qual among his contemporaries. He had formed plans not inferior in
grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into
effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Two countries, the
seats of civil liberty and of the Reformed Faith, had been preserved
by his wisdom and courage from extreme perils. Holland he had delivered
from foreign, and England from domestic foes. Obstacles apparently
insurmountable had been interposed between him and the ends on which
he was intent; and those obstacles his genius had turned into stepping
stones. Under his dexterous management the hereditary enemies of his
house had helped him to mount a throne; and the persecutors of his
religion had helped him to rescue his religion from persecution.
Fleets and armies, collected to withstand him, had, without a struggle,
submitted to his orders. Factions and sects, divided by mortal
antipathies, had recognised him as their common head. Without carnage,
without devastation, he had won a victory compared with which all the
victories of Gustavus and Turenne were insignificant. In a few weeks he
had changed the relative position of all the states in Europe, and
had restored the equilibrium which the preponderance of one power had
destroyed. Foreign nations did ample justice to his great qualities. In
every Continental country where Protestant congregations met, fervent
thanks were offered to God, who, from among the progeny of His servants,
Maurice, the deliverer of Germany, and William, the deliverer of
Holland, had raised up a third deliverer, the wisest and mightiest
of all. At Vienna, at Madrid, nay, at Rome, the valiant and sagacious
heretic was held in honour as the chief of the great confederacy
against the House of Bourbon; and even at Versailles the hatred which he
inspired was largely mingled with admiration.

Here he was less favourably judged. In truth, our ancestors saw him in
the worst of all lights. By the French, the Germans, and the Italians,
he was contemplated at such a distance that only what was great could be
discerned, and that small blemishes were invisible. To the Dutch he was
brought close: but he was himself a Dutchman. In his intercourse with
them he was seen to the best advantage, he was perfectly at his ease
with them; and from among them he had chosen his earliest and dearest
friends. But to the English he appeared in a most unfortunate point of
view. He was at once too near to them and too far fro