the provinces
confederated at Ghent, an incurable distrust both of the Spaniards
and himself. The profound and skilful policy of the Prince of
Orange raised obstacles against him which he could not surmount. In
spite of the moderate conditions which he offered to the assembled
States-General, he was received by them much less as a pacificator
than as an enemy. They refused to authorize the departure of the
Spanish troops by sea, fearing they might be employed against the
provinces of Holland and Zealand, and they required that they
should repair to Italy by land. Don Juan saw his designs upon
England, on this side, vanishing. Without authority, money, or any
means of establishing the domination of the king, his brother, and
of supporting his own renown, he took a disgust to a position which
offered him no issue. Accustomed, hitherto, to rapid and brilliant
enterprises, he desponded at his impotency; and already a prey to
gnawing cares, which were leading him slowly to the tomb, he
demanded his recall."

To enforce his complaints, Don John sent Escovedo to Spain. Redress was
not granted, and his messenger never returned to him. The deadly
correspondence between Perez and himself--the outpourings of an ardent
and daring temper, swelling with lofty designs, and pining beneath an
apparently irremediable inaction, into the ears of a frigid and false
winnower of unguarded words and earnest feelings--was continued
unremittingly. M. Mignet, it seems to us, shows very satisfactorily,
that Perez, in his abominable office of an unjust interpreter of the
wishes and intentions of Don John, drugged Philip copiously with
calumnious reports and unwarrantable insinuations. Be that as it may,
we are inclined to believe, among other matters of a very different
complexion, that, without repugnance on the part of Philip, there was a
tossing about for a time, in the lottery of events, a marriage between
Don John and our beautiful and unfortunate Mary. There is a pleasure and
a grace sometimes in idle speculation; but to the leisure of a happier
fancy than ours we commit the picture of the consequences of an union
between the heroic Don John and the lovely Queen of Scotland. "_Money,
more money, and Escovedo_," became at length, in his perplexity and
anguish, the importunate clamour of the governor of the Netherlands.
Then it was, _as Perez tells us_, that Philip