A passage of two hours brought us to Delft, which we had expected to find a small and ill-inhabited place, knowing it to be not now occupied by any considerable trade. Our inn, we supposed, must be within a few minutes walk. We proceeded, however, through one street for half a mile, and, after some turnings, did not reach our inn, though we were led by the nearest way, in less than twenty minutes. During all this time we were upon the terraces of clear canals, amongst excellent houses, with a small intermixture of shops and some public buildings. The mingled admiration and weariness, which we felt here, for the first time, have been, however, often repeated; for if there is a necessity for saying what is the next distinction of Dutch towns, after their neatness, their size must be insisted upon. There are Dutch villages, scarcely marked in a map, which exceed in size some of the county towns in England. Maesland Sluice, a place opposite to the Brill, is one. And here is Delft, a place with scarcely any other trade than consists in the circulation of commodities from Rotterdam through some neighbouring villages; which is not the seat of any considerable part of the national government, and is inferior, in point of situation, to all the surrounding towns. Delft, thus undistinguished, fills a large circumference, with streets so intricately thick, that we never went from our inn without losing our way.
The Doolen, one of the best inns in Holland, is a large building of the sixteenth century, raised by the Spaniards, and first intended to be a convent; but, having been used by the burghers of Delft for public purposes, during the struggle of the Province against Spain, it is now venerable as the scene of their councils and preparations. In the suite of large apartments, which were used by them, some of the city business is still transacted, and in these strangers are never entertained. Behind, is a bowling-green, in which the burghers to this day perform their military exercises; they were so employed when we came in; and it was pleasing to consider, that their inferiority to their ancestors, in point of martial appearance, was the result of the long internal peace secured by the exertions of the latter.
Over two arches of the building is the date of its erection, 1565, the year in which the destruction of all families, professing the Protestant religion either in France or Spain, is supposed to have been agreed upon at Bayonne between the sovereigns of the two countries, and one year preceding the first measures of confederate resistance in the Low Countries, which that and other efforts of persecution produced. One of these arches communicates with the rooms so long used by the burghers; and our hostess, an intelligent woman, accompanied us through them. The first is ornamented with three large pictures, representing several of the early burghers of the Commonwealth, either in arms or council. A portrait of Barneveldt is marked with the date and the painter's name, "Michael Miereveld delineavit ac perfunctoriè pinxit, 1617," one year before the flagitious arrest of Barneveldt, in defiance of the constitution of the provinces, by Maurice of Orange. A piece, exhibiting some of the burghers in arms, men of an handsome and heroic appearance, is also dated, by having 1648 painted on a drum; that, which shews them in council, has a portrait of Grotius, painted when he was seventeen. His face is the seventh from the right hand in the second row.
Beyond this room are others containing several score of small cupboards, on the doors of each of which are two or three blazonries of arms. Here are deposited some parts of the dress and arms of an association of Arquesbusiers, usual in all the Dutch towns; the members of which society assemble annually in October, to shoot at a target placed in a pavilion of the old convent garden. The marksman takes his aim from the farthest room; and between him and the mark are two walls, perforated two feet and a half in length, and eight inches in breadth, to permit the passage of the shot. A man stands in the pavilion, to tell where the ball has struck; and every marksman, before he shoots, rings a bell, to warn this person out of the way. He that first hits a white spot in the target, has his liquor, for the ensuing year, free of excise duty; but, to render this more difficult, a stork is suspended by the legs from a string, which, passing down the whole length of the target, is kept in continual motion by the agitation of the bird. It did not appear whether the stork has any other share in this ancient ceremony, which is represented in prints of considerable date. It is held near the ground, out of the way of the shot, and is certainly not intended to be hurt, for the Dutch have no taste for cruelty in their amusements. The stork, it is also known, is esteemed by them a sort of tutelary bird; as it once was in Rome, where Asellus Sempronius Rufus, who first had them served at an entertainment, is said to have lost the Prætorship for his sacrilegious gluttony. In these trivial enquiries we passed our first evening at Delft.
Early the next morning, a battalion of regular troops was reviewed upon a small plain within the walls of the town. The uniform is blue and red, in which the Dutch officers have not quite the smart appearance of ours. One of these, who gave the word to a company, was a boy, certainly not more than fifteen, whose shrill voice was ludicrously heard between the earnest shouts of the others. The firing was very exact, which is all that we can tell of the qualities of a review.
Delft was a place of early importance in the United Provinces, being one of the six original cities, that sent Deputies to the States of the province; a privilege, which, at the instance of their glorious William the First of Orange, was afterwards properly extended to twelve others, including Rotterdam and the Brill. Yet it is little celebrated for military events, being unfortified, and having probably always obeyed the fortune of the neighbouring places. The circumstance which gives it a melancholy place in history, is the murder of the wife and beneficent Prince who founded the republic. His palace, a plain brick building, is still in good repair, where strangers are always shewn the staircase on which he fell, and the holes made in the wall by the shot that killed him. The old man, who keeps the house, told the story with as much agitation and interest as if it had happened yesterday. "The Prince and Princess came out of that chamber—there stood the Prince, here stood the murderer; when the Prince stepped here to speak to him about the passport, the villain fired, and the Prince fell all along here and died. Yes, so it was—there are the holes the balls made." Over one of these, which is large enough to admit two fingers, is this inscription:
"Hier onder staen de Teykenen der Kooglen daar meede Prins Willem van Orange is doorschootten op 10 July, A. 1584."
To this detestable action the assassin acknowledged himself to have been instigated by the proclamation of Philip the Second, offering a reward for its perpetration. The Princess, who had the wretchedness to witness it, had lost her father and her former husband in the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France, which, though contrived by Catherine and Charles the Ninth of that country, is believed to have been the consequence of their interview at Bayonne, with Isabella, the wife of the same Philip.
The melancholy excited on this spot is continued by passing from it to the tomb of William, in the great church, called the Nieuwe Kerk. There the gloomy pageantry of the black escutcheons, above a choir, silent, empty and vast, and the withering remains of colours, won by hands long since gone to their decay, prolong the consideration of the transientness of human worth and happiness, which can so easily be destroyed by the command, or the hand of human villainy.
This tomb is thought to be not exceeded by any piece of sepulchral grandeur in Europe. Standing alone, in a wide choir, it is much more conspicuous and striking than a monumental fabric raised against a wall, at the same time that its sides are so varied as to present each a new spectacle. It was begun in 1609, by order of the States General, and completed in 1621; the artist, Hendrik de Keyzer, receiving 28,000 florins as its price, and 2000 more as a present. The length is 20 feet, the breadth 15, and height 27. A bronze statue of the Prince, sitting in full armour, with his sword, scarf, and commander's staff, renders one side the chief; on the other is his effigy in white marble, lying at full length; and at his feet, in the same marble, the figure of the dog, which is said to have refused food from the moment of its master's death. Round the tomb, twenty-two columns of veined or black Italian marble, of the Doric order, and, with bases and capitals of white marble, support a roof or canopy, ornamented with many emblems, and with the achievements of the Prince.