counter; for they not only attentively view the road, but tremble and snort at the danger. Having at length prepared for the descent, they place their forefeet in a posture as if they were stopping themselves; they then also put their hinder feet together, but a little forward, as if they were about to lie down. În this attitude, having taken a survey of the road, they slide down with the swiftness of a meteor. In the meantime, all that the rider has to do is to keep himself fast on the saddle, without checking the rein, for the least motion is sufficient to destroy the equilibrium of the ass, in which case both must inevitably perish. But their address in this rapid descent is truly wonderful; for, in their swiftest motion, when they seem to have lost all government of themselves, they follow the different windings of the road with as great exactness as if they had previously determined on the route they were to follow, and taken every precaution for their safety."

The preceding anecdotes-which form but a mere fraction of what might be gleaned-exhibit some of the principal features in the character of the horse, whose natural qualities have been matured and greatly developed by domestication. Man has trained him with care, for the value of his services; we wish we could add, that he uniformly treats him with kindness and consideration. "The reduction of the horse to a domestic state," says Buffon, "is the greatest acquisition from the animal world ever made by the art and industry of man. This noble animal partakes of the fatigues of war, and seems to feel the glory of victory. Equally intrepid as his master, he encounters danger and death with ardour and magnanimity. He delights in the noise and tumult of arms, and annoys the enemy with resolution and alacrity. But it is not in perils and conflicts alone that the horse willingly co-operates with his master; he likewise participates in human pleasures. He exults in the chase and the tournament; his eyes sparkle with emulation in the course. But, though bold and intrepid, he suffers not himself to be carried off by a furious ardour; he represses his movements, and knows how to govern and check the natural vivacity and fire of his temper. He not only yields to the hand, but seems to consult the inclination of the rider. Uniformly obedient to the impressions he receives, he flies or stops, and regulates his motions entirely by the will of his master. He in some measure renounces his very existence to the pleasure of man. He delivers up his whole powers; he reserves nothing; and often dies rather than disobey the mandates of his governor." If such be the principal features in the character of the horse-and they are universally admitted -the feelings of that individual are little to be envied who ever utters a harsh tone, draws a severe lash, or urges beyond his speed or strength an animal so willing and so obedient, and whose powers have been so essential to human progress.

N an easterly direction from England, and separated from it by the German Ocean, lies that part of the continent called by the general name of the Netherlands-a country of comparatively small extent, but exceedingly populous, and possessing a large number of towns and cities. It derives the name of Netherlands from its consisting of a low tract of level ground on the shore of the German Ocean, and, from general appearances, is believed to have been formed of an alluvial deposit from the waters of the Rhine, the Meuse, the Scheldt, and other rivers. In the first stage of its formation, the land was for the greater part a species of swamp, but by dint of great perseverance, it has in the course of ages been drained and embanked, so as to exclude the ocean, and prevent the rivers and canals from overflowing their boundaries.

The industriously-disposed people, a branch of the great German or Teutonic family, who have thus rendered their country habitable and productive, did not get leave to enjoy their conquests in peace. They had from an early period to defend themselves against warlike neighbours, who wished to appropriate their country; and in later times-the sixteenth century-after attaining great opulence by their skill in the arts and the general integrity of their character, they were exposed to a new calamity in the bigotry of their rulers. There now ensued a struggle for civil and religious liberty of great importance and interest; and to an account of its leading particulars we propose to devote the present paper.

Divided into a number of provinces, each governed by its own duke, count, or bishop, a succession of circumstances in the fifteenth century brought the whole of the Netherlands into the possession of the family of Burgundy. But in the year 1477, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, being killed in the battle of Nancy, the Netherlands were inherited by his daughter Mary, who, marrying Maximilian, son of Frederick III., emperor of Austria, died soon after, leaving an infant son, Philip. In 1494 this Philip, known by the name of Philip the Fair, assumed the government of the Netherlands. Shortly afterwards he married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the joint sovereigns of Spain; and in 1506 he died, leaving a young son, Charles. In this manner, handed by family inheritance from one to another, the Netherlands became a possession of the crown of Spain, although hundreds of miles distant from the Spanish territory. Charles, in whom this possession centered, was, on the death of Maximilian in 1519, elected emperor of Germany, and, under the title of Charles V., became one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe. His sway extended over Spain, Germany, Naples, the Netherlands, and several other minor states in Europe, besides all the colonies and conquests of Spain in Asia, Africa, and America. One might expect that the Netherlands, forming as they did but a very insignificant portion of this immense empire, would suffer from being under the same government with so many other states but Charles V. had been born in the Netherlands; he liked its people, and was acquainted with their character; and therefore, while he governed the rest of his dominions with a strict and sometimes a despotic hand, he respected almost lovingly the ancient laws and the strong liberty-feeling of his people of the Netherlands. The only exception of any consequence was his persecution of those who had embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. As emperor of Germany, he had conceived himself bound to adopt vigorous measures to suppress the opinions promulgated by Luther; and when, in spite of his efforts, the heresy spread all round, and infected the Netherlands, he did his best for some time to root it out there also. The number of those who, in the Netherlands, suffered death for their religion during the reign of Charles V., is stated by the old historians at 50,000. Towards the end of his reign, however, he relaxed these severities.

