ains, the
suppressor of great revolts, can indulge in the expensive luxury of
procrastination only at imminent peril. For the defence, it is always
possible to conquer by delay, and it was perfectly understood between
Spinola and his ablest advisers at the Spanish court that the blows must
be struck thick and fast, and at the most vulnerable places, or that the
victory would be lost.

Time was the ally not of the Spanish invaders, who came from afar, but of
the Dutch burghers, who remained at home. "Jam aut Nunquam," was the
motto upon the Italian's banners.

In proportion to the depression in the republic at the results of this
year's campaigning was the elation at the Spanish court. Bad news and
false news had preceded the authentic intelligence of Spinola's
victories. The English envoy had received unquestionable information that
the Catholic general had sustained an overwhelming defeat at the close of
the campaign, with a loss of three thousand five hundred men.

The tale was implicitly believed by king and cabinet, so that when, very
soon afterwards, the couriers arrived bringing official accounts of the
victory gained over the veteran cavalry of the States in the very
presence of the stadholder, followed by the crowning triumph of
Wachtendonk, the demonstrations of joy were all the more vivacious in
consequence of the previous gloom. Spinola himself followed hard upon the
latest messengers, and was received with ovations. Never, since the days
of Alexander Farnese, had a general at the Spanish court been more
cordially caressed or hated. Had Philip the Prudent been still upon the
throne, he would have felt it his duty to make immediate arrangements for
poisoning him. Certainly his plans and his popularity would have been
undermined in the most artistic manner.

But Philip III., more dangerous to rabbits than to generals, left the
Genoese to settle the plans of his next campaign with Lerma and his
parasites.

The subtle Spinola, having, in his despatches, ascribed the chief merit
of the victories to Louis Velasco, a Spaniard, while his own original
conception of transferring the war to Friesland was attributed by him
with magnificent effrontery to Lerma and to the king--who were probably
quite ignorant of the existence of that remote province--succeeded in
maintaining his favourable position at court, and was allowed, by what
was called the war-council, to manage matters nearly at his pleasure.

It is diffic