LETTERS OF 1720 FROM THE LOW
COUNTRIES AND HANOVER.

MY LORD,

(See ante, p. 42.)

III.

y former being a Monestary which by Reason of the Antiquity of its Establishment highly deserves the Strangers Curiosity: the latter we saw onely as it lay in our way; Tho' it is a Capital of one of yo seventeen provinces, & is remarquable for its manufacture of broad Cloth (which I found not comparable to ours in England) & y Country around it more deservedly famous for excellent cheese; which I may truly say it makes to FerIf my Letters had the honour of being con- fection. From Aix la Chapelle We came to sidered by Your Lordship, as a Testimony of my Maestricht & from thence Cross'd the Country Respect and Veneration for You (as from your another way to Louvain; passing through St Goodness I hope they have) and not as an in- Tron, & Tirlemont (two very ancient Towns) & stance of my Levity in presuming to interrupt by ye famous Landen. By the Course I took, your Lordships more important Thoughts with which I have here represented to your Lordship, my Follys, I am sure I have more than sufficient You will easily conceive that it was no slight View Reason to give You an Account of my Silence I have had of the Country: But the Seing of ever since I had the honour of writing to You so glorious a Country as is in particular Brabant from Ostend ye 22d of July N.S. last. This for its prodigious fertility, & y Countrys adjacent I shall do in one word. After I have thank'd to ye Meuse for ye in credible Beauty of its Proyour Lordship for the favour of it, I am to spects, &c, tho' it was a Considerable Satisfacacquaint You, that Your letter of the 29th of tion in it Self, yet it was vastly inferior to the July, O.S. found Me but the 20th of September Pleasure I had in the many hours of Conversation at Maestricht, on my departure from thence to I have spent with learned Men especialy EccleLouvain, with which Town I finish'd my Tour siasticks of all Countrys, & Orders, & Religious of those Countrys. From there thro' Brussels, of both Sexes. One may easily by imagination Mechlin & Antwerp I returned to Rotterdam. travel over different Countrys, for it is onely I have had it frequently in my Thoughts to pay varying in our Thoughts ye Face of the Earth, my Duty to your Lordship since that Time But there is something so peculiar in what relates (which was about ye beginning of this Month to y° difference of Religions among Mankind that Octob) and I have been as often unaccountably one can never make a right judgment of Men prevented: I may truly well say unaccountably in this particular without personaly sounding because ye honour of your Lordships Consideration is by much the greatest Satisfaction of my Life, and it must have been something very much ag" my Will, that should have prevented Me from cultivating it.

I now return to acquaint your Lordship, That I was too much taken with my new manner of Life, to take up with a slight Survey of those famous Countrys, and and [sic] the Company which I accidentaly (tho' indeed I might say by reason of the great Pleasure and advantage accrued to me from it, providentialy) fell into Day of my Departure from Rotterdam, made Me alter my Resolution of contenting my Self with so slight a Survey of them, as I at first intended. And therefore after I had gone from Ostend, through Newport [,] Dunkirk, St Omer, Aire Bethune, Lille, Tournay, Mons (where my curiosity drew Me to see y field of Battle) & so tum'd to Brussels, We all agreed to finish our Tour by Seing y Towns on ye Meuse, and that fanus River it Self; the going down which from Namur to Maestricht (thro' Huy, & Leige) was none of the least Delight, I received in my Peregrination. At Huy we stai'd 3 weeks for y Sake of ye Waters, & y Company from all Parts, which rendezvous there for ye Sake of them. The most agreable Situation of this Place, the dness & variety of the Company, & the Benefitt which I in particular receiv'd with respect to my own Health, made ye 3 weeks of our Stay there ye most pleasant of all our Tour, as 3 months we spent in it were by much the rst pleasant of of [sic] all ye former part of my Life. After some time spent at Leige, we made a small Tour on horseback to Spaw, and Aix la Chapelle, taking Stablo, & Limburg in our way;

Stavelot.

