Loosjes (d. 1806) added to his reputation as a poet by his historical romances, and Fokke (d. 1812) was a satirist of the follies and errors of his age. Among the historians who have devoted themselves to the history of foreign countries are Stuart, Van Hamelsveld, and Muntinghe, who, in a short space of time, enriched their native literature with more than sixty volumes of history, of a profoundly religious and philosophical character, which bear the stamp of originality and nationality.
The department of oratory in Dutch literature, with the exception of that of the pulpit, is poor, and this is to be explained in part by the fact that the deliberations of the States-General were always held with closed doors. Holland was an aristocratic republic, and the few families who monopolized the power had no disposition to share it with the people, who, on the other hand, were too much occupied with their own affairs and too confident of the wisdom and moderation of their rulers, to wish to mingle in the business of state. The National Assembly, however, from 1775 to 1800, had its orators, chiefly men carried into public life by the events of the age, but they were far inferior to those of other countries.
The impulse given to literature by Bilderdyk and Van der Palm is not arrested. Among the numerous authors who have since distinguished themselves, are Loots, a patriotic poet of the school of Vondel; Tollens, who ranks with the best native authors in descriptive poetry and romance; Wiselius, the author of several tragedies, a scholar and political writer; Klyn (d. 1856); Van Walré and Van Halmaal, dramatic poets of great merit; Da Costa and Madame Bilderdyk, who, as a poetess, shared the laurels of her husband. In romance, there are Anna Toussaint, Bogaers, and Jan Van Lennep, son of the celebrated professor of that name, who introduced into Holland historical romances modeled after those of Scott, and who contributed much to discard French and to popularize the national literature. In prose, De Vries must be named for his eloquent history of the poetry of the Netherlands; Van Kampen (1776-1839) for his historical works; Geysbeck for his biographical dictionary and anthology of the poets, and De s'Gravenweert, a poet and the translator of the Iliad and Odyssey. Von Hoevell is the author of a work on slavery, which appeared not many years since, the effect of which can be compared only to that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
In Belgium, Conscience is a successful author of fiction and history, and his works have been frequently translated into other languages. De Laet, one of the ablest writers of the country in connection with Conscience, has done much for the revival of Flemish literature, which now boasts of many original writers in various departments.
The literature of the Netherlands, like the people, is earnest, religious, always simple, and often elevated and sublime. It is especially distinguished for its reflective and patriotic character, and bears the mark of that accurate study of the classic models which has formed the basis of the national education, and to which its purity of taste, naturalness, and simplicity are undoubtedly to be attributed. There exists no nation of equal population which, within the course of two or three centuries, has produced a greater number of eminent men.
From the age of Hooft and Vondel to the present day, though the Dutch literature may have submitted at times to foreign influence, and though, like all others, it may have paid its tribute to the fashions and faults of the day, it has still preserved its nationality, and is worthy of being known and admired.
SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE.
1. Introduction. The Ancient Scandinavians; their Influence on the English
Race.—2. The Mythology.—3. The Scandinavian Languages.—4. Icelandic, or
Old Norse Literature: the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Scalds, the
Sagas, the "Heimskringla," The Folks-Sagas and Ballads of the Middle
Ages.—5. Danish Literature: Saxo Grammaticus and Theodoric; Arreboe,
Kingo, Tycho Brahe, Holberg, Evald, Baggesen, Oehlenschläger, Grundtvig,
Blicher, Ingemann, Heiberg, Gyllenbourg, Winther, Hertz, Müller, Hans
Andersen, Plong, Goldschmidt, Hastrup, and others; Malte Brun, Rask, Rafn,
Magnusen, the brothers Oersted.—6. Swedish Literature: Messenius,
Stjernhjelm, Lucidor, and others. The Gallic period: Dalin, Nordenflycht,
Crutz and Gyllenborg, Gustavus III., Kellgren, Leopold, Oxenstjerna. The
New Era: Bellman, Hallman, Kexel, Wallenberg, Lidnor, Thorild, Lengren,
Franzen, Wallin. The Phosphorists: Atterborn, Hammarsköld, and Palmblad.
The Gothic School: Geijer, Tegnér, Stagnelius, Almquist, Vitalis,
Runeberg, and others. The Romance Writers: Cederborg, Bremer, Carlén,
Knorring. Science: Swedenborg, Linnaeus, and others.
1. INTRODUCTION.—It is a singular fact that the progressive and expanding spirit which characterizes the English race should be so universally referred to their Anglo-Saxon blood, while the transcendent influence of the Scandinavian element is entirely overlooked. The so-called Anglo- Saxons were a handful of people in Holstein, where they may still be found in inglorious obscurity, the reluctant subjects of Denmark. The early emigrants who bore that name, were, it is true, from various portions of Germany; but even if the glory of our English ancestry be transferred from Anglen, and spread over the whole country, we find a race bearing no resemblance to the English in their more active and powerful qualities, but an intellectual people, possessed of a patient and conceding nature, which, without other more aspiring attributes, doubtless would have left the English people in the same condition of political slavery that the Germans continue in to this day. Of all those institutions so commonly and gratuitously ascribed to them, of representative government, trial by jury, and such machinery of political and social independence, there is not a vestige to be found in any age in Germany, from the Christian era to the present time. During the period of their dominion in England, the Anglo-Saxons, so far from showing themselves an enterprising people were notoriously weak, slothful, and degenerate, overrun by the Danes, and soon permanently subjected by the Normans. It is evident, from the trifling resistance they made, that they had neither energy to fight, nor property, laws, nor institutions to defend, and that they were merely serfs on the lands of the nobles or of the church, who had nothing to lose by a change of masters. It is to the renewal of the original spirit of the Anglo- Saxons, by the fresh infusion of the Danish conquerors into a very large proportion of the whole population, in the eleventh century, that we must look for the actual origin of the national character and institutions of the English people, and for that check of popular opinion and will upon arbitrary rule which grew up by degrees, and which slowly but necessarily produced the English law, character, and institutions. These belong not to the German or Anglo-Saxon race settled in England previous to the tenth or eleventh century, but to that small, cognate branch of Northmen or Danes, who, between the ninth and twelfth centuries, brought their paganism, energy, and social institutions to conquer, mingle with, and invigorate the inert descendants of the old race. That this northern branch of the common race has been the more influential in the society of modern Europe, we need only compare England and the United States with Saxony, Prussia, Hanover, or any country of strictly ancient Teutonic descent, to be satisfied. From whatever quarter civil, religious, and political liberty and independence of mind may have come, it was not from the banks of the Rhine or the forests of Germany.
The difference in the spirit of the two branches of the same original race was immense, even at the earliest period. When the Danes and Norwegians overran England, the Germans had, for six centuries, been growing more and more pliant to despotic government, and the Scandinavians more and more bold and independent. At home they elected their kings, and decided everything by the general voice of the Althing, or open Parliament. Abroad they became the most daring of adventurers; their Vikings spread themselves along the shores of Europe, plundering and planting colonies; they subdued England, seized Normandy, besieged Paris, conquered a large portion of Belgium, and made extensive inroads into Spain. They made themselves masters of lower Italy and Sicily under Robert Guiscard, in the eleventh century; during the Crusades they ruled Antioch and Tiberias, under Tancred; and in the same century they marched across Germany, and established themselves in Switzerland, where the traditions of their arrival, and traces of their language still remain. In 861 they discovered Iceland, and soon after peopled it; thence they stretched still farther west, discovered Greenland, and proceeding southward, towards the close of the tenth century they struck upon the shores of North America, it would appear, near the coast of Massachusetts. They seized on Novogorod, and became the founders of the Russian Empire, and of a line of Czars which became extinct only in 1598, when the Slavonic dynasty succeeded. From Russia they made their way to the Black Sea, and in 866 appeared before Constantinople, where their attacks were bought off only on the payment of large sums by the degenerate emperors. From. 902 to the fall of the empire, the emperors retained a large body-guard of Scandinavians, who, armed with double-edged battle-axes, were renowned through the world, under the name of Varengar, or the Väringjar of the old Icelandic Sagas.