when a very affecting scene in a favourite tragedy, the chief character of which was performed by a popular actress, had very strongly engaged the general attention, and when the entrance of all the Kings, Queens, or Potentates of the earth, under lefs powerful circumftances, would have been thought a fecondary attraction,. But in this inftance it was otherwife; and for feveral minutes the ftage" and all that it inherits," was nothing worth. The Count came in, fupported by his two blooming daughters, each of whom had already been the well-felected object of national gratitude, the States-General and the Stadtholder having accorded them a very liberal penfion for life. Few things could have been a more flattering mark of their father's valour, than these rewards of his well-earned laurels; and yet I was near enough to fee that the univerfal fhouts of a crowded theatre, amongst which were mingled the plaudits of the Prince, his family, and the Ladies, not of the Court only, but of every part of the house, were circumstances of greater victory than their independence. Believe me, my friend, it was not a merely fentimental tear, which tender fancy had made for the occafion, but it was the genuine drop of blifs, derived from the fullness of the filial heart, that I actually obferved upon the cheek of one of the daughters; and the other

caught

caught hold of the General's arm, and was hardly withheld by the forms of life, from embracing her father; and it was as I faid a confiderable time before the audience had any eyes, ears, or hands, for other entertainment. With refpect to the General himself, without affecting to be elated beyond the due bound of a sensible mind, he received the incenfe thus offered him with a proper fenfe of what he owed to his own bravery and to the publick, who were proud to diftinguish it. His exit from the theatre was more fplendid than his entrance, and I could not help making a reflection drawn from the place" where it was fuggefted, the truth of which I will fubmit to your decifion. The hero of the tragedy was a noble foldier whom the poet had drawn as deferving and receiving his country's applaufe; whether on that night represented in compliment to Boetzlaer I cannot tell; the actor who performed this part, was honoured, and justly, with ftrong tokens of publick favour, and as he feemed to rife in excellence as he rofe in fame, it is to be prefumed his pleasure was in proportion to his praife. The fame no doubt was true as to the real General; but what an important difference, nevertheless, in the comparative feelings of the two perfonages!-even as great as that betwixt fact and fancy; the fatisfac

VOL. II.

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tion of the actor being that of a man representing for the time being, the atchievements of another fuppofed character, must have been tranfient. When he had ftrutted his hour there was an end of his glory, and even the acclamation which his imitation excited would give way to the fatigue of acting a long and laborious part, and he would feek in repofe a willing oblivion of his fhort-lived greatnefs, doomed perhaps on the morrow to affume another character-the reverse of that he played the night before-the vileft tyrant or the meanest flave; and be the averfion of the very audience who had fo lately worshipped him. The real General on the contrary, I doubt not, returned home to a feries of thoughts and emotions which would be the fame during the refidue of his life, and fweeten its latest moments. He had repelled a foreign enemy, and awed a domeftic foe. He had retired in the fulness of honour and of years. He had received the justice of the Republick for his fervices in a period of its greatest difficulty and danger. His children, his 'friends, his Prince, and "a whole nation's voice," informed him, what he had done was not followed by the paffing glories of an evening, but that his name, his memory, the fortunes and the character of his family, would be treafured up amongst the proudest archives of the Provinces.

Од

On going to my hotel, I met with a very glean-worthy circumftance. It had rained the whole of the evening, and might, now be faid to pour. I was a mile diftant from that part of the Hague where I lodged, and I was then a ftranger to the town. A Dutch Gentleman of whom I enquired my way, undertook to be my guide with an air and voice of courtesy fo preffing, that in the dim survey I had of the perfon to whom they appertained, I took it for granted I fhould pay for the civility, and fo without much ceremony or compliment accepted it. My director was furnished with an umbrella which he shared with me, and held it over our heads. Still thinking I had encountered a man who would confider a few ftivers a fufficient recompense for the fervice, I faid no handsome things on the occafion, and entered only into converfation about the weather. The violence of the rain continued, and even augmented, when fo far from yielding any part of the benefit of the umbrella, I defired my guide to give me more than my fhare, to which very much to his annoyance he affented, by almost leaving his own perfon undefended. I felt fome reproof of heart on this; but rather from a fenfe of injuftice than any idea of rudeness. We quickened our pace, and at length gained the point of my deftination, at the

end of which the conductor would have made his bow I find and taken his leave, had I not feen the landlord at the door, who bowed to him with the most profound respect, and begged him to walk in till the shower was over, or at least to accept of a great coat, of which offer having availed himself, he renewed his farewell, and left me with the best nature imaginable, to fettle my behaviour as I could.-I now perceived I had been indebted to a gentleman of one of the firft families in Holland for this urbanity, who feeing me aftray, and benighted in a strange land, walked through a tempeft to guide me on my way, and looking upon me no doubt as a stranger ignorant of customs, paffed over my incivility without relaxing his own kindness. He was discovered to me juft in time to prevent receiving from me the infult of a couple of fefthalfs, which I should have thought, deeming him the perfon I had at first dubbed him, an handsome gratuity, as money goes in Holland, for a good wetting.

You are too penetrating not to fee that I have detailed this nocturnal adventure, which you have just as it happened, to fome better end than telling a tale. I wish it to ferve as introductory to my vindication of the Dutch from another illgrounded charge brought by neighbouring nations against