fit to be the Tancred and the Pizarro of this bicolored expedition as the
Duke of Alva, the man who had been devoted from his earliest childhood,
and from his father's grave, to hostility against unbelievers, and who
had prophesied that treasure would flow in a stream, a yard deep, from
the Netherlands as soon as the heretics began to meet with their deserts.
An army of chosen troops was forthwith collected, by taking the four
legions, or terzios, of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Lombardy, and
filling their places in Italy by fresh levies. About ten thousand picked
and veteran soldiers were thus obtained, of which the Duke of Alva was
appointed general-in-chief.

Ferdinando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, was now in his sixtieth
year. He was the most successful and experienced general of Spain, or
of Europe. No man had studied more deeply, or practised more constantly,
the military science. In the most important of all arts at that epoch he
was the most consummate artist. In the only honorable profession of the
age, he was the most thorough and the most pedantic professor. Since the
days of Demetrius Poliorcetes, no man had besieged so many cities. Since
the days of Fabius Cunctator; no general had avoided so many battles, and
no soldier, courageous as he was, ever attained to a more sublime
indifference to calumny or depreciation. Having proved in his boyhood,
at Fontarabia, and in his maturity: at Muhlberg, that he could exhibit
heroism and headlong courage; when necessary, he could afford to look
with contempt upon the witless gibes which his enemies had occasionally
perpetrated at his expense. Conscious of holding his armies in his hand,
by the power of an unrivalled discipline, and the magic of a name
illustrated by a hundred triumphs, he, could bear with patience and
benevolence the murmurs of his soldiers when their battles were denied
them.