repeating: Write to your brother! he is a dear, good boy, and it was not his fault you lived together like cat and dog as long as he was at home. Mamma smiled and said: I am glad to hear it, give my love to him.

Now, are you not curious to learn how I get on with our gerrilt?* He is really very fond of mamma; you and I are rather too much for him! --but, entre nous, Billy, he has left us so well off when he dies, that he has some right to expect a little gratitude from us. It is a great pity for him that we neither of us care for money, and that I would rather have sacrificed a great part of my own fortune to keep the creature out of the house, than have gained ever so much by seeing him here. Now you are studying for the church, you have quite enough of your own; it seems certain mamma must have had other plans when she wanted to make you so much richer; but they seem to be forgotten now. Nevertheless, now he wears a decent coat and has learned to sit properly on his chair, he would be bearable if he was not always wanting to interfere with me. I must always be on my guard, or I should lose ground. He is perpetually grumbling at something or other; either my hair is not nicely dressed, or I get up too late, or he does not like my going out, or my frock. Really and truly, he is so frightfully ignorant of the ways and manners of a lady of fashion, that I am continually asking myself from what part of Kamschatka the creature came! However, he is not naturally vicious only a real bear, who has seen nothing of the world. I should not wonder if we were to become intimate friends one day!

How is dear Miss Rollin? Remember me kindly to her. And Christina Helder, who will be carried off one of these days by Veldenaar! So, Billy, if you were ever in love with her, I pity you. I have quarrelled with uncle Hans, so if aunt scratches me out of her will and puts your name in, she will do quite right. When we once begin, we never know when to leave off. Mamma is very angry with me about it-and she is right,

too.

am your sister, and you are breaking your own windows. You don't know him personally. It is lucky I always hated handsome men, for he has, at best, an every-day face, brown hair, a Zealand color,* is as fair as an Ethiopian, &c. Nevertheless, there is a certain expression in his countenance, and he has a pair of bright eyes, that distinguish him directly from the host of ugly, stupid fellows about town; it was never worth my while to flirt with such human beings in blank. But such a person as Bram is not to be played the fool with, and decidedly, but in strict confidence, as our friend Rattle says, it will be a good match. It is not very likely that I should be misled by what you and other sensitive plants call love, and what I term nonsense, but vanity might lead me astray. I, Alida Leevend, a coquettish, mischievous creature; I, a naught in the creation,--a Frenchified nonentity, to carry off honest Bram Rysig! A man quite good enough for Jacqueline and Christina, and all such ornaments to their sex! Oh! what a triumph! I own that my glory turns my head. As I stood before the great mirror this morning, I could not help repeating to myself, in a most theatrical

manner:

Pour moi, je suis plus fiére, et fuis la gloire aisée
D'arracher un homage à mille autres offert,
Et d'entrer dans un cœur à toutes parts ouvri, &c.

Nevertheless, I can't make out how Cupid managed to send Rysig after me. But that is between themselves. It is not my business. But accept him I must.

With what respect will Mrs. Rysig be saluted by those who scarcely deign to acknowledge Alida Leevend! Nobody knows the news as yet, except Petronella. I asked her advice, as soon as I had made up my mind how to act. That is my way. If matters should turn out ill, one can always say: You advised me to do so! What a capital excuse! If they should turn out well? Oh! that's so seldom the case, that it would be useless to provide for the emergency. I shall have an awful deal of trouble with Mamma Rysig. But that is still to come.

one could ever desire a future lord and master to be! Well-a-day! a single life is a happy life; we girls are allowed to reign so gracefully. Yes, you will say, you may tyrannize over a pitiful coxcomb, or a poor widower with a houseful of children. No, Billy, you are mistaken. Shall I tell you who it is? Why, nobody but Mr. Abraham Rysig, the Amsterdam merchant, who lives in the Heerengracht. What! Rich Bram Rysig ?--Exactly. Well, that's above my comprehension! Hold your tongue, Billy; remember I

* Her stepfather.

the good seeds mamma sows by day in her husband's heart. My conscience, too, is always plaguing me with my way of living. So I have framed some conditions on which I might condescend to accept him, (but by no means immediately!) These are my

Stipulations.

1st. He is to take as little notice of me as possible, because he is my husband.

2d. Before the expiration of the first year of our marriage, he is to take me at least as far as Geneva; to return by way of France. N.B. To pass the winter at Paris.

