them to their children, in order
that they might at an early age become inspired with a disgust for
debauchery." Yet his comedies enjoyed the highest favor, and have been
pronounced by native critics among the most remarkable and meritorious
productions of the epoch. They are ever distinguished by vivacity,
truth, and fidelity, in depicting the many-sided life of the people.
He seems to have been a literary Ostade or Teniers, with less of
ingenuousness and good-nature in the portraiture.

In the mean time the French language continues to gain ground every
day. In Brussels, native authors seek in vain to oppose the
encroachments of the "Fransquillon," as Godin first styles them; but,
save the feeble productions of Van der Borcht, the Jesuit Poirtiers,
and the Dominican Vloers, we find but translations and imitations.
Moons versifies some hundreds of fables. A half-sentimental, sickly
style, consisting only of praises, of self-abnegation, of pious
ejaculations, prevails. It is the worst of reactions;--the country,
after its first outburst, had sunk into quietude, the lethargy of
inaction.

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