1831.] the Five Great Powers. 227 



host, with apples, out of their " glorious Brabant," were delighted to 

 make a bargain for their lives, and quietly evacuate Louvain. What 

 became of poor Leopold during this brilliant business is still hidden 

 from history. But he is alive, to receive his pension, and we shall have 

 him receiving it at Claremont yet. Never was unlucky Prince so 

 plumped over head and ears into a sea of troubles ; and this too, after 

 the soft life that he has been leading among us for fifteen idle and 

 well-fed, and prodigiously well-pensioned years. Well may he cry — 



- " O happy, lowly clown ! 



Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 



But King William of Nassau, too, has shewn himself an obstinate 

 blockhead on the occasion. Out of Brussels his troops and his sons had 

 been as fairly beaten as ever men were. The Belgians had achieved the 

 honour of beating the Dutch, such as it was, and the affair was at an 

 end. There was just retribution in this, for the Belgians had been 

 handed over like sheep to King William, and they complained that he 

 clipped the fleece with Dutch shears, and fairly told him that they did 

 not like the mode of conveyance nor the style of shearing. Of course, 

 as is the manner of continental kings, he only clipped them the closer, 

 threw their newspaper-writers into jail, and ordered them, as a national 

 punishment, to learn Dutch. This was the final aggravation ; to a 

 man, the Belgians refused to learn the jargon of the Hollanders ; they 

 threw off the yoke, and that yoke they will never again wear, while the 

 Nassaus live on this side of the Tropics. 



The quarrel about Luxemburg was more doubtful, but this too was 

 one of the purchases; a cession for a territosy on the Rhine, altoge- 

 ther without any question being asked of the wills of the people who 

 were thus handed from sovereign to sovereign, as a man would make 

 over a mortgage of so many fish-ponds full stocked, or transfer the 

 allegiance of so many swine. But, even the Luxemburgers were human 

 beings, though the knowledge of that fact escaped the royal salesmen 

 on both sides ; and they followed the example of the Beiges, and swore 

 that they would have no more to do Avith William of Nassau. And 

 what else could the Dutchman expect, if a Dutchman can know any 

 thing of human feeling? We shall soon see all those purchases nullified 

 in the same easy mannei", and the bargainers of " souls" stripped at 

 once of their purchases, and their money. 



The Dutch troops began their campaign fiercel)"-, and the unlucky 

 Beiges have had that taste of the cup of glory which may cure them of 

 any inclination to drink deeper for a while. Their rout seems to have 

 been of a very consummate kind ; they not merely ran away, but they 

 threw away every thing belonging to their soldiership ; muskets, knap- 

 sacks, cartridges, the caps off their heads, and the shoes off their feet ; 

 waggons and cannon they naturally left to the Dutch for their trouble 

 in running after them, and the campaign being over, the volunteers 

 gave themselves their conge. We shall yet see tlie effect of triumph in 

 the bogs of Holland itself, and even a Dutch Epic may be among the 

 miracles of the nineteenth centvuy. 



But the Hollander was a blockhead after all : in his eagerness to 

 frighten Leopold out of his uneasy throne, he seems to have utterly for- 

 gotten that France was within a hundred yards of Belgium, and that 

 the first shot fired would awaken all France to the game tluit slie loves 



Z 2 



