CHAPTER L. P. I.

VOYAGE TO ROTTERDAM AND LEYDEN.

THE AUTHOR

CANNOT TARRY TO DESCRIBE THAT CITY, WHAT HAPPENED THERE TO DANIEL DOVE.

He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage. As who doth not that shall attempt the like?-For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him unhappy that never travelled, a kind of prisoner, and pity his case that from his cradle to his old age he beholds the same still; still, still, the same, the same! BURTON.

"WHY did Dan remain in ships ?" says Deborah the Prophetess in that noble song, which if it had been composed in Greek instead of Hebrew would have made Pindar hide his diminished head, or taught him a loftier strain than even he has reached in his eagle flights-" Why did Dan remain in ships ?" said the Prophetess. Our

Daniel during his rough passage from the Humber to the Maese, thought that nothing should make him do so. Yet when all danger real or imaginary was over, upon that deep

Where Proteus' herds and Neptunes orcs do keep, Where all is ploughed, yet still the pasture's green, The ways are found, and yet no paths are seen :-"* when all the discomforts and positive sufferings of the voyage were at an end; and when the ship,--

Quitting her fairly of the injurious sea,†

had entered the smooth waters of that stately river, and was gliding

Into the bosom of her quiet quay;†

he felt that the delight of setting foot on shore after a sea voyage, and that too the shore of a foreign country, for the first time, is one of the few pleasures which exceed any expectation that can be formed of them.

He used to speak of his landing, on a fine autumnal noon, in the well-wooded and well-watered city of Rotterdam, and of his journey along what he called the high-turnpike canal from thence to *B. JONSON, v. 8, p. 37. ++ QUARLES.

Leyden, as some of the pleasantest recollections of his life. Nothing he said was wanting to his enjoyment, but that there should have been some one to have partaken it with him in an equal degree. But the feeling that he was alone in a foreign land sate lightly on him, and did not continue long,-young as he was, with life and hope before him, healthful of body and of mind, cheerful as the natural consequence of that health corporeal and mental, and having always much to notice and enough to do-the one being an indispensable condition of happiness, the other a source of pleasure as long as it lasts; and where there is a quick eye and an enquiring mind, the longest residence abroad is hardly long enough to exhaust it.

No day in Daniel's life had ever passed in such constant and pleasurable excitement as that on which he made his passage from Rotterdam to Leyden, and took possession of the lodgings which Peter Hopkins's correspondent had engaged for him. His reception was such as instantly to make him feel that he was placed with worthy people. The little apprehensions, rather than

anxieties, which the novelty of his situation occasioned, the sight of strange faces with which he was to be domesticated, and the sound of a strange language, to which, harsh and uninviting as it seemed, his ear and speech must learn to accustom themselves, did not disquiet his first night's rest. And having fallen asleep notwithstanding the new position to which a Dutch bolster constrained him, he was not disturbed by the storks, all night

Beating the air with their obstreperous beaks, (for with Ben Jonson's leave, this may much more appropriately be said of them than of the ravens) nor by the watchmen's rappers, or clapsticks, which seem to have been invented in emulous imitation of the stork's instrumental performance.

But you and I, Reader, can afford to make no tarriance in Leyden. I cannot remain with you here till you could see the Rector Magnificus in his magnificence. I cannot accompany you to the monument of that rash Baron who set the crown of Bohemia in evil hour upon the Elector Palatine's unlucky head. I cannot take you to

the graves of Boerhaave and of Scaliger. I cannot go with you into that library of which Heinsius said, when he was Librarian there," I no sooner set foot in it and fasten the door, but I shut out ambition, love, and all those vices of which idleness is the mother and ignorance the nurse; and in the very lap of Eternity among so many illustrious souls I take my seat, with so lofty a spirit that I then pity the great who know nothing of such happiness."-Plerunque in quâ simulac pedem posui, foribus pessulum abdo, ambitionem autem, amorem, libidinem, &c. excludo, quorum parens est ignavia, imperitia nutrix; et in ipso æternitatis gremio, inter tot illustres animas sedem mihi sumo, cum ingenti quidem animo, ut subinde magnatum me misereat qui felicitatem hanc ignorant! I cannot walk with you round the ramparts, from which wide circling and well shaded promenade you might look down upon a large part of the more than two thousand gardens which a century ago surrounded this most horticultural city of a horticultural province, the garden, as it was called of Holland, that is of the land of Gardeners. I