broken down. Margaret is able to recover her authority, and to tighten the reins of her government. Egmont and Hoorne take their seats again in her cabinet; but Orange is too sagacious to do so. With the returning power of the Regent, fresh rumors from abroad of the terrible designs of Philip, reach the ear of the country, which lead to fresh determinations to resist his oppression. Protestant princes in Germany, and even the Emperor Ferdinand, interest themselves to dissuade Philip from violence. Margaret retracts her concessions to the Protestant teachers, not allowing them to perform their clerical duties. She calls in the aid of military force, and attempts to introduce garrisons into the principal cities for overcoming her enemies. Valenciennes resists, and stoutly closes her gates during a four months' siege. Antwerp is in a ferment, and but for her noble burgrave, would be given over to destruction. The country around rises up in arms, though it soon lays them quietly down again.

Margaret now exacting a new oath of allegiance-unconditional and absolute-Orange refuses to take it, and abandons the kingdom. Louis of Nassau, Hoogstraten, Culemborg and many others, follow his example. Counts Egmont and Hoorne, though the former especially is affectionately warned by the prince, submit to the test, and vainly hope to reinstate themselves by greater zeal for their sovereign.

It would seem now to have been enough for the satisfaction of the king that order was reestablished, and that the Papal authority was generally acknowledged. But no; the bigoted and revengeful mind of Philip could not be satisfied until he had thoroughly punished the recent malcontents, and had destroyed in the Lowlands the last seeds of the Reformation. Accordingly, he determined to send Alva to the Netherlands as his plenipotentiary. Hard-hearted as was Philip, he was yet exceeded in fierceness, and coldness, and treachery by this iron-mailed warrior. Alva, with an army speedily mustered for the purpose, started on his journey,

Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer," impatient to lay his hand on the necks of the heretics. Passing through the borders of France, he was urged, on his journey, to turn aside for a moment to deal a deathblow at the Calvinists-the growing faction in the neighborhood under Coligni and Conde. But he resists the temptation. Arrived in the Netherlands, he announces his commission to act independently of any local authority. The Regent is justly incensed. Her power is soon superseded; she resigns in disgust, and retires from the kingdoin, and Álva takes her command. The Inquisition is set up in all its odiousness and horror. Setting aside the jurisdiction

of the established courts of the realm, the Council of Blood is appointed for the trial of offenders, and crowds of victims are brought daily before it-who without the shadow of a hearing are summarily condemned to loss of life and possessions. So atrocious is the outrage offered to law and equity, that many of the Council resign, and two only of their number, are left to perform its work. Confiscations, banishments, tortures, deaths, are everywhere decreed. William of Orange, in his remote German home, is appealed to by his countrymen to interfere in their behalf. He raises a small army, which advances to the rescue, but which, for want of perfect concert between its two divisions, is cut off and routed. Among the arrests that are made under the civil authority, two of the most important are the oft-named Count Egmont and his associate Hoorne. Never forgiven-notwithstanding their services both before and afterwards -for their concern with the League which had so threatened the government, they are secretly made prisoners, and thrown into a fortress, from which they come forth only to die. The treachery, inhumanity, injustice and violence exercised by Alva, with the countenance of his master upon these unfortunate nobles, exceed our belief. The historian of Philip recounts with a painful fidelity, the incidents of their trial and eventual punishment. The whole narrative, indeed, of the outbreak in the Netherlands, with its causes and apologies, is nowhere more truthfully brought to the view of the reader than in the present publication.

In vain did those knights appeal to the rights of their order as members of the "Toison d'or," to be tried by their peers. In vain did their counsel ask for a delay of the sentence, in order to produce their witnesses. In vain did a judge learned on the bench declare that the whole proceeding was wrong, illegal in form as well as in spirit. To no purpose did the hero of the battle of Gravelines and the siege of St. Quentin, remind his sovereign of the honor he had done him as a soldier in the field -of his loyalty always, even when resisting his edicts-of his soundness as a papist and of his recent activity in suppressing rebellion and reestablishing order; he was not to be spared; but for an example to others as well as for retributive justice, he was to expiate his sins by forfeiting his life on the block.

Thus perished Count Egmont, the pride of his countrymen, the chivalrous, generous, magnificent courtier, the warm-hearted civilian, the lover of the Netherlands. Too susceptible to flattery and too much at heart a loyalist, he could not think of utter separation from his king; a Romanist too, and as such, an enemy to reformation, he was jostled often in his place, in attempting to carry out his views as a patriot;-he was tossed

from side to side, till at length the meshes which were artfully spread for him had entangled his feet, and he could not effect his escape. The cold blooded premeditation with which Alva and Philip laid their snare in his path, and finally inveigled him into it, is one of the blackest pictures of human depravity.

