tinued building ships of war here, which used to be a source of great prosperity to the town; however, its numerous paper and sawing mills employ a vast number of hands, and produce great opulence to the place. We paid our homage to the wooden cottage where Peter the Great resided when he came to this place to learn the art of ship-building; it is very small, and stands in a garden, and is in tolerable preservation. The women in North Holland are said to be handsomer than in any other part of the country. As I was very desirous of commencing my tour on the Rhine, I was glad to return to Amsterdam.

The climate of Holland is moist, but far from being unpleasant or unwholesome, although some travellers have thought proper to say it consists of six months of rain and six months of bad weather. The principal divisions of the country are at present the same as they were during the republic, namely, Holland, Overyssel, Zealand, Friesland, Utrecht, Groningen, Guelderland, and Zutphen, besides the Texel and other islands; but the king has it in contemplation, it is said, of speedily dividing the kingdom into ten departments. Holland contains 113 cities or large towns, 1400 villages, and nearly 2,800,000 inhabitants. The military force of Holland amounts to about 40,000 cavalry and infantry. A population and a force which cannot but astonish the reader, when he reflects upon the size, soil, and position of the country.

I intended to have taken the treckschuyt to Utrecht, as the river Amstel is all the way lined with the most beautiful countryhouses and grounds in Holland; but as some friends of mine in Amsterdam obligingly proposed accompanying me, and were strongly desirous that I should see Naarden, Soestdyke, and some other places in our way, the boat was relinquished for the carriage. I however recommend the traveller not to omit going to Utrecht by water. Excellent carriages and horses are always to be procured at a large livery stable keeper's who resides near the Utrecktsche Poort, or Utrecht Gate, in Amsterdam, close to the house from which the Utrecht treckschuyts proceed: for these he must make the best bargain he can, as he will be wholly at the mercy of the proprietor. The inconvenience and imposition arising

from travelling in Holland are frequently severely felt, on account of there being no regular posting. In Amsterdam the price of a carriage for the day is fourteen florins, and for this the coachman provides for himself and horses. The back of our carriage towards the horses, folded into two divisions, resting upon the fixed seat, so that when the cushion was placed upon it, the seat was only a little raised; thus the coach became either close or open: the roof was fixed. In this vehicle, with a pair of good horses, we set off for Naarden, a clean, pretty little town, and more skilfully and strongly fortified than any other town in Holland: here the same tranquillity reigns as in most of the other Dutch country towns. From the ramparts, which present a very agreeable walk, there is a fine view of the Zuyder Zee on the northern side, the water of which being in many places very shallow, at a distance resembled moving mounds of sand. Here, and throughout the journey, our coachman gave the preference to coffee, of which the Dutch are remarkably fond, instead of wine or spirits, with his dinner. From economy, as I observed at this place and elsewhere, the middling people keep a bit of sugar-candy in their mouth when they drink tea or coffee, instead of using sugar in the way we do. Our host regaled us after dinner with a volunteer desert of some very delicious pears, which grew in very great profusion in his garden.

From this place to Soestdyke, one of the two country palaces of the king allowed by the constitution, the roads are very sandy, and we were obliged to take four horses. In the neighbourhood of Naarden the country is covered with buck-wheat; which, after we had advanced about four English miles, began to undulated, and present a very beautiful appearance. The many spires and chimnies of villages peeping above the trees in all directions, the small divisions of land, the neat and numerous little farm-houses which abounded on all sides of us, presented a picture of industry and prosperity seldom seen in any other country. The sound wisdom displayed by the Dutch in preventing the overgrowth and consolidation of farms, cannot fail to strike the observation of the traveller, and particularly an English one. By this admirable policy, Holland is enabled to maintain its comparatively immense population, under

the great disadvantage of a soil far from being genial; hence it is but little burthened with paupers, and hence the abundance of its provision. In England, on the contrary, the farmers, grown opulent by availing themselves of the calamities of unproductive seasons, and consequent scarcity, have for many years past omitted no opportunity, by grasping at every purchase, to enlarge their estates, and hence a portion of land which, if separated into small allotments, would give food and a moderate profit, to many families, is now monopolized by one; and those who ought to be farmers on a small scale, are now obliged to toil as labourers in the fields of their employer, at wages that are not sufficient, if their families are numerous, to prevent the necessity of their applying for parochial aid. If some legislative provision could be effected to restrain this monstrous and growing evil, by that ardent and cordial lover of his country, and particularly of the lower classes of society, Mr. Whitbread, who has laudably in parliament applied his enlightened mind to ameliorate the condition of the poor, it would be one of the most beneficial measures that ever received the fiat of the British senate. I do not repine to see the farmers, or any other respectable class of men, receive and enjoy the honest fruits of their own enterprize and industry: I could see with less regret all those decent and frugal habits of the farm which once characterized the yeomanry of England superseded by the folly and fashion of the gay and dissipated; the farmer drinking his bottle of port instead of some cheap salubrious ale; his daughter, no longer brought up in the dairy, returning from a boarding-school, to mingle the sounds of her harp with the lowing of cows, or reluctantly going to the market of the adjoining town, tricked out in aukward, misplaced finery, with a goose in one hand and a parasol in the other, did not the poor classes of society become poorer, and the humble more humiliated, by the cause of this marvellous metamorphosis in rural economy. In Holland, I was well informed, there is not a farm that exceeds fifty acres, and very few of that extent. There the economy observed in and about the "peasant's nest," is truly gratifying: the farmer, his wife, and a numerous progeny, exhibit faces of health and happiness; their dwelling is

remarkable for its neatness and order throughout; in the orchard behind, abounding with all sorts of delicious fruits, the pigs and sheep fatten; three or four sleeky cows feed in a luxuriant adjoining meadow; the corn land is covered with turkies and fowls, and the ponds with ducks and geese. Such is the picture of a Dutch farm.

Notwithstanding the enormous tax upon land, and a tax upon eattle per head, an imposition unknown to any other country, the expence of contributing to the support of the dykes, the duty on salt, and a variety of other charges, amounting to more than fifty per cent. on the value of their land, the beneficial effects arising from small farms and the simplicity, diligence, and economy of the Dutch farmer, enable him to discharge those expences, and his rent, with punctuality, and with the surplus of his profit to support his family in great comfort. To these causes alone can be attributed the astonishing supplies which are sent to the different markets. North Holland, so celebrated for its cheese, supplies Enkuysen, upon an average, with two hundred and fifty thousand pounds weight of that valuable article of life, and Alkmaar with three hundred thousand, per week. In a very small space in the isle of Amak, within about two English miles of Copenhagen, no less than four thousand people, descendants of a colony from East Friesland, invited over by one of the kings of Denmark to supply the city with milk, cheese, butter, and vegetables, are enabled to live and flourish, and continue to supply that city with these articles. I remember being highly delighted with seeing their dwellings and little luxuriant gardens; nor did I ever see so many persons living within so small a space, except in an encampment. An experienced English agriculturist who had visited Holland, informed me that he thought the Dutch farmers did not sufficiently dress their land. The vegetable soil is in general so thin, that trees in exposed situations are usually topped, to prevent their being thrown down by the wind. In that part of Holland which I am describing, on account of its being well sheltered, there is a large growth of wood. Upon leaving the romantic and exquisitely picturesque village of Baren, we entered the royal chace,

which occupies a vast track of ground: in this forest the trees are generally poor and thin, but I saw some fine beeches among them. On the borders of this chase are two country villas, in the shape of pagodas, belonging to a private gentleman, the novelty and gaudy colouring of which served to animate the sombre appearance of the forest behind.

In the evening we reached the principal inn at Soestdyke, lying at the end of a very long avenue in the forest, chiefly filled with young oaks, a little fatigued with the tedium produced by the heavy roads through which we had waded; however, after some refreshing tea taken under the trees, near the house, we proceeded to view the palace, formerly a favourite sporting chateau of the Orange family. A tolerable plain brick house on the left of the entrance, composed the lodge, and after passing through a large court, we ascended by a flight of steps to the principal entrance of this palace, if palace it may be called, for a residence more unworthy of a prince I have never seen. The only part of the house in any degree deserving of notice was the hall, the sides of which were decorated with the emblems of rural recreation, the implements of husbandry, and all the apparatus of hunting, fishing, and shooting, tolerably well executed. The rooms were principally white-washed, and destitute of furniture: the windows were large, and the panes of glass very small, fastened with lead, such as are used in cottages: in short, the whole palace presented the appearance of a country mansion in England of the date of Charles the First, deserted by the family to whom it belonged, and left to the care of the tenants who rent the estate to which it belongs. Nothing could be more dreary and desolate. The king and queen partook of a cold collation here a short time before I visited it, provided by the family who rented the place of the state, and occupied it when we visited it. I was not surprised to hear that the royal family staid only one hour, during which they scarcely ventured out of a large naked room at the back part of the house, called the grand saloon: one of the young princes gave a son of the gentleman who occupied the premises, an elegant watch set round with brilliants. I could not help reflecting a little upon the disgust this visit must