John of Olden-Barneveld, with his great experience and vast and steady intellect, stood side by side with young Maurice of Nassau at this important crisis in the history of the new commonwealth.
At length the twig was becoming the tree--'tandem fit surculus arbor'-- according to the device assumed by the son of William the Silent after his father's death.
The Netherlands had sore need of a practical soldier to contend with the scientific and professional tyrants against whom they had so long been struggling, and Maurice, although so young, was pre-eminently a practical man.

He was no enthusiast; he was no poet.

He was at that period certainly no politician.

Not often at the age of twenty has a man devoted himself for years to pure mathematics for the purpose of saving his country.

Yet this was Maurice's scheme.