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236 The hall of painting afforded us no favourable ideas of the present state of that art in Holland. It contained only two pictures, one of which was the front elevation of the building, the other a group of students (portraits) attending to the lecture of a professor. There were, however, a tolerable assemblage of casts from the antique, for the instruction of young painters, and I was told that several pupils of respectable promise attended almost daily to profit by them.

From the top of the building we had a good prospect of the city of Amsterdam. The day was remarkably fine, which, is rather unusual at Amsterdam in the month of November, and as the town is built on a perfect level, we enjoyed from our elevation a complete view of it. To all appearance, the capital of Holland does not cover one third of the space of ground which is occupied by the buildings of London, Westminster, and Southwark. Many of the streets,