VOLUME VIII SLICE VIII Dubner to Dyeing (continued 9)

See Linschoten, Discours of Voyages, bk. i. chap. 57, p. 102, fol. (London, 1598); Bickmore, Travels in the East Indian Archipelago, p. 91 (1868); Wallace, The Malay Archipelago (3rd ed., 1872).

DURIS, of Samos, Greek historian, according to his own account a descendant of Alcibiades, was born about 340 B.C. He must have been born and passed his early years in exile, since from 352 to 324 Samos was occupied by Athenian cleruchs, who had expelled the original inhabitants. He was a pupil of Theophrastus of Eresus, whom he met at Athens. When quite young, he obtained a prize for boxing at the Olympic games; a statue by Hippias was set up in commemoration of his victory (Pausanias vi. 13. 5). He was for some time despot of his native island. Duris was the author of a comprehensive historical work (Ἱστορίαι) on Hellenico-Macedonian history, from the battle of Leuctra (371) down to the death of Lysimachus (281), which was largely used by Diodorus Siculus. Other works by him included a life of Agathocles of Syracuse, the annals (ῶροι) of Samos chronologically arranged according to the lists of the priests of Hera, and a number of treatises on literary and artistic subjects. Ancient authorities do not appear to have held a very high opinion of his merits as a historian. Plutarch (Pericles, 28) expresses doubt as to his trustworthiness, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De compos. verborum, 4) speaks disparagingly of his style, and Photius (cod. 176) regards the arrangement of his work as altogether faulty. Cicero (ad Att. vi. 1) accords him qualified praise as an industrious writer.

Fragments in C.W. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. 446, where the passage of Pausanias referred to above and the date of Duris’s victory at Olympia are discussed.

DÜRKHEIM, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian Palatinate, near the foot of the Hardt Mountains, and at the entrance of the valley of the Isenach, 15 m. N.W. of Spires on the railway Monsheim-Neustadt. Pop. 6300. It possesses two Evangelical churches and one Roman Catholic, a town hall occupying the site of the castle of the princes of Leiningen-Hartenburg, an antiquarian and a scientific society, a public library and a high school. It is well known as a health resort, for the grape cure and for the baths of the brine springs of Philippshalle, in the neighbourhood, which not only supply the bathing establishment, but produce considerable quantities of marketable salt. There is a brisk trade in wine and oil; tobacco, glass and paper are manufactured.

As a dependency of the Benedictine abbey of Limburg, which was built and endowed by Conrad II., Dürkheim or Thurnigheim came into the possession of the counts of Leiningen, who in the 14th century made it the seat of a fortress, and enclosed it with wall and ditch. In the three following centuries it had its full share of the military vicissitudes of the Palatinate; but it was rebuilt after the French invasion of 1689, and greatly fostered by its counts in the beginning of next century. In 1794 its new castle was sacked by the French, and in 1849 it was the scene of a contest between the Prussians and the insurrectionists. The ruins of the Benedictine abbey of Limburg lie about 1 m. S.W. of the town; and in the neighbourhood rises the Kastanienberg, with the ancient rude stone fortification of the Heidenmauer or Heathen’s Wall.

DURLACH, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, 2½ m. by rail from Carlsruhe, with which it is connected by a canal and an avenue of poplars, on the left bank of the Pfinz, at the foot of the vineyard-covered Thurmberg, which is crowned by a watch-tower and to the summit of which a funicular railway ascends. Pop. (1905) 6207. It possesses a castle erected in 1565 and now used as barracks, an ancient town hall, a church with an excellent organ, a high-grade school, an orphan asylum, and in the market-place a statue of the margrave Charles II. It has manufactures of sewing-machines, brushes, chemicals, tobacco, beer, vinegar and chicory; and considerable trade in market produce.

Durlach was bestowed by the emperor Frederick II. on the margrave Hermann V. of Zähringen as an allodial possession, but afterwards came into the hands of Rudolph of Habsburg. It was chosen as his residence by the margrave Charles II. in 1565, and retained this distinction till the foundation of Carlsruhe in 1715, though it was almost totally destroyed by the French in 1688. In 1846 it was the seat of a congress of the Liberal party of the Baden parliament; and in 1849 it was the scene of an encounter between the Prussians and the insurgents. Reichenbach the mechanician, and E.L. Posselt (1763-1804) the historian, were natives of the town.

See Fecht, Geschichte der Stadt Durlach (Heidelberg, 1869).

DUROC, GÉRAUD CHRISTOPHE MICHEL, duc de Frioul (1772-1813), French general, was born at Pont à Mousson (Meurthe et Moselle) on the 25th of October 1772. The son of an officer, he was educated at the military schools of his native town and of Châlons. He was gazetted second lieutenant (artillery) in the 4th regiment in 1793, and advanced steadily in the service. Captain Duroc became aide-de-camp to Napoleon in 1796, and distinguished himself at Isonzo, Brenta and Gradisca in the Italian campaigns of 1796-97. He served in Egypt, and was seriously wounded at Aboukir. His devotion to Napoleon was rewarded by complete confidence. He became first aide-de-camp (1798), general of brigade (1800), and governor of the Tuileries. After the battle of Marengo he was sent on missions to Vienna, St Petersburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen. As grand marshal of the Tuileries he was responsible for the measures taken to secure Napoleon’s personal safety whether in France or on his campaigns, and he directed the minutest details of the imperial household. After Austerlitz, where he commanded the grenadiers in the absence of General Oudinot, he was employed in a series of important negotiations with Frederick William of Prussia, with the elector of Saxony (December 1806), in the incorporation of certain states in the Confederation of the Rhine, and in the conclusion of the armistice of Znaim (July 1808). In 1808 he was created duke of Friuli, and after the Russian campaign he became senator (1813). He was in attendance on Napoleon at the battle of Bautzen (20th-21st May 1813) in Saxony, when he was mortally wounded, and died in a farmhouse near the battlefield on the 23rd of May. Napoleon bought the farm and erected a monument to his memory. Duroc was buried in the Invalides.

The chief source for Duroc’s biography is the Moniteur (31st of May 1797, 24th of October 1798, 30th of May 1813, &c.).

DUROCHER, JOSEPH MARIE ELISABETH (1817-1858), French geologist, was born at Rennes on the 31st of May 1817. Educated at the École Polytechnique and École des Mines in Paris, he qualified as a mining engineer. Early in his career he travelled in the northern parts of Europe to study the metalliferous deposits, and he contributed the articles on geology, mineralogy, metallurgy and chemistry to Paul Gaimard’s Voyages de la Commission scientifique du nord, en Scandinavie, en Laponie, au Spitzberg et aux Feröe, pendant les années 1838-1840. In 1844 he became professor of geology and mineralogy at Rennes. His attention was now largely directed to the study of the artificial production of minerals, to the metamorphism of rocks, and to the genesis of igneous rocks. In 1857 he published his famous Essai de pétrologie comparée, in which he expressed the view that the igneous rocks have been derived from two magmas which coexist beneath the solid crust, and are respectively acid and basic. He died at Rennes on the 3rd of December 1858.

DURRA (also written dourah, dhura, &c.; Arabic for a pearl, hence a grain of corn), a cereal grass, Sorghum vulgare, extensively cultivated in tropical and semi-tropical countries, where the grain, made into bread, forms an important article of diet. In non-Arabic-speaking countries it is known by other names, such as Indian or African millet, pearl millet, Guinea corn and Kaffir corn. In India it is called jowari, jowaree, jawari, &c. (Hindī, jawārī).

DURUY, JEAN VICTOR (1811-1894), French historian and statesman, was born in Paris on the 11th of September 1811. The son of a workman at the factory of the Gobelins, he was at first intended for his father’s trade, but succeeded in passing brilliantly through the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied under Michelet, whom he accompanied as secretary in his travels through France, supplying for him at the École Normale in 1836, when only twenty-four. Ill-health forced him to resign, and poverty drove him to undertake that extensive series of school textbooks which first brought him into public notice. He devoted himself with ardour to secondary school education, holding his chair in the Collège Henri IV. at Paris for over a quarter of a century. Already known as a historian by his Histoire des Romains et des peuples soumis à leur domination (2 vols., 1843-1844), he was chosen by Napoleon III. to assist him in his life of Julius Caesar, and his abilities being thus brought under the emperor’s notice, he was in 1863 appointed minister of education. In this position he displayed incessant activity, and a desire for broad and liberal reform which aroused the bitter hostility of the clerical party. Among his measures may be cited his organization of higher education (“enseignement spécial”), his foundation of the “conférences publiques,” which have now become universal throughout France, and of a course of secondary education for girls by lay teachers, and his introduction of modern history and modern languages into the curriculum both of the lycées and of the colleges. He greatly improved the state of primary education in France, and proposed to make it compulsory and gratuitous, but was not supported in this project by the emperor. In the new cabinet that followed the elections of 1869, Duruy was replaced by Louis Olivier Bourbeau, and was made a senator. After the fall of the Empire he took no part in politics, except for an unsuccessful candidature for the senate in 1876. From 1881 to 1886 he served as a member of the Conseil Supérieur de l’Instruction Publique. In 1884 he was elected to the Academy in succession to Mignet. He died in Paris on the 25th of November 1894.

As a historian Duruy aimed in his earlier works at a graphic and picturesque narrative which should make his subject popular. His fame, however, rests mainly on the revised edition of his Roman history, which appeared in a greatly enlarged form in 7 vols. under the title of Histoire des Romains depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à la mort de Théodose (1879-1885), a really great work; a magnificent illustrated edition was published from 1879 to 1885 (English translation by W.J. Clarke, in 6 vols., 1883-1886). His Histoire des Grecs, similarly illustrated, appeared in 3 vols. from 1886 to 1891 (English translation in 4 vols., 1892). He was the editor, from its commencement in 1846, of the Histoire universelle, publiée par une société de professeurs et de savants, for which he himself wrote a “Histoire sainte d’après la Bible,” “Histoire grecque,” “Histoire romaine,” “Histoire du moyen âge,” “Histoire des temps modernes,” and “Abrégé de l’histoire de France.” His other works include Atlas historique de la France accompagné d’un volume de texte (1849); Histoire de France de 1453 à 1815 (1856), of which an expanded and illustrated edition appeared as Histoire de France depuis l’invasion des barbares dans la Gaule romaine jusqu’à nos jours (1892); Histoire populaire de la France (1862-1863); Histoire populaire contemporaine de la France (1864-1866); Causeries de voyage (1864); and Introduction générale à l’histoire de France (1865).

