CHAPTER L. P. I.

VOYAGE TO ROTTERDAM AND LEYDEN. THE AUTHOR CANNOT TARRY TO DESCRIBE THAT CITY. WHAT HAPPENED THERE TO DANIEL DOVE.

He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage. As who doth not that shall attempt the like?—For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him unhappy that never travelled, a kind of prisoner, and pity his case that from his cradle to his old age he beholds the same still; still, still, the same, the same!

BURTON.             

“Why did Dan remain in ships?” says Deborah the Prophetess in that noble song, which if it had been composed in Greek instead of Hebrew would have made Pindar hide his diminished head, or taught him a loftier strain than even he has reached in his eagle flights—“Why did Dan remain in ships?” said the Prophetess. Our Daniel during his rough passage from the Humber to the Maese, thought that nothing should make him do so. Yet when all danger real or imaginary was over, upon that deep

Where Proteus' herds and Neptune's orcs do keep,
Where all is ploughed, yet still the pasture's green,
The ways are found, and yet no paths are seen:—1

when all the discomforts and positive sufferings of the voyage were at an end; and when the ship,—

Quitting her fairly of the injurious sea,2

had entered the smooth waters of that stately river, and was gliding

Into the bosom of her quiet quay;2

he felt that the delight of setting foot on shore after a sea voyage, and that too the shore of a foreign country, for the first time, is one of the few pleasures which exceed any expectation that can be formed of them.

1 B. JONSON, v. 8, p. 37.

2 QUARLES.

He used to speak of his landing, on a fine autumnal noon, in the well-wooded and well-watered city of Rotterdam, and of his journey along what he called the high-turnpike canal from thence to Leyden, as some of the pleasantest recollections of his life. Nothing he said was wanting to his enjoyment, but that there should have been some one to have partaken it with him in an equal degree. But the feeling that he was alone in a foreign land sate lightly on him, and did not continue long,—young as he was, with life and hope before him, healthful of body and of mind, cheerful as the natural consequence of that health corporeal and mental, and having always much to notice and enough to do—the one being an indispensable condition of happiness, the other a source of pleasure as long as it lasts; and where there is a quick eye and an enquiring mind, the longest residence abroad is hardly long enough to exhaust it.

No day in Daniel's life had ever passed in such constant and pleasurable excitement as that on which he made his passage from Rotterdam to Leyden, and took possession of the lodgings which Peter Hopkins's correspondent had engaged for him. His reception was such as instantly to make him feel that he was placed with worthy people. The little apprehensions, rather than anxieties, which the novelty of his situation occasioned, the sight of strange faces with which he was to be domesticated, and the sound of a strange language, to which, harsh and uninviting as it seemed, his ear and speech must learn to accustom themselves, did not disquiet his first night's rest. And having fallen asleep notwithstanding the new position to which a Dutch bolster constrained him, he was not disturbed by the storks,

                                                        all night
Beating the air with their obstreperous beaks,

(for with Ben Jonson's leave, this may much more appropriately be said of them than of the ravens) nor by the watchmen's rappers, or clap-sticks, which seem to have been invented in emulous imitation of the stork's instrumental performance.

But you and I, Reader, can afford to make no tarriance in Leyden. I cannot remain with you here till you could see the Rector Magnificus in his magnificence. I cannot accompany you to the monument of that rash Baron who set the crown of Bohemia in evil hour upon the Elector Palatine's unlucky head. I cannot take you to the graves of Boerhaave and of Scaliger. I cannot go with you into that library of which Heinsius said, when he was Librarian there, “I no sooner set foot in it and fasten the door, but I shut out ambition, love, and all those vices of which idleness is the mother and ignorance the nurse; and in the very lap of Eternity among so many illustrious souls I take my seat, with so lofty a spirit that I then pity the great who know nothing of such happiness.”—Plerunque in quâ simulac pedem posui, foribus pessulum abdo, ambitionem autem, amorem, libidinem, &c. excludo, quorum parens est ignavia, imperitia nutrix; et in ipso æternitatis gremio, inter tot illustres animas sedem mihi sumo, cum ingenti quidem animo, ut subinde magnatum me misereat qui felicitatem hanc ignorant! I cannot walk with you round the ramparts, from which wide circling and well shaded promenade you might look down upon a large part of the more than two thousand gardens which a century ago surrounded this most horticultural city of a horticultural province, the garden, as it was called of Holland, that is of the land of Gardeners. I cannot even go up the Burgt with you, though it be pretended that the Hengist of Anglo-Saxon history erected it; nor can I stop at the entrance of that odd place, for you to admire, (as you could not but admire,) the Lion of the United Provinces, who stands there erect and rampant in menacing attitude, grinning horribly a ghastly smile, his eyes truculent, his tail in full elevation, and in action correspondent to his motto Pugno pro Patria, wielding a drawn sword in his dreadful right paw.

