“But,” says Van Zuyren, “the house has _long since_ been despoiled of its precious contents.” In his days then, and he is the earliest writer on the subject, the wine-pots did not exist; or if they did, and if they were known to be the re-shaped relics of the original metal types, how is his ignorance of their existence to be accounted for? He and Coornhert were both living and writing in the city at the same time with Junius, with whom, as one of the learned literati of the day, they could not but have been well acquainted, if not on intimate and friendly terms. After a long absence, Junius returned to the city where the others were born and bred, and where one of them, Van Zuyren, filled the office of Scabinus from 1549 to 1561, when he was advanced to the dignity of Burgomaster, (in which year his partner dedicated his work to him and the other officials of the city). How then came Junius alone to learn the history of Laurent Janssoen’s invention? and how is Van Zuyren and Coornhert’s silence to be accounted for, in regard to such important matters affecting Laurent the son of Jans, who filled the lucrative office of Coster of the great church; who was member of the great council, sheriff, sheriff-president, and finally treasurer of the city;--whose portrait was engraved, (or supposed to have been), along with those of Ouwater, Hemsen, Mandin, and Volkert, all eminent Haarlemese painters of the fifteenth century;--and whose history must have been well known to both, when they wrote, the one declaring “for the love of his country alone,”--and the other, “not because I am jealous of the glory of others, but because I love truth”? Where then was the love of country and the love of truth, if they omitted, or suppressed, the name of the man who invented the art, the glory of which they “could not consent should be effaced from the memory of men, and be buried in eternal oblivion; claims of which it is our duty to preserve the memorial, for the benefit of our latest posterity”? There can be no doubt but that considerations of this nature have led older writers to express suspicions in regard to the authenticity of Junius’s narrative, and to believe that his manuscript was tampered with between the time of his death, and the publication of the work in which it appears; as well as to induce “_misgivings_” in the minds of learned Dutchmen of the present day “as to the ultimate result of full inquiry into the subject.”[89]