et in breadth he
was represented as Apollo hurling his darts at an enormous Python, under
one of whose fore-paws struggled an unfortunate burgher, while the other
clutched a whole city; Tellus, meantime, with her tower on her head,
kneeling anxious and imploring at the feet of her deliverer. On another
stage Ernest assumed the shape of Perseus; Belgica that of the bound and
despairing Andromeda. On a third, the interior of Etna was revealed, when
Vulcan was seen urging his Cyclops to forge for Ernest their most
tremendous thunderbolts with which to smite the foes of the provinces,
those enemies being of course the English and the Hollanders. Venus, the
while, timidly presented an arrow to her husband, which he was requested
to sharpen, in order that when the wars were over Cupid, therewith might
pierce the heart of some beautiful virgin, whose charms should reward
Ernest--fortunately for the female world, still a bachelor--for his
victories and his toils.

The walls of every house were hung with classic emblems and inscribed
with Latin verses. All the pedagogues of Brussels and Antwerp had been at
work for months, determined to amaze the world with their dithyrambics
and acrostics, and they had outdone themselves.

Moreover, in addition to all these theatrical spectacles and pompous
processions--accompanied as they were by blazing tar-barrels, flying
dragons, and leagues of flaring torches--John Baptist, who had been
director-in-chief of all the shows successively arranged to welcome Don
John of Austria, Archduke Matthias, Francis of Alengon, and even William
of Orange, into the capital, had prepared a feast of a specially
intellectual character for the new governor-general.

The pedant, according to his own account, so soon as the approach of
Ernest had been announced, fell straightway into a trance. While he was
in that condition, a beautiful female apparition floated before his eyes,
and, on being questioned, announced her name to be Moralization. John
Baptist begged her to inform him whether it were true, as had been
stated, that Jupiter had just sent Mercury to the Netherlands. The
phantom, correcting his mistake, observed that the king of gods and men
had not sent Hermes but the Archduke Ernestus, beloved of the three
Graces, favourite of the nine Muses, and, in addition to these
advantages, nephew and brother-in-law of the King of Spain, to the relief
of the suffering provinces. The Netherlands, it was true, fo