Dear reader, we cannot afford time for going to Oegstgeest, though the first Church in Holland is said to have been founded there by St. Willebord, and its burial ground is the Campo Santo of the Dutch Roman Catholics, as Bunhill Fields of the English Dissenters. Nor can I accompany thee to Noortwyck and describe to thee its fish-ponds, its parterres, the arabesque carpet work of its box, and the espalier walls or hedges, with the busts which were set in the archways, such as they existed when our Doctor, in his antedoctorial age, was a student at Leyden, having been kept up till that time in their old fashion by the representatives of Janus Dousa. We cannot, dear Reader, tarry to visit the gardens in that same pleasant village from which the neighbouring cities are supplied with medicinal plants; where beds of ranunculuses afford, when in blossom, a spectacle which no exhibition of art could rival in splendour and in beauty; and from whence rose leaves are exported to Turkey, there to have their essential oil extracted for Mahometan luxury.

We must not go to see the sluices of the Rhine, which Daniel never saw, because in his time the Rhine had no outlet through these Downs. We cannot walk upon the shore at Katwyck, where it was formerly a piece of Dutch courtship for the wooer to take his mistress in his arms, carry her into the sea till he was more than knee deep, set her down upon her feet, and then bearing her out again, roll her over and over upon the sand hills by way of drying her. We have no time for visiting that scene of the Batavian Arcadia. No, reader, I cannot tarry to shew thee the curiosities of Leyden, nor to talk over its memorabilia, nor to visit the pleasant parts of the surrounding country; though Gerard Goris says, that comme la Ville de Leide, entourée par les plaisants villages de Soeterwoude, Stompvic, Wilsveen, Tedingerbroek, Ougstgeest, Leiderdorp et Vennep, est la Cêntre et la Delice de toute Hollande, ainsi la Campagne à l'entour de cette celèbre Ville est comme un autre Eden ou Jardin de plaisance, qui avec ses beaux attraits tellement transporte l'attention du spectateur qu'il se trouve contraint, comme par un ravissment d'esprit, de confesser qu'il n'a jamais veu pais au monde, ou l'art et la nature si bien ont pris leurs mesures pour aporter et entremêler tout ce qui peut servir à l'aise, a la recreation, et au profit.

No, Reader, we must not linger here,

Hier, waar in Hollands heerlijkste oorden
    De lieve Lente zoeter lacht,
Het schroeiend Zud, het grijnzend Noorden
    Zijn' gloed en strenge kou verzacht;
Waar nijverheid en blij genoegen,
Waar stilte en vlijt zich 3 samenvoegen.

3 LEYDEN'S RAMP.

We must return to Doncaster. It would not be convenient for me to enter minutely, even if my materials were sufficient for that purpose, into the course of our student's life, from the time when he was entered among the Greenies of this famous University; nor to describe the ceremonies which were used at his ungreening, by his associates; nor the academical ones with which at the termination of his regular terms his degree in medicine was conferred. I can only tell thee that during his residence at Leyden he learnt with exemplary diligence whatever he was expected to learn there, and by the industrious use of good opportunities a great deal more.

But,—he fell in love with a Burgemeester's Daughter.