154 “MY GREAT GRANDFATHER.” 
sometimes painted beautifully, representing a variety of sub- 
jects, and in no way inferior to the painted porcelain for the 
table. 
The Dutch are famous smokers and are constantly “ pull- 
ing at the pipe.” They use those with long, straight stems, 
and both their clay and porcelain pipes are of the finest form 
and finish. Irving, in “The History of New York from the 
Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty,” 
has given a good description of the smoking powers of the 
Dutch. Speaking of his grandfather’s love for the weed, he 
says: 
* «My great-grandfather, by the mother’s side, Hermanns 
Van Clattercop, when employed to build the large stone 
church at Rotterdam, which stands about three hundred 
yards to your left, after your turn from the Boomkeys; and 
which is so conveniently constructed that all the zealous 
Christians of Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon 
there to any other church in the city. My great-grandfather, 
I say, when employed to build that famous church, did, in 
the first place, send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then, 
having purchased a new spitting-box and a hundred weight 
of the best Virginia, he sat himself down and did nothing 
for the space of three months but smoke most laboriously. 
“Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on 
foot, and voyaging in the Trekschuit, from Rotterdam to 
Amsterdam—to Delft—to Herlem—to Leyden—to the 
Hague—knocking his head and breaking his pipe against 
every church in is road. Then did he advance gradually 
nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight 
of the identical spot whereon the church was to be built. 
Then did he spend three months longer in walking round it 
, and round it, contemplating it, first from one point of view, 
and then from another,—now would he be paddled by it on 
the canal—now would he peep at it through a telescope from 
the other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird’s- 
eye glance at it from the top of one of those gigantic wind- 
mills which protect the gates of the city. 
“The good folks of the place were on the tip-toe of expec- 
tation and impatience. Notwithstanding all the turmoil of 
my great-grandfather, not a symptom of the church was yet 
to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be 
brought into the world, but that its great projector would lie 
