ts of his theater of action; for the Belgic States were a trifling
province of Philip Second's stupendous empire, stretching, as it did,
from Italy to the farthest western promontory of the New World. A
theater is something. Throw a heroic career on a world theater, such
as Julius Caesar had, and men will look as they would on burning
Moscow. The scene prevents obscuration. And last, Holland has, in our
days, passed into comparative inconsequence, and presents few symptoms
of that strength which once aspired to the rulership of the oceans.

The Belgic provinces were borrowed from the ocean by an industry and
audacity which must have astonished the sea, and continues a glory to
those men who executed the task, and to all men everywhere as well,
since deeds of prowess or genius, wrought by one man or race, inure to
the credit of all men and all races, achievement being, not local, but
universal. These Netherlands, lying below sea-levels, became the
garden-spot of Europe, nurturing a thrifty, capable people, possessing
positive genius in industry, so that they not only grew in their
fertile soil food for nations, if need be, but became weavers of
fabrics for the clothing of aristocracies in remote nations; this, in
turn, leading of necessity to a commerce which was, in its time, for
the Atlantic what that of Venice had been to the Mediterranean; for the
Netherlanders were as aquatic as sea-birds, seeming to be more at home
on sea than on dry land. This is a brief survey of those causes which
made Flanders, though insignificant in size, a principality any king
might esteem riches. In the era of William the Silent the Netherlands
had reached an acme of relative wealth, influence, and commanding
importance, and supplied birthplace and cradle to the Emperor Charles
V, who, for thirty-seven years (reaching from 1519 to 1556) was the
controlling force in European politics. This ruler was grandson of
Ferdinand and Isabella, and thus of interest to Americans, whose
thought must be riveted on any one connected, however remotely, with
the discovery of this New World, which supplies a stage for the latest
and greatest experiment in civilization and liberty, religion, and
individual opportunity. Low as Spain has now fallen, we can not be
oblivious to the fact how that, on a day, Columbus, rebuffed by every
ruler and every court, found at the Spanish court a queen who listened
to his dream, and helped the dreamer, because the e