118

HISTOBY OJ? ENGLAND.

CFIAP.

XVII.

III91.

were, had set their hearts on giving their illustrious countryman■ a reception suited to his dignity and to lik merit; and he foundit necessary to yield. On the day of his triumph the concoursewas immense. All the wheeled carriages and horses of the pro-vince were too few for the multitude of those who flocked to theshow. Many thousands came sliding or skating along the frozencanals from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leyden, Haarlem, Delft.At ten in the morning of the twenty sixth of January, the greathell of the Town House gave the signal. Sixteen hundred sub-stantial burghers, well armed, and clad in the finest dresseswhich were to be found in the recesses of their wardrobes, keptorder in the crowded streets. Balconies and scaffolds, em-bowered in evergreens and hung with tapestry, hid the windows.The royal coach, escorted by an army of halberdiers and runningfootmen, and followed by a long train of splendid equipages,passed under numerous arches rich with carving and painting,amidst incessant shouts of “Long live the King our Stadtholder.”The front of the Town House and the whole circuit of themarketplace v/ere in a blaze with brilliant colours. Civic crowns,trophies, emblems of arts, of sciences, of commerce and ofagriculture, appeared every where. In one place William sawportrayed the glorious actions of his ancestors. There was thesilent prince, the founder of the Batavian commonwealth, pass-ing the Meuse with his warriors. There was the more impetuousMaurice leading the charge atNieuport. A little further on,the hero might retrace the eventful story of his own life. Hewas a child at his widowed mother’s knee. He was at the altarwith Mary’s hand in his. He was landing at Torbay. He wasswimming through the Boyne. There, too, was a boat amidstthe ice and the breakers; and above it was most appropriatelyinscribed, in the majestic language ofRome, the saying of thegreat Roman, “What dost thou fear? Thou hast Ctesar onboard.” The task of furnishing the Latin mottoes had been