Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/305

Rh of St. James) a Gothic edifice of the 15th century, and near it is the Stadhuis, or Town Hall, a fine building in the picturesque Dutch style. Northwards is the king's palace,—a very ordinary building as it seemed to me.

Immedialely to the east of Binnenhof is the house erected by Prince Maurice of Nassau, and therefore called Mauritshuis, and which is now the picture-gallery. It contains many remarkable pictures of the old masters, of which Rembrandt's School of Anatomy and Paul Potter's bull have a world-wide celebrity. The former represents the celebrated Anatomist Nicholas Tulp, a friend of Rembrandt, explaining the anatomy of the arm of a corpse lying before to a number of listeners whose faces portray the keen eagerness of listeners in various expressions and attitudes. The latter is a very realistic and life-like picture of bull, a cow, a sheep, a ram and a lamb with shepherd standing. They are both very fine and realistic pictures, but why they should have a world-wide celebrity is what professional connoisseurs alone can explain!

I saw two other picture-galleries, one the Municipal Museum and the other a private one in Baron Steengracht's house. West of Mauritshuis is an extensive square adorned with a statue of William I. the liberator of Holland, and to the north of the town is a fine park with an imposing national monument to commemorate the restoration of Dutch independence in 1813 after