their pursuits, phlegmatic by temperament, the Netherlands were yet the
most belligerent and excitable population of Europe. Two centuries of
civil war had but thinned the ranks of each generation without quenching
the hot spirit of the nation.

The women were distinguished by beauty of form and vigor of constitution.
Accustomed from childhood to converse freely with all classes and sexes
in the daily walks of life, and to travel on foot or horseback from one
town to another, without escort and without fear, they had acquired
manners more frank and independent than those of women in other lands,
while their morals were pure and their decorum undoubted. The prominent
part to be sustained by the women of Holland in many dramas of the
revolution would thus fitly devolve upon a class, enabled by nature and
education to conduct themselves with courage.

Within the little circle which encloses the seventeen provinces are 208
walled cities, many of them among the most stately in Christendom, 150
chartered towns, 6,300 villages, with their watch-towers and steeples,
besides numerous other more insignificant hamlets; the whole guarded by a
belt of sixty fortresses of surpassing strength.



XIV.

Thus in this rapid sketch of the course and development of the Netherland
nation during sixteen centuries, we have seen it ever marked by one
prevailing characteristic, one master passion--the love of liberty, the
instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest Teutonic
elements, Batavian and Frisian, the race ever battles to the death with