, which should gain for its discoverer one hundred thousand
guilders!

Haarlem, having placed on exhibition its favourite, having advertised
its love of flowers in general and of tulips in particular, at a period
when the souls of men were filled with war and sedition,--Haarlem,
having enjoyed the exquisite pleasure of admiring the very purest ideal
of tulips in full bloom,--Haarlem, this tiny town, full of trees and
of sunshine, of light and shade, had determined that the ceremony of
bestowing the prize should be a fete which should live for ever in the
memory of men.

So much the more reason was there, too, in her determination, in that
Holland is the home of fetes; never did sluggish natures manifest more
eager energy of the singing and dancing sort than those of the good
republicans of the Seven Provinces when amusement was the order of the
day.

Study the pictures of the two Teniers.

It is certain that sluggish folk are of all men the most earnest in
tiring themselves, not when they are at work, but at play.

Thus Haarlem was thrice given over to rejoicing, for a three-fold
celebration was to take place.

In the first place, the black tulip had been produced; secondly, the
Prince William of Orange, as a true Hollander, had promised to be
present at the ceremony of its inauguration; and, thirdly, it was a
point of honour with the States to show to the French, at the conclusion
of such a disastrous war as that of 1672, that the flooring of the
Batavian Republic was solid enough for its people to dance on it, with
the accompaniment of the cannon of their fleets.

The Horticultural Society of Haarlem had shown itself worthy of its fame
by giving a hundred thousand guilders for the bulb of a tulip. The town,
which did not wish to be outdone, voted a like sum, which was placed in
the hands of that notable body to solemnise the auspicious event.

And indeed on the Sunday fixed for this ceremony there was such a stir
among the people, and such an enthusiasm among the townsfolk, that
even a Frenchman, who laughs at everything at all times, could not
have helped admiring the character of those honest Hollanders, who
were equally ready to spend their money for the construction of a
man-of-war--that is to say, for the support of national honour--as they
were to reward the growth of a new flower, destined to bloom for one
day, and to serve during that day to divert the ladies, the learned, and
the curious.

At the