Round these three poets, who represent the three vices of Dutch literature--of losing themselves in the clouds, of creeping on the ground, of entangling themselves in the meshes of mysticism--are grouped a number of epic, comic, satiric, and lyric poets, most of whom flourished in the seventeenth and a few in the eighteenth century. Many of them are renowned in Holland, but none possesses sufficient originality to attract the attention of the passing stranger. The present condition deserves a rapid glance. Criticism by stripping from Dutch history the veil of poetry with which the patriotism of writers had clothed it, has placed it on the wider and more productive plain of justice. Philological studies are held in high honor in Holland, and almost all the sciences are represented by men of European fame. These are facts of which no scholar is ignorant, and a bare mention of them is sufficient. In pure literature the most flourishing style is the novel. Holland has had its national novelist, its Walter Scott, in Van Lennep, who died a few years ago, a writer of historical romances which were received with enthusiasm by all classes of society. He was an effective painter of customs, a learned, witty writer, and a master of the art of dialogue and description, but, unfortunately, often prolix. He used old artifices, adopted forced solutions, and often was not sufficiently reticent. In his last book, "The Adventures of Nicoletta Zevenster," while admirably describing Dutch society at the beginning of this century, he had the unheard-of audacity to describe an improper house at the Hague. All Holland was in an uproar. His book was discussed, criticised, condemned, praised to the skies, and the battle still continues. Other historical novels were written by a certain Schimmel, a worthy rival of Van Lennep, and by a Madame Rosboon Toussaint, an accomplished author of deep study and real talent. Nevertheless, historical romance may be considered dead even in Holland. The modern novels of social life and the story meet with better fortune. Most prominent in this field is Beets, a Protestant clergyman and a poet, the author of a celebrated book entitled "The Dark Chamber." Koetsweldt is another of this class, and there are also some young men of great gifts who have been prevented from rising to any height by haste, the demon that persecutes the literature of to-day.