seventeenth century have been vastly improved, both in theory and
practice, by the United States of the nineteenth, no American is likely
to gainsay. That the elder Republic showed us also what to avoid, and
was a living example of the perils besetting a Confederacy which dared
not become a Union, is a lesson which we might take closely to heart.

But the year 1609 was not only memorable as marking an epoch in Dutch
history. It was the beginning of a great and universal pause. The world
had need of rest. Disintegration had been going on too rapidly, and it
was absolutely necessary that there should be a new birth, if
civilization were not to vanish.

A twenty years' truce between the Turkish and Holy Roman empires was
nearly simultaneous with the twelve years' truce between Spain and the
United Provinces. The Emperor Rudolph having refused to ratify the
treaty which his brother Matthias had made, was in consequence partially
discrowned. The same archduke who, thirty years before, had slipped away
from Vienna in his nightgown; with his face blackened, to outwit and
outgeneral William the Silent at Brussels, was now--more successful in
his manoeuvres against his imperial brother. Standing at the head of his
army in battle array, in the open fields before the walls of Prague, he
received--from the unfortunate Rudolph the crown and regalia of Hungary,
and was by solemn treaty declared sovereign of that ancient and
chivalrous kingdom.

His triumphal entrance into Vienna succeeded, where, surrounded by great
nobles and burghers, with his brother Maximilian at his side, with
immense pomp and with flowers strewn before his feet, he ratified that
truce with Ahmed which Rudolph had rejected. Three months later he was
crowned at Pressburg, having first accepted the conditions proposed by