THE POWER OF CUSTOM.

FEW people properly estimate the force of custom. We are apt to ascribe all sorts of actions to peculiarities of mind, when a great majority of them arise simply from habit, formed we hardly know how, and continued we hardly know why. Most men in some respect or another fall into ways from which they are unable to free themselves, and from which, day by day, they feel less and less inclination to break loose. Even if some circumstance does for a moment throw them out of their accustomed course, the tendency to recur to it is pretty sure involuntarily to force them back. A friend of ours once had occasion to take a journey down among the green lanes of Kent. He was a bad pedestrian, and borrowed a quadruped. Unfortunately, it happened that the animal he mounted was what is vulgarly called in those parts a "pug horse;" that is, a horse used for working in a mill for grinding clay, and his journey was performed in semicircles. Round went the beast, spite of the tugs of the rider, into the hedge; as soon as he was extricated, he went on the opposite tack till he "fetched" the fence on the other side. Great was the peril to the equestrian's knees and nether garments, but the horse had got a habit too strong to break. He could not go straight. Thousands of us are like that animal. We go round and round in our small circles like a squirrel in its cage, or in larger orbits like navigators sailing round the world. But as the coach does move forward while the wheels only revolve on their own axes, so the general world does somehow go ahead by virtue of the movement of its little wheels.

There are a host of maxims to express the force of custom, such as "Use is second nature." It is gene. rally recognised as an excuse for doing something unnecessary, or foolish, or even wrong, that "It is quite usual." We are indebted for a great deal of the stupidity and the frivolity of the world to the phrase, "It is customary." No matter how needless or how injurious, that is, to the majority, who look no deeper than the surface, a sufficient justification. Widows and orphans ruin themselves for a fine funeral for the head of the house. They could not do otherwise, "It is customary." They waste the bread of a year upon mourning, which does not express their woe; but "all the world expects it." Tricks in trade are

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allowed on the same principle. Things are passed off for what they are not; but "it is quite common," is an answer when detected. Chicory is mixed with coffee; worsted blended with silk; cotton disguised as linen but "it is the ordinary practice." People not habituated to certain doings would shrink from them for the first time, or if they stood alone; but when everybody does it, why should not they? There is a charm, too, in repetition, which is not easily explained. A thing is done the second time with greater facility than the first, and there is a still more powerful tendency to take the third step. The strokes of habit following each other quickly, mould the mind as the blows of the blacksmith's hammer do the glowing iron, and settle it into a permanent form.

There is a balance of good, however, to set off against the weight of evil. Beneficial habits, if not formed so easily as injurious ones are formed, exert equal power. Men are very often moral from habit quite as much as from temperament or turn of mind. They have become so used to "regular habits," that dissipation stuns them just as the noise of London streets does a countryman fresh in the modern Babel. A little time would reconcile them to the change, and displace the old manners by new ones; but as soon as they step over the threshold of the new life, they are hurt by the din and the confusion, and intrench themselves still more securely behind the bulwarks of their quiet routine. Even the most disagreeable things are made not only endurable but agreeable by custom. We put up with the ungracefulness of modern dress, with its chimneypot hats and straight-waistcoats of coats, because we "used to it." We eat and drink things which to an untutored palate would be unbearable, because we have "acquired a taste for them;" and we submit to all sorts of forms and ceremonies which would be burdensome to free natures, because we are "habituated to them in society." The advantage of this is, that while we learn to bear, we are also taught to forbear. We submit to necessary chains, which we have come to regard as conveniences or ornaments; and we do not look upon fetters as fetters when we forge them for ourselves, or unconsciously accommodate ourselves to them.

