilated {onmate, ommate), and before b it passed into m {omberaden) ; but in Modern Dutch this change does not take place.

In some words beginning with a vowel, n has been prefixed through the influence of the declined article, the possessive pronoun, or the preposition in: thus naarstig, Middle Dutch naernst, grew out of in ernst; navonds from avond; noom (17th century) out of mîn oom{ Modern Dutch, however, has oom). As regards thepreterites dacht and bracht along with denken and brengen, which, appear in Middle Dutch, no certainty has been attained. The n in this ease may have dropped out, as in the other German languages, while before ch the â was shortened to a, which like a in other cases before ch passed into o (hence, in the spoken language, brocht, docht exist side by side with bracht, dacht), or the suffix may be appended to the nou-nasalized stem. That each Germanic language may in these cases have gone its own way is evident from the Anglo-Saxon, where such a form as giyohta indicates an older form giyanhta. Vowels.— As early as the Middle Dutch period, the final vowels of the inflexions, i and u as well as e, had for the most part lost their sound. The i which gave rise to the umlaut was in great measure elided in some words before the umlaut period, in others later. The number of words in which no umlaut occurs is increased; in some words it is absent, even while i is retained or has passed into e ; this depends on the greater or less sensitiveness of the dialect for the umlaut :— loot, comparat, later; beter; Middle Dutch hoved, Modern Dutch hoofd; teugel; Middle Dutch hoge, Modern Dutch verheugd, heug∙, bky[de ∖ , bloode; edel, adel. Analogy has also played a great part in the modification of formations (vast, vaster, along with vesting, vesten; macht, mächtig, along with amechtig; hand,, harden, handig, along with behendig). A has in open syllables the sound of English a in father, in closed syllables that of the English a in as; when there is a perfect sound in closed syllables the spelling is aa (jaar), in open syllables a (maken); in bad, not, a=a. An original short a and a long a in open syllables are even in Middle Dutch pronounced alike, and may be rhymed with each other (dagen, lagen, a rhyme which was not permitted in Middle High German). In the Saxon dialects â was expressed by ao (some words came in this way into Dutch with oo for ao, as moot, a slice of fish), and a or â in the Frisio-Saxon districts passes into è before r, ⅛sjer (jaar). Middle Dutch preserved a in several words where in Modern Dutch it passes into e before r (arg, erg; save, zerk; warf, werf); in others, as aarde, staart, zwaard, the Middle Dutch had e and a (erde, stert, swert, swart, start; Modern Dutch zwaard, staart). In foreign words, likewise, e before r has become a; paars, perse; lantaarn, lanterne (in the dialects e is still frequently retained). In Middle Dutch a before l sometimes, but not usually, becomes o (overtallich side by side with drievoldich) ; the passage of a into o before ch also occurs (ambocht, brocht, &c. ).

In the preterite singular of the first conjugation of strong verbs the a is always retained in Middle Dutch, and has not passed, as in Modern Dutch, into o through the influence of the plural (Middle Dutch ic vant, bant, wi vonden, bonden, Modern Dutch ik von r l, bond, &c. ). It is also retained before l and r, e.g. i barg, starf (though side by side with these we have berg, sterf), where Modern Dutch has borg, stierf, hielp, &c. In ic sel, hi sel, the e came from the plural wi seien, whereas the present form is again ik zal. A similar influence of analogy is observable in the o for a in the verbs scheren, zweren, and wegen, which now have schoorj schoren, zwoor, and woog ; Middle Dutch scar, scdren, wach, &c., in which the a has been displaced by the o of the preterite participle. In the conjugation of the verbs Middle Dutch has e where Modem Dutch has a (geslegen, dregen, Modern Dutch dragen). In geheven alone e has been kept. In the 3d pers. sing, forms like ontfeet, geet, sleet, occur in Middle Dutch, along with ont-faet, gaet, staet (Modern Dutch ontvangt, gaat, stoat). In participles of verbs in the Germanic -jan, Middle Dutch has in some cases the original form without the umlaut, where Modern Dutch, through the analogy with the present, has the umlaut: Middle Dutch beeant, genant, gesant ; Modern Dutch bekend, gezonden. This last arose through confusion with the participle of the verb sinden, which had become obsolete, gezant continuing to exist as a substantive.

In substantives and adjectives we find e (derived from a through i) along with the unchanged a (gretig, graag, from gradig; hekcl, akelig; edel, adel).

The sound of the e derived from a does not differ from that of an original e, or of an e derived from i, as they appear in open syllables (vele, sieden, pronounced as a in English name). If the e derived from a or i oι the original e occurs in closed syllables, it has a short sound, as in English men, end, Modern Dutch stem; while before r it is pronounced almost as the e in the High German Herr. The e in closed syllables with a full sound (as English a; Sweet, d) is spelled ee: veel, week (e from i), beek. The sharp, clear ee which comes from ai before r and w, followed or not by i or j, is indicated by the same letters in both open and closed syllables: eer, sneeuw, zee. Before other consonants followed by i or j we always find ei: verbreiden, heil, leiden, -heid, Middle Dutch -hede, (hence in Modem Dutch plural -heden). If no i or j followed, then ai became ee (leed, breed). While in the Saxon dialect of Guelderland and Overyssel ai is always ee except when i oτ j follows, an ei often occurs in the western dialects, which has not arisen through the umlaut; in some places it is even pronounced as ai where the written form has ee: Yselsteiη (proper name), gemein, &c.; Modern Dutch steen, gemeen.

Sometimes the ei has come from ag or eg through vocalization of the g to j (meid, maged; zeil, segcl) ; sometimes it is from the French ai, ei, é, ée (fontein, hakkenei, balein, &c.). In individual cases ei stands where the Middle Dutch has c before n: deinzen, Middle Dutch denzen; ρeinzen, Middle Dutch penzen a.xiøpeizen; sometimes it is the result of an i following: heinde (hende, handi).

Since the umlaut has not been equally effective in all dialects, being even wanting where i has passed into e or dropped out, we find words with ee side by side with words with ei. Thus, Middle Dutch has reene, kleene, where Modern Dutch, through the influence of another dialect, has rein, klein. In Modern Dutch ee frequently exists side by side with ei (verbreedeη, verbreiden; heelen, heil) ; in this case there is usually a differentiation of meaning. The dialect of North Holland turns ee into ie (bicst, stien, bien, for the Dutch beest, steen, been); and this explains some words with ie in the spoken language: for example, tientje (twig), driegeη (dreigen)— 17 th century.

The letter o represents three sounds :—(1) the short sharp o and (2) the short soft o, the former like the o in English not and French soldat (Dutch bod, belofte, tocht, kolf), the latter like the French o in ballon (Dutch vod, ploffen, achtend, vol; Middle Dutch has frequently u, as uchtend); and (3) the full o as in French noter (Dutch kolen, sloten, verloren). The sharp clear oo lias almost the same sound as the full o; in some dialects (among others the Saxon) it is pronounced as double oo, in others (Flemish and Hollandsch) somewhat like au. In Middle Dutch, the lengthening of the vowels was frequently indicated by e (before r sometimes by i, as in oir) ; hence ae for â, oe for 6. Where oe occurs in the modern language, it has the sound of u (pronounced like the u in High German, and answering to the Gothic 6, Old High German uo. from ua), which in Middle Dutch was frequently represented by ou (au; Sweet, p. 6), still so pronounced in West Flemish and the Groningen dialects, though before labials and gutturals it was expressed by ue and oe (bouc, souken, and also guet, vuerin, but usually goet, socken, boec). The Saxon dialects still preserve in these cases an ô sound which agrees with the Middle Dutch oe (bôk, môder); in two words— romer (roemer, however, is also used) and spook—o has passed from these dialects into Dutch. As the u (Old German Û), which in the modern tongues has passed into wi except before r and w, retains the u sound in the Saxon districts, some words have come into Dutch from these dialects, being written with oe from the similar sound of oe (from Ô) and ua (snoet, boer, soczen, alongside of which are Frankish words, snuit, suizen, &c.). Except in the Saxon dialects, which are more sensitive to the umlaut, the modification of oe by i seldom occurs (Modern Dutch groen, zoet, zocken, but Saxon gryn, zyt, zyken,-^cf. Sweet, History of English Sounds, p. 6). In the Groningen dialect, öi in zoikeη is umlaut of ou (oe=ou; mouder, Modern Dutch, moeder). Forms in Modern Dutch as reukeloos, beuk, geneugte alongside of roekeloos, bock, genoegeη, show the oe changed before i in eu, when oe was still pronounced 6; they have thus not umlaut of oe but of 6.

In French words which are completely naturalized longo becomes oe (façon =fatsoen).

In Middle Dutch, o in some cases occurs instead of oe (u) in open syllables (gode, moder). This o for oe rhymes with o; rhymes like gode (goede) and gode (Goth. Guys), stocct (stookt) and soect (zoekt) l are repeatedly introduced. Thus, too, oe = 6 from an and oe≈ Goth. ô and û rhyme with each other.

The Modern Dutch oo from au is represented by oo both in open and in closed syllables. The full clear o from the German o or u is expressed in closed syllables by oo, in open syllables by o: kool, koleη (English coal), stroom, stτoomem The umlaut of the soft and sharp o (eu=Q in High German schön) is rare in Middle Dutch: Modern Dutch υlcugcl, Middle Dutch vlogel; keukeη, kokene; verheugeη, hogen. Side by side with some cases where the umlaut occurs the form without the umlaut is also retained in Modern Dutch (jeugeη, logen), sometimes with a difference in the meaning (sprcuk, sρrook; heusch, hoofsch). In the dialects the area of the umlaut is wider.

