of entertainment, where the standard of excellence in such displays
is now so high. I did not go to the theatre in Holland. My Dutch was
too elementary for that. My predecessor Ireland, however, did so,
and saw an amusing piece of literalness introduced into _Hamlet_. In
the impassioned scene, he tells us, between the prince and his mother,
"when the hero starts at the imagined appearance of his father, his
wig, by means of a concealed spring, jumped from 'the seat of his
distracted brain,' and left poor Hamlet as bare as a Dutch willow
in winter."

The Oude Kerk has very beautiful bells, but Amsterdam is no place in
which to hear such sweet sounds. The little towns for bells. Near the
church is the New Market, with the very charming old weigh-house with
little extinguisher spires called the St. Anthonysveeg. Here the fish
market is held; and the fish market of a city like Amsterdam should
certainly be visited. The Old Market is on the western side of the
Dam, under the western church. "It is said," remarks the author of
_Through Noord-Holland_, "that Rembrandt has been buried in this
church, though his grave has never been found."

Napoleon's sarcasm upon the English--that they were a nation of
shopkeepers--never seemed to me very shrewd: but in Holland one
realises that if any nation is to be thus signally stigmatised it
is not the English. As a matter of fact we are very indifferent
shopkeepers. We lack several of the needful qualities: we lack
foresight, the sense of order and organised industry, and the strength
of mind to resist the temptations following upon a great coup. A
nation of shopkeepers would not go back on the shop so completely as
we do. No nation that is essentially snobbish can be accurately summed
up as a nation of shopkeepers. The French for all their distracting