remnant of its Brazilian dominion, the colony of New Netherland in North
America, and two struggling settlements on the rivers Essequibo and
Berbice in Guiana. New Netherland comprised the country between the
English colonies of New England and Virginia; and the Dutch settlers had
at this time established farms near the coast and friendly relations
with the natives of the interior, with whom they trafficked for furs.
The appointment of Peter Stuyvesant as governor, in 1646, was a time of
real development in New Netherland. This colony was an appanage of the
Chamber of Amsterdam, after which New Amsterdam, the seat of government
on the island of Manhattan, was named. The official trading posts on the
Essequibo and the Berbice, though never abandoned, had for some years a
mere lingering existence, but are deserving of mention in that they were
destined to survive the vicissitudes of fortune and to become in the
18th century a valuable possession. Their importance also is to be
measured not by the meagre official reports and profit and loss accounts
that have survived in the West India Company's records, but by the much
fuller information to be derived from Spanish and Portuguese sources, as
to the remarkable daring and energy of Dutch trading agents in all that
portion of the South American continent lying between the rivers Amazon
and Orinoco. Expelled from the Amazon itself in 1627 by the Portuguese
from Para, the Dutch traders established themselves at different times
at the mouths of almost all the rivers along what was known as the Wild
Coast of Guiana, and penetrating inland through a good understanding
with the natives, especially with the ubiquitous Carib tribes, carried
on a barter traffic beyond the mountains into the northern watershed of
the Amazon, even as far as the Rio Negro itself. This trade with the
interior finds no place in the company's official minutes, for it was
strictly speaking an infringement of the charter, and therefore
illegitimate. But it was characteristically Dutch, and it was winked at,
for the chief offenders were themselves among the principal
shareholders of the company.

No account of Dutch commerce during the period of Frederick Henry would
be complete, however, which did not refer to the relations between
Holland and Sweden, and the part played by an Amsterdam merchant in
enabling the Swedish armies to secure the ultimate triumph of the
Protestant cause in the Thirty Years' War. Louis de Geer sprang from an
ancient noble family of Liege. His father fled to Dordrecht in 1595 to
escape from the Inquisition and became prosperous in business. Liege was
then, as now, a great centre of the iron industry; and after his
father's death Louis de Geer in 1615 removed to Amsterdam, where he
became a merchant in all kinds of iron and copper goods, more especially
of ordnance and fire-arms. In close alliance with him, though not in
partnership, was his brother-in-law, Elias Trip, the head of a firm
reputed to have the most extensive business in iron-ware and weapons in
the Netherlands. The commanding abilities of de Geer soon gave to the
two firms, which continued to work harmoniously together as a family
concern, a complete supremacy in the class of wares in which they dealt.
At this time the chief supply of iron and copper ore came from Sweden;
and in 1616 de Geer was sent on a mission by the States-General to that
country to negotiate for a supply of these raw materials for the forging
of ordnance. This mission had important results, for it was the first
step towards bringing about those close relations between Sweden and the
United Provinces which were to subsist throughout the whole of the
Thirty Years' War. In the following year, 1617, Gustavus Adolphus, then
about to conduct an expedition into Livonia, sent an envoy to Holland
for the purpose of securing the good offices of the States-General for
the raising of a loan upon the security of the Swedish copper mines. The
principal contributor was Louis de Geer. He had, during his visit to
Sweden, learnt how great was the wealth of that country in iron ore, and
at the same time that the mines were lying idle and undeveloped through
lack of capital and skilled workmen. He used his opportunity therefore
to obtain from Gustavus the lease of the rich mining domain of Finspong.
The lease was signed on October 12, 1619, and de Geer at once began
operations on the largest scale. He introduced from Liege a body of
expert Walloon iron-workers, built forges and factories, and was in a
few years able to supply the Swedish government with all the ordnance
and munitions of war that they required, and to export through the port
of Norrkoeping large supplies of goods to his warehouses at Amsterdam.
His relations with Gustavus Adolphus soon became intimate. The king
relied upon de Geer for the supply of all the necessaries for his armies
in the field, and even commissioned him to raise troops for the Swedish
service. In 1626 the Dutch merchant was appointed by the king
acting-manager of the copper mines, which were royal property; and, in
order to regularise his position and give him greater facilities for the
conduct of his enterprises, the rights of Swedish citizenship were
conferred by royal patent upon him. It was a curious position, for
though de Geer paid many visits to Sweden, once for three consecutive
years, 1626-29, he continued to make Amsterdam his home and principal
residence. He thus had a dual nationality. Year after year saw an
increasing number of mines and properties passing into the great
financier's hands, and in return for these concessions he made large
advances to the king for his triumphant expedition into Germany;
advancing him in 1628 50,000 rixdalers, and somewhat later a further sum
of 32,000 rixdalers. So confidential were the relations between them
that Gustavus sent for de Geer to his camp at Kitzingen for a personal
consultation on business matters in the spring of 1632. It was their
last interview, for before that year closed the Swedish hero was to
perish at Luetzen.

