and in the very consummation of its freedom afford a triumph to its ancient enemy,

"Hoc Ithacus velit et magno mercentur Atreidæ.”

The proceedings of the council of Trent have been recorded by two opposite and nearly equal writers, the Venetian Father Paul and the Roman Pallavicini, and from their conflicting prejudices and statements a living German historian has composed a clear and impartial account of the last great Synod of the Papal church. The Synod of Dort yet awaits its historian; but its materials are nearly as copious, and its results, as respects theological opinions, as momentous as those of its predecesssor. The work of Sebastian Brandt, however, for its fullness and tendency may be compared to that of Father Paul, although much its inferior in cloquence and arrangement. Brandt exhibits the Arminian side of the controversy, but his plenteous incorporation of original documents enables the reader to hold the balance evenly between the Arminian and Calvinist disputants. The soundness of their respective tenets is beyond our province, but the judicial management of the proceedings is not affected by the orthodoxy of either party; and it is plain that a jury of unbiassed men would not have permitted the directors or the assistants to conduct the inquiry as they conducted it, or have affirmed the verdict which they dictated. Gomarus was on all points triumphant: the Arminians were exposed to insult within the precincts, to violence without the walls of the Synod. The block was yet reeking with the blood of Barneveldt, Grotius was an exile, Hoogerbets a prisoner, Ledenburg had sought refuge from his theological enemies in suicide, Episcopius who sustained the Arminian cause in the Synod was rudely encountered and arbitrarily silenced; and at the close of the proceedings all the leaders and even the majority of the members of the Arminian party were driven into exile or fined and imprisoned.

We have anticipated the order of time, the better to connect the causes and sequence of these events. The execution of Barneveldt was an ovation that preceded the Calvinistic triumph in the Synod of Dort. His arrest, trial and death are less known, but deserve to be equally memorable with the

imprisonment and escape of Grotius. We can only present our readers with an abridgement of Mrs. Davies' narrative:—

"Early on the morning of his arrest, Uytembogaart, going into his cabinet, found him, instead of being occupied as usual in writing or giving directions, seated with his back towards the table in an attitude of deep dejection. He endeavoured to console him by recalling to his mind the example of many eminent men of all ages, who having done the greatest services to their country had met with no other reward than ingratitude. At the conclusion of this interview, he pressed the hand of his aged friend, with a presentiment of evil for which he was unable to account. It was for the last time. Within an hour after his departure, Barneveldt proceeded to the Assembly of the States of Holland, when, as he was about to enter, a messenger informed him that the Prince desired to speak with him. He accordingly went into the chamber where they were accustomed to hold their conferences, and was immediately arrested by Nythof, lieutenant of the Prince's body-guard, in the name of the States-General.

"Barneveldt, now past seventy years of age, was closely confined (for more than ten months) in the room which had served as a prison for the Spanish commander, Mendoza, after the battle of Nieuport; and, besides being subjected to every petty indignity that malice could invent, was debarred the sight of his wife and children, and deprived of the use of pen, ink, and paper."

The art of constructing special juries was not unknown even in Holland. The commission of inquiry, which the Orange faction substituted for the ordinary court of justice, was composed of deputies and lawyers conspicuous for their implacable hostility to Barneveldt.

"He was subjected," Mrs. Davies proceeds, "to twenty-three examinations, during which he was neither allowed to take down the questions in writing, to make memoranda of his answers, or to refer to notes: the interrogatories were not confined to any definite period, but extended over his whole public life, no effort being spared to involve him in those contradictions which, from decay of memory or confusion of dates, might easily occur."

To make Barneveldt's condemnation sure, twenty-four judges appointed by the States-General, who had no jurisdiction in the province of Holland, pronounced on the report drawn up by the commission of inquiry. We must refer to Mrs. Davies for the capital charges against the accused, and hasten to the catastrophe.

"On the evening of Sunday the 12th of May (1619), Peter van Leeuwen and Lawrence Sylla, two of the judges, entered the prison of

Barneveldt, for the purpose of summoning him the next morning to receive sentence of death. Sentence of death!' exclaimed the aged patriot; 'sentence of death! I did not expect that.' He then asked permission to write a farewell letter to his wife. While Leeuwen was gone to make his request known to the States, he said to the attorney-general of Guelderland, Sylla, Sylla, could your father but see that you have allowed yourself to be employed in this business!'-the only expression of anger or impatience which the heroic old man permitted to escape him during the whole of this trying period.

"The materials being brought him, he began to write with the utmost composure, when Sylla observed to him to be careful what he said, lest it might prevent the delivery of the letter. What, Sylla!' he answered, half-smiling, ‘are you come to dictate to me what I shall write in my last hour?' While thus employed, Anthony Waleus and two other ministers came to prepare him for death; to whom he observed that he had lived to a great age, and had long ago prepared himself to die. When he had finished, however, he entered freely into conversation with them, and detained them to supper, at which Barneveldt ate with his usual appetite, discoursing on the proceedings of the Synod and various other subjects.

