132 THE LANDSCAPES OF HOLLAND. 
island. Isolated even in the midst of his family, who could not com- 
prehend him, he seldom emerged from his cabinet, and descended on 
the fewest possible occasions into the paternal shop. 
His sole recreation was to go in search of insects in the little soil 
which Holland offers above the waters. The melancholy meads, 
covered with Paul Potter’s herds, possess, in the moist warmth of the 
summer, a great variety of animal life. The traveller is much im- 
pressed when he sees the crane, the stork, and the crow, elsewhere 
hostile, reconciled here by the abundance of their food, which they 
{frequently hunt in company on terms of perfect accord. Hence the 
landscape acquires a peculiar charm. The cattle assume an air of placid 
security which they do not elsewhere exhibit. The summer is short, 
and early assumes the gravity of autumn. Man and Nature —all 
appears of a pacific character, harmonized in a great moral sweetness 
and remarkable seriousness of mood. 
Enthusiastic collector as his father was, he grieved to see the youth 
of Swammerdam thus employed. It had been his ambition to make of 
his son a renowned minister who should shine in controversy, and an 
eloquent preacher. But his son seemed daily to grow more dumb. 
The chagrined father lowered his views from glory to money. In that 
golden city, so feverish and so diseased, no career is more lucrative 
than that of a physician. But here arose another difficulty. Swam- 
merdam threw himself heartily into his medical studies; but on con- 
dition that he created them—as yet they did not exist. Therefore, the 
basis on which he desired to rest them was the preliminary creation of 
