This town has produced also a self-taught poet, who flourished rather more than a century since, of the name of Hubert Noot. This man, who is said to be the father of Dutch pastoral and elegiac poetry, much resembles our Bloomfield in his early difficulties and his talents: he made his verses whilst he laboured, and committed them to memory from not being able to write. After he had taught himself to read, he even sold his wearing apparel to purchase books. He died in 1733: his images are said to be highly poetical, and his versification melodious. In the Spin-house, or Bridewell, were several female prisoners, many of whom had been confined for several years, for respecting the genial laws of _nature_ more than the sober laws of the nation, and some of them, for the same offence, had been publicly and severely flogged. What a contradiction in this government does its _Spin_ and its _Spill-houses_ present! In one place it sanctions prostitutes, and in the other imprisons and scourges them! Perhaps the legislature may think that it punishes the poor prostitute of the spill-house, by the oppression of her creditor and her gaoler; and thus, by Justice presenting a variety of shapes, she realizes the remark of our divine bard; We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep _one_ shape, till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror. _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Scene 5. The stranger will find nothing to detain him in this melancholy town long. In Holland every traveller naturally becomes amphibious: the constant contemplation of so much water quickly engenders all the inclinations of a webfooted animal, and he soon feels out of his proper element when out of a canal. Right merrily did I follow my commissionary and his wheel barrow with my baggage through the whole town, until I reached the Hague gate, when my favourite conveyance, the treckschuyt, was ready to start. The boat-bell rung, all the party got on board, and away we glided, passing on each side of us the most lovely _close_ scenery. Instead of seeing, as had been represented to me in England, a dull monotonous scene of green canals, stunted willows, and from a solitary house or two, _foggy_ merchants stupidly gazing in fixed attention upon _frog_ water, the canal was enlivened with boats of pleasure and traffic continually passing and repassing, the noble level road on the right, broad enough to admit four or five carriages abreast, thickly planted with rows of fine elms, the number of curricles and carriages, and horses, driving close to the margin of the water, the fine woods, beautiful gardens, country-houses, not two of which were similiar; the eccentricity of the little summer temples hanging over the edges of the canal; the occasional views of rich pasture land, seen as I saw them, under a rich, warm sky, formed a _tout ensemble_ as delightful