even the leading Netherland provinces,
during the five centuries which we have thus rapidly sought to
characterize, is foreign to our purpose. By holding the clue of Holland's
history, the general maze of dynastic transformations throughout the
country may, however, be swiftly threaded. From the time of the first
Dirk to the close of the thirteenth century there were nearly four
hundred years of unbroken male descent, a long line of Dirks and
Florences. This iron-handed, hot-headed, adventurous race, placed as
sovereign upon its little sandy hook, making ferocious exertions to swell
into larger consequence, conquering a mile or two of morass or barren
furze, after harder blows and bloodier encounters than might have
established an empire under more favorable circumstances, at last dies
out. The courtship falls to the house of Avennes, Counts of Hainault.
Holland, together with Zeland, which it had annexed, is thus joined to
the province of Hainault. At the end of another half century the Hainault
line expires. William the Fourth died childless in 1355. His death is the
signal for the outbreak of an almost interminable series of civil
commotions. Those two great, parties, known by the uncouth names of Hook
and Kabbeljaw, come into existence, dividing noble against noble, city
against city, father against son, for some hundred and fifty years,
without foundation upon any abstract or intelligible principle. It may be
observed, however, that, in the sequel, and as a general rule, the
Kabbeljaw, or cod-fish party, represented the city or municipal faction,
while the Hooks (fish-hooks), that were to catch and control them, were
the nobles; iron and audacity against brute number and weight.

Duke William of Bavaria, sister's son--of William the Fourth, gets
himself established in 1354. He is succeeded by his brother Albert;
Albert by his son William. William, who had married Margaret of Burgundy,
daughter of Philip the Bold, dies in 1417. The goodly heritage of these
three Netherland provinces descends to his daughter Jacqueline, a damsel
of seventeen. Little need to trace the career of the fair and ill-starred
Jacqueline. Few chapters of historical romance have drawn more frequent
tears. The favorite heroine of ballad and drama, to Netherlanders she is
endued with the palpable form and perpetual existence of the Iphigenias,
Mary Stuarts, Joans of Arc, or other consecrated individualities.
Exhausted and broken-hearted, after t