The Dutch were the laughing-stock of polite Europe. They were
butter-firkins,
swillers of beer and schnapps, and their _vrouws_ from whom Holbein
painted the all but loveliest of Madonnas, Rembrandt
the graceful girl who sits immortal on his knee in Dresden, and Rubens
his abounding
goddesses, were the synonyms of clumsy vulgarity.
Even so late as Irving the ships of the greatest navigators in the
world were represented as sailing equally well stern-foremost. That
the
aristocratic Venetians should have "Riveted with gigantic
piles Thorough the center their new catched
miles" was heroic.
But the far more marvelous achievement of the Dutch
in the same kind was ludicrous even to republican Marvell. Meanwhile,
during that very century of scorn, they were the
best artists, sailors,
merchants, bankers, printers, scholars, jurisconsults, and statesmen
in Europe, and the genius of Motley has revealed
them to us, earning a right to themselves by the most heroic
struggle in
Show replies by date