Even Edinburgh, perhaps famous for her homage to her own dead, scarcely ever gave such a solemn salutation to death, such a tearful valediction, before. He had sprung from a humble class of her sons, had sat in her high school, studied in her halls, and taught in them; but clearly that which related him to the affections of the city of his birth was his own overflowing heart of sympathy and love.

We have dwelt so long already on the volume that we can spare no space for any attempt at a characterization of his work, or analysis of his genius. His mind was intensely and variously active. Activity and acuteness, rather than profundity or weight, were the springs and forces of his life of admirable and untiring toil. His style was very suggestive, although suffering from an overburdened fancy; but these are matters on which we have neither time nor even disposition to speak now. We close the memoirs with a very hearty admiration and affection for the subject of them, and thanks to the sister who has placed so beautiful a monument over her brother's grave.

IV.

MOTLEY'S STORY OF THE NETHERLANDS.*

THESE are delightful volumes. We believe we are not estimating them too highly when we say they are such as Lord Macaulay would have read with zest, and have set forth in the chasing of an immortal review. They will sustain the reputation Dr. Motley has already earned by his "Rise of the Dutch Republic." Every page awakens some old association, or presents some new picture. They are graphic; they are discriminative; they display great patience and research. The pen of the historian easily conveys the reader to every spot it is necessary he should visit; and the appearance of the volumes we deem to be most timely. They are the delineations of the purposes of a silent, self-willed tyrant, supported by, and in aid of a cruel priesthood, both plotting against the liberties

*History of the United Netherlands, from the Death of William the Silent to the Synod of Dort; with a Full View of the English-Dutch Struggle against Spain, and of the Origin and Destruction of the Spanish Armada. By John Lothrop Motley, D.CL., &c., &c. Vols. I. and II. London: John Murray

Albemarle Street. 1860.

VOL. V.

U

and highest interests and destinies of mankind, and attempting to win back the territories by the reign of terror, they could not retain by the reign of justice. These volumes are alive with all the bustle of that most stirring age, when the commercial power was rising, and liberty, receiving new life from newlydiscovered worlds, was unfurling her flag of trade and treaty over every sea. With much in the scenery and historical conversations that is most dramatic, the reader also finds himself led through a series, nay, a gallery of brilliant historical portraits. In his sharp graphic power of realising to the eye a great actor, Mr. Motley is not inferior to Macaulay. Macaulay is a perfect Sir Thomas Lawrence among historians. He is a court-painter, and paints like a courtier; he is sometimes so attentive to the dress, that you do not clearly see the person; yet, in saying this, we are, of course, instituting no general comparison; Macaulay had so great a variety of powers, so rare in their combination, and giving an effect of such continuous and unbroken brilliancy; yet, these volumes are eminently such as to provoke some glances at the mode in which the great historian of England utters his narrative. The reader then will miss the tramp, the rhetorical beat and swell of words-a style to which the words gorgeous and magnificent alone are applicable. We have not here the glowing peroration and richly-encumbering foliage of description, the clearly-balanced and antithetically-pointed climax. Perhaps these ornaments of speech have not made us sufficiently grateful; yet certain, it is, we see things and persons quite as plainly in the more unvarnished pages of the historian of the Netherlands. Mr. Motley paints his landscapes and portraits like an old Flemish artist. His style is all his own; indeed, more of the artist might perhaps improve the painter; and yet, if a writer enables us to see the hero he leads before us, what can he do more? As capable to bring before the eye the human actors, so capable also is he to introduce the reader to the scenes of the countries through which he passes. In not this a charming description of Zutphen:

