the Cremonese possessions which lay on the other bank of the Oglio, a district forty miles in extent. Philip, as may be supposed, was furious with his losses, – now accusing the faith of the Florentines, who had begun the war; now the avarice of the Venetians, who were not content with having taken Brescia, but would have Cremona too. The well-meant exertions of the legate, however, were of so little effect, that before his own departure he saw the magistrates sent by the Venetians to take possession of their new property on the Cremona side driven out with insults, and Philip ready to take arms again. The cause of this new courage was to be found in the action of the people of Milan, who, stung in their pride by the national downfall, drew their purse-strings, and came to their prince's aid, offering both men and money on condition that Philip would give up to them the dues of the city, so that they might reimburse themselves. Thus the wary and subtle Italian burghers combined daring with prudence, arid secured a great municipal advantage, while undertaking a patriotic duty.
It would be hopeless to follow the course of this long-continued, often-interrupted war. On either side there was a crowd of captains – many Italians, men of high birth and great possessions, others sprung from the people like Carmagnola (a certain John the Englishman with a hundred followers swells his own train), all making a trade of war in a manner of which we can form little conception. The great battles which bulk so largely in writing, the names and number of which confuse the reader who attempts to follow the entanglements of alliances and treacheries which fill the chronicle, were in most cases almost bloodless, and the prisoners who were taken by the victors were released immediately, "according to the usage of war," in order that they might live to fight another day, and so prolong and extend the profitable and not too laborious occupation of soldiering. This wonderful fact seems to have been first discovered by the Venetian Proveditori, or civil commissioners, who accompanied Carmagnola, – disagreeable spectators, such as every general dislikes, – whom the custom filled with consternation. Such, however, was the rule of these endless combats. The men-at-arms in their complete mail were very nearly invulnerable. They might roll off their horses and be stifled in their own helmets, or at close quarters an indiscreet axe might hew through the steel, or an arrow find a crevice in the armour; but such accidents were quite unusual, and the bloody battle was a sort of game which one general played against another, in ever renewed and changing combinations. The siege of Brescia, in the midst of all these factitious struggles, was a real and soldierly performance; and even the ordinary battle was in its way real enough, with no sham intention, though the danger attending it was small. But war was altogether a different matter from anything in modern days, perpetuating itself by well-understood means, no mutual feud being severe enough to overmaster the evident necessity under which each party lay of leaving the other party in freedom to continue the warfare. The danger that the different bands would quarrel among themselves, and divided counsels prevail, was perhaps greater than any other in the composition of these armies. In Philip's host, when the second campaign began, this evil was apparent. Half-a-dozen captains of
