In 1609 he thus generalised upon the Netherlander: "Concerning the people: they are neither much devout, nor much wicked; given all to drink, and eminently to no other vice; hard in bargaining, but just; surly and respectless, as in all democracies; thirsty, industrious, and cleanly; disheartened upon the least ill-success, and insolent upon good; inventive in manufactures, and cunning in traffick: and generally, for matter of action, that natural slowness of theirs, suits better (by reason of the advisedness and perseverance it brings with it) than the rashness and changeableness of the French and Florentine wits; and the equality of spirits, which is among them and Switzers, renders them so fit for a democracy: which kind of government, nations of more stable wits, being once come to a consistent greatness, have seldom long endured." Many Englishmen have travelled in Holland and have set down the record of their experiences, from Thomas Coryate downwards.

But the country has not been inspiring, and Dutch travels are poor reading.

Had Dr.Johnson lived to accompany Boswell on a projected journey we should be the richer, but I doubt if any very interesting narrative would have resulted.

One of Johnson's contemporaries, Samuel Ireland, the engraver, and the father of the fraudulent author of _Vortigern_, wrote _A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France_, in 1789, while a few years later one of Charles Lamb's early "drunken companions," Fell, wrote _A Tour through the Batavian Republic_, 1801; and both of these books yield a few experiences not without interest.

Fell's is the duller.