Dryden and Holland

[p. 81]

Chapter II
Drydeniana in Holland

Having considered Dryden's opinions of the Dutch, the question naturally arises what the Dutch knew or wrote about him. Did they read Dryden in English or in translations? Does his name occur in the extensive periodical literature of Holland in the last decades of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century? Are there any references to him in subsequent ages?

In 1711 a well-known bookseller in the Hague, named Thomas Johnson, began publishing a collection of the best English plays and in the period between 1711 and 1730 about 70 comedies and tragedies appeared. ‘Un beau Recueil de toutes les meilleurs Comédies Angloises, très proprement imprimées en petit volume’, runs the advertisement in one of his own periodicals¹ and again in another: ‘Un Recueil des meilleures Comédies et Tragédies Angloises... la moitié meilleur marché qu'on ne les vend en Angleterre’². Dryden is represented by twelve plays in this collection and, curiously enough, Amboyna is one of them. Even if we assume that Johnson hoped to export part of his output to England, he must have found a fairly good sale on the continent, to enable him to continue his publishing activities over a long stretch of years. But was the number of Dutchmen who could read Dryden in his own language significant?³ Every student of the period is struck by the number of Englishmen who stayed in Holland for a longer or shorter time. Merchantadventurers, religious refugees, English troops, strolling players, all must have disseminated their vernacular language in the United Provinces. And yet contemporary writers and modern investigators give a very gloomy picture of the spread of English in the Netherlands in this period. The reviewer in the Bibliothèque Choisie (a Dutch periodical) says that the English poets are not so well known in Holland, because few men understand English well enough to read them⁴. The Nouvelles

1 Le Misantrope for September 1711.

2 Journal Littéraire X (1718).

3 Cf. H. Scherpbier, Milton in Holland, p. 86, on the knowledge of English in the United Provinces.

4 Volume XXI, review of Shaftesbury's Advice to an Author.

[p. 82]

de la République des Lettres declares characteristically: ‘....les Anglois sétant opiniatrément attachés à leurs manières Gothiques & Barbares on peut faire bien du Chemin au delà de leurs Isles sans trouver trois personnes qui ayent une médiocre connoissance de la Langue Angloise’¹. William Sewel in his famous English-Dutch dictionary of 1708 reproached his Dutch readers for being unable to believe that anything beautiful is to be found in English, ‘though it is second to none in richness of words and dignity of style’².

The best proof of the neglect of English in the United Provinces is the absence of schools where English was taught. Clearly people did not want their children to learn that language. Whereas Holland teemed with ‘French schools’, there was only one ‘Scottish school’ (in Rotterdam). This unsatisfactory state of affairs lasted throughout the eighteenth and the greater part of the nineteenth century. As late as 1822 an English schoolmaster at Amsterdam complained of deep-rooted prejudices against his native language. The Dutch said that they could make neither head nor tail of it; it was a language to poison dogs and cats; it was only the scum of other languages³. Indeed, Holland had to wait till 1863, when the new secondary school, the so-called H.B.S., was founded, before English was widely taught. Our conclusion must be that the number of Dutchmen who read Dryden in his own language was negligible, owing to ignorance of English and in spite of the fact that an Anglo-Dutch bookseller in the Hague was the first outside England who printed some of Dryden's plays on a large scale.

This conclusion is borne out by a search we made in the catalogues of more than a hundred Dutch private libraries sold between 1680 and 1750⁴. The French books in these catalogues outnumber the English works by far; Dryden hardly occurs at all. Only Christiaan Huygens' library, sold in 1695, formed an exception. Though not a very big one, it contained The Indian Emperor, Troilus and Cressida, Oedipus, The

1 January 1703.

2 In the Latin dedication of the dictionary; it says about the English language, ‘...etiamsi forte nulli aliae linguae opulentia vocum, vel dictionis gravitate, cedere necesse habeat’.

3 B.S. Nayler, An Appeal to the Judgements of the Dutch and French Inhabitants of the City of Amsterdam on the Subject of the English Language, 1822 (no place-name).

4 To be found in the library of the Society for the promotion of the interests of the book-trade, Herengracht 124, Amsterdam.

[p. 83]

Kind Keeper, The Duke of Guise and An Evening's Love. Of course Christiaan's visits to England and his membership of the Royal Society partly account for his interest in Dryden.

