ionalist" writer who goes to
meeting on Sunday to hear verses from Dryden. This does not diminish his
claim for a fair reading of the "intimate correspondence," which he
considers Mr. Motley has not duly taken into account, and of the other
letters to be found printed in his somewhat disjointed and fragmentary
volume.

This "intimate correspondence" shows Maurice the Stadholder indifferent
and lax in internal administration and as being constantly advised and
urged by his relative Count William of Nassau. This need of constant
urging extends to religious as well as other matters, and is inconsistent
with M. Groen van Prinsterer's assertion that the question was for
Maurice above all religious, and for Barneveld above all political.
Whether its negative evidence can be considered as neutralizing that
which is adduced by Mr. Motley to show the Stadholder's hatred of the
Advocate may be left to the reader who has just risen from the account of
the mock trial and the swift execution of the great and venerable
statesman. The formal entry on the record upon the day of his "judicial
murder" is singularly solemn and impressive:--

"Monday, 13th May, 1619. To-day was executed with the sword here in
the Hague, on a scaffold thereto erected in the Binnenhof before the
steps of the great hall, Mr. John of Barneveld, in his life Knight,
Lord of Berkel, Rodenrys, etc., Advocate of Holland and West
Friesland, for reasons expressed in the sentence and otherwise, with
confiscation of his property, after he had served the state thirty-
three years two months and five days, since 8th March, 1586; a man
of great activity, business, memory, and wisdom,--yea, extraordinary
in every respect. He that stands let him see that he does not
fall."

Maurice gave an account of the execution of Barneveld to Count William
Lewis on the same day in a note "painfully brief and dry."

Most authors write their own biography consciously or unconsciously. We
have seen Mr. Motley portraying much of himself, his course of life and
his future, as he would have had it, in his first story. In this, his
last work, it is impossible not to read much of his own external and
internal personal history told under other names and with different
accessories. The parallelism often accidentally or intentionally passes
into divergence. He would not have had it too close if he could, but
there are various passages in which it is plain enough t