Lennep, Jacob van, one of the best known of modern Dutch writers. Belonging to a literary family, he was born at Amsterdam in 1802, studied at Leyden, and took a law degree in 1824, and settled as a lawyer at Amsterdam. In 1854–56 he was a member of the Second Chamber of the States-General. He died at Oosterbeek (Gelderland) on August 25, 1868. His literary industry was so prodigious that we cannot attempt to give a list of his works, which were chiefly poems, novels (published in a collected edition of 19 vols.), plays, and historical studies. Perhaps his best novel is “Klaasje Zevenster,” from which the bit of description we have quoted is taken. We give his comedy, “The Village on the Frontier,” entire.
Seipgens, Emile Anton Hubert, born at Roermond (Limburg), August 16, 1837. He was at first in the brewing business, but is now a teacher of German language and literature in the “Rijks Hoogere Burgerschool” of his native town. He has written several plays, some of them in the Roermond dialect, and two or three volumes of short stories, most of them strongly “Limburgsch” in local colour. The extract here given is taken from the volume entitled “In en om het klein Stadje” (Amsterdam, 1887). Another collection is entitled “Langs Maas en Geul.” He is an occasional contributor to the monthly magazine De Gids, and also to Elsevier’s “Illustrated.”
[1]. The oldest “Chambers of Rhetoric” (or Collèges de Rhétorique—the name probably originated in the French influence introduced by the House of Burgundy) date back to about 1400, or some years previous. The oldest would seem to be the “Alpha and Omega,” at Ypres, and the Antwerp “Violieren” (wall-flowers). The most famous, perhaps, is the Amsterdam association, “De Eglantier,” better known perhaps under the name of its motto, “In Liefde Bloeiende” (Blooming in Love). They held poetical competitions, placed upon the stage (usually with great magnificence) plays written and acted by their members, and arranged the most splendid pageants and processions on the occasion of any festival or public rejoicing. They also celebrated festivals of their own, the most important of which were known by the name of Landjuweelen. In 1496 a great Landjuweel was held at Antwerp by twenty-eight societies, at which the Eglantier gained the first prize. But the most famous of all was the Landjuweel of 1561, also held at Antwerp, beginning on the 3rd August, when the chambers of Brabant and Flanders vied with one another in magnificence. The Brussels society, “The Book,” was represented by 340 members, all on horseback in crimson mantles. This festival was revived on the occasion of the jubilee of the Belgian Academy of Antiquities, August 1892.
[2]. The plot of the “Bride in Heaven” is briefly this:—Many years before the opening of the play, Major Huser had killed Baron Van Bergen in a duel. There was no personal enmity between the men,—indeed they were intimate friends; it was only public opinion and a barbarous etiquette that forced on this ending to a trifling dispute. Huser was broken-hearted at the way it ended: he accepted the charge of Van Bergen’s only son as a sacred trust; and when he died, shortly afterwards, made his own son, Gustaaf, promise to be a friend to young Van Bergen at any sacrifice. Van Bergen turned out wild and dissipated, and Gustaaf redeemed his promise by taking on himself a forgery committed by his friend when in desperate straits for lack of money at the university. No one knew the truth of this affair but himself, Van Bergen, and the latter’s worthless valet, Frans. The proofs of the whole were contained in certain letters in Van Bergen’s possession. Huser disappears from society, and is supposed to have fled the country. As a matter of fact, he is getting his living as a music-master, under the name of Holm, and as such he is introduced to us in the play. His principal pupil is Caroline, daughter of a high government official named Van Wachler,—a shrewd, honourable, and upright man, of simple tastes, meeting with little sympathy from his fashionable and affected wife, with her would-be French manners, and the aristocratic connections she will not allow him to forget. Mevrouw Van Wachler is young Van Bergen’s aunt, and exceedingly anxious to marry her daughter to the scapegrace, who, for his part, is not unwilling to accept such a way of escape from his embarrassments. Her husband is less dazzled by the match, and declares his intention of letting his daughter choose for herself. He questions her, and finds that her affections are set on Holm. Holm, who has meanwhile awakened to the fact that he is in love with Caroline, has made up his mind that he must leave without a sign; but Van Wachler’s genial kindness wins his secret from him, and, finding that the statesman respects him for himself, and is willing to take his position and his past for granted, and that all he has to do is, to consent to the engagement, he can only shut his eyes for the moment, and accept the offered happiness. In the second act, which, with a few unimportant abridgments, is given entire in the text, General Van Weller, brother to Mevrouw Van Wachler, and the elder Huser’s old friend and comrade, returns from the Indies, determined to clear up the mystery of Gustaaf Huser’s disappearance, and is unwittingly helped on to the right track by Frans. In the third act, Holm and Van Bergen meet—the best side of the latter comes uppermost, and he has a passing mood of repentance and reconciliation. But Frans’ influence is too strong; he is persuaded to take a base advantage of his rival, and tells the Van Wachler family, in Holm’s presence, that the latter is not only passing under a false name, but is an outlaw and a convicted felon. Holm (who had previously made up his mind, for the sake of their old friendship and his promise to his father, to renounce Caroline, in the hope that her love—could he succeed in winning it—might save Van Bergen) is stunned and driven to despair by this treacherous attack, goes home to his lodgings, and is about to commit suicide, when he is interrupted by a visit from a man whose children he saved from a fire a year ago, and who has now brought them to see him. This man (Wolf) discovers his purpose, and does not leave till he has persuaded him to forego it. Scarcely has he gone, when Caroline comes in. She tells Holm that she has come to bid him farewell, but that nothing that has happened can make any possible difference to their love. If she may not belong to him on earth, she will be his bride in the other life, and wait for him there. So they part.
Van Wachler is full of indignation at the way in which he considers himself to have been deceived by Holm, but Van Weller arrives in time to explain everything,—tells the whole story, sends for Holm, or Huser, and sees his old friend’s son triumphantly righted, while Van Bergen retires in disgrace. (See A Rascally Valet, p. [65].)
[3]. Strictly speaking, “Dominie,” in Holland, is a title reserved for ministers, the old-fashioned designation of the schoolmaster being simply “Meester.” But as the former title has, with us, become inseparably attached to the latter profession, it has been thought best to use it as the translation of “Meester.”
[4]. Equivalent to the French garde-champêtre and the German Feldschütz,—an official who is something between a gamekeeper and a policeman. His duty is to patrol the fields and orchards with a gun, and see that nothing is stolen.
[5]. Readers of Motley will not need to be reminded that this was the name of William the Silent’s murderer.
[6]. “Wethouders:” corresponding to the “selectmen” of a New England village.