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I have mentioned the ftrolling musicians. These gentry come from Upper Saxony, Brabant, Tyrole, and other countries on the continent, in bands of eight or ten perfons of both fexes, to attend the Dutch fairs. They ply the table d'hotes, private houses, &c. and are

Happy to catch you juft at dinner-time !""

and they are as regularly feen at your meals as the dishes, or the waiters. The Hague fair this year received ftrong reinforcements from the French emigrants, all trades and profeffions, as well as nobles, making an escape from that unhappy country, and carrying their industry and ingenuity into others. They carry with them, alfo, their refentments and principles, a curious inftance of which presented itself in a quarrel which took place in the ftreet between two of thefe mufical parties; the one German, the other French: but they both broke all the laws of harmony, and kept no measure with each other, the words Democrate and Aristocrate, (with suitable epithets) being liberally difpenfed, till they were both taken into cuftody, to fettle their difputes before a magiftrate.

Many

Many of these people fing and play extremely well, fome with confiderable tafte: and each band being habited in the dreffes, and armed with the inftruments of their country, throw an air of joyousness over the fairs of Holland, which, with all their richness and refort, they would otherwise want.

You have, doubtless, heard of Dutch toys. How they came to be famous, I am yet to learn. They are remarkable only for the ftrangeness of their invention, the clumfinefs of their execution, and the general indecency of their appearance. Amongst the most popular, are wooden and brazen (pray allow the pun) men and women, voiding ducats, or vomiting florins. But this, whether intended by the Dutch wits as a fatire on the fuppofed love of money of the Dutch, or only as a whim, is nothing to the objects in the fame ftyle, which are exhibited publicly at the fairs of Holland.

To fay truth, very little account is made of the perfonal decencies, if I may use the expreffion, either here or in other parts of the Continent. There is nothing more common than to fee, not only peasants and country people,

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of both fexes, upon the road, but very well dreffed men and women, in the best towns, and in capital streets of them, do those things in public, almost oftentatiously, which, in every quarter of Great-Britain is concealed with a care that borders on a difireffing confcioufness of the imperfections of nature, if thofe things, which attach to human beings can or ought to be fo called. There is no occafion, however, methinks to fhew ourselves remarkably proud of them, as actually feems to be the cafe in thefe countries. What elfe can make females, young and old, choose the most obvious places, without any regard to paffengers, for the fettlement of little affairs that are undoubtedly amongst the things, which, even in a religious. fenfe (according to the maxim, "cleanliness is holinefs') ought to be done in a corner. But, through every part of the Republic, the reverfe of this is fo true, and fo common, that the most rapid traveller, in an hour's tour of any one town or village may obferve it. It is certainly a "custom more honoured in the breach, than the observance ;" and I cannot but with the good people on the Continent would "reform it altogether;" which, nevertheless, cannot be expected, while there does not feem to be even a fenfe or idea of indecency

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cency attached to it; of which I will give you a memorable inftance in its place. The dif guft one feels on thefe occafions is fomewhat covered by other fenfations, when any thing highly ridiculous blends with it: as in a cir cumftance which I faw at an hotel in one of the largest towns of the Republic. Two very little apartments were made in the centre of a paffage that extended the length of the whole house, and were placed in fo neighbourly a way as almost to join, being parted off only by a flight boarded partition. Being confecrated to different fexes, the proprietor was very nice in his diftinctions, by affixing over the door of the one, Ladies Secret ;" and the other, "Gentlemen's" but, left a poffible miftake fhould fill happen, he had caufed' the figures of a lady and gentleman to be painted in rather whimfical fituations in the centre of the different doors, by way of afcertaining right of poffeffion. After what I have afferted, you will think it nothing ftrange," that both thefe little tenements fhould be very often occupied, at the fame inftant of time, by perfons of different fexes, but of all forts of quality; and the entrances and exits, on thefe occafions, are fo far from being made, as with us, by stealth, that the performers appear to expect as much applaufe as

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an

actor,

actor, who has played his part highly to the fatisfaction of his audience.

Left, however, you should call out for " an ounce of civet to fweeten your imagination," I fummon your attention to what was, at the time it happened, a very general object of curiofity no less than a public display of the Prince, Princefs, and family of Orange, in a walk round the Fair, with the annual ceremonies of that exhibition, and its effects.

This great event took place at the Hague, on, or about, twelve minutes past three o'clock, an hour at which the public have returned from their dinners; and the world, by which are meant the few for whofe pride and pleafure they think it was made, have just finished their toilette. The truth of the time, when this walking pageant happened, lay precifely betwixt the third and fourth hour: a circumstance about which I am particular for the use of fome future hiftorian who may think fit to record it for the benefit of future pofterity. We have feen, you will allow, the chrono→ logy of equally important actions fettled with no lefs folemnity, for which precious morfels of biographical accuracy, if pofterity are

thanklefs,

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