The rise of the Dutch Republic is one of the most inspiring pages in history.

Superficially it has many points of resemblance with the American War of Independence.

In both there was the absentee king, the national hero, the local jealousies of the several provinces, the economic grievances, the rising national feeling and even the religious issue, though this had become very small in America.

But the difference was in the ferocity of the tyranny and the intensity of the struggle.

The two pictures are like the same landscape as it might be painted by Millet and by Turner: the one is decent and familiar, the other lurid and ghastly.