Oe before m and oe and oo before ch, especially in monosyllables, have changed into ö: bloem, blom; zoeken, zocht; roepen, rocht (whence berucht and gerucht); koopen, kocht. As in rocht, gerucht, the short soft o from the Middle Dutch has in many words passed into u (Middle Dutch conneη, gönnen, joffcr (jonevere) ; Modern Dutch kunηeη, gunnen, jufjer); sometimes both forms have continued in use: snorken, snurken; plondercn, plünderen; veelvoudig (νeelvoldig), mcηigνuldig. In like manner, the forms u and o from it exist side by side (dropρel, druppel; gort, grut), as also u from e before l (sρul, spel).

The Û had still the Old German pronunciation in the Old Frankish psalms, and this was probably the case also in the oldest Middle Dutch. In Maerlant’s style, however, it had already acquired the sound of the French u in nature·, thus, Maerlant rhymes nature, cure; gure, pure; sure, creature. In the dialects we still hear the old sound Û and not y (Sw eet, p. 6), e.g., Guelders dialect zur, Dutch zyr. Under the influence of the Hollandsch in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Û has passed over through öi into ui (pronounced nearly as the High German eu, English oy), except before r and w, where the Û keeps the sound ⅛. Middle Dutch oi also passed into id (sloicr, slider), just as ici after consonants: hui (hwei), duit (thweit). From the common German û thus arose the Middle Dutch u in duve, duscnt, mues, and in the verbs sagen, supen, luken, corresponding to the Modern Dutch ui in duizend, duif, muis, zuigen, zuiρen, luiken (in which the High German has au, Old High German ώ). The words in which the Saxon has the umlaut have in Middle Dutch likewise u, but in Modern Dutch ui: Middle Dutch budel, surer, lusteren; Modern Dutch buidel, zuiver, luisteren; Saxon biidel, ziiver, liisteren, &c. In Modern Dutch moel, snoet, knoest, &c., have oe along with forms in ui (rnuil, snuit, knuist). In the Saxon dialect, oe (u) and iι occur in some cases in the oblique cases (knoest, pl. kniisie). The same thing takes place in the strong verbs, which in Anglo-Saxon have Û, in Old High German io (Modern Dutch buigen, Anglo-Saxon bûgan, Old High German biogun) ; the Saxon dialects have here sometimes ü (fügen, sliiten), sometimes oe (kroepen, schoeven). Old German iu passes before the suffix a into eo, io, and finally in Middle Dutch and Modern Dutch into ie '(dier, bieden, kiczen). Before r Middle Dutch has the Û frequently along with ie (onghiere, ongehure); Modern Dutch duur along with dierbaur (Belgian duurbuur), υuur (from viwur) along with vier. Sometimes ie changes into c: deemoedig, (diemocdig, dienen), dre as well as drie, heden and Modern Dutch hidden (Cosijn, Noord en Zuid, i. 219). In some cases ui comes from the degradation of ai or i, especially in words borrowed from the French (fruiten, Ft. frite, Lat. fricture·, formais, Fr. fornaise, Middle Dutch fornuys).

If an original eu is followed by y, i, or u, then eu becomes iu, Middle Dutch u, Modern Dutch ui: bcduden, dutsch, luden, Modern Dutch beduiden, duitsch, luiden, along with which, however, exist the forms dietsch (derived from diet), lieden, bedieden, which must be ascribed to the influence of the Flemish and Zealand dialects. To this influence must also be assigned the ie before r and l in strong verbs of the first class which originally had a (stierf, hielp, &c.), while the reduplicative verbs in the preterite have ie, just as iu Middle German and Modern German it is produced through contraction, according to analogy, and passes before double consonants into ι (slieρ, ring). Ie further indicates a lengthened i and Î in syllables on which the chief accent falls (fubriek, fabrieken), while i is used for short i and in unaccented syllables, or, it may be, for short i in closed syllables (fubrikant, sikkel, midden, binden). The long i is indicated by ie, where ij (which was originally the sign of i, and in Middle Dutch and the dialects is still so pronounced) passes over into ui and ei through dialect influence, but retains the written form ij: sijsje (Eng. siskin),purtij, pijn, ijs, &c. In some words in which the original i sound has been preserved, Î is also expressed by ie (gerief, wierook, kiem, &c. ).

The sounds in Dutch which are the most difficult for foreigners to pronounce are the aspirated g, the ch after vowels, the sch before vowels, and v. This last letter is pronounced by the Germans either as w or as f, and they also usually confound b and p as initial consonants. Of the vowels, the most difficult is the ui, which is almost never pronounced with perfect accuracy by a foreigner. The ij and ei are generally sounded too closely like ui. Grammar.—In Middle Dutch the different noun-stems are divided into two principal classes :—(1) a combination of the various vowel stems, which nave more or less lost their individual characters, though here and there, in particular expressions and dialects, the difference of the stems makes itself apparent; and (2) a consonantal declension, that of the n stems—the other consonantal stems having been assimilated partly to the n stemsand partly to the vowel stems. Gradually, however, the two classes begin to be confused with each other; thus in the vowel stems s completely ousts the e as a sign of the nominative plural, and consequently acquires a plural significance as well as en, so that (with some exceptions, like gruuf, hertog, &c., and adjectives employed as substantives) s and en are in Modern Dutch used indifferently as plural terminations, the selection mainly depending on the nature of the foregoing consonant. In the words already mentioned— gruuf, hecr, υorst, &c., and in compounds like gruvenkroon, hunenkum, the genitive termination en is preserved. The s of the genitive is employed in feminines whenever the qualified word stands after it, as mocderskind ; with this exception, the s, especially in the spoken speech, is almost entirely superseded by the periphrasis van den; des heeren becomes van den heer, the two forms having the same meaning, which is not the case in High German.

Neuters have in the plural the same inflexiones masculines; but they more frequently than these have the plural termination -er,— corrupted, however, to -ers or -eren (kind, hinders or kinderen), no plural termination in -er alone being now recognized. Some words, which in the singular had a parallel form with another termination, have the plural according only to one form: stud and stedc, for example, have the plural steden. In some cases (as schiρ, plur. schepen; smut, plur. smeden) the plural form has not yet been explained. In the dialects, especially in the Saxon, the older forms, more particularly of the plural, are still in force; and there is still a certain difference between the several stems: boom, pl. beume (borne); gust, geste.

The old genitive ami dative forms are only retained in individual expressions, as den lande, des huizes, &c.; in all other cases the genitive and dative are expressed by the prepositions van or «an. 1he accusative is like the nominative, while in the neuter the dative also without aan is like the accusative. From the similarity of the dative and accusative masculine and neuter of the article great similarity has arisen in the government of the prepositions; it is only in a few expressions (mctterdaad, van goeden huize) that the original cases have been maintained; in all other instances voor, van, door, met, &c., govern the accusative. In Middle Dutch this confusion had not advanced so far. The dropping of the n at the end after vowels—a special peculiarity of Hollandsch—has given rise to great neglect of the genders in the spoken language; and this confusion has even made itself felt in the literary style, though it is kept in check by the Saxon dialects, which are strongly conservative in this respect.

The singular of the second personal pronoun du (still used in Middle Dutch) has been displaced by the plural gij, which was originally used out of politeness; and U derived from Uwe Edelheid is now employed as the honorific. As dative and accusative of gij, jo ∣ ι is familiar in the spoken language (Eng. you, Goth. jus). The third person has, as in English, for the masculine hij (hi), thus diverging from the High German; the neuter is het. The form in use for the neuter article also sounds het ; this het is due to the fact that the abbreviation , t for the pronoun het and for the article dut was the same,—a coincidence which led to an erroneous identification . In Middle Dutch the reflexive pronoun was hem ; Modern Dutch (agreeing in this with the Old Frankish psalms) has zieh.

Though the strong verbs and the various classes of weak verbs are always kept separate, many verbs have become through association of ideas almost unrecognizable. Strong verbs have become wholly or partially weak: bannen, bande, gebunnen; spannen, spunde, gespun-nen; helen, heelde, verholen and verheeld , beseffen, besefte, beseft (Middle Dutch besief, beseven) ; weak verbs have become strong: jagen (Middle Dutch jaugde), joeg and juagde, gejaugd; sehenden, schänd, geschonden; zenden(see above); prijzcnanà wijzen passthrough the ij (the weak ) into the strong î class (Middle Dutch, prisde, wisde; Modern Dutch, precs, wees, geprezen, gcwezen. In belijden, beluidde, Middle Dutch belîën, bclîde, the d of the preterite found its way into the present also and into the infinitive; and the belîden, Modern Dutch belijden, thus formed passed into the i class of strong verbs. The a of ward, the preterite of werden, has passed into werd, and the plural has through analogy become werden, the present being ik word and the infinitive wot den. The first class of strong verbs has before n + a consonant i in the stem of the present (binden) or else e (helρen), this e remaining throughout the conjugation of the present (hij hclpt, not, as in wgh German, hilft). In the preterite the a has changed into o through the influence of the plural, as has already been, mentioned under o. The conjunctive or optative is frequently neglected even in Middle Dutch; in the living language it is sometimes used after certain .verbs and conjunctions {op dut and ten einde), but in expressing a wish it is sometimes periphrased by mögen or laten, and it is very frequently displaced by the indicative. The High German construction of the verb with zieh to express a passive idea is contrary to the genius of Dutch, which employs the periphrastic passive form het wordt duur gevonden instead of es findet sich du (Fr. il se trouve là). The formation of the future likewise differs from that of the High German, the auxiliary being not werden but zullen (Eng. shall): ik zul het doen = both I shall do it and I will do it.

