had decided nothing, and the crescent still shone over the fortified and
most important Hungarian stronghold of Raab, within arm's length of
Vienna. How rapidly might that fatal and menacing emblem fill its horns,
should it once be planted on the walls of the Imperial capital! It was
not wonderful that a sincere impatience should be felt by all the
frontier States for the termination of the insurrection of the
Netherlands. Would that rebellious and heretical republic only consent
to go out of existence, again bow its stubborn knee to Philip and the
Pope, what a magnificent campaign might be made against Mahomet! The
King of Spain was the only potentate at all comparable in power to the
grand Turk. The King of France, most warlike of men, desired nothing
better, as he avowed, than to lead his brave nobles into Hungary to smite
the unbelievers. Even Prince Maurice, it was fondly hoped, might be
induced to accept a high command in the united armies of Christendom,
and seek for glory by campaigning, in alliance with Philip; Rudolph, and
Henry, against the Ottoman, rather than against his natural sovereign.
Such were the sagacity, the insight, the power of forecasting the future
possessed in those days by monarchs, statesmen, and diplomatists who were
imagining that they held the world's destiny in their hands.

There was this summer a solemn embassy from the emperor to the States-
General proposing mediation referring in the usual conventional
phraseology to the right of kings to command, and to the duty of the
people to submit, and urging the gentle-mindedness and readiness to
forgive which characterised the sovereign of the Netherlands and of
Spain.

And the statesmen of the republic had answered as they always did,
showing with courteous language, irresistible logic, and at, unmerciful
length, that there never had been kings in the Netherlands at all, and