We found the Dutch a plain, plodding, pains-taking, well-meaning, money-getting, matter-of-fact people; very dull and drowsy, and slow and stupid; little addicted to talking, but very much given to smoking; but withal pious and charitable, and just and equitable; with no wit, but some humour; with little fancy, genius, or invention--but much patience, perseverance, and punctuality. They make excellent merchants, but very bad companions. What Buonaparte once in his ignorance said of the English, is truly applicable to the Dutch,--"They are a nation of shopkeepers;" and they used to remind me very much of a whole people of Quakers. In dress, in manners, in appearance, and in habits of life, they precisely resemble that worthy sect; and like them, in all these points they are perfectly stationary. It is singular enough that in all matters of taste and fashion, in which other nations are continually varying, the Dutch have stood stock still for at least two centuries; and in political opinions and institutions, which it requires years, and even ages, to alter in other countries, the Dutch have veered about without ceasing. They have literally changed their form of government much oftener than the cut of their coats. They have had Stadtholders, and Revolutions, and Republics, and Despotisms, and Tyrants, and limited Monarchies; and new Dynasties and old; and the "New Code Napoleon,"--and the newer Code of King William: and they have changed from the side of England to that of France, and from France to that of England,--and from the House of Orange to Buonaparte, and from Buonaparte to the House of Orange, with a rapidity and versatility which even their volatile neighbours, the French, could not equal. But while their government, their laws, their sovereigns, and their institutions, have undergone every possible transformation--the fashion of their caps and bonnets, their hats and shoebuckles, remains unchanged; and they have adhered, with the most scrupulous exactitude, to the same forms of politeness, the same hours, dresses, manners, and habits of life that were the fashion among the venerable Burgomasters in the days of good King William. Certainly if Solomon had ever lived in Holland he never would have said that "the fashion of this world passeth away," for there it lasts from generation to generation.