the _Mayflower_ with her company fared forth on their adventurous
voyage. The foolish James was yet on the English throne, glorying that
he had "peppered the Puritans." The morose Louis XIII, through whom
Richelieu ruled, was King of France. The imbecile Philip III swayed
Spain and the Indies. The persecuting Ferdinand the Second, tormentor of
Protestants, was Emperor of Germany. Paul V, of the House of Borghese,
was Pope of Rome. In the same princely company and all contemporaries
were Christian IV, King of Denmark, and his son Christian, Prince of
Norway; Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden; Sigmund the Third, King of
Poland; Frederick, King of Bohemia, with his wife, the unhappy Elizabeth
of England, progenitor of the House of Hanover; George William, Margrave
of Brandenburg, and ancestor of the Prussian house that has given an
emperor to Germany; Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria; Maurice, landgrave of
Hesse; Christian, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg; John Frederick, Duke
of Würtemberg and Teck; John, Count of Nassau; Henry, Duke of Lorraine;
Isabella, Infanta of Spain and ruler of the Low Countries; Maurice,
fourth Prince of Orange; Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy and ancestor of
the King of United Italy; Cosmo dé Medici, third Grand Duke of Florence;
Antonio Priuli, ninety-third Doge of Venice, just after the terrible
tragedy commemorated on the English stage as "Venice Preserved";
Bethlehem Gabor, Prince of Unitarian Transylvania, and elected King of
Hungary, with the countenance of an African; and the Sultan Mustapha, of
Constantinople, twentieth ruler of the Turks.

Such at that time were the crowned sovereigns of Europe, whose names
were mentioned always with awe, and whose countenances are handed down
by art, so that at this day they are visible to the curious as if they
walked these streets. Mark now the contrast. There was no artist for
our forefathers, nor are their countenances now known to men; but more
than any powerful contemporaries at whose tread the earth trembled is