heroes of the sixteenth century revolution against Spain. Camille Lemonnier (1844-1913), in his best novels, deals with the manners and customs of the Flemish peasantry. The very soul of Flanders shines through the whole work of Belgium's great national poet, Emile Verhaeren, from his early _Les Flamandes_ (1883) to the six volumes of _Toute la Flandre_ (1904-12), and in all his earlier writings (1889-98), Maurice Maeterlinck remains under the influence of Flemish mysticism and miracle plays. This may seem a one-sided conclusion, and the names of many Belgian writers of great distinction may be quoted against it, but if we were to examine the question more closely, this conclusion would be rather verified than disproved. From a purely historical point of view, the general trend of inspiration is certainly towards the North rather than towards the South. The main features which characterize the Belgian writers in French and confer on them a truly national originality are, on one side, a tendency to emphasize the intimate joys of life, and on the other, an intense feeling for mysticism, sometimes quite dissociated from any dogmatic faith. Just as Flemish Art is remarkable for the religious work of the fifteenth century and the sensuous productions of the seventeenth, so Belgian writing in the nineteenth oscillates between the spirit of Jordaens and that of Memling. In spite of some modernist tendencies and a great technical boldness, Belgian literature remains deeply influenced by mediaevalism. It belongs to the twentieth century, even when written in the nineteenth, or to the fifteenth. The classical atmosphere of the French seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is totally absent. Those who care for the delicately poised balance of classical taste, for wit and brilliance of dialogue, will be disconcerted by childishness or fierce passion. It is an abrupt literature, but spontaneous and sincere, which has not been spoilt by formalism and scepticism, but which has not acquired, from a purely technical point of view, the perfection of the French. Having remained inarticulate during the two centuries of classical education, it has lost nothing and gained nothing through them. [_THE FLEMISH MOVEMENT_]