Much of the vocabulary of Middle Dutch has now become obsolete. Some words have altogether disappeared:— dorper, dmperlike (Modern Dutch, gemeen), gruen (knevel), grein (kern, excellent person), ontstuen (afwuchten), ors (petard), oorbucr (nut). Others have changed their meaning :— couse, “breeches,” now “hose”; clene, ‘ few,” now “small”; onnoozel, “innocent,” now “halfwitted”; slecht, “simple,” now “wicked”; beρroevcn, “toprove,” now “to attempt”; crane, “weak,” now “sick.”

Many new native words have grown up in connexion with trade, industry, art, and science; many foreign words have also been introduced, such as those taken from the French with the suffixes eeren, ιck, ief; and many words from the dialects have received rights of citizenship.

For a fuller survey of the history of Dutch, the reader is referred to W. Dwight Whitney’s Language and its Study, and the excellent translation of it by J. B. Vinckers, Taal en Taalstudie, νo∣gens de 3de uitgaee ννor Nederlanders l∣ewerkt. The grammar of the current speech may be studied in the Sρraakkιιnsten of Kem, P J. Cosijn, Van Helten. For the explanation of Middle Dutch wordsand forms, see the papers of De Vries, Verwijs, and Veιdam in the Taalgids. the Tael-en Letterbode, and the Taalkundige Bijdragen; De Vries. Middelnederlandsche Taal-zuirering∙, the editionsof thcSpieghel Historiae! by Maeιlant, of De Rose, william van Hiliegaerdsberg. S<∙ghelyn; and the Bibliotheek ran Ahddelnederlandsehβ Letterkunde, by H. E. Moltzer. For explanation and history of words of the current language seethe Woordenboek der Ned. Taal, by De Yries, Tc Winkel,<fcc. The old Saxon and Frankish forms are treated by Kern in Taal-en Letterbode, Cosijn in the oud Frank. Psalmen, Gal Ide in Allsachsisclιe Laut-und Flexionslehre (1st part). A good survey of the orthography is given in D. Vries and Te winkel e Grondbeginselen der Nedirlandsche Spelling and Woυraeniijst root-de Spelling der Nederlandsche Taal. (J· B. V.—J. H. G.) PART IV.-LITERATURE

As has been shown above, the language now known as Dutch or Flemish did not begin to take distinct shape till about the end of the 11 th century. From a few existing fragments—two incantations from the 8th century, a version of the Psalms from the 9th century, and several charters—a supposed Old Dutch language has been recognized; butDutch literature actually commences in the 13th century, as Middle Dutch, the creation of the first national movement in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand. From the wreck of Fr ιnkish anarchy no genuine folk-tales of Dutch antiquity have come down to us, and scarcely any echoes of German myth. On the other hand, the sagas of Charlemagne and Arthur appear immediately in Middle Dutch forms. These were evidently introduced by wandering minstrels and jongleurs, and translated to gratify the curiosity of the noble women. It is rarely that the name of such a translator has reached us, but we happen to know that the fragments we possess of the French romance of William of Orange were written in Dutch by a certain Klaas van Haarlem, between 1191 and 1217.∙ The Chanson de Poland was translated about the same time, and considerably later Parthenopeus de Blois. The Flemish minstrel Diederic van Assenede completed his version of Floris et Blanchefleur alc>oυX 1250. The Arthurian legends appear to have been brought to Flanders by some Flemish colonists in Wales, on their return to their mother-country. About 1250 a Brabantine minstrel translated Walter Map’s Lancelot du Lac at the command of his liege, Lodewijk van Velthem. The Gauvain was translated by Pennine and Vostaert before 1260, while the first original Dutch writer, the famous Jakob van Maerlant, occupied himself about 1260 with several romances dealing with Merlin and the Holy Grail. The earliest existing fragments of the epic of Peynard the Fox were written in Latin by Flemish priests, and about 1250 a very important version in Dutch was made by Willem the Minstrel, of whom it is unfortunate that we know no more, save that he was the translator of a lost romance, Madoc. In his existing work the author follows Pierre de Saint-Cloud, but not slavishly; and he is the first really admirable writer that we meet with in Dutch literature. It is not necessary to dwell at any length on the monkish legends and the hymns to the Virgin Mary which were abundantly produced during the 13th century, and which, though destitute of all literary merit, were of use as exercises in the infancy of the language. The first lyrical writer of Holland was John I., duke of Brabant, who practised the rniηηelied with success, but whose songs are only known to us through a Swabian version of a few of them. In 1544 the earliest collection of Dutch folk-songs saw the light, and in this volume one or two romances of the 14th century are preserved, of which Het Daghet in den Oosten is the best known. Almost the earliest fragment of Dutch popular poetry, but of later time, is an historical ballad describing the murder of Count Floris V. in 1296. A very curious collection of mystical mediaeval hymns by Sister Hadewych, a nun of Brabant, was first printed in 1877.

Hitherto, as we have seen, the Middle Dutch language had placed itself at the service of the aristocratic and monastic orders, flattering the traditions of chivalry and of religion, but scarcely finding anything to say to the bulk of the population. With the close of the 13th century a change came over the face of Dutch literature. The Flemish towns began to prosper and to assert their commercial supremacy over the North Sea. Linder such mild rulers as William II. and Floris V., Dort, Amsterdam, and other cities contrived to win such privileges as amounted almost to political independence, and with this liberty there arose a new sort of literary expression. The founder and creator of this original Dutch literature was Jakob van Maerlant, born near Bruges between 1225 and 1250. His youth was spent in Holland, and probably in connexion with the court, but in 1261 he returned to Flanders, where he died about thirty years later. Maerlant commenced, as his predecessors had done, by translating the courtly romances of the French, but when he returned to Flanders he began to take his true position as an original didactic poet. His Flowers of Nature, written about 1263, forms an epoch in Dutch literature; it is a collection of moral and satirical addresses to all classes of society. With his Pijmbijbel (Rhyming Bible) he nearly brought down on his too secular head, in 1270, the chastisement of the bishop of Utrecht, and thus early in Dutch history foreshadowed the courage and free-thought of the Reformation. It was not until 1284 that he commenced his masterpiece, De Spieghel Histoτiael (The Mirror of History), at the. command of Count Floris V. After writing a great many important works, lyrical and didactic, Maerlant died at Damme, about 1291. Of his disciples, the most considerable in South Holland was Jan van Boendale (1280-1365). He was a politician of considerable influence, and his works are historical and moral in character. In him the last trace of the old chivalric and romantic element has disappeared. He completed his famous rhyme chronicle, the Brabantsche Yeesten, in 1315; it contains the history of Brabant down to the times of the author himself. For English readers it is disappointing that Boendale’s other great historical work, an account of Edward HI. and his expedition to Flanders in 1338, has survived only in some fragments. The remainder of Boendale’s works are didactic poems, pursuing still further the moral thread first taken up by Maerlant, and founded on mediaeval scholastic literature. In Ypres the school of Maerlant was represented by Jan de Weert, a surgeon, who died in 1362, and who was the author of two remarkable works of moral satire and exhortation. In North Holland a greater talent than that of Weert or of Boendale was exhibited by Melis Stoke, a monk of Egmond, who wrote the history of the state of Holland to the year 1305; this work, the Pijmkroηik, was printed in 1591, and for its exactitude and minute detail has proved of inestimable service to later historians.

With the middle of the 14th century the chivalric spirit came once more into fashion. A certain revival of the forms of feudal life made its appearance under William III. and his successors. Knightly romances came once more into vogue, but the new-born didactic poetry contended vigorously against the supremacy of what was lyrical and epical. It will be seen that from the very first the literary spirit in Holland began to assert itself in a homely and utilitarian spirit. Jan van Heelu, a Brabanter, was the author of an epic poem on the battle of Woeronc (1288), and to him has been attributed the still finer romance of the War of Grimbergen. Still more thoroughly aristocratic in feeling was Hein van Aken, a priest of Louvain, who lived about 1255-1330, and who combined to a very curious extent the romantic and didactic elements. As early as 1280 he had completed his translation of the Roman de la Pose, which he must have commenced in the lifetime of Jean de Meung. More remarkable than any of his translated works, however, is his original romance Heiwric en Margriete, upon which he was at work for thirty-seven years. During the Bavarian period (1349-1433) very little original writing of much value was produced in Holland. Buodewijn van der Loren wrote one excellent piece on the Maid of Ghent, in 1389. Augustijnken van Dordt was a peripatetic minstrel of North Holland, who composed for the sheriff Aelbrecht and for the count of Blois from 1350 to 1370. Such of his verses as have been handed down to us are allegorical and moral. Willem van Hildegaersberch (1350-1408) was another northern poet, of a more strictly political cast. Many of his writings exist still unpublished, and are very rough in style and wanting in form. Towards the end of the 15th century an erotic poet of considerable power arose in the person of the lord of Waddinxsveen and Hubrecbtsambacht, Dirk Potter. During a stay of three years in Rome, from 1409 to 1412, this eminent diplomatist made himself acquainted with the writings of Boccaccio, and commenced a vast poem on the course of love, Der Minnen Loep, which is a wonderful mixture of classical and Biblical instances of amorous adventure, set in a framework of didactic philosophy. In Dirk Potter the last traces of the chivalric element died out of Dutch literature, and left poetry entirely in the hands of the school of Maerlant.

