102 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



history seaweeds, minerals, butterflies, agates, monsters, human 

 and animal, preserved in spirits of wine a collection of extra- 

 ordinary interest in the hands of an honest man, probably of little 

 knowledge. One is tempted to think it luxury or ostentation, 

 but the man is of such common appearance that you would not 

 salute him if you met him in the street, and though he is very 

 wealthy all about him is of the utmost simplicity. No, it is a 

 singular taste for beautiful and rare objects, which he spends his 

 life in arranging, admiring, and cataloguing. His wife also is 

 quite common ; the house is thoroughly Dutch. One is offered 

 food and drink alternately every half-hour ! * 



Another individual sketch is M. Brawers, the owner of a large 

 collection, including Chinese lacquer, porcelain, and a roomful of 

 Italian pictures : 



' A fine house, very ornate, but all in the Dutch taste ; that is, 

 dull, heavy, graceless, but, on the other hand, finished, solid, and very 

 clean. The master of the house sits in his dressing-gown on the 

 ground floor smoking his pipe, with a silver bowl holding a piece of 

 smouldering peat, and receiving with an uncouth air the compliments 

 on his cabinet of visitors as they arrive or leave. He has no taste, 

 and puts by the side of the greatest masterpieces pictures of a protege 

 of his which are simply detestable. 



' At supper-parties all the dishes are put on the table at once, and 

 the guests sit at it till they leave. The breakfasts are charming, 

 social, and easy, and last all the morning round a beautiful mahogany 

 table, with rye bread, butter, cakes, venison, and the eternal tea.' 



The Dutch gardens met with the travellers' unqualified appro- 

 bation. At one house (M. Boreel's) near Amsterdam they 

 admired superb pleached alleys, fish-ponds set in lawns and 

 shaded by weeping willows, and, above all, the bosquet anglais, with 

 winding paths and a variety of rare trees planted without any 

 attempt at symmetry. 



Among his Dutch hosts de Saussure does not seem to have 

 made many lasting friends. But the pleasure of his visit was 

 greatly increased by the hospitality he received from Genevese 

 settled in the country. There were at that time not a few. The 

 two Protestant States had many links ; Geneva and Holland 

 in the eighteenth century both held a high place in European 

 finance, while the limited opportunities of the former sent its 



