58 CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 



firkins, swillers of beer and schnaps, and their vrouivs, from 

 whom Holbein painted the ail-but loveliest of Madonnas, 

 Rembrandt the graceful girl who sits immortal on his knee 

 in Dresden, and Rubens his abounding goddesses, were the 

 syiionymes of clumsy vulgarity. Even so late as Irving 

 the ships of the greatest navigators in the world were repre 

 sented as sailing equally well stern-foremost. That the 

 aristocratic Venetians should have 



Riveted with gigantic piles 

 Thorough the centre their new-catched miles,&quot; 



was heroic. But the far more marvellous achievement of 

 the Dutch in the same kind was ludicrous even to republican 

 Marvell. Meanwhile, during that very century of scorn, 

 they were the best artists, sailors, merchants, bankers, 

 printers, scholars, jurisconsults, and statesmen in Europe, 

 and the genius of Motley has revealed them to us, earning 

 a right to themselves by the most heroic struggle in human 

 annals. But, alas ! they were not merely simple burghers 

 who had fairly made themselves high mightinesses, and 

 could treat on equal terms with anointed kings, but their 

 commonwealth carried in its bosom the germs of democracy. 

 They even unmuzzled, at least after dark, that dreadful 

 mastiff, the Press, whose scent is, or ought to be, so keen 

 for wolves in sheep s clothing and for certain other animals 

 in lions skins. They made fun of sacred majesty, and, 

 what was worse, managed uncommonly well without it. 

 In an age when periwigs made so large a part of the 

 natural dignity of man, people with such a turn of mind 

 were dangerous. How could they seem other than vulgar 

 and hateful ? 



In the natural course of things we succeeded to this unen 

 viable position of general butt. The Dutch had thriven 

 under it pretty well, and there was hope that we could at 

 least contrive to worry along. And we certainly did in a 

 very redoubtable fashion. Perhaps we deserved some of 

 the sarcasm more than our Dutch predecessors in office. 

 We had nothing to boast of in arts or letters, and were 



