years of labour he saw the first link forged in the chain, in the opening in 1902 of the Pacific Cable between Canada and Australia. Though not a party man he strongly advocated Federation in 1864–1867, and in 1891 vehemently attacked the Liberal policy of unrestricted reciprocity with the United States. He took the deepest interest in education, and in 1880 became chancellor of Queen’s University, Kingston.
He published The Intercolonial: a History (Montreal and London, 1876); England and Canada (London, 1884); and numerous brochures and magazine articles on scientific, social and political subjects.
FLEMING, SIR THOMAS (1544–1613), English judge, was
born at Newport, Isle of Wight, in April 1544, and was called
to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1574. He represented Winchester
in parliament from 1584 to 1601, when he was returned for
Southampton. In 1594 he was appointed recorder of London,
and in 1595 was chosen solicitor-general in preference to Bacon.
This office he retained under James I. and was knighted in 1603.
In 1604 he was created chief baron of the exchequer and presided
over many important state trials. In 1607 he was promoted
to the chief justiceship of the king’s bench, and was one of the
judges at the trial of the post-nati in 1608, siding with the majority
of the judges in declaring that persons born in Scotland after
the accession of James I. were entitled to the privileges of
natural-born subjects in England. He was praised by his
contemporaries, more particularly Coke, for his “great judgments,
integrity and discretion.” He died on the 7th of August
1613 at his seat, Stoneham Park, Hampshire.
See Foss, Lives of the Judges.
FLEMISH LITERATURE. The older Flemish writers are
dealt with in the article on Dutch Literature; after the
separation of Belgium, however, from the Netherlands in 1830
there was a great revival of Flemish literature. The immediate
result of the revolution was a reaction against everything
associated with Dutch, and a disposition to regard the French
language as the speech of liberty and independence. The
provisional government of 1830 suppressed the official use of the
Flemish language, which was relegated to the rank of a patois.
For some years before 1830 Jan Frans Willems[1] (1793–1846)
had been advocating the claims of the Flemish language. He
had done his best to allay the irritation between Holland and
Belgium and to prevent a separation. As archivist of Antwerp
he made use of his opportunities by writing a history of Flemish
letters. After the revolution his Dutch sympathies had made
it necessary for him to live in seclusion, but in 1835 he settled
at Ghent, and devoted himself to the cultivation of Flemish.
He edited old Flemish classics, Reinaert de Vos (1836), the
rhyming Chronicles of Jan van Heelu and Jan le Clerc, &c.,
and gathered round him a band of Flemish enthusiasts, the
chevalier Philipp Blommaert (1809–1871), Karel Lodewijk
Ledeganck (1805–1847), Fr. Rens (1805–1874), F. A. Snellaert
(1809–1872), Prudens van Duyse (1804–1859), and others.
Blommaert, who was born at Ghent on the 27th of August 1809,
founded in 1834 in his native town the Nederduitsche letteroefeningen,
a review for the new writers, and it was speedily followed
by other Flemish organs, and by literary societies for the promotion
of Flemish. In 1851 a central organization for the Flemish
propaganda was provided by a society, named after the father
of the movement, the “Willemsfonds.” The Catholic Flemings
founded in 1874 a rival “Davidsfonds,” called after the energetic
J. B. David (1801–1866), professor at the university of Louvain,
and the author of a Flemish history of Belgium (Vaderlandsche
historie, Louvain, 1842–1866). As a result of this propaganda
the Flemish language was placed on an equality with French in
law, and in administration, in 1873 and 1878, and in the schools
in 1883. Finally in 1886 a Flemish Academy was established
by royal authority at Ghent, where a course in Flemish literature
had been established as early as 1854.
The claims put forward by the Flemish school were justified by the appearance (1837) of In’t Wonderjaar 1566 (In the Wonderful year) of Hendrik Conscience (q.v.), who roused national enthusiasm by describing the heroic struggles of the Flemings against the Spaniards. Conscience was eventually to make his greatest successes in the description of contemporary Flemish life, but his historical romances and his popular history of Flanders helped to give a popular basis to a movement which had been started by professors and scholars.
The first poet of the new school was Ledeganck, the best known of whose poems are those on the “three sister cities” of Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp (Die drie zustersteden, vaderlandsche trilogie, Ghent, 1846), in which he makes an impassioned protest against the adoption of French ideas, manners and language, and the neglect of Flemish tradition. The book speedily took its place as a Flemish classic. Ledeganck, who was a magistrate, also translated the French code into Flemish. Jan Theodoor van Rijswijck (1811–1849), after serving as a volunteer in the campaign of 1830, settled down as a clerk in Antwerp, and became one of the hottest champions of the Flemish movement. He wrote a series of political and satirical songs, admirably suited to his public. The romantic and sentimental poet, Jan van Beers (q.v.), was typically Flemish in his sincere and moral outlook on life. Prudens van Duyse, whose most ambitious work was the epic Artavelde (1859), is perhaps best remembered by a collection (1844) of poems for children. Peter Frans Van Kerckhoven (1818–1857), a native of Antwerp, wrote novels, poems, dramas, and a work on the Flemish revival (De Vlaemsche Beweging, 1847).
Antwerp produced a realistic novelist in Jan Lambrecht Damien Sleeckx (1818–1901). An inspector of schools by profession, he was an indefatigable journalist and literary critic. He was one of the founders in 1844 of the Vlaemsch België, the first daily paper in the Flemish interest. His works include a long list of plays, among them Jan Steen (1852), a comedy; Grétry, which gained a national prize in 1861; De Visschers van Blankenberg (1863); and the patriotic drama of Zannekin (1865). His talent as a novelist was diametrically opposed to the idealism of Conscience. He was precise, sober and concrete in his methods, relying for his effect on the accumulation of carefully observed detail. He was particularly successful in describing the life of the shipping quarter of his native town. Among his novels are: In’t Schipperskwartier (1856), Dirk Meyer (1860), Tybaerts en Kie (1867), Kunst en Liefde (“Art and Love,” 1870), and Vesalius in Spanje (1895). His complete works were collected in 17 vols. (1877–1884).
Jan Renier Snieders (1812–1888) wrote novels dealing with North Brabant; his brother, August Snieders (b. 1825), began by writing historical novels in the manner of Conscience, but his later novels are satires on contemporary society. A more original talent was displayed by Anton Bergmann (1835–1874), who, under the pseudonym of “Tony,” wrote Ernest Staas, Advocat, which gained the quinquennial prize of literature in 1874. In the same year appeared the Novellen of the sisters Rosalie (1834–1875) and Virginie Loveling (b. 1836). These simple and touching stories were followed by a second collection in 1876. The sisters had published a volume of poems in 1870. Virginie Loveling’s gifts of fine and exact observation soon placed her in the front rank of Flemish novelists. Her political sketches, In onze Vlaamsche gewesten (1877), were published under the name of “W. G. E. Walter.” Sophie (1885), Een dure Eed (1892), and Het Land der Verbeelding (1896) are among the more famous of her later works. Reimond Stÿns (b. 1850) and Isidoor Teirlinck (b. 1851) produced in collaboration one very popular novel, Arm Vlaanderen (1884), and some others, and have since written separately. Cyril Buysse, a nephew of Mme Loveling, is a disciple of Zola. Het Recht van den Sterkste (“The Right of the Strongest,” 1893) is a picture of vagabond life in Flanders; Schoppenboer (“The Knave of Spades,” 1898) deals with brutalized peasant life; and Sursum corda (1895) describes the narrowness and religiosity of village life.
In poetry Julius de Geyter (b. 1830), author of a rhymed translation of Reinaert (1874), an epic poem on Charles V. (1888), &c., produced a social epic in three parts, Drie menschen van in
- ↑ See Max Rooses, Keus van Dicht- en Prozawerken van J. F. Willems, and his Brieven in the publications of the Willemsfonds (Ghent, 1872–1874).
