houses, when the old Romans sought them | reflections. "What great lords are buried out in these bogs, where it is still far more here?' said the old woman who showed the disagreeable to travel than in Poland or church: ay, all lords of quality and rankRussia. How the Romans must have de- those whose names I read were historically spaired, when they were quartered in such unknown to me. And how should it be a country." In all the Hanoverian domin- otherwise? except the Wassenaers, no man ions, he observes, from the non-interference of noble family has distinguished himself in of the government, each district adminis- the history of the Republic. They were tered its own affairs; and when the time of the originators of the enormities by which need came, people who understood their three Stadtholders, William I. and II., and several neighborhoods came into power; Maurice, have stained their reputation; and and "effected infinitely more than with us it is remarkable that the province in which in Prussia, when the States had decayed the nobility predominated, Gueldres, aland degenerated, and all local knowledge ways betrayed freedom, and tried not merewas confined to salaried officials." He ar- ly to aid but to tempt the House of Orange rived in Amsterdam early in March. to assume the sovereignty; and also always evaded burdens, and was rated in its quota disproportionately low. All the great men of the Republic were plebeians, (and truly it had many great men,) except Admiral Opdam, who was a Wassenaer, and therefore a nobleman of Holland; in which province the collective knightly body had only one vote, and eighteen towns had one each. The event of a burgher, De Ryk, extorting from the noble commander of the Watergeu yen (Gueux) their consent to go to Briel, was the foundation of the freedom of the Netherlands. I remembered my

Louis Bonaparte, the most amiable and benevolent of his family, was then in the second year of his short and unsuccessful reign over a mutilated territory, which contained not more than a million and a half of inhabitants. He devoted himself to the utmost to restore the prosperity of his adopted country, and resisted as far as possible the disposition of Napoleon to make use of it as a province of France. But it was impossible to relieve the distress of the country while England blockaded its coasts, and occupied its colonies. The deficit of the finances constantly increased, and when in the following year, Napoleon, weary of the conscientiousness of his brother, annexed his kingdom to the empire, the arbitrary act by which he cancelled two-thirds of the national debt had become almost necessary. The king received Niebuhr with kindness and courtesy, and won his entire personal esteem; but he could feel little interest in the modern system of administration; and his attention was principally directed either to the recollections of the Republic, or to the custom and national character which survive all political changes.

feelings at the spots where the plebeian heroes, poets, and historians rested: as at Leyden too I will make a pilgrimage to the graves of my beloved philologers. One great man and his children are immortal here: but William I. came from Nassau, where Stein was born, and has lived. That must be a fine climate for keeping good old blood as well as old Rhenish wine."

In one of the letters he sums up the principal result of his investigations into the dialects of the Netherlands. He found that the Low Dutch of Holland, Flanders, and Brabant, was unintelligible to the country people of Friesland and Gröningen, who He admired and studied the celebrated still speak a dialect of the ancient Frisian. charitable establishments, in which Amster- On the eastern border he found the language dam probably surpasses any part of Europe, passing into Low Saxon and into Frisian. and he even formed a scheme for employing On the north, between the Maas and the the judgment and benevolence of Madame Rhine, there is a mixture of High and Low Hensler in the superintendence of one of Dutch, which he attributed to the occupa them. He could no doubt easily have ac- tion of the country by the Franks. With counted for the fact that organized systems some difficulty he procured two books writof charity succeed better among a monied ten in ancient Frisian, and mastered the than a landed community. The great works grammar of the language, which, as he says, of art in which both divisions of the Nether- had never been investigated before: with lands are so rich, were also fully appre- this key he examined the question of the ciated by him, and he visited with respect old divisions of the country. the monuments of the heroes of the Republic, the Ruyters, De Witts, and Barneveldts. Another class of monuments in the cathedral at Utrecht gave occasion to different

Yssel formed the boundary between the Frisians and Saxons, so that all the country west of this river, excepting a portion of Veluve, belonged to

