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councils in apartments comparatively dull, dirty, and incommodious. We could not help remarking, that the open area surrounding the palace is not kept in a neat or even cleanly state; while the spaces in front of private residences in the principal streets are in the trimmest order. The proportional smallness of the main door, and the want of a portico, did not fail to strike us, and immediately recalled to our recollection our having long ago read some just criticisms to that effect. We readily procured admission; and at once pronounced the Marble Hall to be by far the finest public room we had ever beheld. But a detailed description of the interior of the building has been thought worthy of occupying two splendid volumes in folio; and we could add nothing to the abridged accounts to be found in every book descriptive of Holland. The view of Amsterdam from the roof is interesting; here only did we form a correct estimate of the multitude of shipping in the port. Having lately seen the comparatively deserted harbour of Antwerp, we could not help reflecting on one cause of the contrast, and regretting the injustice done to the Brabantines in the closing of the Scheldt. In a tower on the roof is a set of musical bells, the chimes of which are excellent; very superior indeed to those of St. Giles's at Edinburgh." pp. 228, 9.ta

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Mr. Neill was much impressed, in passing through the Jews' Quarter, with the appearance of this portion of the royal people.' In consequence of a fair, several thousands were now in the streets.

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The women were walking about in their holiday dresses: many of them had very considerable claims to beauty, their features, being regular and striking, and their complexions good: even the poorest of these Jewesses, we remarked, were adorned with rich laces. Many of these last were flower-girls but the flower-market was at this time nearly deserted; Sunday, after morning service, being othe chief day for nosegays, and Monday for the sale of showry plants and shrubs in flower-pots. The sallow complexion, the large nose, and the sonorous voice of the men, at once betrayed their origin. We experienced no more difficulty here in distinguishing the tone of a Jew, although he spoke Dutch, than in recognising the voice of an Fold-clothes-man in the streets of London. We felt that we witnessed a standing miracle, the separation of this ancient "peculiar peoply" from the various nations among which they are scattered while the descendants of the Romans, who conquered the whole known work, wlio sacked Jerusalem itself, are already irretrievably blended with "the inhabitants of all the countries of Europe. 13 sud .mabretamA

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"Amazing race! depriv'd of Land and Laws,
A general Language, and a public Cause;
With a religion none can now obey,
With a reproach that none can take away:
A People still, whose common ties are gone;
Who, mix'd with every Race, are lost in none.'

1

LagAs far as he had opportunity of observing, it appeared to

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Mr. Neill, that the descriptions of the Dutch towns, generally, given by Mr. Ray in 1663, Dr. Brown in 1668, Mr. Misson in, 1687, and Dr. Northleigh in 1702, are applicable in almost every particular to the same towns at the present day so comparatively stationary,' he remarks, has Holland been, or so averse the people to changes.' That part of Holland: which they visited, left an impression exactly corresponding to the characteristic description given long ago by Sir William Temple. It is like the sea in a calm, and looks as if, after a long contention between land and water, which it should, belong to, it had at length been divided between them. The following observations are important...

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* Metelerkamp remarks, that Holland was defended with dikes too soon. In former ages, the Rhine, at its embouchure, spread over a great surface of country, and the clay suspended in the waters was slowly and equally deposited over the whole. At the present day, this deposit must take place chiefly in the flat part of the alveus of the river itself, and in the bottom of the lakes and canals in which it is lost. The progress of this silting up is universally acknowledged in Holland in some places, the bottom of the river or of the canal is as certained to be already considerably higher than the meadows or} corn-fields on each side. This unnatural condition cannot well endure for another age. The principal Dutch engineers, we understand, have projected a general reform in the waterstadt, on liberal and enlightened principles. Instead of allowing, as at present, rich individuals and monied companies to heighten at pleasure the embankments for defence of their private properties, it has been proposed to open a free course to the ocean in the lowest parts of the country, by having regard only to the natural course of the outlets, by keeping down all private dikes there, and by raising very considerably the grand enbankments. In the execution of this project, much temporary inconvenience must doubtless result to individuals occupying the lowest districts; but in this way only can any prospect be indulged of the former state of things being restored. The soil or mud annually" left by the overflowing of waters, would not only meliorate the lowest meadows and corn-lands, but would gradually raise them while the main dikes would afford far greater security to the inhabi tants in general. pp. 262, 3,

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The orchards and gardens of Holland are, on the whole, well managed The Dutch excel the Flemings in producing vegetables, but are inferior to the cultivators for the London marketof If, therefore, says Mr. Neill, Fowler, in his Worthies, ⚫ be correct in saying that kitchen-gardening crept from Holland into Kent, the English, it must be admitted, have greatly improved upon the lesson they thus received.' But not only does England carry away the palm with regard to such plebeian commodities as vegetables; Paris itself must yield to

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Covent Garden market in the patrician delicacies which it supplies. The quantity of ripe grapes exhibited for sale in that market from the middle to the end of July 1821, would, if told, Mr. Neill says, surpass the belief of Parisian cultivators. At Paris, ripe grapes are not to be procured, at that season of the year, for any sum.

On the 14th of August, Prince Leopold, then on his way to Italy, dined with the English ambassador, when a splendid dessert was desirable; but ripe grapes could not be found at Paris. A price equal to 128. per lb. was paid for some unripe bunches, merely to make a show, for they were wholly unfit for table use. On the 21st of the same month, the Duke of Wellington being expected to arrive to dinner, another search for ripe grapes was instituted throughout Paris, but in vain.'

