then burfts upon your fight with inconceivable grandeur; and though you are acquainted with its proximity, its fudden appearance produces an indefcribable effect. The beach here is extremely fine, and forms a beautiful femicircle of about fix miles extent. On this beach was tried the famous flying chariot of Stevinus*, which my uncle Toby has introduced to the acquaintance of moft readers; and I doubt whether the engineer could have found in Europe another plain better fuited to his purpose. But, fuch is the unaccountable prejudice of the Dutch, this beach, which, were it in any part of England, would create an extensive town in its neighbourhood, and be yearly the refort of the gay, the luxurious, the debilitated, and infirm, is neglected and avoided by all perfons here. We met on the road to Scheveling three or four carriages with company, and expected to find as many on the fand; but neither feeing equipages, nor any marks of wheels on the beach where we wandered, which was as firm and folid as a garden walk, I inquired the caufe, and learnt that the Dutch have a strong antipathy to the air of the fea. They equally diflike the use of falt water for a bath, and confequently there are no machines for that delightful and invigorating exercife. This averfion to the fea air and water is not merely a vulgar prejudice, but obtains the fupport of their leading phyficians; and on this account, though moft delightful houfes of pleasure might be built on the coaft, commanding an exquifite marine prospect, not a villa or even a hovel is to be feen, three or four houses at Scheveling excepted, which fronts the ocean. The ruddy countenances of the Dutch fishermen, and their athletic limbs, might feem to afford an irrefiftible refutation of this idle prejudice; but perfons who have a violent attachment to old opinions, generally overlook facts, and dwell upon theories." P. 116.

TRECKSCHUYTS-SMOKING.

"A TRECKSCHUYT is a covered barge, divided into two apartments; the after one, called the roof, which is fuperior in point of accommodations,

contains from eight to a dozen perfons, and the other from forty to fifty, according to the fize of the boat. This veffel is drawn by a fingle horse, and moves fo precifely at the rate of four miles an hour, that people in Holland univerfally compute the diftance from place to place by the time which the paffage occupies, not by miles as in England. The price for a feat in the roof, or cabin, is about threepence an hour; and, if it is not crowded with paffengers, fcarcely any mode of travelling can be more agreeable, unless expedition is required. In this apartment there are generally four windows, a table in the middle, with feats on each fide of it covered with handfome cushions; and, according to the fancy of the skipper, or master of the boat, this little cabin is otherwife ornamented with pictures or looking-glaffes. The motion of a treckfchuyt is fo fteady, that a perfon may read or write at his eafe; or from the windows he can enjoy a pleasant profpect of the country, of numerous villages and feats which fkirt the canals, or of veffels for the purposes of pleasure or bufinefs, which are conftantly pafling and repaffing. Treckfchuyts are the stagecoaches of Holland: they depart every hour, in various directions, from most of the confiderable towns of the republic; and arriving at the appointed time at the place of their destination, paffengers who wish to proceed further find boats ready to fet out immediately. By means of thefe ufeful veffels, an eafy intercourfe exifts between the moft distant parts of the republic, and the cheapnefs of the conveyance allows its benefits to be felt by the poorest people. To a Dutchman, a treckfchuyt is the most agreeable conveyance imaginable. He fmokes in it or fleeps in it, as his inclination leads him; and is neither fhook by the agitation of the veffel, nor difturbed by the velocity of its motion. He knows to the eighth part of a penny the fum which his journey will coft him, and he can calculate with equal accuracy the moment when he thall arrive at the end of it.

If his journey is long, he either carries with him a little ftore of provisions, or purchafes a frugal dinner at the place where the boat ufually ftop, for a few

minutes at the hour of that meal. He does not then go on fhore to eat his dinner, but a freak is expeditiously brought to him, with fuch other refreshments as the houfe affords, or he chooses to have; and when that matter is arranged, which never occupies more than five minutes, the treckfchuyt immediately proceeds. Some of these advantages may be enjoyed in common by an Englishman, but he is occafionally expofed to difagreeable circumftances in thefe veffels, which detract much from their advantages.

"We left the Hague at three in the afternoon for Delft, having previously, which is a neceffary precaution, taken places in the roof of the treckschuyt. Two ladies and a gentleman were our fellow-paffengers to that place, where we quitted the boat to walk through the town to a canal from whence a treckfchuyt was ready to set off for Rotterdam.

"The cabin of this boat, to our extreme mortification, was so crowded, that we could not obtain feats in it, and therefore we were obliged to take our places with the common paffengers. It was now dark, and one miferable candle only illuminated a long apartment, which contained fiveand-twenty or thirty people. On our departure, all the windows of this place were fhut, to exclude the air, except that near which we fat, which was permitted to remain open, though not without violent oppofition, out of courtesy to us ftrangers, who particularly requested it should. The heat arifing from the chauffepies, or footftoves, of the women, the tobaccopipes of the men, and the air vitiated by the refpiration of fo many human beings, was intolerable.

"The cuftom of fmoking is fo prevalent in Holland, that a genuine Dutch boor, instead of defcribing the diftances of places by miles or hours, fays they are fo many pipes afunder. Thus a man may reach Delft from Rotterdam in four pipes; but if he goes on to the Hague, the journey will coft him fe

cabin? No! no! It is fufficient to say we arrived at Rotterdam, with aching heads and diseased stomachs. A treckfchuyt is nevertheless an excellent conveyance." P.141.

THE RASP-HOUSE.

"THE Rafp-house and Spin-house, places of confinement for the reformation and correction of male and female offenders, are open to every one's infpection, on the payment of an inconfiderable fee for admiffion*, which goes to the emolument of the keeper of the prifon. In the Rafp-house, the employment of the prisoners is to faw or rafp logwood and other woods for the dyers; and the quantity of labour daily required of them amounts to fifty pounds of rafpings, which, if the men are ftrong and diligent, they complete early in the afternoon. The Rafphoufe is a quadrangular building, three ftories high, with a court-yard in the middle, which I found extremely dirty, and much incommoded with piles of wood. It contains only men prisoners, and the number of perfons in confinement did not exceed feventy. The moft atrocious criminals are confined on the ground-floor, two in a cell, with an open window guarded with iron bars, where they fleep and work; and notwithstanding the labour they had to perform, they were in general heavily fettered. All the men worked without their fhirts, and I obferved that fome of their backs were marked with ftripes, which had been inflicted with no fparing hand. When I fay that their labours are concluded early in the afternoon, I do not mean thence to infinuate that their work is light: the contrary is the cafe. But the prifoners work hard in the early part of the day, in order to procure themselves in the afternoon an intermiffion from toil. Formerly, those who would not work were confined in an apartment into which water was caufed to flow in fuch quantities, that inceffant pumping was neceffary to preserve the perfons fo fhut up from drowning; and they thereby became reconciled to the lefs perilous and difagreeable labour of rafping wood. But this barbarous mode of obliging criminals to work has been difcontinued, fince an unhappy

wretch,

wretch, driven to defperation by his fituation, permitted the water to overflow him, and was drowned. Corporal punishment, folitary confinement, and abridgment of food, are the methods which are now used to fubdue the refractory; and I fear they are exercised with a rigour which never fails fpeedily to produce the intended effect.

"The prifoners in general appeared emaciated through confinement, unwholesome air, fcanty diet, harsh treatment, and fevere labour. Their cells were extremely dirty, and their bedding, feamen's hammocks, in a miferable condition.

"The length of their confinement varies according to the complexion of their crimes, from one month to five years; or in cafes of peculiar atrocity, and hardened offenders, the period of imprisonment is extended to feven, fourteen, or more years; and fometimes, though it rarely happens, a criminal is fentenced to confinement here for life." P. 242.

CUSTOM OBSERVED WITH REGARD TO LYING-IN WOMEN.

"I MUST not omit to mention a practice which I believe is peculiar to Holland. When a woman is brought to bed, a bulletin is daily fixed to her houfe for a fortnight, or longer if the continues fo ill as to excite the folicitude of her friends, which contains a statement of the health of the mother and the child. This bulletin is faftened to a board ornamented with lace, according to the circumftances of the perfon lying-in, and ferves to answer the inquiries of her friends, and to prevent any unneceffary noife being made near the door of the indifpofed perfon. We faw at Leyden the most of thefe boards ornamented with lace, and there learnt their meaning. When a perfon of confequence is dangerously ill, a bulletin of health is generally affixed to their houfe, to fatisfy the numerous inquiries that are, or are fuppofed to be made after them; but, unless it is a childbed cafe, the board, to which the bulletin is pafted, is unornamented with lace:" P. 272..

THE VILLAGE OF BROEK

"IS at the eafy diftance of fix miles from Amsterdam, and inhabited chiefly

by merchants of overgrown wealth, who, when the hours of business are over, retire from the tumult and confufion of the city, to enjoy the tranquillity of a fecluded village. Brock contains about an hundred houfes, each of which is decorated and painted with the niceft care. To every house, as is the cafe throughout North Holland, there are two doors; one of which is never opened but when a corpfe or a chriftening is carried from the house, and the other ferves the ordinary purpofes of the family. I could not learn the nature of the fuperftition from whence this cuftom is fuppofed to have originated; and I believe it is peculiar to North Holland. To a ftranger, there is fomething folemn in the custom; and we could not help contemplating thefe doors, opened only for fepulchral rites, or to introduce a new-born infant into the Chriftian community, with a fort of religious awe and refpect.

It.

"Over fome of thefe doors were carvings, defcriptive of the lives of fome of the former poffeffors of the houses. One of thefe attracted a confiderable portion of our notice. was divided into four compartments. The firft defcribed the embarkation of a young man on fhipboard, and his count of his departure. The second relatives on the quay, weeping on acreprefented his arrival in a foreign part, where a number of Indians were waiting to receive him. The third defcribed him as a planter, furrounded by his flaves, and the productions of the tropics. The laft related the ftory of his return to his country, advanced in life, and bleffed with wealth. The date

affixed to it was 1661. Another of thefe carvings defcribed the hiftory of of a man who had acquired his riches a fhopkeeper's life; and a third, that by the whale-fishery.

"The houfes of Brock are painted with different colours, but chiefly with green and white, and fome of them in addition are gilded. They are small, rooms, and none of them above two few of them containing more than eight ftories high. Before most of the houfes is a fmall garden, dreffed out in a fantaftic style with fhells, pieces of ftained glafs, bits of broken china, and the like; and the fhrubs and trees are tortured into all manner of fhapes. In one garden, a tree was cut into the fhape of a table, with bottles and

glaffes

glaffes on it; another tree was lopped and bent to refemble a fhip; and a bed of box-wood defcribed the chafe of a bare. This ridiculous taste of horticulture began to prevail in Holland about the time when the Dutch, having fhaken off the yoke of the Spaniards, applied themfelves almoft wholly to commerce, confequently neglected all elegant and agreeable purfuits; and it continues to prevail at Broek in its original ftyle, two centuries old, unaltered and unimproved.

"In the ftreets of Broek, cleanliness feems to have obtained its ne plus ultra. They are clofely paved with fmall bricks, the interstices of which are frequently scraped, and not a speck of dirt or blade of grafs is any where to be perceived. No animal is permitted with unhallowed fteps to profane the ftreets of Broek. The dogs and cats of the place are rigorously confined in the houles of their respective owners, and never permitted to breathe abroad the delicious air of freedom. Even the birds of the air are chafed away from this abode of cleanliness, left, like the obfcene harpies which Virgil tells us of, they fhould defile with their excrements the freets or the boufes.

"The virtue of cleanlinefs is carried in Brock to a painful extreme. I never faw a more joylefs, uncomfortable, and melancholy place. The houfcs and gardens were fit only to amufe the infaney or the dotage of life, to gratify the vanities of childhood, or to give employment to the caprices of old age.

The inhabitants of Broek, even children, partake of the melancholy of the place. We faw a group of boys, of an age when galety and playfulnefs are qualities almoft inherent in youth, foberly feated by the fide of one of the casals, with countenances as contemphitive and fedate as could have been expected in old men; and we paffed them without exciting fo much of their curiofity, as to make them turn their heads to fee which way we went. If any women were at the windows, they hafily withdrew as we approached; and if the door of a houfe was open, it was fhut with inhofpitable rudenefs. Want of curiofity is, I believe, a quality characteristic of the Dutch nation, and it certainly reigns with fovereign dulnefs in the village of Brock." P.

359.

XXXII. Pennant's Journey from London to the Isle of Wight, (Concluded from p. 145.)

SELSEY ISLE

IS famous in ecclefiaftical hiftory: Wilfred archbishop of York, in 666, ftomaching an affront offered to him by King Egfrid, retired to this place, and was highly favoured by Edelwalch the lord of the ifle, who bestowed it on the exiled prelate; here he converted numbers to Christianity. He found them, at his arrival, perithing with famine: notwithstanding the neighbouring fea fwarmed with fish, yet his converts were fo ignorant, that they knew not even the art of catching them; but by his inftructions they foon acquired plenty of corporal as well as fpiritual food. To this day Selfey is famous for its excellent cockles, as it is alfo for its prawns, which are fent by land-carriage to add to the luxuries of the London markets." Vol. ii. p.

