Holland, on the other hand, is active and doing.  Its poets and historians are at work, the precursors of Bilderdyk and Tollens, the poet of the people.  Bruges, in the eighteenth century, produces two writers of merit,—­Smidts and Labare.  In French Flanders, De Swaen adapts from Corneille, and publishes original dramas.  Many songs are composed both in the northern and southern provinces, mostly of a religious character.  Philologers seek to revive the neglected idiom with little success.  But the century is blank of great names.  The Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres, established at Brussels by Maria Theresa, was composed of members totally unacquainted with the Flemish.  It took no notice of the language beyond publishing a few prize-memoirs in its annals.  The German barons who ruled cared little for their own tongue:  how should they have manifested interest in that of their Belgian subjects?  The subsequent French domination was no improvement.  On the 13th of June, 1803, it was decreed by the Republic,—­“In a year, reckoning from the publication of this present ordinance, the public acts, in the departments once called Belgium, ... in those on the left bank of the Rhine, ... where the custom of drawing up acts in the language of those countries may have been preserved, are henceforth to be written in French.”  The Bonaparte rule was not of a nature to restore former privileges.  In spite of the feeble remonstrances that were urged against such arbitrary measures, an imperial decree of 1812 enjoined that all Flemish papers should appear with a French translation.

Under the rule of King William, vigorous measures were employed to reinstate the native idiom.  At first warmly seconded, Government soon met with an unaccountable opposition even from its subjects.  The Dutch was combated by those connected with education.  It was ridiculed by the Walloon population.  Since the independence of Belgium, the mouvement flamand has been felt more than once by the would-be French rulers.  In 1841, a Congress was held in Ghent, where all the members of the Government spoke in Flemish; energetic protests were addressed to the Chamber of Representatives, all with little avail.  At present, though the language is nominally on a par with French, it meets with little encouragement.  The philological labors of Willems entitle him to a place among the greatest of the present century; he was until his death the leader of the intellectual movement of his country.

Of later authors, we may mention the laureate Ledeganck, Henri Conscience, whose works have now been translated into English, French, German, Danish, and Swedish, Renier Snieders, Van Duyse, Dantzenberg.  Modern literature seems to have taken a new flight; it is animated by the purest love of country, by an ardent desire in its authors to revive the use of their native tongue.  The tendency is rather Germanic.  At the Singers’ Festival, held in Ghent a short time ago, the songs sung breathed a spirit of union and love for the sister languages.  As a fair sample, we may quote the following:—­