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 once engaging and sparkling with wit and fine fancy. Even more than his own books, the works of his pupils witness the productiveness and the value of his teaching.

After Leyden I visited Amsterdam.

The university there occupies the monumental structure of the ancient hospital for old men, which contained the famous museum of Van der Hoop before the construction of the splendid Gothic palace where almost all the artistic wealth of the Dutch capital is now collected.

The faculty of arts has a beautiful professor's hall adorned with old portraits of Hooft, Vondel, etc. There I found Prof. Théodore Jorissen, who occupies the chair of history, and whose course especially attracted me to Amsterdam. M. Jorissen has not the teaching of geography among his functions, as have his colleagues in the three other Dutch universities. He gives two courses, one of which, history of the Middle Ages, extends over two academic years. In 1883–84 he had lectured on mediæval history up to the crusades; in 1884–85 he had treated the history of the crusades and was, at the time of my visit, finishing a detailed parallel between the preparation for monarchical centralization in France and the origin of parliamentarism in England.

I was present at three lectures. There were six students, who took a great many notes. M. Jorissen reviewed the history of the Great Charter of England in the thirteenth century and the history of France at the same period. He spoke in a vibrating tone, walking about in the hall. The room was furnished with a long row of ugly benches, painted black, as in our Belgian lecture-rooms. But the gloom of the room was lightened by a smiling view through the windows of a beautiful interior court, planted with great, leafy trees. M. Jorissen was nearly at the end of his course and gave his conclusions in broad lines, sketching roughly the principal facts,