A memoir by Ernest Lavisse appeared in 1895 under the title of Un Ministre: Victor Duruy. See also the notice by Jules Simon (1895), and Portraits et souvenirs by S. Monod (1897).

DU RYER, PIERRE (1606-1658), French dramatist, was born in Paris in 1606. His earlier comedies are in the loose style of Alexandre Hardy, but after the production of the Cid (1636) he copied the manner of Corneille, and produced his masterpiece Scévole, probably in 1644 (the date generally given is 1646). Alcionée (1638) was so popular that the abbé d’Aubignac knew it by heart, and Queen Christina is said to have had it read to her three times in one day. Du Ryer was a prolific dramatist. Among his other works may be mentioned Saül (printed 1642), and a comedy, Les Vendanges de Suresnes (1635 or 1636). He died in Paris on the 6th of November 1658.

DUSE, ELEANORA (1859- ), Italian actress, was born at Vigevano of a family of actors, and made her first stage appearance at a very early age. The hardships incident to touring with travelling companies unfavourably affected her health, but by 1885 she was recognized at home as Italy’s greatest actress, and this verdict was confirmed by that of all the leading cities of Europe and America. In 1893 she made her first appearances in New York and in London. For some years she was closely associated with the romanticist Gabriele d’Annunzio, and several of his plays, notably La Città morta (1898) and Francesca da Rimini (1901), provided her with important parts. But some of her great successes during the ’eighties and early ’nineties—the days of her chief triumphs—were in Italian versions of such plays as La Dame aux camélias, in which Sarah Bernhardt was already famous; and Madame Duse’s reputation as an actress was founded less on her “creations” than on her magnificent individuality. In contrast to the great French actress she avoided all “make-up”; her art depended on intense naturalness rather than stage effect, sympathetic force and poignant intellectuality rather than the theatrical emotionalism of the French tradition. Her dramatic genius gave a new reading to the parts, and during these years the admirers of the two leading actresses of Europe practically constituted two rival schools of appreciation. Ill-health kept Madame Duse off the stage for some time; but though, after 1900, it was no longer possible for her to avoid “make-up,” her rank among the great actresses of history remained indisputable.

See also a biography by L. Rasi (1901); A. Symons, Studies in Seven Arts (1906).

DUSSEK, JOHANN LUDWIG (1761-1812), Bohemian pianist and composer, was born at Czaslau, in Bohemia, on the 9th of February 1761. His father, Johann Joseph Dussek, a musician of high reputation, was organist and choir-master in the collegiate church of Czaslau, and several other members of the family were distinguished as organists. Under the careful instruction of his father he made such rapid progress that he appeared in public as a pianist at the age of six. A year or two later he was placed as a choir boy at the convent of Iglau, and he obtained his first instruction in counterpoint from Spenar, the choir-master. When his voice broke he entered on a course of general study, first at the Jesuits’ college, and then at the university of Prague, where he took his bachelor’s degree in philosophy. During his curriculum of two and a half years he had paid unremitting attention to the practice and study of his art, and had received further instruction in composition from a Benedictine monk. In 1779 he was for a short time organist in the church of St Rombaut at Mechlin. At the close of his engagement he proceeded to Holland, where he attained great distinction as a pianist, and was employed by the stadtholder as musical instructor to his family. While at the Hague he published his first works, several sonatas and concertos for the piano. He had already composed at the age of thirteen a solemn mass and several small oratorios. In 1783 he visited Hamburg, and placed himself under the instruction of Philip Emmanuel Bach. After spending two years in Lithuania in the service of Prince Radziwill, he went in 1786 to Paris, where he remained, with the exception of a short period spent at Milan, until the outbreak of the Revolution, enjoying the special patronage of Marie Antoinette and great popularity with the public. In Milan he appeared not only as a pianist but also as a player of the harmonica, an instrument which was much sought after on account of its novelty in those days. Towards the close of 1789 he removed to London, where on the 2nd of March 1790 he appeared at Salomon’s concerts, and he married a daughter of Dominico Corri, herself a clever harpist and pianist. Unfortunately he was tempted by the large sale of his numerous compositions to open a music-publishing warehouse in partnership with Montague Corri, a relative of his wife. The result was injurious to his fame and disastrous to his fortune. Writing solely for the sake of sale, he composed many pieces that were quite unworthy of his genius; and, as he was entirely destitute of business capacity, bankruptcy was inevitable. In 1800 he was obliged to flee to Hamburg to escape the claims of his creditors. Some years later he was attached in the capacity of musician to the household of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, with whom he formed an intimate friendship. On the death of his patron in 1806 he passed into the service of the prince of Isenburg as court musician. In 1809 he went to Paris to fill a similar situation in the household of Prince Talleyrand, which he held until his death on the 20th of March 1812.

Dussek had an important influence on the development of pianoforte music. As a performer he was distinguished by the purity of his tone, the combined power and delicacy of his touch, and the facility of his execution. His sonatas, known as The Invocation, The Farewell and The Harmonic Elegy, though not equally sustained throughout, contain movements that have scarcely been surpassed for solemnity and beauty of idea.

See also Alexander W. Thayer’s articles in Dwight’s Journal of Music (Boston, 1861).

DÜSSELDORF, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the right bank of the Rhine, 24 m. by rail N. by W. from Cologne. Pop. (1885) 115,190; (1895) 175,985; (1905) 252,630. Düsseldorf is one of the handsomest cities of western Germany. Its situation on the great mid-European waterway and as the junction of several main lines of railway has largely favoured its rapid growth and industrial development. It is the principal banking centre of the Westphalian coal and iron trade, and the favourite residence of the leading merchants of the lower Rhine.

The city consists of five main portions—the Altstadt, the original town with narrow, irregular streets; the Karlstadt, dating from 1787 and so called after the electoral prince Charles Theodore; the Neustadt, laid out between 1690 and 1716; and the Friedrichstadt and the Königstadt, of recent formation. In addition, the former villages of Pempelfort, Oberbilk, Unterbilk, Flingern and Derendorf have been incorporated and form the outer suburbs of the town proper. On the south side the town has been completely metamorphosed by the removal of the Köln-Mindner and Bergisch-Maerkisch stations to a central station lying to the east. The site thus gained was converted into new boulevards, while the railway to Neuss and Aix-la-Chapelle was diverted through the suburb of Bilk and thence across the Rhine by an iron bridge. A road bridge (completed 1898, 2087 ft. long), replacing the old bridge of boats, carries the electric tram-line to Crefeld. The town, with the exception of the Altstadt, is regularly built, but within its area are numerous open grounds and public squares, which prevent the regularity of its plan degenerating into monotony: the market-place, with the colossal bronze statue of the elector John William, the parade, the Allee Strasse, the Königs Allee, and the Königs Platz may be specially mentioned. Of the thirty-seven churches, of which twenty-six are Roman Catholic, the most noticeable are:—St Andrew’s, formerly the Jesuit and court church, with frescoes by J. Hübner (1806-1882), E. Deger (1809-1885), and H. Mücke (1806-1891), and the embalmed bodies of several Rhenish electors; St Lambert’s, with a tower 180 ft. high and containing a monument to Duke William (d. 1592); Maximilians, with frescoes by J.A.N. Settegast (1813-1890); the Romanesque St Martin’s, and the new Gothic church of St Mary. Besides the old ducal palace, laid in ruins by the French in 1794, but restored in 1846, the secular buildings comprise the government offices, the post-office in Italian style, the town hall on the market square, the law courts, the municipal music hall, the municipal theatre, the assembly hall of the Rhenish provincial diet, an Italian Renaissance edifice erected in 1879, the academy of art (1881; in pure Renaissance), the industrial art museum (1896), the historical museum, and the industrial art school. The town also possesses a library of 50,000 volumes, several high-grade schools, and is the seat of a great number of commercial and intellectual associations; but to nothing is it more indebted for its celebrity than to the Academy of Painting. This famous institution, originally founded by the elector Charles Theodore in 1767, was reorganized by King Frederick William III. in 1822, and has since attained a high degree of prosperity as a centre of artistic culture. From 1822 till 1826 it was under the direction of Cornelius, a native of the town, from 1826 to 1859 under Schadow, and from 1859 to 1864 under E. Bendemann (1811-1889). From Bendemann’s resignation it continued in the hands of a body of curators till 1873, when Hermann Wislicenus (1825-1899) of Weimar was chosen director. The noble collection of paintings which formerly adorned the Düsseldorf gallery was removed to Munich in 1805, and has not since been restored; but there is no lack of artistic treasures in the town. The academy possesses 14,000 original drawings and sketches by the great masters, 24,000 engravings, and 248 water-colour copies of Italian originals; the municipal gallery contains valuable specimens of the local school; and the same is the case with the Schulte collection. The principal names are Cornelius, Lessing, the brothers Andreas and Oswald Achenbach, A. Baur (b. 1835), A. Tidemand (1814-1876), and L. Knaus (b. 1829). An annual exhibition is held under the auspices of the Art Union; and the members of the Artists’ Society, or Malkasten, as they are called, have annual festivals and masquerades.

The town is embellished with many handsome monuments—notably a bronze statue of Cornelius, by A. Donndorf (b. 1835), an equestrian statue of the emperor William I. (1896), and a large bronze group in front of the assembly hall of the diet, representing the river Rhine and its chief tributaries. In the suburb of Bilk there are the Floragarten and Volksgarten, the astronomical observatory and the harbour. Extensive quays afford accommodation for vessels of deep draught, and the trade with the Dutch cities and with London has been thereby greatly enhanced. Within recent years Düsseldorf has made remarkable progress as an industrial centre. The first place is occupied by the iron industries, embracing foundries, furnaces, engineering and machine shops, &c. Next come cotton spinning and weaving, calico printing, yarn-spinning, dyeing and similar textile branches, besides a variety of other industries.

