CHAPTER III.COMMISSION COUNTENANCES ... PHYSIOGNOMIES COMPARED ... HOMAGE PAID TO GENIUS ... ERASMUS’S STATUE ... INSCRIPTION ... REVOLUTIONARY WHIMS ... LEARNED GALLANTRY ... KISSES ... ANECDOTES OF ERASMUS ... CATHEDRAL OF SAINT LAWRENCE ... THE RIVAL ORGAN ... CHARITY SCHOOLS ... PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS ... EFFECTS OF EDUCATION ON THE PUBLIC MIND ... HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD ... MR. LANCASTER’S SCHOOL.
In my way to the celebrated statue of Erasmus, and indeed wherever I moved, almost every face I met looked as if it belonged to a soul more disposed to cultivate the figures of arithmetic, than of rhetoric. I saw none of those sprightly physiognomies, which abound in the large towns of England or France, full of smiles, of levity, and carelessness, the happy owners of which appear as if they basked and frolicked in the sunshine of every event. Even the Spanish proverb, “thoughts close, looks loose,” is not observed in this city. An eye prone to the earth, a look of settled meditation, and a measured pace denote the Rotterdammer. Yet with these appearances Holland has not been insensible to that literary merit, in honour of which, in other times and regions, the Grecians and Romans raised temples, statues, and constituted public games, to which the Persians, the Arabians, the Turks, and even the Chinese, presented the most magnificent rewards.
As the inhabitants of Languedoc established floral games, at which they bestowed golden flowers as prizes to the fortunate poets; as Rome crowned Petrarch with laurel; as Ravenna erected a marble tomb to the memory of Dante, and Certaldo a statue to Boccaccio; as delighted princesses touched with their fragrant lips the cheeks of poets; as the Venetians paid to Sannazarius six hundred pistoles for six verses; as Baif received a silver image of Minerva from his native city, and Ronsard had apartments reservedfor him in the palace of Charles IX. of France, and also the honour of receiving poetical epistles from that monarch: behold the Hollander has raised a superb bronze figure to the memory of that great restorer of the Latin tongue, Erasmus.
This statue stands upon an arch crossing a canal, and is nearly ten feet high; it was finished in 1622, and is said to be thechef-d’œuvreof Henry de Keiser, a very celebrated statuary and architect. It has been observed, that in the quality of the different statues which the Dutch raised to the memory of Erasmus, may be traced the different degrees of zeal with which his memory was cherished by them.
In 1540 they raised a statue of wood; seventeen years afterwards, blushing for the little respect they had observed, they exchanged it for one of blue stone; and in sixty-five years following apotheosized him by the noble memorial of their veneration, which I contemplated with equal admiration and delight. In 1572 the Spaniards, Vandal-like, shot at the stone statue with their muskets, and threw it in the canal, from whence it was afterwards raised and again set up, by order of the magistrates, upon the expulsion of the Spaniards; upon whom the Dutch retaliated in the most spirited and gallant manner, by attacking that nation through her colonial establishments in the East and West Indies, and in Africa, and by capturing the rich galleons of their merciless invaders.
The bronze figure is clad in an ecclesiastical habit, with an open book in his hand. Various attempts have at different times been made to convert the sage into a turncoat: before the revolution which expelled the stadtholder and his family, every concavity in his dress was crammed, on certain holidays, with oranges; during the hey-day of the republican form of government, amidst the celebration of its festivals, he was covered with tri-coloured ribbons, when the juice of the orange was never suffered to pass the lips of a true patriot!! Even the marigold, first consecrated by poets to the Virgin, and afterwards used as a symbol of the House of Orange,
“The marigold, whose courtier’s faceEchoes the sun, and doth unlaceHer at his rise,”
“The marigold, whose courtier’s faceEchoes the sun, and doth unlaceHer at his rise,”
“The marigold, whose courtier’s faceEchoes the sun, and doth unlaceHer at his rise,”
“The marigold, whose courtier’s face
Echoes the sun, and doth unlace
Her at his rise,”
was expelled from the gardens of the new republicans. Oh, Liberty! happy had it been for millions, if all the outrages perpetrated in thy hallowed name had spent themselves upon ribbons, oranges, and marigolds!
