Part 40

While the genius of Holland clustered around the circle of Amsterdam, a school of scarcely less brilliance arose in Middelburg, the capital of Zealand. The ruling spirit of this school was the famous Jakob Cats (1577-1660). In this voluminous writer, to whom modern criticism almost denies the name of poet, the genuine Dutch habit of thought, the utilitarian and didactic spirit which we have already observed in Houwaert and in Boendale, reached its zenith of fluency and popularity. During early middle life he produced the most important of his writings, his pastoral of _Galathea_, and his didactic poems, the _Maechdenplicht_ and the _Sinne- en Minne-Beelden._ In 1624 he removed from Middelburg to Dort, where he soon after published his tedious ethical work called _Houwelick_, or Marriage; and this was followed from time to time by one after another of his monotonous moral pieces. Cats is an exceedingly dull and prosaic writer, whose alexandrines roll smoothly on without any power of riveting the attention or delighting the fancy. Yet his popularity with the middle classes in Holland has always been immense, and his influence extremely hurtful to the growth of all branches of literary art. Among the disciples of Cats, Jakob Westerbaen (1599-1670) was the most successful. His works included translations from Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, Terence and Juvenal, besides original poems. The Jesuit Adriaen Poirters (1606-1675) closely followed Cats in his remarkable _Masquer of the World_. A poet of Amsterdam, Jan Hermansz Krul (1602-1644), preferred to follow the southern fashion, and wrote didactic pieces in the Catsian manner.

Huygens.

A poet of dignified imagination and versatile form was Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), the diplomatist. He threw in his lot with the great school of Amsterdam, and became the intimate friend and companion of Vondel, Hooft and the daughters of Roemer Visscher. His famous poem in praise of the Hague, _Batava Tempe_, appeared in 1622, and was, from a technical point of view, the most accomplished and elegant poem till that time produced in Holland. His collected poems, _Otiorum libri sex_, were printed in 1625. _Oogentroost_, or Eye Consolation, was the fantastic title of a remarkable poem dedicated in 1647 to his blind friend, Lucretia van Trello. He printed in 1654 a topographical piece describing his own mansion, _Hofwijck_. Huygens represents the direction in which it would have been desirable that Dutch literature, now completely founded by Hooft and Vondel, should forthwith proceed, while Cats represents the tame and mundane spirit which was actually adopted by the nation. Huygens had little of the sweetness of Hooft or of the sublimity of Vondel, but his genius was eminently bright and vivacious, and he was a consummate artist in metrical form. The Dutch language has never proved so light and supple in any hands as in his, and he attempted no class of writing, whether in prose or verse, that he did not adorn by his delicate taste and sound judgment. A blind admiration for John Donne, whose poems he translated, was the greatest fault of Huygens, who, in spite of his conceits, remains one of the most pleasing of Dutch writers. In addition to all this he comes down to us with the personal recommendation of having been "one of the most lovable men that ever lived."

Bekker.

Three Dutchmen of the 17th century distinguished themselves very prominently in the movement of learning and philosophic thought, but the illustrious names of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) can scarcely be said to belong to Dutch literature. Balthasar Bekker (1634-1698), on the contrary, a Reformed preacher of Amsterdam, was a disciple of Descartes, who deserves to be remembered as the greatest philosophical writer who has used the Dutch language. His masterpiece, _Betoverde Wereld_, or the World Bewitched, appeared in 1691-1693. Bekker is popularly remembered most honourably by his determined attacks upon the system of a penal code for witchcraft.

Vos.

Brandt.

Goes.

Anslo.

Oudaen.

Luiken.

From 1600 to 1650 was the blossoming time in Dutch literature. During this period the names of greatest genius were first made known to the public, and the vigour and grace of literary expression reached their highest development. It happened, however, that three men of