It is now time to consider the growth of prose literature in the Low Countries. The oldest pieces of Dutch prose now in existence are charters of the towns of Flanders and Zealand, dated 1249,1251, and 1254. A prose translation of the Old Testament was made about 1300, and there exists a Life of Jesus of about the same date. Of the mystical preachers whose religious writings have reached us, the Brussels friar, Jan van Ruysbroec (1294-1381), is the most important. But the most interesting relics of mediaeval Dutch prose, as far as the formation of the language is concerned, are the popular romances in which the romantic stories of the trouvères and minstrels were translated for the benefit of the unlettered public into simple language. As in most European nations, the religious drama takes a prominent place in every survey of mediaeval literature in Holland. Unfortunately the text of all the earliest mysteries, the language of which would have an extraordinary interest for us, has been lost. We possess records of dramas having been played at various places— Our Lord's Resurrection, at the Hague, in 1400; Our Lady the Virgin, at Arnheim, in 1452; and The Three Kings, at Delft, in 1498. The earliest existing fragment, however, is part of a Limlmrg-Maestricht Passover Play of about 1360. The latest Dutch miracle play was the Mystery of the Holy Sacrament, composed by a certain Smδken, at Breda, and performed on St John’s Day, 1500. This play was printed in 1867. With these purely theological dramas there were acted mundane farces, performed outside the churches, by semi-religious companies; these curious moralities wereknown as “Abelespelen” and“Sotternieën.” In these pieces we discover the first traces of that genius for low comedy which was afterwards to take perfect form in the dramas of Brederôo and the paintings of Teniers.

The theatrical companies just alluded to, “Gesellen van den Spele,” formed the germ out of which developed the famous “Chambers of Rhetoric” which united within themselves all the literary movements that occupied the Low Countries during the 15th and 16th centuries. The poets of Holland had already discovered in late mediaeval times the value of guilds in promoting the arts and industrial handicrafts. The term “collèges de rhétorique” is supposed tohave been introduced about 1440 by the courtiers of the Burgundian dynasty, but the institutions themselves existed at least from 1400. These literary guilds lasted for two centuries, and during the greater part of that time preserved a completely mediaeval character, even when the influences of the Renaissance and the Reformation obliged them to modify in some degree their outward forms. They were in almost all cases absolutely middle class in tone, and opposed to aristocratic ideas and tendencies in thought. Of these remarkable bodies the earliest were almost entirely engaged in preparing mysteries and miracle-plays for the populace. Each chamber, and in process of time every town in the Low Countries, possessed one, and took as its title some fanciful or heraldic sign. The earliest of all, “The Alpha and Omega,” at Ypres, was founded about 1398; that of the “Violet,” at Antwerp, followed in 1400; the “Book,” at Brussels, in 1401; the “Berberry,” at Courtrai, in 1427; the “Holy Ghost,” at Bruges, in 1428; the “Floweret Jesse,” at Middelburg, in 1430; the “Oak Tree,” at Vlaardingen, in 1433; and the “Marigold,” at Gouda, in 1437. The most celebrated of all the chambers, that of the “Eglantine” at Amsterdam, with its motto In Liefde Bloeyende (Blossoming in Love), was not instituted until 1496. Among the most influential chambers not above mentioned should be included the “Fountain” at Dort, the “Corn Flower” at the Hague, the “White Columbine” at Leyden, the “Blue Columbine” at Rotterdam, the “Red Rose” at Schiedam, the “Thistle” at Zierikzee, “Jesus with the Balsam” at Ghent, and the “Garland of Mary” at Brussels. And not in these important places only, but in almost every little town, the rhetoricians exerted their influence, mainly in what we may call a social direction. Their wealth was in most cases considerable, and it very soon became evident that no festival or procession could take place in a town unless the “Kamer” patronized it. Towards the end of the 15tb century the Ghent chamber of “Jesus with the Balsam” began to exercise a sovereign power over the other Flemish chambers, which was emulated later on in Holland by the “Eglantine” at Amsterdam. But this official recognition proved of no consequence in literature, and it was not in Ghent, but in Antwerp, that intellectual life first began to stir. In Holland the burghers only formed the chambers, while in Flanders the representatives of the noble families were honorary members, and assisted with their money at the arrangement of ecclesiastical or political pageants. Their pompous landjuweelen, or tournaments of rhetoric, at which rich prizes were contended for, were the great occasions upon which the members of the chambers distinguished themselves. Between 1426 and 1620 at least 66 of these festivals were held. There was a specially splendid laηdjuweel at Antwerp in 1496, in which 28 chambers took part, but the gayest of all was that celebrated,at Antwerp on the 3d of August 1561. To this the “Book” at Brussels sent 340 members, all on horseback, and clad in crimson mantles. The town of Antwerp gave a ton of gold to be given in prizes, which were shared among 1893 rhetoricians. This was the zenith of the splendour of the “Kamers van Rhetorica,” and after this time they soon fell into disfavour. We can trace the progress of literary composition under the chambers, although none of their official productions have descended to us. Their dramatic pieces were certainly of a didactic cast, with a strong farcical flavour, and continued the tradition of Maerlant and his school. They very rarely dealt with historical or even Biblical personages, but entirely with allegorical and moral abstractions, until the age of humanism introduced upon the stage the names without much of the spirit of mythology. Of the pure farces of the rhetorical chambers we can speak with still more confidence, for some of them have come down to us, and among the authors famed for their skill in this sort of writing are named Cornelis Everaert of Bruges and Laurens Janssen of Haarlem. The material of these farces is extremely raw, consisting of rough jests at the expense of priests and foolish husbands, silly old men and their light wives. Laurens Janssen is also deserving of remembrance for a satire against the clergy, written in 1583. The chambers also encouraged the composition of songs, but with very little success; they produced no lyrical genius more considerable than Matthijs de Casteleyn (1488-1550), the founder of the Flemish chamber of “Pax Vobiscum” at Oudenarde, a personage whose influence as a fashioner of language would have been more healthy if his astounding metrical feats and harlequin tours-de-force had not been performed in a dialect debased with all the worst bastard phrases of the Burgundian period.

In the middle of the 16th century a group of rhetoricians in Brabant and Flanders attempted to put a little new life into the stereotyped forms of the preceding age by introducing in original composition the new-found branches of Latin and Greek poetry. The leader of these men was Jean Baptista Houwaert (1533-1599), a personage of considerable political influence in his generation. He considered himself a devout disciple of Matthijs de Casteleyn, but his great characteristic was his unbounded love of classical and mythological fancy. His didactic poems are composed in a wonderfully rococo style, and swarm with misplaced Latinities. In his bastard Burgundian tongue he boasted of having “poëtelijck geïnventeert ende rheto-rijckelijck ghecomponeert” for the Brussels chamber such dramas as Aeneas and Dido, Mars and Venus, Narcissus and Echo, or Leander and Hero. But of all his writings Pegasides Pleyn, or the Palace of Maidens, is the most remarkable; this is a didactic poem in sixteen books, dedicated to a discussion of the variety of earthly love. Houwaert’s contemporaries nicknamed him “the Homer of Brabant later criticism has preferred to see in him an important link in that chain of homely didactic Dutch which ends in Cats. His writings are composed in a Burgundian so base that they hardly belong to Flemish literature at alL Into the same miserable dialect Cornell’s van Ghistele of Antwerp translated, between 1555 and 1583, parts of Terence, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, while the painter Karel van Mander (1547-1609) puta French version of the Iliad and of the Eclogues of Virgil into an equally ill-fitting Flemish dress. In no country of Europe did the humanism of the 16th century at first affect the national literature so slightly or to so little purpose.

The stir and revival of intellectual life that arrived with the Reformation found its first expression in the composition of Psalms. The earliest printed collection appeared at Antwerp in 1540, under the title of Souter-Liedekens, and was dedicated to a Dutch nobleman, Willem van Zuylen van Nieuvelt, by whose name it is usually known. This collection, however, was made before the Reformation in Holland really set in. For the Protestant congregations Jan LRenhove printed a volume of Psalms in London in 1566; Lucas de Heere, and immediately after him, with much greater success, Petrus Datheen (1531-1590), translated the hymns of Clément Marot. For printing this last volume, in 1567, Herman Schinkel of Delft was burned to death in 1568. Datheen was not a rhetorician, but a person of humble origin, who wrote in the vulgar tongue, and his hymns spread far and wide among the people. Until 1773 they were in constant use in the state church of Holland. But the great events of the period of reformation are not marked by psalms only in Dutch literature. Two collections of hymns and lyrical pieces, printed in 1562 and 1569, perpetuate the fervour and despair of the martyrs of the Mennonite Church. Similar utterances of the persecuted Protestants were published at Haarlem and Leeuwarden, at Ghent and at Bruges. Very different in tone were the battle-songs of liberty and triumph sung a generation later by the victorious Reformers or “Geuzen.” The famous song-book of 1588, the Geusen Lieden Boecxkeη, was full of ardent and heroic sentiment, expressed often in marvellously brilliant phrases. In this collection appeared for the first time such classical snatches of Dutch song as the Ballad of Heiligerlee, the Ballad of Egmond and Horn, and the song of the Storm of Leyden. The political ballads, with their ridicule of the Spanish leaders, form a section of the Boecxken which has proved of inestimable value to historians. All these lyrics, however, whether of victory or of martyrdom, are still very rough in form and language.

