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History of Holland by George Edmundson

G >> George Edmundson >> History of Holland




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,
Chaldee, Arabic and Ethiopic. Her reputation became widespread; and, in
the latter part of her long life, many strangers went to Utrecht, where
she resided, to try to get a glimpse of so great a celebrity, which was
not easy owing to her aversion to such visits.

Turning to the domain of mathematical and physical science and of
scientific research and discovery, we find that here also the 17th
century Netherlanders attained the highest distinction. As
mathematicians Simon Stevin, the friend and instructor of Maurice of
Orange, and Francis van Schooten, the Leyden Professor, who numbered
among his pupils Christian Huyghens and John de Witt, did much excellent
work in the earlier years of the century. The published writings of De
Witt on "the properties of curves" and on "the theory of probabilities"
show that the greatest of Dutch statesmen might have become famous as a
mathematician had the cares of administration permitted him to pursue
the abstract studies that he loved. Of the scientific achievements of
Christian Huyghens (1629-95), the brilliant son of a brilliant father,
it is difficult to speak in adequate terms. There is scarcely any name
in the annals of science that stands higher than his. His abilities, as
a pure mathematician, place him in the front rank among mathematicians
of all time; and yet the services that he rendered to mathematical
science were surpassed by his extraordinary capacity for the combination
of theory with practice. His powers of invention, of broad
generalisation, of originality of thought were almost unbounded. Among
the mathematical problems with which he dealt successfully were the
theory of numbers, the squaring of the circle and the calculation of
chances. To him we owe the conception of the law of the conservation of
energy, of the motion of the centre of gravity, and of the undulatory
theory of light. He expounded the laws of the motion of the pendulum,
increased the power of the telescope, invented the micrometer,
discovered the rings and satellites of Saturn, constructed the first
pendulum clock, and a machine, called the gunpowder machine, in
principle the precursor of the steam engine. For sheer brain power and
inventive genius Christian Huyghens was a giant. He spent the later
years of his life in Paris, where he was one of the founders and
original members of the _Academie des Sciences_. Two other names of
scientists, who gained a European reputation for original research and
permanent additions to knowledge, must be mentioned; those of Antoni van
Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), and of Jan Swammerdam (1637-80). Leeuwenhoek
was a life-long observer of minute life. The microscope (the invention
of which was due to a Dutchman, Cornelius Drebbel) was the favourite
instrument of his patient investigations, and he was able greatly to
improve its mechanism and powers. Among the results of his labours was
the discovery of the infusoria, and the collection of a valuable mass of
information concerning the circulation of the blood and the structure of
the eye and brain. Swammerdam was a naturalist who devoted himself to
the study of the habits and the metamorphoses of insects, and he may be
regarded as the founder of this most important branch of scientific
enquiry. His work forms the basis on which all subsequent knowledge on
this subject has been built up.

To say that the school of Dutch painting attained its zenith in the
period of Frederick Henry and the decades which preceded and followed
it, is scarcely necessary. It was the age of Rembrandt. The works of
that great master and of his contemporaries, most of whom were
influenced and many dominated by his genius, are well known to every
lover of art, and are to be seen in every collection of pictures in
Europe. One has, however, to visit the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam and the
Mauritshuis at the Hague to appreciate what an extraordinary outburst of
artistic skill and talent had at this time its birth within the narrow
limits of the northern Netherlands. To the student of Dutch history
these two galleries are a revelation, for there we see 17th century
Holland portrayed before us in every phase of its busy and prosperous
public, social and domestic life. Particularly is this the case with the
portraits of individuals and of civic and gild groups by Rembrandt,
Frans Hals, Van der Helst and their followers, which form an inimitable
series that has rarely been equalled. To realise to what an extent in
the midst of war the fine arts flourished in Holland, a mere list of the
best-known painters of the period will suffice, it tells its own tale.
They are given in the order of their dates: Frans Hals (1584-1666),
Gerard Honthorst (1592-1662), Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan Wyvants
(1600-87), Albert Cuyp (1606-72), Jan Lievens (1607-63), Rembrandt van
Rhyn (1608-69), Gerard Terburg (1608-81), Adrian Brouwer (1608-41),
Ferdinand Bol (1609-81), Salomon Koning (1609-74), Andreas Both
(1609-60), Jan Both (1610-62), Adrian van Ostade (1610-85), Bartolomaus
van der Helst (1613-70), Gerard Douw (1613-80), Gabriel Metzu (1615-58),
Govaert Flinck (1615-60), Isaac van Ostade (1617-71), Aart van der Neer
(1619-83), Pieter de Koningh (1619-89), Philip Wouvermans (1620-68),
Pieter van der Hoogh (?), Nicolas Berchem (1624-83), Paul Potter
(1625-54), Jacob Ruysdael (1625-81), Meindert Hobbema (?), Jan Steen
(1626-79), Samuel van Hoogstraeten (1627-78), Ludolf Backhuizen
(1631-1709), Jan van der Meer of Delft (1632-?), Nicholas Maes
(1632-93), William van der Velde (1633-1707), Frans van Mieris
(1635-81), Caspar Netscher (1639-84), Adrian van der Velde (1639-72).

