was, neither wise in council nor capable in the field.  He was intolerably arrogant, passionate, and revengeful.  He hated easily, and he hated for life.  It was soon obvious that no cordiality of feeling or of action could exist between him and the plain, stubborn Hollanders.  He had the fatal characteristic of loving only the persons who flattered him.  With much perception of character, sense of humour, and appreciation of intellect, he recognized the power of the leading men in the nation, and sought to gain them.  So long as he hoped success, he was loud in their praises.  They were all wise, substantial, well-languaged, big fellows, such as were not to be found in England or anywhere else.  When they refused to be made his tools, they became tinkers, boors, devils, and atheists.  He covered them with curses and devoted them to the gibbet.  He began by warmly commending Buys and Barneveld, Hohenlo and Maurice, and endowing them with every virtue.  Before he left the country he had accused them of every crime, and would cheerfully, if he could, have taken the life of every one of them.  And it was quite the same with nearly every Englishman who served with or under him.  Wilkes and Buckhurst, however much the objects of his previous esteem; so soon as they ventured to censure or even to criticise his proceedings, were at once devoted to perdition.  Yet, after minute examination of the record, public and private, neither Wilkes nor Buckhurst can be found guilty of treachery or animosity towards him, but are proved to have been governed, in all their conduct, by a strong sense of duty to their sovereign, the Netherlands, and Leicester himself.

To Sir John Norris, it must be allowed, that he was never fickle, for he had always entertained for that distinguished general an honest, unswerving, and infinite hatred, which was not susceptible of increase or diminution by any act or word.  Pelham, too, whose days were numbered, and who was dying bankrupt and broken-hearted, at the close of the, Earl’s administration, had always been regarded by him with tenderness and affection.  But Pelham had never thwarted him, had exposed his life for him, and was always proud of being his faithful, unquestioning, humble adherent.  With perhaps this single exception, Leicester found himself at the end of his second term in the Provinces, without a single friend and with few respectable partisans.  Subordinate mischievous intriguers like Deventer, Junius, and Otheman, were his chief advisers and the instruments of his schemes.

With such qualifications it was hardly possible—­even if the current of affairs had been flowing smoothly—­that he should prove a successful governor of the new republic.  But when the numerous errors and adventitious circumstances are considered—­for some of which he was responsible, while of others he was the victim—­it must be esteemed fortunate that no great catastrophe occurred.  His immoderate elevation; his sudden