Though but few Dutchmen had an adequate knowledge of English, there was nevertheless in the last decades of the seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth century an ever increasing interest in books of English origin. Philosophical, historical, religious and scientific works came first to be translated and appreciated in this country and spread England's fame as a nation of profound thinkers. Hobbes, Locke, Boyle, Newton, Tillotson, these were the men who captured the fancy of the Dutch, whereas English literature almost completely failed to make an impression in seventeenth century Holland¹. Even Shakespeare and Milton had to wait rather long² before their greatness came to be realized here. But in the eighteenth century English prose and poetry gradually began to be appreciated in the United Provinces, and interest, greatly stimulated by Justus van Effen³ and others, showed itself in an increasing demand for translations⁴. Dryden, however, does not seem to have appealed very much to the Dutch reading public; a search for Dryden translations was disappointing; a Dutch version of The Tempest (as re-written by Dryden and Davenant), a prose translation and two nineteenth century metrical translations of Alexander's Feast were the meagre result. Perhaps it was presumptuous to have expected more; after all the bulk of Dryden's work - his plays - was not congenial to Dutch taste in the eighteenth century. The French drama was thought superior in almost

1 In the Boekzaal for March-April 1695 Rabus wrote without a blush, that English poets did not interest Dutchmen very much, as W. d'Avenant, J. Denham, J. Donne, B. Jonson, J. Milton, J. Oldham, W. Shakespeare, Ph. Sidney, E. Spenser and others. (review of Pope Blount's De Re Poëtica).

2 As to Shakespeare we may leave out of account such seventeenth century plays as Aran en Titus (Jan Vos), Veinzende Torquatus (Brandt) and Piramus and Thisbe (Gramsbergen). Though they contain many elements derived from Shakespeare, it is unlikely that the authors borrowed consciously and directly from the great English dramatist. As late as 1778 there seems to have been a sudden outburst of enthusiasm for Shakespeare translations. Between 1778 and 1782 fourteen plays were rendered into Dutch. Cf. J.A. Worp, Geschiedenis van het drama en van het toneel in Nederland, Groningen 1908, p. 333.

3 Cf. W.J.B. Pienaar, English Influences in Dutch Literature and Justus van Effen as Intermediary, Cambridge 1929.

4 To mention a few, Cato, Paradise Lost, Venice Preserved, Robinson Crusoe, Tale of a Tub, Gulliver's Travels.

[p. 84]

every respect. As to Dryden's poems, they often contain too many allusions to persons and political affairs relatively or completely unknown on the continent¹ to arouse much interest outside England. Moreover, when at last English belles lettres began to be appreciated in Holland, it was to be expected that the interest would be mainly directed to contemporary authors (Addison, Steele, Defoe, Pope, Swift etc.), whereas Dryden belonged to a preceding generation and another age. Except Da Costa's rendering of Alexander's Feast the Dryden translations in Dutch have no literary value at all, though they may be of some interest to the student of comparative literature.

1 Even Absalom and Achitophel was misunderstood in Holland. Van Effen thought that it was a scurrilous attack on the King.

Translations and an Adaptation.

a. The Tempest.

In the municipal library of Haarlem there is a translation in manuscript of The Tempest as it was spoiled by Dryden and Davenant, under the title of De Hartogh van Savoy. It was re-discovered by W. Zuidema in 1905, who wrote a short notice about it in the Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche Taal en Letterkunde². He presumed that this prose translation had been made for someone who intended to give a rhymed version but could not read English. This seems rather improbable, since the translator took pains to give a rhymed version of the passages that are also rhymed in the English text. Why would he have done so, if he wrote the translation for another who could do the job better than he? Moreover there are indications in the manuscript that it was actually used for a performance, judging from some notes in a different hand, evidently meant for the players. Haarlem had had a theatre since 1706; The Tempest may have been acted there³.

