could have been managed with less adroitness.

Meantime, not heeding the storm gathering beyond the narrow seas, the new
governor was enjoying the full sunshine of power. On the 4th February
the ceremony of his inauguration took place, with great pomp and ceremony
at the Hague.

The beautiful, placid, village-capital of Holland wore much the same
aspect at that day as now. Clean, quiet, spacious streets, shaded with
rows of whispering poplars and umbrageous limes, broad sleepy canals--
those liquid highways alone; which glided in phantom silence the bustle,
and traffic, and countless cares of a stirring population--quaint
toppling houses, with tower and gable; ancient brick churches, with
slender spire and musical chimes; thatched cottages on the outskirts,
with stork-nests on the roofs--the whole without fortification save the
watery defences which enclosed it with long-drawn lines on every side;
such was the Count's park, or 's Graven Haage, in English called the
Hague.

It was embowered and almost buried out of sight by vast groves of oaks
and beeches. Ancient Badahuennan forests of sanguinary Druids, the "wild
wood without mercy" of Saxon savages, where, at a later period, sovereign
Dirks and Florences, in long succession of centuries, had ridden abroad
with lance in rest, or hawk on fist; or under whose boughs, in still
nearer days, the gentle Jacqueline had pondered and wept over her
sorrows, stretched out in every direction between the city and the
neighbouring sea. In the heart of the place stood the ancient palace of
the counts, built in the thirteenth century by William II. of Holland,
King of the Romans, with massive brick walls, cylindrical turrets,
pointed gable and rose-shaped windows, and with spacious coup-yard,