Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/386

372 carvings of the Stadthuis to a collector at the Hague, and demolished the majestic towers of the antique castle which stands at the entrance of the port, and is one of the most ancient relics in the Low Countries.

From Medemblik the travellers made an excursion across North Holland by land, passing through numberless pretty villages, where not only the houses, but the threes and the brick-paved ground are all painted in bright colours, sky-blue being very fashionable for the trees. By this bit of information, the author clears up the mystery of the Dutch toys. The variegated trees and the tartan farmhouses are evidently copied from nature as seen in North Holland. During this portion of the book we find ourselves among rising, not decaying towns, and have an interesting account of the Dutch fleet and the naval system of Holland. The brief interval of animation is pleasant, but we take to the tjalk again as readily as did the travellers, and accompany them with ever-increasing interest in their visits to the dead cities of old Friesland. The most interesting and important chapter in the book is devoted to the most ancient of those cities, Stavoren, once so splendid that it is recorded that "the vestibules of its houses were gilded, and the pillars of its palaces were of massive gold." Its name was celebrated throughout Europe, and its jurisdiction extended to Nimeguen. Today it consists of about a hundred houses, "half of them falling into a ruinous condition, and not one among them which could recall even vaguely the palaces which once were crowded together within its walls. These mean dwellings border the two sides of a wide and deep canal, and the gaps in their ranks increase in number year after year. Stavoren is no longer even a village; it is a cemetery, and its five hundred inhabitants are like troubled spirits come back to mourn the extinct splendour of their country and the past greatness of their kings."

 

 From The Saturday Review.

poet Daniel complained in his day of the extremes and vicissitudes to which religion in all external matters was subjected. "Sacred Religion, mother of form and fear!" At one time she sits gorgeously decked and is made to wear pompous vestures; at another she is left "all plain, all quite threadbare" —

Yet, if we look into the subject, we shall find that a feeling for ritual has never been entirely suppressed; there have always existed ideas of duty as to the mode of service apart from its matter; the eye and the ear always have demanded to share with the intellect the pleasures and solemnities of devotion. Every period has found some method of gratifying this demand, and has had its critics and censors when it was not satisfied. There have been times when elocution had the weight and responsibility of satisfying these requirements all to itself; when ritual (that is, solemnly ceremonious) reading — reading distinguished by certain sacred peculiarities of pronunciation — was considered fully equal to the task of keeping a congregation's religious emotions up to a devout pitch, especially when this delivery was supported by an "expressive voice, decent behaviour, and comely erection of body." The Dissenters yielded to the same influences. Their awkward emphasis was criticised indeed — their sudden jumps of voice from low to high; but their aim was the same, and the charm of correctness when it happened to come in their way told upon them with the same exciting and stimulating force. "I once mentioned," says Dr. Johnson, "the reputation which Mr. Foster had gained by his proper delivery to my friend Dr. Hawksworth, who told me that in the art of pronunciation he was far inferior to Dr. Watts. The correctness of his pronunciation and the elegance of his diction are said to have contributed to his uncommon popularity as a preacher." It was on these points that all sides were alike vigilant. Dr. Watts wrote a book to impress on his readers such points as that Sarah was not to be pronounced Sarey, nor Esther Eastur, nor St. Paul's Church Poles's. The Essayists were busy on their side against the inroad of slovenliness threatened by the tribe of young "Sophisters," who said "absolves" instead of "absolveth," and who were caricatured as sliding over the prayer for the royal family with glib familiarity — endue'em, enrich'um, prosper'um, and bring'um. Cowper, jealous of forms, took a contrary side; he is as severe on fine reading as 