Them. I have ever Since I began to think for
Myself, thought Religion to be not onely the
Charactaristick of Humane Nature, but the
noblest Distinction that belongs to it. And I
have thought it a Subject well deserving Time,
& Pains in order to have a right apprehension of
it. In order to have this I have enquir'd into
most Religions of the World, But I know not how
it has happened, that I was the least acquainted
with the Roman of any; Unless it is owing to This,
That it is impossible to have a just Idea of the
Romish Religion, but by seing their Churches,
their Convents, their Ceremonies in those Coun-
trys where they have a free Exercise of it. It
must have been occasion'd by a particular In-
curiosity that I never was in the Popish Chapel*
at London in my Life; for I am sure, was there
a Chinese Fagod, or a Mahometan Mcsque, I had
not fail'd to have seen them. On this account
I came into a New World, when I came first to
Antwerp, and so much was I possess'd with it,
that the novalty of it hardly disappeard, when
I came to that famous city (worthy by its Situa-
tion & magnificent buildings of a much better
Fate than it has) a second Time on my Return.
As the Result of ye Inquiry I have made into
Religion, is not to overvalue what may happen
to appear more particularly right to my own
Eyes, to the Prejudice of Other Persons judg-
ments; So it is with all the Pleasure in the World
that I hear another lay open the Grounds of his
particular Sentiments, and not without repug-
nance that I enter into a Dispute with him on yo
account of their Diversity from my Own.
I am
persuaded the true Nature of Religion lyes, in
the living under the Sense of a Supreme Being,
and in exercising that Power He has given Us

* The Sardinian Chapel?

in our moral Capacity towards the Happiness of his Creatures; and in so doing, to the Embellishing of his Works, & the Encrease of his Glory. This, I think, all Religions are agreed in. And as to Speculative Matters, or to the different Manner in which our particular Homage is to be paid him, it was as easy for the Supreme Being to have made as great a Conformity in their Sentiments in this Respect, unless he had thought it more proper to let it go as it is. Being possess'd therefore with these principles, it was with a much more sublime Pleasure, than anor would have had, more bigotted to his own Opinions, that I had all ye vast Superstructure of the Roman Religion display'd unto Me, in the several Conversations I have had with ye Professors of it. And as my Discourse for the most Part tended more towards informing my Self of their Sentiments, with the Reasons of them, than to Oppose Them, I had at once the Pleasure of the Information, and procur'd their Good Will by the Easiness and Openness of my Conversation. Sometimes indeed, according as either the opportunity of the Time, Place, or humour of the Person would permit, I have enter'd the Lists with them, And it is not easily conceiv'd (as I never had studied their Religion thoro'ly) how far a few generous well grounded principles of Natural Religion will carry one to put to Silence or at least to shifts worse than Silence, the Contenders for some of these absurdities that are grafted on Revealed Religion. Was the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity but once exploded, The most absurd Part of Popery to a Protestant must fall with it. I mean their famous doctrine of Transubstantiation. For where would be the Bon Dieu, & all the Train of Whimsical Appendices of him, were he but found to have been but a meer Man, or at ye most a finite Being, of a degree somewhat Superior to Us?

ness which is of the Essence of their Religion, and yt of Persecution which many if not most of the Ecclesiasticks hold with it is So unchristian, So contrary to the genuine Spirit of Christianity, Humanity, and of all Religion, and even of the Beleif of a God it Self, that were I not able to answer one argument for their Particular Opinions this One Thing alone wou'd absolutely alienate my Mind from it. But à propos to this variety of Opinion in Religious matters whereof I have been now writing, and with which it is Time to have done, I cant avoid laying before your Lordship a Reflection I made this Week as I was crossing the barren Heaths of Westphalia, after I had seen the fertile Plains of ye Low Countrys: Why might not the Almighty have expresly intended Something in the Intellectual World that should differ one from Another, as these Countrys do, from the Beauty of Brabant & Flanders? And yet contribute to ye Beauty of the Whole, as the different Faces of the Earth, most manifestly does? With this Reflection I take leave of this Subject, & of your Lordship; asking your Pardon for Detaining You so long with my imperfect Reasonings if they have proved tedious; or if your goodness has pardon'd them, referring My Self to y renewing of them, when I shall have the honour of conversing with Your Lordship face to face.

