in the town and the neighbourhood for the English Lords and gentlemen and the German Counts and Barons whom curiosity or official duty had brought to the place of meeting.  The grave capital of the most thrifty and industrious of nations was as gay as Venice in the Carnival.  The walks cut among those noble limes and elms in which the villa of the Princes of Orange is embosomed were gay with the plumes, the stars, the flowing wigs, the embroidered coats and the gold hilted swords of gallants from London, Berlin and Vienna.  With the nobles were mingled sharpers not less gorgeously attired than they.  At night the hazard tables were thronged; and the theatre was filled to the roof.  Princely banquets followed one another in rapid succession.  The meats were served in gold; and, according to that old Teutonic fashion with which Shakspeare had made his countrymen familiar, as often as any of the great princes proposed a health, the kettle drums and trumpets sounded.  Some English lords, particularly Devonshire, gave entertainments which vied with those of Sovereigns.  It was remarked that the German potentates, though generally disposed to be litigious and punctilious about etiquette, associated, on this occasion, in an unceremonious manner, and seemed to have forgotten their passion for genealogical and heraldic controversy.  The taste for wine, which was then characteristic of their nation, they had not forgotten.  At the table of the Elector of Brandenburg much mirth was caused by the gravity of the statesmen of Holland, who, sober themselves, confuted out of Grotius and Puffendorf the nonsense stuttered by the tipsy nobles of the Empire.  One of those nobles swallowed so many bumpers that he tumbled into the turf fire, and was not pulled out till his fine velvet suit had been burned.5

In the midst of all this revelry, business was not neglected.  A formal meeting of the Congress was held at which William presided.  In a short and dignified speech, which was speedily circulated throughout Europe, he set forth the necessity of firm union and strenuous exertion.  The profound respect with which he was heard by that splendid assembly caused bitter mortification to his enemies both in England and in France.  The German potentates were bitterly reviled for yielding precedence to an upstart.  Indeed the most illustrious among them paid to him such marks of deference as they would scarcely have deigned to pay to the Imperial Majesty, mingled with the crowd in his antechamber, and at his table behaved as respectfully as any English lord in waiting.  In one caricature the allied princes were represented as muzzled bears, some with crowns, some with caps of state.  William had them all in a chain, and was teaching them to dance.  In another caricature, he appeared taking his ease in an arm chair, with his feet on a cushion, and his hat on his head, while the Electors of Brandenburg and Bavaria, uncovered, occupied small stools on the right and left; the crowd of Landgraves and Sovereign dukes stood at humble distance; and Gastanaga, the unworthy successor of Alva, awaited the orders of the heretic tyrant on bended knee.6