thus protecting the whole of the bridge of boats
and a portion of that resting upon piles.

Such was the famous bridge of Parma. The magnificent undertaking has been
advantageously compared with the celebrated Rhine-bridge of Julius
Caesar. When it is remembered; however; that the Roman work was performed
in summer, across a river only half as broad as the Scheldt, free from
the disturbing, action of the tides; and flowing through an unresisting
country; while the whole character of the structure; intended only to,
serve for the single passage of an army, was far inferior to the massive
solidity of Parma's bridge; it seems not unreasonable to assign the
superiority to the general who had surmounted all the obstacles of a
northern winter, vehement ebb and flow from the sea, and enterprising and
desperate enemies at every point.

When the citizens, at last, looked upon the completed fabric, converted
from the "dream," which they had pronounced it to be, into a terrible
reality; when they saw the shining array of Spanish and Italian legions
marching and counter-marching upon their new road; and trampling, as it
were; the turbulent river beneath their feet; when they witnessed the
solemn military spectacle with which the Governor-General celebrated his
success, amid peals of cannon and shouts of triumph from his army, they
bitterly bewailed their own folly. Yet even then they could hardly
believe that the work had been accomplished by human agency, but they
loudly protested that invisible demons had been summoned to plan and
perfect this fatal and preter-human work. They were wrong. There had been
but one demon--one clear, lofty intelligence, inspiring a steady and
untiring hand. The demon was the intellect of Alexander Farnese; but it
had been assisted in its labour by the hundred devils of envy,
covetousness, jealousy, selfishness, distrust, and discord, that had
housed, not, in his camp, but in the ranks of those who were contending
for their hearths and altars.

And thus had the Prince arrived at success in spite of every obstacle. He
took a just pride in the achievement, yet he knew by how many dangers he
was still surrounded, and he felt hurt at his sovereign's neglect. "The
enterprise at Antwerp," he wrote to Philip on the day the bridge was
completed, "is so great and heroic that to celebrate it would require me
to speak more at large than I like, to do, for fear of being tedious to
your Majesty. What I will say,