Gerard Leeu, the first printer at Gouda, is the most important of all the Low Country printers of the fifteenth century. His first book was issued in 1477, a Dutch edition of the _Epistles and Gospels_; and five other books followed in the same year. His first illustrated book, the _Dialogus creaturarum moralisatus_, was issued in 1480. About the middle of the year 1484 he removed to Antwerp, and printed there till 1493. In that year, while the _Chronicles of England_ were being printed, a letter-cutter named Henric van Symmen, one of Leeu’s workmen, struck work. In a quarrel which followed, Leeu was struck on the head, and died after three days’ illness. The workman who gave the blow was fined forty gulden, not a very heavy punishment for manslaughter. At the end of the _Chronicles_ the workmen put the following colophon: ‘Enprentyd ... by maister Gerard de Leew, a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunnying: whych nowe is come from lyfe unto the deth, which is grete harme for many a poure man. On whos sowle god almyghty for hys hygh grace have mercy. Amen.’ Leeu must have employed a good deal of labour, for he printed a very large number of books; Campbell gives about two hundred, and his numbers are always being added to. But what makes Leeu especially interesting to us is the fact of his printing English books. Of these, he issued seven between 1486 and 1493--a Grammar, two Sarum Service-books, and four other popular books which will be noticed later. Another interesting printer who was settled at Gouda was Gotfried de Os, whom Bradshaw considers to have been identical with Govaert van Ghemen. He began to print at Gouda in 1486, but about 1490 removed to Copenhagen, printing at Leyden on his way. Before he went there he parted with some of his printing materials, type, initial letters, and woodcuts, which came into the hands of W. de Worde, and were used in England. Five other towns in the Netherlands possessed printing presses before 1480--Deventer (1477), Delft (1477), St. Maartensdyk (1478), Nÿmegen (1479), and Zwolle (1479). At Deventer there were only two printers, R. Paffroed and J. de Breda; but between them they printed at least five hundred books, about a quarter of the whole number issued in the Netherlands in the fifteenth century.