Sketches in Holland and Scandinavia

by Augustus J. C. Hare

THE VIJVER.

It is a brief journey to the Hague—La Haye, Gravenhage—most delightful of little capitals, with its comfortable hotels and pleasant surroundings. The town is still so small that it seems to merit the name of 'the largest village in Europe,' which was given to it because the jealousy of other towns prevented its having any vote in the States General till the time of Louis Bonaparte, who gave it the privileges of a city. It is said that the Hague, more than any other place, may recall what Versailles was just before the great revolution. It has thoroughly the aspect of a little royal city. Without any of the crowd and bustle of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, it is not dead like the smaller towns of Holland; indeed, it even seems to have a quiet gaiety, without dissipation, of its own. All around are parks and gardens, whence wide streets lead speedily through the new town of the rich bourgeoisie to the old central town of stadholders, where a beautiful lake, the Vijver, or fish-pond, comes as a surprise, with the eccentric old palace of the Binnenhof rising straight out of its waters. We had been told it was picturesque, but were prepared for nothing so charming as the variety of steep roofs and towers, the clear reflections, the tufted islet, and the beautiful colouring of the whole scene of the Vijver. Skirting the lake, we entered the precincts of the palace through the picturesque Gudevangen Poort, where Cornelius de Witte, Burgomaster of Dort, was imprisoned in 1672, on a false accusation of having suborned the surgeon William Tichelaur to murder the Prince of Orange. He was dragged out hence and torn to pieces by the people, together with his brother Jean de Witte, Grand Pensioner, whose house remains hard by in the Kneuterdijk.

The court of the Binnenhof is exceedingly handsome, and contains the ancient Gothic Hall of the Knights, where Johann van Olden Barneveld, Grand Pensioner, or Prime Minister, was condemned to death 'for having conspired to dismember the States of the Netherlands, and greatly troubled God's Church,' and in the front of which (May 24, 1619) he was beheaded.

HALL OF THE KNIGHTS, THE HAGUE.

Close to the north-east gate of the Binnenhof is the handsome house called Mauritshuis, containing the inestimable Picture Gallery of the Hague, which will bear many visits, and has the great charm of not being huge beyond the powers of endurance. On the ground floor are chiefly portraits, amongst which a simple dignified priest by Philippe de Champaigne, with a far-away expression, will certainly arrest attention. Deeply interesting is the portrait by Ravesteyn of William the Silent, in his ruff and steel armour embossed with gold—a deeply lined face, with a slight peaked beard. His widow, Louise de Coligny, is also represented. There is a fine portrait by Schalcken of our William the Third. Noble likenesses of Sir George Sheffield and his wife Anna Wake, by Vandyke, are a pleasing contrast to the many works of Rubens. There are deeply interesting portraits by Albert Dürer and Holbein.

On the first floor we must sit down before the great picture which Rembrandt painted in his twenty-sixth year (1632) of the School of Anatomy. Here the shrewd professor, Nicholaus Tulp, with a face brimming with knowledge and intelligence, is expounding the anatomy of a corpse to a number of members of the guild of surgeons, some of whom are full of eager interest and inquiry, whilst others are inattentive: the dead figure is greatly foreshortened and not repulsive. In another room, a fine work of Thomas de Keyser represents the Four Burgomasters of Amsterdam hearing of the arrival of Marie de Medicis. A beautiful work of Adrian van Ostade is full of light and character—but only represents a stolid boor drinking to the health of a fiddler, while a child plays with a dog in the background.

A group of admirers will always be found round 'the Immortal Bull' of Paul Potter, which was considered the fourth picture in importance in the Louvre, when the spoils of Europe were collected at Paris. De Amicis says, 'It lives, it breathes; with his bull Paul Potter has written the true Idyl of Holland.' It is, however—being really a group of cattle—not a pleasing, though a life-like picture. Much more attractive is the exquisite 'Presentation' of Rembrandt (1631), in which Joseph and Mary, simple peasants, present the Holy Child to Simeon, a glorious old man in a jewelled robe, who invokes a blessing upon the infant, while other priests look on with interest. A wonderful ray of light, falling upon the principal group, illuminates the whole temple. Perhaps the most beautiful work in the whole gallery is the Young Housekeeper of Gerard Dou. A lovely young woman sits at work by an open window looking into a street. By her side is the baby asleep in its cradle, over which the maid is leaning. The light falls on the chandelier and all the household belongings of a well-to-do citizen: in all there is the same marvellous finish; it is said that the handle of the broom took three days to paint.

There is not much to discover in the streets of the Hague. In the great square called the Plein is the statue of William the Silent, with his finger raised, erected in 1848 'by the grateful people to the father of their fatherland.' In the fish-market, tame storks are kept, for the same reason that bears are kept at Berne, because storks are the arms of the town. But the chief attraction of the place lies in its lovely walks amid the noble beeches and oaks of the Bosch, beyond which on the left is Huis ten Bosch, the Petit Trianon of the Hague, the favourite palace of Queen Sophie, who held her literary court and died there. It is a quiet country house, looking out upon flats, with dykes and a windmill. All travellers seem to visit it,—which must be a ceaseless surprise to the extortionate custode to whom they have to pay a gulden a head, and who will hurry them rapidly through some commonplace rooms in which there is nothing really worth seeing. One room is covered with paintings of the Rubens school, amid which, high in the dome, is a portrait of the Princess Amalia of Solms, who built the house in 1647.