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more influential in a worthy cause? The union of learning, religion, and good manners, gives irresistible sway. None will dare to withstand, but those, who are in open war with reason and modesty,

A BRIEF CHARACTER OF THE LOW COUN-
TRIES UNDER THE STATES;

Being three weeks' observations of the virtues and vices
of the inhabitants.

[Continued from vol. I, page 380.]

FOR their condition they are churlish, as their

breeder, Neptune; and without doubt very ancient, for they were bred, before manners were in fashion.

They should make good justices, for they respect neither persons, nor apparel. A boor in his liquor'd slop shall have as good usage, as a courtier in his bravery.

The love of gain is as natural to them, as water to a goose, or carrion to any kite, that flies. They are seldom deceived, for they trust nobody, You must trust them, if you travel. To ask a bill of particulars is to purre in a wasp's You must pay what they ask as sure, as if it were the assessment of a subsidy.

nest.

Compliment is an idleness, they were never trained up in s and it is happiness, that court vanities have not stole away their minds from business,

Their being sailors and soldiers have marred two parts al ready; and, if they once bathe in court oyle, they are painted trapdoors; and shall then let the Jews build a city, where Harlem-mere is, and after cozen 'em o'n't.

Nothing can quiet them, but money and liberty; yet, when they have them, they abuse both; but, if you tell them so, you awake their fury; and you may sooner calm the sea, than conjure that into compass again. Their anger

hath no eyes, and their judgment doth not flow so much from reason, as passion and partiality.

They are in a manner all Aquatiles, and therefore the Spaniard calls them water dogs. Sea gulls do not swim more readily, nor More-hens from their nests run sooner to the water. Every thing is so made to swim among them, as it is a question, if Elizeus his axe were now floating there, it would be taken for a miracle.

All, that help them not, they hold popish, and take it for an argument of much honesty to rail bitterly against the king of Spain. Out of dying duties' ashes all the blazes of hostility flame.

'Tis their own chronicle business, which can tell you, that, at the seige of Leyden, a fort, being held by the Spanish, was after taken by the Dutch by assault. The defendants were put to the sword, where one of the Dutch in the fury of slaughter rift up the captain's body; and with a barbarous hand tore out the yet living heart, panting among the reeking bowels; then with his teeth rent it, still warm with bloud, into which he spitted over the battlements in defiance of the rest of the army.

Oh, tiger's breed! The Scythian bear could ne'er have been more savage. To be necessitated into cruelty is a misfortune to the strongly tempted to it; but to let spleen rave, and mad it in resistless bloud, shows nature steeped i' the livid gall of passion, and, beyond all brutishness, displays the unnoble tyranny of a prevailing coward.

Their navies are the whip of Spain, or the arm, wherewith they pull away his Indies. Nature hath not bred them

others, but at sea they

so active for the land, as some are water devils to attempt things incredible. Their ships. lie, like high woods in winter; and, if you view them on the north side, you frieze without hope, for they ride so thick, you can see no sun to warm you with.

Almost all among them are seamen born, and, like frogs, can live both on land and water. Not a country Vriester but can handle an oar, steer a boat, raise a mast, and bear

The ship she

Being full of

you out in the roughest straits, you come in. avouches much better for sleep, than a bed. humors, that is her cradle, which lulls and rocks her to a dull phlegmatickness, most of them looking like a fullgrown oyster, boiled. Slime, humid air, water, and wet diet have so bagged their cheeks, that some would take their paunches to be gotten above their chins,

The country's government is a democracy, and there need be many to rule such a rabble of rude ones. Tell them of a king, and they could cut your throat in earnest. The very name carries servitude, and they hate it more, than a Jew doth images, a woman old age, or a nonconformist a surplice.

None among them hath authority by inheritance. They are chosen all, as our kings choose sheriffs, not for their sin of wit, but for their wealth, which they all over affect; yet Myn-Here, if they may be had cheap, will daub his faced cloak with two pery worth of pickled herring, which himself shall carry home in a string.

Their justice is strict, if it cross not policy; but rather, than hinder traffick, tolerates any thing.