A little to the north of the town lies the village of Düsselthal, with Count von der Recke-Volmerstein’s establishment for homeless children in the former Trappist monastery, and in the suburb of Pempelfort is the Jägerhof, the residence at one time of Prince Frederick of Prussia, and afterwards of the prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

Düsseldorf, as the form of the name—the village on the Düssel—clearly indicates, was long a place of small consideration. In 1288 it was raised to the rank of a town by Count Adolf of Berg; from his successors it obtained various privileges, and in 1385 was chosen as their residence. After it had suffered greatly in the Thirty Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession, it recovered its prosperity under the patronage of the electoral prince John William of the Palatinate, who dwelt in the castle for many years before his death in 1716. In 1795 the town, after a violent bombardment, was surrendered to the French; and after the peace of Lunéville it was deprived of its fortifications. In 1805 it became the capital of the Napoleonic duchy of Berg; and in 1815 it passed with the duchy into Prussian possession. Among its celebrities are Johann Georg and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Heinrich Heine, Varnhagen von Ense, Peter von Cornelius, Wilhelm Camphausen and Heinrich von Sybel.

See H. Ferber, Historische Wanderung durch die alte Stadt Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf, 1889-1890); Brandt, Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Ver-waltungsgeschichte der Stadt Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf, 1902); and local Guide by Bone.

DUSSERAH, or Dasara, a Hindu new-moon festival (sometimes called Maha-navami), held in October, and specially connected with ancestral worship. In the native states, such as Mysore, the rajas give public entertainments lasting for ten days, and especially invite European officials to the festivities, which include horse-racing, athletic contests, and banquets.

See J.A. Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, p. 577.

DUST, earth or other matter reduced to fine dry and powdery particles; the word is Teutonic and appears in such various forms as the Dutch duist, Danish dyst, for the dust of flour or meal, and in the older forms donst; the modern German Dunst, vapour, probably preserves the original form and meaning, that of something which can be blown about by the wind.

Atmospheric Dust.—The presence of dust in the atmosphere has probably been known from the earliest ages, as prehistoric man must have had plenty of opportunities of noticing it lighting up the paths of sunbeams that penetrated his dark caves, yet it is only of recent years that it has become the subject of scientific observation. Formerly it was considered as simply matter in the wrong place, the presence of which had to be tolerated, but was supposed to serve no useful purpose in nature. It was not till the year 1880 that atmospheric dust came under scientific investigation, when it soon became evident that it played a most important part in nature, and that instead of being a nuisance to be got rid of, it added much to the comforts and pleasures of life.

The atmosphere is composed of a number of gases which have a nearly constant proportion to each other, and of varying proportions of water vapour. This vapour, constantly rising from land and sea, mixes with the gases in the atmosphere and so long as it remains vapour is invisible, but when it becomes cooled by the actual processes in nature the vapour tends to condense to the liquid condition and form cloud particles. Before 1880 it had always been assumed that when this condensation took place, the vapour molecules simply combined with each other to form the little globules of water, but J. Aitken showed that vapour molecules in the atmosphere do not combine with each other, that before condensation can take place there must be some solid or liquid nucleus on which the vapour molecules can combine, and that the dust in the atmosphere forms the nuclei on which the water-vapour molecules condense. Every cloud particle being grown round a dust nucleus thus has a dust particle in it. The presence of dust in the atmosphere allows the condensation of the vapour to take place whenever the air is cooled to the saturation point, and if there were no dust present the condensation would not take place till the air was cooled far below that point, and become highly supersaturated; and when it did take place the condensation would be violent and result in heavy rain-drops without the formation of what we know as cloud. This might be in some ways an advantage, but living in such supersaturated air would have many disadvantages. The supersaturated air having no dust to condense on would condense on our clothes, the inside and outside walls of our dwellings, and on every solid and liquid surface with which it came in contact.

Many of the dust particles in the atmosphere which form the nuclei of condensation are extremely minute, so small as to be beyond the powers of the microscope, and at first sight it might appear to be impossible to get any reliable information as to their numbers. But Aitken, having shown that water vapour must have a nucleus to condense on, saw that this placed in our hands the means of counting the dust particles in our atmosphere, and in 1888 showed how it could be done. As water vapour in the air condenses on the dust particles present and forms cloud particles, he showed that all that would be necessary would be to cause the dust particles to become centres of condensation, when they would be so increased in size as to come within the range of an ordinary magnifying lens, and that by counting the cloud particles it would be possible to determine the number of dust particles. To carry out this idea the air under examination was placed in an air-tight receiver and saturated with water vapour. It was then expanded by an air-pump, and in this way cooled and condensation produced. The cloud particles so formed were allowed to fall on a micrometer and their number counted by the aid of an ordinary short-focussed lens. Certain precautions are necessary in carrying out this process. There must not be more than 500 particles per cubic centimetre of air, or all the particles will not form nuclei, and will not therefore be thrown down as cloud particles. When the number in the air tested exceeds that figure, the dusty air must be mixed with such a quantity of dustless air as will reduce the number below 500 per c.c., and the correct number in the air tested is obtained by allowing for the proportion of dustless air to dusty air, and for the expansion necessary for cooling.

Thousands of tests of the atmospheric dust have been made with this instrument at many places over the world, and in no part of it has dustless air been found; indeed it is very rare to find air with less than 100 particles per c.c., whilst in most country places the numbers rise to thousands, and in cities such as London and Paris the number may be as high as 100,000 to 150,000 per c.c.

The sources of dust particles in the atmosphere are numerous. In nature volcanoes supply a large quantity, and the meteoric matter constantly falling towards the earth and becoming dissipated by the intense heat produced by the friction of the atmosphere keep up a constant supply. Large quantities of dust are also raised from the surface of the earth by strong winds, from dusty roads and dry soil, and there is good reason for supposing that large quantities of sand are carried from the deserts by the wind and transported great distances, the sand, for instance, from the desert of Africa being carried to Europe. It is, however, to artificial causes that most of the dust is due. The burning of coal is the principal source of these, not only when the coal is burned with the production of smoke, but also when smokeless, and even when the coal is first converted into gas and burned in the most perfect forms of combustion. It results from this that while in the air over the uninhabited parts of the earth and over the ocean the number of particles is small, being principally produced by natural causes or carried from distant lands, they are much more numerous in inhabited areas, especially in those where much coal is burned. It is evident that if there were not some purifying process in nature there would be a tendency for the dust particles to increase in numbers, because though some dust particles may fall out of the air, many of them are so small they have but little tendency to settle, but by becoming centres of cloud particles they are carried downwards to the earth, and, further, these when showering down as rain tend to wash the others out of the atmosphere. We may therefore look on all uninhabited areas of the earth as purifying areas, and their purifying power seems to depend partly on their extent, but principally on their rainfall. The following table illustrates the purifying effect of some of these areas obtained from the results of hundreds of observations. The areas referred to are: (1) Mediterranean Sea, the observations being made on the south coast of France on the air blowing inshore; (2) the Alps, the observations being made on the Rigi Kulm; (3) the Highlands of Scotland, the observations being made at various places; and (4) the Atlantic Ocean, the observations being made on the west coast of Scotland, when the wind blew from the ocean.

Mediterranean. Alps. Highlands. Atlantic.

Mean of lowest 891 381 141 72

Mean of number 1611 892 552 338

These numbers are all low for atmospheric dust, much lower than in air from inhabited areas. On the Rigi Kulm, for instance, the number was sometimes over 10,000 per c.c. when the wind was from inhabited areas and the sun causing ascending currents; and at the same place as the Atlantic air was tested the numbers went up to over 5000 per c.c. when the wind blew from the inhabited areas of Scotland, though the distance to the nearest was over 60 m.

E.D. Fridlander1 made many observations on the dust of the atmosphere with the same instrument as employed by Aitken. In crossing the Atlantic he got no low numbers, always over 2000 per c.c., but in the Gulf of St Lawrence he got a reading as low as 280 per c.c. In crossing the Pacific the lowest obtained was 245, in the Indian Ocean 243, in the Arabian Sea 280, in the Red Sea 383, and in the Mediterranean 875 per c.c. He has also made observations in Switzerland. The lowest number obtained by him was in the air at the top of the Bieshorn, 13,600 ft. above sea-level, where the number was as low as 157 per c.c. Professor G. Melander2 of Helsingfors studied the dust in the atmosphere. His observations were made in Switzerland, Biskra in the Sahara, Finland, the borders of Russia, and in Norway; but in none of these places were low numbers observed. The minimum numbers were over 300 per c.c., while maximum numbers in some cases went high.

Aitken when observing on the Rigi Kulm noticed during some conditions of weather that there was a daily variation in the number of particles, a maximum near the hottest part of the day and a minimum in the morning, and attributed the rise in the numbers to the impure air of the valleys rising on the sun-heated slopes of the mountain or driven up by the wind. A. Rankin, at the Ben Nevis observatory, also observed this daily variation, and his observations also indicate a yearly variation at that station, the numbers being highest in March, April and May. This may possibly be due to small rainfall in these months, but more probably to the fact that south-easterly winds blow more frequently during these months on Ben Nevis than at any other season, and these winds bring the impure air from the more densely inhabited parts of the country.

Without atmospheric dust not only would we not have the glorious cloud scenery we at present enjoy, but we should have no haze in the atmosphere, none of the atmospheric effects that delight the artist. The white haze, the blue haze, the tender sunset glows of red, orange and yellow, would all be absent, and the moment the sun dipped below the horizon the earth would be in darkness; no twilight, no after-glows, such as those given some years ago by the volcanic dust from Krakatoa; none of the poetry of eventide. Why, it may be asked, is this so? Simply because all these are due to matter suspended in the air, to dust. Water has no such effects as long as it is a vapour, and if it condensed without the presence of dust, the particles would be far too few to give any appreciable effect and too heavy to remain in suspension.

