LETTER V



HAERLEM, July 1st.

The sky was clear and blue when we left the Hague, and we travelled
along a shady road for about an hour, then down sunk the carriage
into a sand-bed, and we were dragged along so slowly that I fell into
a profound repose. How long it lasted is not material; but when I
awoke, we were rumbling through Leyden. There is no need to write a
syllable in honour of this illustrious city: its praises have
already been sung and said by fifty professors, who have declaimed in
its university, and smoked in its gardens. So let us get out of it
as fast as we can, and breathe the cool air of the wood near Haerlem,
where we arrived just as day declined. Hay was making in the fields,
and perfumed the country far and wide with its reviving fragrance. I
promised myself a pleasant walk in the groves, took up Gesner, and
began to have pretty pastoral ideas; but when I approached the nymphs
that were dispersed on the meads, and saw faces that would have
dishonoured a flounder, and heard accents that would have confounded
a hog, all my dislike to the walking filth of the Low Countries
returned. I let fall the garlands I had wreathed for the shepherds;
we jumped into the carriage, and were driven off to the town. Every
avenue to it swarmed with people, whose bustle and agitation seemed
to announce that something extraordinary was going forward. Upon
inquiry I found it was the great fair at Haerlem; and before we had
advanced much farther, our carriage was surrounded by idlers and
gingerbread-eaters of all denominations. Passing the gate, we came
to a cluster of little illuminated booths beneath a grove, glittering