rough, and at times coarse and licentious exterior, glimpses of a nature of fine susceptibilities and of almost womanly sensitiveness.

It is not possible here to enter into any detail respecting the works of these great Dutch writers, or even to mention the names of many others of minor fame. But no sketch, however slight, which attempts to portray the leading figures of this remarkable period, must forget to assign amongst them a prominent position to the beautiful Maria Tesselschade Visscher. If but a fraction of what is said in her praise by the crowd of distinguished admirers who burnt incense at her shrine be true, she must be considered one of the most admirable and accomplished types of womanhood that the imagination of the poet or the pen of the romancer has ever devised, a very vision of sweetness and light. She had indeed exceptional opportunities. Daughter of the celebrated Roemer Visscher, a poet, distinguished both for wit and learning, whose house was for many years the rendezvous of literary society, she daily met as a child under her father's hospitable roof all that were best worth knowing among the many gifted men who made Amsterdam their home in those brilliant days. Nor was this her only privilege. Her sister Anna, ten years older than herself, under whose fostering care after their mother's death her years of childhood passed, was a woman of unusual erudition, a poetess of no mean merit, honoured by her contemporaries, according to the fashion of the age, with the title of the Dutch Sappho. The young maiden repaid her for her motherly tenderness and solicitude by the quickness with which she imbibed her instructions, and the eagerness with which she set herself to tread in her footsteps. The pupil indeed was destined soon to surpass the teacher, and the fame of the wise Anna to pale before that of the beautiful Tesselschade.

Her

All the first literary men of her time were, not figuratively only but often literally, among her admirers. Hooft and Huyghens, Barlæus and Brederoo wooed in vain for her affections; Vondel and Cats with less ardour perhaps, but equal admiration, offered rich tributes of homage to her personal charms as well as to her almost incredible proficiency in every branch of art and culture. attainments were indeed wonderful. The greater part of her poetical works, including her much-praised translation of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, have perished, but amongst the scanty remains is found her "Ode to the Nightingale", a lyric bearing some curious points of resemblance to and not unworthy to be compared with Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark". She could play with skill upon the harp, and the beauty of her voice and the art with which she used it have been celebrated by all her contemporaries. She was moreover dexterous in tapestry and embroidery work, and in painting, carving, and etching upon glass. And with all this there seems to have been no trace of pedantry or affectation in her healthy and well-balanced nature. She never appears to have been carried away by the flood of flattery which surrounded her. She gave her heart and hand to none of the poets and courtiers who made love to her in polished stanzas, but to a plain seacaptain, with whom she passed a happy but too short married life in the seclusion of a provincial town, giving up for a time her literary and artistic pursuits for the sedulous discharge of her motherly and domestic duties. In widowhood she again fixed her abode in Amsterdam and, welcomed by the circle of her old friends, her bright and joyous presence once more became the soul of the society which continued to frequent the Castle of Muiden. Again the throng of suitors began to flock around her, but she remained faithful to the memory of the husband she had loved. She did not hold herself aloof from her literary friends,

and delighted to exercise her talents both as a solace to herself and for the gratification of others. Her heart however was in none of these things. Devotedly attached to her two daughters, her first and constant care was directed to their training and education; and when in their early youth they were removed from her by death, she found life no longer worth living, but, still in the prime of her powers, speedily followed them to the grave. The memory of a character so pure and flawless, in which the highest qualities of nature and art were so happily blended, should not lie buried in a forgotten tomb or enshrined in an unread literature. For no one can study the Dutch literature of the Golden Age without being struck by the wide and subtle influence which the captivating personality of Tesselschade Visscher exercised over her contemporaries, or without himself feeling a thrill almost of affection for one who thus lights up the often dry and tedious records of a bygone time with radiant glimpses of "a perfect woman, nobly planned ".

Dry and tedious a comprehensive study of the literature of any period must always be.

If we want (to quote the words of Mr. Stopford Brooke) to get a clear idea of any period, we must know all the poets small and great, who wrote in it and read them altogether. It would be really useful and delightful to take a single time and read every line of fairly good poetry in it and then the results of our study compare with the history of the time. Such a piece of work would not only increase our pleasure in all the higher poetry of the time we study, and the greater enjoyment of the poetry of any other time; it would also supply us with an historical element which the writers of history at the present day have so strangely neglected, the history of the emotions and passions which political changes worked and which themselves influenced political change; the history of the rise and fall of those ideas, which especially touch the imaginative and emotional life of a people and in doing so, modify the whole development.

To that marvel of history, the
No. 356.-VOL. LX.