He constantly refused to acknowledge himself in the slightest degree guilty of any of the accusations brought against him, except in so far as that, sometimes, provoked at the insults and libels directed against the States of Holland, his masters, he had expressed himself with too much haste and acrimony. I governed,' said he, when I was in authority, according to the maxims of that time, and now I am condemned to die according to the maxims of this.' The discourse afterwards turned on the subject of predestination, when some discussions arising, Barneveldt used such powerful arguments in defence of his opinions, and evinced so deep a knowledge of the subject, that the ministers remained silent with astonishment. They concluded their visit with a prayer, when Barneveldt lay down to rest; but, being unable to sleep, one of them, Hugh Beyerus, returned, and at his own request read to him the prayers for the sick. When they were ended, he asked where the place was prepared for him to be executed, and whether Grotius and Hoogerbets were to suffer the same fate, observing that it would grieve him deeply. They,' said he, are young, and may yet do great service to their country; as for me, I am an old and worn-out man.' The remainder of the night he passed in reading a French book of Psalms. Early in the morning, the ministers repairing to his bed-side, asked him if he was prepared to die. He answered that he was well resolved, but could not understand for what he was to suffer. 'Would,' he added, that by my blood all disunion and strife might cease in the land!' Waleus then gave the morning prayer, during which time Barneveldt remained in an attitude of deep devotion, though he uttered no sound. At the conclusion, one of the ministers, John Lamotius, observed, with somewhat of importunate zeal, Will not my lord say Amen ?' The prisoner continued silent, as though he heard him not. On the question being repeated,-'Yes, Lamotius,' he answered gently, Amen.” He then inquired if any one had a prayer ready for the scaffold; when

Waleus answering in the affirmative, he seemed satisfied, and listened attentively to some chapters from Isaiah.

"Before he left his prison, Barneveldt wrote his last letter to his family, recommending his servant, John Franken, who had attended him throughout with affectionate fidelity, to their care. He was shortly after led into a lower room of the court-house to hear his sentence. During the reading he turned round quickly several times, and rose from his seat, as if about to speak. When it was concluded, he observed, that there were many things in it which were not in the examinations; and added, 'I thought the States-General would have been satisfied with my blood, and allowed my wife and children to keep what is their own.' 'Your sentence is read,' replied Leonard Vooght, one of the judges; 'away, away!' Leaning on his staff, and with his servant on the other side to support his steps grown feeble with age, Barneveldt walked composedly to the place of execution, prepared before the great saloon of the court-house. Here he was compelled to suffer the last petty indignity that man could heap upon him. Aged and infirm as he was, neither stool nor cushion had been provided to mitigate the sense of bodily weakness as he performed the last duties of mortal life; and kneeling down on the bare boards, he was supported by his servant, while the minister, John Lamotius, delivered a prayer. When prepared for the block, he turned to the spectators and said, with a loud and firm voice, My friends, believe not that I am a traitor. I have lived a good patriot, and such I die.' He then, with his own hands, drew his cap over his eyes, and bidding the executioner be quick,' bowed his venerable head to the stroke."

aware.

That he "governed by the maxims of his own time, and was condemned by those of another," was a sentence more pregnant with meaning than Barneveldt himself could be The third period of the republican history of Holland, which commenced with the ascendancy of the Calvinistic party in the church and of the House of Orange in the state, differed essentially from the period which preceded it. Barneveldt was simply a Hollander and a republican. He aspired to render his country the Venice of the North, and to place its internal freedom on what he conceived its securest basis-a civil aristocracy. That Holland should take any other than a merely defensive position among the states of Europe he neither wished nor expected: European dignity could be acquired and sustained only by a military force wholly disproportioned to her territory and her commercial interests. The head of the army would always be a dangerous rival to the civil power, and, so long as there remained a representative of the House of Orange, military command would

be seconded by territorial and personal influence. De Witt, inheriting the principles of Barneveldt in his preference of the French to the English alliance, of the navy to the army, and in his jealousy of the family of Orange, was more inclined to take part in European politics, or was perhaps constrained by the inherent weakness of a commercial aristocracy to seck support from one or other of his monarchal neighbours. He was accordingly more of a diplomatist than any former Dutch statesman, and the period which he represented was more cosmopolite than the æra which preceded it. But it would far exceed our limits to enter upon the third period of Dutch history, and there is less occasion, since many of its characteristics have been treated of in a recent number of this Review*. We have sought rather to suggest the true nature of a history of Holland, and to point out certain deficiencies in the volumes before us, than to comprise in a few pages the matter of a volume. With these remarks then we take leave of Mrs. Davies' very useful work, which, in spite of some serious defects, is highly creditable to her industry and impartiality.

ARTICLE VII.

1. Les Mystères de Paris. Par EUGENE SUE. 10 vols. Paris,

1841.

2. Le Juif Errant. Par EUGENE SUE. 2 vols. Bruxelles, 1844.

THE English are unquestionably a moral nation,-foreigners say a prudish nation. We have this indeed in common with prudes, that we are more rigid than discerning. We have a strong moral feeling, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a strong feeling against any proclaimed immorality; but we have not a keen moral sense. We hate better than we criticise: we are good haters, but must be told what to hate, because we are opinion-ridden. Like our type the bull-dog,

• No. XXXII. 'Secret Diplomacy of Louis XIV.'