. Art and artists of our time . t of seeming little, that is shown in all things Dutch. It used to be thesport of waggish spirits or of spleeny satirists, to ridicule Dutch economy, and to taunt themwith the stinginess of nature. But there is no nation that might not be shamed by the com-parison of its use of its opportunities, with the use the Dutch have made of theirs, and, in fact,the satire of Andrew Marvell, so often quoted for its wit, is the highest compliment to the ingenuity, the energy and the perseverance of the Dutch in building-up an empire—for such itonce was, and such it may be
. Art and artists of our time . t of seeming little, that is shown in all things Dutch. It used to be thesport of waggish spirits or of spleeny satirists, to ridicule Dutch economy, and to taunt themwith the stinginess of nature. But there is no nation that might not be shamed by the com-parison of its use of its opportunities, with the use the Dutch have made of theirs, and, in fact,the satire of Andrew Marvell, so often quoted for its wit, is the highest compliment to the ingenuity, the energy and the perseverance of the Dutch in building-up an empire—for such itonce was, and such it may be again—out of the most unpromising—one might, in fact, saythe most hopeless —materials. And as they have made themselves a sea-coast—strong to resistthe most threatening inroads of the ocean—first with stones, laboriously brought from far-away, since one may skirt all Holland round, and not pick up a pebble big enough to throwat a sand-piper; as they have laced their country with a net-work of canals to piece-out Na-. ART AND ARTISTS OF OUR TIME. 329 tures parsimony in denjang them rivers; as they have turned thousands of acres of morassand quicksand into fertile and wholesome meadow-land; so with little enough, as might havebeen thought, to go upon, they have put themselves at the head of the world iu many of the
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