ch
company, and the name of the officer who commanded it, are to be found
in the Documentos Ineditos (tom. IV. p. 382). From this it appears that
the precise number of horse was 1,250, and that of the foot 8,800,
making a total of 10,050.

[941] A poem in _ottava rima_, commemorating Alva's expedition, appeared
at Antwerp the year following, from the pen of one Balthazar de Vargas.
It has more value in a historical point of view than in a poetical one.
A single stanza, which the bard devotes to the victualling of the army,
will probably satisfy the appetite of the reader:--

"Y por que la Savoya es montanosa, Y an de passar por ella las legiones,
Seria la passada trabajosa Si a la gente faltassen provisiones, El real
comissario no reposa. Haze llevar de Italia municiones Tantas que
proveyo todo el camino Que jamas falto el pan, y carno, y vino."

[942] Ossorio, Albae Vita, tom. II. p. 237.--Trillo, Rebelion y Guerras
de Flandes, (Madrid, 1592,) fol. 17.--Leti, Vita di Filippo II., tom. I.
p. 490.

[943] So say Schiller, (Abfall der Niederlande, s. 363,). Cabrera,
(Filipe Segundo, lib. VII. cap. 15,) _et auct. al._ But every schoolboy
knows that nothing is more unsettled than the route taken by Hannibal
across the Alps. The two oldest authorities, Livy and Polybius, differ
on the point, and it has remained a vexed question ever since,--the
criticism of later years, indeed, leaning to still another route, that
across the Little St. Bernard. The passage of Hannibal forms the subject
of a curious discussion introduced into Gibbon's journal, when the young
historian was in training for the mighty task of riper years. His
reluctance, even at the close of his argument, to strike the balance, is
singularly characteristic of his sceptical mind.

[944] "A suidar da quel nido di Demoni, le sceleraggini di tanti
Appostati." Leti, Vita di Filippo II., tom. I. p. 487.

[945] The Huguenots even went so far as to attempt to engage the
reformed in the Low Countries to join them in assaulting the duke in his
march through Savoy. Their views were expressed in a work which
circulated widely in the provinces, though it failed to rouse the people
to throw off the Spanish yoke. Sec Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bas,
tom. II. p. 194.

[946] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. pp. 350-354.--Ossorio, Albae
Vita, tom. II. p. 232 et seq.--Hechos de Sancho Davila, p. 26.--Trillo,
Rebelion y Guerras de Flandes, fol. 16, 17.--Cabrera, Filip