About 160 years before this event, that portion of the empire, to which its situation has given the appellation of THE NETHERLANDS, began to have a separate history, and both a separate and important influence on the events of the times. To them we shall now direct our attention. These spacious territories are bounded on the north, by the German Ocean; on the west, by the British Sea and part of Picardy; on the south, by Champagne or Lorraine; on the east, by the archbishoprics of Triers and Trêves, the dutchies of Juliers and Cléves, the bishopric of Munster, and the county of Embden or East Friesland. [Sidenote: V. 1. Antient and Modern Geography of the Netherlands.] When the Romans invaded Gaul, it was divided among three principal clans: the Rhine then formed its western boundary. The left banks of this river were occupied by the Belgians: this tract of land now comprises the catholic Netherlands, and the territory of the United States; the right bank of the Rhine was then filled by the Frisians, and now comprises the modern Gröningen, east and west Friesland, a part of Holland, Gueldres, Utrecht, and Overyssell: the Batavians inhabited the island which derives its name from them; it now comprises the upper part of Holland, Utrecht, Gueldres, and Overyssell, the modern Cléves between the Lech and the Waal. In antient geography, the Netherlands were separated into the Cisrhenahan and Transrhenahan divisions: the Cisrhenahan lay on the western side of the Rhine, and included the Belgic Gaul; it was bounded by the Rhenus, the Rhodanus, the Sequana, the Matrona, and the Oceanus Britannicus: the Transrhenahan lay on the eastern side of the Rhine; it was a part of Lower Germany, and bounded on the north by the eastern Frisia, Westphalia, the Ager-Colonensis, the Juliacensis-Ducatus, and the Treveri. The classical reader will have no difficulty in assigning to these denominations, their actual names in the language of modern geography. The whole of these territories is called the Netherlands by the English; and Flanders by the Italians, Spaniards, and French. V. 2. _The formation of the different Provinces of the Netherlands into one State_. In 1363, John the Good, the king of France, gave to Philip the Bold, his third son, the dutchy of Burgundy: it then comprised the county of Burgundy, Dauphiné, and a portion of Switzerland. The monarch at the same time created his son duke of Burgundy. Thus Philip, became the patriarch of the second line of that illustrious house. History does not produce an instance of a family, which has so greatly aggrandized itself by marriage, as the house of Austria. The largest part by far of the Netherlands was derived to it, 1st, from Margaret of Franche Comtè; 2dly, from Margaret of Flanders; 3dly, from Jane of Brabant; 4thly, from Mary of Burgundy; 5thly, from Jacqueline of Holland; and 6thly, from Elizabeth of Luxemburgh. [Sidenote: Formation of the Provinces of the Netherlands into one State.]