incident back to her. We stepped to the
window and stole a glance at the volume: it was an English Grammar. He
had been studying it ever since the night of the linseed poultice.

It was, we felt, an object-lesson to us, who during the same interval
had taken advantage of every opportunity of neglecting the Dutch
tongue.

That tongue, however, is not attractive. Even those who have spoken
it to most purpose do not always admire it. I find that Kasper van
Baerle wrote: "What then do we Netherlanders speak? Words from a
foreign tongue: we are but a collected crowd, of feline origin,
driven by a strange fatality to these mouths of the Rhine. Why,
since the mighty descendants of Romulus here pitched their tents,
choose we not rather the holy language of the Romans!"

We may consider Dutch a harsh tongue, and prefer that all foreigners
should learn English; but our dislike of Dutch is as nothing compared
with Dutch dislike of French as expressed in some verses by Bilderdyk
when the tyranny of Napoleon threatened them:--

Begone, thou bastard-tongue! so base--so broken--
By human jackals and hyenas spoken;
Formed of a race of infidels, and fit
To laugh at truth--and scepticise in wit;
What stammering, snivelling sounds, which scarcely dare,
Bravely through nasal channel meet the ear--
Yet helped by apes' grimaces--and the devil,
Have ruled the world, and ruled the world for evil!

But French is now the second language that is taught in Dutch
schools. German comes first and English third.

The Dutch language often resembles English very closely; sometimes
so closely as to be ridiculous. For example, to an English traveller
who has been manoeuvring in vain for some time in the effort to get
at the value of an article, it comes as a shock comparable only to
being run over by a donkey cart to discover that the Dutch for "What
is the price?" is "Wat is de prijs?"

The best old Dutch phrase-book is _The English Schole-Master_, the
copy of which that lies before me was printed at Amsterdam by John
Houman in the year 1658. I have already quoted a short passage from
it, in Chapter II. This is the full title:--

The English Schole-Master;
or
Certaine rules and helpes, whereby
the natives of the Netherlandes, may
bee, in a short time, taught to
read, understand, and speake