It is strange that little is known of the lives of the great majority of
these men; they are scarcely more than names, but their memory survives
in their works. No better proof could be brought of the general
abundance of money and at the same time of the widespread culture of the
land than the fact that art found among all classes so many patrons. The
aristocratic burgher-magistrates and the rich merchants loved to adorn
their houses with portraits and a choice selection of pictures; it was a
favourite investment of capital, and there was a certain amount of
rivalry among the principal families in a town like Amsterdam in being
possessed of a fine collection. The "Six" collection still remains as an
example upon the walls of the 17th century house of Burgomaster Six,
where it was originally placed. The governing bodies of gilds and
boards, members of corporations, the officers of the town _schutterij_
or of archer companies delighted to have their portraits hung around
their council chambers or halls of assembly. In the well-to-do
farmer-homesteads and even in the dwellings of the poorer classes
pictures were to be found, as one may see in a large number of the
"interiors" which were the favourite subject of the _genre_ painters of
the day. But with all this demand the artists themselves do not seem to
have in any case been highly paid. The prices were low. Even Rembrandt
himself, whose gains were probably much larger than those of any of
his contemporaries, and whose first wife, Saskia Uilenburg, was a woman
of means, became bankrupt in 1656, and this at a time when he was still
in his prime, and his powers at their height. Some of his most famous
pictures were produced at a later date.

During the Thirty Years' War Holland became the centre of the publishing
and book-selling trade; and Leyden and Amsterdam were famed as the
foremost seats of printing in Europe. The devastation of Germany and
the freedom of the press in the United Provinces combined to bring about
this result. The books produced by the Elseviers at Leyden and by Van
Waesberg and Cloppenburch at Amsterdam are justly regarded as fine
specimens of the printer's art, while the maps of Willem Jansz Blaeu and
his Dutch contemporaries were quite unrivalled, and marked a great step
forward in cartography.

This chapter must not conclude without a reference to the part taken by
the Netherlanders in the development of modern music and the modern
stage. The love of music was widespread; and the musicians of the
Netherlands were famed alike as composers and executants. It was from
its earlier home in the Low Countries that the art of modern music
spread into Italy and Germany and indeed into all Europe. Similarly in
the late Middle Ages the people of the Netherlands were noted for their
delight in scenic representations and for the picturesque splendour with
which they were carried out. The literary gilds, named Chambers of
Rhetoric, never took such deep root elsewhere; and in the performance of
Mystery Plays and Moralities and of lighter comic pieces (_chuttementen_
and _cluyten_) many thousands of tradespeople and artisans took part. In
the 17th century all the Chambers of Rhetoric had disappeared with the
single exception of the famous "Old Chamber" at Amsterdam, known as _The
Blossoming Eglantine_, to which the leading spirits of the Golden Age of
Dutch Literature belonged and which presided over the birth of the Dutch
Stage. From the first the stage was popular and well-supported; and the
new theatre of Amsterdam, the Schouburg (completed in 1637), became
speedily renowned for the completeness of its arrangements and the
ability of its actors. Such indeed was their reputation that travelling
companies of Dutch players visited the chief cities of Germany, Austria
and Denmark, finding everywhere a ready welcome and reaping a rich
reward, whilst at Stockholm for a time a permanent Dutch theatre was
established.

