lowed with success in the Netherlands, in the Dutch, Flemish,
and French languages; and even before the institution of the
Floral Games in France, Belgium possessed its chambers of rhetoric
(_rederykkamers_) which labored to keep alive the sacred flame
of poetry with more zeal than success. In the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, these societies were established in almost
every burgh of Flanders and Brabant; the principal towns possessing
several at once.

The arts in their several branches made considerable progress
in the Netherlands during this epoch. Architecture was greatly
cultivated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; most of
the cathedrals and town houses being constructed in that age.
Their vastness, solidity, and beauty of design and execution,
make them still speaking monuments of the stern magnificence
and finished taste of the times. The patronage of Philip the
Good, Charles the Rash, and Margaret of Austria, brought music
into fashion, and led to its cultivation in a remarkable degree.
The first musicians of France were drawn from Flanders; and other
professors from that country acquired great celebrity in Italy
for their scientific improvements in their delightful art.

Painting, which had languished before the fifteenth century,
sprung at once into a new existence from the invention of John Van
Eyck, known better by the name of John of Bruges. His accidental
discovery of the art of painting in oil quickly spread over Europe,
and served to perpetuate to all time the records of the genius
which has bequeathed its vivid impressions to the world. Painting
on glass, polishing diamonds, the Carillon, lace, and tapestry,
were among the inventions which owed their birth to the Netherlands
in these ages, when the faculties of mankind sought so many new
channels for mechanical development. The discovery of a new world
by Columbus and other eminent navigators gave a fresh and powerful
impulse to European talent, by affording an immense reservoir for
its reward. The town of Antwerp was, during the reign of Charles
V., the outlet for the industry of Europe, and the receptacle
for the productions of all the nations of the earth. Its port
was so often crowded with vessels that each successive fleet
was obliged to wait long in the Scheldt before it could obtain
admission for the discharge of its cargoes. The university of
Louvain, that great nursery of science, was founded in 1425, and
served greatly to t