s, shaded with
rows of whispering poplars and umbrageous limes, broad sleepy
canals--those liquid highways alone; 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 roofs--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 's Graven 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 coup-yard,
enclosed by feudal moat, drawbridge, and portcullis.

In the great banqueting-hall of the ancient palace, whose cedarn-roof of
magnificent timber-work, brought by crusading counts from the Holy Land,
had rung with the echoes of many a gigantic revel in the days of
chivalry--an apartment one hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet
high--there had been arranged an elevated platform, with a splendid chair
of state for the "absolute" governor, and with a great profusion of
gilding and velvet tapestry, hangings, gilt emblems, complimentary
devices, lions, unicorns, and other imposing appurtenances. Prince
Maurice, and all the members of his house, the States-General in full
costume, and all the great functionaries, civil and military, were
assembled. There was an elaborate harangue by orator Menin, in which it
was proved; by copious citations from Holy Writ and from ancient
chronicle, that the Lord never forsakes His own; so that now, when the
Provinces were at their last gasp by the death of Orange and the loss of
Antwerp, the Queen of England and the Earl of Leicester had suddenly
descended,