Leiden

“ Noteworthy also are the collection of the Society of Dutch Literature (1766) ; the collections of casts and of engravings; the seamen’s training school; the Remonstrant seminary, transferred hither from Amsterdam in 1873; the two hospitals (one of which is private) ; the house of correction; and the court-house.
Leiden is an ancient town, although it is not the Lugdunum Batavorum of the Romans. Its early name was Leithen, and it was governed until 1420 by burgraves, the representatives of the courts of Holland. The most celebrated event in its history is its siege by the Spaniards in 1574. ”

“ A national institution at Leiden for the study of languages, geography and ethnology of the Dutch Indies has given place to communal institutions of the same nature at Delft and at Leiden, founded in 1864 and 1877. The centre of Dutch university life, which is non-residential, is the students’ corps, at the head of which is a “senate,” elected annually from among the students of four years’ standing. Membership of the corps is gained after a somewhat trying novitiate, but is the only passport to the various social and sports societies. ”

“ The most interesting buildings are the town hall (Stadhuis) , a fine example of 16th-century Dutch building; the Gemeenlandshuis van Rynland (1596, restored 1878) ; the weight-house built by Pieter Post (1658) ; the former court-house, now a military storehouse; and the ancient gymnasium (1599) and the so-called city timberhouse (Stads Timmerhuis) (1612) , both built by Lieven de Key (c. 1560–1627) .
In spite of a certain industrial activity and the periodical bustle of its cattle and dairy markets, Leiden remains essentially an academic city. The university is a flourishing institution. ”

“ Caspar Koolhaes, the heroic minister of Leiden—its first lecturer, too, in divinity—pleaded against a too rigid uniformity, for such an agreement on “fundamentals” as had allowed Reformed, Lutherans and Anabaptists to unite. Leiden had been happy, too, in its first professors. There taught in theology Guillaume Feuguières or Feuguereius (d. 1613) , a mild divine, who had written a treatise on persuasion in religion, urging that as to it “men could be led, not driven” ”

“ The presence within half a century of the date of its foundation of such scholars as Justus Lipsius, Joseph Scaliger, Francis Gomarus, Hugo Grotius, Jacobus Arminius, Daniel Heinsius and Guardas Johannes Vossius at once raised Leiden university to the highest European fame, a position which the learning and reputation of Jacobus Gronovius, Hermann Boerhaave, Tiberius Hemsterhuis and David Ruhnken, among others, enabled it to maintain down to the end of the 18th century. ”

“ Fine was the description of Philip of Spain, of William the Silent. Interesting was the portrayal of the work of the Chamber of Eglantine of Amsterdam, of the men of letters of Leiden and the intellectual forces leading up to and resulting in the great University in Leiden. ”

“ After campaigning in Bohemia and Hungary, suffering imprisonment, and travelling in England, Scotland and France, he finally settled in Holland, where (after 1616) he received a regular pension from Leiden Academy. ”

“ I had been bereaved of Jan as a prop, but I might make use of him and his friends by-and-by as one of the sights of Leiden, and I would take advantage of my knowledge of the usual program on such festive nights as this for the benefit of my friends.
I arrived at the Stadhuis as the others took their first look at the oak in the Archive Room. There was just one other room in this most excellent and historic building that I wanted Miss Van Buren to see. It was a Tapestry Room, among other Tapestry Rooms, of no importance ”

“ Educated at Leiden, Utrecht and Franeker, he became a professor of law at Leiden. As a writer on jurisprudence he acquired a wide reputation. His Latin style was modelled after the best writers, and his numerous works soon rose to the rank of standard authorities. ”

“ I made a flying leap at the structure and gained it in safety, just as there dashed by me at full speed—a Hollander of some six summers, bound to market with a basket on his arm!
14“S-Gravenhage,” as the Dutchman calls his capital, was a city teeming with interest; but Holland was one of those countries which I purposed to “do” in orthodox tourist fashion and, after a few short hours in the royal borough, I sought out the highway to Leiden. ”

“ After a visit to Reland in Utrecht he returned to Groningen (1708) ; then, having taken his degree in theology (1709) , he again went to Leiden, and devoted himself to the study of the MS. collections there till in 1711 he became pastor at Wassenaer. Disliking parochial work, in 1713 he took the Hebrew chair at Franeker, which he held till 1729, when he was transferred to Leiden as rector of the collegium theologicum, or seminary for poor students. From 1732 till his death (at Leiden on the 26th of January 1750) he was professor of Oriental languages at Leiden. ”

“ The republic of the United Provinces, with Amsterdam at its head, had suddenly risen to the first rank among the nations of Europe, and it was under the influence The Renaissance.of so much new emotion and brilliant ambition that the country no less suddenly asserted itself in a great school of painting and poetry. The intellect of the whole Low Countries was concentrated in Holland and Zealand, while the six great universities, Leiden, Groningen, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Harderwijk and Franeker, were enriched by a flock of learned exiles from Flanders and Brabant. ”

“ The long fight against Spain and the Inquisition had stimulated the energies of the Church and the people of the Netherlands, and their Universities and theological schools soon rivalled older seats of learning. The University of Leyden, a thank-offering for the wonderful deliverance of the town, was founded in 1575; Franecker, ten years later, in 1585; and there followed in rapid succession the Universities of Gronningen (1612) , Utrecht (1636) , and Harderwyk (1648) . Dutch theologians and lawyers became famous during the seventeenth century for their learning and acumen. ”

“ Little wonder, therefore, that those who lay under such a ban, those who were continually walking in the cold shadow of this dreadful doom, clung to each other, loved each other, and comforted each other to the last, passing often enough hand-in-hand through the fiery gates to that country in which there is no more pain. To be a member of the New Religion in the Netherlands under the awful rule of Charles the Emperor and Philip the King was to be one of a vast family. ”

“ The Dutch Protestants, as I remarked at Utrecht, have shown singular efficiency in denuding religion of its external graces and charm. There is no church so beautiful but they would reduce it to bleak and arid cheerlessness. Place even the cathedral of Chartres in a Dutch market-place, and it would be a whitewashed desert in a week, while little shops and houses would be built against its sacred walls. There is hardly a great church in Holland but has some secular domicile clinging like a barnacle to its sides. ”

“ He was content to stand by himself-herein a true representative of the Renaissance, whose supreme purpose it was after all to vindicate to every man the right of remaining true to his individuality by means of self-education and self-development. Whether or not, from this point of view also, he was in some respects a typical product of his native land, the Reformation as it presented itself to the Netherlands, and as they gave admittance to it with consequences so vital for their future history, was not the Reformation of Erasmus. ”

“ Now to divulge my secret for treating Utrecht and Bois le Duc in the same chapter: with their famous churches they are the most important ecclesiastical cities in Holland. Utrecht, in addition, is a university town, a cattle center, and one of the oldest places, as well as one of the largest, in the Netherlands. In Roman times it was known by the Latin translation of “The Ford of the Rhine”—Trajectum ad Rhenum. In the seventh century, under the Frisians, King Dagobert I founded here the first Frisian church. ”

“ One knows, as one walks in the streets of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, or Utrecht, that each place is a microcosm devoted to its own particular and narrow interests, and in these respects they are survivals of the Italian cities of the Middle Ages. There is, indeed, great similarity in the style of buildings, and, with the exception of Maestricht, in the south of the country, which is mediæval and Flemish, one always feels that one is in Holland. ”

“ Thus in that society everything is classed, established, measured; life goes on with the regularity of a machine; man moves like an automaton; rules take the place of will, and the clock governs thought. When I entered the building I saw no one but two servants standing at the threshold, and one girl with a red ribbon at a window. The courtyards were deserted, no sign of life was there, not even a fly buzzed. I looked here and there, as one looks at a cemetery through the bars of a gate, and went thoughtfully back to Utrecht. ”

“ It is a fact well known to all, dear men and brethren, how very much the pure, divine truth is disregarded in our Netherlands, caused by the envious crying and clamor of the Papists and Monks; and that the innocent blood is shed like water; on account of which we, miserable children, are forced to flee from the sword of the tyrants, and to seek refuge in foreign lands, with our weak women and little ones, and to earn our bread in tribulation and misery, according to the prophecy of God's word. ”

“ Here they meet once a year--the stern, ancient city, represented by its sturdy citizens, its fair women, its proud inhabitants, and Holland's youthful Queen, blossoming forth as a symbol of new, fresh life, fresh hope and promise. Here they meet, the sons and daughters of the men and women who never gave way, who saw their immense riches accrue, as their liberties grew, by sheer force of will, by inflexible determination, by dauntless power of purpose ”

“ The next morning I visited the university of Leyden, which stands by the Rapenburg canal: it is the most venerable seminary in Holland; and, by the great number of learned and famous men which it has produced, does honour to the luster of its origin. There is scarcely a science which has not been improved and extended in this hallowed seat of learning ”

“ The States-General, the nobles, and the people, resolve to defend themselves to the very last. The dykes of Muiden, which restrain the sea, are cut, and the sea, breaking in upon the land, is received with shouts of joy, as an ally and a saviour; the country around Amsterdam, the innumerable villas and flourishing villages, Delft, Leyden, and all the neighbouring cities, are inundated; everything is changed ”

“ It is amusing to the traveller in Holland to observe how new points of morals spring up out of its swamps, as in the East from the dryness of the deserts. To injure the piles on which the city is built, is at Amsterdam a capital offence ”

“ Everybody knows that during the early years of the seventeenth century Holland was the one country in Europe which furnished cities of refuge for the persecuted and hunted exponents of unpopular faiths, and that the little band of Pilgrims who brought their precious seed to the new world had first preserved and nurtured it in a safe asylum among the Dutch; but the slow spiritual travail that won this soul freedom, and the brave work of spreading, on that soil, a religion of personal insight and individual experience are not so well known. ”

“ Prince Maurice said, "that we could gain Breda. The city stands like a great sentinel against every movement towards Flanders, and enables the Spaniards to penetrate at all times towards the heart of our country; but I fear that it is altogether beyond our means. It is one of the strongest cities in the Netherlands, and my ancestors, who were its lords, little thought that they were fortifying and strengthening it in order that it might be a thorn in the side of their country. ”

“ As it stands, we have not conquered the city, but it has conquered us. To convince you that no harm is meant to Bishop Henry and his good city of Utrecht, we will command our men to repair to their hostels, lay down their arms, and pass their time in festivity. ”

“ Notwithstanding the severity of the persecutions which they endured, the Protestants of the Netherlands organised themselves into churches, and as early as 1563 the delegates from the various churches met in a synod to settle the doctrine and discipline which was to bind them together. This was not done without internal difficulties. The people of the Netherlands had received the Evangelical faith from various sources, and the converts tenaciously clung to the creed and ecclesiastical system with which they were first acquainted. ”

“ They knew that the struggle before them was likely to be the life-and-death struggle of the Southern Netherlands; they knew that there was risk of their being surrounded so that relief from without would be impossible; they knew that their assailant was one of the most astute and unconquerable of men, by far the greatest general of the sixteenth century. ”

“ One is struck, even in Rotterdam, which is a peculiarly Page 10strenuous town, by the ruddy health of the people in the streets. In England, as one walks about, one sees too often the shadow of Death on this face and that; but in Holland it is difficult to believe in his power, the people have so prosperous, so permanent, an air.
That the Dutch die there is no doubt, for a funeral is an almost daily object, and the aanspreker is continually hurrying by; but where are the dead? The cemeteries are minute, and the churches have no churchyards. ”