The Diary of John Evelyn Volume I Part 3

The next day we arrived at Dort, the first town of Holland, furnished with all German commodities, and especially Rhenish wines and timber. It hath almost at the extremity a very s.p.a.cious and venerable church; a stately senate house, wherein was holden that famous synod against the Arminians in 1618; and in that hall hangeth a picture of "The Pa.s.sion,"

an exceeding rare and much-esteemed piece.

From Dort, being desirous to hasten toward the army, I took wagon this afternoon to Rotterdam, whither we were hurried in less than an hour, though it be ten miles distant; so furiously do those Foremen drive. I went first to visit the great church, the Doole, the Bourse, and the public statue of the learned Erasmus, of bra.s.s. They showed us his house, or rather the mean cottage, wherein he was born, over which there are extant these lines, in capital letters:

aeDIBUS HIS ORTUS, MUNDUM DECORAVIT ERASMUS ARTIBUS INGENIO, RELIGIONE, FIDE.

The 26th of July I pa.s.sed by a straight and commodious river through Delft to the Hague; in which journey I observed divers leprous poor creatures dwelling in solitary huts on the brink of the water, and permitted to ask the charity of pa.s.sengers, which is conveyed to them in a floating box that they cast out.

Arrived at the Hague, I went first to the Queen of Bohemia's court, where I had the honor to kiss her Majesty's hand, and several of the Princesses', her daughters. Prince Maurice was also there, newly come out of Germany; and my Lord Finch, not long before fled out of England from the fury of the Parliament. It was a fasting day with the Queen for the unfortunate death of her husband, and the presence chamber had been hung with black velvet ever since his decease.

[Sidenote: NIMEGUEN]

The 28th of July I went to Leyden; and the 29th to Utrecht, being thirty English miles distant (as they reckon by hours). It was now Kermas, or a fair, in this town, the streets swarming with boors and rudeness, so that early the next morning, having visited the ancient Bishop's court, and the two famous churches, I satisfied my curiosity till my return, and better leisure. We then came to Rynen, where the Queen of Bohemia hath a neat and well built palace, or country house, after the Italian manner, as I remember; and so, crossing the Rhine, upon which this villa is situated, lodged that night in a countryman's house. The 31st to Nimeguen; and on the 2d of August we arrived at the Leagure, where was then the whole army encamped about Genep, a very strong castle situated on the river Waal; but, being taken four or five days before, we had only a sight of the demolitions. The next Sunday was the thanksgiving sermons performed in Colonel Goring's regiment (eldest son of the since Earl of Norwich) by Mr. Goffe, his chaplain (now turned Roman, and father-confessor to the Queen-mother). The evening was spent in firing cannon and other expressions of military triumphs.

Now, according to the compliment, I was received a volunteer in the company of Captain Apsley, of whose Captain-lieutenant, Honywood (Apsley being absent), I received many civilities.

The 3d of August, at night, we rode about the lines of circ.u.mvallation, the general being then in the field. The next day I was accommodated with a very s.p.a.cious and commodious tent for my lodging; as before I was with a horse, which I had at command, and a hut which during the excessive heats was a great convenience; for the sun piercing the canvas of the tent, it was during the day unsufferable, and at night not seldom infested with mists and fogs, which ascended from the river.

6th August, 1641. As the turn came about, we were ordered to watch on a horn-work near our quarters, and trail a pike, being the next morning relieved by a company of French. This was our continual duty till the castle was refortified, and all danger of quitting that station secured; whence I went to see a Convent of Franciscan Friars, not far from our quarters, where we found both the chapel and refectory full, crowded with the goods of such poor people as at the approach of the army had fled with them thither for sanctuary. On the day following, I went to view all the trenches, approaches, and mines, etc. of the besiegers; and, in particular, I took special notice of the wheel-bridge, which engine his Excellency had made to run over the moat when they stormed the castle; as it is since described (with all the other particulars of this siege) by the author of that incomparable work, "Hollandia Ill.u.s.trata." The walls and ramparts of earth, which a mine had broken and crumbled, were of prodigious thickness.

