Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/102

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TOUR THROUGH

amateur, and its removal must be considered as an event eminently disserviceable to the progress of natural history in Holland. This is the more to be regretted, as the Dutch have perhaps cultivated natural history, and the sciences allied to it, which demand perseverance in enquiry and accuracy of observation, with more success than any other nation in Europe. Had this cabinet been transported to England, it would probably have been added, with little advantage to science, to the dusty stores of Montague-house; nor is it probable its fate will be happier in the National Institute of France, where it now reposes. The Dutch government might have purchased its redemption at a moderate price; but legislators are not often philosophers; and while the wealth of nations is exhausted for the destruction of the human species, small are the sums that are expended for the advancement of useful knowledge.

At the distance of two miles from the Hague is Scheveling, the village from which the stadtholder embarked, when he fled from his