t influence on
the events of the times. To them we shall now direct our attention.

These spacious territories are bounded on the north, by the German
Ocean; on the west, by the British Sea and part of Picardy; on the
south, by Champagne or Lorraine; on the east, by the archbishoprics of
Triers and Treves, the dutchies of Juliers and Cleves, the bishopric of
Munster, and the county of Embden or East Friesland.

[Sidenote: V. 1. Antient and Modern Geography of the Netherlands.]

When the Romans invaded Gaul, it was divided among three principal
clans: the Rhine then formed its western boundary. The left banks of
this river were occupied by the Belgians: this tract of land now
comprises the catholic Netherlands, and the territory of the United
States; the right bank of the Rhine was then filled by the Frisians,
and now comprises the modern Groeningen, east and west Friesland, a part
of Holland, Gueldres, Utrecht, and Overyssell: the Batavians inhabited
the island which derives its name from them; it now comprises the upper
part of Holland, Utrecht, Gueldres, and Overyssell, the modern Cleves
between the Lech and the Waal.

In antient geography, the Netherlands were separated into the
Cisrhenahan and Transrhenahan divisions: the Cisrhenahan lay on the
western side of the Rhine, and included the Belgic Gaul; it was bounded
by the Rhenus, the Rhodanus, the Sequana, the Matrona, and the Oceanus
Britannicus: the Transrhenahan lay on the eastern side of the Rhine; it
was a part of Lower Germany, and bounded on the north by the eastern
Frisia, Westphalia, the Ager-Colonensis, the Juliacensis-Ducatus, and
the Treveri. The classical reader will have no difficulty in assigning
to these denominations, their actual names in the language of modern
geography.

The whole of these territories is called the Netherlands by the English;
and Flanders by the Italians, Spaniards, and French.

V. 2.

_The formation of the different Provinces of the Netherlands into one
State_.

In 1363, John the Good, the king of France, gave to Philip the Bold, his
third son, the dutchy of Burgundy: it then comprised the county of
Burgundy, Dauphine, and a portion of Switzerland. The monarch at the
same time created his son duke of Burgundy. Thus Philip, became the
patriarch of the second line of that illustrious house.

History does not produce an instance of a family, which has so greatly
aggrandized itself by marriage, as the house