Upon the 8th of August, I dined in the horse-quarters with Sir Robert Stone and his lady, Sir William Stradling, and divers Cavaliers; where there was very good cheer, but hot service for a young drinker, as then I was; so that, being pretty well satisfied with the confusion of armies and sieges (if such that of the United Provinces may be called, where their quarters and encampments are so admirably regular, and orders so exactly observed, as few cities, the best governed in time of peace, exceed it for all conveniences), I took my leave of the Leagure and Camerades; and, on the 12th of August, I embarked on the "Waal," in company with three grave divines, who entertained us a great part of our pa.s.sage with a long dispute concerning the lawfulness of church-music. We now sailed by Teil, where we landed some of our freight; and about five o'clock we touched at a pretty town named Bommell, that had divers English in garrison. It stands upon Contribution-land, which subjects the environs to the Spanish incursions. We sailed also by an exceeding strong fort called Lovestein, famous for the escape of the learned Hugo Grotius, who, being in durance as a capital offender, as was the unhappy Barneveldt, by the stratagem of his lady, was conveyed in a trunk supposed to be filled with books only. We lay at Gorc.u.m, a very strong and considerable frontier.

13th August, 1641. We arrived late at Rotterdam, where was their annual mart or fair, so furnished with pictures (especially landscapes and drolleries, as they call those clownish representations), that I was amazed. Some of these I bought and sent into England. The reason of this store of pictures, and their cheapness, proceeds from their want of land to employ their stock, so that it is an ordinary thing to find a common farmer lay out two or three thousand pounds in this commodity. Their houses are full of them, and they vend them at their fairs to very great gains. Here I first saw an elephant, who was extremely well disciplined and obedient. It was a beast of a monstrous size, yet as flexible and nimble in the joints, contrary to the vulgar tradition, as could be imagined from so prodigious a bulk and strange fabric; but I most of all admired the dexterity and strength of its proboscis, on which it was able to support two or three men, and by which it took and reached whatever was offered to it; its teeth were but short, being a female, and not old.

I was also shown a pelican, or _onocratulas_ of Pliny, with its large gullets, in which he kept his reserve of fish; the plumage was white, legs red, flat, and film-footed, likewise a c.o.c.k with four legs, two rumps and vents: also a hen which had two large spurs growing out of her sides, penetrating the feathers of her wings.

17th August, 1641. I pa.s.sed again through Delft, and visited the church in which was the monument of Prince William of Na.s.sau,--the first of the Williams, and savior (as they call him) of their liberty, which cost him his life by a vile a.s.sa.s.sination. It is a piece of rare art, consisting of several figures, as big as the life, in copper. There is in the same place a magnificent tomb of his son and successor, Maurice. The senate-house hath a very stately portico, supported with choice columns of black marble, as I remember, of one entire stone. Within, there hangs a weighty vessel of wood, not unlike a b.u.t.ter-churn, which the adventurous woman that hath two husbands at one time is to wear on her shoulders, her head peeping out at the top only, and so led about the town, as a penance for her incontinence. From hence, we went the next day to Ryswick, a stately country-house of the Prince of Orange, for nothing more remarkable than the delicious walks planted with lime trees, and the modern paintings within.

[Sidenote: HAGUE]

[Sidenote: AMSTERDAM]

19th August, 1641. We returned to the Hague, and went to visit the Hoff, or Prince's Court, with the adjoining gardens full of ornament, close walks, statues, marbles, grots, fountains, and artificial music. There is to this palace a stately hall, not much inferior to ours of Westminster, hung round with colors and other trophies taken from the Spaniards;[12]

and the sides below are furnished with shops. Next day (the 20th) I returned to Delft, thence to Rotterdam, the Hague, and Leyden, where immediately I mounted a wagon, which that night, late as it was, brought us to Haerlem. About seven in the morning after I came to Amsterdam, where being provided with a lodging, the first thing I went to see was a Synagogue of the Jews (being Sat.u.r.day), whose ceremonies, ornaments, lamps, law, and schools, afforded matter for my contemplation. The women were secluded from the men, being seated in galleries above, shut with lattices, having their heads m.u.f.fled with linen, after a fantastical and somewhat extraordinary fas.h.i.+on; the men, wearing a large calico mantle, yellow colored, over their hats, all the while waving their bodies, while at their devotions. From thence, I went to a place without the town, called Overkirk, where they have a s.p.a.cious field a.s.signed them to bury their dead, full of sepulchers with Hebraic inscriptions, some of them stately and costly. Looking through one of these monuments, where the stones were disjointed, I perceived divers books and papers lie about a corpse; for it seems, when any learned Rabbi dies, they bury some of his books with him. With the help of a stick, I raked out several, written in Hebrew characters, but much impaired. As we returned, we stepped in to see the Spin-house, a kind of bridewell, where incorrigible and lewd women are kept in discipline and labor, but all neat. We were shown an hospital for poor travelers and pilgrims, built by Queen Elizabeth of England; and another maintained by the city.