It is no way surprising that the translation of an English play should have been discovered in the Haarlem library. In the beginning of the eighteenth century this town had a coterie of cultured young men who met to enjoy music and literature, and, contrary to what might have been expected in view of what has been said about the knowledge of English in Holland, several of them knew that language well, as van

2 No. XXIV, 1905, p. 159.

3 Unfortunately there are no records extant of this theatre.

[p. 85]

Zanten (who later translated Paradise Lost), Pieter Langendijk (who rendered Addison's Cato into Dutch), Merkman (their president, who had lived in London for a long time), and others. Perhaps the anonymous translator of The Tempest must be sought among them. He uses a very queer and inconsistent spelling¹ and his grammar is at times faulty², but he knew English fairly well and follows the original quite accurately.

In English there were some editions of The Tempest that differed more or less from Dryden's original text, and it is possible to find out which of these editions our translator used. The play was first printed in England in 1670, and soon turned into an opera. This operatic version appeared in 1674 and differed considerably from the original text of 1670, but was nevertheless used in the famous Scott-Saintsbury edition of Dryden's works. We also find The Tempest in the above-mentioned collection of the best English plays, printed for the bookseller T. Johnson in The Hague. The text of this edition differs only in some minor points from the original of 1670. From the following comparison it will become clear that the translator used this so-called Hague-edition, as indeed might be expected.

The division of the acts into scenes is the same as in Johnson's reprint, whereas Dryden's first edition had no such division³.

In act I ed. 1670 we find: ‘Man your seere-Capstorm’⁴. This is a misprint for ‘jeer-capstorm’⁵. The Hague-edition probably attempted an emendation and has steer-capstorm. The translator writes: ‘een man nae het roer’, evidently thinking that steer-capstorm had something to do with the rudder.

In act I the Hague-edition has an extra line, ‘Nay once I rain'd a shower of fire upon them’. The translator follows faithfully: ‘ja eens heb ik een schouwer van vuur op hun neer geestort’.

In act II Hippolito says: (ed. 1670) ‘You taught me not to fear him’⁶.

1 Hippolito is sometimes Hipolito and also Hipollito. The weakstressed syllables be-, ge-, re-, are consistently spelt bee-, gee-, ree-, so that we find words as reegeere, geeweest, etc.

2 In such lines as ‘Miranda en Dorinda, dogters van Prospero die nooit geen man gezien heb’.

3 Montague Summers gives a reprint of the edition of 1670 in Dryden. The Dramatic Works, London 1931, vol. II.

4 Summers II, p. 158.

5 N.E.D., jeer = tackle for hoisting and lowering the lower yards.

6 Summers II, p. 178.

[p. 86]

(Hague-edition) ‘Sir, you taught me not to fear him’, which is translated ‘Mijnheer hebt gij mij niet geeleerd....’.

In act III Caliban says: (ed. 1670) ‘I did but drink thrice of it’¹. (Hague-edition) ‘I did but drink twice of it’. Translation: ‘ik heb maar tweemael van geeproefd’.

In act IV Dorinda speaks: (ed. 1670) ‘I'll avoid him’². (Hagueedition) ‘Therefore I'll avoid him’. Translation: ‘daerrom sal ik hem meiden’.

In act V Prospero says: (ed. 1670) ‘She would control the Moon’³. (Hague-edition) ‘She could control the Moon’. Translation: ‘.... dat zij de maen kon⁴ dwingen’.

From these small variants, faithfully followed in the translation, we may safely infer that the Hague-edition was used. This leads to the conclusion that the M.S. cannot be older than 1711, the date when T. Johnson began to sell his English plays. At the same time it proves that at least some copies of Johnson's edition were purchased in Holland. Though the translator kept fairly close to his English text, he did not venture to give a rhymed version of the three songs of Ariel, which Dryden had the good sense to copy unaltered from Shakespeare:

‘Come unto these yellow sands...’,

‘Where the bee sucks, there suck I....’ and

‘Full fathom five thy father lies...’

The sailor's song in The Tempest is replaced by a Dutch sea-ditty which was perhaps not of the translator's invention, but an existing one⁵:

Een jong maetroos

Sat voor een poos

Te vrije bij zijn kniertie

En nae zijn lust

Zijn lief hij kust

En blust zijn minneviertie.

Maer zij vergeet

Zijn herten leet

1 ibidem p. 190.

2 ibidem p. 206.

3 ibidem p. 227.

4 My italics.

5 It is, however, not to be found in Scheurleer's collection of sailor's songs in Van Varen en Vechten, Den Haag 1914.

[p. 87]

 

Als hij rijde op de baerren.

