he exhibition most
galling.

But even these demonstrations of hilarity were not sufficient. The
conqueror and tamer of the Netherlands felt that a more personal and
palpable deification was necessary for his pride. When Germanicus had
achieved his last triumph over the ancient freedom of those generous
races whose descendants, but lately in possession of a better organized
liberty, Alva had been sent by the second and the worse Tiberius to
insult and to crush, the valiant but modest Roman erected his trophy upon
the plains of Idistavisus. "The army of Tiberius Caesar having subdued
the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe, dedicate this monument to
Mars, to Jupiter, and to Augustus." So ran the inscription of Germanicus,
without a word of allusion to his own name. The Duke of Alva, on his
return from the battle-fields of Brabant and Friesland, reared a colossal
statue of himself, and upon its pedestal caused these lines to be
engraved: "To Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, Governor of the
Netherlands under Philip the Second, for having extinguished sedition,
chastised rebellion, restored religion, secured justice, established
peace; to the King's most faithful minister this monument is erected."

[Bor, iv. 257, 258. Meteren, 61. De Thou, v. 471-473, who saw it
after it was overthrown, and who was "as much struck by the beauty
of the work as by the insane pride of him who ordered it to be
made."]

So pompous a eulogy, even if truthful and merited, would be sufficiently
inflated upon a tombstone raised to a dead chieftain by his bereaved
admirers. What shall we say of such false and fulsome tribute, not to a
god, not to the memory of departed greatness, but to a living, mortal
man, and offered not by his adorers but by himself? Certainly,
self-worship never went farther than in this remarkable monument, erected
in Alva's honor, by Alva's hands. The statue was colossal, and was placed
in the citadel of Antwerp. Its bronze was furnished by the cannon
captured at Jemmingen. It represented the Duke trampling upon a prostrate
figure with two heads, four arms, and one body. The two heads were
interpreted by some to represent Egmont and Horn, by others, the two
Nassaus, William and Louis. Others saw in them an allegorical presentment
of the nobles and commons of the Netherlands, or perhaps an impersonation
of the Compromise and the Request. Besides the chief inscription on the
pedestal, were sculptured