## particularly commanding talent survived to an extreme old age, and under

the shadow of Vondel, Cats and Huygens there sprang up a new generation which sustained the great tradition until about 1680, when the final decline set in. Jan Vos (d. 1667) gained one illustrious success with his tragedy of _Aaron and Titus_ in 1641, and lost still more in 1642 by his obscene farce of _Oene_. His second tragedy of _Medea_, in 1665, and his collected poems in 1662, supported his position as the foremost pupil of Vondel. Geeraerdt Brandt (1626-1685), the author of a _History of the Reformation_ (4 vols., 1671-1704), deserves remembrance less as a tragic dramatist than as a consummate biographer, whose lives of Vondel and of De Ruyter are among the masterpieces of Dutch prose. Johan Antonides van der Goes (1647-1684) followed Vos as a skilful imitator of Vondel's tragical manner. His Chinese tragedies, _Trazil_ (1665) and _Zungchin_ (1666), scarcely gave promise of the brilliant force and fancy of his _Yslroom_, a poem in praise of Amsterdam, 1671. He died suddenly, in early life, leaving unfinished an epic poem on the life of St. Paul. Reyer Anslo (1626-1669) marks the decline of taste and vigour; his once famous descriptive epic, _The Plague at Naples_, is singularly tame and rococo in style. Joachim Oudaen (1628-1692) wrote in his youth two promising tragedies, _Johanna Gray_ (1648) and _Konradyn_ (1649). The Amsterdam section of the school of Cats produced Jeremias de Decker (1609-1666), author of _The Praise of Avarice_, a satirical poem in imitation of Erasmus, and Joannes Vollenhove (1631-1708), voluminous writers of didactic verse. The engraver Jan Luiken (1649-1708) published in 1671 a very remarkable volume of poems. In lyrical poetry Starter had a single disciple, Daniel Jonctijs (1600-1652), who published a volume of love songs in 1639 under the affected and untranslatable title of _Rooselijns oochjens ontleed_. None of these poets, except in some slight degree Luiken, set before himself any more ambitious task than to repeat with skill the effects of his predecessors.

Heemskerk.

Heinsius.

Meanwhile the romantic and voluminous romances of the French school of Scudery and Honore d'Urfe had invaded Holland and become fashionable. Johan van Heemskerk (1597-1656), a councillor of the Hague, set himself to reproduce this product in native form, and published in 1637 his _Batavian Arcadia_, the first original Dutch romance, in which a party of romantic youths journey from the Hague to Katwijk, and undergo all sorts of romantic adventures. This book was extremely popular, and was imitated by Hendrik Zoeteboom in his _Zaanlandsche Arcadia_ (1658), and by Lambertus Bos in his _Dordtsche Arcadia_ (1662). A far more spirited and original romance is the _Mirandor_ (1675) of Nikolaes Heinsius the younger (b. 1655), a book which resembles _Gil Blas_, and precedes it.

Gallican dramatists.

The drama fell into Gallicized hands at the death of Vondel and his immediate disciples. Lodewijck Meijer translated Corneille, and brought out his plays on the stage at Amsterdam, where he was manager of the national theatre or Schouwburg after Jan Vos. In connexion with Andries Pels (d. 1681), author of the tragedy of _Dido's Death_, Meijer constructed a dramatic club, entitled "Nil Volentibus Arduum," the great object of which was to inflict the French taste upon the public. Pels furthermore came forward as the censor of letters and satirist of barbarism in _Horace's Art of Poetry expounded_, in 1677, and in his _Use and Misuse of the Stage_, in 1681. Willem van Focquenbroch (1640-1679) was the most voluminous comic writer of this period. The close of the century saw the rise of two thoroughly Gallican dramatists, Jan van Paffenrode (d. 1673) and Pieter Bernagie (1656-1699), who may not unfairly be compared respectively to the Englishmen Farquhar and Shadwell. Thomas Asselijn (1630-1695) was a writer of more considerable talent and more homely instincts. He attempted to resist the dictatorship of Pels, and to follow the national tradition of Bredero. He is the creator of the characteristic Dutch type, the comic lover, Jan Klaaszen, whom he presented on the stage in a series of ridiculous situations. Abraham Alewijn (b. 1664), author of _Jan Los_ (1721), possessed a coarse vein of dramatic humour; he lived in Java, and his plays were produced in Batavia. Finally Pieter Langendijk, the author of a farce borrowed from _Don Quixote_, claims notice among the dramatists of this period, although he lived from 1683 to 1756, and properly belongs to the next century. With him the tradition of native comedy expired.

Decline of poetry.

