Blommaert

Blommaert, PHILIP, a Flemish author, with Conscience a reviver of the Flemish tongue, born at Ghent in 1809. In 1834 he published a volume of verse; but he rendered better service to literature and to the patriotic cause by his editions of Theophilus (1836), an old Flemish poem of the 14th century, and of the Oudvlaemsche Gedichten (3 vols. 1838-51) of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. His most important work is a history of the Belgians (1849), in which he shows that the Low Countries, spite of political separation, have a unity of culture, and that the political welfare of Belgium is opposed to a French alliance. He died at Ghent, August 14, 1871.