"1. In old times, as in the seventh century, the

Friesland, which was bounded on the south by In determining the extent of the ancient the Maas. The Zuyder-zee, or as it was then Frisian territory, Niebuhr applied geologi. called, the Vlie, was still only an inland lake, and cal observations and theories to the expla Friesland extended along the coast to the north nation of the fragmentary information which as far as Schleswig. Inland it reached at most he was able to collect. He had, in common points as far as the great morasses, which extend from Overyssel and Drenthe, through probably with other strangers, and, as he Westphalia, into the county of Hoya-these says, with most natives of the country, supwere the northern limits of the Westphalian posed Holland to be naturally a salt-marsh. Saxons, and I find that the word which I heard On-arriving at Amsterdam, he was surprised in Suhlingen and supposed to be Frisian, really by finding that the piles on which the city belongs to this language. Overyssel is therefore purely Saxon. 2. The ancient inhabitants stands, were fixed in a peat-bog, and by inof Brabant, Flanders, and the country between quiry he found that there was not even a the Maas and the Rhine, before and under the word corresponding to marsh in Low Dutch Romans, seem to have been of the same race as or in Frisian. He describes the province of the Frisians. But in the last-mentioned country, Holland as consisting almost entirely of and in the Betuve, the Franks settled in the peat soil, such as in Wales and its borders fourth century, and altered the dialect still more is called Rhos, with abundance of peat-bogs, than in the countries west of the Maas, where which he supposes to have been formed on they never were so numerous. However, here as well as there, it was their supremacy which sandbanks originally covered by the sea, affected the language most. 3. Low Dutch is and forming receptacles for masses of driftnot an original language, but Frisian modified wood. Zeeland, which he had no opporby the influence of Frankish and Saxon. The tunity of visiting, he ascertained, with some most distinctive words are originally Frisian, difficulty, to consist of salt-marsh. The and indigenous in no other German dialect. islands in the Maas he found to be fresh This appears especially in the particles, which in all languages are least borrowed, and there- water marshes, and some parts of Friesland fore the most characteristic parts of it. All to consist also of salt-marsh; but by far the words in Hollandish, which resemble Danish or English, and vary from German, are Frisian. 4. The mixture of Frankish arose through the conquest and settlement of the Franks: that of Saxon, through the circumstance that Low Saxon was from early times the written language of these regions. Thence comes the Low Dutch mode of spelling, which deceives the Low Saxon; for many words are spelt as they formerly were with us, but pronounced quite differently. Hence it is that the sound u is designated by oe. They pronounce mûd, blûd, hûd, mûder, and write, as they formerly did with us, moed, bloed, hoed, moeder. 5. In the thirteenth century the present language of Holland already existed,

and was nearer to German than now."

He afterwards found, during a visit to the northern provinces, that the dialect of Groningen approximated to Low German, (Plaltdeutsch,) both in pronunciation and in many words: Koolzaat, coleseed, for instance, being used instead of the Hollandish Rapzaat, rapeseed. In the old Frisian language he discovered the origin of the names of the great provinces of Zeeland and Holland.

"A district with independent administration (selbständige Landschaft) was called in old Frisian a Zeeland, and this is the true origin, unknown, I believe to any Dutchman, of the name of the province which was also Frisian before the Frankish conquest: just as the name Holland is Frisian, and signifies Hauptland, (head or chief land:) this I have proved even to the Hollanders, to whom, even to the historical inquirers among them, Frisian is as strange as Greenlandish."

greater portion of the surface of the Dutch Netherlands is occupied by mooren, or peatmorasses. To the north-east, in Drenthe and Gröningen he found uplands which form the western limit of the granite boulders, which, as is well known, are scattered over the whole width of the great plain which lies south of the German ocean and the Baltic. The Frisian name for a dry upland he observed to be the same which is used in Yorkshire, wold; but in some proper names, as Rinsmageest, they retain the North German Geest, which may perhaps also be traced in some English names, as Hergest, a Geest near Kington in Herefordshire.

By a combination of historical and geological grounds, he satisfied himself of the truth of a statement in an old Dithmarsch chronicle, that the whole of the country which once formed North Friesland, is now covered by the sea. He traced the ancient coast from the Helder northward along the string of andy islands which enclose the Zuyder Zee, in a continued dune or sandhill, of which Nordeney and Wangeroog, off the mouths of the Jahde and Weser, are remains, by Heligoland as far as Syltoe and Romoe, which lies on the north-west of Schleswig in about 55° N. lat. He supposed the outer sandbank, which formed the coast-line, to include in some places, especially at the mouth of the Jahde, inland seas like the Curische Haff at the north of the Niemen, which is separated from the Baltic by the narrow strip of the Cu

