and to those ablest
of generals in times of civil war it was mainly owing that the siege of
Groningen was protracted longer than under other circumstances would have
been possible.

It is not my purpose to describe in detail the scientific operations
during the sixty-five days between the 20th May and the 24th July. Again
the commander-in-chief enlightened the world by an exhibition of a more
artistic and humane style of warfare than previously to his appearance on
the military stage had been known. But the daily phenomena of the
Leaguer--although they have been minutely preserved by most competent
eyewitnesses--are hardly entitled to a place except in special military
histories where, however, they should claim the foremost rank.

The fortifications of the city were of the most splendid and substantial
character known to the age. The ditches, the ravelins, the curtains, the
towers were as thoroughly constructed as the defences of any place in
Europe. It was therefore necessary that Maurice and his cousin Lewis
should employ all their learning, all their skill, and their best
artillery to reduce this great capital of the Eastern Netherlands. Again
the scientific coil of approaches wound itself around and around the
doomed stronghold; again were constructed the galleries, the covered
ways, the hidden mines, where soldiers, transformed to gnomes, burrowed
and fought within the bowels of the earth; again that fatal letter Y
advanced slowly under ground, stretching its deadly prongs nearer and
nearer up to the walls; and again the system of defences against a
relieving force was so perfectly established that Verdugo or Mansfield,
with what troops they could muster, seemed as powerless as the pewter
soldiers with which Maurice in his boyhood--not yet so long passed
away--was wont to puzzle over the problems which now practically engaged
his early manhood. Again, too, strangely enough, it is recorded that
Philip Nassau, at almost the same period of the siege as in that of
Gertruydenberg, signalized himself by a deed of drunken and superfluous
daring. This time the dinner party was at the quarters of Count Solms, in
honour of the Prince of Anhalt, where, after potations pottle deep, Count
Philip rushed from the dinner-table to the breach, not yet thoroughly
practicable, of the north ravelin, and, entirely without armour, mounted
pike in hand to the assault, proposing to carry the fort by his own
unaided exertions. Another off