"for I must pay your highness the ill compliment of avowing, that you
appear more worn by fatigue and weather at this moment, and in this
sunless clime, than at the height of your glorious labours in the
Mediterranean! Namur has already ploughed more wrinkles on your brow
than Barbary or Lepanto."

"Say rather in my _heart_!" cried the impetuous prince. "Since you
quitted me, six months ago, my dear Gonzaga, I have known nothing but
cares! To you I have no scruple in avowing, that my position in this
country is hateful. So long accustomed to war against a barbarous
enemy, I could almost fancy myself as much a Moor at heart, as I
appeared in visage, when in your service on my way to Luxembourg,
whenever I find my sword uplifted against a Christian breast!--Civil
war, Ottavio, is a hideous and repugnant thing!"--

"The report is true, then, that your highness has become warmly
attached to the people of these rebel provinces?" demanded Gonzaga,
not choosing to declare the rumour prevalent in Spain, that an
opportunity had been afforded to the prince by the Barlaimont
faction, of converting his viceroyalty into the sway of absolute
sovereignty.

"So much the reverse, that the evil impression they made on me at my
arrival, has increased a hundred-fold! I abhor them yet more and
more. Flemings or Brabançons, Hainaulters or Walloons, Catholic or
Calvinist, the whole tribe is my aversion; and despite our best
endeavours to conceal it, I am convinced the feeling is reciprocal!"

"If your highness was equally candid in your avowals to the Queen of
Navarre," observed Gonzaga gravely,--"I can scarcely wonder at the