his contemporaries, a diplomatist in whose
tact and delicacy William of Orange afterwards reposed in the most
difficult and important negotiations, an orator whose discourses on many
great public occasions attracted the attention of Europe, a soldier whose
bravery was to be attested afterwards on many a well-fought field, a
theologian so skilful in the polemics of divinity, that, as it will
hereafter appear, he was more than a match for a bench of bishops upon
their own ground, and a scholar so accomplished, that, besides speaking
and writing the classical and several modern languages with facility, he
had also translated for popular use the Psalms of David into vernacular
verse, and at a very late period of his life was requested by the
states-general of the republic to translate all the Scriptures, a work,
the fulfilment of which was prevented by his death. A passionate foe to
the inquisition and to all the abuses of the ancient Church, an ardent
defender of civil liberty, it must be admitted that he partook also of
the tyrannical spirit of Calvinism. He never rose to the lofty heights to
which the spirit of the great founder of the commonwealth was destined to
soar, but denounced the great principle of religious liberty for all
consciences as godless. He was now twenty-eight years of age, having been
born in the same year with his friend Louis of Nassau. His device, "Repos
ailleurs," finely typified the restless, agitated and laborious life to
which he was destined.

That other distinguished leader of the newly-formed league, Count Louis,
was a true knight of the olden time, the very mirror of chivalry. Gentle,
generous, pious; making use, in his tent before the battle, of the
prayers which his mother sent him from the home of his childhood,--yet
fiery in the field as an ancient crusader--doing the work of general and
soldier with desperate valor and against any numbers--cheerful and
steadfast under all reverses, witty and jocund in social intercourse,
animating with his unceasing spirits the graver and more foreboding soul
of his brother; he was the man to whom the eyes of the most ardent among
the Netherland Reformers were turned at this early epoch, the trusty
staff upon which the great Prince of Orange was to lean till it was
broken. As gay as Brederode, he was unstained by his vices, and exercised
a boundless influence over that reckless personage, who often protested
that he would "die a poor soldier at his feet