utter firkins, doublets and petticoats, guns and
pistols, everything that could serve the city and country-side for months
to come--and displayed them in temporary booths or on the ground, in
every street and along every canal. The town was one vast bazaar. The
peasant-women from the country, with their gold and silver tiaras and the
year's rent of a comfortable farm in their earrings and necklaces, and
the sturdy Frisian peasants, many of whom had borne their matchlocks in
the great wars which had lasted through their own and their fathers'
lifetime, trudged through the city, enjoying the blessings of peace.
Bands of music and merry-go-rounds in all the open places and squares;
open-air bakeries of pancakes and waffles; theatrical exhibitions,
raree-shows, jugglers, and mountebanks at every corner--all these
phenomena which had been at every kermis for centuries, and were to
repeat themselves for centuries afterwards, now enlivened the atmosphere
of the grey, episcopal city. Pasted against the walls of public edifices
were the most recent placards and counter-placards of the States-General
and the States of Utrecht on the great subject of religious schisms and
popular tumults. In the shop-windows and on the bookstalls of
Contra-Remonstrant tradesmen, now becoming more and more defiant as the
last allies of Holland, the States of Utrecht, were gradually losing
courage, were seen the freshest ballads and caricatures against the
Advocate. Here an engraving represented him seated at table with Grotius,
Hoogerbeets, and others, discussing the National Synod, while a flap of
the picture being lifted put the head of the Duke of Alva on the legs of
Barneveld, his companions being transformed in similar manner into
Spanish priests and cardinals assembled at the terrible Council of
Blood-with rows of Protestant martyrs burning and hanging in the
distance. Another print showed Prince Maurice and the States-General
shaking the leading statesmen of the Commonwealth in a mighty sieve
through which came tumbling head foremost to perdition the hated Advocate
and his abettors. Another showed the Arminians as a row of crest-fallen
cocks rained upon by the wrath of the Stadholder--Arminians by a
detestable pun being converted into "Arme haenen" or "Poor cocks." One
represented the Pope and King of Spain blowing thousands of ducats out of
a golden bellows into the lap of the Advocate, who was holding up his
official robes to receive them, o