And what work so fitting for the American author as the record of a nation struggling away from the oppression of feudal institutions, which stifled all growth either towards knowledge or civil greatness, throwing off the trammels of religious intolerance, defying the most powerful nation of Christendom, which had breathed an air of bigotry in its long contest with the Moors, and waging an exhaustive war of nearly a century's duration against fearful odds, only to win an independent existence? We had treasured as rare heirlooms the Mechlin laces of our grandmothers, had our favorite sets of Tournay porcelain, awaited with curious and enthusiastic patience our shares in the floral exportations of Harlem, trodden daily the carpetings of Brussels, and esteemed ourselves rich with a fragment of its tapestry, or a rifle of Namur; we had honored the vast manufacturing interest of the Netherlands, their commercial prosperity and noble enterprise; but here all thought of them had ended. Schiller had not taught us that the ancestors of the miners of Mons, the artisans of Brussels, the seamen of Antwerp, the professors of Leyden, were heroes, worthy to stand beside Leonidas and Bozzaris; Strâda had failed to rouse us to enthusiasm at the thought of their long, noble battle for life. Grotius had indeed painted for us with a very Flemish nicety of detail their manners and customs, but had forgotten to round his skeleton of a nation with the passions that animated every stage of its development. It remained for Motley, with all the quick sympathies of an American heart, to rouse our affections and to command our reverence for a people so unfortunate and so brave. It was reserved for him to teach us that William of Orange was not less a martyr to the truth than Huss or Latimer.