HOLLAND, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY.
HOLLAND.
"A country that draws fifty feet of water,
In which men live as in the hold of nature,
And when the sea does in them break,
And drowns a province, does but spring a leak."—Hudibras.
We know little of the early fabrics of this country. The laces of Holland, though made to a great extent, were overshadowed by the richer products of their Flemish neighbours. "The Netherlanders," writes Fynes Moryson, who visited Holland in 1589, "wear very little lace,[[689]] and no embroidery. Their gowns are mostly black, without lace or gards, and their neck-ruffs of very fine linen."
We read how, in 1667, France had become the rival of Holland in the trade with Spain, Portugal and Italy; but she laid such high duties on foreign merchandise, the Dutch themselves set up manufactures of lace and other articles, and found a market for their produce even in France.[[690]] A few years later, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes[[691]] caused 4,000 lace-makers to leave the town of Alençon alone. Many took refuge in Holland, where, says a writer of the day, "they were treated like artists." Holland gained more than she lost by Louis XIV. The French refugees founded a manufactory of that point lace called "dentelle a la Reine"[[692]] in the Orphan House at Amsterdam.[[693]]
Plate LXVI.