Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/278

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266
TOUR THROUGH

in the same place, and afterwards at the Dutch theatre, with the profusion of diamonds which the ladies wore.

Some girls, clad in the dress which prevailed in Holland a century or two ago, with their hair bound close to their heads, and covered with a scanty unornamented cap, such as the female quakers wear in England; with large plates of thin gold projecting from each side of their foreheads, and a plate on the middle; with ponderous ear-rings and necklaces of the same metal; with gowns of thick silk, heavily embroidered, and waists of unnatural length and rotundity; formed a striking contrast with the females arrayed in the tasteful elegancies of modern fashion. They were daughters of the ancient stock of burghers, and adhered, probably with some tincture of affectation, uninfluenced by modern refinements and variations of female dress, to the uncouth habiliments of their ancestors.

The women of Holland in general are lovely rather than beautiful. For the most part they are well formed in their persons;