e master assigned to the pupil, might
have been more justly attributed perhaps to the professor than to the
prince, but it is certain that Maurice was an apt scholar.

In that country, ever held in existence by main human force against the
elements, the arts of engineering, hydrostatics and kindred branches were
of necessity much cultivated. It was reserved for the young mathematician
to make them as potent against a human foe.

Moreover, there were symptoms that the military discipline, learning and
practical skill, which had almost made Spain the mistress of the world,
were sinking into decay. Farnese, although still in the prime of life,
was broken in health, and there seemed no one fit to take the place of
himself and his lieutenants when they should be removed from the scene
where they had played their parts so consummately. The army of the
Netherlands was still to be created. Thus far the contest had been mainly
carried on by domestic militia and foreign volunteers or hirelings. The
train-bands of the cities were aided in their struggles against Spanish
pikemen and artillerists, Italian and Albanian cavalry by the German
riders, whom every little potentate was anxious to sell to either
combatant according to the highest bid, and by English mercenaries, whom
the love of adventure or the hope of plunder sent forth under such
well-seasoned captains as Williams and Morgan, Vere and the Norrises,
Baskerville and Willoughby.

But a Dutch army there was none and Maurice had determined that at last a
national force should be created. In this enterprise he was aided and
guided by his cousin Lewis William, Stadtholder of Friesland--the quaint,
rugged little hero, young in years but almost a veteran in the wars of
freedom, who was as genial and intellectual in council as he was reckless
and impulsive in the field.

Lewis William had felt that the old military art was dying out and
that--there was nothing to take its place. He was a diligent student of
antiquity. He had revived in the swamps of Friesland the old manoeuvres,
the quickness of wheeling, the strengthening, without breaking ranks or
columns, by which the ancient Romans had performed so much excellent work
in their day, and which seemed to have passed entirely into oblivion. Old
colonels and rittmasters, who had never heard of Leo the Thracian nor the
Macedonian phalanx, smiled and shrugged their shoulders, as they listened
to the questions of the young count, o