In Almost Every
Other Part The Mineralogist And Geologist Find Rich Materials For The
Increase Of Their Knowledge Or The
Formation of their theories; and the
admirer of the beautiful, the picturesque, or the sublime, is gratified.
The Netherlands are
Barren to both these travellers; yet in some
respects it is a highly interesting country: and the interest it
excites, chiefly arises from circumstances peculiar to it. The northern
division discovers a district won from the sea by most laborious,
persevering, and unremitted industry, and kept from it by the same
means. The middle division recalls those ages, when it formed the link
between the feeble commerce of the south of Europe, and of Asia and of
the Baltic districts. Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges then were populous and
rich above most cities in Europe. The whole of the Netherlands,
especially Flanders, may be regarded as the birth-place of modern
agriculture, which spread from it to England, where alone it flourishes
in a vigorous and advanced state, but still in some points not to be
compared to that of the country from which it came. Such, with the
admirable paintings of the Dutch School, are the chief objects that
attract the traveller to the Netherlands, independently of the desire to
study human nature, which here also will find ample materials.
470. Descrizione di Ludovico Guicciardini di tutti Paesi Bassi. Antwerp,
1501. fol. - This work, which was translated into Latin, French, and Dutch,
was written by the nephew of the historian; it is the result of his own
travels in the Netherlands, and contains a full description of them,
particularly of their principal towns, and their commerce.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 898 of 1007
Words from 244872 to 245147
of 273188
