actics and the
progress of science may have rendered this leaguer of less technical
importance than it possessed in the sixteenth century, yet the
illustration that it affords of the splendid abilities of Parma, of the
most cultivated mode of warfare in use at that period, and of the
internal politics by which the country was then regulated, make it
necessary to dwell upon the details of an episode which must ever possess
enduring interest.

It is agreeable to reflect, too, that the fame of the general is not
polluted with the wholesale butchery, which has stained the reputation of
other Spanish commanders so indelibly. There was no killing for the mere
love of slaughter. With but few exceptions, there was no murder in cold
blood; and the many lives that were laid down upon those watery dykes
were sacrificed at least in bold, open combat; in a contest, the ruling
spirits of which were patriotism, or at least honour.

It is instructive, too, to observe the diligence and accuracy with which
the best lights of the age were brought to bear upon the great problem
which Parma had undertaken to solve. All the science then at command was
applied both by the Prince and by his burgher antagonists to the
advancement of their ends. Hydrostatics, hydraulics, engineering,
navigation, gunnery, pyrotechnics, mining, geometry, were summoned as
broadly, vigorously, and intelligently to the destruction or preservation
of a trembling city, as they have ever been, in more commercial days, to
advance a financial or manufacturing purpose. Land converted into water,
and water into land, castles built upon the breast of rapid streams,
rivers turned from their beds and taught new courses; the distant ocean
driven across ancient bulwarks, mines dug below the sea, and canals made
to percolate obscene morasses--which the red hand of war, by the very
act, converted into blooming gardens--a mighty stream bridged and
mastered in the very teeth of winter, floating ice-bergs, ocean-tides,
and an alert and desperate foe, ever ready with fleets and armies and
batteries--such were the materials of which the great spectacle was
composed; a spectacle which enchained the attention of Europe for seven
months, and on the result of which, it was thought, depended the fate of
all the Netherlands, and perhaps of all Christendom.

Antwerp, then the commercial centre of the Netherlands and of Europe,
stands upon the Scheldt. The river, flowing straight, broad, and