Oudaan the poet has done honour to this star of erudition, whose works filled ten folio volumes, and whose talents had nearly raised him to cardinalate under Pope Paul III. in the following lines in Dutch, which are inscribed on his pedestal:
Hier rees die groote zon, en ging te Bazel onder!De Rykstad eer’ en vier’ dien Heilig in zyn grav;Dit tweede leeven geevt, die’t eerste leeven gav:Maar ’t ligt der taalen, ’t zout der zeden, ’t heerlyk wonder.Waar met de Lievde, en Vreede, en Godgeleerdheid praald,Word met geen grav geerd nog met zeen beeld betaald:Dies moet hier’t lugtgewele Erasmus overdekken,Nadien geen mind’re plaats zyn tempel kan verstrekken!
Hier rees die groote zon, en ging te Bazel onder!De Rykstad eer’ en vier’ dien Heilig in zyn grav;Dit tweede leeven geevt, die’t eerste leeven gav:Maar ’t ligt der taalen, ’t zout der zeden, ’t heerlyk wonder.Waar met de Lievde, en Vreede, en Godgeleerdheid praald,Word met geen grav geerd nog met zeen beeld betaald:Dies moet hier’t lugtgewele Erasmus overdekken,Nadien geen mind’re plaats zyn tempel kan verstrekken!
Hier rees die groote zon, en ging te Bazel onder!De Rykstad eer’ en vier’ dien Heilig in zyn grav;Dit tweede leeven geevt, die’t eerste leeven gav:Maar ’t ligt der taalen, ’t zout der zeden, ’t heerlyk wonder.
Hier rees die groote zon, en ging te Bazel onder!
De Rykstad eer’ en vier’ dien Heilig in zyn grav;
Dit tweede leeven geevt, die’t eerste leeven gav:
Maar ’t ligt der taalen, ’t zout der zeden, ’t heerlyk wonder.
Waar met de Lievde, en Vreede, en Godgeleerdheid praald,Word met geen grav geerd nog met zeen beeld betaald:Dies moet hier’t lugtgewele Erasmus overdekken,Nadien geen mind’re plaats zyn tempel kan verstrekken!
Waar met de Lievde, en Vreede, en Godgeleerdheid praald,
Word met geen grav geerd nog met zeen beeld betaald:
Dies moet hier’t lugtgewele Erasmus overdekken,
Nadien geen mind’re plaats zyn tempel kan verstrekken!
Or thus in English:
Erasmus, here, the eloquent and wise,That Sun of Learning! rose, and spread his beamO’er a benighted world, through lowering skies,And shed on Basil’s towers his parting gleam.There his great relics lie: he blest the place:No proud preserver of his fame shall proveThe Parian pile; tho’ fraught with sculptur’d grace:Reader! his mausoleum is above.
Erasmus, here, the eloquent and wise,That Sun of Learning! rose, and spread his beamO’er a benighted world, through lowering skies,And shed on Basil’s towers his parting gleam.There his great relics lie: he blest the place:No proud preserver of his fame shall proveThe Parian pile; tho’ fraught with sculptur’d grace:Reader! his mausoleum is above.
Erasmus, here, the eloquent and wise,That Sun of Learning! rose, and spread his beamO’er a benighted world, through lowering skies,And shed on Basil’s towers his parting gleam.
Erasmus, here, the eloquent and wise,
That Sun of Learning! rose, and spread his beam
O’er a benighted world, through lowering skies,
And shed on Basil’s towers his parting gleam.
There his great relics lie: he blest the place:No proud preserver of his fame shall proveThe Parian pile; tho’ fraught with sculptur’d grace:Reader! his mausoleum is above.
There his great relics lie: he blest the place:
No proud preserver of his fame shall prove
The Parian pile; tho’ fraught with sculptur’d grace:
Reader! his mausoleum is above.
