distractions. What you have done we now believe possible to do, only
because we see that it has been done. You have subjugated the Scheldt,
and forced it to bear its bridge, notwithstanding the strength of its
current, the fury of the ocean-tides, the tremendous power of the
icebergs, the perpetual conflicts with our fleets. We destroyed your
bridge, with great slaughter of your troops. Rendered more courageous
by that slaughter, you restored that mighty work. We assaulted the great
dyke, pierced it through and through, and opened a path for our ships.
You drove us off when victors, repaired the ruined bulwark, and again
closed to us the avenue of relief. What machine was there that we did
not employ? what miracles of fire did we not invent? what fleets and
floating cidadels did we not put in motion? All that genius, audacity,
and art, could teach us we have executed, calling to our assistance
water, earth, heaven, and hell itself. Yet with all these efforts, with
all this enginry, we have not only failed to drive you from our walls,
but we have seen you gaining victories over other cities at the same
time. You have done a thing, O Prince, than which there is nothing
greater either in ancient or modern story. It has often occurred, while
a general was besieging one city that he lost another situate farther
off. But you, while besieging Antwerp, have reduced simultaneously
Dendermonde, Ghent, Nymegen, Brussels, and Mechlin."

All this, and much more, with florid rhetoric, the burgomaster pronounced
in honour of Farnese, and the eulogy was entirely deserved. It was
hardly becoming, however, for such lips, at such a moment, to sound the
praise of him whose victory had just decided the downfall of religious
liberty, and of the national independence of the Netherlands. His
colleagues certainly must have winced, as they listened to commendations
so lavishly bestowed upon the representative of Philip, and it is not
surprising that Sainte Aldegonde's growing unpopularity should, from that