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The world is indebted for the skill of its workmen, and the cheapness and plenty of its luxuries, comforts, and necessaries, to omnipotent custom. What

economists call "division of labour" is nothing more than chopping an operation up into so many parts, and confining an individual to one of them. Doing one thing always, never anything but that one thing, produces the power to do it quickly, easily, and well. Pins would neither be so cheap, nor so good, if one man were not employed for a lifetime in making points, and another in fashioning heads. What is true of pins is true of everything else,-of the ring on your finger, the watch in your pocket, the clothes on your back,-one hand polishes the stone, another fashions the gold, a third puts parts together. One makes the wheels, a second tempers the springs, and some one else fashions the case. The smaller the circle of action, the oftener it is gone over, the better it is known, the more perfectly it is covered. Jack of all trades, and master of none," is a saying expressing truly enough the imperfection arising from many occupations, by the absence of the accuracy insured by habit. No doubt, it is bad to chain a mind down to so small a spot. It is like giving a man a bit of an idea to nourish his intellect upon, or tethering an animal always in the same spot to feed. But custom here is all-powerful too. It is the prac tice of everybody to do it. All seem to recognise it as necessary for the many, if injurious to the individual,--and we must take the evil with the good, and wait for the time which may come when the good of all shall be the good of each.

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Habit takes a stronger hold upon small minds than upon great ones. It grasps them more easily, and fixes them more firmly. They have less power, and less inclination, to emancipate themselves from its sway. The soul that cannot grasp a large world makes for itself a little one, or finds one ready made, or falls into one without knowing it, and ignores all the rest. "A man of one idea" is a synonym for a narrow-minded man. A man of settled habits indicates a person who blends but little with the world. With them repetition is the only thing possible. They never get their thoughts out of one channel, or themselves out of one track. They stand behind the same counter every day; repeat the same salutation to old customers; make the same remarks about the weather; weigh the same articles in the same quantities; fold them up in the same sort of paper; tie them with the same kind of string; shut up shop at the same hour; go to the same tavern every evening; sit in the same chair; drink the same beverage; smoke the same number of pipes, and tell the same stories. One day is as like another as two peas. Take them out of business and they are miserable; pull down their accustomed tavern and they are wretched; put a stranger in their ordinary seat and they are irritable. If you ask any one of this class if he thought himself a free agent he would answer in the affirmative. But you can predicate almost as certainly where he will be and what he will be doing at twelve to-morrow, as you can the position of the hands of the clock at that hour. In both cases you will have to make the same allowance for accidents and stoppages. The result is nearly equally certain for each. The one is moved by a mainspring in a box, the other by custom in a circle.

Though small minds are more easily affected in this way, great ones seldom escape altogether. Philosophers get into the habit of looking from a certain point of view, till it becomes the only one possible, and shuts out all beside. It is told of Goethe, that at the period of the Parisian revolution, when Charles XII. was dethroned, Eckermann entered his study and found him wrapt in thought. All Germany was alive with the news, and Eckermann full of it. This is a great

event, said Goethe. Eckermann assented. It will revolutionize the world, said the philosopher. Eckerman thought so too, and began to speculate upon the next dynasty of kings. This brought about an explanation, and then it appeared that while Eckerman was thinking of thrones, Goethe was referring to science. There had been a fight in the streets of Paris and also a fight in the Academy. In the first, the people had cast out a king, in the second, St. Hilaire had propounded a new theory of life; and Goethe, habituated to regard mankind from the philosophic point of view, was wrapt up in the scientific onslaught while all the world was contemplating the physical struggle.