The first writer who used the Dutch tongue with grace and precision of style was a woman and a professed opponent of Lutheranism and reformed thought. Modern Dutch literature practically begins with Anna Bijns. Against the crowd of rhetoricians and psalm-makers of the early part of the 16th century she stands out in relief as the one poet of real genius. The language, oscillating before her time between French and German, formless, corrupt, and invertebrate, took shape and comeliness, which none of the male pedants could give it, from the impassioned hands of a woman. Anna Bijns, who is believed to have been born at Antwerp in 1494, was a schoolmistress at that city in her middle life, and in old age she still “instructed youth in the Catholic religion.” Hendrik Peppinck, a Franciscan, who edited her third volume of poems when she was an old woman in 1567, speaks of her as “a maiden small of descent, but great of understanding, and godly of life.” Her first known volume bears the date 1528, and displays her as already deeply versed in the mysteries of religion. We gather from all this that she was a lay nun, and she certainly occupied a position of great honour and influence at Antwerp. She was named “the Sappho of Brabant” and the “Princess of all Rhetoricians.” She bent the powerful weapon of her verse against the faith and character of Luther. In her volume of 1528 the Lutherans are scarcely mentioned; in that of 1540 every page is occupied with invectives against them; while the third volume of 1567 is the voice of one from whom her age has passed. All the poems of Anna Bijns which we possess are called refereinen or refrains. Her mastery over verse-form was extremely remarkable, and these refrains are really modified chants-royal. The writings of Anna Bijns offer many points of interest to the philologist, In her the period of Middle Dutch closes, and the modern Dutch begins. In a few grammatical peculiarities—such as the formation of the genitive by some verbs which now govern the accusative, and the use of ghe before the infinitive —her language still belongs to Middle Dutch; but these exceptions are rare, and she really initiated that modern speech which Filips van Marnix adopted and made classical in the next generation.

In Filips van Marnix, lord of St Aldegonde (1538- 1598), a much greater personage came forward in the ranks of liberty and reform. He began life as a disciple of Calvin and Beza in the schools of Geneva. It was as a defender of the Dutch iconoclasts that he first appeared in print, with his tract on The Images thrown down in Holland in August 1566. He soon became one of the leading spirits in the war of Dutch independence, the intimate friend of the prince of Orange, and the author of the glorious Wilhelmuslied. It was in the autumn of 1568 that Marnix composed this, the national hymn of Dutch liberty and Protestantism. In 1569 he completed a no less important and celebrated prose work, the Biencorf or Beehive of the Romish Church. In this satire he was inspired in a great measure by Rabelais, of whom he was an intelligent disciple. It is written in prose that may be said to mark an epoch in the language and literature of Holland. Overwhelmed with the press of public business, Marnix wrote little more until in 1580 he published his Psalms of David newly translated out of the Hebrew Tongue. He occupied the last years of his life in preparing a Dutch version of the Bible, translated direct from the original. At his death only Genesis was found completely revised; but in 1619 the synod of Dort placed the unfinished work in the hands of four divines, who completed it.

In Dirck Volckertsen Coornhert (1522-1590) Holland for the first time produced a writer at once eager to compose in his native tongue and to employ the weapons of humanism. Coornhert was a typical burgher of North Holland, equally interested in the progress of national emancipation and in the development of national literature. He was a native of Amsterdam, but he did not take part in the labours of the old chamber of the Eglantine, but quite early in life proceeded to Haarlem, of which place he remained a citizen until his death. He practised the art of etching, and spent all his spare time in the pursuit of classical learning. He was nearly forty years of age before he made any practical use of his attainments. In 1561 he printed his translation of the De Offi,ciis of Cicero, and in 1562 of the De Beneficiis of Seneca. In these volumes he opposed with no less zeal than Marnix had done the bastard forms still employed in prose by the rhetoricians of Flanders and Brabant. During the next decade he occupied himself chiefly with plays and poems, conceived and expressed with far less freedom than his prose, and more in the approved conventional fashion of the rhetoricians; he collected his poems in 1575. The next ten years he occupied in polemical writing, from the evangelical point of view, against the Calvinists. In 1585 he translated Boetius, and then gave his full attention to his original masterpiece, the Zedekumst, or Art of Ethics, a philosophical treatise in prose, in which he studied to adapt the Dutch tongue to the grace and simplicity of Montaigne’s French. His humanism unites the Bible, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius in one grand system of ethics, and is expressed in a style remarkable for brightness and purity. He died in 1590; his works, in three enormous folio volumes, were first collected in 1630.

Towards the end of the period of transition, Amsterdam became the centre of all literary enterprise in Holland. In 1585 two of the most important chambers of rhetoric in Flanders, the “White Lavender” and the “Fig-Tree,” took flight from the south, and settled themselves in Amsterdam by the side of the “Eglantine.” The last-named institution had already observed the new tendency of the age, and was prepared to encourage intellectual reform of every kind, and its influence spread through Holland and Zealand. In Flanders, meanwhile, crushed under the yoke of Parma, literature and native thought absolutely expired. From this time forward, and until the emancipation of the southern provinces, the domain of our inquiry is confined to the district north of the Scheldt.

In the chamber of the Eglantine at Amsterdam two men took a very prominent place, more by their intelligence and modern spirit than by their original genius. Hendrick Laurenssen Spieghel (1549-1612) was a humanist of a type more advanced and less polemical than Coornhert. He wrote a charming poem in praise of dancing; but his chief contributions to literature were his Twespraeclc van de Nederduytsche Letterkunst, a philological exhortation, in the manner of Joachim du Bellay’s famous tract, urging the Dutch nation to purify and enrich its tongue at the fountains of antiquity, and a didactic epic, entitled Hertspieghel, which has been greatly praised, but which is now much more antiquated in style and more difficult to enjoy than Coornhert’s prose of a similar tendency. That Spieghel was a Catholic prevented him perhaps from exercising as much public influence as he exercised privately among his younger friends. The same may be said of the man who, in 1614, first collected Spieghel’s writings, and published them in a volume with his own verses. Roemer Pieterssen Visscher (1545-1620) proceeded a step further than Spieghel in the cultivation of polite letters. He was deeply tinged with a spirit of classical learning that was much more genuine and nearer to the true antique than any that had previously been known in Holland. His own disciples called him the Dutch Martial, but he was at best little more than an amateur in poetry, although an amateur whose function it was to perceive and encourage the genius of professional writers. Roemer Visscher stands at the threshold of the new Renaissance literature, himself practising the faded arts of the rhetoricians, but pointing by his counsel and his conversation to the naturalism of the great period.

It was in the salon at Amsterdam which the beautiful daughters of Roemer Visscher formed around their father and themselves that the new school began to take form. The republic of the United Provinces, with Amsterdam at its head, had suddenly risen to the first rank among the nations of Europe, and it was under the influence of so much new emotion and brilliant ambition that the country no less suddenly asserted itself in a great school of painting and poetry. The intellect of the whole Low Countries was concentrated in Holland and Zealand, while the six great universities, Leyden, Groningen, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Harderwijk, and Franeker, were enriched by a flock of learned exiles from Flanders and Brabant. It had occurred, however, to Roemer Visscher only that the path of literary honour lay, not along the utilitarian road cut out by Maerlant and Boendale, but in the study of beauty and antiquity. In this he was curiously aided by the school of ripe and enthusiastic scholars who began to flourish at Leyden, such as Drusius, Vossius, and Hugo Grotius, who themselves wrote little in Dutch, but who chastened the style of the rising generation by insisting on a pure and liberal Latinity. Out of that generation arose the greatest names in the literature of Holland,—Vondel, Hooft, Cats, Huygens,—in whose hands the language, so long left barbarous and neglected, took at once its highest finish and melody. By the side of this serious and aesthetic growth there is to be noticed a quickening of the broad and farcical humour which had been characteristic of the Dutch nation from its commencement. For fifty years, and these the most glorious in the annals of Holland, these two streams of influence, one towards beauty and melody, the other towards lively comedy, ran side by side, often in the same channel, and producing a rich harvest of great works. It was in the house of the daughters of Roemer Visscher that the tragedies of Vondel and the comedies of Brederôo, the farces of Coster and the odes of Huygens, alike found their first admirers and their best critics.

Of the famous daughters of Roemer, two cultivated literature with marked success. Anna (1584-1651) was the author of a descriptive and didactic poem, De Poemster van den Aemstel (The Glory of the Aemstel), and of various miscellaneous writings; Tesselschade (1594-1649) wrote some lyrics which still place her at the head of the female poets of Holland, and she translated the great poem of Tasso. They were women of universal accomplishment, graceful manners, and singular beauty; and their company attracted to the house of Roemer Visscher all the most gifted youths of the time, several of whom were suitors, but in vain, for the hand of Anna or of Tesselschade.

Of this Amsterdam school^ the first to emerge into public notice was Pieter Cornelissen Hooft (1581-1647). He belonged to a patrician family, and became a member at a very early age of the chamber of the Eglantine. When he was only eighteen he produced, before this body, his tragedy of Achilles and Polyxena (1598), which displayed a precocious ease in the use of rhetorical artifices of style. Hi" intellectual character, however, was formed by a journev into Italy which he took in 1598, where he steeped himself for three years in the best Italian literature, both prose and verse. He returned to Holland in 1601, with his head full of schemes for the creation of a Dutch school of belles lettres. In 1605 he produced his pastoral drama of Granula, in which he proved himself a pupil of Guarini. During the remainder of his life he dedicated himself chiefly to history and tragedy. In the latter field he produced Baeto and Geraad van Velsen; in history he published in 1626 his Life of Henry the Great, while from 1628 to 1642 he was engaged upon his master-work, the History of Holland. Hooft desired to be a severe purist in style, and to a great extent he succeeded, but, like most of the writers of his age, he permitted himself too many Latinisms. In his poetry, especially in the lyrical and pastoral verse of his youth, he is full of Italian reminiscences both of style and matter; in his noble prose work he has set himself to be a disciple of Tacitus. Mr Motley has spoken of Hooft as one of the greatest historians, not merely of Holland, but of Europe. His influence in purifying the language of his country, and in enlarging its sphere of experience, can hardly be overrated.

