the burghers and fervants of the Hague a little town-ftruck, commonly club for a fort of chaife which will hold about a dozen on three feats, and thus they come finging down to Scheveling "as"merry as the day is long!"

But you are prepared to take a view of all thefe different forts of people on the beach. There however you would not fee them, were you to be fixed in front of it like one of the houses, fuppofing that houfe animated and every window of it an eye, which by the bye would make it an Argus; for the Dutch not paying upon (earth for the light of heaven) any fuch tax as our's, the houfe is bewindowed from top to bottom.

Strange as it may feem, it is the Dutch custom to drive from the Hague and other parts of Holland to the Beach Head, there ftop a little and drive back again. Nay, thofe valetudinarians (Dutch I mean) who take an airing to the fea-fide for health do just the fame, with the additional fingularity of remaining in the carriages, the glaffes drawn down, then clofed, then half opened for about an hour--but I do affure you out of more than a thousand different vehicles, which I have feen from the apartment 1 occupied pals to the Beach Head, I never observed a single carriage,

2

carriage, but the English ambaffador's go upon the fands, though they extend a league at low water to right and left, as firmly bound as a gravel walk in a garden, and as level as a bowling green.

It was impoffible to let fuch a phenomenon of fingularity, as it appeared to me, efcape enquiry; and I was told, and on the authority of three dif ferent medical gentlemen, that one of the favourite and almoft univerfal opinions of Great Britain, is totally scouted in Holland, viz. the falubrity of the fea air, or water.-The Dutch, almoft to a man, nay to a Doctor, contend, that it is the most "pef"tilent congregation of vapours" a man can poffibly breathe; that it is fit only for a mad dog. And one of their guide-writers very seriously tells you, in a book of 340 pages, about the Hague only, that "very fortunately the southern aspect "is fkreened by a chain of fandy mountains, and "intermediate meadows, which protect the beauti"ful Hague from the malign exhalations of the "fea!" And in another place he affures his readers, that "the air of the Hague is pure "and wholefome-malgré la proximité de la "Mer."

Now, without pretending to enter the lifts of medical

ubjects is words, ould have

for health

ielle, and od of the

y circum

their faces

lly; fo T

ey are fo enemytheir fitua

to one of

wo things not then

and the

ich I had

I argued please, in

converflow, in

corre

correfpondence to the temperature of the subject, as was actually the cafe, and in returning from the very village which has afforded us these observations. But I will give you a refpite. You have had a long walk.

LETTER XXXIII.

You

TO THE SAME,

are now to imagine yourself an invifible fpy, upon your felf-amufing friend.

-What a strange contradictory race, after all, are the Dutch! Here at the feat of politeness, at their court, the refidence of the representatives of Emperors and Kings-the refidence of a Prince from the House of Orange, and of a Princess of the House of Pruffia-even while the town is in full fashion, at this feafon of its chief gaiety and fplendour, the windows, fave the ordinary fittingrooms, are all barred and bolted at mid-day from the air, even of the nobleft houses, and are not again to be unclofed till a formal day of company. Pray what may this be for? They confider air, as well as water, unwholesome, and the

fun,