sposition of the town, however, is so
original and effective that its indestructible plan survived until our
days. There are in the world but few towns that possess such a charming
singularity, and Venice is probably the only town offering a similar
attraction, although it differs in many respects. Hence, Amsterdam's
surname of _The Venice of the North_ is easily accounted for, and appears
already in the writings of Guicciardini, the sixteenth-century historian.
It is the water that lends to the town its peculiar charm, and while some
canals had to be filled in to create carriage accommodation in the old
parts, most were preserved, and though in their water other house-fronts
are reflected, the visitor can reconstruct, without great difficulty, a
vision of Amsterdam in Rembrandt's days.

Let us offer some help to the visitor in his efforts to revive the old
town in his imagination. Such assistance is needed, because Amsterdam is
not a place where one would prefer to be left alone with his dreams.
Modern life overshadows the past to such an extent, that one cannot
transpose one's self three centuries by simply eliminating the present;
there are no ruins which induce us to reconstruct, in our mind, that which
has vanished, no population which has arrested its progress at the period
of its greatest prosperity. Fortunately the _nature_ of Amsterdam's
beauty and originality has not changed and from this fact every newcomer
may derive great help in his efforts to rebuild the scenes of bygone
times.

First of all, let the stranger take into consideration that Rembrandt took
up his abode in the town when it was rapidly growing, and when the
picturesqueness of its late-mediaeval appearance had to concede to graver
conceptions, based on the classics and the Italian renaissance. Let him
remember that the threefold girdle of wide canals lined with big houses,
which now embraces the old city, was at that time only in course of
construction, and that less stately canals preserved a more intimate
aspect. These narrower waterways in the heart of the old town, filled
with barges between quays crowded with merchandise, reveal more the city's
growth and nature,--the stately but less lively canals of a later extension
typify better the pride and ease ensuing from the reaped harvest.

When Rembrandt came to Amsterdam about 1631 he found the town broken
through its boundaries and new quarters risen on the fields outside, which
a form