THE BATAVIAN REPUBLIC
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posed will surpass the famous instrument of Haarlem; but, as the times are unfavourable for such undertakings, many years will probably elapse before it is completed. The Exchange is a neat building, and perfectly adapted to the purposes for which it was erected.
An assemblage of ill-featured people, tainted with the love of gain, meet here six times a week between the hours of one and three, and on Sundays it is the rendezvous of the militia of the town.
In the market-place is the statue of Erasmus[1], a name still cherished in the place
- ↑ It is the third statue which the gratitude of his townsmen has erected in honour of their illustrious fellow-citizen. The first in wood was raised to his memory in 1549, thirteen years after his decease, and a few years afterwards this was removed for a more elegant and substantial figure in stone. Instigated by a bigotted monk, to whom the rational piety, the profound genius, and extensive learning, of Erasmus, were offensive, the Spaniards in 1572, being masters of Rotterdam, destroyed this statue. The present one in bronze was erected in 1662, and is of good execution. The figure, which stands on a pedestal ornamented with inscriptions and surrounded with iron rails, is larger than life, and represents Erasmus clad in his ecclesiastical habit, with an
