English travellers of this period unanimously praised the way the Dutch houses were kept. One wrote: "They are not large, but neat, beautiful outside and well furnished inside; and the furniture is so clean and in good order that it appears to be more an exhibition than for daily use." The farms also attracted the attention of the stranger. Another traveller said: "The Dutch farmer keeps his land as neatly as a courtier trims his beard; and his house is as choice as a lady who comes out of her dressing-room. A well-dressed lady cannot look neater than the fine gable and the thatched roof of a Dutch farmhouse."

In his Brief Character of the Low Countries, Owen Feltham describes an Amsterdam house of the middle of the seventeenth century. "When you are entered the house," he writes, "the first thing you encounter is a Looking-Glasse. No question but a true Embleme of politick hospitality; for though to reflect yourself in your own figure, 'tis yet no longer than while you are there before it. When you are gone once, it flatters the next commer, without the least remembrance that you were ere there.

"The next are the vessels of the house marshalled about the room like watchmen. All is neat as you were in a Citizen's Wife's Cabinet; for unless it be themselves, they let none of God's creatures lose anything of then-native beauty.

"Their houses, especially in their Cities, are the best eye-beauties of their Country. For cost and sight, they far exceed our English, but they want their magnificence. Their lining is yet more rich than their outside; not in hangings, but pictures, which even the poorest are there furnisht with. Not a cobler but has his toyes for ornament. Were the knacks of all their homes set together, there would not be such another Bartholomew-Faire in Europe. . . .

"Their beds are no other than land-cabines, high enough to need a ladder or stairs. Up once, you are walled in with Wainscot, and that is a good discretion to avoid the trouble of making your will every night; for once falling out else would break your neck promptly. But if you die in it this comfort you shall leave your friends, that you dy'd in clean linen.

"Whatsoever their estates be, their houses must be fair. Therefore from Amsterdam they have banisht seacoale, lest it soyl their buildings, of which the statlier sort are sometimes sententious, and in the front carry some conceit of the Owner. As to give you a taste in these: -

'Christus Adjutor Meus; Hoc abdicato Perenne Quero; Hic Medio tuitus Itur.'

"Every door seems studied with Diamonds. The nails and hinges hold a constant brightnesse, as if rust there was not a quality incident to Iron. Their houses they keep cleaner than their bodies; their bodies than their souls. Goe to one, you shall find the Andirons shut up in network. At a second, the Warming-pan muffled in Italian Cutworke. At a third the Sconce clad in Cambrick."

English travellers are not the only ones to bear witness to the extremes to which cleanliness was carried by the housewives of the Low Countries. A French writer, De Parival, says: -

"The wives and daughters scour and rub benches, chests, cupboards, dressers, tables, plate racks, even the stairs until they shine like mirrors. Some are so clean that they would not enter any of the rooms without taking off their shoes and putting on their slippers. The women put all their energy and pleasure in keeping the house and the furniture clean. The floors are washed nearly every day and scoured with sand, and are so neat that a stranger is afraid to expectorate on them. If the city women keep their houses clean, the farmers' wives are not less particular. They carry this cleanliness even into the stables. They scour everything, even the iron chains and mounts until they shine like silver."

The same traveller also says: "The furniture of the principal burghers, besides gold and silver ware, consists of tapestries, costly paintings (for which no money is saved, but rather eked out in economical living), beautifully carved woodwork, such as tables, treasure-chests, etc., and pewter, brass, earthenware, porcelains, etc."

Another foreigner says: "Their interior decorations are far more costly than our own [English], not only in hangings and ornaments, but in pictures, which are found even in the poorer houses. No farmer or even common labourer is found who has not some kind of interior ornaments and so varied that if all were put together it would often fill a booth at the fair."

Chrysostomus Napolitanus, who visited Holland in 1516, says: "Goede Hemel! welk eene netheid van het gereedschafi! welk eene kostelijkheid van bedden en welk eene blankheid van servetten, tafels en tafellakens! welk een sieraad aan de stoelen! welke zindelijkheid eindelijk aan muren, vloer en al het overige! Den bodem der spijs - , noen - en slaafvertrekken bestrooien zij met een weinig zand, opdat, zoo er bij geval iets morsigs op mocht vallen, zoo iemand somwijlen er vuile voeten op mocht zetten, de vloer zelve er niet door besmet zou worden, maar men het terstond, eer het er zich aan vasthecht, met bezems uit zou kunnen keeren."

("Good Heavens! What a neatness of the utensils! how costly the beds and bedding, and how white the sheets, serviettes and tablecloths! What an ornamentation on the chairs, and, lastly, what cleanliness of the floors, walls and everything! The floors of the eating, sleeping and sitting rooms are strewn with a little sand, so that if anything should drop and one should accidentally step upon it, the floor would not be soiled, and before the matter could stick to it, the dirt might be removed with a broom.")