was an entangled mass of trees, weeds, and grass. The prices of
the necessaries of life were so high that people of rank, after
selling everything to buy bread, were obliged to have recourse
to open beggary in the streets of the great towns.

From this frightful picture, and the numerous details which
imagination may readily supply, we gladly turn to the contrast
afforded by the northern states. Those we have just described
have a feeble hold upon our sympathies; we cannot pronounce their
sufferings to be unmerited. The want of firmness or enlightenment,
which preferred such an existence to the risk of entire destruction,
only heightens the glory of the people whose unyielding energy
and courage gained them so proud a place among the independent
nations of Europe.

The murder of William seemed to carry to the United Provinces
conviction of the weakness as well as the atrocity of Spain;
and the indecent joy excited among the royalists added to their
courage. An immediate council was created, composed of eighteen
members, at the head of which was unanimously placed Prince Maurice
of Nassau (who even then gave striking indications of talent and
prudence); his elder brother, the count of Beuren, now Prince
of Orange, being still kept captive in Spain. Count Hohenloe
was appointed lieutenant-general; and several other measures
were promptly adopted to consolidate the power of the infant
republic. The whole of its forces amounted but to five thousand
five hundred men. The prince of Parma had eighty thousand at
his command. With such means of carrying on his conquests, he
sat down regularly before Antwerp, and commenced the operations
of one of the most celebrated among the many memorable sieges of
those times. He completely surrounded the city with troops; placing
a large portion of his army on the left bank of the Scheldt, the
other on the right; and causing to be attacked at the same time
the two strong forts of Liefkinshoek and Lillo. Repulsed on the
latter important point, his only hope of gaining the command of
the navigation of the river, on which the success of the siege
depended, was by throwing a bridge across the stream. Neither
its great rapidity, nor its immense width, nor the want of wood
and workmen, could deter him from this vast undertaking. He was
assisted, if not guided, in all his projects on the occasion, by
Barroccio, a celebrated Italian engineer sent to him by Philip;
and the merit of all that was d