The Augustan period of poetry in Holland was even more blank and dull than in the other countries of northern Europe. Of the name preserved in the history of literature there are but very few that call for repetition here. Arnold Hoogvliet (1687-1763) wrote a passable poem in honour of the town of Vlaardingen, and a terrible Biblical epic, in the manner of Blackmore, on the history of Abraham. Hubert Cornelissen Poot (1680-1733) showed an unusual love of nature and freshness of observation in his descriptive pieces. Sybrand Feitama (1694-1758), who translated Voltaire's _Henriade_ (1743), and wrote much dreary verse of the same class himself, is less worthy of notice than Dirk Smits (1702-1752), the mild and elegiac singer of Rotterdam. Tragic drama was more or less capably represented by Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken (1722-1789), wife of the very dreary dramatist Nicholaas Simon van Winter (1718-1795).

Van Effen.

In the midst of this complete dissolution of poetical style, a writer arose who revived an interest in literature, and gave to Dutch prose the classical grace of the 18th century. Justus van Effen[15] (1684-1735) was born at Utrecht, fell into poverty early in life, and was thrown very much among the company of French emigres, in connexion with whom he began literary life in 1713 by editing a French journal. Coming to London just when the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ were in their first vogue, Van Effen studied Addison deeply, translated Swift and Defoe into French, and finally determined to transfer the beauties of English prose into his native language. It was not, however, until 1731, after having wasted the greater part of his life in writing French, that he began to publish his _Hollandsche Spectator_, which his death in 1735 soon brought to a close. Still, what he composed during the last four years of his life, in all its freshness, manliness and versatility, constitutes the most valuable legacy to Dutch literature that the middle of the 18th century left behind it.

The brothers Van Haren.

Baroness de Lannoy.

Bellamy.

The supremacy of the poetical clubs in every town produced a very weakening and Della-Cruscan effect upon literature, from which the first revolt was made by the famous brothers Van Haren,[16] so honourably known as diplomatists in the history of the Netherlands. Willem van Haren (1710-1768) wrote verses from his earliest youth, while Onno Zwier van Haren (1713-1779), strangely enough, did not begin to do so until he had passed middle life. They were friends of Voltaire, and they were both ambitious of success in epic writing, as understood in France at that period. Willem published in 1741 his _Gevallen van Friso_, a historical epos, and a long series of odes and solemn lyrical pieces. Onno, in a somewhat lighter strain, wrote _Piet and Agnietje, or Pandora's Box_, and a long series of tragedies in the manner of Voltaire. The baroness Juliana Cornelia de Lannoy (1738-1782) was a writer of considerable talent, also of the school of Voltaire; her poems were highly esteemed by Bilderdijk, and she has a neatness of touch and clearness of penetration that give vivacity to her studies of social life. Jakobus Bellamy (1757-1786) was the son of a Swiss baker at Flushing; his pompous odes (_Gezangen myner Jeugd_, 1782; _Vaderlandsche Gezangen_, 1782) struck the final note of the false taste and Gallic pedantry that had deformed Dutch literature now for a century, and were for a short time excessively admired.

The ladies Wolff and Deken.

The year 1777 has been mentioned as the turning-point in the history of letters in the Netherlands. It was in that year that Elizabeth (Betjen) Wolff[17] (1738-1804), a widow lady in Amsterdam, persuaded her friend Agatha (Aagjen) Deken (1741-1804), a poor but extremely intelligent governess, to throw up her situation and live with her. For nearly thirty years these women continued together, writing in combination, and when the elder friend died on the 5th of November 1804, her companion survived her only nine days. Madam Wolff had appeared as a poetess so early as 1762, and again in 1769 and 1772, but her talent in verse was by no means very remarkable. But when the friends, in the third year of their association, published their _Letters on Divers Subjects_, it was plainly seen that in prose their talent was very remarkable indeed. Since the appearance of Heinsius's _Mirandor_ more than a century had passed without any fresh start in novel-writing being made in Holland. In 1782 the ladies Wolff and Deken, inspired partly by contemporary English writers, and partly by Goethe, published their first novel, _Sara Burgerhar_. In spite of the close and obvious following of Richardson, this was a masterly production, and it was enthusiastically received. Another novel, _Willem Leevend_, followed in 1785, and _Cornelia Wildschut_ in 1792. The ladies were residing in France at the breaking out of the Revolution, and they escaped the guillotine with difficulty. After this they wrote no more, having secured for themselves by their three unrivalled romances a place among the foremost writers of their country.

Nieuwland.