The Zealand fevers render the inhabitants of this province in general very pale. Her step-brother.

ernment, that would have ruined Church and State, I was obliged to oppose him. But I willingly pardon whatever he undertook against me personally; but he ought to have asked me with out an 'if'-for he has done his best to render the troops faithless to the oath they swore me as their commander-in-chief. Two things have grieved me sensibly: firstly, his assertion that I aimed at the sovereignty, and secondly, that he exposed me to so much danger at Utrecht. But I leave it to your discretion to tell him so or not; for I am desirous of naught but his salvation. I have, too, begged the judges not to impute to him any thing he may have done to me as a crime. With regard to his children, I will be kind to them as long as they deserve it."

As Walaeus was about to leave him with this reply, the Prince recalled him and said, "Did he not speak of a pardon?" The minister returned, "that he had not understood any thing to that effect." He then carefully reported the Prince's words to the advocate, who observed, "that he desired nothing more for his children, and the Prince must be greatly mistaken to imagine he asked a pardon for himself. Besides, he had always, since the year 1600, firmly believed that his Grace aimed at the sovereignty, or an increase of authority. All he (the advocate) had done at Utrecht, was in order to prevent a revolt." After this conversation the advocate prepared for death, though the divines could not bring him to confess he had deserved to die. The discourse then turned on Divine providence, and from what the advocate said, Walaeus was inclined to believe him an adherent of the anti-Arminian party; but others affirm him to have been more moderate in his expressions. On one occasion he evinced the interest he took in the other prisoners, and asked, "Is my Grotius to die, too? and Hoogerbeets?" But Beyerus replied he knew nothing about it. "I should be very sorry for them," answered the advocate; "they are still young, and might do the state good service." He likewise endeavored, at a late hour of the night, to take some rest, but was not able to do so. Then he lay reading a long time in his French Book of Psalms. He likewise requested Beyerus to read something to him.

About five o'clock in the morning, the clergy. men were sent for by the judges, who assembled at that early hour. The advocate then rose from his couch, had his shirt collar cut open in front by his servant, and gave him his nightcap, to take care of, until he wanted it. All the while he remained perfectly calm. As soon as the clergymen returned to him, morning service was performed by Walaeus. The advocate's wife and children, who had received his sad farewell letter the previous evening, applied, before four o'clock in the morning, for admittance to him, on which the judges sent to inquire if the old man wished to see his spouse and children and grandchildren for the last time. But as he did not know this to be at their own request, he declined the meeting. The judges had this answer appended to the petition of his relations, who desisted from any further attempts at seeing him. The Princess-Dowager, hearing the advocate was condemned to death, endeavored to save him by her intercession, but

could not obtain an audience of Prince Maurice. The French ambassador, Maurier, requested to be received by the States-General at five o'clock in the morning, but was refused. Upon this he immediately presented a memorial to the States, requesting the capital sentence might be commuted into banishment. But his application was not listened to. At seven o'clock, the advocate wrote a note to his wife and children, chiefly recommending his servant, Jan Franken, to their care, and to advise them of what he had begged the Prince to do.

By daybreak, the inner and outer courts were lined with troops. At four o'clock they began to erect the scaffold in the inner court, before the window of the staircase leading to the great hall -on the right-hand side. A few minutes before eight, Walaeus warned the advocate to prepare. He immediately left his room and went towards the judges' chamber, but there he heard it was a mistake, and a little too early. Thereupon he retired again to his own room, and read, for half an hour or more, in his French Psalms. Between eight and nine o'clock he was summoned to the Rolls Court, where the four-and-twenty judges, the three fiscals, and the clerk, Post, were assembled. There his sentence was read to him. Meanwhile the advocate appeared restless and uneasy, as if he wanted to say something. But he contained himself until the lecture was concluded. He then affirmed that he was accused of more than could be inferred from what he had confessed. He also opposed the confiscation of his estates. But De Voogd, one of the judges, interrupted him, crying out "Sentence has been passed, away! away!" The old man then walked very steadily, leaning on his stick, from the chamber, through the hall, to the scaffold. There he raised his eyes to heaven, saying, "O Lord, to what is man exposed!" and he knelt down on the bare planks, as there was no cushion at hand. Meanwhile, Lamotius repeated the prayer, which lasted nearly a quarter of an hour. After this he seemed more cheerful than before, undressed himself with his servant's aid, and said then, or before undressing, to the spectators: "Good people, do not believe me to be a traitor; I have acted honestly and worthily, like a good patrict, and as such I die." Upon this he asked for his velvet cap, which he drew over his eyes. He spoke a few words of extemporary prayer on his way to the heap of sand. If he even at this moment still entertained hopes of escaping death is uncertain, but he asked his servant if nobody were coming. It was just before halfpast nine when he knelt down, saying to the executioner, "Be quick, be quick!" He then raised his hands in prayer, so close to his neck that with his head the tops of his fingers were severed. Many of the spectators dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood; others carried off some of the bloody sand, or sold it to their friends.. They even cut off some bloody chips from the scaffold, incited by various emotions of love, hatred, and revenge. De Groot wrote some years after, very plainly, that Oldenbarneveldt's enemy-meaning, probably, the Prince-witnessed his death. The body was buried quietly the same night. The papers concealed in his prison were afterwards discovered

by the judges. It is not known if they are still in existence, or if they were destroyed. The advocate died at the age of seventy-one years, seven months, and eighteen days.

