The Dutch were the laughing-stock of polite Europe. They were butter-firkins, swillers of beer and schnapps, and their _vrouws_ from whom Holbein painted the all but loveliest of Madonnas, Rembrandt the graceful girl who sits immortal on his knee in Dresden, and Rubens his abounding

goddesses, were the synonyms of clumsy vulgarity. Even so late as Irving the ships of the greatest navigators in the

world were represented as sailing equally well stern-foremost. That the aristocratic Venetians should have "Riveted with gigantic piles Thorough the center their new catched

miles" was heroic.

But the far more marvelous achievement of the Dutch in the same kind was ludicrous even to republican Marvell. Meanwhile, during that very century of scorn, they were the best artists, sailors, merchants, bankers, printers, scholars, jurisconsults, and statesmen in Europe, and the genius of Motley has revealed them to us, earning a right to themselves by the most heroic

struggle in