 

Light als de wind

 

Een aer beesind¹.

 

Haer min is haest vervaerren².

There are one or two other places in which the translator tries to give a Dutch colouring to the play without deviating too much from the original. Trincalo's England becomes ‘Amsterdam’, ‘a very rocky coast’ is ‘het barre strand’. The preface, prologue and epilogue were understandably omitted, since they could scarcely be of interest to a Dutch audience.

1 besinnen = zijn zinnen zetten op.

2 vervaeren = verdwijnen.

b. Alexander's Feast.

Among Dryden's poems Alexander's Feast was no doubt one of the most suitable to find appreciation abroad. Its subject matter was easy to understand, because the story was well known from classical antiquity; moreover, Dryden's attempt ‘to make the sound an echo to the sense’ strongly appealed to poets and those who had an ear for metrical effects; Handel's musical setting of the poem also contributed to spreading its fame outside England. It had already been introduced in Holland in a French prose translation by Antoine Prévost (in a periodical called Le Pour et Contre, The Hague 1738).

In this country Da Costa seems to have been the first to be so much excited by what has been called ‘Dryden's immortal rag-time’, that he attempted a translation. Considering his age - the translation appeared in a collection of 1821 - it was no mean performance.

‘Het feest der overwinning klonk

door Perziës verslagen steden,

door 't zegepralend heir betreden,

waar voor Darius macht verzonk...’.

Da Costa, of course, realized that the beauty of the poem chiefly depended on the variations of rhythm used to indicate various passions; he imitated Dryden in those changes of metre, sometimes turning from iambs to trochees, (in section I and V) and from iambs to anapests (in section VI) to describe rising fury and the spirit of revenge. A difficult passage in section II, the metamorphosis of Jove, of which Prévost had declared

[p. 88]

that it would tax the resources of any translator, was tackled by Da Costa in this way:

‘...'t Lied begint

van Jupiter, van minnesmart ontzind.

De liefde voerde hem op aarde:

de vlammende opperhuid eens draaks verbergt den Vorst

der goôn! Hij wringt zich aan de borst

der Koningin, die Alexander baarde,

en lescht zijn heete liefdedorst,

en schept een beeldtnis van zich-zelf, een Wereldkoning...’.

If not poetry, it is at least a tolerable rendering of a difficult passage in Dryden.

On the whole Da Costa succeeded in preserving a praiseworthy restraint in a translation that might easily have degenerated into unreadable bombast. Some idiosyncrasies the reader has to put up with; Cecilia's invention of the organ is referred to as ‘verhemelen van het stof’. The creation of a verb ‘verhemelen’ is driving poetic licence rather too far. Nevertheless, Da Costa's translation is the work of a poet and as such to be preferred to the next attempt, the metrical translation of Alexander's Feast by J.P. Heye.

J.P. Heye (1809-1876) was the untiring promoter of music and singing in nineteenth century Holland, and a minor poet connected with the literary movement of Potgieter and De Gids. His translation of Alexander's Feast¹ cannot be regarded as any proof of a revived interest in Dryden. Heye had Handel's musical setting of the poem in mind and as it was his conviction that a clear understanding of the poetical text was essential for the full enjoyment of great vocal compositions, he was eager to make a metrical translation for a Dutch audience.

In Alexander's Feast Dryden synthesized fluctuating emotion and violent action into praise of music; variations of rhythm and metre represent different passions. Whether it was solely Dryden's natural genius that enabled him to do so, or perhaps rather his study of the Classics and the rules laid down by their commentators (Isaäc Vossius in De Poematum Cantu ac Viribus Rythmi), will be discussed below. At any rate a true judgment of rhythm and metrical effects is often difficult

1 J.P. Heye, Metrische Vertalingen, Amsterdam 1866.

[p. 89]

and it would not be fair to blame Heye for the fact that his work fell short of Dryden's original poem. Moreover the translator had to reckon with the exigencies of Handel's music. No wonder that he failed in many respects. Only a verbal artist like Dryden himself could have undertaken such a translation with any chance of success. It is less pardonable, however, that Heye did not study the original poem more carefully. He chiefly relied on a German translation by Ramler¹. The Dutch reader will be surprised to find the line ‘In Flow'r of Youth and Beauty's Pride’ (section I of the poem) translated as ‘Als Hebé jong, als Hebé schoon’. It is Ramler's rendering ‘Wie Hebe jung, wie Hebe schön’.

