of Lord Leicester, had mainly guided the destinies of Holland. Certainly
no soldier nor statesman who ever measured intellects with that potent
personage was apt to treat his genius otherwise than with profound
respect.

But it is difficult to form a logical theory of government except on the
fiction of divine right as a basis, unless the fact of popular
sovereignty, as expressed by a majority, be frankly accepted in spite of
philosophical objections.

In the Netherlands there was no king, and strictly speaking no people.
But this latter and fatal defect was not visible in the period of danger
and of contest. The native magistrates of that age were singularly pure,
upright, and patriotic. Of this there is no question whatever. And the
people acquiesced cheerfully in their authority, not claiming a larger
representation than such as they virtually possessed in the multiple
power exercised over them, by men moving daily among them, often of
modest fortunes and of simple lives. Two generations later, and in the
wilderness of Massachusetts, the early American colonists voluntarily
placed in the hands of their magistrates, few in number, unlimited
control of all the functions of government, and there was hardly an
instance known of an impure exercise of authority. Yet out of that
simple kernel grew the least limited and most powerful democracy ever
known.

In the later days of Netherland history a different result became
visible, and with it came the ruin of the State. The governing class, of
burgher origin, gradually separated itself from the rest of the citizens,
withdrew from commercial pursuits, lived on hereditary fortunes in the
exercise of functions which were likewise virtually hereditary, and so