The death of Gustavus made no difference to the position of Louis de
Geer in Sweden, for he found Axel Oxenstierna a warm friend and powerful
supporter. Among other fresh enterprises was the formation of a
Swedo-Dutch Company for trading on the West Coast of Africa. In this
company Oxenstierna himself invested money. In reward for his many
services the Swedish Council of Regency conferred upon de Geer and his
heirs a patent of nobility (August 4,1641); and as part repayment of the
large loans advanced by him to the Swedish treasury he obtained as his
own the districts containing his mines and factories in different parts
of Sweden, making him one of the largest landed proprietors in the
country. He on his part in return for this was able to show in a
remarkable way that he was not ungrateful for the favours that he had
received.

With Christian IV of Denmark for many years the Swedes and the Dutch had
had constant disputes and much friction. This able and ambitious king,
throughout a long and vigorous reign, which began in 1593, had watched
with ever-increasing jealousy the passing of the Baltic trade into Dutch
hands, and with something more than jealousy the rapid advance to power
of the sister Scandinavian kingdom under Gustavus Adolphus. Of the 1074
merchant ships that passed through the Sound between June 19 and
November 16, 1645, all but 49 came from Dutch ports, by far the largest
number from Amsterdam; and from these Christian IV drew a large revenue
by the exaction of harsh and arbitrary toll-dues. Again and again the
States-General had complained and protested; and diplomatic pressure had
been brought to bear upon the high-handed king, but without avail.
Between Sweden and Denmark there had been, since Gustavus Adolphus came
to the throne in 1613, no overt act of hostility; but smouldering
beneath the surface of an armed truce were embers of latent rivalries
and ambitions ready at any moment to burst into flame. Christian IV was
a Protestant, but his jealousy of Sweden led him in 1639 openly to take
sides with the Catholic powers, Austria and Spain. Fearing that he might
attempt to close the passage of the Sound, the States-General and the
Swedish Regency in 1640 concluded a treaty "for securing the freedom and
protection of shipping and commerce in the Baltic and North Seas"; and
one of the secret articles gave permission to Sweden to buy or hire
ships in the Netherlands and in case of necessity to enlist crews for
the same. Outward peace was precariously maintained between the
Scandinavian powers, when the seizure of a number of Swedish ships in
the Sound in 1643 made Oxenstierna resolve upon a bold stroke. Without
any declaration of war the Swedish general, Torstensson, was ordered to
lead his victorious army from North Germany into Denmark and to force
King Christian to cease intriguing with the enemy. Holstein, Schleswig
and Jutland were speedily in Torstensson's hands, but the Danish fleet
was superior to the Swedish, and he could make no further progress. Both
sides turned to the United Provinces. Christian promised that the
grievances in regard to the Sound dues should be removed if the
States-General would remain neutral. Oxenstierna addressed himself to
Louis de Geer. The merchant on behalf of the Swedish government was
instructed to approach the stadholder and the States-General, and to
seek for naval assistance under the terms of the treaty of 1640; and, if
he failed in obtaining their assent, then he--de Geer--should himself
(in conformance with the secret article of that treaty) raise on his
own account and equip a fleet of thirty ships for the Swedish service.

De Geer soon discovered that Frederick Henry, being intent on peace
negotiations, was averse to the proposal. The stadholder, and the
States-General acting under his influence, did not wish to create fresh
entanglements by embroiling the United Provinces in a war with Denmark.
De Geer therefore at once began on his own responsibility to equip ships
in the various seaports of Holland and Zeeland which had been the chief
sufferers by the vexatious Sound dues, and he succeeded in enlisting the
connivance of the Estates of Holland to his undertaking. Before the end
of April, 1644, a fleet of thirty-two vessels was collected under the
command of Marten Thijssen. Its first efforts were unsuccessful. The
Danish fleet effectually prevented the junction of Thijssen with the
Swedes, and for a time he found himself blockaded in a narrow passage
called the Listerdiep. Taking advantage of a storm which dispersed the
Danes, the Dutch admiral at last was able to put to sea again, and early
in July somewhat ignominiously returned to Amsterdam to refit. For the
moment King Christian was everywhere triumphant. On July 11 he gained a
signal victory over the Swedish fleet at Colberg Heath, and he had the
satisfaction of seeing Torstensson compelled by the Imperialists to
retreat from Jutland. But the energy and pertinacity of the Amsterdam
merchant saved the situation. Though the retreat of Thijssen meant for
him a heavy financial loss, de Geer never for a moment faltered in his
purpose. Within three weeks Thijssen again put to sea with twenty-two
ships, and by skilful manoeuvring he succeeded in making his way
through the Skagerak and the Sound, and finally brought his fleet to
anchor in the Swedish harbour of Calmar. From this harbour the united
Swedo-Dutch squadrons sailed out and on October 23, between Femern and
Laaland, met the Danish fleet, and after a desperate conflict completely
defeated and destroyed it. Thus were the wealth and resources of a
private citizen of Amsterdam able to intervene decisively at a critical
moment in the struggle for supremacy in the Baltic between the two
Scandinavian powers. But it is not in the victory won by Marten Thijssen
that de Geer rendered his greatest service to Sweden. As the Swedish
historian Fryxell truly says, "all that was won by the statesmanship of
Oxenstierna, by the sword of Baner, Torstensson and Wrangel, in a
desolated Germany streaming with blood, has been already lost again; but
the benefits which Louis de Geer brought to Sweden, by the path of
peaceful industry and virtue, these still exist, and bear wholesome
fruit to a late posterity."