The last years of the 18th century were marked in Holland by a general revival of intellectual force. The romantic movement in Germany made itself deeply felt in all branches of Dutch literature, and German lyricism took the place hitherto held by French classicism. Pieter Nieuwland (1764-1794) was a feeble forerunner of the revival, but his short life and indifferent powers gave him no chance of directing the transition that he saw to be inevitable. One volume of poems appeared in 1788, and a second, posthumously, in 1797.

Bilderdijk.

The real precursor and creator of a new epoch in letters was the famous Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831) (q.v.). This remarkable man, whose force of character was even greater than his genius, impressed his personality on his generation so indelibly that to think of a Dutchman of the beginning of the 19th century is to think of Bilderdijk. In poetry his taste was strictly national and didactic; he began as a disciple of Cats, nor could he to the end of his life tolerate what he called "the puerilities of Shakespeare." His early love-songs, collected in 1781 and 1785, gave little promise of talent, but in his epic of _Elias_ in 1786, he showed himself superior to all the Dutch poets since Huygens in mastery of form. For twenty years he lived a busy, eventful life, writing great quantities of verse, and then commenced his most productive period with his didactic poem of _The Disease of the Learned_, in 1807; in 1808 he imitated Pope's _Essay on Man_, and published the tragedy of _Floris V._, and in 1809 commenced the work which he designed to be his masterpiece, the epic of _De Ondergang der eerste Wereld_ (The Destruction of the First World), which he never finished, and which appeared as a fragment in 1820. To the foreign student Bilderdijk is a singularly uninviting and unpleasing figure. He unites in himself all the unlovely and provincial features which deform the worst of his countrymen. He was violent, ignorant and dull; his view of art was confined to its declamatory and least beautiful side, and perhaps no writer of equal talent has shown so complete an absence of taste and tact. Ten Brink has summed up the character of Bilderdijk's writings in an excellent passage:--"As an artist," he says, "he can perhaps be best described in short as the cleverest versemaker of the 18th century. His admirable erudition, his power over language, more extended and more colossal than that of any of his predecessors, enabled him to write pithy and thoroughly original verses, although the general tone of his thought and expression never rose above the ceremonious, stagy and theatrical character of the 18th century." But in spite of his outrageous faults, and partly because these faults were the exaggeration of a marked national failing, Bilderdijk long enjoyed an unbroken and unbounded popularity in Holland. Fortunately, however, a sounder spirit has arisen in criticism, and the prestige of Bilderdijk is no longer preserved so religiously.

Bilderdijk's scorn for the dramas of Shakespeare was almost rivalled by that he felt for the new German poetry. Notwithstanding his opposition, however, the romantic fervour found its way into Holland, and first of all in the persons of Hieronymus van Alphen (1746-1803) and Pieter Leonard van de Kastiele (1748-1810), who amused themselves by composing funeral poems of the school of Gessner and Blair. Van Alphen at one time was extolled as a writer of verses for children, but neither in this nor in the elegiac line did he possess nearly so much talent as Rhijnvis Feith (1753-1824), burgomaster of Zwolle, the very type of a prosperous and sentimental Dutchman. In his _Julia_ (1783), a prose romance, Feith proved himself as completely the disciple of Goethe in _Werther_ as Wolff and Deken had been of Richardson in _Sara Burgerhart_. In Johannes Kinker (1764-1845) a comic poet arose who, at the instigation of Bilderdijk, dedicated himself to the ridicule of Feith's sentimentalities. The same office was performed with more dignity and less vivacity by Baron W.E. van Perponcher (1741-1819), but Feith continued to hold the popular ear, and achieved an immense success with his poem _The Grave_ in 1792. He then produced tragedies for a while, and in 1803 published _Antiquity_, a didactic epic. But his popularity waned before his death, and he was troubled by the mirth of such witty scoffers as Arend Fokke Simons (1755-1812), the disciple of Klopstock, and as P. de Wacker van Zon (1758-1818), who, in a series of very readable novels issued under the pseudonym of Bruno Daalberg, sharply ridiculed the sentimental and funereal school.

Van der Palm.

Loots.

Helmers.

