was a child at his widowed mother’s knee.  He was at the altar with Diary’s hand in his.  He was landing at Torbay.  He was swimming through the Boyne.  There, too, was a boat amidst the ice and the breakers; and above it was most appropriately inscribed, in the majestic language of Rome, the saying of the great Roman, “What dost thou fear?  Thou hast Caesar on board.”  The task of furnishing the Latin mottoes had been intrusted to two men, who, till Bentley appeared, held the highest place among the classical scholars of that age.  Spanheim, whose knowledge of the Roman medals was unrivalled, imitated, not unsuccessfully, the noble conciseness of those ancient legends which he had assiduously studied; and he was assisted by Graevius, who then filled a chair at Utrecht, and whose just reputation had drawn to that University multitudes of students from every part of Protestant Europe.2 When the night came, fireworks were exhibited on the great tank which washes the walls of the Palace of the Federation.  That tank was now as hard as marble; and the Dutch boasted that nothing had ever been seen, even on the terrace of Versailles, more brilliant than the effect produced by the innumerable cascades of flame which were reflected in the smooth mirror of ice.3 The English Lords congratulated their master on his immense popularity.  “Yes,” said he; “but I am not the favourite.  The shouting was nothing to what it would have been if Mary had been with me.”

A few hours after the triumphal entry, the King attended a sitting of the States General.  His last appearance among them had been on the day on which he embarked for England.  He had then, amidst the broken words and loud weeping of those grave Senators, thanked them for the kindness with which they had watched over his childhood, trained his young mind, and supported his authority in his riper years; and he had solemnly commended his beloved wife to their care.  He now came back among them the King of three kingdoms, the head of the greatest coalition that Europe had seen during a hundred and eighty years; and nothing was heard in the hall but applause and congratulations.4

But this time the streets of the Hague were overflowing with the equipages and retinues of princes and ambassadors who came flocking to the great Congress.  First appeared the ambitious and ostentatious Frederic, Elector of Brandenburg, who, a few years later, took the title of King of Prussia.  Then arrived the young Elector of Bavaria, the Regent of Wirtemberg, the Landgraves of Hesse Cassel and Hesse Darmstadt, and a long train of sovereign princes, sprung from the illustrious houses of Brunswick, of Saxony, of Holstein, and of Nassau.  The Marquess of Gastanaga, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, repaired to the assembly from the viceregal Court of Brussels.  Extraordinary ministers had been sent by the Emperor, by the Kings of Spain, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden, and by the Duke of Savoy.  There was scarcely room