The Henson Journals

[277]

Wednesday, August 23rd, 1911. The Hague.

We packed after breakfast in order to go on to Amsterdam after lunch. Then we issued forth for our last essay at sightseeing in the Hague. We walked to the Nieuwe Church which is only interesting because Spinoza and the de Witts are buried therein. Then, as rain began to fall & we had no cloaks & umbrellas, we turned in to see the Municipal Museum, which is only redeemed from utter insignificance by some fine portrait–pictures by Jan van Ravesteyn (1572–1657), and a number of contemporary wood–cuts illustrating the tragedy of the de Witts. Next we visited the Steengracht Gallery, belonging to Baron Steengracht van Duivenvoorde. This small but choice collection of Dutch masters is very well worth seeing. Rembrandt's 'Bathsheba'; Adr. Brower's 'The Smokers'; a little cattle picture by Paul Potter; Jan Steen's 'As the old have sung, so chirrup the young': Teniers' 'The Seven Works of Mercy' – all these are pictures which live in the memory. Then we walked to the Groote Kerk, a fine Gothic Church with a Reformed Congregation 'squatting' in it awkwardly. Here is a fine tomb of Admiral Opdam, who perished in battle with the English off Lowestoft in 1665. There is one window filled with sixteenth century glass, a finely carved 16th century pulpit, & the coats of arms of the Knights [278] of the Golden Fleece of 1456. Here the Queen was married, & the most eminent preachers hold forth. The good woman who showed us the church expatiated on the crowds which flock to the preaching of one pastor, a rigid Calvinist, whose name fails from my memory. We walked as far as the Queen's Palace, & gazed at the outside of a very unpretentious building. This completed our sight–seeing. We retraced our steps to the Hotel, lunched, and went off to Amsterdam, breaking our journey at Leyden.

At Leyden we spent two hours. First, we walked to the Church of St Peter, a splendid Gothic Church in which a Protestant encampment had been established. Not a scrap of painted glass remained: all was whitewashed & varnished seats. But there are some memorable graves. Here lie the scholar, Scaliger, the physician Boerhave, the theologians Spanheim & Arminius, the Puritan Robinson. A large tablet affixed to the exterior wall of the Church commemorates the last. Then we walked round the Botanical Gardens, & looked at the outside of the University Buildings. We were too late to see the inside of the Stadthuis, but we saw the quaint inscription on the outside which keeps alive the memory of that fearful siege which first made Leyden famous in 1572, which Baedeker [279] renders thus: 'When the black famine had brought to the death nearly 6000 persons, then God the Lord repented of it, & gave us bread again as much as we could wish.' We walked back to the station & continued our journey to Amsterdam. Leyden impressed us well. The canals with bordering lines of trees in opulent leafage give an aspect of calm dignity to these Dutch towns. Here the buildings are more stately than usual; and there is that indefinable air of distinction which belongs to old University cities. We noticed that in Leyden as also in Gouda, Dordrecht, & the Hague restoration work was proceeding in the Churches. The Dutch would seem to be waking up to the value of the few medieval monuments which remain. Certainly the aspect presented by their churches is very distressing. The crude ugliness of the pews which they have thrust incongruously into those great buildings suggests something more than the prosaic desire to secure the comfort of the worshipper. The very negation of worship itself seems to be implicit in such gross violation of good taste and good feeling.

We arrived in Amsterdam shortly after 6.30 p.m. and put up in the Hotel Victoria which is conveniently near the Railway Station.

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