uences from all those
picturesque balconies and decorated windows. Martyrs to religious and to
political liberty had upon the same spot endured agonies which might
have roused every stone of its pavement to mutiny or softened them to
pity. Here Egmont himself, in happier days, had often borne away the
prize of skill or of valor, the cynosure of every eye; and hence, almost
in the noon of a life illustrated by many brilliant actions, he was to
be sent, by the hand of tyranny, to his great account.'

There are, too, dashes of a healthy sarcasm among these records, not,
however, of such frequent occurrence as to darken the flow of the
narrative, but sufficiently indicative of the strength and energy of the
writer. Never attacking the honest faith of any man, his satires are
levelled at hypocrisy, never error, as when he says of the venerable
tyrant, the master of the Invincible Armada, when he had received from
the trembling secretary the assurance of the failure of the hope of
Spain: 'So the king, as fortune flew away from him, wrapped himself in
his virtue, and his counsellors, imitating their sovereign, arrayed
themselves in the same garment;' a scanty mantle, in truth, but, no
doubt, amply sufficient for the denizens of that torrid atmosphere of
bigotry in which Spain has lived for centuries.

Of what earnest stuff Motley's dreams of religious freedom are made, we
read in his terse comments upon the declaration of the principles of
liberty of conscience by the States General. 'Such words shine through
the prevailing darkness of the religious atmosphere at that epoch like
characters of light. They are beacons in the upward path of mankind.
Never before had so bold and wise a tribute to the genius of the
Reformation been paid by an organized community. Individuals walking in
advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had
seemed to die away, but at last, a little, struggling, half-developed
commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind.'

Thus we have no longer a wearisome compilation of events strung upon the
thread of chronology, but a practical history of the most momentous
epoch of modern times. No hand has before pointed out so faithfully its
great motive power or adjusted so nicely its apparent contradictions.
The structure is grand; it is the expression of a glorious faith. In the
accomplishment of so vast a design, Motley has won our warmest
gratitude, while he has a