Turning now to the investigations on this point, Aitken has shown that there is no evidence to indicate that water vapour has any hazing effect, and shows that the haze is entirely due to dust, the density of the haze increasing with the increase in the number of dust particles in the air, and also with the relative humidity; but the humidity does not act as vapour, but by condensing on the dust and increasing the size of the particles, as it is not the amount of vapour present but the degree of saturation that affects the result; the more saturated the air, the more vapour is condensed on the particles, they so become larger and their hazing effect increased.

The relation of haze or transparency of the air to the number of dust particles was observed on five visits to the Rigi Kulm. The visibility of Hochgerrach, a mountain 70 m. distant from the Rigi, was used for estimating the amount of haze when the air was clear. During the visits this mountain was visible thirteen times, and it was never seen except when the number of particles was low. On eight occasions the mountain was only one-half to one-fifth hazed, and on these days the number of particles was as low as from 326 to 850 per c.c. It was seen five times when the number was from 950 to 2000 per c.c., but the mountain on these occasions was only just visible, and it was never seen when the number was a little over 2000 per c.c.

It has been pointed out that the relative humidity has an effect on the dust by increasing the size of the particles and so increasing the haze. It was therefore necessary in working out the dust and haze observations made at the different places to arrange all the observations in tables according to the wet-bulb depressions at the time. All the observations taken when the wet-bulb depression was between 2° and 4° were put in one table, all those when it was between 4° and 7° in another, and all those when it was over 7° in a third. It should be here noted that when the dust particles were counted and the wet and dry bulb observations taken, an estimate of the amount of haze was also made. This was done by estimating the amount of haze on a mountain at a known distance. Suppose the mountain to be 25 m. distant, and at the time to be one-half hazed, then the limit of visibility of the mountain under the conditions would be 50 m., and that was taken as the number representing the transparency of the atmosphere at the time. In the tables above referred to along with the number of particles was entered the limit of visibility at the time; when this was done it was at once seen that as the number of particles increased the limit of visibility decreased, as will be seen from the following short table of the Rigi Kulm observations when the wet-bulb depression was between 2° and 4°.

Date. Lowest Number. Highest Number. Mean Number. Limit of Visibility in Miles. C.

19th May 1891 428 690 559 150 83,850 }Mean 75,176.

22nd May 1889 434 850 642 100 64,200

16th May 1893 1225 2600 1912 40 77,480

When the number of particles is multiplied by the limit of visibility in the tables a fairly constant number C. is obtained; see preceding table. All the observations taken at the different places were treated in a similar manner and the means of all the observations at the different humidities were obtained, and the following table gives the mean values of C. at the different wet-bulb depressions of all the observations made at the different places.

Wet-bulb depression 2° to 4° 4° to 7° 7° and over

Mean values of C. 76,058 105,545 141,148

From the above table it will be seen that as the dryness of the air increased it required a larger number of particles to produce a complete haze, nearly double the number being required when the wet-bulb depression was over 7° than when it was only from 2° to 4°. To find the number of particles required to produce a complete haze, that is, to render a mountain just invisible, all that is necessary is to multiply the above constant C. by 160,930, the number of centimetres in a mile, when this is done with the observations made in the West Highlands we get the numbers given in the following table:—

Wet-bulb depression. Number of Particles to produce a complete haze.

2° to 4° 12,500,000,000

4° to 7° 17,100,000,000

7° to 10° 22,600,000,000

The above table gives the number of particles of atmospheric dust in a column of air having a section of one centimetre square, at the different humidities, required to produce a complete haze, that is, to make a distant object invisible, and is of course quite independent of the length of the column.

In making these dust and transparency observations three things were noted: 1st, the number of particles; 2nd, the humidity; and 3rd, the limit of visibility. From the results above given, it is evident that if we now know any two of these we can calculate the third. Suppose we know the limit of visibility and the humidity, then the number of particles can be calculated by the aid of the above tables.

To show the hazing effects of dust it is not, however, necessary to use a dust counter. Aitken for some years made observations on the haze in the air at Falkirk by simply noting the direction of the wind, the wet-bulb depression at the time, and the transparency of the air. Falkirk is favourably situated for such observations owing to the peculiar distribution of the population surrounding it. The whole area from west, north-west to north, is very thinly populated, while in all other directions it is densely populated. It was found that the air from the thinly inhabited parts, that is, the north-west quadrant, was nine times clearer than the air from other directions with the same wet-bulb depression, and that the density of the haze was directly proportional to the density of the population of the area from which the wind blew. These observations also showed that the transparency of the air increases with the dryness, being 3.7 times clearer when the wet-bulb depression is 8° than when it is only 2°, and that the air coming from the densely inhabited parts is about 10 times more hazed than if there were no inhabitants in the country.

(J. A.*)

1 “Atmospheric Dust Observations from various parts of the World,” Quart. Journ. Roy. Met. Soc. (July 1896).

2 La Condensation de la vapeur d’eau dans l’atmosphère (Helsingfors, 1897).

DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY, THE (Oostindische Vereenigde Maatschappij), a body founded by a charter from the Netherlands states-general on the 20th of March 1602. It had a double purpose: first to regulate and protect the already considerable trade carried on by the Dutch in the Indian Ocean, and then to help in prosecuting the long war of independence against Spain and Portugal. Before the union between Portugal and Spain in 1580-81, the Dutch had been the chief carriers of eastern produce from Lisbon to northern Europe. When they were shut out from the Portuguese trade by the Spanish king they were driven to sail to the East in order to make good their loss. Unsuccessful attempts were made to find a route to the East by the north of Europe and Asia, which would have been free from interference from the Spaniards and Portuguese. It was only when these failed that the Dutch decided to intrude on the already well-known route by the Cape of Good Hope, and to fight their way to the Spice Islands of the Malay Archipelago. A first expedition, commanded by Cornelius Houtman, a merchant long resident at Lisbon, sailed on the 2nd of April 1595. It was provided with an itinerary or book of sailing instructions drawn up by Jan Huyghen van Linschoten,1 a Dutchman who had visited Goa. The voyage was marked by many disasters and losses, but the survivors who reached the Texel on their return on the 20th of August 1597 brought back some valuable cargo, and a treaty made with the sultan of Bantam in Java.

These results were sufficient to encourage a great outburst of commercial adventure. Companies described as “Van Ferne”—that is, of the distant seas—were formed, and by 1602 from sixty to seventy Dutch vessels had sailed to Hindustan and the Indian Archipelago. On those distant seas the traders could neither be controlled nor protected by their native government. They fought among themselves as well as with the natives and the Portuguese, and their competition sent up prices in the eastern markets and brought them down at home. Largely at the suggestion of Jan van Oldenbarneveldt, and in full accordance with the economic principles of the time, the states-general decided to combine the existing separate companies into one united Dutch East India Company, which could discharge the functions of a government in those remote seas, prosecute the war with Spain and Portugal, and regulate the trade. A capital estimated variously at a little above and a little under 6,500,000 florins, was raised by national subscription in shares of 3000 florins. The independence of the states which constituted the United Netherlands was recognized by the creation of local boards at Amsterdam, in Zealand, at Delft and Rotterdam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen. The boards directed the trade of their own districts, and were responsible to one another, but not for one another as towards the public. A general directorate of 60 members was chosen by the local boards. Amsterdam was represented by 20 directors, Zealand by 12, Delft and Rotterdam by 14, and Hoorn and Enkhuizen also by 14. The real governing authority was the “Collegium,” or board of control of 17 members, of whom 16 were chosen from the general directorate in proportion to the share which each local branch had contributed to the capital or joint stock. Amsterdam, which subscribed a half, had eight representatives; Zealand, which found a quarter, had four; Delft and Rotterdam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen had two respectively, since each of the pairs had subscribed an eighth. The seventeenth member was nominated in succession by the other members of the United Netherlands. A committee of ten was established at the Hague to transact the business of the company with the states-general. The “collegium” of seventeen nominated the governors-general who were appointed after 1608. The charter, which was granted for twenty-one years, conferred great powers on the company. It was endowed with a monopoly of the trade with the East Indies, was allowed to import free from all custom dues, though required to pay 3% on exports, and charged with a rent to the states. It was authorized to maintain armed forces by sea and land, to erect forts and plant colonies, to make war or peace, to arrange treaties in the name of the stadtholder, since eastern potentates could not be expected to understand what was meant by the states-general, and to coin money. It had full administrative, judicial and legislative authority over the whole of the sphere of operations, which extended from the west of the Straits of Magellan westward to the Cape of Good Hope.

The history of the Dutch East India Company from its formation in 1602 until its dissolution in 1798 is filled, until the close of the 17th century, with wars and diplomatic relations. Its headquarters were early fixed at Batavia in Java. But it extended its operations far and wide. It had to deal diplomatically with China and Japan; to conquer its footing in the Malay Archipelago and in Ceylon; to engage in rivalry with Portuguese and English; to establish posts and factories at the Cape, in the Persian Gulf, on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel and in Bengal. Only the main dates of its progress can be mentioned here. By 1619 it had founded its capital in Batavia in Java on the ruins of the native town of Jacatra. It expelled the Portuguese from Ceylon between 1638 and 1658, and from Malacca in 1641. Its establishment at the Cape of Good Hope, which was its only colony in the strict sense, began in 1652. A treaty with the native princes established its power in Sumatra in 1667. The flourishing age of the company dates from 1605 and lasted till the closing years of the century. When at the summit of its prosperity in 1669 it possessed 150 trading ships, 40 ships of war, 10,000 soldiers, and paid a dividend of 40%. In the last years of the 17th century its fortunes began to decline. Its decadence was due to a variety of causes. The rigid monopoly it enforced wherever it had the power provoked the anger of rivals. When Pieter Both, the first governor-general, was sent out in 1608, his instructions from the Board of Control were to see that Holland had the entire monopoly of the trade with the East Indies, and that no other nation had any share whatever. The pursuit of this policy led the company into violent hostility with the English, who were also opening a trade with the East. Between 1613 and 1632 the Dutch drove the English from the Spice Islands and the Malay Archipelago almost entirely. The English were reduced to a precarious footing at Bantam in Java. One incident of this conflict, the torture and judicial murder of the English factors at Amboyna in 1623, caused bitter hostility in England. The success of the company in the Malay Archipelago was counterbalanced by losses elsewhere. It had in all eight governments: Amboyna, Banda, Ternate, Macassar, Malacca, Ceylon, Cape of Good Hope and Java. Commissioners were placed in charge of its factories or trading posts in Bengal, on the Coromandel coast, at Surat, and at Gambroon (or Bunder Abbas) in the Persian Gulf, and in Siam. Its trade was divided into the “grand trade” between Europe and the East, which was conducted in convoys sailing from and returning to Amsterdam; and the “Indies to Indies” or coasting trade between its possessions and native ports.