A most ridiculous habit is recorded of Dr. Johnson he would never, ascend a staircase without putting the right foot on the first step, or enter a room left foot forwards. If he made a mistake he would go back and rectify it, so regulating his steps as to make his entrée with "the best foot foremost." Childish as this may seem, the doctor did but follow the example of the most polished nation of antiquity. The Greeks regarded putting the left foot first as a bad omen, and they built their passages and staircases with a certain number of steps, and there was a rule for pacing them so as not to offend against the fates. Akin to this is the habit, grown upon more people than would be willing to confess it, of regulating the placing of their feet by the pattern of carpets or the divisions of stones in the streets. A friend of ours has a particular formula of dressing and undressing, in which the priority of the right side plays a prominent part, and he owns that an infraction of the rule remembered afterwards makes him uncomfortable for hours. This peculiarity has, however, a natural physical foundation. Many regard the predominant use of the right foot and right hand for efforts of power and dexterity as arising merely from habit. This is a mistake. The muscles of the right side are absolutely stronger, and the viscera so placed as to render its action more easy and effectual,-and here nature conquers even habit. The chances are against children using their right hands more than their left. They are nursed mostly upon the left arm, and thus their right side is pressed against the nurse, and confined, while the left is comparatively at liberty. Yet how few boys or girls use their left hand habitually, or require special training to make them resort to the other. We may hope from this example that the customs which absolutely violate nature, such as high heels in the past and pinched waists in the present, will in time give way to the rule of fitness.

Customs are often preserved after their origin is lost, and the use which they served or symbolized been forgotten. The remains of dead and gone feudalism are to be found in the tenures by which some estates are held, and in manors where the copyholders yield nominal rents to the lord, and do him fictitious homage. What is it but custom which sends the lord mayor of London every year in his gilded coach and gilded barge to Westminster, to prove his fitness for office by counting nails before the judges? What but custom that spends on sumptuous civic feasts and stupid civic pageantries the money which would make the homes of the poor bright and happy? What but the same arbiter of the destinies of boys and men makes Fools on the first of April, Jacks in the Green on May-day, and Guys on the fifth of November. The practice of decorating our houses and churches with mistletoe and holly at Christmas is merely a custom of the time, having no relation to the festival. It belongs to Paganismnot to Christianity: is a relic of the Druids-not of the Messiah. Yet, somehow, Christmas would not seem Christmas without the green leaves and red and

white berries, any more than it would wear its own character divested of roast beef, plum-pudding, mince-pies, and snapdragon. The custom of making presents of coloured Easter-eggs, prevailing in Catholic countries, is another habit of like kind. It is a vestige of old Rome, and belongs to the time when Jove was worshipped on the Seven Hills; yet the eggs, by the force of habit, go a long way to the making up the idea of Christian Easter.

Custom is as powerful in the domestic world as anywhere. How soon we miss anything old in the accustomed room; how long we take to get reconciled to anything new. We come to love the wonted chair, the family cat, the old house-dog, the ticking clock, the cricket in the chimney corner. Familiarity, instead of breeding contempt, has made them part of us; and when they are gone, we seem to have lost almost a piece of ourselves. They enter into the idea of home till they cannot be separated from it. Then, too, there are the meals at regular hours, which we should not want if we were out, the happy faces with their cheery voices and bright smiles which cluster round us, and to which we grow so used that it would wring our hearts to lose them. A great portion of the charm of all these is to be found in habit, which makes for us chains, though the links be of nothing harder than flowers.

Over children the dominion is most absolute. It is to their yielding minds what the seal is to the heated wax. It leaves its mark upon them for life. It makes wrong allowable, and turns indulgences into rights. The child goes happy to bed with the birds, if it is his wont, but allow him to sit up to supper for a week, and then notice the repinings and poutings when eight o'clock is again enforced. He eats thick bread and butter, and drinks milk and water with a relish, but let him into the privilege of thin slices and sugared tea, and then try to restrict him to his old diet. Habit gives children strange notions of right and justice and equality. Many parents show their impartiality by never bestowing a gift upon one without serving all the same. There is no fault to be found with this equal affection; but look at its result. favour is transformed into an obligation; a benefit to one comes to be looked at as an injury to another. What John has, Tom must have too, or Tom is angry and jealous. The feeling grows as children grow, and they carry into the world of men what they learnt in the home of childhood. They are not glad for good in which they do not share, and they contemn successes by which they are not benefited. Many boys under the influence of such a habit grow up into selfish, captious, and envious denizens of the world.

