[The question of the time and place to which the invention of printing should be referred, has been often discussed.  It is not probable that it will ever be settled to the entire satisfaction of Holland and Germany.  The Dutch claim that movable types were first used at Harlem, fixing the time variously between the years 1423 and 1440.  The first and very faulty editions of Lorenz are religiously preserved at Harlem.]

Philip died in February, 1467.  The details of his life and career do not belong to our purpose.  The practical tendency of his government was to repress the spirit of liberty, while especial privileges, extensive in nature, but limited in time, were frequently granted to corporations.  Philip, in one day, conferred thirty charters upon as many different bodies of citizens.  These were, however, grants of monopoly not concessions of rights.  He also fixed the number of city councils or Vroedschappen in many Netherland cities, giving them permission to present a double list of candidates for burgomasters and judges, from which he himself made the appointments.  He was certainly neither a good nor great prince, but he possessed much administrative ability.  His military talents were considerable, and he was successful in his wars.  He was an adroit dissembler, a practical politician.  He had the sense to comprehend that the power of a prince, however absolute, must depend upon the prosperity of his subjects.  He taxed severely the wealth, but he protected the commerce and the manufactures of Holland and Flanders.  He encouraged art, science, and literature.  The brothers, John and Hubert Van Eyck, were attracted by his generosity to Bruges, where they painted many pictures.  John was even a member of the duke’s council.  The art of oil-painting was carried to great perfection by Hubert’s scholar, John of Bruges.  An incredible number of painters, of greater or less merit, flourished at this epoch in the Netherlands, heralds of that great school, which, at a subsequent period, was to astonish the world with brilliant colors; profound science, startling effects, and vigorous reproductions of Nature.  Authors, too, like Olivier de la Marche and Philippe de Comines, who, in the words of the latter, “wrote, not for the amusement of brutes, and people of low degree, but for princes and other persons of quality,” these and other writers, with aims as lofty, flourished at the court of Burgundy, and were rewarded by the Duke with princely generosity.  Philip remodelled and befriended the university of Louvain.  He founded at Brussels the Burgundian library, which became celebrated throughout Europe.  He levied largely, spent profusely, but was yet so thrifty a housekeeper, as to leave four hundred thousand crowns of gold, a vast amount in those days, besides three million marks’ worth of plate and furniture, to be wasted like water in the insane career of his son.