The rivalry and the hostilities of French and English gradually drove the Dutch from the mainland of Asia and from Ceylon. The company suffered severely in the War of American Independence. But it extended and strengthened its hold on the great islands of the Malay Archipelago. The increase of its political and military burdens destroyed its profits. In the early 18th century it was already embarrassed, and was bankrupt when it was dissolved in 1798, though its credit remained unshaken, largely, if its enemies are to be believed, because it concealed the truth and published false accounts. In the later stages of its history its revenue was no longer derived from trade, but from forced contributions levied on its subjects. At home, the directors, who were accused of nepotism and corruption, became unpopular at an early date. The company was subject to increasing demands and ever more severe regulation on the successive renewals of its charters at intervals of twenty-one years. The immediate causes of its destruction were the conquest of Holland by the French revolutionary armies, the fall of the government of the stadtholder, and the establishment of the Batavian Republic in 1798.

Authorities.—The great original work on the history of the Dutch East India Company is the monumental Beschryving van oud en niew oost Indien (Dordrecht and Amsterdam, 1724), by François Valentyn, in 8 vols., folio, profusely illustrated. Two modern works of the highest value are: J.K.J. de Jonge, De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in oost Indien (The Hague and Amsterdam, 1862-1888), in 13 vols.; J.J. Meinsma, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche oost-Indische Bezittingen (3 vols., Delft and the Hague, 1872-1875). See also John Crawford, History of the Indian Archipelago (Edinburgh, 1820); Clive Day, The Dutch in Java (New York, 1904); Sir W.W. Hunter, A History of British India (London, 1899); and Pierre Bonnassieux, Les Grandes Compagnies de commerce (Paris, 1892).

1 Linschoten was born at Haarlem in or about 1563. He started his travels at the age of sixteen and, after some years in Spain, went with the Portuguese East India fleet to Goa, where he arrived in September 1583, returning in 1589. In 1594 and 1595 he took part in the Dutch Arctic voyages, and in 1598 settled at Enkhuizen, where he died on the 8th of February 1611. His Navigatio ac itinerarium (1595-1596) is a compilation based partly on his own experiences, partly on those of other travellers with whom he came in contact. It was translated into English and German in 1598; two Latin versions appeared in 1599 and a French translation in 1610. The famous English version was reprinted for the Hakluyt Society in 1885. Large selections, with an Introduction, are published in C. Raymond Beazley’s Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. (English Garner, London, 1903).

DUTCH LANGUAGE. When the Romans reached the territory now forming the kingdom of Holland, they found a number of tribes south of the Rhine, who—though here and there mixed with Germans—belonged to a non-Germanic race, and who, closely related to the Belgian tribes, spoke a language belonging to the Celtic group. Possibly they were also situated on the more elevated grounds north of the Rhine, at least vestiges of them may still be traced. We do not know anything about their being mixed with or subdued by the intruding German tribes. We can only guess it.

At that time the fertile delta of the Rhine was already occupied by German tribes who in language and national customs must have stood in some relation to the tribes living along the Rhine in Germany, later called Franks. The consonantal system of their language was in accordance with the other Low-German dialects, which is proved by the remains we have in the glosses of the Lex Salica, for the greater part handed down in a bad condition. These tribes, whom we shall take together under the name of Low-Franks—the Romans called them Batavi, Caninefates, Chamavi, &c.—were spread over Gelderland, Overysel, part of Utrecht and South Holland, and the south-western part of North Holland. When in the sixth century allied tribes from the present north Germany, who named themselves Saxons after one of those tribes living alongside the Elbe, conquered the territory occupied by the Franks a great many retreated from the eastern parts, and then the Franks, who already in the time of the Romans had begun to invade into the territory of the Belgian tribes, continued their wars of conquest in a southward direction and subdued all the land south of the branch of the Rhine that is called the “Waal.” Since that time the Frankish dialect came there, and the Celtic-speaking population of the south suffered its language to be entirely supplanted by that of the conquerors. Hence in the formerly Celtic-speaking parts of Brabant and Limburg we find but Frankish dialects, somewhat corresponding with those of part of Gelderland, Utrecht and Holland. The deviation that is perceptible concerns less the use of words than the way of laying the stress.

In part of Gelderland, east of the Ysel, and in Overysel, the older Frankish dialect (of the Salian Franks) was given up and the language of the victorious Saxons was assumed, perhaps here and there strongly mixed with the older language. The language which is spoken there, and farther to the north through Drente as far as in some parts of Groningen, is called Saxon. Indeed, these dialects correspond in a great many respects with the language of the Old-Saxon poem Heliand (q.v.) and with the North-German dialects—from the latter they deviate considerably in some respects. The chief point of conformity is the formation of the plural of the verb: wi loopt, wi gåt, Heliand: wi hlopad, wi gangad, which are wèi loopen, wèi gaan in the Frankish dialects. In the vocal system, too, there are peculiar differences.

In the north of Holland there lived, and still lives alongside the coast, a tribe with which Caesar did not come in contact. The Frisians were spread over a large distance along the shore as far as the mouth of the Elbe, and in the west at least as far as the country north of Haarlem. In the time of the Romans they cannot have extended their power farther southward. Later, however, this seems to have been the case. Maerlant and Melis Stoke (13th century) tell us that time was when their power extended even over part of Flanders. About the year 339 they were repelled as far as the mouth of the Meuse, and ever afterwards the Franks, led by their counts, pushed their dominion back farther and farther to the north, as far as the country north of Alkmaar. After all, a great many Frisian peculiarities may be perceived in the language of the country people of the parts which were once in their power.

To begin with the south: in Zeeland the population has quite given up the former probably non-Germanic language. Frisian influence is still perceptible in many words and expressions, but for all that the language has lost the Frisian character and assumed the nature of the neighbouring Frankish dialects in the present Belgium and Brabant. If it was then influenced by the south, later it was influenced rather by the language of Holland. Farther to the north Frisian elements may be perceived in Holland at the seashore and also in many respects still in North Holland. The real Frisian tongue has only been preserved in the province of Friesland, where intrusion of the dialect spoken in Holland is already perceptible since the 13th century. With the Frisian tongue this formed a new dialect in the towns, the “Stadfriesch,” whereas the country people in the villages and the peasants have preserved the old Frisian tongue as “Boerenfriesch.”

The more eastward dialects of Frisian in Groningen, the eastern part of Friesland (Stellingawerf) and West-Drente were first strongly mixed with Saxon; at the same time we find a strong mixture of Frisian and Saxo-Frankish east of the Zuider Zee. Later the Saxon dialect of the town of Groningen, once the capital of East-Drente, became prominent over the whole province.

In all parts, however, the language of Holland, mixed with and changed by the living speech, is getting more and more influence, issuing from the towns and large villages.

This influence over the whole country began at the opening of the 17th century, and, in connexion with the prevalent written language, gradually produced a colloquial language, deviating from the written language as well as from the native idioms of the country, though assuming elements from both. In this colloquial speech the idiom of Holland forms the basis, whereas the written language formed itself on quite different principles.

If we compare the colloquial speech and the native idiom with the written language, we find remarkable differences, which are caused by the origin of the Dutch written language.

The first to write in any of the idioms of the Dutch language, if we leave apart the old version of the psalms in East Low Frankish, was an inhabitant of the neighbourhood of Maastricht, Henrik van Veldeke, who wrote a Servatius legend and an Aeneid; the latter we only know by a Mid High German copy. This dialect deviates from the western dialects and has likeness to the Middle-Frankish. His work had no influence whatever on the written language.

In the west of Belgium, in the districts of Antwerp, East and West Flanders and Brabant, great prosperity and strong development of commerce caused a vivid intellectual life. No wonder we find there the first writings in the West-Low-Frankish native idiom. This language spread over the neighbouring districts. At least in 1254 we find the same language used in the statute (i.e. privilege) of Middelburg.

In those parts a great deal was written in poetry and prose, and the writings in this language are known under the name of Middle-Dutch literature.

If originally the south took the lead in all departments, later the north gradually surpasses the south, and elements from the northern native idiom begin to intrude into the written language.

North of the Meuse and the Rhine little was written as yet in the 13th century. Not until about 1300 does literary life begin to develop here (Melis Stoke’s Rijmcronijk), and these writings were written in the language of the south with slight deviations here and there. Chancery and clergy had taken a written language to the north, deviating considerably from the native idiom in vogue there, which belonged to the Frisio-Frankish idioms. So this written language gradually spread over the west of the Netherlands and Belgium. The east of the Netherlands agreed in its chancery style more with the districts of Low Germany.

There was a great difference between the written language and the dialect spoken on the banks of the Y. This becomes quite conspicuous if we compare what Roemer Visscher, Coster, Bredero borrow from their native idiom with the language of Huygens or Cats, in the latter of which the southern elements predominate, mixed with the dialects of Zeeland and Holland. Vondel, too, in his first period was influenced by the idiom of Brabant. Only after 1625 does he get on more familiar terms with the Amsterdam dialect. In the various editions of his poems it may be seen how not only loan-words, but also words belonging to the southern idiom, are gradually replaced by other words, belonging to the vocabulary of North Holland, and still to be heard.