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This custom, which is so powerful a thing, is not be lightly treated or played with. If we make it, it rules us. The habits we form are either guardian angels or misleading demons. They are the basis of the web of life. They colour all our existence. They do much toward making us great or little, good or bad, happy or miserable, ridiculous or respected. They may be trifles, but they are the trifles upon which important events turn. They may be small, but they are growing. They may begin upon the surface, but the mind is like the tree,-the outside of to-day may become the heart a few years hence. Custom acts with all the force of repetition-all the power of example-all the facility of practice. It may be made equally effectual for good or evil. What we have to do is, to get rid as fast as we can of those customs "more honoured in the breach than the observance," and to rivet still more firmly those which bind us to truth and goodness of nature. If, as we suppose, it is imperative we must be the creatures of habit, let us take care that the tracks we wear are smooth, pleasant, and useful.

A NATURAL HISTORY OF MISTAKES. VI. THE "RETIRING FROM BUSINESS" MISTAKE. OLD Jack Woodward was not so occupied in "lionizing his wife, or in seeing his hopeful son and daughter eat Bath-buns, as not to feel a great delight, and to spend a great deal of time, in hunting up old acquaintances who had left Manchester for London, and of whom he had heard little, save under the protection of a Queen's head or a provincial stamp.

Among these rather numerous friends was Mr. James Griffin. Mr. James Griffin had been a commercial traveller ever since he had been anything that business-like people would think of recollecting. He had known few changes in life except those of going from one county to another, one town to another, or the more serious revolution when stage-coaches faded off the road, and railway-carriages came in. The worst of it was, that this change effectually spoiled his tastes for locomotion; he could not stand the idea of travelling in one-fourth the time, paying eighteenpence for a better dinner than he could have formerly got for half a crown, and not having his pockets picked by chambermaids, boots, and other such commercial vampires. He had travelled so long under the old system, that he missed its very impositions; and the rapid style of business, which required him now to be in perhaps five or six county towns in a single day, was not to be endured by one who had taken the dignified, and, in his case, "slow and sure," views of the old school of commercial travellers.

He had been a prudent man, had never married, never got into debt, never drunk hard, never taken medicine. He was so trustworthy that his salary was doubled through the mere fear of losing him. He was so hard-headed that he never made a bad bargain, but seldom came off with a brilliant one. If he now and then dined with his aristocratic employers, in Bombard Alley, Finch Street, he never was fool enough to aspire to the hands of their daughters; and never took it ill that he was not made chief partner. No, he was a plodding, steady soul, and if he had a single fault, it was a fault that had grown out of too great application to one routine of life.

Mr. James Griffin had been sufficiently known to me to prevent my accompanying Jack Woodward appearing like an act of intrusion, and so we started off, on a clear, rather frosty morning, towards Shepherd's Bush, the scene of the retired glories of the commercial traveller for Mr. James Griffin had retired. Out of once small, always moderate, means, he had saved enough, by careful investment, to buy an annuity snug enough for a veteran bachelor. Here he was, then, at the age of fifty-four, looking back upon a past life honourably spent, and, I doubt not, hopefully towards a future one.

Two little rooms, at a small cottage on the righthand side of the road, formed his abode. When we first entered, his landlady informed us he was from home, but that, as he always dined punctually at one o'clock, he would be in before long. We sat down, and surveyed the room of the commercial traveller.

Jack soon identified three old whips (the heroes of many a commercial gig drive, when coaches were inadequate to cross-country trips in irregular, off-theroad directions), and entertained me with divers anecdotes therewith associated. Old knapsacks, a pair of pistols (suggestive of what was once less a matter of romance than now), a "road-book," coeval in antiquity with "Hicks's Hall" itself,-such were a few more of the associations with which our old acquaintance still sought to keep up the memory of "the road."

