Groningen

“ Groningen is larger than Leeuwarden—it has nearly seventy thousand inhabitants—and its evening light seemed to me even more beautifully liquid. I sat for a long time in a cafe overlooking the great square, feeding a very greedy and impertinent terrier, and alternately watching an endless game of billiards and the changing hue of the sky as day turned to night and the clean white stars came out. In Holland one can sit very long in cafes: I had dined and left a table of forty Dutchmen just settling down to their wine, at six o’clock, with the whole evening before me. ”

“ Hence steamers ply in all directions, and there is a regular service to Emden and the island of Borkum via Delfzyl, and via the Lauwers Zee to the island of Schiermonnikoog. Groningen is the most important town in the north of Holland, with its fine shops and houses and wide clean streets, while brick houses of the 16th and 17th centuries help it to retain a certain old-world air. ”

“ The students of the University of Groningen are more interested in literature and science, towards which ends they form societies for readings and study in common, above all of practical science, which predilection is one of the most marked characteristics of the Frieslanders, with whom those of Groningen have many features of resemblance and numerous ties of relationship. The students of Groningen are more quiet and more studious than those of Leyden, who, as far as it is possible to be wild in Holland, have the reputation of being wild. ”

“ Situate on the line where upper and nether Germany blend into one, the capital of a great province whose very name was synonymous with liberty, and whose hardy sons had clone fierce battle with despotism in every age, so long as there had been human record of despotism and of battles, Groningen had fallen into the hands of the foreign foe, not through the prowess of the Spaniard but the treason of the Netherlander. The baseness of the brilliant, trusted, valiant, treacherous young Renneberg has been recorded on a previous page of these volumes. ”

“ With respect to art, Groningen is the birthplace of two of Holland’s best known modern painters, H. W. Mesdag and Josef Israels, the latter being especially distinguished for his ability to record upon canvas the sadder aspects of humble life. At the advanced age of eighty-seven this master of his craft died [178] during the past summer in The Hague, where he had resided for a number of years. ”

“ The south-eastern corner of the province is traversed by the Westerwolde Aa, which discharges into the Dollart. The railway system belongs to the northern section of the State railways, and affords communication with Germany via Winschoten. Steam-tramways also serve many parts of the province. Agriculture is the main industry. The proportion of landowners is a very large one, and the prosperous condition of the Groningen farmer is attested by the style of his home, his dress and his gig. ”

“ All Dutch economists conclude and are agreed in recognising the excellent effects of this custom, affirming that to the beklem-regt Groningen owes all her wealth, and in the agricultural meetings which discuss the question the desire is expressed that the same kind of contract shall be adopted in the other provinces. ”

“ As capital of the province, and on account of the advantages of its natural position, Groningen maintains a very considerable trade, chiefly in oil-seed, grain, wood, turf and cattle, with Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia and Russia. ”

“ Not only do they follow the progress of the art of agriculture, but also the movements of modern thought. At Haven, near the city of Groningen, they maintain at their own cost an excellent school of agriculture, presided over by an illustrious professor and having fifty students. Even the smaller villages have museums of natural history and botanic gardens, founded and kept up at the common cost of a few hundreds of peasants. Even the women on market days go to visit the museums of the University of Groningen, and stay a long time, asking and obtaining information. ”

“ Groningen takes very good care of itself. It has trams, Page 252excellent shops and buildings, a crowded inland harbour, and a spreading park where once were its fortifications. The mounds in this park were the first hills I had seen since Laren. The church in the market square is immense, with a high tower of bells that kept me awake, but had none of the soothing charm of Long John at Middelburg, whose praises it will soon be my privilege to sound. ”

“ The council was, in fact, supreme in the city, and not in the city only. In 1439 it decreed that no one might trade in all the district between the Ems and the Lauwers Zee except burghers, and those who had purchased the burwal (right of residence in the city) and the freedom of the gilds. Maximilian I. assigned Groningen to Albert of Saxony, hereditary podestat of Friesland, but the citizens preferred to accept the protection of the bishop of Utrecht; and when Albert’s son George attempted in 1505 to seize the town, they recognized the lordship of Edzart of East Frisia. ”

“ The Groningen tendency, as related to Dutch theology, is similar to that applied by Channing to the [Pg 367] orthodoxy of the American church. Human nature is declared worthy of our attention and development. True humanity is pure piety. God can be found everywhere, even in the heart of man. The philosophical theology of Schleiermacher has stamped the Groningen system with its own signet. They both proceed from the same starting-point,—not reason, but the heart. Theirs is the religion of feeling. ”

“ The Hinterland of Holland If Friesland be considered the frontier of Holland’s tourist territory, the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe, and Over-Yssel certainly constitute its hinterland.
With the exception of one or two towns they lack the symmetry of scenery, the quaintness of costumes, the masterpieces of art that adapt the provinces west of the Zuyder Zee to intensive sight-seeing, so to speak, while their peoples differ in manner so much from those in the west that you seem to be traveling through another country altogether. ”

“ Five thousand of Louis's troops were repulsed before Ardenburg by the bravery of no more than two hundred burghers, assisted by the women and children of the town, and one hundred garrison soldiers. The citizens of Groningen, aided by the spirited students of its university, defended themselves with equal vigour and good fortune against the warlike Bishop of Munster, at the head of 30,000 soldiers, compelling him to raise the siege. ”

“ With regard to manners and customs, I had some precious notes from a personage of Groningen, which I think are not to be found in any book of travels. There the customs which relate to the lives of girls and married women are entirely different from ours. Among us (in Italy) , a girl who marries comes out of a state of subjection, almost of imprisonment, to enter one of perfect liberty, where she finds herself suddenly surrounded by the consideration, homage, and admiration of those who had formerly neglected her. ”

“ If, then, hereditary tenancy has not produced in other countries the same consequences as in Groningen, it is because it has been differently practised, as in some provinces of Italy, where the condotto di fivello, which is very nearly a beklem-regt, hampers the liberty of the farmer with the obligation to pay every year to the landlord a certain quantity of produce of a kind settled upon beforehand. ”

“ In Groningen, on the contrary, liberty and gallantry are privileges of the girls, and the married women live surrounded and hemmed in by a hundred precautions and watchful eyes, and are treated with cold respect, almost neglect. The young men devote themselves to girls only, and a great deal of liberty is conceded to them. ”

“ Subsequently he was head of a college at Leer, and in 1594 became rector of the college at Groningen, and when in 1614 this college became a university he was chosen principal and professor of history and Greek, and by his wise guidance and his learning speedily raised the new university to a position of eminence. He was on friendly terms with Louis, count of Nassau; corresponded with many of the learned men of his time; and died at Groningen on the 9th of December 1625. ”

“ The provinces Holland, Zeeland, since enlarged by the addition of a small part of Flanders, the northern part of Gelderland including the county of Zutphen, Overyssel, Friesland, and Groningen, together with Drenthe, cover the whole territory of the present kingdom of the Netherlands except North Brabant and Limburg. ”

“ What would be termed provinces to-day were the duchies of Gelderland, Brabant, Limburg, and Luxemburg, the counties of Holland, Zeeland, Flanders, Namur or Namen, Hainaut or Henegouwen, and Artois, and the lordships of Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen with Drenthe, Overyssel, and Mechlin or Malines. ”

“ Gröningen (286) , a low-lying province in the NE. of Holland, fronting the German Ocean on the N., and having Hanover on its eastern border; its fertile soil favours extensive farming and grazing; shipbuilding is an important industry. The capital (58) is situated on the Hunse, 94 m. NE. of Amsterdam; has several handsome buildings, a university (1614) , botanic gardens, shipbuilding yards, and tobacco and linen factories.
Gronovius, the name of two Dutch scholars, father and son, professors successively of belles-lettres at Leyden; John died 1671, and Jacob 1716. ”

“ Fresh tea—Dutch meals—The Doelens—Groningen—Roman Catholic priests—The boys’ penance—Luther and Erasmus—The peat country—Folk lore—Terburg—Thomas à Kempis—Zwolle—The wild girl—Kampen—A hall of justice indeed—An ideal holiday-place—The wiseacres—Urk—Sir Philip Sidney—Zutphen—The scripture class—The wax works—Dutch public morality.
I remember the Doelen at Groningen for several reasons, all of them thoroughly material. (Holland is, however, a material country.) First I would put the very sensible custom of providing every guest who has ordered tea for breakfast with a little tea caddy. ”

“ He besieged and took Naarden, an important place; and, by a masterly movement, formed a junction with Montecuculi, whom the emperor Leopold had at length sent to his assistance with twenty thousand men. Groningen repulsed the bishop of Munster, the ally of France, with a loss of twelve thousand men. The king of Spain (such are the strange fluctuations of political friendship and enmity) sent the count of Monterey, governor of the Belgian provinces, with ten thousand men to support the Dutch army. The elector of Brandenburg also lent them aid. ”

“ Maximilian offered him the post of tutor to his children and Latin secretary to himself; the town of Antwerp invited him to become head of their school. He might easily have accepted. He was not altogether happy at Groningen. His countrymen had done him honour, but they had no real appreciation for learning, and some of them were boorish and cross-grained. It was the old story of Pegasus in harness; the practical men of business and the scholar impatient of restraint. ”

“ Considerable administrative powers were given to the local governments, and the boundaries of the eight departments, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overyssel (in which Drente was included) , Gelderland, Groningen, Friesland, and Brabant, were made to coincide largely with those of the old provinces. The aim of the new Constitution was efficiency, the reconciliation of the moderate elements both of the federalist and unitarian parties, and the restraint alike of revolutionary and Orangist intrigues. ”

“ The science which Maurice displayed in the siege of this town greatly increased his renown. In the following year the stadholders turned their attention to the north-east corner of the land, which was still in the possession of the Spaniards. After a siege of two months Groningen surrendered; and the city with the surrounding district was by the terms of the capitulation—known as "The Treaty of Reduction"—admitted as a province into the Union under the name of Stad en Landen. William Lewis was appointed stadholder, and Drente was placed under his jurisdiction. ”

“ Dordrecht, Leiden, Haarlem, Delft, Vlaardingen, Rotterdam in Holland, and Middleburg and Zierikzee in Zeeland, repeated with modifications the characteristics of the communes of Flanders and Brabant. But the growth and development of the northern communal movement, though strong and instinct with life, was slower and less tempestuous than the Flemish. In the bishopric of Utrecht, in Gelderland and Friesland, the privileges accorded to Utrecht, Groningen, Zutphen, Stavoren, Leeuwarden followed rather on the model of those of the Rhenish “free cities” than of the Franco-Flemish commune. ”

“ In the more wealthy provinces, such as Holland, the commercial aristocracy, which filled the ranks of the local governments, resented the position of the Stadtholder, who held the command-in-chief of the army and navy; but in the poorer and agricultural provinces, such as Friesland and Groningen, the landed aristocracy generally supported the Stadtholderate. ”

“ In England one can easily be the first down in any hotel—save for a sleepy boots or waiter. Not so in Holland. It was so early that I am able to say nothing of the country between Groningen and Meppel, the capital of the peat trade, save that it was peaty: heather and fir trees, shallow lakes and men cutting peat, as far as eye could reach on either side.
Here in the peat country I might quote a very pretty Dutch proverb: “There is no fuel more entertaining than wet wood and frozen peat: the wood sings and the peat listens”. ”