The written language passed from the south to the north, and, considerably changed at Amsterdam, was also assumed in the other provinces in the 17th century, after the Union of Utrecht. In the north, in Groningen and Friesland, the official writings and laws were still noted down in a Frisian or Saxo-Frisian idiom as late as the 15th and 16th centuries. When the contact with Holland grew stronger, and the government officials ever and again came in contact with Holland, chancery, too, gradually assumed the Holland idiom. The same took place in the eastern provinces.

This, however, did not yet make the written language popular, which did not happen before the population of the Dutch provinces got its Statenbÿbel, the well-known authorized version of the Bible, made at Dordrecht between 1626 and 1637.

By the frequent use of this so-called Statenvertaling the language of Holland obtained its vogue in all provinces on the point of religion, and many expressions, borrowed from that Bible, were preserved in the native idiom.

By the remarkable vicissitudes of these parts from the earliest time up to the moment when Holland became an independent kingdom, during which alternately German elements under the Bavarian counts and French influences under the Burgundian princes were predominant, and also later in the 16th and 17th centuries elements from these languages were mixed with the language in common use. Moreover, various words passed from the eastern languages into Dutch by the colonial and commercial connexions, while at the same time many words were borrowed from Latin, the language of the learned people, especially in the 16th century, and from French, under the influence of the poetic clubs of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the time of the rhetoricians, in the 16th century, and of Coornhert, as well as in the days of Bredero, Hooft and Vondel, we repeatedly find opposition against these foreign words, often successful, so that in 1650 Vondel could say: “Onze spraak is sedert weinige jaren herwaart van bastaard-woorden en onduitsch allengs geschuimt.”1 Some people, e.g. Hooft, went even so far as to make very clumsy versions of Latin and French bastard words, handed down of old.

Under the influence of the club “Nil Volentibus Arduum” and the predominant literary clubs of the 18th century, people became inclined towards expressing their thoughts as much as possible in pure Dutch. Therefore a large number of rules were given, with respect to prose as well as to poetry, in consequence of which the written language grew very stiff in choice of words and forms, and remains so till the latter half of the 19th century. The obtrusion of the French language during the reign of Napoleon had no effect. But the subsequent union of Holland and Belgium strengthened the French element, especially in the higher ranks of society. King William I. had tried to make Dutch more popular in Belgium by a general teaching of the Dutch language. When north and south were separated, the French became predominant in the south. Only in the Flemish provinces of Belgium the people tried to preserve the native idiom and to do away with French words. These endeavours, called “De Vlaamsche beweging”, begun by F. v. Willems, Heremans and others in the south, were supported in the north by Professor de Vries at Leiden. In order to get a pure Dutch language, the idea of composing a general Dutch dictionary was introduced. M. de Vries and his partner L. te Winkel, however, did not begin this task before having given a new formulation of the rules for spelling. These rules, deviating in many respects from the spelling then in vogue, introduced by Siegenbeek in 1806, have been predominant up to the present moment. Since 1891 Dr R.A. Kollewyn and Dr F. Buitenrust Hettema have been engaged in trying to bring about a simplification in the spelling. As this simplification is not generally considered efficient, their principles are not yet generally adopted; see for instance C.H. den Hertog, Waarom onaannemelyk? (Groningen, 1893).

Excepting Belgium (Flanders, Antwerp, Brabant) the Dutch language is heard outside Holland in Dutch East India and in the West Indies. In East India pure Dutch has been preserved, though some Javanese and Malay bastard words may have slipped in by the habit of speaking to the population in the Malay tongue or in the native idiom. Hence no Indo-Dutch was formed there. This is different in the West Indies, where a great number of negro words and English words as well as English syntactical constructions have slipped in.

In the 17th century a number of Dutchmen, for the greater part from Holland and Zeeland, under Jan van Riebeek, had settled in South Africa, in Cape Town, where the Dutch navigation called into being a Dutch port. In course of time they were joined there by French emigrants (most of them Huguenots who left their country about 1688 and joined with other Huguenots from Holland in assuming the Dutch language), perhaps also by Portuguese and by Malay people, who, together with the English who settled there and after 1820 became numerous in Cape Colony, mixed some peculiarities of their language with the Dutch idioms. Thus in the first half of the 18th century the language arose which is now called the South African Dutch. Since 1880 the present Dutch language has became more frequently used in official writings, though with certain adaptations agreeably to the native idiom.

In order to offer an example of the Middle-Dutch language beside the present language, we give here a single strophe from Maerlant’s Wapene Martyn, with a metrical translation in modern Dutch from the pen of Nikolaas Beets (1880).

God, diet al bi redene doet, Gaf dat wandel ertsche goet Der menschelt gemene, Dattere mede ware gevoet, Ende gecleet, ende gescoet, Ende leven soude rene. Nu es giericheit so verwoet, Dat elc settet sinen moet Om al te hebbene allene. Hieromme stortmen menschenbloet, Hieromme stichtmen metter spoet Borge ende hoge stene Menegen te wene. God, die het al met wijsheid doet, Gaf dit verganklijk aardsche goed Den menschen in’t gemeen, Op dat zij zouden zijn gevoed, Het lijf gekleed, geschoeid de voet En leven rein van zeen. Maar zie nu hoe de hebzucht woedt Dat iedereen in arren moed ’t Al hebben wil alleen’ Hierom vergiet men menschenbloed En bouwt met roekeloozen spoed Burchtsloten, zwaar van steen, Tot smart van menigeen.

A Survey of the Sounds used in Dutch.—The Consonants. As regards the consonants, Dutch in the main does not differ from the other Low German languages. The explosive g and the th are wanting. Instead of the former there is a g with “fricative” pronunciation, and as in High German the th has passed over into d.

The final consonants in Middle Dutch are sharpened, and the sharp sounds are graphically represented; in Modern Dutch, on the other hand, the historical development of the language being more distinctly kept in view, and the agreement observed with the inflexional forms, the soft consonant is written more frequently than it is sounded; thus we have Middle Dutch dach, Modern Dutch dag, in analogy with the plural dagen.

The gutturals are g, k, ch and h.

G is the soft spirant, not used in English. In Middle Dutch this letter was also indicated by gh. K was pronounced like English k. In Middle Dutch c was sometimes used instead of k; now this is no longer done.

Ch (pronounced as German ch without the i-sound, not as English ch) loses its sound when combined with s to sch at the end of a syllable, for instance, vleesch, but the s-sound is not purely dental as in dans. As an initial consonant sch is nearly pronounced as sg (schip, English ship); only in Frisian and Saxon dialects the old consonant sk in skip, skool is retained.

H has the same pronunciation as in English.

The dentals are d and t. The d is formed by placing the point of the tongue against the upper teeth. At the end of a word d is sharpened into t, but written d, for instance, goed, pronounced gut. In the idiom of the east of the Netherlands final d is preserved. When between two vowels after oe (Engl. ô in do), ō, or ui, d is not pronounced, though it is written. After it has been left out, a j-sound has developed between the two vowels, so, for instance, goede became first goe:e and then goeje. Thus it is pronounced, though it is still spelled goede. After ou d disappeared and ou became ouw, for instance koude > kouw.

T has the same pronunciation as in English. In some dialects final t is dropped, for instance, heef for heeft, nie for niet.

S has the pronunciation of English s in sound, z that of English z in hazel; only in zestig and zeventig z has the pronunciation of s.

The labials are b, f, v, p.

At the beginning and in the body of a word b has the same sound as in English. At the end of a word, when shortened from bb, followed by a vowel, it became p in the pronunciation, so older krabbe became krabb, krab (the present spelling), which is now pronounced krap.

F has the same pronunciation as English f. In many cases older initial f passed into v, hence most words which have f in English have initial v in Dutch, for instance vader, vol, vechten.

This v, initial and between vowels, has the pronunciation of English v in lover. Dutch p is the same as English p, also the liquids and nasals.

The w in Dutch is mostly labiodental; in the eastern parts before vowels bilabial pronunciation is heard.

Vowels.—A has in open syllables the sound of English a in father, in closed syllables that of English a in ass, but more open; when there is a clear sound in closed syllables the spelling is aa (jaar), in open syllables a (maken), pronounced as a in ask; in bad, nat, a = ă. An original short a and a long a in open syllables are even in Middle Dutch pronounced alike, and may be rhymed with each other (dagen, lagen, a rhyme which was not permitted in Middle High German). In the Saxon dialects â was expressed by ao, a or â in the Frisio-Saxon districts passes into è before r, as jèr (jaar). Middle Dutch preserved a in several words where in Modern Dutch it passes into e before r (arg, erg; sarc, zerk; warf, werf); in others, as aarde, staart, zwaard, the Middle Dutch had e and a (erde, stert, swert, swart, start; Modern Dutch zwaard, staart). In foreign words, likewise, e before r has become a; paars, perse; lantaarn, lanterne (in the dialects e is still frequently retained).

E. The sound of the e derived from a does not differ from that of an original e, or of an e derived from i, as they appear in open syllables (steden, vele, pronounced as a in English name). If the e derived from a or i or the original e occurs in closed syllables, it has a short sound, as in English men, end, Modern Dutch stem. The e in closed syllables with a full sound (as English a; Sweet, ei) is spelled ee: veel, week (e from i), beek. The sharp, clear ee is indicated by the same letters in both open and closed syllables: eer, sneeuw, zee.

In some dialects this ee is pronounced like English ee, not only in the present dialects, but also in the 17th century.

The pronunciation of ei (from ai, or eg: ag, French ai, ei, ée) is that of English i, for instance, Dutch ei, English egg, is pronounced like English I.

I is pronounced short (somewhat like i of English pit), for instance in pit, binden, sikkel; it has a clear sound in fabrikant, though it has no stress.

Ie is pronounced like English ee in see, but somewhat shorter; so, fabriek, fabrieken, Pieter; also in bieden, stierf, &c. For original long î, Middle Dutch ii and ij, afterwards ÿ, was used. This vowel, though still written y, is pronounced like English i in I, like; so in sysje (English siskin), lÿken, &c.