But while Egmont and Hoorne thus suffered in the Lowlands, another victim of deception, the Baron De Montigny, who, it will be remembered, was the bearer of despatches with Bergen from the Council of State to Madrid, was ensnared and confined. For month after month he had been prevented by Philip from returning with his associate to their home in the north. De Bergen in the meanwhile died of his sufferings, and Montigny was sacrificed to the spleen of the monarch. His estates were confiscated, as well as those of his friend, to enrich the royal exchequer.

Can we doubt, that the man who would thus deal with his nobles on mere suspicion of heresy or of countenancing heresy, would hesitate for a moment to take the life of his son? The fate of Don Carlos has formed the subject of romance, and of many a dark conjecture. It is wrapped still in mystery; but yet, from the light let in upon it by Mr. Prescott through Philip's letters and missives, we can scarcely avoid the persuasion that his death is to be accounted for by his Lowland sympathies. He was suspected of heresy and of estrangement from his parent. He would hardly have been doomed to die for insanity. His was a fate, as we are almost forced to believe, like Egmont's and Hoorne's, and Montigny's and Bergen's-like that of the Prince of Orange yet later, and of Escovedo his secretary.

It is to the honor of Mr. Prescott, that while he presents all the details in the conduct of Philip, with their aggravating accompaniments, he yet yields him the chances of a charitable verdict. The historian is called upon to furnish a candid exhibition without partisan prejudices or foregone conclusions. His impartiality and fairness do him great credit; while his accuracy of information secure him the confidence of the reader.

We should have been glad to notice the probable influence of Philip upon the Reformation in England, through his marriage with Mary; but our limits forbid. We cannot but remark, however, that there was a hand of Providence which early severed his connection with the English throne; and though we are confident that the Anglo Saxon faith, like that of the inhabitants of Holland and Flanders, would have been

strengthened by a conflict with his oppressive rule, yet it would have been doubtless through fires of martyrdom or seas of blood, that it at last prevailed.

In the volumes before us there are passages of great beauty and truth which it would have been well for the reviewer to transfer to his pages for their intrinsic merit.

The account of the abdication of Charles the First, the sad fate of Italy in the sixteenth century, Philip's marriage festivities, the death of Isabella and kindred descriptions, are among the most graphic of the historical pen. The brilliant episode upon the Ottoman struggle and the brave knights of Malta is fraught with the interest of late Crimean despatches. For. fulness of research, for selection and arrangement, for variety of subject, for nice analysis of character and thorough discussion of affairs, for picturesqueness, distinctness and vigor of effectthe History of Philip the Second leaves us nothing to desire. We shall look with eagerness for the continuation of its narrative from the gifted hand of its author, through the enterprising house which now offers it to the public. On its fair and beautiful pages the eye rests with pleasure, and on its typographical correctness. We cannot forget, as we here suspend our discussion, that the master-spirit of the Netherlands is looking from his exile, like the mountain eagle from his aerie, across the scene of carnage-moulting the tenets of his religious indiference and repluming his pinions for a more lofty flight, with the study of Protestantism and the free principles of the Gospel.

ART. III.-THE CHURCH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

1. The Kingdom of Christ, delineated in two Essays, on our Lord's own account of His Person, and of the Nature of His Kingdom, and of the Constitution, Powers, and Ministry of a Christian Church, as appointed by Himself. By RICHARD WHATELY, D. D., Archbishop of Dublin. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1843.

2. The Primary Charge, delivered before the Convention, &c., of South Carolina. By the Rt. Rev. THOS. F. Davis, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese. Charleston. 1856.

3. The Church in its Idea, Attributes and Ministry: with a particular reference to the Controversy on the subject between the Romanists and Protestants. By EDWARD ARTHUR LITTON, M. A., Perpetual Curate of Stockton Heath, Cheshire, and late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. London, 1851. 8vo., pp. 707.

RECENT discussions within our own branch of the Church, serve at least to show that we are not yet done with a question, which, we hoped, was long since put at rest. For this question does not at all stop in its relations to the Nature, Organization, Ministry, and Sacraments of the Church of Christ. It concerns equally, all the Doctrines of the New Testament, and the very fact of the Inspiration of God's Revealed Word. No man, who has an eye upon the drifting of popular sentiment in England and the United States, can fail to see, to what issues, fearful issues, this whole question finally must come. This method of argumentation has never been more plausibly exhibited than in the work of Archbishop Whately named above; and we have therefore selected that form of the question, for the purpose of examining it in one or two only of its bearings; to which examination we now invite the attention of the reader.

There are two theories regarding the Kingdom of Christ on earth, into which nearly all opinions on the subject may be resolved. The first may be thus stated. Our Redeemer, before His reascension into Heaven, authorized the formation of a society, to be composed of members professing a belief in His Messiahship; He appointed the first officers of the society, and prescribed the mode of admission into membership; furthermore, He promised that whatever rules of organization and