CHAPTER XIV.

Anecdotes of Lawrence Coster: art of printing how discovered; its originality disputed: female fortitude and presence of mind: siege of Haarlem: heroic conduct of the women: brief anecdote of Wouvermans: of Bamboccio: fatal effects of severe criticism: anecdotes of Nicholas Berghem and his termagant wife: of Ruysdaal: enormous sluices; approach to Amsterdam; its general appearance: a sley: Erasmus’s whimsical description of that city: the stadt-house: silence represented as a female: the tower: clocks, singular mode of striking the hour 148