claims, when the turn of the cards seemed once more favourable to his fortune. [Sidenote: =Character of William III.=] In reality while Louis was persuading himself that he was marching by steady and statesmanlike steps to a sure goal, his chances of ultimate success were dwindling daily. The opposition to him in Europe had acquired both a policy and a leader. Never had a hero of a great cause less of the heroic about him than had William of Orange. Taught in the school of adversity, he had become a man before ever he knew what it was to be a boy. Implicated from his birth in a web of intrigue, nurtured in an atmosphere of suspicion, surrounded by foes of his race and cause, his earliest lessons were those of deceit and fraud. Generous instincts withered away in a heart in which affection had ever to give place to policy. At the age of twenty he was heartless as a Talleyrand, unscrupulous as a Walpole, cold, pitiless, and self-concentrated as Macchiavelli himself. Strange indeed was the contrast between this puny, dyspeptic, selfish, taciturn stripling of twenty, untouched by sentiment, and inaccessible to love, and the open-hearted, magnificent Louis in the prime of life and of glory, the prince of gallants and the pattern of chivalry. Yet deep down in the cold breast of William there burned a fire more enduring and more intense than any of the fitful flashes which illumined from time to time the soul of the splendid king. [Sidenote: =Ennobling influence of his enmity to Louis.=] Love for his country, which, under the peculiar circumstances of the time, translated itself into an undying and unconquerable hatred of the aggression and tyranny of France, slowly through long years of suffering and of patience, fused the selfish heartlessness of William into metal of heroic stamp. To him was not given the power of witching the world with noble deeds. He could not plan campaigns like Turenne, or win battles like Condé or Luxemburg. He could not enmesh two hemispheres in the bonds of his policy like Chatham, he could not dazzle Europe with the glow of his fame like Charles XII., or entrance it with the richness of personal gifts like Henry IV. He could not command admiration like Gustavus Adolphus, or extort obedience like Richelieu. The depths of mind and of character which move nations and sway the world had no place within the narrow limits of his mean and pedantic nature. But in their stead were developed to an almost abnormal extent the unyielding and tenacious qualities of his stubborn ancestry. Endurance, fortitude, perseverance, inspiring and inspired by unconquerable hate and enlisted in the noble cause of patriotism and liberty, made him a hero in spite of himself. He would not recognise failure, he would not accept defeat. He knew not the meaning of despair. Never for an instant was he tempted to put personal ambition before public duty, for to him the public duty of resistance to France summed up his personal ambition.