in North Britain. By this time every nation except France,
had taken sides in the conflict which was to last, with hardly any
cessation, during two generations.

Mr. Motley, therefore, in describing the rise and progress of the united
republic of the Netherlands, is writing not Dutch but European history.
On his pages France, Spain, and England make almost as large a figure as
Holland itself. He is writing the history of the Reformation during its
concluding epoch, and he chooses the Netherlands as his main subject,
because during that period the Netherlands were the centre of the
movement. They constituted the great bulwark of freedom, and upon the
success or failure of their cause the future prospect of Europe and of
mankind depended. Spain and the Netherlands, Philip II. and William the
Silent, were the two leading antagonists and were felt to be such by
the other nations and rulers that came to mingle in the strife. It is
therefore a stupid criticism which we have seen made upon Mr. Motley,
that, having brought his narrative down to the truce of 1609, he ought,
instead of describing the Thirty Years' War, to keep on with Dutch
history, and pourtray the wars against Cromwell and Charles II., and the
struggle of the second William of Orange against Louis XIV. By so doing
he would only violate the unity of his narrative. The wars of the Dutch
against England and France belong to an entirely different epoch in
European history,--a modern epoch, in which political and commercial
interests were of prime importance, and theological interests distinctly
subsidiary. The natural terminus of Mr. Motley's work is the Peace
of Westphalia. After bringing down his history to the time when the
independence of the Netherlands was virtually acknowledged, after
describing the principal stages of the struggle against Catholicism and
universal monarchy, as carried on in the first generation by Elizabeth
and William, and in the second by Maurice and Henry, he will naturally
go on to treat of the epilogue as conducted by Richelieu and Gustavus,
ending in the final cessation of religious wars throughout Europe.

The conflict in the Netherlands was indeed far more than a mere
religious struggle. In its course was distinctly brought into prominence
the fact which we have above signalized, that since the Roman Church had
abandoned the liberties of the people they had found a new defender in
the reformed religion. The Dutch rebellion is peculi