led and seeking refuge in
other lands, its very existence has been a constant battling against
the inroads of more powerful neighbors.

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
o