The improbable features of this legend were not seen in the uncritical age in which _Batavia_ was written. Patriotic Dutchmen did not wish to see them. Holland, at the close of the sixteenth century, was flushed with pride at her successful resistance to the power of Spain. Grateful to the men who had made her famous, she exaggerated the services of all her eminent sons. Coster was not forgotten. The name of Junius gave authority to the Haarlem legend, and the story of Coster was read and believed throughout the Netherlands. There were dramatic features connected with it which pleased the imagination and fastened themselves to the memory. To people who had no opportunity to examine the evidences, the legend of Haarlem soon became an article of national faith, to disbelieve which was to be disloyal and unpatriotic. But this enthusiasm would have subsided if it had not been nourished. If subsequent writers had added nothing to this legend of Junius, it would not be necessary to write more about it. Long ago it would have been put aside as untrue. But the legend has grown: it has been almost hidden under the additions that have been made to it. The snow-ball has become a snow-heap. It is necessary to expose the falsity of the additions as well as of the legend, and to show how recklessly this chapter of the history of typography has been written. [p347] XVIII The Growth of the Legend. Perversion by Bertius . . . Romance of Scriverius . . . Date of Invention removed to 1428 . . . Illustration of First Statue to Coster . . . Date of 1420 given by Boxhorn . . . Rooman’s Date of 1430 . . . History and Chronology of Seiz . . . Doubts of Hollanders . . . Discrepancies in the Dates on Medals . . . Meerman and his Unsatisfactory System . . . Fac-similes of Medals . . . Koning and his Prize Essay . . . Dr. De Vries’s Theory . . . Radical Disagreements of the Authors . . . All Versions Enlargements of the Legend as given by Junius . . . An Article of Patriotic Faith in Holland . . . Monuments to Coster . . . Illustration of Last Statue. * * * * * Who is there that has not opinions planted in him by education time out of mind, which by that means came to be as the municipal laws of the country, which must not be questioned, but are to be looked on with reverence . . . when these opinions are but the traditional grave talk of those who receive them from hand to hand without ever examining them? _Locke._ * * * * *