The letter o represents three sounds:—(1) the short sharp o and (2) the short soft o, the former like the o in English not and French soldat (Dutch bod, belofte, tocht, kolf), the latter like the English o in don, the French o in ballon (Dutch dof, ploffen, ochtend, vol), and (3) the full, clear o as in English note, French noter (Dutch kolen, sloten, verloren). The sharp clear oo, in stroom, dood, has almost the same sound as the full o, in some dialects (among others the Saxon) it is pronounced as o with a glide o, in others (Flemish and Hollandsch) somewhat like au. In Middle Dutch, the lengthening of the vowels was frequently indicated by e (before r sometimes by i, as in oir); hence ae for â, oe for ô. Where oe occurs in the modern language, it has the sound of u (pronounced like the u in High German, and answering to the Gothic ô), which in Middle Dutch was frequently represented by ou. oe is pronounced ou (au; Sweet, p. 6) in West Flemish and the Groningen dialects. Before labials and gutturals oe in Middle Dutch was expressed by ue and oe (bouc, souken, and also guet, but usually goet, soeken, boec). The Saxon dialects still preserve an ô sound which agrees with the Dutch oe (bôk, môder); in two words—romer (roemer, however, is also used) and spook—o has passed from these dialects into Dutch. As the u (Old German û), which in the Dutch tongue has passed into ui except before r and w, retains the û-sound in the Saxon districts, some words have come into Dutch from these dialects, being written with oe from the similar sound of oe (from ô) in Dutch and û in Saxon (snoet, boer, soezen), by the side of which are Frankish words (snuit, suizen, &c.).

In the language of the people oe before m is often pronounced as ŏ, for instance bloem and blom.

Eu is not a diphthong, but the modification (Umlaut) of the clear ō; it has the same sound as German ö in schön; so in vleugel, leugen, keuken.

U before a double consonant or before a consonant in monosyllables has about the same pronunciation as in English stuff, rug; so in kunnen, snurken, put. When used in open syllables it has the same sound as in French nature.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Middle Dutch û passed over through oi into ui by the influence of the Holland dialect. In the Saxon districts û kept the old pronunciation, but only in the language of the peasants. The common language has everywhere ui, pronounced nearly as German eu, English oy; so in duizend, vuil, buigen, &c.

Ou and au in vrouw and blauw are nearly pronounced in the same way, very much like English ow in crowd.

Authorities.—For a full survey of a history of the Dutch language the reader is referred to Jan te Winkel, “Geschichte der niederländischen Sprache,” Grundriss der germ. Philologie, 2, p. 704 (Strassburg, K. Grübner). Here an elaborate account may be found on p. 704 of the different works on the grammar and phonology of the various periods of the Dutch language. For explanation and history of words of the current language see the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, by De Vries and Te Winkel, continued by A. Kluyver, A. Beets, for a time by J.W. Müller and De Vreese, who left at their nomination as professors at Utrecht and Ghent. The Middle Dutch language may be known from the Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, first by E. Verwys and J. Verdam, after the death of Verwys by Verdam alone. For the dialects the different grammars and glossaries issued at Martinus Nÿhoff (The Hague) and Kemink & Son (Utrecht) are of great importance. The Flemish dialect may be found in De Bo, Westvlaamsch Idioticon; other Belgian dialects are recorded in the publications of the Vlaamsche Academie (Ghent). Phonetic explanations are given in Roorda’s or in ten Bruggencate’s Phonetic Works, and a survey of the pronunciation in Branco van Dantzig’s Dutch Pronunciation and Dykstra’s Dutch Grammar.

(J. H. G.)

1 i.e. “Within a few years our language has been gradually skimmed of bastard words and non-Dutch elements.”

DUTCH LITERATURE. The languages now known as Dutch and Flemish did not begin to take distinct shape till about the end of the 11th century. From a few existing fragments—two incantations from the 8th century, a version of the Psalms from the 9th century, and several charters—a supposed Old Dutch language has been recognized; but Dutch literature actually commences in the 13th century, as Middle Dutch, the creation of the first national movement in Brabant, Flanders, Holland and Zealand.

From the wreck of Frankish anarchy no genuine folk-tales of Dutch antiquity have come down to us, and scarcely any echoes of German myth. On the other hand, the sagas of Charlemagne and Arthur appear immediately in Willem the Minstrel. Middle Dutch forms. These were evidently introduced by wandering minstrels and jongleurs, and translated to gratify the curiosity of the noble women. It is rarely that the name of such a translator has reached us, but we happen to know that the fragments we possess of the French romance of William of Orange were written in Dutch by a certain Klaas van Haarlem, between 1191 and 1217. The Chanson de Roland was translated about the same time, and considerably later Parthenopeus de Blois. The Flemish minstrel Diederic van Assenede completed his version of Floris et Blanchefleur about 1250. The Arthurian legends appear to have been brought to Flanders by some Flemish colonists in Wales, on their return to their mother-country. About 1250 a Brabantine minstrel translated Walter Map’s Lancelot du lac at the command of his liege, Lodewijk van Velthem. The Gauvain was translated by Penninc and Vostaert before 1260, while the first original Dutch writer, the famous Jakob van Maerlant, occupied himself about 1260 with several romances dealing with Merlin and the Holy Grail. The earliest existing fragments of the epic of Reynard the Fox were written in Latin by Flemish priests, and about 1250 the first part of a very important version in Dutch was made by Willem the Minstrel, of whom it is unfortunate that we know no more save that he was the translator of a lost romance, Madoc. In his existing work the author follows Pierre de Saint-Cloud, but not slavishly; and he is the first really admirable writer that we meet with in Dutch literature. The second part was added by another hand at the end of the 14th century.

It is not necessary to dwell at any length on the monkish legends and the hymns to the Virgin Mary which were abundantly produced during the 13th century, and which, though destitute of all literary merit, were of use as exercises John I., duke of Brabant. in the infancy of the language. The first lyrical writer of Holland was John I., duke of Brabant, who practised the minnelied with success, but whose songs are only known to us through a Swabian version of a few of them. In 1544 the earliest collection of Dutch folk-songs saw the light, and in this volume one or two romances of the 14th century are preserved, of which Het Daghet in den Oosten is the best known. Almost the earliest fragment of Dutch popular poetry, but of later time, is an historical ballad describing the murder of Count Floris V. in 1296. A very curious collection of mystical medieval hymns by Sister Hadewych, a nun of Brabant, was first printed in 1875 by Heremans and Ledeganck.

Hitherto, as we have seen, the Middle Dutch language had placed itself at the service of the aristocratic and monastic orders, flattering the traditions of chivalry and of religion, but scarcely finding anything to say to the bulk of the population. With the close of the 13th century a change came over the face of Dutch literature. The Flemish towns began to prosper and to assert their commercial supremacy over the North Sea. Under such mild rulers as William II. and Floris V., Dort, Amsterdam, and other cities contrived to win such privileges as amounted almost to political independence, and with this liberty there arose a new sort of literary expression. The founder and creator of this original Dutch literature was Jacob van Maerlant Maerlant. (q.v.). His Naturen Bloeme, written about 1263, forms an epoch in Dutch literature; it is a collection of moral and satirical addresses to all classes of society. With his Rijmbijbel (Rhyming Bible) he foreshadowed the courage and free-thought of the Reformation. It was not until 1284 that he began his masterpiece, De Spieghel Historiael (The Mirror of History), at the command of Count Floris V. Of his disciples, Boendale. the most considerable in South Holland was Jan van Boendale (1280-1365), known as Jan de Klerk. He was born in Brabant, and became clerk to the justices at Antwerp in 1310. He was entrusted with various important missions. His works are historical and moral in character. In him the last trace of the old chivalric and romantic element has disappeared. He completed his famous rhyme chronicle, the Brabantsche Yeesten, in 1350; it contains the history of Brabant down to that date, and was brought down to 1440 by an anonymous later writer. For English readers it is disappointing that Boendale’s other great historical work (Van den derden Edewaert, coninc van Ingelant ..., ed. J.F. Willems, Ghent, 1840), an account of Edward III. and his expedition to Flanders in 1338, has survived only in some fragments. The remainder of Boendale’s works are didactic poems, pursuing still further the moral thread first taken up by Maerlant, and founded on medieval scholastic literature. In Ypres the school of Maerlant was represented by Jan de Weert, a surgeon, who died in 1362, and Weert. who was the author of two remarkable works of moral satire and exhortation, the Nieuwe Doctrinael of Spieghel der Sonden, and a Disputacie van Rogier end van Janne. In the beginning of the 13th century Gielijs van Molhem wrote a Dutch version of part of the Miserere of the Picard poet who concealed his identity under the name of the recluse of Moiliens. The poem consisted of meditations on the origin and destiny of man, and on the sins of pride, envy, &c. The translation, completed later by an author calling himself Heinrec, was critically edited (Groningen, 1893) by P. Leendertz. In North Holland a greater talent than that of Weert or of Boendale was exhibited Stoke. by Melis Stoke, a monk of Egmond, who wrote the history of the state of Holland to the year 1305; this work, the Rijmkronik, was printed in 1591, and edited in 1885 for the Utrecht Historical Society; and for its exactitude and minute detail it has proved of inestimable service to later historians.

