“Monsieur,” said he, “you have rendered his majesty good service. Here is your brevet of colonel.--The king has this instant signed it.” In eight days after, was the news known in Paris, that Strasburg, then invested by the French army, had capitulated, and been reunited to the kingdom. The three strokes of the cane being the signal, which announced the success of the secret negotiation between the ministers of Louis XIV., and the magistrates of Strasburg. This, was the Franz Holbein of the picture, and if the three _coups de bâton_ are not attributable to his ghost, I can only say, I am totally at a loss to say where they should be charged; for my own part, I ought to add, I never heard them, conduct which I take it was the more ungracious on the ghost’s part, as I finished the schiedam, and passed my night on the hearth rug, leaving the feather-bed with its down coverlet quite at master Frank’s disposal. Although the “Schwein Kopf” stands in one of the most prominent squares of Rotterdam, and nearly opposite the statue of Erasmus, it is comparatively little known to English travellers. The fashionable hotels which are near the quay of landing, anticipate the claims of this more primitive house; and yet, to any one desirous of observing the ordinary routine of a Dutch family, it is well worth a visit. The buxsom Vrows who trudge about with short but voluminous petticoats, their heads ornamented by those gold or silver circlets, which no Dutch peasant seems ever to want, are exactly the very types of what you see in an Ostade or a Teniers. The very host himself, old Hoogendorp, is a study; scarcely five feet in height, he might measure nearly nine, in circumference, and in case of emergency could be used as a sluicegate, should any thing happen to the dykes. He was never to be seen before one o’clock in the day, but exactly as the clock tolled that hour, the massive soup-tureen, announcing the commencement of the _table d’hôte_, was borne in state before him, while with “solemn step and slow,” ladle in hand, and napkin round his neck, he followed after. His conduct at table was a fine specimen of Dutch independence of character--he never thought of bestowing those petty attentions which might cultivate the good-will of his guests; he spoke little, he smiled never; a short nod of recognition bestowed upon a townsman, was about the extent of royal favour he was ever known to confer; or occasionally, when any remark made near him seemed to excite his approbation, a significant grunt of approval ratified the wisdom of the speech, and made a Solon of the speaker. His spoon descended into the soup, and emerged therefrom with the ponderous regularity of a crane into the hold of a ship. Every function of the table was performed with an unbroken monotony, and never, in the course of his forty years’ sovereignty, was he known to distribute an undue quantity of fat, or an unseemly proportion of beet-