[Footnote 12: Westminster hall used to be so in Term time, and during the sitting of Parliament, as late as the beginning of the reign of George III.]

The State or Senate-house of this town, if the design be perfected, will be one of the most costly and magnificent pieces of architecture in Europe, especially for the materials and the carvings. In the Doole is painted, on a very large table, the bust of Marie de Medicis, supported by four royal diadems, the work of one Vanderdall, who hath set his name thereon, 1st September, 1638.

On Sunday, I heard an English sermon at the Presbyterian congregation, where they had chalked upon a slate the psalms that were to be sung, so that all the congregation might see them without the bidding of a clerk.

I was told, that after such an age no minister was permitted to preach, but had his maintenance continued during life.

I purposely changed my lodgings, being desirous to converse with the sectaries that swarmed in this city, out of whose sp.a.w.n came those almost innumerable broods in England afterward. It was at a Brownist's house, where we had an extraordinary good table. There was in pension with us my Lord Keeper, Finch, and one Sir J. Fotherbee. Here I also found an English Carmelite, who was going through Germany with an Irish gentleman.

I now went to see the Weese-house, a foundation like our Charter-house, for the education of decayed persons, orphans, and poor children, where they are taught several occupations. The girls are so well brought up to housewifery, that men of good worth, who seek that chiefly in a woman, frequently take their wives from this hospital. Thence to the Rasp-house, where the l.u.s.ty knaves are compelled to work; and the rasping of brasil and logwood for the dyers is very hard labor. To the Dool-house, for madmen and fools. But none did I so much admire, as an Hospital for their lame and decrepit soldiers and seamen, where the accommodations are very great, the building answerable; and, indeed, for the like public charities the provisions are admirable in this country, where, as no idle vagabonds are suffered (as in England they are), there is hardly a child of four or five years old, but they find some employment for it.

It was on a Sunday morning that I went to the Bourse, or Exchange, after their sermons were ended, to see the Dog-market, which lasts till two in the afternoon, in this place of convention of merchants from all parts of the world. The building is not comparable to that of London, built by that worthy citizen, Sir Thomas Gresham, yet in one respect exceeding it, that vessels of considerable burden ride at the very quay contiguous to it; and indeed it is by extraordinary industry that as well this city, as generally all the towns of Holland, are so accommodated with graffs, cuts, sluices, moles, and rivers, made by hand, that nothing is more frequent than to see a whole navy, belonging to this mercantile people, riding at anchor before their very doors: and yet their streets even, straight, and well paved, the houses so uniform and planted with lime trees, as nothing can be more beautiful.

The next day we were entertained at a kind of tavern, called the Briloft, appertaining to a rich Anabaptist, where, in the upper rooms of the house, were divers pretty waterworks, rising 108 feet from the ground. Here were many quaint devices, fountains, artificial music, noises of beasts, and chirping of birds; but what pleased me most was a large pendant candlestick, branching into several sockets, furnished all with ordinary candles to appearance, out of the wicks spouting out streams of water, instead of flames. This seemed then and was a rarity, before the philosophy of compressed air made it intelligible. There was likewise a cylinder that entertained the company with a variety of chimes, the hammers striking upon the brims of porcelain dishes, suited to the tones and notes, without cracking any of them. Many other waterworks were shown.

The Kaiser's or Emperor's Graft, which is an ample and long street, appearing like a city in a forest; the lime trees planted just before each house, and at the margin of that goodly aqueduct so curiously wharfed with Klincard brick, which likewise paves the streets, than which nothing can be more useful and neat. This part of Amsterdam is built and gained upon the main sea, supported by piles at an immense charge, and fitted for the most busy concourse of traffickers and people of commerce beyond any place, or mart, in the world. Nor must I forget the port of entrance into an issue of this town, composed of very magnificent pieces of architecture, some of the ancient and best manner, as are divers churches.

The turrets, or steeples, are adorned after a particular manner and invention; the chimes of bells are so rarely managed, that being curious to know whether the motion was from any engine, I went up to that of St.

Nicholas, where I found one who played all sorts of compositions from the tablature before him, as if he had fingered an organ; for so were the hammers fastened with wires to several keys put into a frame twenty feet below the bells, upon which (by the help of a wooden instrument, not much unlike a weaver's shuttle, that guarded his hand) he struck on the keys and played to admiration. All this while, through the clattering of the wires, din of the too nearly sounding bells, and noise that his wooden gloves made, the confusion was so great, that it was impossible for the musician, or any that stood near him, to hear anything at all; yet, to those at a distance, and especially in the streets, the harmony and the time were the most exact and agreeable.