This expedition under Marten Thijssen, who after his victory was created
a Swedish noble and definitely entered the Swedish naval service, though
connived at by Frederick Henry and the States-General, did not express
any desire on their part to aggrandise Sweden unduly at the expense of
Denmark. If some great merchants such as Louis de Geer and Elias Trip
were exploiting the resources of Sweden, others, notably a certain
Gabriel Marcelis, had invested their capital in developing the Danish
grazing lands; and politically and commercially the question of the
Sound dues, pre-eminently a Danish question, overshadowed all others in
importance. The Dutch had no desire to give Sweden a share in the
control of the Sound; they preferred in the interests of their vast
Baltic trade to have to deal with Christian IV alone. The Swedish threat
was useful in bringing diplomatic pressure to bear on the Danish king,
but ultimately they felt confident that, if he refused to make
concessions in the matter of the dues, they could compel him to do so.
As one of their diplomatists proudly declared, "the wooden keys of the
Sound were not in the hands of King Christian, but in the wharves of
Amsterdam." In June, 1645, his words were put to a practical test.
Admiral Witte de With at the head of a fleet of fifty war-ships was
ordered to convoy 300 merchantmen through the Sound, peacefully if
possible, if not, by force. Quietly the entire fleet of 350 vessels
sailed through the narrow waters. The Danish fleet and Danish forts
made no attempt at resistance. All the summer De With cruised to and fro
and the Dutch traders suffered no molestation. Christian's obstinacy at
last gave way before this display of superior might, and on August 23,
by the treaty of Christianopel he agreed to lower the tolls for forty
years and to make many other concessions that were required from him. At
the same time by Dutch mediation peace was concluded between Denmark and
Sweden, distinctly to the advantage of the former, by the treaty of
Broemsebro.

To pass to other regions. In the Levant, during the long residence of
Cornelis Haga at Constantinople, trade had been greatly extended.
Considerable privileges were conceded to the Dutch by the so-called
"capitulation" concluded by his agency with the Porte in 1612; and Dutch
consuls were placed in the chief ports of Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria,
Egypt, Tunis, Greece and Italy. The trading however with the
Mediterranean and the Levant was left to private enterprise, the
States-General which had given charters to the different Companies--East
India, West India and Northern--not being willing to create any further
monopolies.

The lack of coal and of metals has always seriously hindered industrial
development in the United Provinces. Nevertheless the advent into
Holland of so many refugees who were skilled artisans, from the southern
Netherlands, led to the establishment of various textile industries at
Leyden, Haarlem and other towns. One of the chief of these was the
dressing and dyeing of English cloth for exportation.

Amsterdam, it should be mentioned, had already at this time become the
home of the diamond industry. The art of cutting and polishing diamonds
was a secret process brought to the city on the Y by Portuguese Jews,
who were expelled by Philip II; and in Amsterdam their descendants still
retain a peculiar skill and craftmanship that is unrivalled. Jewish
settlers were indeed to be found in many of the Dutch towns; and it was
through them that Holland became famous in 17th century Europe for the
perfection of her goldsmiths' and silversmiths' art and for jewelry of
every kind. Another industry, which had its centre at Delft, was that of
the celebrated pottery and tiles known as "delfware." It will be evident
from what has been said above that vast wealth flowed into Holland at
this period of her history, but, as so often happens, this sudden
growth of riches had a tendency to accumulate in the hands of a minority
of the people, with the inevitable consequence, on the one hand, of the
widening of the gulf which divided poverty from opulence; on the other,
with the creation among rich and poor alike of a consuming eagerness and
passion for gain, if not by legitimate means, then by wild speculation
or corrupt venality. Bubble companies came into existence, only to bring
disaster on those who rashly invested their money in them. The fever of
speculation rose to its height in the mania for the growing of bulbs and
more especially of tulips, which more and more absorbed the attention of
the public in Holland in the years 1633-6. Perfectly inordinate sums
were offered in advance for growing crops or for particular bulbs; most
of the transactions being purely paper speculations, a gambling in
futures. Millions of guilders were risked, and hundreds of thousands
lost or won. In 1637 the crash came, and many thousands of people, in
Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, Alkmaar and other towns in Holland, were
brought to ruin. The Estates of Holland and the various municipal
corporations, numbers of whose members were among the sufferers, were
compelled to take official action to extend the time for the liquidation
of debts, and thus to some extent limit the number of bankruptcies. The
tulip mania reduced, however, so many to beggary that it came as a stern
warning. It was unfortunately only too typical of the spirit of the
time.

Even worse in some ways was the venality and corruption which began to
pervade the public life of the country. The getting of wealth, no matter
how, was an epidemic, which infected not merely the business community,
but the official classes of the republic. There was malversation in the
admiralties and in the military administration. The government was in
the hands of narrow oligarchies, who took good care to oppose jealously
any extension of the privileges which placed so much valuable patronage
at their disposal. Even envoys to foreign courts were reputed not to be
inaccessible to the receipt of presents, which were in reality bribes;
and in the law-courts the wealthy suitor or offender could generally
count on a charitable construction being placed upon all points in his
favour. The severe placards, for instance, against the public
celebration of any form of worship but that of the Reformed religion,
according to the decrees of the Synod of Dort, were notoriously not
enforced. Those who were able and willing to pay for a dispensation
found a ready and judicious toleration.

