too much for his time."

As the troubles of the interregnum increased Willoughby was more
dissatisfied than ever with the miserable condition of the Provinces,
but chose to ascribe it to the machinations of the States' party,
rather than to the ambiguous conduct of Leicester. "These evils,"
he said, "are especially, derived from the childish ambition of the
young Count Maurice, from the covetous and furious counsels of the proud
Hollanders, now chief of the States-General, and, if with pardon it may
be said, from our slackness and coldness to entertain our friends. The
provident and wiser sort--weighing what a slender ground the appetite of
a young man is, unfurnished with the sinews of war to manage so great a
cause--for a good space after my Lord of Leicester's departure, gave him
far looking on, to see him play has part on the stage."

Willoughby's spleen caused him to mix his metaphors more recklessly than
strict taste would warrant, but his violent expressions painted the
relative situation of parties more vividly than could be done by a calm
disquisition. Maurice thus playing his part upon the stage--as the
general proceeded to observe--"was a skittish horse, becoming by little
and little assured of what he had feared, and perceiving the harmlessness
thereof; while his companions, finding no safety of neutrality in so
great practices, and no overturning nor barricado to stop his rash wilded
chariot, followed without fear; and when some of the first had passed the
bog; the rest, as the fashion is, never started after. The variable
democracy; embracing novelty, began to applaud their prosperity; the base
and lewdest sorts of men, to whom there is nothing more agreeable than
change of estates, is a better monture to degrees than their merit, took
present hold thereof. Hereby Paul Buys, Barneveld, and divers others,
who were before mantled with a tolerable affection, though seasoned with