There is not under heaven such a den of several serpents, as Amsterdam is. You may here be what devil, you will, so you push not the state with your horns. "Tis an university of all religions, where you may try all, and take at last what you like best. "Tis the fair of all the sects, where all the pedlars of religion have leave to vend their toys, their ribbands, and phanatick rattles. And should it be true, it were a cruel brand, which Remists stick upon them; for, say they, as the chamelion changes into all colors, but white, so they admit of all religion, but true; for the papist alone may not exercise his in public. Yet his restraint, they plead, is not in halved, but justice; and they had rather show a little spleen, than not cry quit with their enemy.

In their families they are all equals, and you have no way to know the master and mistress, but by taking them in bed together. It may be those are they, otherwise Malky can

prate as much, laugh as loud, be as bold, and sit as well, as her mistress.

Had Logicians lived here first, father and son had never passed so long for relatives. They are here individuals; for no demonstrance of duty or authority can distinguish them, as if they were created together, and not born successively.

Their apparel is civil enough, but very uncommon, and has more stuff, than shape. Your man among them is tolerably well clad, unless he inclines to the sea fashion, and then are his breeches yawning at the knees, as if they were about to swallow his legs unmercifully. Their women are far from going naked, for of a whole woman you see but half the face. As for her hand that shows her a sore laborer; which you shall ever find, as it were in recompense, loaden with rings to the cracking of her fingers. Men and women are both starched so blew, that, if once grown old, you would verily believe, you saw wintea walking up to the neck in a barrel of indigo,

Where the woman lies in, if the child be alive, the ringle of the door does penance, and is lapped about with linen, But, if the child be dead, there is thrust out a nosegay, tied to a stick's end, perhaps for an emblem of the life of man, which may wither as soon, as born; or else to let you know, that, though these fade on the gathering, yet from the same stock the next year a new shoot may spring.

When

In

For their diet they eat much, and spend little. they send out a fleet to the Indies, it shall live three months on the offals, which we here fear would surfeit our swine. Yet they feed on't, and are still the same, Dutchmen. their houses roots and stock fish are staple commodities. If they make a feast, and add flesh, they have art to keep it hot more days, than a pig's head in Pye-corner. Salt meats and sour cream, they hold him a fool, that loves not; only the last they correct with sugar, and are not half so well pleased with having it well at first, as with letting it sour, that they may sweeten it again. Fish indeed they have brave and

plentiful; and herein practice has made them as good cooks, as Lucullus had in his later kitchen, which is some recompense for their wilfulness, as you can neither pray, nor buy them to alter their own cookery.

To a feast they come readily, but being set once, you must have patience; they are longer eating meat, than we preparing it. If it be to supper, you conclude timely, when you get away by day break. They drink down the evening star, and drink up the morning star. At those times it goes hard with a stranger; all in courtesy will be drinking to him, and all, that do so, he must pledge; till he doth, the filled cups circle round his trencher, from whence they are not taken away, till emptied; for, though they give you day of payment, they will not abate of the sum. They sit not there, as we in England, men together, and women together, but even intermingled with a man between; and instead of marchpanes and such juncates, it is good manners, if any be there, to carry away a piece of apple pie in your pocket.

The time, they there spend, is in eating well, in drinking much, and prating most. For the truth is, the completest drinker in Europe is your English gallant. There is no such consumer of liquor, as the quaffing off of his healths. Time was, the Dutch had the better of it, but of late he hath lost it by prating too long over his pot. He sips, and laughs, and tells his tale, and in his tavern is more prodigal of his time, than his wine. He drinks, as if he were short winded, and, as it were, eats his drink by morsels, rather beseiging his brains, than assaulting them. But the Englishman charges home on the sudden, swallows it whole, and, like a hasty tide, fills and flows himself, till the mad brain swims, and tosses on the hasty fume. As if his liver were burning out his stomach, the striving to quench it drowns it. the one is drunk sooner, and the other longer; as if striving to recover the wager, the Dutchman would still be the perfectest soaker.

So

In this progress you have seen some of their vices; now view a fairer object. (To be continued.)

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