present as having been several years before a student at Leyden under a
different name, and with far less gorgeous surroundings. He took up his
position in the council-chamber, in the presence of the stadholder and
the leading members of the States-General, and pronounced a long Latin
oration, in the manner, as it was said, of a monk delivering a sermon
from the pulpit. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the ceiling, never
once looking at the men whom he was addressing, and speaking in a loud,
nasal, dictatorial tone, not at all agreeable to the audience. He dwelt
in terms of extravagant eulogy on the benignity and gentleness of the
King of Spain--qualities in which he asserted that no prince on earth
could be compared to him--and he said this to the very face of Maurice of
Nassau. That the benignant and gentle king had caused the stadholder's
father to be assassinated, and that he had rewarded the murderer's family
with a patent of nobility, and with an ample revenue taken from the
murdered man's property, appeared of no account to the envoy in the full
sweep of his rhetoric. Yet the reminiscence caused a shudder of disgust
in all who heard him.

He then stated the wish of his master the Polish king to be that, in
regard to the Turk, the provinces might reconcile themselves to their
natural master, who was the most powerful monarch in Christendom, and the
only one able to make head against the common foe. They were solemnly
warned of the enormous power and resources of the great king, with whom
it was hopeless for them to protract a struggle sure to end at last in
their uttermost destruction. It was for kings to issue commands; he
said, and for the people to obey; but Philip was full of sweetness, and
would accord them full forgiveness for their manifold sins against him.
The wish to come to the rescue of Christendom, in this extreme peril from
the Turk, was with him paramount to all other considerations.