The best of the novelists of this period, excluding Charles de Coster, was perhaps Estelle Ruelens (née Crevecoeur; 1821-1878); she wrote under the pseudonym of " Caroline Graviere."
Jacob " (Paris, 1873-1874) The whole of this literature derived more or less from foreign sources, and, with the exception of Charles de Coster and Octave Pirmez, produced no striking figures.
De Coster died in 1879, and Pirmez in 1883, and the new movement in Belgian literature dates from the banquet given in the latter year to Camille Lemonnier whose powerful personality did much to turn " Young Belgium " into a national channel.
The best work of the Belgian romanticists is in the rich and picturesque prose of the 16th century romance of Charles de Coster (see DE Coster), and in the melancholy and semi-philosophical writings of the moralist Octave Pirmez.
In 1614 was performed at Coster's academy Hooft's comedy of Ware-nar, an adaptation of the Aulularia of Plautus, first printed in 1617.