Reformation by expounding to the people the authorized version of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and also uniting their hearers in prayers and offices in Dutch, Flemish, and other vernacular, were misrepresented by their enemies, and twisted into evidence of their heretical leanings.
Kampen was rich in religious orders; there were the Minorites (Franciscans), whose church was built in the fourteenth century, and is still the most ancient monument in the town, but is now used as a school; the Recollects, the Carthusians, the Alexians, besides six convents for women. The church of St. Nicholas, with its double aisles and its grand simplicity, its beautiful antique pulpit and Renaissance panelling in the choir, is well worth a visit, were it not for the detestable impression likely to be made on the visitor by the excesses in plaster and paint that disfigure the building. Notre Dame, a church almost as large and as old, has been restored, and its sombre, simple, and grand decoration, its panelling in imitation of the Gothic, and its careful imitation of the spirit of ancient ornamentation make it a more satisfactory object of pilgrimage. But the pearl of Kampen is the Stadhuis, or Guildhall—or rather what remains of it; for part of it was destroyed by fire in 1543. The façade is very much like the Chancellerie at Leeuwarden, and the niches still contain their original statuettes of the sixteenth century. “This corner of the townhall is a real delight to behold, and to come upon a relic of this sort, religiously preserved from ancient times, is a great source of joy to an artist.” But the special attractions are in the interior, especially in “two rooms, unique in their way,
… decorated with carved wainscoting, which have remained intact from the early part of the seventeenth century, when they were used as the council-chamber and judgment-hall.… The walls are furnished with flags, standards, halberds, pikes, … and above the door I noticed some formidable-looking syringes in polished leather, shining like gold, which were used in former times to squirt boiling oil on those of the assailants who approached too close. A magnificent balustrade, crowned by an open gallery with columns supporting arched openings, separates this hall from the other, through which the persuasive eloquence of the advocates penetrated the council-chamber.… Running round the chamber is a huge carved bench, divided into stalls by jutting pedestals which support a pillar of Ionic base and Composite capital. An entablature also running the round of the room, projecting above the pillars, but receding over the stalls, completes this kind of high barrier between the councillors, and adds considerably to the majestic elegance which charms and impresses one. At the end of the hall there is a fine chimney-piece, comprising four divisions. To mention its date, 1543, is quite enough to give an idea of the beauty of its workmanship and the elegance of its curves.” Among its curiosities are some fine silver goblets given to the town, and some pieces of gold-plate belonging to the old guilds, as well as the box of beans, which served to determine the election of the municipality. It is a small bonbonnière holding twenty-four beans, six silver-gilt and eighteen of polished silver. “When it was a question of deciding which of the members of the council should be chosen for
the administration, the beans were put in a hat, and each drew out one by chance, and those who drew forth the silver-gilt beans immediately entered on their new functions. This custom was not confined especially to Kampen, as it was formerly in vogue in the province of Groningen.”
Zwolle (not a sea city) is a very old town, but has a modern life tacked on to it, and few of its public buildings, churches included, are worth commenting upon at length, though its history is interesting and stirring. It was the birth-place and home of Thomas à Kempis, known in his own day as Hamerken, but the convent where he lived has unfortunately disappeared.
Harderwyk, on the Zuyder-Zee, or the “Shepherd’s Refuge,” was founded at the time of the disastrous flood which made the present sea. Some shepherds collected there from the flooded meadows, and were joined by a few fishermen. A hundred years after its incorporation as a town, it was already prosperous enough to be named in the Hanseatic Union by the side of Amsterdam, Kampen, and Deventer; but it can boast of a better claim to notice than its material prosperity alone, for it had a famous academy, founded in 1372, and specially devoted to theology and what was then known of physical sciences. Except during an interval of half a century, after an inundation that devastated and unpeopled the little city, this school existed uninterruptedly till the French occupation, a little less than a hundred years ago, and among its native scholars, many of whom are honorably known in the history of science, it reckons the botanist Boerhaave. Linnæus spent a short
time there in study and research, and the town is not a little proud of having been sought out by distant scholars as a centre of the natural science of that day. Both these famous men have a memorial in Harderwyk, the former a bronze statue, and the latter a bust in the public gardens. One of the few interesting remains of the old town is the square tower of Notre Dame, where fires were burnt, by way of a beacon, to guide fishermen and sailors out at night, and indicate the position of Harderwyk. “The sea,” says Havard, “is very wayward in these parts. Formerly it was at some little distance from the town, but gradually it advanced, and ended by washing its walls; now, however, it has in some measure receded.… When the tide is low, fishermen often discover under the sand roads washed up by the waves, paved with stones and bricks, which prove that at some distant period streets existed where now the sea rules.” At present Harderwyk is the depot of the troops intended for the Indian and colonial army of Holland, and is, in consequence, rather a gay little place.
The charming, antique, and formerly turbulent town of Amersfoort, the birth-place of the heroic Jan van Olden Barneveldt, truly the “father of his country,” was the last comparatively forgotten place where our author passed before he got back to the beaten track of travel, through Utrecht down the Dutch Rhine to Amsterdam. Of this hardy, learned, and brave people of the Netherlands he says but too truly that they are unknown outside their own frontiers. “Nobody outside” (of course he speaks of popular, world-wide reputation; for they are known in scientific and literary circles) “knows that among the Dutch
are to be found honesty, cordiality, and sincere friendship; they do not know that the language of Holland is rich and poetic; that the Netherlanders have exceptionally fine institutions, sincere patriotism, and absolute devotion to their country.” He complains, however, that the country or its representative, the government, does not sufficiently encourage native artists, authors, and savants, and forces her statesmen to “submit to paltry coteries.” He also says that the decay of trade in the “dead cities” is partly attributable to the supineness of the inhabitants themselves, though that certainly does not tally with their enterprising spirit of old, and adds that Amsterdam, when threatened with the same danger—the moving sands and the encroaching waters, which have turned the harbors of the once wealthy Hanseatic cities into deserts—did not “sleep,” but “with all their ancient energy, not fearing to expend their wealth,” the inhabitants “cut through the whole length of the peninsula of Noord Holland, and created a canal 40 miles long and 120 feet wide, wide enough for two frigates to pass one another”; and when that was found insufficient for their commerce, “they again cut through the width of the peninsula, as they had cut through its length, giving to
ships of the heaviest tonnage two roads to their magnificent port. This was how the sons of old Batavia fought against the elements—nothing stopped them; and we see that the generations which succeed them are animated by the same spirit, the same firm will, the same calm energy, never to be beaten by difficulties.” And now the last news of importance from the same spot is that of the projected draining of the Zuyder-Zee, which is a plan of gigantic magnitude, the cost being estimated at £16,000,000 sterling—i.e., not far from $100,000,000—but the allotted time scarcely more than two years. The Dutch is a race tenacious of vitality and power, and its future in its colonial empire, which it is now thoroughly and scientifically surveying, bids fair to rival its past. Even these “dead cities,” when they cease to be fishing hamlets and relic-museums, and, by the draining of the inland sea, have to turn for their support to new industries, have a chance of revival. The last marvellous Dutch work—the completion of the North Sea Canal—is a proof that the old energy is yet there, and that great things may yet be expected, nautically, scientifically, commercially, and even agriculturally, of the sturdy old stock of the “Sea Beggars.”