critics who had
justly condemned a novel previously published by the young author. His
essay portrayed the character of the great Peter, half king and
half savage. It showed a full appreciation of the difficulties that
hindered the establishment of a great monarchy, and paid due honor to
that force of will, savage courage, and ideal patriotism that laid
the foundations of Russia's greatness. The reader is made to see this
fiery Sclav, building up a new Russia from his ice-fields and barren
valleys; a Russia of great cities, imperial armies, vast commerce,
and splendid hopes. It was a brilliant and scholarly narrative of the
achievement of a great man, and it placed Motley among the writers of
highest promise.

A year later he began collecting materials for the serious work of
his life. For his subject he chose the story of the old Frisians or
Hollanders who rescued from the sea a few islands formed by the ooze
and slime of ages, and laid thereon the foundations of a great nation.
They raised dykes to keep back the sea, built canals to serve as
roads, turned bogs into pasture-lands and morasses into grain-fields,
fought with the Romans, founded cities, laid the foundations of
the vast maritime commerce of to-day, and finally, in the sixteenth
century, when the wealth of their merchants, the power of their
cities, and the progress of their arts were the wonder of the world,
met their worst foe in the person of their own king, Philip II.

From the beginning the Hollanders or Netherlanders had cherished a
savage independence which commanded respect even in barbarous ages,
and this characteristic insured a quarrel between them and their
ruler. Philip II. was King of Spain and of Sicily as well as of
Holland. Born in Spain, he could not speak a word of Dutch. He was
haughty, overbearing, and unscrupulous, and he resolved to make the
Hollanders see in him a master as well as a king. Already in
his father's reign there had been trouble because of the growing
Protestantism which many of the Hollanders favored. Already some of
the chief Dutch cities had been punished for resisting the Emperor's
authority, and their burghers sentenced to kneel in sackcloth and beg
him to spare their homes from destruction. These things happened in
his father's time and had made an impression upon Philip II., who
saw that in every case the royal power had been triumphant, and he
believed himself invincible.

Motley painted the life of Philip f