The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Volume I.(of III) 1555-66

called the Netherlands. This small triangle, enclosed between France, Germany, and the sea, is divided by the modern kingdoms of

rning land or people would have been made known by the native inhabitants. Julius Caesar has saved from, oblivion the heroic savages who fought against his legions in defence of their dismal homes with ferocious but

d the power of Rome, overwhelming, although tottering to its fall; and has moreover, devoted several cha

to which of the two the Batavian island, which is the core of the whole country, was reckoned by the Romans.

elta was thus formed, habitable at last for man. It was by nature a wide morass, in which oozy islands and savage forests were interspersed among lagoons and shallows; a

ul truth-flows reluctantly through the basalt portal of the Seven Mountains into the open fields which extend to the German sea. After entering this va

frontier of the Low Countries, receives the Sambre in the midst of that picturesque anthracite basin where now stands the city of

it was suffocated before reaching the sea in quicksands and thickets, which long afforded protection to the savage inhabitants against the Roman arms; and which the sl

ey had raised, like beavers, above the almost fluid soil. Here, at a later day, the same race chained the tyrant Ocean and his mighty streams into subserviency, forcing them to fertilize, to render commodious, to cover with a beneficent network of veins and arteries, and to bind by watery highways with the furthest ends of the w

nd art were to strengthen. The groves of Haarlem and the Hague are relics of this ancient forest. The Badahuenna wood, horrid with Druidic sacrifices, extended along the eastern line of the vanished lake of Flevo. The vast Hercynian forest, nine days' journey in breadth, closed in the country on the German side, stretching from the banks o

arms of the all-accomplished Roman. Yet foreign tyranny, from the earliest ages, has coveted this meagre territory as lustfully as it has sought to wrest from their native possessors th