ent, he himself translated his best works into the more favored
and more widely spread Germanic idiom. It requires a certain amount of
courage in an author to write in his own native tongue only, when he
knows that he thereby limits the number of his readers. We see in our
own days, among the Sclavonic races, men whose writings breathe the
most ardent patriotism, whose labors and researches are all
concentrated within the sphere of their nationality, publishing, not
in their own Polish, Czechish, or Serbian, but in German or French.

The history of language shows us a two-fold tendency,--one of
divergence from some common stem, followed by one of concentration, of
unity, in the literature. Thus, in France, the _Langue d'Oil_
superseded the richer and more melodious Provencal; in Spain the
Castilian predominated; while for several centuries it has been the
steady tendency of the High-German to become the language of letters
and of the upper classes among the various Teutonic races. Since the
Bible-translation of Luther, this central dialect has not only become
the medium in which poet and philosopher, historian and critic address
the nation, but it may be said to have entirely superseded the
Northern and Southern forms. Whatever local or linguistic interest may
be manifested for the works of Groth in the Ditmarsch _Platt-Deutsch_,
or for the sweet Alemannic songs of Hebel, the centralizing tongue is
that in which Schiller and Goethe wrote.

The allied Danish and Dutch have escaped this ingulfing process. The
former, instead of retreating, seeks in the present to enlarge its
circuit; and great are the complaints in Schleswig-Holstein of the
arbitrary and despotic imposition of Danish on a State of the German
Confederation. The present government of Holland has not remained
inactive. Much has been done to encourage men of letters and
counteract the Gallic influences which prevailed in the early part of
the century.

But the Flemings speaking nearly the same language as their Protestant
neighbors, where is their literature now? The language itself, in
which are handed down to us some of the masterpieces of the Middle
Ages, as "Reynard the Fox" and "Gudrun," is disregarded, even
discountenanced, by Government. It is with a feeling of sadness that
we read the annals of a literature which met so many obstacles to its
progress. Despised by foreign rulers, thrust back by the Spanish
policy of the Duke of Alva, its authors exi