to an eternal barrier against Spain, or that the "burning mark of shame
would be branded upon the forehead of Germany;" that the war, in short,
was to be met by her on the threshold; or else that it would come to seek
her at home--a prophecy which the horrible Thirty Years' War was in after
time most signally to verify.

He was a poet of vigour and originality, for he had accomplished what has
been achieved by few; he had composed a national hymn, whose strophes, as
soon as heard, struck a chord in every Netherland heart, and for three
centuries long have rung like a clarion wherever the Netherland tongue is
spoken. "Wilhelmus van Nassouwe," regarded simply as a literary
composition, has many of the qualities which an ode demands; an
electrical touch upon the sentiments, a throb of patriotism, sympathetic
tenderness, a dash of indignation, with rhythmical harmony and graceful
expression; and thus it has rung from millions of lips, from generation
to generation.

He was a soldier, courageous, untiring, prompt in action, useful in
council, and had distinguished himself in many a hard-fought field. Taken
prisoner in the sanguinary skirmish at Maaslandssluys, he had been
confined a year, and, for more than three months, had never laid his
head, as he declared, upon the pillow without commending his soul as for
the last time to his Maker, expecting daily the order for his immediate
execution, and escaping his doom only because William the Silent
proclaimed that the proudest head among the Spanish prisoners should fall
to avenge his death; so that he was ultimately exchanged against the
veteran Mondragon.

From the incipient stages of the revolt he had been foremost among the
patriots. He was supposed to be the author of the famous "Compromise of
the Nobles," that earliest and most conspicuous of the state-papers of
the republic, and of many other important political documents; and he had
contributed to general literature many works of European celebrity, of
which the 'Roman Bee-Hive' was the most universally known.

Scholar, theologian, diplomatist, swordsman, orator, poet, pamphleteer,
he had genius for all things, and was eminent in all. He was even famous
for his dancing, and had composed an intelligent and philosophical
treatise upon the value of that amusement, as an agent of civilisation,
and as a counteractor of the grosser pleasures of the table to which
Upper and Nether Germans were too much addicted.

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