life of the two brothers being a constant obstacle to their
plans, they changed their tactics, and tried to obtain by
calumny what they had not been able to effect by the aid of
the poniard.

How rarely does it happen that, in the right moment, a great
man is found to head the execution of vast and noble
designs; and for that reason, when such a providential
concurrence of circumstances does occur, history is prompt
to record the name of the chosen one, and to hold him up to
the admiration of posterity. But when Satan interposes in
human affairs to cast a shadow upon some happy existence, or
to overthrow a kingdom, it seldom happens that he does not
find at his side some miserable tool, in whose ear he has
but to whisper a word to set him at once about his task.

The wretched tool who was at hand to be the agent of this
dastardly plot was one Tyckelaer whom we have already
mentioned, a surgeon by profession.

He lodged an information against Cornelius de Witt, setting
forth that the warden -- who, as he had shown by the letters
added to his signature, was fuming at the repeal of the
Perpetual Edict -- had, from hatred against William of
Orange, hired an assassin to deliver the new Republic of its
new Stadtholder; and he, Tyckelaer was the person thus
chosen; but that, horrified at the bare idea of the act
which he was asked to perpetrate, he had preferred rather to
reveal the crime than to commit it.