Like most men whose commanding personality dominates the age in which they live, Philip the Good was many sided. The Professor admires him because he was, in his judgment, one of the greatest constructive statesmen of the Middle Ages--aiming steadily throughout his long reign to weld together, by fair means or foul, a compact Burgundian nation. On the other hand, I look upon him as a foe rather than a friend of true progress, because he crushed the self-governing communes and guilds, the bulwarks of personal liberty in feudal Europe. Mrs. Professor cares nothing for either of these aspects of his career, but looks upon him as great for all time because he was an ardent friend and patron of the fine arts. In this she is undoubtedly right, for no greater glory belongs to any of the long line of princes who ruled over Flanders than that which is associated with his reign--the birth at Bruges of the art of painting with oils and of the wonderful school of painting represented by the early Flemish masters. In his _History of Flemish Painting_ Prof. A. J. Wauters recounts the names and some faint traces of the work of a few Flemish painters who lived prior to the period of Philip the Good. At Ghent there are two interesting frescoes dating from about the end of the thirteenth century. At that city in 1337 the first guild of sculptors was organised, under the patronage of St. Luke, and similar corporations were instituted at Tournai in 1341, in Bruges in 1351, at Louvain by 1360 and Antwerp by 1382. To this guild from the very earliest period the painters belonged, sometimes the goldsmiths and goldbeaters being also associated with them. In the same way the illuminators of Bruges and Ghent, and the tapestry workers of Arras, Tournai, Valenciennes and Brussels were organised into guilds, and these associations of men whose work was in a high degree artistic soon resulted in the transformation of the artisan into the artist.