The last six months of his existence, contrasted with the daring vigor of his former life, formed a melancholy picture of timidity and superstition.
The whole of the provinces of the Netherlands being now for the first time united under one sovereign, such a junction marks the limits of a second epoch in their history.

It would be a presumptuous and vain attempt to trace, in a compass so confined as ours, the various changes in manners and customs which arose in these countries during a period of one thousand years.

The extended and profound remarks of many celebrated writers on the state of Europe from the decline of the Roman power to the epoch at which we are now arrived must be referred to, to judge of the gradual progress of civilization through the gloom of the dark ages, till the dawn of enlightenment which led to the grand system of European politics commenced during the reign of Charles V.The amazing increase of commerce was, above all other considerations, the cause of the growth of liberty in the Netherlands.

The Reformation opened the minds of men to that intellectual freedom without which political enfranchisement is a worthless privilege.

The invention of printing opened a thousand channels to the flow of erudition and talent, and sent them out from the reservoirs of individual possession to fertilize the whole domain of human nature.