spring it began to roll slowly backward.  The great princes of the Continent became alarmed at this new prospect of French ambition.  The sluggish Emperor began to bestir himself.  Spain, fast dwindling to the shadow of that mighty figure which had once bestrode two worlds, sent some troops to aid a cause which was, indeed, half her own.  By sea the Dutch could do no more than keep their flag flying, but it says much for their sailors that they could do that against a foe their equal in skill and courage, and almost always their superior in numbers.  On land they were more successful.  The Bishop of Munster was driven back from the walls of Groningen:  Naerden and Bonne were retaken:  before the summer was over the whole electorate of Cologne was in the hands of William and his allies.  The campaign of 1674 was less fortunate to the young general.  Charles had, it is true, been compelled by his Parliament to make a peace more favourable than the Dutch could have hoped for; but in almost every direction Lewis made good again the ground he had lost in the previous year.  William, indeed, took Grave, but he was compelled to raise the siege of Oudenarde.  A large force of Germans under the Elector of Brandenburg was driven out of Alsace across the Rhine by Turenne, who had a short while before completely routed the Imperial troops under the Duke of Lorraine at Sintzheim.  Franche Comte was reconquered in a few weeks.  But the most notable action of the year was the battle of Seneff, fought near Mons on August 11th between William and Conde.  It was long, bloody, and indecisive; but it raised William’s reputation for courage and ability to the highest pitch, and drew from his veteran opponent one of those compliments a brave soldier is always glad to pay a foeman worthy of his steel.  “The Prince of Orange,” said Conde, “has acted in everything like an old captain, except in venturing his life too like a young soldier.”

The battle of Seneff has for us, too, a particular importance.  It gives us, according to some of his biographers, the first glimpse of Claverhouse as a soldier.  The story goes that, at an early period of the fight, William with a handful of his men was closely beset by a large body of French troops.  In making his way back to his own lines the Prince’s horse foundered in some marshy ground, and he would inevitably have been either killed or made prisoner had not Claverhouse, who was of the party, mounted him on his own charger and brought him safe out of the press.  For this service William gave the young soldier (who was, however, the Prince’s senior by seven years) a captain’s commission in his own regiment of Horse Guards, commanded by the Count de Solmes who led the English van on the day of the Boyne.  This story has been contemptuously rejected by Macaulay as a Jacobite fable composed many years after both actors in the scene were dead.  The story may not be true, but Macaulay’s reasons for rejecting it are not quite exact.  Reports