With the middle of the 14th century the chivalric spirit came once more into fashion. A certain revival of the forms of feudal life made its appearance under William III. and his successors. Knightly romances came once more into vogue, but the newborn didactic poetry contended vigorously against the supremacy of what was lyrical and epical. It will be seen that from the very first the literary spirit in Holland began to assert itself in a homely and utilitarian spirit. Jan van Heelu, a Brabanter, Heelu. Aken. was the author of an epic poem1 on the battle of Woeronc (1288), dedicated to Princess Margaret of England, and to him has been attributed the still finer romance of the War of Grimbergen.2 Still more thoroughly aristocratic in feeling was Hein van Aken, a priest of Louvain, who lived about 1255-1330, and who combined to a very curious extent the romantic and didactic elements. As early as 1280 he had completed his translation3 of the Roman de la rose, which he must have commenced in the lifetime of Jean de Meung. More remarkable than any of his translated works, however, is his original romance, completed in 1318, Heinric en Margriete van Limborch,4 upon which he was at work for twenty-seven years. During the Bavarian period (1349-1433) very little original writing of much value was produced in Holland. Buodewijn van der Loren wrote one excellent piece on the Maid of Ghent, in 1389. Augustijnken van Dordt was a peripatetic minstrel of North Holland, who composed for the sheriff Aelbrecht and for the count of Blois from 1350 to 1370. Such of his verses as have been handed down to us are allegorical and moral. Willem van Hildegaersberch (1350-1408) was another northern poet, of a more strictly political cast. Many of his writings exist still unpublished, and are very rough in style and wanting in form. Towards the end of the 14th century an erotic poet of Dirk Potter. considerable power arose in the person of the lord of Waddinxsveen and Hubrechtsambacht, Dirk Potter van der Loo (c. 1365-1428), who was secretary at the court of the counts of Holland. During an embassy in Rome (1411-1412) this eminent diplomatist made himself acquainted with the writings of Boccaccio, and commenced a vast poem on the course of love, Der Minnen Loep,5 which is a wonderful mixture of classical and Biblical instances of amorous adventures set in a framework of didactic philosophy. In Dirk Potter the last traces of the chivalric element died out of Dutch literature, and left poetry entirely in the hands of the school of Maerlant. Many early songs, with some of later date, are preserved in a Liedekens-Boeck printed by Jan Roulans (Antwerp, 1544). The unique copy in the Wolfenbüttel library was edited by Hoffmann von Fallersleben in Horae Belgicae (vol. xi., 1855).

It is now time to consider the growth of prose literature in the Low Countries. The oldest pieces of Dutch prose now in existence are charters of the towns of Flanders and Zealand, dated 1249, 1251 and 1254. A prose translation of the Old Testament was made about 1300, and there exists a Life of Jesus about the same date. Of the mystical preachers whose religious writings have reached us, the Brussels friar, Jan van Ruysbroec (1294-1381), is the most important. But the most interesting relics of medieval Dutch prose, as far as the formation of the language is concerned, are the popular romances in which the romantic stories of the trouvères and minstrels were translated for the benefit of the unlettered public into simple language. As in most European Religious drama. nations, the religious drama takes a prominent place in every survey of medieval literature in Holland. Unfortunately the text of all the earliest mysteries, the language of which would have an extraordinary interest for us, has been lost. We possess records of dramas having been played at various places—Our Lord’s Resurrection, at the Hague, in 1400; Our Lady the Virgin, at Arnheim, in 1452; and The Three Kings, at Delft, in 1498. The earliest existing fragment, however, is part of a Limburg-Maastricht Passover Play6 of about 1360. The latest Dutch miracle play was the Mystery of the Holy Sacrament, composed by a certain Smeken, at Breda, and performed on St John’s day, 1500. This play was printed in 1867. With these purely theological dramas there were acted mundane farces, performed outside the churches by semi-religious companies; these curious moralities were known as “Abelespelen” and “Sotternieën.” In these pieces we discover the first traces of that genius for low comedy which was afterwards to take perfect form in the dramas of Brederôo and the paintings of Teniers.

The theatrical companies just alluded to, “Gesellen van den Spele,” formed the germ out of which developed the famous “Chambers of Rhetoric”7 which united within themselves all the literary movements that occupied the Chambers of Rhetoric. Low Countries during the 15th and 16th centuries. The poets of Holland had already discovered in late medieval times the value of gilds in promoting the arts and industrial handicrafts. The term “collèges de rhétorique” is supposed to have been introduced about 1440 to the courtiers of the Burgundian dynasty, but the institutions themselves existed long before. These literary gilds lasted till the end of the 16th century, and during the greater part of that time preserved a completely medieval character, even when the influences of the Renaissance and the Reformation obliged them to modify in some degree their outward forms. They were in almost all cases absolutely middle-class in tone, and opposed to aristocratic ideas and tendencies in thought. Of these remarkable bodies the earliest were almost entirely engaged in preparing mysteries and miracle-plays for the populace. Each chamber, and in process of time every town in the Low Countries, possessed one, and took as its title some fanciful or heraldic sign. At Diest “The Eyes of Christ,” dated from 1302, and an earlier one, the “Lily,” is mentioned. “The Alpha and Omega,” at Ypres, was founded about 1398; that of the “Violet,” at Antwerp, followed in 1400; the “Book,” at Brussels, in 1401; the “Berberry,” at Courtrai, in 1427; the “Holy Ghost,” at Bruges, in 1428; the “Floweret Jesse,” at Middelburg, in 1430; the “Oak Tree,” at Vlaardingen, in 1433; and the “Marigold,” at Gouda, in 1437. The most celebrated of all the chambers, that of the “Eglantine” at Amsterdam, with its motto In Liefde Bloeyende (Blossoming in Love), was not instituted until 1496. Among the most influential chambers not above mentioned should be included the “Fountain” at Dort, the “Corn Flower” at the Hague, the “White Columbine” at Leiden, the “Blue Columbine” at Rotterdam, the “Red Rose” at Schiedam, the “Thistle” at Zierikzee, “Jesus with the Balsam” at Ghent, and the “Garland of Mary” at Brussels. And not in these important places only, but in almost every little town, the rhetoricians exerted their influence, mainly in what we may call a social direction. Their wealth was in most cases considerable, and it very soon became evident that no festival or procession could take place in a town unless the “Kamer” patronized it. Towards the end of the 15th century the Ghent chamber of “Jesus with the Balsam” began to exercise a sovereign power over the other Flemish chambers, which was emulated later on in Holland by the “Eglantine” at Amsterdam. But this official recognition proved of no consequence in literature, and it was not in Ghent, but in Antwerp, that intellectual life first began to stir. In Holland the burghers only formed the chambers, while in Flanders the representatives of the noble families were honorary members, and assisted with their money at the arrangement of ecclesiastical or political pageants. Their pompous landjuweelen, or tournaments of rhetoric, at which rich prizes were contended for, were the great occasions upon which the members of the chambers distinguished themselves. Between 1426 and 1620 at least 66 of these festivals were held. There was a specially splendid landjuweel at Antwerp in 1496, in which 28 chambers took part, but the gayest of all was that celebrated at Antwerp on the 3rd of August 1561. To this the “Book” at Brussels sent 340 members, all on horseback, and clad in crimson mantles. The town of Antwerp gave a ton of gold to be given in prizes, which were shared among 1893 rhetoricians. This was the zenith of the splendour of the “Kamers van Rhetorica,” and after this time they soon fell into disfavour. We can trace the progress of literary composition under the chambers, although none of their official productions has descended to us. Their dramatic pieces were certainly of a didactic cast, with a strong farcical flavour, and continued the tradition of Maerlant and his school. They very rarely dealt with historical or even Biblical personages, but entirely with allegorical and moral abstractions, until the age of humanism introduced upon the stage the names without much of the spirit of mythology. Of the pure farces of the rhetorical chambers we can speak with still more confidence, for some of them have come down to us, and among the authors famed for their skill in this sort of writing are named Cornelis Everaert of Bruges and Laurens Janssen of Haarlem. The material of these farces is extremely raw, consisting of rough jests at the expense of priests and foolish husbands, silly old men and their light wives. Laurens Janssen is also deserving of remembrance for a satire against the clergy, written in 1583. The chambers also encouraged the composition of songs, but with very little success; they produced no lyrical genius more considerable than Matthijs de Casteleyn (1488-1550), the founder of the Flemish chamber of “Pax Vobiscum” at Oudenarde, and author of De Conste van Rhetorijcken (Ghent, 1573), a personage whose influence as a fashioner of language would have been more healthy if his astounding metrical feats and harlequin tours de force had not been performed in a dialect debased with all the worst bastard phrases of the Burgundian period.

In the middle of the 16th century a group of rhetoricians in Brabant and Flanders attempted to put a little new life into the stereotyped forms of the preceding age by introducing in original composition the new-found branches of Houwaert. Latin and Greek poetry. The leader of these men was Jean Baptista Houwaert8 (1533-1599), a personage of considerable political influence in his generation. Houwaert held the title of “Counsellor and Master in Ordinary of the Exchequer to the Dukedom of Brabant”; he played a prominent part in the revolution of the Low Countries against Spain; and when the prince of Orange entered Brussels victoriously (Sept. 23rd, 1577), Houwaert met him in pomp at the head of the two chambers of rhetoric—the “Book” and the “Garland of Mary.” He did not remain faithful to his convictions, for he composed in 1593 a poem in honour of the cardinal-archduke Ernest of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands. He considered himself a devout disciple of Matthijs de Casteleyn, but his great characteristic was his unbounded love of classical and mythological fancy. His didactic poems are composed in a wonderfully rococo style, and swarm with misplaced Latinities. In his bastard Burgundian tongue he boasted of having “poëtelijck geïnventeert ende rhetorijckelijck ghecomponeert” for the Brussels chamber such dramas as Aeneas and Dido, Mars and Venus, Narcissus and Echo, or Leander and Hero—named together the Commerce of Amorosity (1583). But of all his writings, Pegasides Pleyn (Antwerp, 1582-1583), or the Palace of Maidens, is the most remarkable; this is a didactic poem in sixteen books, dedicated to a discussion of the variety of earthly love. Houwaert’s contemporaries nicknamed him “the Homer of Brabant”; later criticism has preferred to see in him an important link in that chain of homely didactic Dutch which ends in Cats. His writings are composed in a Burgundian so base that they hardly belong to Flemish literature at all. Into the same miserable dialect Cornelis van Ghistele of Antwerp translated, between 1555 and 1583, parts of Terence, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, while the painter Karel van Mander (1547-1609) put a French version of the Iliad and of the Eclogues of Virgil into an equally ill-fitting Flemish dress. In no country of Europe did the humanism of the 16th century at first affect the national literature so slightly or to so little purpose.