rische Nehrung, a sandbank which runs as twelve pence. The pondemate is equal to a chord across the arc formed by the Haff. about six-fifteenths of a Rhenish Morgen, Perhaps a more familiar illustration may be and nearly corresponds to an English acre. found in the Lido, which separates the In Drenthe he observed, that, as among the lagunes of Venice from the Adriatic; but ancient Romans, land measurement only Niebuhr does not refer to it, and there may applied to arable, which was held in sevebe some difference of formation. In other ralty, while the pasturage was occupied in parts he supposed the interval between the common. He was unable to ascertain the shore and the high wolds to have been oc- extent of a ploeging or koegang, a difficupied by swamps and peat-morasses, which culty which the readers of the Heart of may have allowed a person to pass on foot, Mid Lothian' will remember as affecting though not, as he says, in silk stockings the corresponding Scotch measure of ane and pumps, from Eyderstadt on the main-ploughgate. In Drenthe he saw the Hüneland to Heligoland. All these fens, from bedden, or graves of the Huns, a collection the Rhine to the Eyder, he believed to have of stones, like those which we are accusbeen inhabited by Frisians; the wolds by tomed to call Druidical; but we are surSaxons; the marshes, which were inter- prised to find that Niebuhr attributes all spersed here and there, by inferior races. these remains, including Stonehenge, to He placed the era at which the sea broke Frisian tribes of the sixth century, or of through the bar of sandbank at about the even a later period. year 800, when he supposed that many islands with a Frisian population remained, which afterwards disappeared. Before the catastrophe, he believed that the Elbe and Weser had a common outlet into the sea, but that the Elbe was much narrower than it is at present. North of the Eyder he found no trace of the Frisians, and thought that the rest of Holstein probably belonged to the Angles.

His most direct authority for the ancient extent of Friesland was a copy of the national laws, printed in the fifteenth century. From this he found that the nation was divided into seven Seelands: 1. the present West Friesland; 2. Westergoo; 3. Oostergoo; 4. Zevenwold, together with Drenthe, Vollenhoven, and Lingen; 5. Gröningen; 6. East Friesland; 7. Butjadingerland, Rüstringerland, and Haedelre, (Hadeln,) provinces subject, as the writer complains, to foreign tyrants; adding Dithmers is eta fry. Dithmarsch is yet free. To prove that in the time of the Romans the Frisian tribes lived not in the marshes, but in rhöses or peat-moors, Niebuhr referred to the statement of Tacitus that they dried earth and used it for fuel.

His antiquarian researches were combined with inquiries, of which these letters contain the results, into the methods of draining and cultivating peat soils, and into the rental and taxation of the country. He found that in Holland leases were generally for six years, in Friesland for ten, at a rent not very different apparently from that of similar land in England; but subject, at that time, to a tax of fifteen per cent. on the tenant, and ten per cent. on the landlord. The laws of the dikes, the different appropriations of the Aussendeiche, or land formed outside the dike, and the regulations for general drainage, also form an interesting portion of the subjects which he investigated.

Of the state of public affairs, the condition of the finances, and the particulars of his official intercourse with the great capitalists he was not able to speak with equal freedom. It was, as we have said, a time of great distress in Holland; but he found that, notwithstanding the annihilation of trade, the economy of individuals counteracted to an extraordinary extent the dimi nution of their incomes, and the increase of public burdens. On recent history he touches only allusively and incidentally; To determine the present limits of the but he never mentions the republican movepopulation of Frisian origin, he attended to ment of 1795 without indignation, although dress, local customs, agriculture, and the he considered it in part a reaction consesystem of land measurement. Thus he quent on the establishment of the supremaidentified a plough with a large wheel run-cy of the Stadtholder in 1787, by the influning in a furrow and a small wheel outside, to be the original Frisian plough, as distinguished from the old Saxon plough, of which, he says, the original type is that used in Devonshire. He found the Frisian superficial measure to be a pondemate or pound, divided, as in our coinage, into twenty shillings or einsen, and each einsen into

ence of England and the arms of Prussia.* It would have been difficult to have founded any general inference on so anomalous a condition, as that of a maratime and trading

* The best account of the history of the Netherlands, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, will be found in the second part of the third volume of Schlosser, published since our notice of his history-Foreign Quarterly Review,' No. 61.