There were other peculiarities which, had I not

known James Griffin for a single man, I should never have thought singular; there were stuffed birds, a large cat slumbering otiosè on the rug, and a set of Sir Charles Grandison. Even the small old claspbible had something of single life about it, so unlike the substantial large-print quarto, in the fly-leaf of which young fathers delight to chronicle the date of their first-born's introduction to this world's joys and sorrows, and which oftentimes becomes the last comfort when wife, children, all have left one sorrowing amidst the ruins of to him-a nobler and more lovely world than the one gaily rising around him.

A dry, sturdy knock at the door, and in a minute we have shaken hands, and our commercial traveller is dusting his boots with maidenly neatness. He is neat all over; everything he wears is made at some place where he has dealt for thirty years or more, and he can depend upon it. His watch is as big as the "Winchester eggs," which county antiquarians talk of in these days; but it seldom loses or gains three minutes; his seals and chain are as heavy and as dingy as his brown great coat, but they would be worth their weight, even in these days of advertised four-guinea gold watches. We dine late, but we must take a snack with him by way of lunch; besides, he has just received some of the ale "he has drunk for the last thirty years," whenever at home, and we must try it; so we make ourselves very comfortable, especially upon a brief suggestion of something "neat after our walk in the clear frosty air.

Dinner is on the table-boiled beef and its appurtenances, and I have no difficulties about my appetite. Dinner is finished, and my two friends compose themselves to their pipes; I do not smoke myself, but I do not quarrel with those who do.

And so James Griffin is very comfortable, with enough to defy want to the end of his days, and with nothing on earth to ruffle his even temper. That is just the only evil of which he complains.

It does seem so different; instead of being off, on an uncomfortable outside place, by the "Redoubtable,' or the "Highflyer," from the Belle Sauvage at seven o'clock A.M., leaving the already half-cold eggs halfeaten; and having paid two shillings for a barmecidal breakfast,-instead of a morning break down at Stratford-upon-Avon, inducing thoughts of anything but Midsummer Night's Dream,-instead of a heavy dinner of boiled pork, hastily bolted in a quarter of an hour, instead of a head and pocket-books laden with commissions, invoices, orders, bills for collection, receipts, provincial notes involving various anxieties, specimens, prospectuses, notices, advertisements, accommodations, refusals, acceptances, complaints, approvals, opinions, contradictions, calculations of fare, charges for expenses, and, in brief, all the things which can possibly be crammed into any human head and any given number of pocket-books,—instead of all this, regular hours, regular meals, regular walks, regular pleasures, and no excitement, not even the moderate stimulus of a smoky chimney or a dishonest landlady!

Old Jack Woodward suggests matrimony. "I am not rich enough; and besides, to say the truth, I'm afraid."

I express my surprise, but Jack Woodward is silent; I fear my former surmises about Mrs. W-'s temper

many with larger salaries. Although I know, perhaps, every important house in half the towns of England, Wales, and Scotland, I am at sea in London, and should only add one to the number of small failures that go to make your great successes. Besides, an annuity is no property to speculate with. No; I must make the best of it, and satisfy myself with being within a threepenny ride of the metropolis, and with being able to make any friend welcome who happens to drop in."

We spent a few more hours, and the commercial traveller accompanied us a mile or so towards town; but the more I thought of his half-unemployed existence, and of the listlessness which seemed to spoil his sense of enjoyment, even of the simple comforts by which he was surrounded, the more I felt convinced that, unless a man intends to marry, or is married already, and has thereby got enough cares to prevent his energies falling asleep, there is no mistake much greater than "retiring from business."

You may easily reach the Hague by railway from Rotterdam; or you may prefer the treckschuyt, which is by far the most interesting mode of convey. ance, on account of the succession of Dutch pictures which meet your eye along the canal-side all the way from Rotterdam.