When pine-apples are wanted for the Ambassador's table, they are generally procured from Covent Garden Market, by means of the Government messengers who are constantly passing between the two capitals.' !!

Upon the whole, it appears to be the result of the inquiries of the Deputation, that, in the practical science of horticulture, in its various branches, our countrymen have little to learn from their continental neighbours; but, in arboraceous decoration,' they set our citizens an example which we should: be glad to see followed under the direction of scientific phytologysts.

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Art. XI. Australia, with other Poems. By Thomas K. Hervey, Trin. Coll. Cambridge. f.cap 8vo. pp. 142. Price 6s. London, 1824. POETRY, in some minds, attains sufficient vigour to put forth its blossoms, but, not being indigenous to the soil, never fructifies. There is efflorescence enough, in the present instance, to excite the expectation of more substantial produce": but it remains to be seen what Mr. Hervey's poetry may ripes, into. He is, judging from his volume, a young man, and a clever young man, but one who has not yet become, in the Cambridge sense, a reading man. It will be well if poetry should not divert him from the strenuous prosecution of severera studies. If he has genius, his taste will purify itself, provided he do not yield himself to habits of intellectual dissipation. But he has much to learn and to unlearn. If the alliteration' with which his poems abound be accidental, it is unfortunate: if designed, it is a bad omen. For instance :

Like legacies, the holiest and the last'

The vistas which his spirit loves to view'

Bright as that beauteous bud of rain-bow dies.'

Borne by the billows, wafted by the breeze,
Thy forests float'-

Where the long lizard on the herbage lies'

Thy merry masques, and moonlight carnivals.'

Lines of this kind occur perpetually, and the effect is at all events very unpleasing.

Another fault which a young poet is almost sure to fall into, is the perpetual occurrence of some favourite word or epithet, either his harp or his heart, starry or heavenly, magic or moonlight. Mr. Hervey's favourite word is holy. Thus we have the holy twilight hour,' the holy gleam' of moonlight ; echo breathes a holier tone;'

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a lady's sigh is holy, for we are told, that

The evening gale that wanders by
The rose is not so holy.'

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A little extravagance is pardonable, but Mr. Hervey's maturer taste will revolt from such expressions as the heaven of thy heart' (addressed to Ellen),

Starlight is a gala of the skies,'

and again, speaking of Van Diemen's land,

adventure's younger child

Sits, like a bud of beauty, in the wild.'

This is Darwin out-Darwinized. The best passage in the leading poem is the following,

Isles of the orient-gardens of the east!
Thou giant secret of the liquid waste,
Long ages in untrodden paths concealed,
Or, but in glimpses faint and few revealed,
Like some chimera of the ocean-caves,

Some dark and sphinx-like riddle of the waves,
Till he the northern Edipus - unfurled
His venturous sail, and solved it to the world!
Surpassing beauty sits upon thy brow,
But darkness veils thy all of time, save now;
Enshrouded in the shadows of the past,
And secret in thy birth as is the blast.
If, when the waters and the land were weighed,
Thy vast foundations in the deep were laid;
Or, 'mid the tempests of a thousand years,

Where through the depths her shell the mermaid steers,
Mysterious workmen wrought unseen at thee,
And reared thee, like a Babel, in the sea;

If Afric's dusky children sought the soil
Which yields her fruits without the tiller's toil;
Or, southward wandering on his dubious way,
Came to thy blooming shores the swarth Malay:
'Tis darkness all :-long years have o'er thee rolled,
Their flight unnoted, and their tale untold:
But beautiful thou art, as fancy deems
The visioned regions of her sweetest dreams;
Fair as the Moslem, in his fervour, paints
The promised vallies of the prophet's saints;
Bright with the brightness which the poet's eye.
Flings o'er the long-lost bowers of Araby ;-
The soul of beauty haunts thy sunny glades;
10 The soul of music whispers through thy shades;
And nature, gazing on her loveliest plan,

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Sees all supremely excellent-but Man!' pp. 20-22.

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The minor poems are elegant. The least promising is My 'Sister's Grave:' the subject should have inspired something much better. The Bacchanalian song at p. 124., ought not to have appeared in a volume dated from Trinity College, Cambridge; and Mr. Hervey ought to reserve adoration (p. 113.) for higher objects than departed spirits, even if they be those of the "just made perfect." To convince him that we throw out these hints with no unfriendly feeling, we make room for one of the most pleasing poems in the volume.

SERENADE.

'Tis love's own hour!-for the gentle moon
Has girdled herself in her silver zone;
And wandered forth, where the winds are still,
To her shepherd's home on the dewy hill;
And the lily bows, with a sigh more sweet,
Beneath the touch of the huntress' feet!

And the voiceless tale of the visionless breeze

Is told, in sighs, to the jasmine trees;

And the zephyr woos the lake to bliss,

And kisses the stream with a lover's kiss;

And the stars look light on the deep-blue sea,
Whose waves reflect it slumberingly!

And far in the quiet grove away,
The night bird utters his lonely lay;
And viewless echo repeats the tale
To his lady-love in her distant vale;
And the rose looks up, with a tearful eye,
And lists to its music silently!

And the gossamer weaves, in the holy light,
His scarce seen web, like a far delight;

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