Professor of Dutch Literature,
University of Utrecht.
UTRECHT, HOLLAND, October 10, 1897.
Vondel:
His Life and Times.
"Vondel! thousand thousand voices
Echo answer—grandly sing
Praises to our greatest poet,
Hailing him the poets' king."
Dr. Schaepman.
THE DUTCH RENAISSANCE.
"Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a nation that it get an articulate voice—that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the heart of it means."
Profounder truth, that keen aphorist, the Sage of Chelsea, never cast into heroic mould.
The consciousness of a great literature is a grander basis for national exaltation than the possession of victorious fleets and invincible battalions. The nation whose highest aspiration and most glorious impulse, whose noblest action and deepest thought, have been crystallized into fadeless beauty by the soul of native genius, has surely more lasting cause for pride than she whose proudest boast is a superiority in mere material achievement.