Wagenaar was greatly surpassed in elegance of style and universal knowledge by Simon Stijl, a learned physician, whose history of the "Rise and Prosperity of the United Netherlands," besides ten volumes of biographies of distinguished men, still holds an honorable place in the list of Dutch classics; and the Pensionary Spiegel, Meerman, Bondam, and others, all contributed about this time to a fund of historical works, mostly very valuable as to their contents, but awfully dry and wearisome for the general reader, however great their importance may be to the historian.

But all the merits of these writers and all they undertook to prevent the further spread of French taste and French language, (even Hemsterhuis, an honor to the times and Dutch nation, chose that tongue for his writings,) were vain endeavors to stem the torrent which not only invaded the Netherlands, but rendered the whole Continent, as it were, for a period subservient to France. We have, in our first paper, pointed out the political events at the beginning of the present century, which for a time threatened the utter annihilation of the Dutch nation. That literature should be one of the first victims, was a necessary consequence. Even satire and irony were unavailing weapons in the hands of the patriots, and Feitema and his school of imitators reigned triumphant at the end of the eighteenth century in the literary republic The last and worthiest of the champions of better taste and better times was Arend Fokke Simonsz, a citizen of Amsterdam, who began life as a bookseller and ended it as a bookmaker. He had plenty of ready wit, but, like a great many other wits, was rather too fond of displaying it. He was the author of a Comic History of France and England, in his "Comic Tour through Europe," of numerous essays of all sorts, of a Comic Dictionary, &c., and he attacked the poetasters of the day in his "Modern Helicon," with an extract from which we shall conclude our present paper.

We must premise that the author (in a dream) fancies himself to be taking a walk through Amsterdam, seeking a shop and signboard, displaying in large characters the words:

Magasin de Poésie et de Versification, de Monsieur Phoebus Apollon de Delos;

which he had seen advertised in the morning paper. On ringing the bell, he is introduced into the back shop, where he finds an old man booking his accounts, and on being informed by the servant-maid (one of the Muses) that he is in the presence of the god, he addresses him:

Κλύθί μευ, 'Αργυρότοξ, ὅς Χρύσην αμφιβέβηκας, &c.

Tears came into the old fellow's eyes when he heard me thunder out these words, but he could not refrain from smiling at the same time, which gave such a curious twist to his features, that I should have burst out laughing if I had dared. "Oh, my dear sir," said he at length, "who and what are you? That is a language I have not heard for a long time; it reminds me of my blind old friend, Homer, and is really quite affecting. But I must smile at the queer contrast it offers with my present circumstances. Do I look like a powerful god? No, no, I may well exclaim with Virgil, of glorious memory, Fuit Ilium!”

The god further proves himself a laudator temporis acti of the true stamp, and offers, at length, to show his visitor his wares, which he lets out by the month or day, or sells, to suit his customers' convenience. Before going through his magazines, which are filled up with all the loci communes of the day, so extravagantly used by the poets, such as Cupid's darts, scalding tears, smouldering ashes, broken hearts, shepherds' pipes, tuneful lyres, &c., all most systematically arranged in the pomp, pride and circumstance of glorious "trade," the visitor inquires after the Muses, to whom he is desirous of paying his respects.

"Muses!" was the reply, "Oh, they are much melting away like snow in summer. as you must expect to find them. Old and feeble, lead is none of the happiest-wear and tear more The life they than enough." But Thalia," observed I," was always cheerful. I hope she is well." "Oh! do not mention Thalia; she is the worst and most troublesome of the set; she has grown so peevish that she worries me to death; she is composing ourselves, she is fond of a drop; but the really pamphlets and satires all day long. Between comic vein is exhausted! She was an odd creature from her childhood; even in the days of Aristophanes she gave me a deal of trouble. She never behaved better than in the times of Plautus, Menander and Terence, and once after, (about

four hundred years ago,) she was on her good beshe is scarcely decent company. She is a great havior with Molière and Holberg; but now-a-days deal too fond of the penny-a-liners and street poets, who come to buy or hire their trumpery here, and I can't prevent her goings-on. Their money is as good as anybody else's, I suppose." "But," I replied, "I hope her sister Melpomene is not altered;