the prattle of little children, a seeming contradiction to his career, but profoundly consistent really, for in the fulfilment of his task he considered himself in some sort divine, and forced to lay aside as an unworthy garment all personal desires and convenience, to suppress all human inclinations. He was a naturally good man, cursed with mental obliquity and a lack of due sense of proportion. Whilst Alba was pursuing his campaign of blood in the Netherlands, Philip found it necessary once more to struggle for the supremacy of Christianity in the Mediterranean. It has been related how, after the heroic defence of Malta, the Turks and Algerines had been finally driven off with the death of Dragut in 1565. A new sultan, Selim II., had arisen in the following year, and he had determined to leave Spanish interests alone and to concentrate his attacks upon the Venetians, through whom most of the Eastern trade of the Levant passed. Philip’s interests and those of Venice had not usually been identical, as Spain aspired to obtain a share of the oriental commerce, and France and the Venetians had made common cause, more or less openly, with the Turk against Spain. When the republic saw its great colony of Cyprus attacked by the Turks, it consequently appealed in the first place to Pius V. Piala Pasha, the Italian renegade, was already (1569) besieging Nicosia with a great fleet, whilst the Moriscos were yet in arms in Andalucia. The inhabitants of Cyprus were welcoming the infidel, and without prompt and powerful help Cyprus would be lost to Christianity. The pope, at all events, acted promptly, and sent his legate to Philip with proposals for an alliance with the Venetians against the common enemy of their faith. He arrived in Andalucia at the time when the Moriscos had been finally subdued, and entered Seville with Philip. Alba for the moment had crushed out resistance in Flanders, and had not yet aroused the fresh storm by his financial measures. Philip therefore willingly listened to the pope’s proposal, backed energetically, as it was, by the young victor of the Moriscos, Don Juan of Austria, all eager to try his sword against an enemy worthy of his steel; and after three days of devotion and intercession before the bones of St. Ferdinand in Seville, Philip decided to lay aside his unfriendliness with the merchant republic and join it to beat the infidel (spring of 1570).