Very different from the long and prosperous career of Hooft was the brief, painful life of the greatest comic dramatistthat Hollandhas produced. Gerbrand Adriaanssen Brederôo (1585-1618) was the son of an Amsterdam shoemaker. He knew no Latin; he had no taste for humanism; he was a simple growth of the rich humour of the people. His life was embittered by a hopeless love for Tesselschade, to whom he dedicated his dramas, and whose beauty he celebrated in a whole cycle of love songs. His ideas on the subject of drama were at first a mere development of the mediaeval “Abelespelen.” He commenced by dramatizing the romance of Roderick and Alphonsus, in 1611, and Griaηe in 1612, but in the latter year he struck out a new and more characteristic path in his Farce of the Cow. From this time until his death he continued to pour out comedies, farces, and romantic dramas, in all of which he displayed a coarse, rough genius not unlike that of Ben Jonson, whose immediate contemporary he was. His last and best piece was Jerolimo, the Spanish Brabanter, a satire upon the exiles from the south who filled the halls of the Amsterdam chambers of rhetoric with their pompous speeches and preposterous Burgundian phraseology. Brederôo was closely allied in genius to the dramatists of the Shakespearian age, but he founded no school, and stands almost as a solitary figure in the literature of Holland.

The only individual at all clearly connected with Brederôo in talent was Dr Samuel Coster, whose dates of birth and death are unknown. He is chiefly remembered for having been the first to take advantage of the growing dissension in the body of the old chamber of the Eglantine to form a new institution. In 1617 Coster founded what he called the “First Dutch Academy.” This was in fact a theatre, where, for the first time, dramas could be publicly acted under the patronage of no chamber of rhetoric. Coster himself had come before the world in 1612 with his farce of Teuwis the Boor, and he continued this order of composition in direct emulation of Brederôo, but with less talent. In 1615 he began a series of “blood-and-thunder” tragedies with his horrible Itys, and he continued this coarse style of tragic writing for several years. He survived at least until after 1648 as a supreme authority in Amsterdam upon all dramatic matters.

The greatest of all Dutch writers, Joost van der Vondel (1587-1679), was born at Cologne on the 17th of November 1587. In 1612 he brought out his first work, Het Pascha, a tragedy or tragi-comedy on the exodus of the children of Israel, written, like all his succeeding dramas, on the recognized Dutch plan, in alexandrines, in five acts, and with choral interludes between the acts. There is comparatively little promise in Het Pascha. It was much inferior-dramatically to the plays just being produced by Brederôo, and metrically to the clear and eloquent tragedies and pastorals of Hooft; but it secured the young poet a position inferior only to theirs. Yet for a number of years he made no attempt to emphasize the impression he had produced on the public, but contented himself during the years that are the most fertile in a poet’s life with translating and imitating portions of Du Bartas’s popular epic. The short and brilliant life of Brederôo, his immediate contemporary and greatest rival, burned itself out in a succession of dramatic victories, and it was not until two years after the death of that great poet that Vondel appeared before the public with a second tragedy, the Jeηιsalem laid Desolate. Five years later, in 1625, he published what seemed an innocent study from the antique, his tragedy of Palamedes, or Murdered Innocence. All Amsterdam discovered, with smothered delight, that under the name of the hero was thinly concealed the figure of Barneveldt, whose execution in 1618 had been a triumph of the hated Calvinists. Thus, at the age of forty-one, the obscure Vondel became in a week the most famous writer in Holland. For the next twelve years, and till the accession of Prince Frederick Hendrick, Vondel bad to maintain a hand-to-hand combat with the “Saints of Dort.” This was the period of his most resolute and stinging satires; Cats took up the cudgels on behalf of the counter-Remonstrants, and there raged a war of pamphlets in verse. A purely fortuitous circumstance led to the next great triumph in VondeΓs slowly developing career. The Dutch Academy, founded in 1617 almost wholly as a dramatic guild, had become so inadequately provided with stage accommodation that in 1638, having coalesced with the two chambers of the “Eglantine” and the “White Lavender,” it ventured on the erection of a large public theatre, the first in Amsterdam. Vondel, as the greatest poet of the day, was invited to write a piece for the first night; on the 3d of January 1638 the theatre was opened with the performance of a new tragedy out of early Dutch history, the famous Gysbreght van Aemstel. The next ten years were rich in dramatic work from VondeΓs hand; he supplied the theatre with heroic Scriptural pieces, of which the general reader will obtain the best idea if we point to the Athalie of Racine. In 1654, having already attained an age at which poetical production is usually discontinued by the most energetic of poets, he brought out the most exalted and sublime of all his works, the tragedy of Lucifer. Very late in life, through no fault of his own, financial ruin fell on the aged poet, and from 1658 to 1668—that is, from his seventieth to his eightieth year—this venerable and illustrious person, the main literary glory of Holland through her whole history, was forced to earn his bread as a common clerk in a bank, miserably paid, and accused of wasting his masters’ time by the writing of verses. The city released him at last from this wretched bondage by a pension, and the wonderful old man went on writing odes and tragedies almost to his ninetieth year. He died at last in 1679, of no disease, having outlived all his contemporaries and almost all his friends, but calm, sane, and good-humoured to the last, serenely conscious of the legacy he left to a not too grateful country. Vondel is the typical example of Dutch intelligence and imagination at their highest development. Not merely is he to Holland all that Camoens is to Portugal and Michiewicz to Poland, but he stands on a level with these men in the positive value of his writings.

Lyrical art was represented on its more spontaneous side by the songs and ballads of Jan Janssen Starter (b. 1594), an Englishman by birth, who was brought to Amsterdam in his thirteenth year. Very early in life he was made a member of the “Eglantine,” and he worked beside Brederoo for two years; but in 1614 he wandered away to Leeuwarden, in Friesland, where he founded a literary guild, and brought out, in 1618, his tragi-comedies of Timbre de Cardone and Daraida. But his great contribution to literature was his exquisite collection of lyrics, entitled the Friesche Lusthof, or Frisian Pleasance. He returned to Amsterdam, but after 1625 we hear no more of him, and he is believed to have died as a soldier in Germany. The songs of Starter are in close relation to the lyrics of the English Elizabethans, and have the same exquisite simplicity and audacity of style.

While the genius of Holland clustered around the circle of Amsterdam, a school of scarcely less brilliance arose in Middelburg, the capital of Zealand. The ruling spirit of this school was the famous Jakob Cats (1577-1660). In this voluminous writer, to whom modern criticism almost denies the name of poet, the genuine Dutch habit of thought, the utilitarian and didactic spirit which we have already observed in Houwaert and in Boendale, reached its zenith of fluency and popularity. Cats was a man of large property and high position in the state, and his ideas never rose above the horizon of wealth and easy domestic satisfaction. Between 1609 and 1621, that is, during early middle life, he produced the most important of his writings, his pastoral of Gαlαthea, and his didactic poems, the Maechdenplicht and the Sinne-en Minne-Beelden. In 1624 he removed from Middelburg to Dort, where he soon after published his tedious ethical work called Houιοelidk, or Marriage; and this was followed from time, to time by one after another of his monotonous moral pieces. Cats is an exceedingly dull and prosaic writer, whose alexandrines roll smoothly on without any power of riveting the attention or delighting the fancy. Yet his popularity with the middle classes in Holland has always been immense, and his influence extremely hurtful to the· growth of all branches of literary art. Among the disciples of Cats, Jakob Westerbaen (1599-1670) was the most successful. The Jesuit Adriaen Poirters (1606-1675) closely followed Cats in his remarkable Masquer of the World. A poet of Amsterdam, Jan Hermansz Krul, preferred to follow the southern fashion, and wrote didactic pieces in the Catsian manner.

A poet of dignified imagination and versatile form was Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596—1687), the diplomatist. Though born and educated at the Hague, he threw in his lot with the great school of Amsterdam, and became the intimate friend and companion of Vondel, Hooft, and the daughters of Roemer Visscher. His famous poem in praise of the Hague, Batava Tempe, appeared in 1621, and was, from a technical point of view, the most accomplished and elegant poem till that time produced in Holland. His collected poems, Otiorum Libri Sex, were printed in 1625. Oogentroost, or Eye Consolation, was the fantastic title of a remarkable poem dedicated in 1647 to his blind friend, Lucretia van Trello. He printed in 1654 a topographical piece describing his own mansion, Hofινijck. Huygens represents the direction in which it would have been desirable that Dutch literature, now completely founded by Hooft and Vondel, should forthwith proceed, while Cats represents the tame and mundane spirit which was actually adopted by the nation. Huygens had little of the sweetness of Hooft or of the sublimity of Vondel, but his genius was eminently bright and vivacious, and he was a consummate artist in metrical form. The Dutch language has never proved so light and supple in any hands as in his, and he attempted no class of writing, whether in prose or verse, that he did not adorn by his delicate taste and sound judgment. A blind admiration for our own John Donne, whose poems he translated, was the greatest fault of Huygens, who, in spite of his conceits, remains one of the most pleasing of Dutch writers. In addition to all this he comes down to us with the personal recommendation of having been “one of the most lovable men that ever lived.”

Three Dutchmen of the 17th century distinguished themselves very prominently in the movement of learning and philosophic thought, but the illustrious names of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) can scarcely be said to belong to Dutch literature. Balthasar Bekker (1634—1698), on the contrary, a Reformed preacher of Amsterdam, was a disciple of Descartes, who deserves to be remembered as the greatest philosophical writer who has used the Dutch language. His masterpiece, Betoνeτde Wereld, or the World Bewitched, appeared in 1691-1693. Bekker is popularly remembered most honourably by his determined attacks upon the system of a penal code for witchcraft.