* * * * *




CHAPTER XIII

THE STADHOLDERATE OF WILLIAM II.

THE GREAT ASSEMBLY


Upon the death of Frederick Henry of Orange (March, 1647), his only son
succeeded to his titles and estates and also by virtue of the Act of
Survivance to the offices of Stadholder in six provinces and to the
Captain-Generalship and Admiral-Generalship of the Union. William was
but twenty-one years of age and, having been excluded during Frederick
Henry's lifetime from taking any active part in affairs of state, he had
turned his energies into the pursuit of pleasure, and had been leading a
gay and dissolute life. His accession to power was, however, speedily to
prove that he was possessed of great abilities, a masterful will and a
keen and eager ambition. He had strongly disapproved of the trend of the
peace negotiations at Muenster, and would have preferred with the help of
the French to have attempted to drive the Spaniards out of the southern
Netherlands. The preliminaries were, however, already settled in the
spring of 1647; and the determination of the province of Holland and
especially of the town of Amsterdam to conclude an advantageous peace
with Spain and to throw over France rendered the opposition of the young
Stadholder unavailing. But William, though he had perforce to acquiesce
in the treaty of Muenster, was nevertheless resolved at the earliest
opportunity to undo it. Thus from the outset he found himself in a
pronounced antagonism with the province of Holland, which could only
issue in a struggle for supremacy similar to that with which his uncle
Maurice was confronted in the years that followed the truce of 1609,
and, to a less degree, his father after 1640.

Commerce was the predominant interest of the burgher-aristocracies who
held undisputed sway in the towns of Holland; and they, under the
powerful leadership of Amsterdam, were anxious that the peace they had
secured should not be disturbed. They looked forward to lightening
considerably the heavy load of taxation which burdened them, by reducing
the number of troops and of ships of war maintained by the States. To
this policy the young prince was resolutely opposed, and he had on his
side the prestige of his name and a vast body of popular support even
in Holland itself, among that great majority of the inhabitants, both of
town and country, who were excluded from all share in government and
administration and were generally Orangist in sympathy. He had also with
him the officers of the army and navy and the preachers. His chief
advisers were his cousin William Frederick, Stadholder of Friesland, and
Cornelis van Aerssens (son of Francis) lord of Sommelsdijk. By the
agency of Sommelsdijk he put himself in secret communication with Count
d'Estrades, formerly French ambassador at the Hague, now Governor of
Dunkirk, and through him with Mazarin, with the view of concluding an
alliance with France for the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands, and
for sending a joint expedition to England to overthrow the Parliamentary
forces and establish the Stewarts on the throne. Mazarin was at this
time, however, far too much occupied by his struggle with the Fronde to
listen to the overtures of a young man who had as yet given no proof of
being in a position to give effect to his ambitious proposals.
Nevertheless the prince was in stern earnest. In April, 1648, his
brother-in-law, James, Duke of York, had taken refuge at the Hague, and
was followed in July by the Prince of Wales. William received them with
open arms and, urged on by his wife, the Princess Royal, and by her aunt
the exiled Queen of Bohemia, who with her family was still residing at
the Hague, he became even more eager to assist in effecting a Stewart
restoration than in renewing the war with Spain. The difficulties in his
way were great. In 1648 public opinion in the States on the whole
favoured the Parliamentary cause. But, when the Parliament sent over Dr
Doreslaer and Walter Strickland as envoys to complain of royal ships
being allowed to use Dutch harbours, the States-General, through the
influence of the prince, refused them an audience. The Estates of
Holland on this gave a signal mark of their independence and antagonism
by receiving Doreslaer and forbidding the royal squadron to remain in
any of the waters of the Province.

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