LEY 
thofe they were determined to feed on, and referve their 
right to defend their liberty. Adrian de Wert, burgo- 
tnafter of the city, (howed at this crifis admirable conltancy 
and courage: being folicited by fom'e of the inhabitants 
to furrender, he faid, “My friends, fince I mult die, it is 
of little importance whether I fall by you or by the enemy ; 
cut me to pieces, and divide them amongft you : I fhall 
die fatisfied, if in my death I can be the lealt ufeful.” 
During the fiege, they made ufe of paper money, with the 
infcriptions, htec libertatis ergo, and pugno pro 
jpaTria. Towards the month of October, juft as they 
were on the point of furrendering, they underftood, by 
means of fonie pigeons, that relief was at hand ; accord¬ 
ingly, on the third of October, the dykes of the Me ufe 
and Iifel having been opened, Louis Boilfot, admiral of 
Zealand, advanced with a number of troops in flat-bot¬ 
tomed boats to their affiftance. The Spaniards, feeing the 
fudden inundation, were fearful of being deftroyed imme¬ 
diately, and abandoned the fiege, with all the works.they 
had conltrufted for the blockade. In memory of this re¬ 
markable event, the inhabitants reprefent a fpeftacle of 
the fiege every feven years. William prince of Orange, 
who was hardly recovered of an illnefs, ordered himfelf to 
be conveyed to Leyden, that he might in perfon thank 
the citizens for their brave defence: he liberally rewarded 
the admiral Boiffot, and Janus Douza the lord of Noort- 
wyck, who commanded in the city ; and did not forget 
the officers and foldiers. He granted feveral privileges to 
the city ; and founded the famous university, the firft in 
the whole country ; and Janus Douza was appointed the 
iirft curator, an employment worthy of his merit, his ca¬ 
pacity, and his erudition. 
In the year 1655, Leyden v/as vifited by the plague, 
which carried off near 4000 of the inhabitants; but, by 
the great care of the magiftrates, it was prevented from 
fpreading farther into the country. On the 12th of January, 
1807, by the accidental explofion of a large q uantity (40,000 
ounds) of gunpowder, a great part of the city was de- 
royed, and upwards of 2000 peri'ons buried in the ruins, 
500 of whom were dug out alive. 
The cloth manufactured- at Leyden is much celebrated ; 
and there is a ftaple-hall built for the ufe of the manufac¬ 
turers and merchants. The town-hotife is a good ftruc- 
ture, with a handfome (tone front; in the burgomafter’s 
chamber is a very capital painting of the laft judgment, 
by Luke of Leyden, for which it is faid the emperor Ro- 
dolphus offered as many gold ducats as would cover it; 
with many other capital paintings, and the celebrated 
fiege of 1574 wrought in tapeftry. The great church is 
one of the handfomeft in Holland. In this city was born 
the famous John of Leyden, otherwife Bucold, a tailor, 
and chief, of the Anabaptifts. Boats are going from Ley¬ 
den to Amfterdam, Haerlem, Utrecht, Delft, the Hague, 
See. returning daily. Leyden has eight gates ; one part 
of theVamparts is of earth covered with turf; but the other 
part is faced with brick, and has feveral baffions. The 
land about Leyden is exceedingly rich, and much culti¬ 
vated by gardeners, who fend the produce even to Am- 
fferdam; from the rich meadows and paftures, they make 
excellent butter and cheefe, equal to any part of the pro¬ 
vince. Some prove the antiquity of Leyden from an an¬ 
cient round tower called the Burght , about fix hundred 
feet in circumference, faid to have been built by the Ro¬ 
mans or Saxons ; while Jofeph Scaliger, on the other hand, 
pretends it was built only live or fix centuries ago, by the 
counts of Holland. 
The fair of Leyden is an ancient eftablifhment, and ftilJ 
much frequented ; it occupies by its booths, arranged un¬ 
der trees, and along the borders of canals, about a fourth 
part of the town. 
As to the univerfity, of which the foundation and the 
occafion of it have been already noticed, it would fcarcely 
be known to exift, fays Mrs. Radcliffe, in her Journey 
through Holland, if it had no more confpicuous objects 
than its buildings. The Dutch univerfities have no en- 
Vol. XII. No. 853. 