"Zutphen, or South-Fen, an antique town of wealth and elegance, was the capital of the old Landgraves of Zutphen. It is situate on the right bank of the Yssel, that branch of the Rhine which flows between Gelderland and Overyssel into the Zuyder Zee. The ancient river, broad, deep, and languid, glides through a plain of almost boundless extent, till it loses itself in the flat and misty horizon. On the other side of the stream, in the district called the Veluwe, or bad meadow, were three sconces, one of them of remarkable strength. An island between the city and the shore was likewise well fortified. On the landward side the town was protected by a wall and moat sufficiently strong in those infant days of artillery. Near the hospital-gate, on the

east, was an external fortress guarding the road to Warnsfeld. This was a small village, with a solitary slender church spire shooting up above a cluster of neat one-storied houses. It was about an English mile from Zutphen, in the midst of a wide, low, somewhat fenny plain, which, in winter, became so completely a lake, that peasants were not unfrequently drowned in attempting to pass from the city to the village. In summer, the vague expanse of country was fertile and cheerful of aspect. Long rows of poplars marking the straight highways, clumps of pollard willows scattered around the little meres, snug farm-houses, with kitchen-gardens and brilliant flower-patches dotting the level plain, verdant pastures sweeping off into seemingly infinite distance, where the innumerable cattle seemed to swarm like insects, wind-mills swinging their arms in all directions, like protective giants, to save the country from inundation, the lagging sail of market boats shining through rows of orchard trees-all gave to the environs of Zutphen a tranquil and domestic charm."

Mr. Motley paints with the clearness and distinctness of Cuyp or Wouvermans. At other times, as in this picture of the Hague, with the precision of Canaletti

"The beautiful, placid, village-capital of Holland wore much the same aspect at that day as now. Clean, quiet, spacious streets, shaded with rows of whispering poplars and umbrageous limes, broad sleepy canalsthose liquid highways along which glided in phantom silence the bustle, and traffic, and countless cares of a stirring population-quaint toppling houses, with tower and gable; ancient brick churches, with slender spire and musical chimes; thatched cottages on the outskirts, with stork-nests on the roof-the whole without fortification save the watery defences which enclosed it with long-drawn lines on every side; such was the Count's park, or Graven's Haage, in English called the Hague. "It was embowered and almost buried out of sight by vast groves of oaks and beeches. Ancient Badahuennan forests of sanguinary Druids, the. "wild wood without mercy" of Saxon savages, where, at a later period, sovereign Dirks and Florences, in long succession of centuries, had ridden abroad with lance in rest, or hawk on fist; or under whose boughs in still nearer days, the gentle Jacqueline had pondered and wept over her sorrows, stretched out in every direction between the city and the neighbouring sea. In the heart of the place stood the ancient palace of the counts, built in the thirteenth century by William II. of Holland, King of the Romans, with massive brick walls, cylindrical turrets, pointed gable and rose-shaped windows, and with spacious courtyard, enclosed by feudal moat, drawbridge, and portcullis."

The story so powerfully recited by Mr. Motley is most interesting to Englishmen : it is a part of England's story too. It is related to the most stirring and eventful period of our annals. We know of no pages in which England, in the day of Elizabeth, is more vividly

brought before the reader's eye. We have said the book is full of the bustle and the stir of those most eventful times. The great men whose names are legendary, and who in camp and cabinet and among the almost fabulous and mythical glories of the Spanish Main, achieved for our nation such an endless renown, live upon the canvas of Mr. Motley. His volumes have a dramatic interest to the reader. He is very careful in the authentication of every little circumstance he introduces into his picture; but circumstances and persons are almost really alive. The author must have the patience and plodding of Dryasdust; but there is nothing of the style of that well-known, eminently-voluminous writer. His portraits, some full-length, and some only heads, are usually sketched with great vigour. Here is a person the reader will know well:

"Late in the autumn of the same year an Englishman arrived in the Netherlands, bearer of despatches from the Queen. He had been entrusted by her Majesty with a special mission to the States-General, aud he had soon an interview with that assembly at the Hague.

