provinces more timidly crouching, than ever.  The friends on whom William of Orange relied in Germany, never enthusiastic in his cause, although many of them true-hearted and liberal, now grew cold and anxious.  For months long, his most faithful and affectionate allies, such men as the Elector of Hesse and the Duke of Wirtemberg, as well as the less trustworthy Augustus of Saxony, had earnestly expressed their opinion that, under the circumstances, his best course was to sit still and watch the course of events.

It was known that the Emperor had written an urgent letter to Philip on the subject of his policy in the Netherlands in general, and concerning the position of Orange in particular.  All persons, from the Emperor down to the pettiest potentate, seemed now of opinion that the Prince had better pause; that he was, indeed, bound to wait the issue of that remonstrance.  “Your highness must sit still,” said Landgrave William.  “Your highness must sit still,” said Augustus of Saxony.  “You must move neither hand nor foot in the cause of the perishing provinces,” said the Emperor.  “Not a soldier-horse, foot, or dragoon-shall be levied within the Empire.  If you violate the peace of the realm, and embroil us with our excellent brother and cousin Philip, it is at your own peril.  You have nothing to do but to keep quiet and await his answer to our letter.”  But the Prince knew how much effect his sitting still would produce upon the cause of liberty and religion.  He knew how much effect the Emperor’s letter was like to have upon the heart of Philip.  He knew that the more impenetrable the darkness now gathering over that land of doom which he had devoted his life to defend, the more urgently was he forbidden to turn his face away from it in its affliction.  He knew that thousands of human souls, nigh to perishing, were daily turning towards him as their only hope on earth, and he was resolved, so long as he could dispense a single ray of light, that his countenance should never be averted.  It is difficult to contemplate his character, at this period, without being infected with a perhaps dangerous enthusiasm.  It is not an easy task coldly to analyse a nature which contained so much of the self-sacrificing and the heroic, as well as of the adroit and the subtle; and it is almost impossible to give utterance to the emotions which naturally swell the heart at the contemplation of so much active virtue, without rendering oneself liable to the charge of excessive admiration.  Through the mists of adversity, a human form may dilate into proportions which are colossal and deceptive.  Our judgment may thus, perhaps, be led captive, but at any rate the sentiment excited is more healthful than that inspired by the mere shedder of blood, by the merely selfish conqueror.  When the cause of the champion is that of human right against tyranny, of political ind religious freedom against an all-engrossing and absolute bigotry, it is still more difficult to restrain