s even been valuable
in its very defects; indicating to the patient observer many errors most
important to avoid.

Therefore, had the little republic sunk for ever in the sea so soon as
the treaty of peace had been signed at Antwerp, its career would have
been prolific of good for all succeeding time.

Exactly at the moment when a splendid but decaying despotism, founded
upon wrong--upon oppression of the human body and the immortal soul, upon
slavery, in short, of the worst kind--was awaking from its insane dream
of universal empire to a consciousness of its own decay, the new republic
was recognised among the nations.

It would hardly be incorrect to describe the Holland of the beginning of
the seventeenth century as the exact reverse of Spain. In, the
commonwealth labour was most honourable; in the kingdom it was vile. In
the north to be idle was accounted and punished as a crime. In the
southern peninsula, to be contaminated with mechanical, mercantile,
commercial, manufacturing pursuits, was to be accursed. Labour was for
slaves, and at last the mere spectacle of labour became so offensive that
even the slaves were expelled from the land. To work was as degrading in
the south as to beg or to steal was esteemed unworthy of humanity in the
north. To think a man's thought upon high matters of religion and
government, and through a thousand errors to pursue the truth; with the
aid of the Most High and with the best use of human reason, was a
privilege secured by the commonwealth, at the expense of two generations
of continuous bloodshed. To lie fettered, soul and body, at the feet of
authority wielded by a priesthood in its last stage of corruption, and
monarchy almost reduced to imbecility, was the lot of the chivalrous,
genial; but much oppressed Spaniard.

The pictures painted of the republic by shrewd and caustic observers, not
inclined by nature or craft to portray freedom in too engaging colours,
seem, when contrasted with those revealed of Spain, almost like
enthusiastic fantasies of an ideal commonwealth.

During the last twenty years of the great war the material prosperity of
the Netherlands had wonderfully increased. They had, become the first
commercial nation in the world. They had acquired the supremacy of the
seas. The population of Amsterdam had in twenty years increased from
seventy thousand to a hundred and thirty thousand, and was destined to be
again more than doubled in the coming decade. The