iences and liberal arts
is likely to come into entire oblivion. . . . . Considering the
differences of religion--considering that we are inclined to gratify our
city of Leyden, with its burghers, on account of the heavy burthens
sustained by them during this war with such faithfulness--we have
resolved, after ripely deliberating with our dear cousin, William, Prince
of Orange, stadholder, to erect a free public school and university,"
etc., etc., etc. So ran the document establishing this famous academy,
all needful regulations for the government and police of the institution
being entrusted by Philip to his "above-mentioned dear cousin of Orange."
The university having been founded, endowed, and supplied with its,
teachers, it was solemnly consecrated in the following winter, and it is
agreeable to contemplate this scene of harmless pedantry, interposed, as
it was, between the acts of the longest and dreariest tragedy of modern
time. On the 5th of February, 1575, the city of Leyden, so lately the
victim of famine and pestilence, had crowned itself with flowers. At
seven in the morning, after a solemn religious celebration in the Church
of St. Peter, a grand procession was formed. It was preceded by a
military escort, consisting of the burgher militia and the five companies
of infantry stationed in the city. Then came, drawn by four horses, a
splendid triumphal chariot, on which sat a female figure, arrayed in
snow-white garments. This was the Holy Gospel. She was attended by the
Four Evangelists, who walked on foot at each side of her chariot. Next
followed Justice, with sword and scales, mounted; blindfold, upon a
unicorn, while those learned doctors, Julian, Papinian, Ulpian, and
Tribonian, rode on either side, attended by two lackeys and four men at
arms. After these came Medicine, on horseback, holding in one hand a
treatise of the healing art, in the other a garland of drugs. The
curative goddess rode between the four eminent physicians, Hippocrates,
Galen, Dioscorides, and Theophrastus, and was attended by two footmen and
four pike-bearers. Last of the allegorical personages came Minerva,
prancing in complete steel, with lance in rest, and bearing her Medusa
shield. Aristotle and Plato, Cicero and Virgil, all on horseback, with
attendants in antique armor at their back, surrounded the daughter of
Jupiter, while the city band, discoursing eloquent music from hautboy and
viol, came upon the heels of the allegory. T
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