In his preface Heye wrote that he knew three German translations² and that he had exerted himself to draw from the most poetical reading, but above all from the English text, famous as it was for vigour and melodiousness. He evidently thought that the German translations were sometimes more poetical than Dryden's original. Still worse, there is no proof that he profited by reading Dryden's text. It is only through a mistake that we discover that he has read it at all, for ‘ghastly band’ in section VI is translated by ‘geestendrom’. Perhaps he thought that it was an improvement on Ramler, who understood the word ‘ghastly’ better. He translates: ‘Ha! welche bleiche Schar...’.

How much the poem lost in vigour and melodiousness by Heye's translation is clear from the following comparison. In section I of Dryden's poem we find two sets of triple rhymes, ‘around, bound, crown'd’ and ‘side, bride, pride’, followed by the triple repetition of the word ‘happy’ and of the phrase ‘none but the brave’. In Heye's rhyme there is hardly any symmetry or system at all. Indeed, after the first section he almost abandoned the struggle, only following Dryden's metre to the best of his ability. The often quoted line, ‘None but the Brave deserves the Fair’ is turned into an insignificant, ‘Den Held omzweev' der Schoonheid glans’. In the last line of section II his metre is faulty. ‘And seems to shake the Spheres’ becomes ‘Van vrees, 't Heelal zich ontzet’.

1 Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725-1798), sometimes called ‘der deutsche Horaz’, wrote and translated many odes.

2 The German text which Heye prints together with the Dutch translation is to all intents and purposes Ramler's with very few alterations, though he professes not to know the author.

[p. 90]

The drinking-song in section III,

‘Bacchus Blessings are a Treasure,
Drinking is the Soldier's Pleasure;

Rich the Treasure,

Sweet the Pleasure,

Sweet is Pleasure after Pain’,

is in the Dutch translation hardly fitting for a soldier in a gay mood:

‘Is de Beker niet ons erfdeel?
Heelt de Druif niet iedre wonde?
Heerlijk Erfdeel - Zoete Balsem

Na den Strijd’.

In section IV we find:

‘Driemaal verslaat hij 's Vijands heir,
Driemaal, wien hij verwon!’

It sounds like ordinary prose and cannot be called a metrical translation

of

‘And thrice He routed all his Foes, and thrice

he slew the slain’.

The five times repeated word ‘fallen’, suggestive of the melancholy event of King Darius' death in Dryden's poem,

‘Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high Estate,....’.

becomes in Dutch:

‘Valt,
Voor 't woen des Noodlots valt’.

Perhaps Heye relied on Handel's music, to make up for the missing syllables and the lack of feeling.

The passage in section V on the vanity of glory gained in war is also very unsatisfactory in the translation. Dryden's fine lines,

‘War, he sung, is Toil and Trouble;

Honour but an empty Bubble.

Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying,

If the World be worth thy Winning,

Think, O think, it worth Enjoying’.

were rendered

‘Oorlogsheld! vergeet uw strijden.

Eerzucht is der Onrust prikkel,

[p. 91]

 

Nooit verzadigd in 't begeeren,

 

Nooit verwinnend, hoe zij kampe!

 

Laat U, trotsche Wereld-dwinger!

 

Nu door 't Zoet der Min verwinnen;’

It was in the conclusion that Heye kept fairly close to the original text in his praise of St. Cecilia:

‘Timotheus leg uw zangkroon af!

Neen! déél met Háár de krans!

Gij voerde 's Menschen ziel omhóóg,

Zij de Englen naar deze Aard!’

The Dutch translation, defective as it was, served its turn when Handel's oratorio Alexander's Fest was performed in Rotterdam on 9 Jan. 1866, conducted by the well-known musician Bargiel¹. It was sung in German, but the listeners had text-books with Heye's translation. What Dryden himself considered as the best of his poems², had reached eighteenth century Holland in a French translation³. In 1866 a Dutch audience heard it sung in German, though they had already two Dutch translations at their disposal. It was not until the twentieth century that an appreciable number of Dutchmen could read it in Dryden's own language.