PROF. WHEATSTONE'S REPORT ON THE ELECTROMAGNETIC METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER. The

with Poland. But the jealously of the Western Powers had by this time been aroused electro-magnetic meteorological register, constructagainst Russia. Talleyrand threatened in the ed for the Observatory of the British Association, is name of his tottering king to march an army nearly complete. It records the indications of the barometer, the thermometer, and the psychrometer of 400,000 men ; and Lord Castlereagh put a every half hour during day and night, and prints stop to the scheme by the more substantial the results, in duplicate, on a sheet of paper in figthreat of the armed interposition of Eng- ures. It requires no attention for a week, during land. It seems to us that in this case the which time it registers 1,008 observations. Five English minister saved the Congress of Vi- minutes are sufficient to prepare the machine for another week's work,-that is, to wind up the enna from adding to the many well-found-clock, to furnish the cylinders with fresh sheets of ed charges of injustice and disregard of par paper, and to recharge the small voltaic element. national rights, the obloquy of another The range of each instrument is divided into 150 great spoliation; and we regret that it is parts; that of the barometer comprises three inches, that of the thermometer includes all degrees of temthrough a sanction and not through a protest that the plan is connected with the Perature between -5° and + 959, and the psychrometer has an equal range. The machine name of Niebuhr. consists essentially of two distinct parts: the first How far this transaction increased the is a regulator clock, to which is attached all the redisposition to irritation against England quisite recurring movements; the second is a train, which he had entertained since the bom- is brought into action at irregular periods of time having an independent maintaining power, which bardment of Copenhagen, and how far his by the contact of the plunging wires with the merdislike was increased by the policy of Can-cury of the instruments, as will be hereafter exning, his later letters abundantly show. It plained. The principal regularly recurring actions is, however, always useful to attend to the connected with the clock train are two:-1st. The plungers are gradually and regularly raised in the reproofs of a sagacious fault-finder, and tubes of the instruments during five minutes, and Englishmen can bear attacks on their coun- are allowed to descend during one minute; 2d. A try with tolerable fortitude; partly from type wheel, having at its circumference 15 figures, curiosity, and a suspicion that they may be is caused to advance a step every two seconds, while another type wheel, having 12 spokes but just in detail; partly from confidence that only 10 figures, is caused to advance one step when they will on the whole be unsuccessful. the former completes a revolution. The complete Prejudice is a microscope, which alters the revolution of the second type wheel is effected in relations of the parts to the whole, but six minutes, that is, in the same time occupied by the ascent and descent of the plungers. Thus brings out partial deficiencies more clearly. every successive division of the range of an instruIf a friendly eye would never see such ment corresponds with a different number presented faults,' it may be worth while to have an by the two type wheels, the same division always enemy to observe them. And if, neverthe- corresponding with the same number. The two less, there are Englishmen who feel aging the return of the plungers, which occupies a blanks of the second type wheel are presented durgrieved by the scarcely friendly severity of minute, and during which time no observation is reNiebuhr, they may at least derive satisfac- corded. The breaking of the contact between the tion from observing the impartial distribu- plunger and the mercury in an instrument, obviously tion of his censure, to France, Italy, Spain, takes place at a different position of the type wheels, according as the mercury is at a different elevation; America, and Germany itself. if, therefore, the types be caused to make an impression at this moment, the degree of elevation of the mercury will be recorded. This end is thus effected. One end of a conducting wire is connected CULTIVATION OF THE PINE-APPLE. A paper with the mercury in the tube of the instrument, and from Mr. Dunsford, upon the cultivation of the the other end with the brass frame of the clock, pine-apple, was read. This was accompanied by which is in metallic communication with the plungthe plan of a pit now in use, differing but slightly er. In the course of this circuit an electro-magnet in external appearance from M'Phail's. The inte- and a single very small voltaic element are interrior of the pit within the inner walls is filled up posed. The electro-magnet is so placed as to act with brick rubbish, so as to form a solid mass; and upon a small armature of soft iron connected with when level, the whole is covered with flat tiles or the detent of the second movement. So long as slates, upon which nine-inch draining-tiles are laid the plunger is in the mercury the armature remains across the bed, commencing just above the front attracted, but at the moment the plunger leaves the flue, and these are in their turn covered with flat mercury the attraction ceases, and the release of the tiles. The draining-tiles convey the heat over the detent causes a hammer to strike the types, and whole surface of the bed, so that a regular bottom-impress them by means of black copying paper on heat of 95° can be maintained. The depth of the pit from the glass to the tiles is 41-2 feet at the back, and 4 feet in front. In such a construction, the writer states, that, by the aid of dung-heat, every amateur and gardener may grow pines with as little trouble and expense as melons. A Providence pine, weighing 7 lb. 1 oz., so grown, accompanied the communication.-Athenæum.

the cylinder. The armature subsequently remains unattracted until the plunger descends. Immediately before it reascends, a piece of mechanism, connected with the clock movement, brings the armature into contact with the magnet, which remains there in consequence of the recompletion of the circuit, until the contact is again broken.—Ibid.