DELPHI BATAVORUM 25 
Hollande.”* All old histories of Holland and of the House 
of Orange” also contain repeated references to Delft—the 
family’s stronghold in the Netherlands. Here William the 
Silent was assassinated (you can still see the hole made by the 
murderer’s bullet in the wall of the staircase of the Prince’s 
Court): and here, in the New Church, is the mausoleum 
wherein many of the most distinguished sons and daughters 
of the House lie buried. Delft, in the time of Leeuwenhoek, 
also forms the subject of one of the world’s pictorial master- 
pieces.” But the best and shortest description of the town at 
the time when Leeuwenhoek was in his prime—when Holland 
and England were at settled peace under William III of 
Orange and Great Britain—is, I think, that left to us by an 
obscure Englishman, William Mountague, Hsq., who once 
spent a holiday in Holland and afterwards wrote a lively 
description of what he saw. From his little book (1696) I 
may quote the following lines*: 
Delftis a fair and populous City, very clean, well built, 
and very pleasant; well seated in a Plain of Meadows, 
which may be laid all round under Water, if they open 
their Sluces, when the Wind is Kast-North-EHast. At 
the Entrance of it stands a general Magazine of Warlike 
Stores (but no Powder’) for the Publick Service. This 
City was burnt to Ashes Anno 15386, but soon re-built, and 
now in greater Glory than ever. The Hast-India Com- 
pany of this Place have here a very good House and large 
Ware-Houses; as also an eighth part of the Great or 
General Stock, this being the Third Town of Holland, 
having the Third Voice in the States, whither it sends 
Deputies, as also to all the other Colleges. Here are very 
' Pepys (Diary, 10 Dec. 1663) mentions that he bought a copy of this 
work. I have read only the revised version of 1710. 
* As examples I may mention the early Dutch histories of William 
and Maurice (see Anonymus, 1662), and the Historia Nostri Temporis by 
Brachelius (1666). 
® See Plate VII, opp. p. 35. My small reproduction gives but a poor 
idea of the splendour of the original painting. 
“ Mountague (1696), p. 18 sq. 
° Cf. footnote 3 on p. 55 infra. 