Holland of the first half of the seventeenth century, are these sentences especially applicable. The historian of European politics tells us of her achievements as one of the leading states of the day and of her weight in the councils of nations. The historian of commerce dwells upon her mercantile enterprise, her wealth, her East and West India Companies, her colonies, her banking system, the thrift and industry of her people. The historian of learning points to her with pride, as the chosen home of such world-renowned scholars, jurists and philosophers, as Lipsius and Scaliger, Barlæus and Heinsius, Gronovius, Salmasius and the Vossii, of Grotius, Spinoza and Descartes. The historian of science records the discoveries and

investigations of Christian Huyghens, the distinguished son of a distinguished father, to whose mechanical genius the astronomer and optician are so deeply indebted, and who was no less remarkable for the breadth of his theoretical generalizations than for his skill in the invention and manipulation of instruments. He tells of the permanent additions made to the science of mathematics by the studies of Simon Stevin; of the exhaustive and minute researches of Swammerdam into the habits and metamorphoses of insects, which form the basis of subsequent knowledge; of the life-long labours of Leeuwenhoek with the microscope, which resulted in the discovery of the infusoria, and in the amassing of vast stores of information concerning the circulation of the blood and the structure of the eye and brain; of Ruysch, Boerhaave and Tulp, anatomists and physicians of European reputation; of the discovery of the principle of the clock-pendulum by Christian Huyghens, of the telescope by Zachary Jens, of the microscope by Cornelius Drebbel; of the printing triumphs of the Elzevirs; of the maps of Blaeuw. And lastly the historian of art recounts the extraordinary fertility of this era in great Dutch painters, and enlarges with critical

K

Of

discrimination upon the magical chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, the lifelike vigour of the portraits of Van der Helst and Franz Hals, the delicate finish of Gerard Dow and Terburg, the landscapes of Ruysdael and Hobbema, the cattle of Paul Potter and Cuyp, and the varied and particular excellences associated with the names of Jan Steen, Wouvermans, Brouwers, Pieter de Hoogh, Ostade, Van der Velde and many others. the outward and visible aspect of the Holland of the Golden Age, of the appearance, dress, external habits and customs of all classes of the population, the walls of the Rijks-museum at Amsterdam and of the Mauritshuis at the Hague offer us a full and faithful portraiture. But we still need to know something more if we wish to penetrate behind this outer presentment of names and deeds and forms and achievements, and discern the hidden springs of action, the motive forces of this exuberant national life. The works of the writers of a great past age are to some extent a faithful mirror in which its spirit is reflected, and to him who readeth therein with his eyes open its image is revealed. The pictured narrative of the historian, nay even the pictured canvas of the painter supply us at the best with but a counterfeit representation of the vanished past; to the student of its contemporary literature alone is a glimpse of the living reality afforded. The memories

of the great men of former days are but too often the object either of indiscriminate partiality or of indiscriminate prejudice. The same man is represented as saint or sinner, hero or tyrant, according to the prepossessions and bias of the writer. Not that necessarily facts are glaringly, or even consciously misrepresented; but the imagination plays so large a part in the arrangement and colouring that the general effect is transformed, and instead of being presented with a faithful and life-like portraiture of

persons and events, we have a narrative, which to use the expression of Bolingbroke, is nothing but "an authorized romance", and is generally attractive and popular in exact proportion to its faultiness. History at its best is but incomplete and unsatisfying. It tells us something, it makes us wish for more. The figures which move across its page are, after all, but puppets guided and informed by the hand of the showman. We do not recognize in them men of like passions with ourselves; we perceive the outward form and gesture but we know little of the inner searchings of the heart, of their strivings, ideals, sympathies and sorrows. No one indeed can adequately reveal these things to us; they must be sought by ourselves. And much, at least, that will interpret to us the spirit of an age, if that age were fortunate in the production of great writers, can be found in the intelligent study of its literature.

Such an age pre-eminently was that which we have been considering. The annals of Holland in the seventeenth century are strewn thick with the records of famous men and famous deeds. Never with smaller means did any people achieve greater results or win distinction in so many ways as did the people of the Northern Netherlands in the "glorious days of Frederick Henry ", and the story of what they did, and still more of how they did it, is extremely instructive, as well as impressive and romantic. Yet it can never be told in its completeness merely by the study of protocols and despatches, or by comparisons of statistics or by researches among musty state documents. These are but the dry bones of history; and he who would lay sinews and flesh upon them, must study likewise, and deeply, the contemporary literature which has come down to us in rich abundance, as a part of the living tissue of the times themselves.

GEORGE EDMUNDSON.

SMALL deer, in truth! The fisher for the lordly salmon will shoot out the lip: the happy man who has toiled (not in vain) the season through to lure the giant trout of Thames, will shake his head over my humble tale. But my little fish are sweet, and sweet is their dwelling-place.

It has been a glorious August day, and the sun is sloping westward through a cloudless sky as I leave the old Hall behind me. Leisurely I wend my way through the rolling park. On the high ground the grass is brown and sere; but in every little dale and dell the bracken grows thick, gladdening the eye with its fresh, bright, living green. Across the drive in front of me a rabbit glides noiselessly. A hundred yards to the right a branching antler rising above the fern shows where a buck is taking his rest in quietness and confidence, never broken by

The slow-hound's deep-mouthed note and huntsman's echoing horn.

Now stand on the bridge where the drive crosses, and gaze your fill on half a mile of open water, from the dark fir-wood to the beginning of yonder long spinney, that the stream threads from end to end in its devious course to the brimming river.

"Water, sir! there's not three inches. Stream! it's a ditch, I could hop across." True, that limber fly-rod and gorged pocket-book will do little service here. The two top joints, a yard of gut, and juicy worms are all we need.

Our tackle is soon put together, and we are at the end of the wood. Flashing over bright brown pebbles, the stream hurries forth, glad to escape from gloomy shades to light and air. Rushes grow thick on the high hollow banks, with here and there a fern

stretching its feathery fronds from side to side. You may set your fancy free, laugh, sing, whistle, shout, or swear, as the fancy takes you; but, oh, lightly tread! for haply beneath your very feet the quarry lurks.

Here shall be my first cast! Noiselessly I drop the worm, and watch it with the eye of hope as it rolls swiftly down where beneath yonder hollow the stream runs like a mill-race in miniature, slightly coloured with the crumbling soil. crumbling soil. Alas! no bite; and again and again the like ill-luck.

Aha, my friend, I can translate that vigorous ejaculation-rushes are not to be trifled with, and the graceful fern, with its serrated leaves, holds a gut-line like a vice. Put on another hook. I'll try my luck where the stream eddies round yonder mighty boulder, seven pounds if it is an ounce, that lies athwart its course.

A convulsive tug the light rod bends like a bow, and with a turn of the wrist a pretty little trout in all the glory of his crimson-spotted livery is swung on the grass at my feet. The first fish, the first trout--there is magic in the word. What golden memories it conjures up! Memories of happy hours by lonely moorland burns in the sweet vale of Dove, of red-letter days in the lush watermeadows through which the Windrush winds its silent way. Keener than ever, I fish steadily down towards the bridge. Two more speckled beauties join their comrade in the spacious pocket of my old shooting-coat; a third shakes the hook from his mouth and leaves me sorrowing, but only for a inoment. Is there not a noble pool just below the bridge; black, still, and deep, some three feet deep, into which the water pours, bubbling and foaming from a tiny cataract? Quickly my worm is launched into the rapids,

hangs for a moment among the stones, and then drops quickly into the tail of the pool. A bite indeed, the loose end of the line was almost twitched from my hand, and now to "do my spiriting gently."

Like lightning my fish dashes across the pool, seeking shelter under the roots of the old willow that overhangs the water. For one agonizing moment the line seems slack, but I feel him again, a mad rush down stream, a short sulk under the bank, and I Take him up tenderly, Lift him with care

a half-pounder at the very least.

Pocketing my fish, I walk quickly on. There are few likely places in the remaining open space, and these my friend has fished with much perseverance. He has lost another hook, but two pretty trout have restored his self-respect and temper. Elsewhere

the stream runs clear as crystal over a sandy bottom. Ever and anon, as I pass, a dark form flits through the water, as though in mockery; but I pass the challenge by.

Arrived at the edge of the spinney I pause a moment. Who ever

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

The west is all ablaze with tints that Turner would have loved to paint. The sun is setting gloriously. His last rays are lighting up the dark fir-wood, and the leaves of yonder giant oak glisten like burnished gold. Already there is a pleasant freshness in the air that tells of falling dew, and the gathering dusk warns me to lose no time.

In the fence, a hundred yards to the left, is a gap. Cautiously I scramble over, and work my way towards the stream, through a sea of fern breast-high. What a place for fairy tourists! It is the Wye in miniature; fern down to the water's edge, save where a stretch of mossy turf flanks some quiet little reach.

For the most part the banks are high and steep. Six feet below me the stream brattles along its rocky bed. There are a dozen tiny waterfalls, each with its duodecimo salmon-pool below it. The trees admit a solemn half-light. Not a twig stirs : all is silence, all is peace; save when my rustling footsteps startle a timid rabit, or flush an old cock pheasant, who rises leisurely to settle again a few yards further on.

Slowly I stroll along, catching now a fish and now a stone, for the bottom is rocky, and has cost me much patience and hooks not a few. Halfway through the spinney the stream dives into a thicket of nut-bushes and is lost to view. In its hidden course is more than one fishy place, but never yet have I ventured there-with rod and line. To-day success has made me bold. Warily I grope my way; now thrusting the rod delicately through the tangled branches in front, now raising it aloft to elude the tenacious fern-leaves. Once, twice, I am caught and hung up, but reach the bank at last, unbroken.

Now, where the impetuous streamlet, dammed by a fallen log, swirls round all flecked with foam. Crawling to the edge I take the line 'twixt thumb and finger, and drop the baited hook, like a plummet, into the rapid just above. In a moment there comes a sharp twitch of the line. It is no place to dally with the prey. Keeping the point of the rod down, I draw the line sharply back, and trout the eighth joins his forerunners in my bulging pocket. There is no more to be done in the jungle, for the stream is literally smothered by the undergrowth. So I wriggle out of the thicket carefully, and keep a parallel to its course.

There is comparatively open ground again as I near the end of the spinney, and a complete change of scene.

The trees are sparse and stunted: tussocks of long, rank, tangled grass take the place of fern, and on many a patch of ground the silvery deer-moss warns me not to tread. Through this