than his into glory, never dignified his seclusion. He had elegant
tastes, he built fine palaces, he collected paintings, and he discoursed
of the fine arts with the skill and eloquence of a practised connoisseur;
but the nectared fruits of divine philosophy were but harsh and crabbed
to him.

His moral characteristics are even more difficult to seize than his
intellectual traits. It is a perplexing task to arrive at the intimate
interior structure of a nature which hardly had an interior. He did not
change, but he presented himself daily in different aspects. Certain
peculiarities he possessed, however, which were unquestionable. He was
always courageous, generally calm. Placed in the midst of a nation which
hated him, exposed to the furious opposition of the most powerful
adversaries, having hardly a friend, except the cowardly Viglius and
the pluralist Morillon, secretly betrayed by Margaret of Parma, insulted
by rude grandees, and threatened by midnight assassins, he never lost
his self-possession, his smooth arrogance, his fortitude. He was
constitutionally brave. He was not passionate in his resentments.
To say that he was forgiving by nature would be an immense error;
but that he could put aside vengeance at the dictate of policy is very
certain. He could temporize, even after the reception of what he
esteemed grave injuries, if the offenders were powerful. He never
manifested rancor against the Duchess. Even after his fall from power in
the Netherlands, he interceded with the Pope in favor of the principality
of Orange, which the pontiff was disposed to confiscate. The Prince was
at that time as good a Catholic as the Cardinal. He was apparently on
good terms with his sovereign, and seemed to have a prosperous career
before him. He was not a personage to be quarrelled with. At a later
day, when the position of that great man was most clearly defined to the
world, the Cardinal's ancient affection for his former friend and pupil