Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/557

Rh countries. But in Holland, more than anywhere else, all the elements of imaginative production seemed concentrated and intensified in a brief period of brilliance. A single century sufficed to include the rise and decadence of Dutch literature. The year of revolt, 1568, was the approximate commencement of this period. Philip van Marnix, a sort of Flemish Rabelais, is named as the first artificer of classic Dutch prose, and flourished about this time; but the real imaginative life of the period centres around a species of academy, founded at Amsterdam by the poet Samuel Coster, and fantastically entitled the Chamber of the Eglantine. This association took as its motto In Liefde Bloeiende (Blossoming in Love), and in process of time its earlier title was merged in the more familiar appellation of the 'Brothers Blossoming in Love.' This body made it its duty to collect within itself every young man who showed any tendency to poetic gift, and under its auspices the great Dutch poets one by one emerged into public notice. A taste for the drama had come from Spain, and the brothers took care to represent, in a half-private way, the dramatic productions of their poets. In 1600 a youth of nineteen was admitted among the Brothers whose genius was so far in advance of that of all his predecessors that he has been justly named the father of Dutch poetry. This was Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, of whom the voluble criticism of the day asserted that he was 'more ingenious than Euripides, more stately than Virgil, more sublime than Horace, more wanton than Anacreon, and more tender than Petrarch;' from which it may be gathered that he was a writer of great fluency and versatility. He was more than this; he was a full-blooded poet of the Renaissance, born, like Marlowe, out of his due time, and he strove, in strenuous opposition to the domestic genius of his fatherland, to introduce the rich and sensuous forms of the south. Travelling in his youth in Italy, with the avowed purpose of studying the antique, it was Sannazaro more than Theocritus, Tasso rather than Virgil, whom he followed and delighted in. On his return to Amsterdam he charmed and bewildered the 'Brothers Blossoming in Love' with his "Granida," the first and almost only Dutch pastoral drama, and shortly afterwards with his tragedies of "Geraardt van Velzen" and "Baeto." The school of poetry so commenced had a brief period of splendid activity. The unfortunate poetess, Tesselschade Visscher, whose 'Lines on the Nightingale,' both in turns of fancy and in measure, recall in a most curious way Shelley's 'Shylark,' added an element of lyrical passion and melody; Bredero, inspired without doubt by the brilliant successes of the English Elizabethan drama, founded Dutch comedy; Cats, who, although born as early as 1577, belongs to a later period of production than these his juniors, introduced that curious manner of domestic poetry which is identified with his name, and with the paintings of Teniers and De Hooghe; and lastly, the greatest of the writers which Holland has produced, Joost van den Vondel, composed that long series of works in almost every branch of poetic art which has given him a name in European literature. Vondel was born at Cologne on November 17, 1587, and died in his ninety-second year, February 5, 1679. This enormous life, which began before the death of Spenser, and only closed seven years after the birth of Addison, was devoted almost without a pause to the production of works of the imagination. The writings of Vondel form a library in themselves; and few poets, except the inexhaustible Lope de Vega, have exceeded him in the quantity of their writings. Among his thirty-two dramas two have remained universal favorites - his domestic tragedy of "Gijsbrecht van Aemstel," and his scriptural drama of 'Lucifer.'

As early as 1617 the Chamber 'Blossoming in Love' gave regular theatrical representations in a properly constituted building, and in 1637 a public theatre was opened, in which, on the first night, "Gijsbrech't van Aemstel" was produced. After the death of Hooft in 1647, Vondel continued to supply dramas for this house and it was for this purpose, when in his sixty-seventh year, that he wrote the 'Lucifer,' which was brought out with great display of scenic heavens, but after two nights withdrawn on account of the great expense it involved. It was then printed in 1654. Milton was living in the 'pretty garden-house opening into the park,' and still acting as secretary to the council of state, although his failing sight had led him, some months before, to suggest Marvell as his successor. In April peace had been made between England and the United Provinces, and there was a temporary cessation of hostilities. There can be little doubt that Milton kept himself well versed in the best current Dutch literature. There were frequent interchanges of scholarly civilities. Huyghens had been in London within Milton's 