Merchandise flows in from all sides in such great abundance
that a large part of it has to be distributed through the neighboring
towns....
Rotterdam, in short, has a future more splendid than that of
Amsterdam, and has long been regarded as a rival by her elder
sister. She does not possess the wealth of the capital; but is more
industrious in increasing what she has; she dares, risks, undertakes
like a young and adventurous city. Amsterdam, like a merchant grown
cautious after having made his fortune by hazardous undertakings,
begins to doze over her treasures. At Rotterdam fortunes are made; at
Amsterdam they are consolidated; at the Hague they are spent....
In the middle of the market-place, surrounded by heaps of vegetables,
fruit, and earthenware pots and pans, stands the statue of Desiderius
Erasmus, the first literary light of Holland; that Gerrit Gerritz--for
he assumed the Latin name himself, according to the custom of writers
in his day--that Gerrit Gerritz belonged, by his education, his style,
and his ideas, to the family of the humanists and erudite of Italy;
a fine writer, profound and indefatigable in letters and science, he
filled all Europe with his name between the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries; he was loaded with favors by the popes, and sought after
and entertained by princes; and his "Praise of Folly," written in
Latin like the rest of his innumerable works, and dedicated to Sir
Thomas More, is still read.
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