The south church is richly paved with black and white marble,--the west is a new fabric; and generally all the churches in Holland are furnished with organs, lamps, and monuments, carefully preserved from the fury and impiety of popular reformers, whose zeal has foolishly transported them in other places rather to act like madmen than religious.

[Sidenote: HAERLEM]

Upon St. Bartholomew's day, I went among the booksellers, and visited the famous Hondius and Bleaw's shop, to buy some maps, atlases, and other works of that kind. At another shop, I furnished myself with some sh.e.l.ls and Indian curiosities; and so, toward the end of August, I returned again to Haerlem by the river, ten miles in length, straight as a line, and of competent breadth for s.h.i.+ps to sail by one another. They showed us a cottage where, they told us, dwelt a woman who had been married to her twenty-fifth husband, and being now a widow, was prohibited to marry in future; yet it could not be proved that she had ever made away with any of her husbands, though the suspicion had brought her divers times to trouble.

Haerlem is a very delicate town and hath one of the fairest churches of the Gothic design I had ever seen. There hang in the steeple, which is very high, two silver bells, said to have been brought from Damietta, in Egypt, by an earl of Holland, in memory of whose success they are rung out every evening. In the nave hang the goodliest branches of bra.s.s for tapers that I have seen, esteemed of great value for the curiosity of the workmans.h.i.+p; also a fair pair of organs, which I could not find they made use of in divine service, or so much as to a.s.sist them in singing psalms, but only for show, and to recreate the people before and after their devotions, while the burgomasters were walking and conferring about their affairs. Near the west window hang two models of s.h.i.+ps, completely equipped, in memory of that invention of saws under their keels, with which they cut through the chain of booms, which barred the port of Damietta. Having visited this church, the fish-market, and made some inquiry about the printing-house, the invention whereof is said to have been in this town, I returned to Leyden.

[Sidenote: LEYDEN]

At Leyden, I was carried up to the castle, or Pyrgus, built on a very steep artificial mount, cast up (as reported) by Hengist the Saxon, on his return out of England, as a place to retire to, in case of any sudden inundations.

The churches are many and fair; in one of them lies buried the learned and ill.u.s.trious Joseph Scaliger, without any extraordinary inscription, who, having left the world a monument of his worth more lasting than marble, needed nothing more than his own name; which I think is all engraven on his sepulcher. He left his library to this University.

28th August, 1641. I went to see the college and schools, which are nothing extraordinary, and was complimented with a _matricula_ by the _magnificus_ Professor, who first in Latin demanded of me where my lodging in the town was, my name, age, birth, and to what Faculty I addicted myself; then, recording my answers in a book, he administered an oath to me that I should observe the statutes and orders of the University while I stayed, and then delivered me a ticket, by virtue whereof I was made excise-free; for all which worthy privileges, and the pains of writing, he accepted of a rix-dollar.

Here was now the famous Dan. Heinsius, whom I so longed to see, as well as the no less famous printer, Elzevir's printing-house and shop, renowned for the politeness of the character and editions of what he has published through Europe. Hence to the physic-garden, well stored with exotic plants, if the catalogue presented to me by the gardener be a faithful register.

But, among all the rarities of this place, I was much pleased with a sight of their anatomy-school, theater, and repository adjoining, which is well furnished with natural curiosities; skeletons, from the whale and elephant to the fly and spider; which last is a very delicate piece of art, to see how the bones (if I may so call them of so tender an insect) could be separated from the mucilaginous parts of that minute animal.

Among a great variety of other things, I was shown the knife newly taken out of a drunken Dutchman's guts, by an incision in his side, after it had slipped from his fingers into his stomach. The pictures of the chirurgeon and his patient, both living, were there.

There is without the town a fair Mall, curiously planted.

Returning to my lodging, I was showed the statue, cut in stone, of the happy monk, whom they report to have been the first inventor of typography, set over the door; but this is much controverted by others, who strive for the glory of it, besides John Gutenberg.

