Surely, “if words be made of breath, and breath of life,” there is nothing a nation can hold more dear than its own tongue.  Its laws, its rulers, may change, its privileges and charters be wrenched from it, but that remains as an heirloom, the first gift to the child, the last and dearest treasure of the man.  Perhaps nowhere more than in Flanders do we meet with a systematic oppression of a vernacular idiom.  From the days of the contests with France, through the long Spanish troubles and dominion, the military occupation of the country by the troops of Louis XIV., the Austrian rule, the levelling tendency of the French Revolution, and the present aping of French manners by the higher powers of the land,—­through all this there has been but one long, continuous struggle, and the ultimate result is now too plain.

We find the Flemish spoken by nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of Belgium, divided from the Walloon or Rouchi-Fran ais by a line of demarcation running from the Meuse through Liege and Waterloo, and ending in France, between Calais and Dunkirk.  It differs in no material points from the Dutch, being essentially the same, if we except slight differences in spelling, as ae for aa, ue for uu, y for ij.  Both should bear but one common name, the Netherlandish.  That differences should be sought can be accounted for only by the petty feeling of jealousy that exists between the neighboring states, their literary productions varying in grammatical construction scarcely more than the writings of English and American authors.

Mr. Octave Delepierre, who since 1830 has published some ten or twelve monographs relating to the antiquities and history of Flanders, has presented the English public during the course of the present year with a history of Flemish literature.  With an evident predilection for authors south of the Meuse, Mr. Delepierre has nevertheless given us the first clear and connected account we possess of the history of letters in the Netherlands.  Without careful or minute critical research, he has shown little that is new, nor has he sought to clear one point that was obscure.  His work is pleasant reading, interspersed with occasional translations, though scarcely answering the requisites of literary history in the nineteenth century.  Having followed the older work of Snellaert [Histoire de la Litterature Flamande.  Bruxelles. 1654.], in the latter half of the volume, page for page, he has not even mentioned by name the authors of the last quarter of a century.

Let us glance at that portion of literature more particularly belonging to Flanders and Brabant.