20

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

ciiAp.

VII.

J687.

banishment it was liis consolation to create round him, bybuilding, planting, and digging, a scene which might remindhim of the formal piles of red brick, of the long canals, andof the symmetrical flower beds amidst which his early life hadbeen passed. Yet even his affection for the land of his birthwas subordinate to another feeling which early becamesupreme in his soul, which mixed itself with all his passions,which impelled him to marvellous enterprises, which sup-ported him when sinking under mortification, pain, sickness,and sorrow, which, towards the close of his career, seemedduring a short time to languish, but which soon broke forthagain fiercer than ever, and continued to animate him evenwhile the prayer for the departing was read at his bedside.That feeling was enmity to France, and to the magnificentKing who, in more than one sense, represented France, andwho to virtues and accomplishments eminently French joinedin large measure that unquiet, unscrupulous, and vaingloriousambition which has repeatedly drawn on France the resent-ment of Europe.

It is not difficult to trace the progress of the sentimentwhich gradually possessed itself of William’s whole soul.When lie was little more than a boy his country had beenattacked by Lewis in ostentatious defiance of justice andpublic law, had been overrun, had been desolated, had beengiven up to every excess of rapacity, licentiousness, andcruelty. The Dutch had in dismay humbled themselves be-fore the conqueror, and had implored mercy. They had beentold in reply that, if they desired peace, they must resign theirindependence and do annual homage to the House of Bour-bon. The injured nation, driven to despair, had opened itsdykes and had called in the sea as an ally against the Frenchtyranny. It was in the agony of that conflict, when peasantswere flying in terror before the invaders, when hundreds offair gardens and pleasure houses were buried beneath thewaves, when the deliberations of the States were interruptedby the fainting and the loud weeping of ancient senators whocould not bear the thought of surviving the freedom and gloryof their native land, that William had been called to the head