Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/134

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TOUR THROUGH

age with a large fortune. A bargain is concluded, the daughter appears, and the father gives her hand to the metamorphosed sweeper. At this critical moment the real lord enters, the cheat is accordingly discovered, and the knave in his finery makes his escape up the chimney.

The theatre is smaller than that at Rotterdam, and the decorations inferior. It was impossible to see the scene, which was, dropt between the acts, without smiling. It represented cupids hovering over the altar of Love. The cupids were chubby Dutch children, formed in nature's homeliest mould; the graces were round-faced damsels, with flaxen hair, and the goddess of love an antidote to that passion.

The centre-box, which formerly was appropriated to the use of the stadtholder, now belongs to the Batavian directory, one of the members of which body, with his family, was at the theatre. Nothing in the appearance or reception of this person indicated his rank. He was dressed in a plain suit of black clothes, and appeared to be about fifty years