The reader may perhaps be pleased with the following anecdote. When Erasmus was in England, which he visited several times, and where he was honoured with the friendship of Archbishop Warham, Bishops Tonstal and Fox, Dean Colet, Lord Montjoy, Sir Thomas More, and other distinguished men, he mentions a custom then prevalent amongst the females of this country, the discontinuance of which, considering how much improved they are since the time of Erasmus, and how their natural charms are heightened by the grace of the Grecian drapery, mustbe a subject of infinite regret with all who love and cherish the sex, as it ought to be loved and cherished.
Sunt hic in Anglia nymphæ divinis vultibus, blandæ, faciles. Est præterea mos nunquam satis laudandis, sive quò venias, omnium osculis receperis, sive discedas aliquo, osculis dimitteris. Redis redduntur suavia; venitur ad te propinantur suavia, disceditur abs te, dividuntur basia; occurritur alicui, basiatur affatim; denique quocumque te moveas, suaviorum plena sunt omnia.
“The women in England are divinely beautiful, affable, and good humoured. There is a custom also here, which can never be sufficiently commended. When you go any where, you are received by all withkisses; when you depart, you are dismissed withkisses. On your return,kissesare again bestowed on you. When they visit you,kissesare presented; when they go away,kissesalso pass between you. If you meet any body,kissesare plentifully distributed. In short, whatever you do, wherever you go, you are sure ofkissesin abundance.”
This is language sufficiently warm to prove that Erasmus carried the feelings of a man under the cowl of a monk. Erasmus was very accomplished: he is said to have imbibed from Hans Holbein a fine taste for painting, and to have painted several pictures whilst in the convent at Gouda.
Holbein owed the patronage of Henry VIII. to Erasmus, for at his request it was that he came to London, and by him was introduced to Sir Thomas More, who employed and entertained him in his own house for three years, during which his likenesses, and the execution of his works, attracted the notice of the king, who took him into his service, and paid him as long as he lived: although he once hazarded the severest displeasure of his royal and turbulent patron; for being dispatched by Cromwell to paint the Lady Ann of Cleves, Holbein so flattered her with his pencil, that Henry was induced to marry her; but when he discovered how plain she really was, his anger turned from the painter to the minister, and poor Cromwell lost his head because the unhappy Ann was denounced by her royal husband for “a Flanders’ mare,” and not the Venus depicted by Holbein.
Amongst the churches, the only one I saw worthy of notice was the cathedral of St. Lawrence, the tower of which I ascended, and from its top commanded the greater part of the south of Holland. The body of the church is very large. The walls, like all the rest of the Dutch churches, are saddened over with a great number of sable escutcheons, and the floor covered with rush bottom chairs for the congregation when assembled. A magnificent brass ballustrade of exquisite workmanship, separates the choir from the nave.
The church is used for various purposes: the synod of the province and the presbytery of the town used to assemble in it; I was informed they still continue to do so; and at the fairs, booths are erected in it.
The only monuments worthy of attention, and those merit but little, are erected to the memories of Admiral Cornelius de Witt, Johannes a Brakel, and Admiral Korlenaar. A magnificent organ has been building for some years in this church: a very large but inadequate sum of money has been subscribed for this superb instrument, which is intended to rival the celebrated one at Haarlem, but much more money will be necessary for that purpose: the object of this measure is not out of homage to St. Cecilia, but from a commercial spirit, that repines at hearing of the number of persons who flock to Haarlem to hear its boasted instrument, by which considerable sums of money in the course of the year are expended in that city.
To the honour of Holland, her seminaries of learning have always been favourite objects with her government; and I was well informed, that to the further promotion of this great and vital source of the morals, order, and glory of nations, the king has devoted much of his consideration.