"He was a small man, apparently forty-five years of age, of a fair but somewhat weather-stained complexion, with light brown, closely-curling hair, an expansive forehead, a clear blue eye, rather common-place features, a thin, brown, pointed beard, and a slight moustache. Though low of stature, he was broad chested, with well-knit limbs. His hands, which were smali and nervous, were brown and callous with the marks of toil. There was something in his brow and glance not to be mistaken, and which men willingly call master; yet he did not seem to have sprung of the born magnates of the earth. He wore a heavy gold chain about his neck, and it might be observed that upon the light, full sleeves of his slashed doublet the image of a small ship on a terrestrial globe was curiously and many times embroidered.

It was not the first time that he had visited the Netherlands. Thirty years before the man had been apprentice on board a small lugger, which traded between the English coast and the ports of Zeeland. Emerging in early boyhood from his parental mansion-an old boat, turned bottom upwards on a sandy down-he had naturally taken to the sea, and his master, dying childless not long afterwards, bequeathed to him the lugger. But in time his spirit, too much con"fined by coasting in the narrow seas, had taken a bolder flight. He had risked his hard-earned savings in a voyage with the old slave-trader John Hawkins-whose exertions, in what was then considered an honourable and useful vocation, had been rewarded by Queen Elizabeth with her special favour, and with a coat of arms, the crest whereof was a negro's head, proper, chained-but the lad's first and last enterprise in this field was unfortunate. Captured by Spaniards, and only escaping with life, he determined to revenge himself on the whole Spanish nation; and this was considered a most legitimate proceeding according to the "sea divinity" in which he had been schooled. His

subsequent expeditions against the Spanish possessions in the West Indies were eminently successful, and soon the name of Francis Drake rang through the world, and startled Philip in the depths of his Escorial. The first Englishman, and the second of any nation, he then ploughed his memorable "furrow round the earth," carrying amazement and destruction to the Spaniards as he sailed, and after three years brought to the Queen treasure enough, as it was asserted, to maintain a war with the Spanish King for seven years, and to pay himself and companions, and the merchant-adventurers who had participated in his enterprise, forty-seven pounds sterling for every pound invested in the voyage. The speculation had been a fortunate one both for himself and for the kingdom.

"The terrible Sea-King was one of the great types of the sixteenth century. The self-helping private adventurer, in his little vessel the Golden Hind, one hundred tons burthen, had waged successful war against a mighty empire, and had shown England how to humble Philip. When he again set foot on his native soil he was followed by admiring crowds, and became the favourite hero of romance and ballad; for it was not the ignoble pursuit of gold alone, through toil and peril, which had endeared his name to the nation. The popular instinct recognized that the true means had been found at last for rescuing England and Protestantism from the overshadowing empire of Spain. The Queen visited him in his Golden Hind, and gave him the honour of knighthood."

We have already referred to the portrait-painting powers of our writer. Here are two or three from his gallery. The figures seem alive! Here are Walsingham and Burleigh.

"There in close skull-cap and dark-flowing gown, was the subtle, monastic-looking Walsingham, with long, grave, melancholy face and Spanish eyes. There too, white staff in hand, was Lord High Treasurer Burleigh, then sixty-five years of age, with serene blue eye, large, smooth, pale, scarce-wrinkled face and forehead; seeming, with his placid, symmetrical features, and great velvet bonnet, under which such silver hairs as remained were soberly tucked away, and with his long dark robe which swept the ground, more like a dignified gentlewoman than a statesman, but for the wintry beard which lay like a snow-drift on his ancient breast."

And here is the queen-the fairy queen!

and con

"The Queen was then in the fifty-third year of her age, sidered herself in the full bloom of her beauty. Her garments were of satin and velvet, with fringes of pearl as big as beans. A small gold crown was upon her head, and her red hair, throughout its multiplicity of curls, blazed with diamonds and emeralds. Her forehead was tall, her face long, her complexion fair, her eyes small, dark, and glittering, her nose high and hooked, her lips thin, her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally exposed. As she passed