Evelyn's Diary. 26 May 1641, I passed by a straight and commodious river through Delft to Hague; in which journey I observed divers leprous poor creatures dwelling in sohtary huts on the brink of the water, and permitted to ask the charity of passengers, which is conveyed to them in a floating box that they cast out.

Evelyn's Diary. 17 Aug 1641. I passed again through Delft, and visited the church in which was the monument of Prince William of Nassau, - the first of the Williams, and saviour (as they call him) of their liberty, which cost him his life by a vile assassination. It is a piece of rare art, consisting of several figures, as big as the life, in copper. There is in the same place a magnificent tomb of his son and successor, Maurice. The Senate-house hath a very stately portico, supported with choice columns of black marble, as I remember, of one entire stone. Within, there hangs a weighty vessel of wood, not unlike a butter-churn, which the adventurous woman that hath two husbands at one time is to wear on her shoulders, her head peeping out at the top only, and so led about the town, as a penance for her incontinence. From hence, we went the next day to Itvswick, a stately country-house of the Prince of Orange, for nothing more remarkable than the delicious walks planted with lime trees, and the modern paintings within.

Evelyn's Diary. 20 Aug 1641. Next day (the 20th) I returned to Delft, thence to Rotterdam, the Hague, and Leyden, where immediately I mounted a waggon, which that night, late as it was, brought us to Haerlem. About seven in the morning, after I came to Amsterdam, where being provided with a lodging, the first thing I went to see was a Synagogue of the Jews (being Saturday), whose ceremonies, ornaments, lamps, law, and schools, afforded matter for my contemplation. The women were secluded from, the men, being seated in galleries above, shut with lattices, having their heads muffled with linen, after a fantastical and somewhat extraordinary fashion; the men, wearing a large calico mantle, yellow coloured, over their hats, all the while waving their bodies, whilst at their devotions. From thence, I went to a place without the town, called Overkirk, where they have a spacious field assigned them to bury their dead, full of sepulchres with Hebraic inscriptions, some of them stately and costly. Looking through one of these monuments, where the stones were disjointed, I perceived divers books and papers lie about a corpse; for it seems, when any learned Rabbi dies, they bury some of his books with him. With the help of a stick, I raked out several, written in Hebrew characters, but much impaired. As we returned, we stepped in to see the Spinhouse, a kind of bridewell, where incorrigible and lewd women are kept in discipine and labour, but all neat. We were showed an hospital for poor travellers and pilgrims, built by Queen Elizabeth of England; and another maintained by the city.

Evelyn's Diary. 01 Sep 1641. I went to Delft and Rotterdam, and two days after back to the Hague, to bespeak a suit of horseman's armour, which I caused to be made to fit me. I now rode out of town to see the monument of the woman, pretended to have been a Countess of Holland, reported to have had as many children at one birth, as there are days in the year. The basins were hung up in which they were baptized, together with a large description of the matter-of-fact in a frame of carved work, in the church of Lysdun, a desolate place. As I returned, I diverted to see one of the prince's Palaces, called the Hoff Van Hounslers Dyck, a very fair cloistered and quadrangular building. The gallery is prettily painted with several huntings and at one end a Gordian knot, with rustical instruments so artificially represented, as to deceive an accurate eye to distinguish it from actual rehevo. The ceiling of the staircase is painted with the Rape of Ganymede, and other pendent figures, the work of F. Covenberg, of whose hand I bought an excellent drollery, which I afterwards parted with to my brother George of Wotton, where it now hangs. To this palace join a fair garden and park, curiously planted with limes.

Evelyn's Diary. 21 May 1641. The next day, we arrived at Dort, the first town of Holland, furnished with all German commodities, and especially Rhenish wines and timber. It hath almost at the extremity a very spacious and venerable church; a stately senate-house, wherein was holden that famous synod against the Arminians in 1618, and in that hall hangeth a picture of The Passion, an exceeding rare and much-esteemed piece.

Evelyn's Diary. 23 May 1641. From Dort, being desirous to hasten towards the army, I took waggon this afternoon to Rotterdam, whither we were hurried in less than an hour, though it be ten miles distant; so furiously do these foremen drive. I went first to visit the great church, the Doole, the Bourse, and the public statue of the learned Erasmus, of brass. They showed us his house, or rather the mean cottage, wherein he was bom, over which there are extant these lines, in capital letters: "DIBUS HIS ORTUS, MUNDUM DECORAVIT ERASMUS ARTIBUS, INGENIO, RELIGIONE, FIDE"..