se with his warriors. There was the more impetuous Maurice
leading the charge at Nieuport. A little further on, the hero might
retrace the eventful story of his own life. He was a child at his
widowed mother's knee. He was at the altar with Diary's hand in his. He
was landing at Torbay. He was swimming through the Boyne. There, too,
was a boat amidst the ice and the breakers; and above it was most
appropriately inscribed, in the majestic language of Rome, the saying of
the great Roman, "What dost thou fear? Thou hast Caesar on board." The
task of furnishing the Latin mottoes had been intrusted to two men,
who, till Bentley appeared, held the highest place among the classical
scholars of that age. Spanheim, whose knowledge of the Roman medals was
unrivalled, imitated, not unsuccessfully, the noble conciseness of those
ancient legends which he had assiduously studied; and he was assisted by
Graevius, who then filled a chair at Utrecht, and whose just reputation
had drawn to that University multitudes of students from every part of
Protestant Europe. [2] When the night came, fireworks were exhibited on
the great tank which washes the walls of the Palace of the Federation.
That tank was now as hard as marble; and the Dutch boasted that nothing
had ever been seen, even on the terrace of Versailles, more brilliant
than the effect produced by the innumerable cascades of flame which
were reflected in the smooth mirror of ice. [3] The English Lords
congratulated their master on his immense popularity. "Yes," said he;
"but I am not the favourite. The shouting was nothing to what it would
have been if Mary had been with me."

A few hours after the triumphal entry, the King attended a sitting of
the States General. His last appearance among them had been on the day
on which he embarked for England. He had then, amidst the broken words
and loud weeping of those grave Senators, thanked them for the kindness
with which they had watched over his childhood, trained his young mind,
and supported his authority in his riper years; and he had solemnly
commended his beloved wife to their care. He now came back among them
the King of three kingdoms, the head of the greatest coalition that
Europe had seen during a hundred and eighty years; and nothing was heard
in the hall but applause and congratulations. [4]

But this time the streets of the Hague were overflowing with the
equipages and retinues of princes and ambassadors who came flocking