to the dispatch from Flanders giving information of the outburst of iconoclasm and rebellion, or a subtly-conceived plan for the secret execution of Montigny or the assassination of Escovedo, or an order for the imprisonment—­or the death—­of the heir-apparent to the throne, you shall perceive nothing in that face, unruffled as a mask, by which to conjecture the sentiment or purpose of the mind.  As little will he in the presence of others exhibit any signs of agitation on the reception of extraordinary news, or the occurrence of some great event.  The fleet which he sent out under his brother, John of Austria, in conjunction with the Papal and Venetian armaments, to decide by a single blow the long struggle with the Infidel,—­all Europe awaiting the issue with trembling anxiety and suspense,—­has won a memorable and unexpected victory, and destroyed forever the prestige of the Moslem power.  An official, bursting with the intelligence, carries it to the king, who is hearing a service in his private chapel.  Without the slightest change of countenance, Philip desires the priest, whose ear the thrilling whisper has reached, and who stands open-mouthed, prepared to burst forth at once into the Te Deum, to proceed with the service; that ended, he orders appropriate thanks to be offered up.

As in triumph, so in disaster.  The armada, which had been baptized “Invincible,” is destroyed.  The great navy collected from many states, equipped at the cost of an enormous treasure, manned with the choicest troops of Spain and her subject dominions, lies scattered and wrecked along the English shores, which it was sent forth to conquer.  Again the sympathies of Europe are excited to the highest pitch.  Protestantism triumphs; Catholicism despairs.  He who had most at stake alone preserves his calmness, on hearing that all is lost.  He neither frowns upon his unfortunate generals nor murmurs against Providence.  Again he orders thanks to be offered up, for those who have been rescued from the general ruin,—­for those, also, who in this holy enterprise have lost their lives and joined eternal glory.

Neither does any private grief—­the death of children, of a parent, or of a wife—­move him either to real or simulated agitation.[1] Nor will intense physical suffering overpower this habitual stoicism.  He has seen unmoved the agony of many victims.  He will himself endure the like without any outward manifestation of pain.  In yonder bed he will one day suffer tortures surpassing those to which he has so often consigned the heretic and the apostate Morisco; there he will expire amid horrors that scarce ever before encompassed a death-bed;—­but no groan will reveal the weakness of the flesh; the soul, triumphant over nature, will bear aloft her colors to the last, and plant them on the breach through which she passes into the unknown eternity.