Rise of the Dutch Republic, the — Volume 15: 1568, part II by John Lothrop Motley
page 53 of 63 (84%)
page 53 of 63 (84%)
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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 various bas-reliefs; and the spectator, whose admiration for the Governor-general was not satiated |
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