Under the Batavian republic a historian of great genius arose in the person of Johannes Henricus van der Palm (1763-1840), whose brilliant and patriotic _Gedenkschrift van Nederlands Herstelling_ (1816) has somewhat obscured his great fame as a politician and an Orientalist. The work commenced by Van der Palm in prose was continued in verse by Cornelis Loots (1765-1834) and Jan Frederik Helmers (1767-1813). Loots, in his _Batavians of the Time of Caesar_ (1805), read his countrymen a lesson in patriotism, which Helmers far exceeded in originality and force by his _Dutch Nation_ in 1812. Neither of these poets, however, had sufficient art to render their pieces classical, or, indeed, enough to protect them during their lifetime from the sneers of Bilderdijk. Other political writers, whose lyrical energies were stimulated by the struggle with France, were Maurits Cornelis van Hall (1768-1858), Samuel Iperuszoon Wiselius (1769-1845) and Jan ten Brink (1771-1839), the second of whom immortalized himself and won the favour of Bilderdijk by ridiculing the pretensions of such frivolous tragedians as Shakespeare and Schiller.

Loosjes.

The healthy and national spirit in which the ladies Wolff and Deken had written was adopted with great spirit by a novelist in the next generation, Adriaan Loosjes (1761-1818), a bookseller at Haarlem. His romantic stories of medieval life, especially his _Charlotte van Bourbon_, are curiously like shadows cast forward by the Waverley Novels, but he has little of Sir Walter Scott's historical truth of vision. His production was incessant and his popularity great for many years, but he was conscious all through that he was at best but a disciple of the authoresses of _Sara Burgerhart_. Another disciple whose name should not be passed over is Maria Jacoba de Neufville (1775-1856), author of _Little Duties_, an excellent story somewhat in the manner of Mrs Opie.

Tollens.

Messchert.

Bogaers.

Staring.

A remarkable poet whose romantic genius strove to combine the power of Bilderdijk with the sweetness of Feith was Hendrik Tollens (1780-1856), whose verses have shown more vitality than those of most of his contemporaries. He struck out the admirable notion of celebrating the great deeds of Dutch history in a series of lyrical romances, many of which possess a lasting charm. Besides his folk-songs and popular ballads, he succeeded in a long descriptive poem, _A Winter in Nova Zembla_, 1819. He lacks the full accomplishment of a literary artist, but his inspiration was natural and abundant, and he thoroughly deserved the popularity with which his patriotic ballads were rewarded. Willem Messchert (1790-1844), a friend and follower of Tollens, pushed the domestic and familiar tone of the latter to a still further point, especially in his genre poem of the _Golden Wedding_, 1825. Both these writers were natives and residents of Rotterdam, which also claims the honour of being the birthplace of Adrianus Bogaers (1795-1870), the most considerable poetical figure of the time. Without the force and profusion of Bilderdijk, Bogaers has more truth to nature, more sweetness of imagination, and a more genuine gift of poetry than that clamorous writer, and is slowly taking a higher position in Dutch literature as Bilderdijk comes to take a lower one. Bogaers printed his famous poem _Jochebed_ in 1835, but it had then been in existence more than thirteen years, so that it belongs to the second period of imaginative revival in Europe, and connects the name of its author with those of Byron and Heine. Still more beautiful was his _Voyage of Heemskerk to Gibraltar_ (1836), in which he rose to the highest level of his genius. In 1846 he privately printed his _Romances and Ballads_. Bogaers had a great objection to publicity, and his reputation was long delayed by the secrecy with which he circulated his writings among a few intimate friends. A poet of considerable talent, whose powers were awakened by personal intercourse with Bogaers and Tollens, was Antoni Christiaan Winand Staring (1767-1840), who first at the age of fifty-three came before the world with a volume of _Poems_, but who continued to write till past his seventieth year. His amorous and humorous lyrics recall the best period of Dutch song, and are worthy to be named beside those of Starter and Vondel.

19th century influences.

After 1830 Holland took a more prominent position in European thought than she could claim since the end of the 17th century. In scientific and religious literature her men of letters showed themselves cognizant of the newest shades of opinion, and freely ventilated their ideas. The language resisted the pressure of German from the outside, and from within broke through its long stagnation and enriched itself, as a medium for literary expression, with a multitude of fresh and colloquial forms. At the same time, no very great genius arose in Holland in any branch of literature. The vast labours of Jakobus van Lennep (1802-1868) consist of innumerable translations, historical novels and national romances, which have gained for him the title of the leader of the Dutch romantic school.