From 1600 to 1650 was the blossoming time in Dutch literature. During this period the names of greatest genius were first made known to the public, and the vigour and grace of literary expression reached their highest development. It happened, however, that three men of particularly commanding talent survived to an extreme old age, and. under the shadow of Vondel, Cats, and Huygens there sprang up a new generation which sustained the great tradition until about 1680, when the final decline set in. Jan Vos (d. 1667) gained one illustrious success with his tragedy of Aaron and Titus in 1641, and lost still more in the same year by his obscene farce of Oene. His second tragedy of Medea, in 1665, and his collected. poems in 1662, supported his position as the foremost pupil of Vondel. Geeraerdt Brandt (1626-1685) deserves remembrance less as a tragic dramatist than as a consummate biographer, whose lives of Vondel and of De Ruyter are among the masterpieces of Dutch prose. Johan Antonides van der Goes (1647-1684) followed Vos as a skilful imitator of Vondel’s tragical manner. His Chinese tragedies, Trazil (1665) and Zuηgchin (1666), scarcely gave promise of the brilliant force and fancy of his Ijstroom, a poem in praise of Amsterdam, 1671. He died suddenly, in early life, leaving unfinished an epic poem on the life of St Paul. Reyer Anslo (1626-1669) marks the decline of taste and vigour; his once famous descriptive epic, The Plague at Naples, is singularly tame and rococo in style. Joachim Oudaen (1628-1692) wrote in his youth two promising tragedies, Johanna Gray (1648) and Konradyn (1649). The Amsterdam section of the school of Cats produced Jeremias de Decker (1609—1646) and Joannes Vollenhove (1631-1708), voluminous writers of didactic verse. The engraver Jan Luiken (1649-1708) published in 1671 a very remarkable volume of poems. In lyrical poetry Starter had a single disciple, Daniel Jonctijs (1600- 1652), Who published a volume of love songs in 1639 under the affected and untranslatable title of Rooselijns oochjens ontlped. None of these poets, except in some slight degree Luiken, set before themselves any more ambitious task than to repeat with skill the effects of their predecessors.

Meanwhile the romantic and voluminous romances of the French school of Scudéry and Honoré d’Urfé had invaded Holland and become fashionable. Johan van Heemskerk (1597-1656), a councillor of the Hague, set himself to reproduce this product in native form, and published in 1637 his Batavian Arcadia, the first original Dutch romance, in which a party of romantic youths journey from the Hague to Katwijk, and undergo all sorts of romantic adventures. This book was excessively popular, and was imitated by Hendrik Zoetebυom in his Zaanlandsche Arcadia (1658), and by Lambertus Bos in his Dordtsche Arcadia (1662). A far more spirited and original romance is the Mirandor of Nikolaes Heinsius, the younger (b. 1655), a book which resembles Gil Blas, and precedes it by forty years. It was written when the author was only twenty years of age, and gave promise of very great talent in the future; but unfortunately Heinsius committed a murder only two years afterwards, and, escaping to Paris, was never heard of again.

The drama fell into Gallicized hands at the death of Vondel and his immediate disciples. Lodewijck Meijer translated Corneille, and brought out his plays on the stage at Amsterdam, where he was manager of the national theatre or Schouwburg after Jan Vos. In connexion with Andries Pels, author of the tragedy of Dido's Death, Meijer constructed a dramatic club, entitled “Nil Volentibus Arduum,” the great object of which was to inflict the French taste upon the public. Pels furthermore came forward as the censor of letters and satirist of barbarism in Horace’s Art of Poetry expounded, in 1677, and in his Use and Misuse of the Stage, in 1681. Willem van Focquenbroch (1640-1679) was the most voluminous comic writer of this period. The close of the century saw the rise of two thoroughly Gallican dramatists, Johan van Paffenrode and Pieter Bernagie, who may not unfairly be compared respectively to our own Farquhar and Shadwell. Thomas Asselijn (1630-1695) was a writer of more considerable talent and more homely instincts. He attempted to resist the dictatorship of Pels, and to follow the national tradition of Brederôo. He is the creator of the characteristic Dutch type, the comic lover, Jan Klaaszen, whom he presented on the stage in a series of ridiculous situations. Abraham Alewijn, author of Jan Los (1721), possessed a coarse vein of dramatic humour; he lived in Java, and his plays were produced in Batavia. Finally Pieter Langendijk claims notice among the dramatists of this period, although he lived from 1683 to 1756, and properly belongs to the next century. With him the tradition of native comedy expired.

The Augustan period of poetry in Holland was even more blank and dull than in the other countries of Northern Europe. Of the names preserved in the history of literature there are but very few that call for repetition here. Arnold Hoogvliet (1687-1763) wrote a passable poem in honour of the town of Vlaardingen, and a terrible Biblical epic, in the manner of Blackmore, on the history of Abraham. Hubert Cornelissen Foot (1689-1733) showed an unusual love of nature and freshness of observation in his descriptive pieces. Sybrand Feitama (1694-1758), who translated Voltaire’s Henτiade, and wrote much dreary verse of the same class himself, is less worthy of notice than Dirk Smits (1702-1752), the mild and elegiac singer of Rotterdam. Tragic drama was more or less capably represented by Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken (1722-1789), wife of the very dreary dramatist Nicholaas Simon van Winter (1718-1795).

In the midst of this complete dissolution of poetical style, a writer arose who revived an interest in literature, and gave to Dutch prose the classical grace of the 18th century. Justus van Effen (1684-1735) was born at Utrecht, fell into poverty early in life, and was thrown very much among the company of French émigrés, in connexion with whom he began literary life in 1713 by editing a French journal. Coming to London just when the Tatler and Spectator were in their first vogue, Van Effen studied Addison deeply, translated Swift and Defoe into French, and finally determined to transfer the beauties of English prose into his native language. It was not, however, until 1731, after having wasted the greater part of his life in writing French, that he began to publish his Hollaηdsche Spectator, which his death in 1735 soon brought to a close. Still, what he composed during the last four years of his life, in all its freshness, manliness, and versatility, constitutes the most valuable legacy to Dutch literature that the middle of the 18th century left behind it.

The supremacy of the poetical clubs in every town pro duced a very weakening and Della-Cruscan effect upon literature, from which the first revolt was made by the famous brothers Van Haren, so honourably known as diplomatists in the history of the Netherlands. Willem van Haren (1710-1768) wrote verses from his earliest youth, while Onno Zwier van Haren (1713-1779), strangely enough, did not begin to do so until he had passed middle life. They were friends of Voltaire, and they were both ambitious of success in epic writing, as understood in France at that period. Willem published in 1741 his Gevallen van Friso, an historical epos, and a long series of odes and solemn lyrical pieces. Onno, in a somewhat lighter strain, wrote Diet and Agnietje, or Pandora's Box, and a long series of tragedies in the manner of Voltaire. The Baroness Juliana Cornelia de Lannoy (1738-1782) was a writer of considerable talent, also of the school of Voltaire; her poems were highly esteemed by Bilderdijk, and she has a neatness of touch and clearness of penetration that give vivacity to her studies of social life. Jakobus Bellamy (1757-1786) was the son of a Swiss baker at Flushing; his pompous odes struck the final note of the false taste and Gallic pedantry that had deformed Dutch literature now for a century, and were for a short time excessively admired.

The year 1777 has been mentioned as the turning-point in the history of letters in the Netherlands. It was in that year that Betjen Wolff (1738-1804), a widow lady in Amsterdam, persuaded her friend Aagjen Deken (1741— 1804), a poor but extremely intelligent governess, to throw up her situation and live with her. For nearly thirty years these women continued together, writing in combination, and when the elder friend died on the 5th of November 1804, her companion survived her only nine days. Madame Wolff had appeared as a poetess so early as 1762, and again in 1769 and 1772, but her talent inverse was by no means very remarkable. But when the friends, in the third year of their association, published their Letters on Divers Subjects, it was plainly seen that in prose their talent was very remarkable indeed. Since the appearance of Heinsius’s Mirandor more than a century had passed without any fresh start in novel-writing being made in Holland. In 1782 the ladies Wolff and Deken, inspired partly by contemporary English writers, and partly by Goethe, published their first novel, Sara Burgerhart. In spite of the close and obvious following of Richardson, this was a masterly production, and it was enthusiastically received. Another novel, Willem Leeveηd, followed in 1785, and Cornelia Wildschut in 1792. The ladies were residing in France at the breaking-out of the Revolution, and they escaped the guillotine with difficulty. After this they wrote no more, having secured for themselves by their three unrivalled romances a place among the foremost writers of their country.

