Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/165

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THE BATAVIAN REPUBLIC
153

set off, he escorted us to it, and cordially wished as a good voyage.

Leyden is the second city in magnitude of the United Provinces, and inferior to none in the spaciousness and elegance of its buildings, the utility of its public institutions, and the agreeable manners of its inhabitants. It is situated on the ancient bed of the Rhine, the diminished waters of which river fill an inconsiderable canal that bears its name, and at a very short distance from the city, mingling with larger streams, it is no longer known by its classical appellation. The Houses of Leyden are built with their gable ends to the streets, in the old Dutch taste; which is infinitely more pleasant to the sight in a town where every thing else is Dutch, than clumsy attempts at Grecian or Italian architecture. A Dutch house in the old style of building is generally six stories high, the three first of which are of an equal breadth, but of unequal heights; from the third story the roof rises to a point, and the rooms of this part of the house necessarily diminish in size as they approach to