To the choirs of this cathedral, the scholars of the charity schools of the city, attended by their masters and professors, repair twice a year to undergo a public examination, in the presence of the principal officers of the state resident in the city, who are distinguished for their learning, attended by some of the clergy. The rector, or first professor, opens the meeting with a short speech in praise ofLiterature andthe Civil Magistracy: such of the pupils as are about to remove to the university, pronounce an oration in praise of some illustrious prince, or of Erasmus; on the dignity, ornament, and utility of sound learning to a state; in praise of commerce and industry; on the baneful consequence of passion and indolence; on fortitude, patience, concord, and other moral virtues; they then conclude with a compliment to their masters for their care of them, and to the magistrates for honouring them with their presence; and finally, take leave of their school-fellows, whom they exhort to pursue their studies indefatigably, and to live in amity with each other.
The principal magistrates then present each of them with some classical author, superbly bound and gilt: the juniors, who are to remove to the higher classes, then come forward, and compliment the magistrates and their masters in a sentence or two either of verse or prose. The effect of this ceremony is increased by the organ playing at its commencement and close.
The reader will, I am sure, be gratified with this brief description of a plan so generative of every good to the nation which adopts it. Children, as soon as they can think, discover that they are the peculiar care of their country; they are taught to respect its laws, and by descanting upon, to imitate its most shining examples, and to repay the paternal solicitude of the government, by becoming useful or ornamental members of its community.
Amidst the political storms which have agitated Holland for so many years, more fatal to its prosperity than those of the ocean, in which it almost appears to float, education has never been neglected: to bestow upon his children decent and useful instruction, has ever formed the anxious care of the Hollander: he feels that whilst he trains their minds to habits of investigation and industry, he secures to them, under any form of government, the sources of support and advancement.
This general diffusion of useful instruction made Holland what she was in the most shining periods of her history, and whenever its enlightening influence shall cease to be felt, as a commercial country she must decline.
The very few instances of cruelty which occurred in Holland during the late revolution, have been very justly attributed to the happy effects of education. Whenever any disposition to severity evinced itself, an appeal to reason and humanity inclined it to forgive: a memorable proof of this statement will hereafter appear in the account of some of the revolutionary movements which occurred at Amsterdam.
Even an English merchant would be astonished to see the wonderful arithmetical attainment of stripling clerks in any of the Dutch compting-houses, and the quantity of complicated business which they discharge in the course of the day, the order of their books, the rapidity and certainty of their calculation, according to the commercial habits and exchange of different countries, and the variety of languages which they speak; to which may be added, the great regularity and length of their attendance, and the decency and propriety of their deportment.
With proper modifications, what an example for our own government, with respect to the sister kingdom, does Holland present! And here I cannot but lament my inability to do justice to the illustrious nobleman, to whose care his majesty has with sound wisdom and discrimination committed the administration of his government in Ireland. In his Grace the Duke of Bedford, that unhappy and long neglected island has found an able, zealous, and resolute friend and patron; who, shunning every ostentatious display, and almost the eye of observation, has conferred upon that country the salutary benefits of those measures which do honour to the christian, the statesman, and the governor.
To this nobleman, and to Lord Somerville, the British nation is indebted for having discerned the utility, and encouraged the progress of a system of education, which has entirely originated from the benevolent zeal and ability of Mr. Lancaster, a member of a religious community long known, as well for the purity of their minds as for the simplicity of their dress and deportment, who, after many arduous experiments, has matured a plan by which one thousand poor children may be taught and governed by one master, for the trifling expense of five shillings per annum foreach child: a plan which is eminently honourable to its meritorious discoverer, and promises fair to effect an incalculable amelioration in the habits and condition of the rising generation.
We are not allowed upon the continent to be a people of muchcreative faculty, but this plan is solely of British growth, and till lately wholly unknown to political economists of every other country. This cheap and efficacious system, which has received, to their lasting honour, the cordial approbation and support of their Majesties and the Royal Family, his Grace the Duke of Bedford is anxious to introduce into Ireland, wholly free from religious proselytism, and which would powerfully accelerate those comprehensive and enlightened measures, to which another great friend to Ireland has, with uncommon promptitude and assiduity, obtained the assent of the imperial parliament; I allude to that amiable and able statesman Sir John Newport, the present chancellor of the exchequer of Ireland.
May the happy effects of such a measure be as forcibly experienced in that country, as they have been in this which I am describing!