The last years of the 18th century were marked in Holland by a general revival of intellectual force. The romantic movement in Germany made itself deeply felt in all branches of Dutch literature, and German lyricism took the place hitherto held by French classicism. Pieter Nieuwland (1764-1794) was a feeble forerunner of the revival, but his short life and indifferent powers gave him no chance of directing the transition that he saw to be inevitable. The real precursor and creator of a new epoch in letters was the famous Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831). This remarkable man, whose force of character was even greater than his genius, impressed his personality on his generation so indelibly that to think of a Dutchman of the beginning of the present century is to think of Bilderdijk. He was born at Amsterdam on the 7th of September 1756, and through an accident in early childhood was obliged to rest almost constantly, thus attaining habits of long and concentrated study. His parents were zealous in the cause of the house of Orange, and the youth grew up violently monarchical and Calvinistic, as Da Costa says, “antirevolutionary, anti-Barneveldtian, anti-Loevesteinish, anti· liberal.” In poetry bis taste was strictly national and didactic; he began as a disciple of Cats, nor could he to the end of his life tolerate what he called “the puerilities of Shakespeare.” His early love-songs, collected in 1781 and 1785, gave little promise of talent, but in his epic of Elias in 1786,. he showed himself superior to all the Dutch poets since Huygens in mastery of form. For twenty years he lived a busy, eventful life, writing great quantities of verse, and then commenced his most productive period with his didactic poem of The Disease of the Learned, in 1807; in 1808 he imitated Pope’s Essay on Man, and published Floris F^., and in 1809 commenced the work which he designed to be his master-piece, the epic of De Ondergang der eerste Wereld (The Destruction of the First World), which he never finished, and which appeared as a fragment in 1820. His long and fretful life ceased on the 18th of December 1831. To the foreign student Bilderdijk is a singularly uninviting and unpleasing figure. He unites in himself all the unlovely and provincial features which deform the worst of his countrymen. He was violent, ignorant, and dull; his view of art was confined to its declamatory and least beautiful side, and perhaps no writer of equal talent has shown so complete an absence of taste and tact. Ten Brink has summed up the character of Bilderdijk’s writings in an excellent passage:—“As an artist,” he says, “he can perhaps be best described in short as the cleverest versemaker of the 18th century. His admirable erudition, his power over language, more extended and more colossal than that of any of his predecessors, enabled him to write pithy and thoroughly original verses, although the general tone of his thought and expression never rose above the ceremonious, stagy, and theatrical character of the 18th century.” But in spite of his outrageous faults, and partly because these faults were the exaggeration of a marked national failing, Bilderdijk has enjoyed almost to the present day an unbroken and unbounded popularity in Holland. Fortunately, however, within the last few years a sounder spirit has arisen in criticism, and the prestige of Bilderdijk is no longer preserved so religiously.

Bilderdijk’s scorn for the dramas of Shakespeare was almost rivalled by that he felt for the new German poetry. Notwithstanding his opposition, however, the romantic fervour found its way into Holland, and first of all in the persons of Hieronymus van Alphen (1746-1803) and Pieter Leonard van de Kastiele (1748-1810), who amused themselves by composing funeral poems of the school of Gessner and Blair. Van Alphen at one time was extolled as a writer of verses for children, but neither in this nor in the elegiac line did he possess nearly so much talent as Rhijnvis Feith (1753-1824), burgomaster of Zwolle, the very type of a prosperous and sentimental Dutchman. In his Julia (1783), a prose romance, Feith proved himself as completely the disciple of Goethe in Werther as Wolff and Deken had been of Richardson in their Sara Burgerhart. In Johannes Kinker (1764-1845) a comic poet arose who, at the instigation of Bilderdijk, dedicated himself to the ridicule of Feith’s sentimentalities. The same office was performed with more dignity and less vivacity by Baron W. E. van Perponcher (1741-1819), but Feith continued to hold the popular ear, and achieved an immense success with his poem The Grave, in 1792. He then produced tragedies for a while, and in 1803 published Antiquity, a didactic epic. But his popularity waned before his death, and he was troubled by the mirth of such witty scoffers as Arend Fokke Simons (1755-1812), the disciple of Klopstock, and as P. de Wacker van Zon (1758-1818), who, in a series of very readable novels issued under the pseudonym of Bruno Daalberg, sharply ridiculed the sentimental and funereal school.

U nder the Batavian republic an historian of great genius arose in the person of Johannes Henricus van der Palm (1763-1840), whose brilliant and patriotic Gedenkschmft van Nederlands Herstelling (1816) has somewhat obscured his great fame as a politician and an Orientalist. The work commenced by Van der Palm in prose was continued in verse by Cornelis Loots (1765-1834) and Jan Frederik Helmers (1767-1813). Loots, in ∖ As Batavians of the Time ofCaesar (1805), read his countrymen a lesson in patriotism, which Helmers far exceeded in originality and force by his Dutch Nation in 1812. Neither of these poets, however, had sufficient art to render their pieces classical, or, indeed, enough to protect them during their lifetime from the sneers of Bilderdijk. Other political writers, whose lyrical energies were stimulated by the struggle with France, were Maurits Cornelis van Hall (1768-1858), Samuel Iperuszoon Wiselius (1769-1845), and Jan ten Brink (1771-1839), the second of whom immortalized himself and won the favour of Bilderdijk by ridiculing the pretensions of such frivolous tragedians as Shakespeare and Schiller.

The healthy and national spirit in which the ladies Wolff and Deken had written was adopted with great spirit by a novelist in the next generation, Adriaan Loosjes (1761- 1818), a bookseller at Haarlem. His romantic stories of mediaeval life, especially his Charlotte van Bourbon, are curiously like shadows cast forward by the Waverley Novels, but he has little of Sir Walter Scott’s historical truth of vision. His production was incessant and his popularity great for many years, but he was conscious all through that he was at best but a disciple of the authoresses of Sara Burgerhart. Another disciple whose name should not be passed over is Maria Jacoba de Neufville (1775- 1856), author of Little Duties, an excellent story somewhat in the manner of Mrs Opie.

A remarkable poet whose romantic genius strove to combine the power of Bilderdijk with the sweetness of Feith is Hendrik Tollens (1780-1856), whose verses have shown more vitality than those of most of his contemporaries. He struck out the admirable notion of celebrating the great deeds of Dutch history in a series of lyrical romances, many of which possess a lasting charm. Besides his folk-songs and popular ballads, he succeeded in a long descriptive poem, A Winter in Nova Zembla, 1819. He lacks the full accomplishment of a literary artist, but his inspiration was natural and abundant, and he thoroughly deserved the popularity with which his patriotic ballads were rewarded. Willem Messchert (1790-1844), a friend and follower of Tollens, pushed the domestic and familiar tone of the latter to a still further point, especially in his genre poem of the Golden Wedding, 1825. Both these writers were natives and residents of Rotterdam, which also claims the honour of being the birthplace of Adrianus Bogaers (1795-1870), the most considerable poetical figure of the time. Without the force and profusion of Bilderdijk, Bogaers has more truth to nature, more sweetness of imagination, and a more genuine gift of poetry than that clamorous writer, and is slowly taking a higher position in Dutch literature as Bilderdijk comes to take a lower one. Bogaers printed his famous poem Jochebed in 1835, but it had then been in existence more than thirteen years, so that it belongs to the second period of imaginative revival in Europe, and connects the name of its author with those of Byron and Heine. Still more beautiful was his Voyage of Heemskerk to Gibraltar (1836), in which he rose to the highest level of his genius. In 1846 he privately printed his Romances and Ballads. Bogaers had a great objection to publicity, and his reputation was long delayed by the secrecy with which he circulated his writings among a few intimate friends. A poet of considerable talent, whose powers were awakened by personal intercourse with Bogaers and Tollens, was Antoni Christiaan Winand Staring (1767-1840), who first at the age of fifty-three came before the world with a volume of Poems, but who continued to write till past his seventieth year. His amorous and humorous lyrics recall the best period of Dutch song, and are worthy to be named beside those of Starter and Vondel.

Since 1830 Holland has taken a more prominent position in European thought than she could claim since the end of the 17th century. In scientific and religious literature her men of letters have shown themselves cognizant of the newest shades of opinion, and have freely ventilated their ideas. The language has resisted the pressure of German from the outside, and from within has broken through its long stagnation and enriched itself, as a medium for literary expression, with a multitude of fresh and colloquial forms. At the same time, no very great genius has arisen in Holland in any branch of literature, and all that a foreign critic can do in such space as is here at his command is to chronicle the names of a few of the most prominent writers of the past and present generations. The vast labours of Jakobus van Lennep (1802-68) consist of innumerable translations, historical novels, and national romances, which have gained for him the title of the leader of the Dutch romantic school. Reinier Cornelis Bakhuizen van den Bnnk (1810-65) was the chief critic of the romantic movement, and Everhard Johannes Potgieter (1808-75) -its mystical philosopher and esoteric lyrical poet. The genius and influence of Potgieter were very considerable, but they were exceeded by the gifts of Nicolaes Beets, author of the famous Camera Obscura (1836), a masterpiece of humour and character. Johannes Pieter Hasebroek, who has been called the Dutch Charles Lamb, wrote in 1840 an admirable collection of essays entitled Truth and Dreams. A poet of unusual power and promise was lost in the early death of Pieter Augustus de Genestet (1830- 1861). Criticism has been represented by W. J. A. Jonckbloet, C. Busken Huet, and Jan ten Brink. With Isaac de Costa (1798-1860), W. J. van Zeggelen, and J. J. L. Ten Kate, the domestic tendency of Cats and Bilderdijk has overpowered the influence of romanticism. An independent writer of great power and charm both in prose and verse is C. Vosmaer, author of a life of Rembrandt, and of a translation of the Iliad into Dutch hexameters. E. Douwes Dekker, in his novel of Max Havelaar, and Marcellus Emants, in his poem of Lilith, have displayed talents of a very modern and cosmopolitan order, but it yet remains to be seen whether they have sufficient power to sustain their promise.

Flemish literature has again come into being since the independence of Belgium, and has produced two writers of < very remarkable talent, the popular poet Karel Ledeganck (1805-47), and the still more popular novelist Hendrik Conscience. But the general use of the French language, although Flemish exercises are encouraged by the Government, has prevented any considerable cultivation of Flemish by modern writers of ambition.

Authorities.— Dr W. J. A. Jonckbloet, Geschiedenes der Neder-lαndsche Letterkunde, 2d ed., 1873; Dr J. ten Brink, Kleine Geschiedenis der Nedeτlandschen Letteren, Haarlem, 1877; Dr J. van Vloten, Schets van de Geschiedenis der Nederlandschcn Letteren, 1879.