This toleration was not entirely due to the venality of the officials,
but rather to the spirit of materialistic indifference that was abroad
among the orthodox Calvinists, who were alone eligible for public
office. Large numbers of those who professed the established faith were
in reality either nominal conformists too much immersed in affairs to
trouble about religious questions, or actually free-thinkers in
disguise. It must never be forgotten that in the United Provinces taken
as a whole, the Calvinists, whether orthodox or arminian, formed a
minority of the population. Even in Holland itself more than half the
inhabitants were Catholics, including many of the old families and
almost all the peasantry. Likewise in Utrecht, Gelderland and Overyssel
the Catholics were in the majority. The Generality lands, North Brabant
and Dutch Flanders, were entirely of the Roman faith. In Holland,
Zeeland and especially in Friesland and Groningen the Mennonite Baptists
and other sects had numerous adherents. Liberty of thought and to a
large extent of worship was in fact at this time the characteristic of
the Netherlands, and existed in spite of the unrepealed placards which
enforced under pain of heavy penalties a strict adherence to the
principles of Dort.

*       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XII

LETTERS, SCIENCE AND ART


The epithet "glorious"--_roemrijke_--has been frequently applied by
Dutch historians to the period of Frederick Henry--and deservedly. The
preceding chapter has told that it was a time of wonderful maritime and
colonial expansion, of commercial supremacy and material prosperity. But
the spirit of the Holland, which reached its culminating point of
national greatness in the middle of the 17th century, was far from being
wholly occupied with voyages of adventure and conquest on far distant
seas, or engrossed in sordid commercialism at home. The rapid
acquisition of wealth by successful trade is dangerous to the moral
health and stability alike of individuals and of societies; and the
vices which follow in its train had, as we have already pointed out,
infected to a certain extent the official and commercial classes in the
Dutch republic at this epoch. There is, however, another side of the
picture. The people of the United Provinces in their long struggle for
existence, as a free and independent state, had had all the dormant
energies and qualities of which their race was capable called into
intense and many-sided activity, with the result that the quickening
impulse, which had been sent thrilling through the veins, and which had
made the pulses to throb with the stress of effort and the eagerness of
hope, penetrated into every department of thought and life. When the
treaty of Muenster was signed, Holland had taken her place in the very
front rank in the civilised world, as the home of letters, science and
art, and was undoubtedly the most learned state in Europe.

In an age when Latin was the universal language of learning, it was this
last fact which loomed largest in the eyes of contemporaries. The wars
and persecutions which followed the Reformation made Holland the place
of refuge of many of the most adventurous spirits, the choicest
intellects and the most independent thinkers of the time. Flemings and
Walloons, who fled from Alva and the Inquisition, Spanish and Portuguese
Jews driven out by the fanaticism of Philip II, French Huguenots and
German Calvinists, found within the borders of the United Provinces a
country of adoption, where freedom of the press and freedom of opinion
existed to a degree unknown elsewhere until quite modern times. The
social condition of the country, the disappearance of a feudal nobility,
and the growth of a large and well-to-do burgher aristocracy in whose
hands the government of the republic really lay, had led to a
widespread diffusion of education and culture. All travellers in 17th
century Holland were struck by the evidences which met their eyes, in
all places that they visited, of a general prosperity combined with
great simplicity of life and quiet domesticity. Homely comfort was to be
seen everywhere, but not even in the mansions of the merchant princes of
Amsterdam was there any ostentatious display of wealth and luxury.
Probably of no other people could it have been said that "amongst the
Dutch it was unfashionable not to be a man of business[6]." And yet, in
spite of this, there was none of that narrowness of outlook, which is
generally associated with burgher-society immersed in trade. These men,
be it remembered, were necessarily acquainted with many languages, for
they had commercial relations with all parts of the world. The number
too of those who had actually voyaged and travelled in far distant
oceans, in every variety of climate, amidst every diversity of race, was
very large; and their presence in their home circles and in social
gatherings and all they had to tell of their experiences opened men's
minds, stirred their imaginations, and aroused an interest and a
curiosity, which made even the stay-at-home Hollanders alert, receptive
and eager for knowledge.

The act of William the Silent in founding the University of Leyden, as a
memorial of the great deliverance of 1574, was prophetic of the future
that was about to dawn upon the land, which, at the moment of its lowest
fortunes, the successful defence of Leyden had done so much to save from
utter disaster. For the reasons which have been already stated, scholars
of renown driven by intolerance from their own countries found in the
newly-founded Academy in Holland a home where they could pursue their
literary work undisturbed, and gave to it a fame and celebrity which
speedily attracted thousands of students not only from the Netherlands,
but also from foreign lands. This was especially the case during the
terrible time when Germany was devastated by the Thirty Years' War.
Among the scholars and philologists, who held chairs at Leyden during
the first century of its existence, are included a long list of names of
European renown. Justus Lipsius and Josephus Justus Scaliger may be
justly reckoned among the founders of the science of critical
scholarship. These were of foreign extraction, as was Salmasius, one of
their successors, famous for his controversy with John Milton. But only
less illustrious in the domain of philology and classical learning were
the Netherlanders Gerardus Johannes Vossius (1577-1649) and his five
sons, one of whom Isaac (1618-89) may be even said to have surpassed his
father; Daniel Heinsius (1580-1665) and his son Nicolas (1620-1681), men
of immense erudition and critical insight; and the brilliant Latinist
Caspar Barlaeus (1584-1648). Of theologians and their bitter disputes
posterity retains a less grateful remembrance. Gomarus and Arminius by
their controversies were the authors of party strife and civil
dissensions which led to the death of Oldenbarneveldt on the scaffold;
and with them may be mentioned Episcopius, Voetius, Coecaeus, Bogerman
and Uyttenbogaert. Not all these men had a direct connection with
Leyden, for the success which attended the creation of the academy in
that town quickly led to the erection of similar institutions elsewhere.
Universities were founded at Franeker, 1584; Groningen, 1614; Amsterdam,
1632; Utrecht, 1636; and Harderwijk, 1646. These had not the same
attraction as Leyden for foreigners, but they quickly became, one and
all, centres for the diffusion of that high level of general culture
which was the distinguishing mark of the 17th century Netherlands.

All the writers, whose names have just been mentioned, used Latin almost
exclusively as their instrument of expression. But one name, the most
renowned of them all, has been omitted, because through political
circumstances he was compelled to spend the greater part of his life in
banishment from his native land. Hugo Grotius (Huig van Groot), after
his escape from the castle of Loevestein in 1621, though he remained
through life a true patriot, never could be induced to accept a pardon,
which implied an admission of guilt in himself or in Oldenbarneveldt. So
the man, who was known to have been the actual writer of the Advocate's
_Justification_, continued to live in straitened circumstances at Paris,
until Oxenstierna appointed him Swedish ambassador at the French
court. This post he held for eleven years. Of his extraordinary ability,
and of the variety and range of his knowledge, it is not possible to
speak without seeming exaggeration. Grotius was in his own time styled
"the wonder of the world"; he certainly stands intellectually as one of
the very foremost men the Dutch race has produced. Scholar, jurist,
theologian, philosopher, historian, poet, diplomatist, letter-writer, he
excelled in almost every branch of knowledge and made himself a master
of whatever subject he took in hand. For the student of International
Law the treatise of Grotius, _De Jure belli et pacis_, still remains the
text-book on which the later superstructure has been reared. His _Mare
liberum_, written expressly to controvert the Portuguese claim of an
exclusive right to trade and navigate in the Indian Ocean, excited much
attention in Europe, and was taken by James I to be an attack on the
oft-asserted _dominium maris_ of the English crown in the narrow seas.
It led the king to issue a proclamation forbidding foreigners to fish in
British waters (May, 1609). Selden's _Mare clausum_ was a reply, written
by the king's command, to the _Mare liberum_. Of his strictly historical
works the _Annales et Historiae de Rebus Belgicis_, for its impartiality
and general accuracy no less than for its finished and lucid style,
stands out as the best of all contemporary accounts from the Dutch side
of the Revolt of the Netherlands. As a theologian Grotius occupied a
high rank. His _De Veritate Religionis Christianae_ and his
_Annotationes in Vetus et in Novum Testamentum_ are now out of date; but
the _De Veritate_ was in its day a most valuable piece of Christian
apologetic and was quickly translated into many languages. The
_Annotationes_ have, ever since they were penned, been helpful to
commentators on the Scriptures for their brilliancy and suggestiveness
on many points of criticism and interpretation. His voluminous
correspondence, diplomatic, literary, confidential, is rich in
information bearing on the history and the life of his time. Several
thousands of these letters have been collected and published.

But if the smouldering embers of bitter sectarian and party strife
compelled the most brilliant of Holland's own sons to spend the last
twenty-three years of his life in a foreign capital and to enter the
service of a foreign state, Holland was at the same time, as we have
seen, gaining distinction by the presence within her hospitable
boundaries of men of foreign extraction famous for their learning.

It was thus that both the Cartesian and Spinozan systems of philosophy
had their birth-place on Dutch soil. Rene Descartes sought refuge from
France at Amsterdam in 1629, and he resided at different places in the
United Provinces, among them at the university towns of Utrecht,
Franeker and Leyden, for twenty years. During this time he published
most of his best known works, including the famous _Discours de la
methode_. His influence was great. He made many disciples, who openly or
secretly became "Cartesians." Among his pupils was Baruch Spinoza
(1632-1677) the apostle of pantheism. A Portuguese Jew by descent,
Spinoza was born in Amsterdam and was a resident in his native city
throughout life.

The fame of Holland in 17th century Europe as the chosen home of
learning had thus been established by scholars and thinkers whose
literary language was ordinarily Latin. It is now time to speak of the
brilliant band of poets, dramatists and stylists, who cultivated the
resources of their native tongue with such success as to make this great
era truly the Golden Age of Dutch Literature properly so-called. The
growth of a genuine national literature in the Netherlands, which had
produced during the latter part of the 13th century a Maerlandt and a
Melis Stoke, was for some considerable time checked and retarded by the
influence of the Burgundian _regime_, where French, as the court
language, was generally adopted by the upper classes. The Netherland or
Low-German tongue thus became gradually debased and corrupted by the
introduction of bastard words and foreign modes of expression.
Nevertheless this period of linguistic degradation witnessed the uprise
of a most remarkable institution for popularising "the Art of Poesy." I
refer to the literary gilds, bearing the name of "Chambers of Rhetoric,"
which, though of French origin, became rapidly acclimatised in the
Netherlands. In well-nigh every town one or more of these "gilds" were
established, delighting the people with their quaint pageantry and
elaborate ritual, and forming centres of light and culture throughout
the land. Rhyming, versifying, acting, became through their means the
recreation of many thousands of shop-keepers, artisans and even
peasants. And with all their faults of style and taste, their endless
effusion of bad poetry, their feeble plays and rude farces, the mummery
and buffoonery which were mingled even with their gravest efforts, the
"Rhetoricians" effectually achieved the great and important work of
attracting an entire people in an age of ignorance and of darkness
towards a love of letters, and thereby broke the ground for the great
revival of the 17th century. Amsterdam at one time possessed several
of these Chambers of Rhetoric, but towards the end of the 16th century
they had all disappeared, with one brilliant exception, that of the
"Blossoming Eglantine," otherwise known as the "Old Chamber." Founded in
1518 under the special patronage of Charles V, the "Eglantine" weathered
safely the perils and troubles of the Revolt, and passed in 1581 under
the joint direction of a certain notable triumvirate, Coornheert,
Spiegel and Visscher. These men banded themselves together "to raise,
restore and enrich" their mother-tongue. But they were not merely
literary purists and reformers; the "Eglantine" became in their hands
and through their efforts the focus of new literary life and energy, and
Amsterdam replaced fallen Antwerp as the home of Netherland culture.

The senior member of the triumvirate, Dirk Volkertz Coornheert, led a
stormy and adventurous life. He was a devoted adherent of William the
Silent and for a series of years, through good and ill-fortune, devoted
himself with pen and person to the cause of his patron. As a poet he did
not attain any very high flight, but he was a great pamphleteer, and,
taking an active part in religious controversy, by his publications he
drew upon himself a storm of opposition and in the end of persecution.
He was, like his patron, a man of moderate and tolerant views, which in
an age of religious bigotry brought upon him the hatred of all parties
and the accusation of being a free-thinker. His stormy life ended in
1590. Hendrik Laurensz Spiegel (1549-1612) was a member of an old
Amsterdam family. In every way a contrast to Coornheert, Spiegel was a
Catholic. A prosperous citizen, simple, unostentatious and charitable,
he spent the whole of his life in his native town, and being
disqualified by his religion from holding public office he gave all his
leisure to the cultivation of his mind and to literary pursuits. The
work on which his fame chiefly rests was a didactic poem entitled the
_Hert-Spiegel_. In his pleasant country house upon the banks of the
Amstel, beneath a wide and spreading tree, which he was wont to call the
"Temple of the Muses" he loved to gather a circle of literary friends,
irrespective of differences of opinion or of faith, and with them to
spend the afternoon in bright congenial converse on books and men and
things. Roemer Visscher, the youngest member of the triumvirate, was
like Spiegel an Amsterdammer, a Catholic and a well-to-do merchant. His
poetical efforts did not attain a high standard, though his epigrams,
which were both witty and quaint, won for him from his contemporaries
the name of the "Second Martial." Roemer Visscher's fame does not,
however, rest chiefly upon his writings. A man of great affability,
learned, shrewd and humorous, he was exceedingly hospitable, and he was
fortunate in having a wife of like tastes and daughters more gifted than
himself. During the twenty years which preceded his death in 1620 his
home was the chosen rendezvous of the best intelligence of the day. To
the young he was ever ready to give encouragement and help; and
struggling talent always found in him a kindly critic and a sympathising
friend. He lived to see and to make the acquaintance of Brederoo,
Vondel, Cats and Huyghens, the men whose names were to make the period
of Frederick Henry the most illustrious in the annals of Dutch
literature.

Gerbrand Adriansz Brederoo, strictly speaking, did not belong to that
period. He died prematurely in 1618, a victim while still young to a
wayward life of dissipation and disappointment. His comedies, written in
the rude dialect of the fish-market and the street, are full of native
humour and originality and give genuine glimpses of low life in old
Amsterdam. His songs show that Brederoo had a real poetic gift. They
reveal, beneath the rough and at times coarse and licentious exterior, a
nature of fine susceptibilities and almost womanly tenderness. Joost van
den Vondel was born in the same year as Brederoo, 1587, but his career
was very different. Vondel survived till 1679, and during the whole of
his long life his pen was never idle. His dramas and poems (in the
edition of Van Lennep) fill twelve volumes. Such a vast production, as
is inevitable, contains material of very unequal merit; but it is not
too much to say that the highest flights of Vondel's lyric poetry, alike
in power of expression and imagery, in the variety of metre and the
harmonious cadence of the verse, deserve a far wider appreciation than
they have ever received, through the misfortune of having been written
in a language little known and read. Vondel was the son of an Antwerp
citizen compelled as a Protestant to fly from his native town after its
capture by Parma. He took refuge at Cologne, where the poet was born,
and afterwards settled at Amsterdam. In that town Vondel spent all his
life, first as a shopkeeper, then as a clerk in the City Savings' Bank.
He was always a poor man; he never sought for the patronage of the
great, but rather repelled it. His scathing attacks on those who had
compassed the death of Oldenbarneveldt, and his adhesion to the
Remonstrant cause brought him in early life into disfavour with the
party in power, while later his conversion to Catholicism--in 1641--and
his eager and zealous advocacy of its doctrines, were a perpetual bar to
that public recognition of his talents which was his due. Vondel never
at any time sacrificed his convictions to his interest, and he wrote
poetry not from the desire of wealth or fame, but because he was a born
poet and his mind found in verse the natural expression of its thought
and emotions.

But, though Vondel was a poor man, he was not unlearned. On the contrary
he was a diligent student of Greek and Latin literature, and translated
many of the poetical masterpieces in those languages into Dutch verse.
Indeed so close was his study that it marred much of his own work.
Vondel wrote a great number of dramas, but his close imitation of the
Greek model with its chorus, and his strict adherence to the unities,
render them artificial in form and lacking in movement and life. This is
emphasised by the fact that many of them are based on Scriptural themes,
and by the monotony of the Alexandrine metre in which all the dialogues
are written. It is in the choruses that the poetical genius of Vondel is
specially displayed. Lyrical gems in every variety of metre are to be
found in the Vondelian dramas, alike in his youthful efforts and in
those of extreme old age. Of the dramas, the finest and the most famous
is the _Lucifer_, 1654, which treats of the expulsion of Lucifer and his
rebel host of angels from Heaven. We are here in the presence of a
magnificent effort to deal grandiosely with a stupendous theme. The
conception of the personality of Lucifer is of heroic proportions; and a
comparison of dates renders it at least probable that this Dutch drama
passed into John Milton's hands, and that distinct traces of the
impression it made upon him are to be found in certain passages of the
_Paradise Lost_. Vondel also produced hundreds of occasional pieces,
besides several lengthy religious and didactic poems. He even essayed an
epic poem on Constantine the Great, but it was never completed. Of the
occasional poems the finest are perhaps the triumph songs over the
victories of Frederick Henry, and of the great admirals Tromp and De
Ruyter.

Jacob Cats (1577-1660) lived, like Vondel, to a great age, but in very
different circumstances. He was a native of Dordrecht and became
pensionary of that town, and, though not distinguished as a statesman or
politician, he was so much respected for his prudence and moderation
that for twenty-two years he filled the important office of
Council-Pensionary of Holland and was twice sent as an Envoy
Extraordinary to England. He was a prolific writer and was undoubtedly
the most popular and widely-read of the poets of his time. His works
were to be found in every Dutch homestead, and he was familiarly known
as "Father Cats." His gifts were, however, of a very different order
from those of Vondel. His long poems dealt chiefly with the events of
domestic, every-day existence; and the language, simple, unpretentious
and at times commonplace, was nevertheless not devoid of a certain
restful charm. There are no high flights of imagination or of passion,
but there are many passages as rich in quaint fancy as in wise maxims.
With Constantine Huyghens (1596-1687) the writing of verse was but one
of the many ways in which one of the most cultured, versatile, and busy
men of his time found pleasant recreation in his leisure hours. The
trusted secretary, friend and counsellor of three successive Princes of
Orange, Huyghens in these capacities was enabled for many years to
render great service to Frederick Henry, William II and William III,
more especially perhaps to the last-named during the difficult and
troubled period of his minority. Nevertheless all these cares and
labours of the diplomatist, administrator, courtier and man of the world
did not prevent him from following his natural bent for intellectual
pursuits. He was a man of brilliant parts and of refined and artistic
tastes. Acquainted with many languages and literatures, an accomplished
musician and musical composer, a generous patron of letters and of art,
his poetical efforts are eminently characteristic of the personality of
the man. His volumes of short poems--_Hofwijck, Cluijswerck, Voorhout_
and _Zeestraet_--contain exquisite and witty pictures of life at the
Hague--"the village of villages"--and are at once fastidious in form and
pithy in expression.

It remains to speak of the man who may truly be described as the central
figure among his literary contemporaries. Pieter Cornelisz Hooft
(1583-1647) was indisputably the first man of letters of his time. He
sprang from one of the first families of the burgher-aristocracy of
Amsterdam, in which city his father, Cornelis Pietersz Hooft, filled the
office of burgomaster no less than thirteen times. He began even as a
boy to write poetry, and his strong bent to literature was deepened by a
prolonged tour of more than three years in France, Germany and Italy,
almost two years of which were spent at Florence and Venice. After his
return he studied jurisprudence at Leyden, but when he was only
twenty-six years old he received an appointment which was to mould and
fix the whole of his future career. In 1609 Prince Maurice, in
recognition of his father's great services, nominated Hooft to the
coveted post of Drost, or Governor, of Muiden and bailiff of Gooiland.
This post involved magisterial and administrative duties of a
by-no-means onerous kind; and the official residence of the Drost, the
"High House of Muiden," an embattled feudal castle with pleasant
gardens, lying at the point where at no great distance from Amsterdam
the river Vecht sleepily empties itself into the Zuyder Zee, became
henceforth for thirty years a veritable home of letters.

