answered the
imperial proffers of mediation, so frequently renewed, were something
new, and perhaps not entirely unwholesome in diplomacy.

It is not an inviting task to abandon the comparatively healthy
atmosphere of the battle-field, the blood-stained swamp, the murderous
trench--where human beings, even if communing only by bullets and push of
pike, were at least dealing truthfully with each other--and to descend
into those subterranean regions where the effluvia of falsehood becomes
almost too foul for ordinary human organisation.

Heroes in those days, in any country, there were few. William the Silent
was dead. De la Noue was dead. Duplessis-Mornay was living, but his
influence over his royal master was rapidly diminishing. Cecil, Hatton,
Essex, Howard, Raleigh, James Croft, Valentine Dale, John Norris, Roger
Williams, the "Virgin Queen" herself--does one of these chief agents in
public affairs, or do all of them together, furnish a thousandth part of
that heroic whole which the England of the sixteenth century presents to
every imagination? Maurice of Nassau-excellent soldier and engineer as he
had already proved himself--had certainly not developed much of the
heroic element, although thus far he was walking straightforward like a
man, in the path of duty, with the pithy and substantial Lewis William
ever at his side. Olden-Barneveld--tough burgher-statesman, hard-headed,
indomitable man of granite--was doing more work, and doing it more
thoroughly, than any living politician, but he was certainly not of the
mythological brotherhood who inhabit the serene regions of space beyond
the moon. He was not the son of god or goddess, destined, after removal
from this sphere, to shine with planetary lustre, among other
constellations, upon the scenes of mortal action. Those of us who are
willing to rise-or to descend if the phrase seems wiser--to the idea of a
self-governing people must content ourselves, for this epoch, with the
fancy of a hero-people and a people-king.

A plain little republic, thrusting itself uninvited into the great
political family-party of heaven-anointed sovereigns and long-descended
nobles, seemed a somewhat repulsive phenomenon. It became odious and
dangerous when by the blows it could deal in battle, the logic it could
chop in council, it indicated a remote future for the world, in which
right divine and regal paraphernalia might cease to be as effective
stage-properties as they had always