"On sundays and holydays the shops and warehouses, and, _intra muros_, those of public entertainment are _close_: the devotees go to church, and sanctify the sabbath. Others go to walk outside the towngates: after their walk, they hasten to fine public-play-gardens, where wine, thea, &c. is sold. Neither the mobility remains idle at _these_ entertainments. Every one invites his damsel, and joyously they enter play-gardens of a little less brilliancy than the former. There, at the crying sound of an instrument that _rents_ the ear, { 347} accompanied by the delightful handle-organs and the rustic triangle, their tributes are paid to Terpsichore; every where a similitude of talents: the dancing outdoes not the musician."
"The forefront has a noble and sublime aspect, and is particularly characteristical to what it ought to represent. It is built in a division of three fronts in the corinthic order: each of them consists in four raizing columns, resting upon a general basement, from the one end of the forefront to the other, and supporting a cornish, equally running all over the face; upon this cornish rests a balustrad, like the other pieces altogether of Bremen-hardstone. The middle front, serving for the chief entrance, is adorned with the provincial arms, sculpted by Mr. Gabriel, &c.... Every where a sublime plan, and exact execution is exhibited here, and the whole tends as much to the architects, who are the undertakers of it, as they have earned great praizes by building anew the burnt Lutheran church."
I will not trespass on your space by any further extracts; but these will suffice to show that my book is _sui generis_, and worth commemoration.
SEVEN CHILDREN AT A BIRTH THREE TIMES FOLLOWING.
Your correspondent N. D.'s papers (Vol. ii., p. 459., and Vol. iii., p. 64) have reminded me of another remarkable instance of fecundity related by the well-known civil engineer JAN ADRIAENSZ. LEEG-WATER, in his _Kleyne Chronycke_, printed at Amsterdam in 1654:
"Some years since," says he, p. 31., "I was at _Wormer_, at an inn near the town-hall: the landlady, whose name was _Frankjen_, told me of the Burgomaster of _Hoorn_, who in the spring went over the (Zuyder?) sea to buy oxen, and going into a certain house he found seven little children sitting by the fire, each with a porringer in its hand, and eating rice-milk, or pap, with a spoon; on which the Burgomaster said 'Mother, you are very kind to your neighbours, since they leave their children to your care.' 'No,' said the woman, they are all my own children, which I had at one birth; and if you will wait a moment, I will show you more that will surprise you.' She then fetched seven other children _a birth_ older: so she had fourteen children at two births. Then the woman said to the Burgomaster, 'I am now _enceinte_, and I think in the same way as before: if you come here next year, call upon me again.' And so, the next year, when the Burgomaster went over the sea, he called upon the woman and the woman had again brought forth seven children at a birth. Thus the woman had at three births twenty-one children."