UTRECHT TO BItEDA. 257 



From Utrecht to Breda. 



Sept. 5. — Betimes this morning we set oft', by the dili- 

 gence, for Breda. Few and slight are the observations 

 which travellers can make in passing through a country in 

 this hurried way. During the first part of the day's jour- 

 ney, the prospect was rich and varied. Several country 

 houses appeared, with gardens partaking of the usual stiff* 

 Dutch style. We crossed the river Leek, as a branch 

 of the Old Rhine is now called, and immediately entered 

 the village of Vianen. Here are to be seen the remains, 

 now very slight, of a garden which had once been rich- 

 ly ornamented with temples, statues, and mounts or arti- 

 ficial hills : it belongs to the seat of the Counts of Brede- 

 rode, a family distinguished in the history of Protestantism, 

 as among the earliest and warmest promoters of the reformed 

 religion in the Netherlands. Not far from Vianen, we no- 

 ticed, on a lawn fronting a neat house, some lime-trees, 

 with their stems painted with alternate liands of black and 

 white, by way of ornament ! — the only instance we have 

 met with of this absurdly bad taste, which, however, we be- 

 lieve, is common in North Holland. Some rows of med- 

 lars (Mespilus Germanica), trained as dwarfish stand- 

 ard fruit-trees, appeared in a neighbouring orchard ; and 

 these formed the first collection of medlar-trees we had 

 seen on our route. 



In the little village of Leckerfeldt we remarked a spruce- 

 fir*, placed in the middle of the main street, and sur- 

 rounded with a rail. This was not a revolutionary tree of 

 liberty, but evidently one lately planted in honour of the 



• Pinus Abies, Common Spruce, or Prussian Fir ; in Scotland, usually 

 called Norway Spruce. 



