M. For what cause?
S. That our mayd may beat out our clothes.
M. What is that to say? Are you louzie?
S. Yea, very louzie.


Sir William Temple, the patron of Swift, the husband of Dorothy
Osborne, and our ambassador at The Hague--where he talked horticulture,
cured his gout by the remedy known as Moxa, and collected materials
for the leisurely essays and memoirs that were to be written at Moor
Park--knew the Dutch well and wrote of them with much particularity. In
his _Observations upon the United Provinces_ he says this: "Holland
is a country, where the earth is better than the air, and profit more
in request than honour; where there is more sense than wit; more good
nature than good humour, and more wealth than pleasure: where a man
would chuse rather to travel than to live; shall find more things to
observe than desire; and more persons to esteem than to love. But
the same qualities and dispositions do not value a private man and
a state, nor make a conversation agreeable, and a government great:
nor is it unlikely, that some very great King might make but a very
ordinary private gentleman, and some very extraordinary gentleman
might be capable of making but a very mean Prince."

Among other travellers who have summed up the Dutch in a few
phrases is Sir Thomas Overbury, the author of some witty characters,
including that very charming one of a Happy Milk Maid. In 1609 he
thus generalised upon the Netherlander: "Concerning the people: they
are neither much devout, nor much wicked; given all to drink, and
eminently to no other vice; hard in bargaining, but just; surly and
respectless, as in all democracies; thirsty, industrious, and cleanly;