eological method of interpreting nature--finally overthrown
by Copernicus. Instead of the circumnavigability of the earth, the
discovery of a Northwest passage--as instanced by the heroic voyage of
Barendz, so nobly described by Mr. Motley--is now the chief geographical
problem. East India Companies, in place of petty guilds of weavers and
bakers, bear witness to the vast commercial progress. We find England,
fresh from her stupendous victory over the whole power of Spain, again
in the front rank of nations; France, under the most astute of modern
sovereigns, taking her place for a time as the political leader of the
civilized world; Spain, with her evil schemes baffled in every quarter,
sinking into that terrible death-like lethargy, from which she has
hardly yet awakened, and which must needs call forth our pity, though it
is but the deserved retribution for her past behaviour. While the little
realm of the Netherlands, filched and cozened from the unfortunate
Jacqueline by the "good" Duke of Burgundy, carried over to Austria as
the marriage-portion of Lady Mary, sent down to Spain as the personal
inheritance of the "prudent" Philip, and by him intolerably tormented
with an Inquisition, a Blood-Council, and a Duke of Alva, has after a
forty years' war of independence taken its position for a time as the
greatest of commercial nations, with the most formidable navy and one of
the best disciplined armies yet seen upon the earth.

But the central phenomenon of the sixteenth century is the culmination
of the Protestant movement in its decisive proclamation by Luther. For
nearly three hundred years already the power of the Church had been
declining, and its function as a civilizing agency had been growing
more and more obsolete. The first great blow at its supremacy had been
directed with partial success in the thirteenth century by the Emperor
Frederick II. Coincident with this attack from without, we find a
reformation begun within, as exemplified in the Dominican and Franciscan
movements. The second great blow was aimed by Philip IV. of France, and
this time it struck with terrible force. The removal of the Papacy to
Avignon, in 1305, was the virtual though unrecognized abdication of its
beneficent supremacy. Bereft of its dignity and independence, from
that time forth it ceased to be the defender of national unity against
baronial anarchy, of popular rights against monarchical usurpation, and
became a formidable instrum