"The dramatic masterpiece of the great Dutch poet of the seventeenth century has found a skilled and vigorous translator in Mr. Leonard Charles Van Noppen, and the sustained volume is further enriched by a careful memoir of the author of Lucifer and by an elaborate critical Interpretation of the poem. Justice is thus at last rendered to a poet of unquestionable genius and inspiration, of whom everything like a fair estimate has hitherto been hardly possible to an English reader. * * * There is no appeal to the groundlings in the style and quality of the verse, which in Mr. Van Noppen's spirited translation has a march of sustained, or, at least, of rarely failing dignity throughout, and in its intercalated choric passages is by no means wanting in lyrical charm. * * * But after half a dozen, a dozen, a score, of similar parallelisms the odds against chance and in favor of design become so overwhelming that the least mathematically minded of men will reject the former hypothesis. The 'long arm of coincidence' is not so long as all that. And, most assuredly, it is not long enough to cover the fact that Milton's Samson Agonistes followed in due course on Vondel's Samson, and that it abounds in evidences that in the matter of dramatic construction, at any rate, to leave the poetry out of the question, he was content to take his Dutch contemporary as his closely followed model."—London Literature.
"It is interesting that the first English translation of Vondel's famous play should be made in America and put forth in the old Dutch city of New York. The volume is a handsome one, elaborately gotten up."—London Daily Chronicle.
"Lucifer is a large, majestic drama, and adorned with several beautiful choric odes."—W.L. Courtney, in London Daily Telegraph.
* * * Milton undoubtedly behaved in a light-fingered fashion at the expense of Vondel, not once or twice, but often. * * * After a long lapse of time this matter is reopened by Mr. Leonard Charles Van Noppen, whose volume in praise and explanation of Vondel is a book of quite uncommon merit and charm, and one absolutely indispensable to students of Milton. * * * Of Mr. Van Noppen's success as a translator there can be only one opinion. We have read his version with surprise and delight. Vondel's Lucifer, in nearly all respects, will prove a veritable treasure for the genuine book-lover."—The London Literary World.
Board of the Queen Wilhelmina Lectureship, Columbia University
GENTLEMEN:
We, members of the "Board of the Queen Wilhelmina Lectureship, Columbia University," Professor Doctor G. Kalff, of the University of Leiden; Member Royal Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam; Leiden. President; J. Heldring, of Heldring & Pierson, Bankers, the Hague; J.W. IJzerman, President of the Royal Netherland Geographical Society at Amsterdam, the Hague; Wouter Nijhoff, President of the Dutch Publishers' Association, the Hague; Doctor H.J. Kiewiet de Jonge, President of the General Dutch Alliance, Dordrecht, Hon. Secretary, herewith plead for your co-operation with our endeavors to spread in America a knowledge of our civilization and institutions. Notwithstanding the tremendous influence of Holland upon England and the American Colonies—an influence as yet hardly guessed—the study of the Dutch and their history in the colleges and universities of America is still universally neglected. So little in fact is known of this subject and of Holland's part in civilization that there is even among scholars but little appreciation of the importance of this subject. Only at Columbia University is there any evidence of interest. Here our literary representative, Leonard C. Van Noppen, whom we have selected as the pioneer to blaze the way, has inaugurated several courses in Dutch Literature and given besides lectures on the various periods of its development. Since Columbia has been the first to co-operate with us, will not your institution be the second? If so, will you kindly address Prof. Leonard C. van Noppen, Queen Wilhelmina Lecturer, Columbia University, N.Y.? Mr. Van Noppen will be glad at any time to introduce you to this subject and to lecture on such phases of it as you may deem the most interesting.
We invite your students to our universities. Here is a field which will enrich scholarship with many discoveries. The selection of the Hague as the Capital of Peace has given Holland a new international importance. Your universities have established chairs in Icelandic, Chinese and Russian, subjects whose importance and value are incalculably less than that of Dutch. Is it not time that a beginning be made in this direction? Not even the study of the Spanish, the Italian and the French is so fertile of results as that of the civilization of the Netherlands, which, as the mother of the Teutonic Renaissance, influenced the civilization of the English-speaking world so largely. Prof. Butler will, upon application, be glad to give Mr. van Noppen leave of absence to lecture at your university. Mr. Van Noppen has given courses of lectures on this subject at the Lowell Institute, Brooklyn Institute, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Cincinnati and many other colleges and universities.
We add the following notice of his lecture at Davidson College, N.C.: