The Express.
London, England, 1848-10-21 00:00:00

of the present day, and Hothat ant so few allure-
meets to travellers et that deserted's, that we cahoot
be greatly surprised that the mere brilliantani adven-
turous of the travel-writing heid,abstildtarn away from
plain and practical Holland in search of wilder
scenery and of a more romantic pe*, both ss afford-
ing more active excitement for dimarelees and es
promising a greater fund of
ha
wonder be allow en
for their readers. We may, howevered te
wonder that men of a practical turn, who bract
so mach time in the study of the smite and
tse
condition of other countries, and the emir of whim
inquiries have been so useful std no 1460 liFfir•-
Mated, should have done se Ettle to make
es acquainted with the "meat state and
oepects of a people with whom we are
coprnnected by so many ties in the mnewt as well es
the put ; with whom, in fact, we_ have murenafilulty
and similarity, in origin and an language, in nenetatal
and pursuit", and in many of the most o
bases of national character, than with any of seer
neighbours, either on the continent or in the remoter
districts of the British Isles themselves.
And, yet, oar Dutch neighbours have • character
and a heron, as well as a country of their own, se
stroogly marked by individuality and native
,I angry so pre-eminent in the past, as worthy
of attentive examination in the present, as
any of the more brilliant races, the attractions
of whose character, not less than of their climate, keep
the claims of Holland in the shade. Dutch lite-
rature, however, though meritorious in itself
and characteristic of the people who have produced it,
is doubtless outshone by many of its continental com-
peers. Bat Dutch history—the people, and the land
which they inhabit—are so remarkable, so perfectly
unique in their greatest qualities and achievements,
that it is hard to find • good excuse for our knowing
so little about them. That William the Silent, and
Egmont, and Barneveldt, and the De Witt", and
Tromp, and De Ruyter, were fine fellows—great men,
and great statesmen—the Englishman is most
ready to admit. But how and wherefore
they were or became so, be Is quite rinse-
hencas to know. There is scarcely any French
or Italian, or Spanish, or Om= hero, of whom be
could not tell you twenty times as much. The sting.
lee of Holland against Spain was a grand contest ; it
was justified by worse oppressions, and its success
was won against more fearful odds, and crowned by
more extraordinary prosperity and power, than any
other in history. Yet not even the name and the
eloquence of Schiller have succeeded in making it
familiar to the English mind in the same degree as
much less remarkable periods in other histories.
It is the same way with the country itself. Every
Englishman knows that a large proportion of its ter-
ritory has been reclaimed from the sea, and is pre-
served from fresh incursions only by unparalleled in-
genuity and perseverance. Yet how few, ever, of those
devoted to scientific and mechanical pursuits, have any
accurate notion of how that great triumph of science
and industry was effected, or how it is maintained
And yet what are Mr. Brunel's Thames Tunnel, or
Mr. Stephensou's tubular bridge, or the most daring
feats of cur modern mechanicians, compared with the
sea-dykes which the Dutch fishermen constructed in
the very infancy of science? We cannot at this moment
point to any popular English work that contains even a
moderately full and satisfactory account of these
work., conceived in the darkest period of the middle
ages, and which modern science has been found
unable either to surpass or materially to
improve. Haarlem Lake is now drained by •
steam engine : that is about the most important aid
which the Dutch have yet derived from the inven-
tions of which our age and country are so justly
proud. Their fences against the sea are constructed
on the same plan, and preserved by much the same
appliances, that for so many centuries have kept the
country from being swallowed op.
The force of character and of intellect that thus
made a country out of sands and morasses—fished it'
up, so to speak, out of the malt waters,—sod that sub-
seqoently woe prosperity and freedom. w. alth anti
wide-spread empire, for the land that had so miracu-
lous a beginning; welch has, moreover, always I
evi,ced so lively& sympathy with and not tinfr!equently
taken the lead in, the relig:ous, political, or philosophi-
cal movements of Europe, must be deeply rooted in the
people. Fallen as Holland is from the proud pre-
eminence she once possessed, the energy of the Dutch
character may yet display itself in other channels,'
produce new heroes and men of genius, and exercise a
new empire over the affections and the thoughts of
some generation yet to be. In history, in commerce,
in manufactures, in philosophy, and in the fine arts,
Holland has at various periods held the highest rank,
and produced men whom no country has surpassed
whom no age will ever forget. If Holland had
nothing whatever but the recollections of the past to
plead for her, she would yet have a claim upon all who'
can appreciate real genius and genuine worth, to be
revered sanely less than Athens, and to be not less
dear to the lover of true romance than Venice itself.
England, at all events, is bound by very gratitude
take an undying interest in the welfare of -Holland,
and in the habits and pursuits of its inhabitants.
Holland was the great exemplar, the mistress and
the guide of England, in that career of industry and
commerce, which she was but beginning, when Hot-
land's greatness and glory were at their height.
Not only in commerce, but likewise and
earlier, in the principles of civil and reli-
gious liberty, might England be said to have gone
to school to Holland. The latter might fairly boast
of being England's tutor and predecessor in the ease-
tical realisation of all that she most prides herself
upon, all that has since most distinctly marked our
character and institutions, and given this island so
proud a place in history ; one which may possibly
outlast its;power and its material greatness. From
the first union of the seventeen provinces to the time
when William of Nassau landed at Torbay, Holland
was • perpetual beacon, stimulus, and reproach
to all in England who loved liberty, and yearned
for either religious freedom, constitutional self-govern-
ment, or social sad intellectual advancement.
Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir William Temple, Sir
William Petty, all the great leaders of enter-
prise, and advocates of progress, were unceas-
ingly appealing to the example of Holland. There
was no success, no kind of liberty, no element cot pro-
sperity oe power, of which Holland did not in those
ages present the most strikiug examples, and of
Which she was not ready to impart to England all
those niceties of skill and method in which long pret-
ties had made her an unrivalled proficient. It may
safely be asserted that if Holland had not been
what she was and where she was, England would
never have attained her present position anon the
nations of the earth. The example of Holland WAN 10 be
sure, not held out to England alone ; and Eneesd's
best reason to be proud is, the' she alone knew how
to profit by it. But had Holland not been there to
teach her, England might now be half a Spain, half
a France' but never the England, the British empire
that she is. Strange that the pupil should evince,
we will not may so little love or respect for, but so very
moderate an =rarest in the habits and pursuits of, a
teacher to whom she owes so much.

But putting historical and political considerations
apart, and acknowledging that nations are sel-
dom actuated by feelings of mere gratitude
to those by whose example the 7 have pro-
fited, the present social condition of Hol-
land, and the mode by which, notwithstanding
the decay of the main sources of her prosperity, she
still retains a respectable position in Europe, and
secures to her people a greater amount and a more
equal distribution- of the comforts of life than other
nations in the heyday of then prosperity can boast of,
render it a matter of surprise that there should be no
work giving an accurate account of her present
political state. To Dutch history, indeed, our litera-
ture has recently received some excellent contribu-
tions. Mrs. Davies' "History of Holland"
in force of style and political insight, a
remarkable work for • woman ; and the second
volume of Mr. Torrens M'Cullagh's " Industrial
History of Free Nations," contains not only •
picturesque, but a profoundly philosophical and in-
structive development of the peculiar characteristics
of that policy and energy—of the art and nature—
which made Holland what she was, and which have
as yet preserved her from falling into the apathy and
decay which mark the decline of most other powerful
'tees at • similar period of their existence. But of
modern travellers or statisticians, at least in England,
Mr. Laing is the only one of any eminence who has
noticed Holland; and he has done so only carnally
(in his" Notes of a Traveller"), and we not say, not
in the best spirit, his object being apparently to de-
preciate unduly the present conditicm of the °pantry,
as a aarra6zetion of fez from the soundest of the pecu-
liar Unwise in which :2! indulges altanee than aught