LITERATURE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1875. 



443 



teurs de la Monarcliie Beige ; " also two curious 

 monographs upon Le Baron Nothornb and Le 

 Comte Yilain XIV., both of whom took lead- 

 ing parts in the Revolution of 1830. 



The military history of the Belgian Revolu- 

 tion has this year given rise to very contra- 

 dictory and passionate debates, which have 

 been raised by the work of General Eenens, 

 <; Les Conspirations Militaires de 1831." The 

 author, without having taken sufficient pains 

 to verify his assertions, attributes to treachery 

 the defeats inflicted by the Dutch on the Bel- 

 gians. A reply, by General Kessels, appeared 

 immediately; also a " Memoire Explicatif," by 

 General Baron de Failly, who was Minister 

 of War in 1831; and we have had even an 

 etude on the same subject by a Dutch officer 

 of distinction, General Booms, which is en- 

 titled " Le 12 Aoftt, et la Campagne de Dix 

 Jours." General Eenens has attempted to re- 

 fute the objections of his opponents, in his 

 a Quelques Observations stir les Reponses de 

 MM. Kessels, de Failly et Booms (avec Carte)." 

 Among the numerous historical dissertations 

 upon special points of national history, we may 

 call attention to " Les Pagi de la Belgique et 

 leurs Subdivisions pendant le Moyen Age," by 

 Charles Piot ; " Les Bibliotheques de Madrid 

 et de 1'Escurial," from the point of view of the 

 history of Belgium, by the learned archivist 

 Gachard, who* has already made so many dis- 

 coveries. The librarian of the University of 

 Ghent, Ferd. Vanderhaeghen, has published a 

 brief but excellent " Notice sur la Bibliotheqne 

 Plantinienne a Anvers." It is well known that 

 the family of Plantin-Moretus has religiously 

 preserved and enriched by continual augmen- 

 tations the printing-shops established by Chris- 

 topher Plantin in 1555, at Antwerp, with the 

 presses, the type, and the founderies and all the 

 tools, the library, and the collections of the 

 various modes in which authors have corrected 

 their proofs. It is a unique fact in the an- 

 nals of typography. There are, besides, por- 

 traits and other pictures by some of the great 

 masters ; collections of original antique furni- 

 ture, china, and earthenware ; etchings on 

 copper by Rubens and others, and engravings 

 on wood ; all the typographical materials used 

 by Plantin and his heirs, down to the present 

 day. By the side of all these things there are 

 200 manuscripts of ancient authors authors 

 of the middle ages and of the Renaissance ; 

 some of these MSB. are unpublished, and 

 others are adorned with exquisite miniatures 

 some sixty of the very rarest enamels ; from 

 eight to nine thousand books, a great number 

 of which issued from the printing-press of 

 Plantin and of his successors, constitute the 

 library. 



Traveled Belgians are rare ; we have, how- 

 ever, this year to notice three interesting works 

 of travel. "Un Voyage dans le Nord de 

 1'Europe (Norwege et Mer Glaciale)," by Jules 

 Leclercq; also "Souvenirs d'une Exploration 

 au Bassin de la Yellowstone," the splendid 



Federal Park of the United States, by Paul 

 Lehardy de Beaulieu ; and especially we must 

 note the curious "Notes d'un Voyage au Bre- 

 sil," by W. de S&ys-Longchamps. 



In the domain of social sciences, Eug. van 

 der Rest has published a great etude, entitled 

 " Platon et Aristote : Essai sur les Commence- 

 ments de la Science Politique." I must also 

 not ^ forget a small work by one of the most 

 distinguished writers in Belgium, " Mon- 

 tesquieu et la Constitution Beige," by Ch. 

 Faider. The religious question this problem 

 now become so important toward the close 

 of our century has been handled by Goblet 

 d'Alviella, in " Le Catholicisme Liberal Autre- 

 fois et Aujourd'hui," and by Emile de Laveleye, 

 in an essay " Sur le Protestantism e et le Ca- 

 tholicisme, dans leurs Rapports avec la Liberte 

 et la Prosperity des Peuples." 



Among the works on law and jurisprudence 

 we must mention "Les Principes du Droit 

 Civil," by Prof. F. Laurent. Of this work, 

 the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth vol- 

 umes have come out during the year 1875 ; 

 they are in every respect equal to the volumes 

 which preceded them. We may say with 

 truth that this great work is a masterpiece. 



All the journals of Europe have occupied 

 themselves about the ecstasy and the so-styled 

 miraculous illness of a young girl living in 

 Hainault Louise Lateau by name. Our bish- 

 ops, all our clergy, all the Ultramontane party 

 to a man, have made the most of this painful 

 pathological case. At last the Catholic medi- 

 cal men joined their voices to this concert, 

 which is at once polemical, scientific, religious, 

 and political. One of those whimsical religious 

 controversies, that can only arise in a country 

 where the Romish Church has long been dom- 

 inant, has been raging between the Drs. Boens, 

 Charbonnier, Lefebre, and Warlomont, and 

 the Abbe Cornet. It is needless to say that 

 while, for some persons, medical science can 

 explain the phenomenon, others believe it to 

 be a manifest case of the miraculous interven- 

 tion of Heaven. 



Prose has this year, as in most others, fur- 

 nished a strong contingent. Hendrik Con- 

 science, whose stories have been translated 

 even into modern Greek, has published a 

 touching tale, entitled " Schandevrees " ("The 

 Fear of Shame"). Prof. Heremans has col- 

 lected the scattered stories of Tony (Anton 

 Bergmann), under the title of "Verspreide 

 Schetsen en Novellen." 



Emil van Goethem has published a little 

 masterpiece, a play entitled "Het Wiegje" 

 (" The Cradle "), and a play called " Vriend 

 Kobus" ("Friend James"), which, without be- 

 ing equal to "The Cradle," is still a good piece, 

 containing several well-delineated characters. 



BOHEMIA. Although Bohemian literature 

 has sustained serious losses in the past year 

 a whole series of writers have followed the 

 celebrated poet Halek to an early grave and 

 although the unfortunate political situation of 