I was brought acquainted with a Burgundian Jew, who had married an apostate Kentish woman. I asked him divers questions: he told me, among other things, that the World should never end; that our souls transmigrated, and that even those of the most holy persons did penance in the bodies of brutes after death,--and so he interpreted the banishment and savage life of Nebuchadnezzar: that all the Jews should rise again, and be led to Jerusalem; that the Romans only were the occasion of our Savior's death, whom he affirmed (as the Turks do) to be a great prophet, but not the Messiah. He showed me several books of their devotion, which he had translated into English, for the instruction of his wife; he told me that when the Messiah came, all the s.h.i.+ps, barks, and vessels of Holland should, by the power of certain strange whirlwinds, be loosed from their anchors, and transported in a moment to all the desolate ports and havens throughout the world, wherever the dispersion was, to convey their brethren and tribes to the Holy City; with other such like stuff. He was a merry drunken fellow, but would by no means handle any money (for something I purchased of him), it being Sat.u.r.day; but desired me to leave it in the window, meaning to receive it on Sunday morning.

1st September, 1641. I went to Delft and Rotterdam, and two days after back to the Hague, to bespeak a suit of horseman's armor, which I caused to be made to fit me. I now rode out of town to see the monument of the woman, pretended to have been a countess of Holland, reported to have had as many children at one birth, as there are days in the year. The basins were hung up in which they were baptized, together with a large description of the matter-of-fact in a frame of carved work, in the church of Lysdun, a desolate place. As I returned, I diverted to see one of the Prince's Palaces, called the Hoff Van Hounsler's Dyck, a very fair cloistered and quadrangular building. The gallery is prettily painted with several huntings, and at one end a gordian knot, with rustical instruments so artificially represented, as to deceive an accurate eye to distinguish it from actual relievo. The ceiling of the staircase is painted with the "Rape of Ganymede," and other pendant figures, the work of F. Covenberg, of whose hand I bought an excellent drollery, which I afterward parted with to my brother George of Wotton, where it now hangs.

To this palace join a fair garden and park, curiously planted with limes.

8th September, 1641. Returned to Rotterdam, through Delftshaven and Sedan, where were at that time Colonel Goring's winter quarters. This town has heretofore been very much talked of for witches.

10th September, 1641. I took a wagon for Dort, to be present at the reception of the Queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, Dowager of France, widow of Henry the Great, and mother to the French King, Louis XIII., and the Queen of England, whence she newly arrived, tossed to and fro by the various fortune of her life. From this city, she designed for Cologne, conducted by the Earl of Arundel and the Herr Van Bredrod. At this interview, I saw the Princess of Orange, and the lady her daughter, afterward married to the House of Brandenburgh. There was little remarkable in this reception befitting the greatness of her person; but an universal discontent, which accompanied that unlucky woman wherever she went.

12th September, 1641. I went toward Bois-le-Duc, where we arrived on the 16th, at the time when the new citadel was advancing, with innumerable hands, and incomparable inventions for draining off the waters out of the fens and mora.s.ses about it, being by buckets, mills, cochleas, pumps, and the like; in which the Hollanders are the most expert in Europe. Here were now sixteen companies and nine troops of horse. They were also cutting a new river, to pa.s.s from the town to a castle not far from it.

Here we split our skiff, falling foul upon another through negligence of the master, who was fain to run aground, to our no little hazard. At our arrival, a soldier conveyed us to the Governor, where our names were taken, and our persons examined very strictly.

17th September, 1641. I was permitted to walk the round and view the works, and to visit a convent of religious women of the order of St.

Clara (who by the capitulation were allowed to enjoy their monastery and maintenance undisturbed, at the surrender of the town twelve years since), where we had a collation and very civil entertainment. They had a neat chapel, in which the heart of the Duke of Cleves, their founder, lies inhumed under a plate of bra.s.s. Within the cloister is a garden, and in the middle of it an overgrown lime tree, out of whose stem, near the root, issue five upright and exceeding tall suckers, or bolls, the like whereof for evenness and height I had not observed.

The chief church of this city is curiously carved within and without, furnished with a pair of organs, and a most magnificent font of copper.

18th September, 1641. I went to see that most impregnable town and fort of Hysdune, where I was exceedingly obliged to one Colonel Crombe, the lieutenant-governor, who would needs make me accept the honor of being captain of the watch, and to give the word this night. The fortification is very irregular, but esteemed one of the most considerable for strength and situation in the Netherlands. We departed toward Gorc.u.m. Here Sir Kenelm Digby, traveling toward Cologne, met us.

The next morning, the 19th, we arrived at Dort, pa.s.sing by the Decoys, where they catch innumerable quant.i.ties of fowl.