movable type twelve years later. There is a statue of the
Coster in front of the church, and, on its north side, his house is
preserved and adorned with his bust.

Among a crowd of natives with their hats on, talking in church as in
the market-place, we waited to hear the famous organ of Christian
Muller (1735-38), and grievously were we disappointed with its
discordant noises. All the men smoked in church, and this we saw
repeatedly; but it would be difficult to say where we ever saw
a Dutchman with a pipe out of his mouth. Every man seemed to be
systematically smoking away the few wits he possest.

Opposite the Groote Kerk is the Stadhuis, an old palace of the Counts
of Holland remodeled. It contains a delightful little gallery of the
works of Franz Hals, which at once transports the spectator into the
Holland of two hundred years ago--such is the marvelous variety of
life and vigor imprest into its endless figures of stalwart officers
and handsome young archers pledging each other at banquet tables and
seeming to welcome the visitor with jovial smiles as he enters the
chamber, or of serene old ladies, "regents" of hospitals, seated at
their council boards. The immense power of the artist is shown
in nothing so much as in the hands, often gloved, dashed in with
instantaneous power, yet always having the effect of the most
consummate finish at a distance. Behind one of the pictures is the
entrance to the famous "secret-room of Haarlem," seldom seen, but
containing an inestimable collection of historic relics of the time of
the famous siege of Leyden.

April and May are the best months for visiting Haarlem, which is the
bulb nursery garden of the world. "Oignons a fleurs" are advertised
for sale everywhere. Tulips are more cultivated than any other flower,
as ministering most of the national craving for color; but times are
changed since a single bulb of the tulip "L'Amiral Liefkenshoch" sold
for 4,500 florins, one of "Viceroy" for 4,200, and one of "Semper
Augustus" for 13,000.

SCHEVENINGEN[A]

[Footnote A: From "Holland of To-Day." By special arrangement with,
and by permission of, the author and of the publishers, Moffat, Yard &
Co. Copyright, 1909.]

BY GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS

Let us go down to the North Sea and see how the Dutch people enjoy
themselves in the summer. Of course the largest of the watering-places
in the Netherlands is Scheveningen, and it has a splendid bathing
beach which makes it