and Hispanicisms, picked up in travel or in negotiation, but at the bottom pure English, which generally flowed along with careless simplicity, but occasionally rose even into Ciceronian magnificence.  The length of his sentences has often been remarked.  But in truth this length is only apparent.  A critic who considers as one sentence everything that lies between two full stops will undoubtedly call Temple’s sentences long.  But a critic who examines them carefully will find that they are not swollen by parenthetical matter, that their structure is scarcely ever intricate, that they are formed merely by accumulation, and that, by the simple process of now and then leaving out a conjunction, and now and then substituting a full stop for a semicolon, they might, without any alteration in the order of the words, be broken up into very short periods with no sacrifice except that of euphony.  The long sentences of Hooker and Clarendon, on the contrary, are really long sentences, and cannot be turned into short ones, without being entirely taken to pieces.

The best known of the works which Temple composed during his first retreat from official business are an Essay on Government, which seems to us exceedingly childish, and an Account of the United Provinces, which we value as a masterpiece in its kind.  Whoever compares these two treatises will probably agree with us in thinking that Temple was not a very deep or accurate reasoner, but was an excellent observer, that he had no call to philosophical speculation, but that he was qualified to excel as a writer of Memoirs and Travels.

While Temple was engaged in these pursuits, the great storm which had long been brooding over Europe burst with such fury as for a moment seemed to threaten ruin to all free governments and all Protestant churches.  France and England, without seeking for any decent pretext, declared war against Holland.  The immense armies of Lewis poured across the Rhine, and invaded the territory of the United Provinces.  The Dutch seemed to be paralysed by terror.  Great towns opened their gates to straggling parties.  Regiments flung down their arms without seeing an enemy.  Guelderland, Overyssel, Utrecht were overrun by the conquerors.  The fires of the French camp were seen from the walls of Amsterdam.  In the first madness of despair the devoted people turned their rage against the most illustrious of their fellow-citizens.  De Ruyter was saved with difficulty from assassins.  De Witt was torn to pieces by an infuriated rabble.  No hope was left to the Commonwealth, save in the dauntless, the ardent, the indefatigable, the unconquerable spirit which glowed under the frigid demeanour of the young Prince of Orange.