Hooft's literary life may be divided into two portions. In the decade
after his settlement at Muiden, he was known as a dramatist and a writer
of pretty love songs. His dramas--_Geerard van Velzen, Warenar_ and
_Baeto_--caught the popular taste and were frequently acted, but are not
of high merit. His songs and sonnets are distinguished for their musical
rhythm and airy lightness of touch, but they were mostly penned, as he
himself tells us, for his own pleasure and that of his friends, not for
general publication. There are, nevertheless, charming pieces in the
collected edition of Hooft's poems, and he was certainly an adept in the
technicalities of metrical craft. But Hooft himself was ambitious of
being remembered by posterity as a national historian. He aimed at
giving such a narrative of the struggle against Spain as would entitle
him to the name of "the Tacitus of the Netherlands." He wished to
produce no mere chronicle like those of Bor or Van Meteren, but a
literary history in the Dutch tongue, whose style should be modelled on
that of the great Roman writer, whose works Hooft is said to have read
through fifty-two times. He first, to try his hand, wrote a life of
Henry IV of France, which attained great success. Louis XIII was so
pleased with it that he sent the author a gold chain and made him a
Knight of St Michael. Thus encouraged, on August 19, 1628, Hooft began
his _Netherland Histories_, and from this date until his death in 1647
he worked ceaselessly at the _magnum opus_, which, beginning with the
abdication of Charles V, he intended to carry on until the conclusion of
the Twelve Years' Truce. He did not live to bring the narrative further
than the end of the Leicester regime. In a small tower in the orchard at
Muiden he kept his papers; and here, undisturbed, he spent all his
leisure hours for nineteen years engaged on the great task, on which he
concentrated all his energies. He himself tells us of the enormous pains
that he took to get full and accurate information, collecting records,
consulting archives and submitting every portion as it was written to
the criticism of living authorities, more especially to Constantine
Huyghens and through him to the Prince of Orange himself. Above all
Hooft strove, to use his own words, "never to conceal the truth, even
were it to the injury of the fatherland"; and the carrying-out of this
principle has given to the great prose-epic that he wrote a permanent
value apart altogether from its merits as a remarkable literary
achievement. And yet perhaps the most valuable legacy that Hooft has
left to posterity is his collection of letters. Of these a recent
writer[7] has declared "that, though it could not be asserted that they
[Hooft's letters] threw into the shade the whole of the rest of
Netherland literature, still the assertion would not be far beyond the
mark." They deal with every variety of subject, grave and gay; and they
give us an insight into the literary, social and domestic life of the
Holland of his time, which is of more value than any history.

In these letters we find life-like portraits of the scholars, poets,
dramatists, musicians, singers, courtiers and travellers, who formed
that brilliant society which received from their contemporaries the name
of the "Muiden Circle"--_Muidener Kring_. The genial and hospitable
Drost loved to see around him those "five or six couple of friends,"
whom he delighted to invite to Muiden. Hooft was twice married; and both
his wives, Christina van Erp and Heleonore Hellemans, were charming and
accomplished women, endowed with those social qualities which gave an
added attractiveness to the Muiden gatherings. Brandt, Hooft's
biographer, describes Christina as "of surpassing capacity and
intelligence, as beautiful, pleasing, affable, discreet, gentle and
gracious, as such a man could desire to have"; while, of Heleonore,
Hooft himself writes: "Within this house one ever finds sunshine, even
when it rains without."

This reference to the two hostesses of Muiden calls attention to one of
the noteworthy features of social life in the Holland of this
period--namely, the high level of education among women belonging to
the upper burgher-class. Anna and Maria Tesselschade Visscher, and Anna
Maria Schuurman may be taken as examples. Anna, the elder of the two
daughters of Roemer Visscher (1584-1651), was brought up amidst cultured
surroundings. For some years after her mother's death she took her place
as mistress of the house which until 1620 had been the hospitable
rendezvous of the literary society of Amsterdam. She was herself a woman
of wide erudition, and her fame as a poet was such as to win for her,
according to the fashion of the day, the title of "the Dutch Sappho."
Tesselschade, ten years younger than her sister and educated under her
fostering care, was however destined to eclipse her, alike by her
personal charms and her varied accomplishments. If one could believe all
that is said in her praise by Hooft, Huyghens, Barlaeus, Brederoo,
Vondel and Cats, she must indeed have been a very marvel of perfect
womanhood. As a singer she was regarded as being without a rival; and
her skill in painting, carving, etching on glass and tapestry work was
much praised by her numerous admirers. Her poetical works, including her
translation into Dutch verse of Tasso's _Gerusalemme Liberata_, have
almost all unfortunately perished, but a single ode that survives--"the
Ode to a Nightingale"--is an effort not unworthy of Shelley and shows
her possession of a true lyrical gift. At Muiden the presence of the
"beautiful" Tesselschade was almost indispensable. "What feast would be
complete," wrote Hooft to her, "at which you were not present? Favour us
then with your company if it be possible"; and again: "that you will
come is my most earnest desire. If you will but be our guest, then, I
hope, you will cure all our ills." He speaks of her to Barlaeus as "the
priestess"; and it is clear that at her shrine all the frequenters of
Muiden were ready to burn the incense of adulation. Both Anna and
Tesselschade, like their father, were devout Catholics.

Anna Maria van Schuurman (1607-84) was a woman of a different type. She
does not seem to have loved or to have shone in society, but she was a
very phenomenon of learning. She is credited with proficiency in
painting, carving and other arts; but it is not on these, so to speak,
accessory accomplishments that her fame rests, but on the extraordinary
range and variety of her solid erudition. She was at once linguist,
scholar, theologian, philosopher, scientist and astronomer. She was a
remarkable linguist and had a thorough literary and scholarly knowledge
of French, English, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac,