Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/266

252 are rarely discourteous, it was feared by some that they were imperfectly informed as to where Leyden was and what Leyden had done. And yet Leyden is certainly the most celebrated and the most meritorious university in Europe. There is no other centre of education which has so often been the home of the first man of his day. From the days of Scaliger and Boerhaave down to the present day, when Leyden can boast of the best Greek scholar in Europe, this has frequently been the case. If English universities could forget this, or if they were ignorant of it, so much the worse for their own reputation.

But it has since transpired that Oxford was guilty of no intentional discourtesy. The Academy deserves the credit of eliciting the fact, that the vice-chancellor was ill when the invitation arrived, and that it was in consequence mislaid. It is understood that he has now formally expressed the regrets of Oxford to the senate of Leyden. The incident suggests but one remark. If the courtesy of Oxford depends so completely on the health of the vice-chancellor, it is hoped that in future a sound and vigorous constitution will be made a necessary qualification for that august office.

The visitors were invited to arrive before Sunday, 7th February, when the festivities were opened by a sermon in the great church. This sermon was not in a dead language, as was stated in the Athenæum, but in Dutch. The service resembled that of the Scotch Church, in its gauntness and want of elegant ritual. The preacher obtained for himself pauses in the discourse by giving out hymns, which were sung by two thousand voices in long-drawn and solemn unison, but so slow withal that the melody was well nigh lost. What made the effect most curious to a foreigner was that most men had their hats on during the sermon, and that several deacons were all the while going round with long landing-nets of black velvet, and fishing for alms among the people. These inexorable deacons, not satisfied with one requisition, returned twice to the charge; and the reckless stranger, who, in imitation of the widow in the gospel, had cast in his two mites together, began to discover that in Holland alms are paid in instalments, and that had she been a Dutchwoman she would have made two bites of the cherry, and applied each mite separately to satisfy the demands of a new collector. The sermon was doubtless very eloquent, to judge from the sonorous strings of great names with which it abounded, but the details, though the general argument was in the main obvious, were high Dutch to almost all the foreigners. Owing to this obstacle there was, it must be confessed, some relief felt when the great congregation began to surge and scatter, pouring out of the doors into the clear, frosty sunlight. The picturesque old town was all hung with streaming banners, and great barges were coming up the canals laden to the water's edge with rich exotic plants and hothouse flowers, with which the lower windows of every street were to be richly set out. Foreign flags marked the houses where the professors were entertaining the representatives of the respective nations; and already groups of strangers, learned-looking men in spectacles and careless dress, might be seen wandering to and fro, and making their first survey of the town.

But after a five o'clock dinner (the usual hour in Holland), all the learned world was assembled at the first state reception given by the burgomaster. Here indeed was a scene such as will not again be witnessed for many a day. Orientalists, hellenists, latinists, historians, philosophers, physiologists, jurists, theologians — all men of mark in the world — were all introducing and being introduced, all discussing and responding, all jabbering in a number of languages, so that, as was profanely remarked, but for the absence of one most important personage, it seemed a veritable Day of Pentecost. Unfortunately the fashion of making speeches seems universal in Holland, and accordingly much hindrance was offered to conversation by the general compliments which polite guests and gracious hosts lavished upon each other. The pleasantest discourse was certainly that of Ernest Renan, who spoke with great frankness and feeling of the miseries of France, and excited general admiration by his elegant style and his vivacious action. But still every moment lost from conversation that evening was well-nigh irreparable. There were the great critical scholars, Cobet, Madvig, Pluygers, and Boot — the real successors of Porson and Bentley in Europe; the historians. Dozy and Ernst Curtius; the orientalists, Noldeke, Kern, Veth, De Goeje, Vullers, Renan; the theologians, Scholten, Kuenen, Kahnis, Biedermann; the antiquarians, Stark and G. Perrot; the 