got at, with infinite trouble. She has her
arms akimbo, and is chaffing, as it is called,
the heavy fellows pleasantly. Many a
dimple and many a smile, all seen well
enough by vendor's flickering lamp not a
perch off. The heavy fellows have not a word
in return, and are but a sorry match for her
light persiflage; cannot so much as get that
one idea of theirs into working order. I go
round and round, in and out among the
throng. More strange figures. More
perambulating shops. More market chorus from
the opera; all to a strange music, too, a
ceaseless thrum-thrum. Some—the old
clothesmen mainly—chaunting to the tune
of "P'lack! P'lack! " Others to a hoarse,
croak of "Glu-ar! glu-ar! " while the pink
pear vendors would seem to be eternally
evoking Mr. Southey's awful creation, giving
out "Tha-la-ba! tha-la-ba!" with singular
intensity of purpose. The scene is most
curious; and I investigate it curiously, until I
am brought back again to where my little
woman stands with her arms akimbo. I do
really believe I shall never set myself free of
these comely goddesses; these fresh and
plump divinities. All through these papers,
they have been hovering on the margin;
having to be kept out typographically, with
infinite pains; and here, now, at the
close, in the last of these sketches, has one
made her way in, in spite of all care and
watching. Well! after all. 'tis easy to sneer at
the Reverend Lawrence Sterne; but, without
walking after that divine so far as taking of
young women under the chin, or getting
those treacherous rents in the black silk
stocking fine-drawn, a man could have no
objection to a little sentimental work among
them. Nay, even for that matter of the
stocking, I doubt not but that my little
Dutchwoman would have been about as
cunning with her needle as the divine's
grisette; whom, for all her little innocent
tricks, I suspect to have been a regular sly-
boots. My little woman would not have
understood the reverend tourist's nonsense;
and if she had, would have treated him
to a bit of her mind, communicated,
perhaps, by means of a smart box on the
ear. Very sturdy little women are they;
as masters and mistresses find out about the
saturnalia or fair-time. Then, with their
arms akimbo, they present themselves to
unresisting employers, and demand furlough of
at least two days; which being given or withheld,
she puts on her smartest gown, with all
the fine golden head-gear, and is seen no
more for that span. It grieves me to set
down that my little women conduct themselves
when thus out on the loose, in a highly
indecorous fashion, to wit,—rushing down the
street  furiously in droves—with hands joined,
and screaming at the top of their voice,—
looking like so many unlicensed Bacchantes.
And yet I am informed that our
Bacchantes are innocent enough, and only in
what may be termed boisterous spirits. Look
not coldly at them. What would you
give to be of the company of my little
Dutchwoman, and have what Samuel Johnson,
LL.D., would call, a rouze, in the streets
of Amsterdam!

But it is time to have done and make
an end of the sketches, which have now run
to a full dozen. It is time to put up brushes
and sketching materials in the travelling
wallet, strap on the same securely, and be
gone. Enough, and perhaps more than
enough, of Dutch brauwer festivity; of open
country stretching away nakedly; of polders,
unsavoury marshes, and even of my little
Dutchwomen. It is certainly time to have
done.

It will be noted that nothing has been said
of the northern portion of the country; that
rugged uncomfortable region, barren, sandy,
stony, and repulsive. Where you journey on,
in a rude sort of char-à-banc, springless, and
open at the sides to the cutting blast; where,
too, are primitive hostelries, and food of
coarsest and simplest elements, and roughest
aborigines in waiting; into which uninviting
region the present observer did not so
much as attempt to make his way.

To certain natives of this Dutch country
it has appeared that these notes have been
wrought in an unfair and partial spirit. Very
wroth are our Dutchmen at what they hold
to be such scurvy treatment; but the truth
is, that while they are an honest, worthy,
well-intentioned, industrious, punctual, pious,
and well-regulated people (these be handsome
terms) there are several ridiculous points about
them; an absurd mental gait, as it were, which
must strike mere spectators and those who
come but for a short span, as very ludicrous.
But, for setting down aught in malice, especially
as regards my dear little Dutchwomen,
I vigorously deny the charge. So now, to
my dear Dutchwomen, let me take off my
hat,—not with Monsieur Voltaire's impudent
farewell, but with hearty good wishes that
their roses may bloom long!

MR. CHARLES DICKENS
WILL READ AT ST. MARTIN'S HALL:
ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 13th, his "Christmas Carol"
ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 20th, his "Cricket on the Hearth"
ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 27th, his "Chimes"
Each Reading will commence at Eight exactly, and
will last two hours.
PLACES FOR EACH READING:—Stalls (numbered and
reserved), Five Shillings; Area and Galleries, Half-a-
crown; Unreserved Seats, One Shilling.  Tickets to be
had at Messrs. Chapman and Hall's, Publishers, 193,
Piccadilly; and at St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre.