Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/39

Rh soon made him one of the most brilliant members of the "Oude Kamer" and of the circle which met at the house of Hooft and Roemer Visscher. He was one of Tesselschade's many admirers and suitors, but his humble birth and convivial tastes did not recommend him to her father. But his experiences as a "lustig gezel," and an ensign in the Town Guard, made him intimately acquainted with the life of the people, and his best work in drama and song is that which reflects their life and moods.

Of Brederoo's comedies we shall speak later. His Boertigh amoreus en aendachtigh Groot Liedt-Boeck (1622) contains, as the name indicates, humorous, love, and religious songs. The first are by far the best, and it is only regrettable that he did not write more of them instead of essaying the more artificial and conventional love-poetry, in which he could not vie with the cultured Hooft. The Boerengezelschap, beginning—

"Arent Pieter Gysen, met Mieuwes, Jaap en Leen,     En Klaasjen, en Kloentjen, die trocken t's amen heen           Na 't Dorp van Vinckeveen           Wangt ouwe Frangs, die gaf sen Gangs                Die worden of ereen";