to the candor of the critics.

There is a third publication, recently issued from the press in
Brussels, which contains, in the compass of a single volume, materials
of much importance for the history of the Netherlands. This is the
"Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche," by the late Baron
Reiffenberg. It is a part of the French correspondence which, as I have
mentioned above, was transferred, in the latter part of Philip the
Second's reign, from Simancas to Brussels; but which, instead of
remaining there, was removed, after the country had passed under the
Austrian sceptre, to the imperial library of Vienna, where it exists, in
all probability, at the present day. Some fragments of this
correspondence escaped the fate which attended the bulk of it; and it is
gleanings from these which Reiffenberg has given to the world.

That country is fortunate which can command the services of such men as
these for the illustration of its national annals,--men who with
singular enthusiasm for their task combine the higher qualifications of
scholarship, and a talent for critical analysis. By their persevering
labors the rich ore has been drawn from the mines where it had lain in
darkness for ages. It now waits only for the hand of the artist to
convert it into coin, and give it a popular currency.

[Sidenote: CONDITION OF TURKEY.]

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.

Condition of Turkey.--African Corsairs.--Expedition against
Tripoli.--War on the Barbary Coast.

1559-1563.

There are two methods of writing history;--one by following down the
stream of time, and exhibiting events in their chronological order; the
other by disposing of these events according to their subjects. The
former is the most obvious; and where the action is simple and
continuous, as in biography, for the most part, or in the narrative of
some grand historical event, which concentrates the interest, it is
probably the best. But when the story is more complicated, covering a
wide field, and embracing great variety of incident, the chronological
system, however easy for the writer, becomes tedious and unprofitable to
the reader. He is hurried along from one scene to another without fully
apprehending any; and as the thread of the narrative is perpetually
broken by sudden transition, he carries off only such scraps in his
memory as it is hardly possible to weave into a connected and consistent
whole. Yet this method, as the most simpl