Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/93

Rh Salmoneus (1656) and Faeton of Reuckeloze Stoutheit (1663), mythological; Zungchin of Ondergang der Sineesche Heerschappye (1666) was inspired by his enthusiasm for the Jesuit missions to China; and Batavische Gebroeders (1662) is on a patriotic theme similar to Hooft's Baeto. Of these we need mention only four.

In Jeptha (1659) Vondel boasted that he had produced a tragedy which complied exactly with the requirements of the critics from Aristotle to Vossius and La Mesnardières, while adhering closer to Scripture than Buchanan; but the chief interest of the play, apart from the poetry, is the ingenuity with which Vondel has used the story to propagate the Catholic condemnation of private judgment. In Buchanan's play Jephtha represents uninstructed religious feeling. A man must keep his oath, cost what it may. The priest who dissuades him from the sacrifice voices a more enlightened religion, which forbids to keep an oath when to do so involves a crime. In Vondel's play the conflict is between the conscience of the individual and the power and authority of the priest. Pressed to consult the High Priest before sacrificing his daughter, Jephtha justifies the appeal to his own conscience, and cries in Luther's words—


 * "Godt is mijn burgh en vaste toeverlaet."

But Vondel fails to make Jephtha's conflict tragic. His sorrow and remorse when he realises his error are wanting in dignity. The poet's favourite