sacred writings or the legendary lore of the people. The work was
received in those days of trouble with unbounded enthusiasm. Brabant
was thought to have given birth to a new Homer. His praises resounded
in verse and song, and the young girls of Brussels crowned him with
laurel.

The government of the Duke of Alva, and the succeeding years of
revolution, were a period of desolation for Flanders. The Guilds of
Rhetoric were dispersed; town after town was depopulated; Ghent, the
loved city of Charles V., lost six thousand families; Leyden,
Amsterdam, Haerlem, Gouda, afforded refuge to the emigrants. The
golden age of literary activity is about to dawn in the Dutch
republic. In the other provinces the national language is more and
more neglected. It gives umbrage to the foreign chiefs who act as
sovereigns. With it they identify all the opposition that has
prevailed against them. Archduke Albert carries his condescension no
farther than to address in High-German such of his subjects as can
speak only Flemish. His Walloons he treats with no more civility,
answering them but in Spanish or Latin. Ymmeloot, lord of Steenbrugge,
a native of Ypres, endeavors in 1614 to stem the current of opposition
and reawaken a love for letters. He suggests many reforms in the
versification, and gives the example. He is followed by many, and
Ypres becomes for a time a centre of versifiers. But the spirit of
originality has flown, and the literature of Holland is enriched with
the name of many a Fleming who preferred exile to the new rule.

In 1618, the General Synod of Dordrecht decreed that a new translation
of the Bible should be undertaken. Two Flemings, Baudaert and Walaeus,
and two Dutchmen, Bogerman and Hommius, completed it. Like the work of
Luther, this tended in a great measure to fix the language, preventing
the preponderance of one dialect over the other.

Foreign imitation begins to prevail in Flanders. Frederic de Conincq
constructs dramas on the models of Lope de Vega, with the necessary
quota of nocturnal visits, abductions, dagger-thrusts, and bravado. An
action entirely Spanish is conducted in the veriest _patois_ of
Antwerp. Ogier follows in his footsteps, introducing upon the stage
the coarsest language. He represents vice in its most revolting forms.
His theory, as he himself explains it, is, that "it is necessary to
represent vice on the stage, as the Romans formerly on certain days
intoxicated their slaves and showed