but they could do no more; and they wasted not a little treasure and strength in preserving what they had gained, or a part of it, from the grasp of others.  But this was the sum of their possibility; they could not presume to dictate terms to the world; and the consequence was that they gradually ceased to be a considered factor in the European problem.  In some respects, their territorial insignificance, while it prevented them from aggressive action, preserved them from aggression; their domain was not worth conquering, and again its conquest could not be accomplished by any nation without making others uneasy and jealous.  They became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let alone.  None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand, they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct to-day as ever it had been.  Their language, their literature, their art, and their personal traits, are unimpaired.  They are, in their own degree, remarkably prosperous and comfortable; and they have the good sense to be content with their condition.  They are liberal and progressive, and yet conservative; they are even with modern ideas as regards education and civilization, and yet the tourist within their boundaries continually finds himself reminded of their past.  The costumes and the customs of the mass of the people have undergone singularly little change; they mind their own affairs, and are wisely indifferent to the affairs of others.  Both as importers and as exporters they are useful to the world, and if the prophecies of those who foretell a general clash of the European powers should be fulfilled, it is likely that the Dutch will be onlookers merely, or perhaps profit by the misfortunes of their neighbors to increase their own well-being.

As we have seen in the foregoing pages, Belgium did not unite with the Hollanders in their revolt of the sixteenth century; but appertained to Burgundy, and was afterward made a domain of France.  But after Napoleon had been overthrown at Waterloo, the nations who had been so long harried and terrorized by him were not satisfied with banishing the ex-conqueror to his island exile, but wished to present any possibility of another Napoleon arising to renew the wars which had devastated and impoverished them.  Consequently they agreed to make a kingdom which might act as a buffer between France and the rest of Europe; and to this end they decreed that Belgium and Holland should be one.  But in doing this, the statesmen or politicians concerned failed to take into account certain factors and facts which must inevitably, in the course of time, undermine their arrangements.  Nations cannot be arbitrarily manufactured to suit the convenience of others.  There is a chemistry in nationalities which has laws of its own, and will not be ignored.  Between the Hollanders and the Belgians there existed