Another of its illustrious founders was Margaret of Austria, _la gente demoiselle_, daughter to the gentle-spirited Mary of Burgundy, and friend of Erasmus and Cornelius Agrippa, who amassed for it the invaluable collection of “_Princeps_” editions, which were then issuing from the early press of Venice and the North. The Library still contains the common-place book of this interesting Princess, with her verses in her own handwriting, and music of her own composition. Another equally charming guardian of literature was her niece, Mary of Austria, the sister of Charles V and Queen Dowager of Hungary, who transferred to the library of Brussels the manuscripts which her husband, Louis II, had inherited from his grandfather, Mathias Corvinus. Amongst these, is a missal, one of the wonders of the collection, painted at Florence in 1485, and abounding in the most exquisite miniatures, arabesques and illuminated cyphers. From the period of its deposit in Brussels, the Dukes of Brabant took their oath of inauguration by kissing the leaves of this priceless volume, and two pages which had been opened for this purpose at the accession of Albert and Isabella, in November 1599, are spotted with the flakes of snow which fell upon the book during the solemnity. In the vicissitudes of Brussels, the contents of her Library has always been an object of cupidity for her invaders. In 1746, Marshal Saxe sent a selection of its treasures to Paris, which were restored in 1770, and again seized by the revolutionary army of Dumourier in 1794, and though recovered in 1815, it was with the loss of many of its precious deposits. But even the disappearance of these was less exasperating than the insensate vandalism of the savants of the revolution, who actually rubbed out with their wetted fingers, the portraits of the ancient emperors and kings, and even of the saints who happened to wear a crown, in order to evince their inexpressible hatred of monarchy. Amongst the manuscripts, are some few which escaped from the sack of Constantinople in 1453, and bear the names and handwriting of Chalcondylas, Chrysolaras, and the restorers of Grecian literature, who, on the overturn of the Eastern Empire, found a refuge at Rome and at the court of the Medicis. The bindings of numbers of them, bear the imperial cypher of Napoleon, but the majority have still their ancient velvet covers, the richness of which, with their clasps of gilded silver which secure them, attest the value which was placed upon their contents by their illustrious owners.