e through its gates; above two thousand loaded wagons
arrived every week from Germany, France, and Lorraine, without reckoning
the farmers' carts and corn-vans, which were seldom less than ten
thousand in number. Thirty thousand hands were employed by the English
company alone. The market dues, tolls, and excise brought millions to
the government annually. We can form some idea of the resources of the
nation from the fact that the extraordinary taxes which they were
obliged to pay to Charles V. towards his numerous wars were computed at
forty millions of gold ducats.

For this affluence the Netherlands were as much indebted to their
liberty as to the natural advantages of their country. Uncertain laws
and the despotic sway of a rapacious prince would quickly have blighted
all the blessings which propitious nature had so abundantly lavished on
them. The inviolable sanctity of the laws can alone secure to the
citizen the fruits of his industry, and inspire him with that happy
confidence which is the soul of all activity.

The genius of this people, developed by the spirit of commerce, and by
the intercourse with so many nations, shone in useful inventions; in the
lap of abundance and liberty all the noble arts were carefully
cultivated and carried to perfection. From Italy, to which Cosmo de
Medici had lately restored its golden age, painting, architecture, and
the arts of carving and of engraving on copper, were transplanted into
the Netherlands, where, in a new soil, they flourished with fresh vigor.
The Flemish school, a daughter of the Italian, soon vied with its mother
for the prize; and, in common with it, gave laws to the whole of Europe
in the fine arts. The manufactures and arts, on which the Netherlanders
principally founded their prosperity, and still partly base it, require
no particular enumeration. The weaving of tapestry, oil painting, the
art of painting on glass, even pocketwatches and sun-dials were, as
Guicciardini asserts, originally invented in the Netherlands. To them
we are indebted for the improvement of the compass, the points of which
are still known by Flemish names. About the year 1430 the invention of
typography is ascribed to Laurence Koster, of Haarlem; and whether or
not he is entitled to this honorable distinction, certain it is that the
Dutch were among the first to engraft this useful art among them; and
fate ordained that a century later it should reward its country with
liberty. The p