What should again meet our ears on reaching the Hague, but the stunning noise of the drums, trombones, and cymbals,-the invariable accompaniments of a Dutch kermis? It was, indeed, the fair-time at the Hague. You have not seen a Dutch fair? The streets are full of stalls, at which wares of all kinds are sold: there are rows of stalls,-book-stalls, confectionary-stalls, and cutlery-stalls; stalls for the sale of tobacco and pipes, cigars, fruits, nuts, dried fish, cheese, hemp, linen thread, cotton prints, broad cloths, ribbons and mercery, women's bonnets, pastry, and all manner of consumable stuffs.

But the fun of the fair is at the booths, amidst which the red-cheeked Friesland women, with their gilt-plated ornaments on either temple, serve out the popular waffles to the gustatory crowd of purchasers; while all round about them resound the din and tumult of the fair. These Friesland booths are the most striking features of a Dutch fair. They are run up in a rather substantial manner, forming a kind of extemporized street, each wooden booth being open to the front, along which the crowd passes gazing at "Friezy," enthroned at her chauffer, with her waffle pincers in hand. Inside, you observe a rather gaylooking parlour, ornamented with mirrors, crystal lustres, and a good deal of brass scoured very bright. The furniture consists of table, easy chairs, and couches, with lacquered cabinets surmounted by porcelain pots and china curiosities; and at the back of the room there is a window, usually glazed with brilliant stained glass. This room is separated from the stage which fronts the street by a series of cabi nets in the form of an alcove, supported by columns, across which are suspended curtains of brilliant colours, sometimes of silk or velvet.

At the entrance of each little waffle palace, sits the presiding and perspiring lady upon a high stool, stirring about her mixture of eggs and cream with an

exceedingly dignified air, and bearing with remarkable indifference the intense heat of the chauffer by her side, no easy matter in a broiling hot summer's day. The attendant nymphs upon the Friesland goddess skip about the stage, keeping their eyes upon the passers-by, scanning among them the possible customers of the booth, and inviting them, with all the blandishments of Friesland, to step up and patronize the concern. "Come, captain," they cry; "come and try our waffles." Every male customer is with these Friesland women a "captain," and every female customer is "my lady." Step in and try the waffles; you will find them very good,-eggs, sugar, cream, and butter, beaten together, and than fried as already described; and after you have partaken of the waffles, the Friesland nymph will be ready to serve up to you delicious coffee or tea.

These Friesland women are very unlike the ordinary Dutch women. They are much more ruddy, robust, fair, and tall. They possess much more sprightliness and vivacity; and many of them are exceedingly good-looking and handsome. The Frieslanders are a very ancient, primitive people, of pure blood, cherishing many traditions and proverbs of great age. They are pure Saxons, and remind one in many respects of the best English faces and forms. Indeed, it is considered by some writers, that Friesland furnished a large proportion of the emigration to England during the period of the Saxon invasions prior to the Norman Conquest.

Passing

But we are forgetting the fun of the fair. out of this temporary street of Friesland booths, and led onwards by the din, the tumult, and the music, we reach the exhibitions, the extempore circuses, and the greatest wonders of the age, which are offered to be exhibited to the enlightened public for the small charge ofa stiver or a dubbeltjie, as the case may be. Here you find a large collection of the most amusing vagrants that Holland can produce. Mountebanks in every variety of costume; some rejoicing in skincoloured tights, and others clad in fools' garb; Mercuries with very red noses, excessively seedy in appearance; Cupids and nymphs arrayed in neutral tinted calico, decorated with soiled pink ribbons ; young ladies and others of a "certain age" dressed in petticoats of the shortest possible dimensions, dancing enthusiastically to the music of a big-drum and a clarionet; here a man accoutred like Mars, is eating a tow wig, while another on a rival stage, in the guise of Hercules, is pretending to swallow red-hot coals out of a chauffer!

Never was such a Babel of noises before-bigdrummers trying to drown each other, cymbals and gongs outvying the big drums, and clarionets and trombones endeavouring ineffectually to make themselves heard above all. In one booth is exhibited the "fattest girl in Europe," and certainly she is a monster. In another there is a woman with two noses and three eyes, one of the eyes occupying the middle of the forehead: this middle eye is generally half-shut, but the two noses are well marked, different in outline, and when the woman turns round you obtain two different profiles of her face. In another booth are a troop of acrobats, who form themselves into pyramids of every variety; and there are circuses containing spavined, wind-galled horses, young lady riders in red bodices and curtailed skirts, with numerous villanous-looking Herculeses, Amphitryons, Centaurs, and Scythians. All those numerous forms of blandishment were intended to seduce the youths and elders who flocked about the booths, out of their stivers and guilders; and, judging by the crowds of people who emptied themselves out of the exhibitions at the end of each performance, the attractions seemed abundantly to answer their purpose.

But this sort of wild noise and nonsense soon becomes tedious, and we gladly took shelter from it in the Royal Museum of Holland. This is a highly interesting place; it is a British Museum on a small scale, containing many old Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, and other curiosities. But its chief interest is in the admirable selection of Dutch paintings by the great masters, which occupies the upper story of the building. The collection is the best that exists of the kind, containing the masterpieces of Cuyp, Paul Potter, Lunyden, Rembrandt, Dow, Wouvermans, and others. Paul Potter's famous Bull is considered the gem of the collection, and it is certainly extraordinary for its startling truthfulness to nature. This Bull is no bad exemplification of the Dutch style of art, which consists in faithful adherence to facts. It is very un-imaginative; its angels are no better than Dutch milkmaids; its Madonnas seem to be faithful portraits of washerwomen; the Dutch painter being usually as ready to bestow his pains in imitating a red-herring as in painting a Crucifixion. One of Rembrandt's best pictures in this collection is that called "A DissectionPiece," in which the revolting work of the dissectingroom is faithfully depicted. But there are better pictures than these in the collection, though probably none are more truthful. There is one remarkable portrait by Rembrandt of a "young man with hat and feathers," which for brilliancy of colouring could not be surpassed. His Simeon in the Temple strongly reminds one of the picture in our National Gallery, also by Rembrandt, of The Woman taken in Adultery. They might have been intended for a pair. There is the same depth of chiaro scuro, the high lights, and the rich brown shadow. Coming to his other famous picture in this collection,-his Study of Susanna,——— you at once see how egregiously Rembrandt failed in imagination, and, indeed, in his appreciation of ordinary beauty. "Susanna," though a remarkable sketch, is positively ugly, and it is impossible she could have "tempted" anybody,-least of all "the elders." Rubens, Vandyke, Ostade, Steen, Dow, and all the other famous Dutch and old Belgium artists are well represented in this collection, which, as a whole, is one of the most complete little galleries, with the fewest bad paintings in it, that is to be found in Europe. The king of Holland, until recently, possessed a very fine selection of pictures, which were treasured up in the palace of the prince of Orange, situated in the Noordeinde Strat; but, being his majesty's private property, when he became straitened for means, he offered and sold them to the highest bidder a few years ago; and thus the entire gallery, including the magnificent collection of original drawings by Michael Angelo, Raphael, Corregio, Leonardo da Vinci, and others (originally made by our Sir Thomas Lawrence), were irretrievably scattered abroad over Europe, to enrich the picture-galleries of many sovereigns, nobles, and national collections.

Besides the Picture Gallery at the Museum, which is freely open to the public, there is comparatively little to be seen at the Hague. At ordinary times, it is a sleepy, respectable, rather stuck-up place, with a high-dried courtly air about it. Its streets are mostly clean, and some of them are stately. There is one place called a Hill, but the rise is so gentle that you can scarcely detect it; flat land is, however, so invariable in East Holland, that any deviation, howsoever slight, from the dead level, is regarded as a notoriety. Near this Hill, called Vyverberg, is the old palace of the counts of Holland, identified with some of the savage deeds of the ancient Dutch, who, as regards the humanities, were no better than their neighbours of England and France at the same