Hitherto I have entertain'd Your Lordship out of the Ten Provinces; And I have entertain'd You so long on ym or what arose out of them that I have no Time, nor Yr Lp patience to have any Thing said of the other Seven. Nor of Westphalia, from whence I write You this Letter. All this, and a great deal more I have to say of y same Countrys, I shall refer to another Occasion. And proceed for acquaint You, That my Seing so fully the Low-Countries was so far from Extinguishing or any manner Satisfying my Curiosity of encreasing my acquaintance with But let the absurdity of the concluded Doc- ye Works of my Creator (for what else is y trine appear ever so great, it must be the principle travelling out of once Country into another, but on which it is founded, that must be considered, the going out of One Room, & that a very small & removed out of the Way, before ever the one, of his Vast Palace, into another, of a different Conclusion is medled with. I have great Reason Furniture) That I could not deny my Self the to make this Observation, from a Reflexion that Resolution of Spending this Winter in Germany. came into my Mind on my first going into ye My long stay in ye Way, made Me lay Aside all great Church of Antwerp (the most famous for hopes of seing ye King long at Hanover. Howits paintings, & the most truly superstitious ever as I expect to be there in a day or two I Roman Church that I have yet seen, or as I am expect to have that honour for a few days. told, can see) Which was, That notwithstanding I write Your Lordship this Letter from Osnabrug, these Religious Appearances were SO grosse, where I have thought fit to make some short stay & unaccountable to Me, yet that there were men as well to ease my Self after a land Voyage of of Conscience, Integrity and good Sense that 3 days & 3 nights incessant Continuance, as to beleived them. This (so far as I could be a judge) wait on ye Duke of York, & to see his Court. On I have found in many a Person I have had the whom I waited yesterday and was received very honour to converse with; and it was with great gratiously, & honoured for sometime with his Pleasure I have heard their several Justifications Conversation. I propose to spend this Winter on y respective heads of their Religion. And at Hanover, Berlin, Leipsick, &c & at Brunswick truly I can't say I have not found much more in Case the Congress will be held. For most of Reason for many Arcles [sic] of their Faith than which Citys I have recommendations to some of I expected, or than y Inconsiderate World ye Principle Persons in them So that I hope I shall govern'd by Appearances, think they can alledge not only travel with fleasure but Profit also. in their Behalf. And were it not that the last Nevertheless it will be an additional Advantage Article of their Beleif is so great a Degree of could I have a Line from one of your Lordship's Uncharitableness, as as [sic] an Exclusion of all Distinction to Mr Whitworth; and I should count that differ from Them from ye Favour of God, it as a very great honour to have him know from I could almost deliver my Self with respect to Your Self that I was known to your Lordship. ye Roman Sect in particular, as Agrippa did of For this I should think a particular acquaintance ye Christian in general that I am almost become with Mr Whitworth on your Part is not absolutely a Catholick. But this Doctrine of Uncharitable-necessary. I write this not knowing whether

Indisposed. The King lives with more Grandeur here, I think, than at London. The Palace is a regular building, containing 3 square Courts. The Apartments are suited to ye Dignity of an Electoral Court. And suitably furnish'd. Here are no less than 4 Open Tables kept, besides the Prince's, of 10 or 12 Covers Each, Which with the Kings while he was here makes Six. Νο Person appears at Court of any Distinction but is invited to them all in their Turn. The Kings Stables are fine & in them he keeps above 200 Coach and Sadle horses. The Town of Hanover is but indifferently built. It has 3 Lutheran, a & French, a Reformed, & a Popish Church.