DEN. 565 
dowed foundations; fo that the profefTors, who have their 
falaries from the ffates, live in private houles, and the flu- 
dents in lodgings. The falaries of the proteflors, exclu- 
fively of fees from the ftudents, are nearly 200I. a-year. 
The government of the univerfity is in the reftor, who is 
chofen out of three perfons, returned by the fenate to the 
ffates; the fenate confifts of the profeifors ; and, on ex¬ 
traordinary occafions, the fenate and reftor are directed 
by curators, who are agents for the ffates. The conllitu- 
tional regulations, however, of this univerfity, are con¬ 
ceived in a noble fpirit of liberality. No offenlive obliga¬ 
tions, no religious teffs, no repulfive oaths, are impofed 3 
no infidious attempts at profelytifm are exercifed. Youths 
of every religious periuafion mingle together in perfeft 
harmony ; like brothers they aggregate to ftudy, and not 
to quarrel about modes of faith. Whatever may be the 
rank of the (iudent, or from whatever country he may come, 
he fpeedily adopts the decent, gentle, and frugal, manners 
and habits of the inhabitants. The long war and revo¬ 
lution of this country have naturally withdrawn a great 
number of young men of rank and fortune from this le- 
minary, and prevented others from entering it. The Un¬ 
dents do not now exceed two hundred. A conliderable 
number of Englilh ffudents, in a period of peace, ufed to 
flock to this illuftrious academy, which, as well as the 
beauty, tranquillity, cleanlinefs, and faiubrity, of the city 
in which it hands, and the cheapnefs and perfeft freedom 
of living, and the charms of the furrounding country, 
holds out the ftrongeft attraftions to the reclule and llu- 
dious. The examinations for academical honours are more 
fevere than even for thofe of Trinity-College, Dublin. 
The library of the univerfity is celebrated through Eu¬ 
rope for the many valuable fpecimens of oriental litera¬ 
ture with which it abounds. Golius, on his return from 
the Eaft, and who afterwards filled with great reputation 
the Arabic profeflorlhip of the univerfity, enriched this 
valuable depofitory of learning with many Arabic, Turk- 
ifli, Chaldean, and Perfian, manuferipts. Jofeph Scaliger 
bequeathed his valuable colleftion of Hebrew books to it. 
The precious manuferipts contained here are faid to ex¬ 
ceed eight thoufand. Since the war commenced, no ad¬ 
dition of Engliih publications has been made to this li¬ 
brary, which contains the Tranfaflions of the Royal So¬ 
ciety and of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and 
the Hiltories of Gibbon, Robertfon, and Hume. The 
king of Spain prelented this library with fonie magnifi¬ 
cent folios, delcriptive of the Antiquities of Herculaneum. 
Moll of the books are bound in fine white vellum, and de¬ 
corated with confiderable tafte and fplendour. There is 
a Mufeum of Natural Hiftory, principally collected by 
profeflor Allemand, containing lome fine ores, corals, 
and pebbles, and alfo fome rare quadrupeds and amphibia ; 
alfo a young ollrich in the egg; the nautilus with the 
animal in it; and fome papilios. In the anatomical the¬ 
atre are the valuable preparations of Albinus; and amonglt 
them lome fpecimens of the progreis of ollification in the 
feet 11s. 
The botanical garden occupies about four acres of land, 
and is kept in excellent order. Amonglt the plants are 
the remains of vegetable antiquity, in the lliape of a palm, 
which Hands in a tub in the open air, Jupported by a 
thin frame of iron-work; it is about fourteen feet high, 
and was raifed from feed by the celebrated Carolus Clu- 
li us, who died profeflor at Leyden in 1609. This plant is 
faid to be the palm mentioned by Linnaeus in his Prae- 
leftiones in Ordines Naturales Plantarum, publiffied by 
Gifeke, in 1792, at Hamburgh, which Linnaeus fufpefted 
to be a Chamaerops, but which, as Dr. Smith obferves, 
his editor rightly refers to the Rapliis flabelliformis. It 
comes from China and Japan; and there is a tree of this 
kind, and about as large, in the botanic garden at Parisi 
and another at Pifa. In this garden is alfo the Ginkgo 
of the Chinefe, a ftandard twenty feet high ; Strelitzia 
regina, which has never yet flowered in any garden out of 
England ; the Olea iaurifolia, a new Ipecies, according 
