The American in Holland. By William Elliot Griffin. (Gay and
Bird. 6s. net.)—Dr. Griffin saw Holland for the first time in 1869, and, after sundry intermediate visits, he was there at the coronation of Queen Wilhelmina. Coronation, indeed, there was not. The Queen made a brief address, published a proclamation— both documents being, we are told, of her own compositioa—and took an oath to her people, her people again swearing allegiance to her in the persons of their chief citizens. Dr. Griffin's experiences of Dutch scenery, life, and character have been considerable. He complains that most travellers know two only out of the eleven provinces of Holland, and advises them to extend their wander- ings as he has done into the less frequented regions. His own experiences are certainly encouraging ; but then he speaks the language, we fancy, " like a native," and that makes all the difference. Just now an Englishman would find the Dutch hardly sympathetic, but times will change. And it is impossible for us to forget what we owe to them, nor are they unmindful, after the fashion of the Spanish and Portuguese, of what we have done for them. At one thing one cannot help a certain satis- faction,—there is no leaning to Germany. " The canal between us and Germany," said a gentleman of Leyden to our author, " is wider and deeper than the North Sea." Surely Dr. Griffin has been unlucky in his experience of Protestant controversialists, when he quotes them as making it a charge against the Roman Church that under its sway the Bible " was chained to the desk." This shows an exceptional ignorance. It would be more to the point to say that there was no Bible to be chained.
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