104.

BOSEHAM ANECDOTE OF EARL
GODWIN.

"THE noted Earl Godwin obtained the place from Stigand archbishop of Canterbury (who, in Godwin's time, made it his refidence), by a fingular piece of deceit. He waited on the archbishop with a large train of nobi lity, and accofted him, with great feming civility, in thefe words, Da mibi Bofeham; by which the prelate undertood the Bafum or Ofculum Pa cis.

This he readily granted, and Godwin and his people fell at his feet, and made numbers of acknowledg ments for fo liberal a gift, declaring that he faid Bofeam. And thus, by a jingle of words, Stigand loft this valuable poffeffion, which the Earl inftantly feized for his own ufe." Fol. ii. p. 116.

bargain was made with the firft, or the deraand made from the laft, accord

Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's fway,

of the vellels were of vaft fize; fuch was the Chriftopher*, one of thofe engaged in the celebrated victory off Sluys, gained over the French in 13405 but we know nothing concerning either the building or the hipwrights. The fails of the royal thips were moft fplendid; thofe of the veffel which, carried Richard II. were of white filk, richly embroidered with a golden fun. In this fplendid reign there was an emulation between France and England, which should excel in this fpecies of folly. Every man,' fays old Gratton, p. 364, helped to make provifion for other, and to garnithe and bewtifie ⚫ their fhippes, and to paynt them with their armes, and to advance and I make them a glorious fhewe to the whole worlde. Painters, at that ' time, were well set on worke, and the time was to them very profitable; ⚫ for they had whatfoever they defyred, • and yet there could not enow of them be gotten for money. They made bauners, penons, standards of filk, fo fumptuous and comely that it was a ⚫ marueile to beholde.

"Alfo they peynted the maftes of their fhippes from the one ende to the other, glittering with golde, and deuifes and armes that was maruelous ryche; and efpecially (fayth Froiflart), as it was tolde me, the Lorde Guy of Tremoy II. fo decked, garnished and bewtified his fhip with peynting and colours that it cont him two thousande frankes of French money, that is more than cexxij 'pound of the current money of Englande. And in lyke manner did every lorde of Fraunce fet foorth his deuife

' and fhew.'

"It is from fuch imagery that Mr. Gray formed his beautiful defcription of the reign of that unhappy monarch, profperous in the begining, and moft

dreadful in its conclufion:

Fair laughs the, morn, and foft the

zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,

• In gallant trim the gilded veffel goes, Youth on the prow, and pleafure at the helm;

"Froiffart, I. p. xxx. traufl.”

his evening prey.'

"Henry VII. was the first of our monarchs who may be fuppofed to' have formed a royal dock. He it was who improved the fortifications of Portsmouth, after they had been began by Edward IV. and continued by Richard III. This makes it probable that he here built the famous thip the Great Harry, which, fays Stow, coft 14,000l. the fame fum which he had expended on his beautiful chapel in Weftminster Abbey. The flip was built about the year 1503, and was burnt by accident at Woolwich in August 1553

ed the fountier of the English navy: "His ton, Henry VIII. may be callhe began with building the great fhips the Regent and the Sovereign. The first was loft in an engagement off Breft, in 1512: that gallant gentleman, Sir Thomas Knevet, grappled with the Cordelier, in which the French admiral had hoifted his flag; both took fire, and blew up with their commanders and fixteen hundred brave fomen: both Reets retired inftantly, terrified by the dreadful fcene, without offering to continue the engagement. Henry, to repair the lofs, built the Great Henry Grace de Dieu, of far greater bulk than the Regent. This hip is twice exhi bited to us in painting. The first is in a great picture I had an opportunity of feeing in one of the lower apartments in Windfor Cattle.. It reprefents the King fetting fail from Dover for Calais, for the celebrated interview betwixt him and Francis I. between Guines and Ardres, in 1520, called Le Champ de Drap d'Or. Henry had caught the vain magnificence of Richard II.: the fails and pendants of his fhip were of cloth of gold, damasked; all his fuite of fhips and men were equally fplendid, for the chief nobility

of the realm attended. I muft refer the reader to the minute defcription given by that accurate antiquarian, John Topham, Efq.t. I fhall only add, that the laud fcenery is alfo reprefouted, of Dover and the harbour; its forts, Arch-cliff, and the Black Bulwalk; and, finally, the diftant view of

France,