In 1555, Charles V., worn out by the cares of his long reign, resigned his sovereignty, and retired to a monastery. His large empire was now divided into two. His brother Ferdinand was created emperor of Germany; and the rest of his dominions, including Spain and the Netherlands, were inherited by his son, Philip II.

Philip was born at Valladolid, in Spain, in the year 1521. Educated by the ablest ecclesiastics, he manifested from his early years a profound, cautious, dissimulating genius; a cold, proud,

mirthless disposition; and an intense bigotry on religious subjects. At the age of sixteen he married a princess of Portugal, who died soon after, leaving him a son, Don Carlos. In 1548, Charles V., desirous that his son should cultivate the good-will of his future subjects of the Netherlands, called him from Spain to Brussels; but during his residence there, and in other cities of the Netherlands, his conduct was so haughty, austere, and unbending, that the burghers began to dread the time when, instead of their own countryman Charles, they should have this foreigner for their king. In 1554, Philip, pursuing his father's scheme for adding England to the territories of the Spanish crown, went to London and married Mary, queen of England; but after a residence of fourteen months, he returned to the Netherlands, where his father formally resigned the government into his hands.

Philip spent the first five years of his reign in the Netherlands, waiting the issue of a war in which he was engaged with France. During this period his Flemish and Dutch subjects began to have some experience of his government. They observed with alarm that the king hated the country, and distrusted its people. He would speak no other language than Spanish; his counsellors were Spaniards; he kept Spaniards alone about his person; and it was to Spaniards that all vacant posts were assigned. Besides, certain of his measures gave great dissatisfaction. He re-enacted the persecuting edicts against the Protestants, which his father in the end of his reign had suffered to fall into disuse; and the severities which ensued began to drive hundreds of the most useful citizens out of the country, as well as to injure trade, by deterring Protestant merchants from the Dutch and Flemish ports. Dark hints, too, were thrown out that he intended to establish an ecclesiastical court in the Netherlands similar to the Spanish Inquisition, and the spirit of Catholics as well as of Protestants revolted from the thought that this chamber of horrors should ever become one of the institutions of their free land. He had also increased the number of the bishops in the Netherlands from five to seventeen; and this was regarded as the mere appointment of twelve persons devoted to the Spanish interest, who would help, if necessary, to overawe the people. Lastly, he kept the provinces full of Spanish troops; and this was a direct violation of a fundamental law of the country. Against these measures the nobles and citizens complained bitterly, and from them drew sad anticipations of the future. Nor were they more satisfied with the address in which, through the bishop of Arras as his spokesman, he took farewell of them at a convention of the states held at Ghent previous to his departure for Spain. The oration recommended severity against heresy, and only promised the withdrawal of the foreign troops. The reply of the states was firm and bold, and the recollection of it must have rankled afterwards in the revengeful mind of Philip. "I would rather

be no king at all," he said to one of his ministers at the time, "than have heretics for my subjects." But suppressing his resentment in the meantime, he set sail for Spain in August 1559, leaving his half-sister, the Duchess of Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V., to act as his viceroy in the Netherlands.

The duchess was to be assisted in the government by a Council of State consisting of the six following persons: Antony de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, and afterwards a cardinal; the Count de Barlaimont, Viglius de Quichem, the Count Horn, the Count Egmont, and the Prince of Orange. Three of these, Granvelle, Barlaimont, and Viglius, were devoted to the Spanish interest, and were therefore very unpopular in the Netherlands; the others were men of tried patriotism, from whose presence in the council much good might be expected. Granvelle was a man of extraordinary political abilities, and the fit minister of such a king as the moody and scheming Philip; Barlaimont had also distinguished himself; and in all the country there was not so eminent a lawyer as Viglius. Counts Egmont and Horn were two of the most promising men in the Netherlands, and both of them had rendered services of no ordinary kind to Philip by their conduct in the war with France. Of the Prince of Orange, the principal personage in this struggle, and the true hero of the Netherlands, we must speak more particularly.

William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, sometimes called William I., was born at the castle of Dillembourg, in Germany, in 1533. He was the son of William, Count of Nassau, and the heir therefore of the large possessions of the house of Nassau in France and Germany, and in the Netherlands. At the age of eleven years he had succeeded, besides, to the French princedom of Orange, by the will of his cousin René of Nassau; so that before he arrived at manhood, he was one of the richest and most powerful noblemen in Europe. William was educated in the principles of the Reformation; but having entered, when quite a boy, into the employment of the Emperor Charles V., he changed the habits of a Protestant for those of a Roman Catholic; and accordingly, at the time at which we introduce him to our readers, he was conscientiously a Catholic, although by no means a bigoted, nor even perhaps what the Spaniards would have called a sound one. The Emperor Charles, who, like all such men, possessed a shrewd insight into character, and could pick out by a glance the men of mind and talent from among those who came within his notice, had from the first singled out the young Prince of Orange as a person from whom great things were to be expected. Accordingly, in the employment of Charles, Prince William had had ample opportunities of displaying the two kinds of ability then most in request, and which every public man of that age, except he were an ecclesiastic, was required to combine-diplomatic and military talent. While yet scarcely more than twenty years of age, he had risen to be the first