1 Caecilia, Algemeen Muzikaal Tijdschrift van Nederland, 1866, p. 14.

2 Letter to his printer Tonson, Dec. 1697, ‘I am glad to heare from all Hands, that my Ode is esteemed the best of all my poetry, by all the Town: I thought so myself when I writ it but being old, I mistrusted my own Judgment’.

3 Prévost's in a Dutch periodical, Le Pour et Contre, The Hague 1738.

c. Bilderdijk's Ridder Sox and Koekeloer.

In 1793 Bilderdijk published Ridder Sox⁴, an adaptation from Voltaire's Cequi plaît aux Dames (1763)⁵, who in his turn had borrowed the subject matter from Dryden's version of The Wife of Bath's Tale. Thus Ridder Sox may be considered an offspring of Dryden's Fables Ancient and Modern. It is doubtful, however, if Bilderdijk ever consulted the English source. At any rate there are no characteristic traces in Ridder Sox that remind us rather of Dryden's version than of Voltaire's;

4 Cf. W. Bilderdijk, Ridder Sox en Koekeloer, met toelichting van Dr. J.J. Mak, Amsterdam 1956.

5 A.C. Hunter, Le ‘Conte de la femme de Bath’ en français au XVIII siècle. (Revue de Littérature Comparée, 1929). Hunter proves that Cequi plaît aux Dames does not go back to Chaucer, but to Dryden's Fables Ancient and Modern.

[p. 92]

Bilderdijk followed the changes that Voltaire introduced in the tale¹. That is why Ridder Sox can hardly be adduced as testimony of Dryden's influence on Bilderdijk.

In another of Bilderdijk's adaptations, Koekeloer, some have detected positive influence of Dryden's The Cock and the Fox. W. de Hoog² suggests that Bilderdijk consulted Dryden ‘continually’ for Koekeloer, which he tries to prove from lines 281, 282:

‘En naderhand, wel meer dan twintig keeren,
Zat hij ze nog, bij poosjens, in de veêren’.

This, says de Hoog, was certainly derived from Dryden. If, however, we compare Bilderdijk's lines with the corresponding passages in Dryden and Chaucer, we find that both have the same couplet:

Chaucer, The Nun's Priest's Tale, lines 356, 357,

‘He fethered Pertelote twenty tyme,
And trad hire eke as ofte, er it was pryme’.

Dryden in The Cock and the Fox, lines 437, 438,

‘Then often feather'd her with wanton Play,
And trod her twenty times e'er prime of Day’³.

Clearly Bilderdijk might have derived his lines from Chaucer, as is very likely indeed⁴.

Other points of resemblance with Dryden's adaptation are few and far between. Chaucer in The Nun's Priest's Tale, line 57, had written, ‘But swich a joye was it to here hem synge’, whereas Bilderdijk's ‘Maar 't was een lust, wanneer hij 's ochtends vroeg...’ (line 53) seems to pair with Dryden's ‘But oh! what Joy it was to hear him sing’ (line 87). Chaucer's line 164, ‘Oon of the gretteste auctour that men rede...’, is rendered by Dryden as ‘An ancient Author, equal with the best...’

1 The chief changes introduced by Voltaire and followed by Bilderdijk were,
a. The old hag addressed her talk against pride and in favour of poverty not to the knight after their marriage, but to the ladies at court.
b. Walking to the hovel, the woman beguiles the time by story-telling.
c. The knight and the hag have supper in her hut.

2 W. de Hoog, Studiën over de Nederlandsche en Engelsche Taal en Letterkunde, Dordrecht 1909, p. 134.

3 Dr. Mak's note on the denounced passage is confusing. He says: ‘De “twintig keren” (regel 281) zijn bij Dryden honderd keren’, which is not true. Dryden also wrote ‘twenty times’ here, though he has ‘a hundred times’ in line 70.

4 Bilderdijk wrote at the end of his poem: ‘Hoofdzakelijk uit Chaucers oud Engelsch nagebootst’.

[p. 93]

(line 209) and by Bilderdijk as ‘Een oud¹ autheur schrijft immers van twee knapen...’ (line 169). But such small variants cannot be called conclusive evidence of Bilderijk's indebtedness to Dryden, since they may be purely accidental. There is no reason therefore to doubt Bilderdijk's own statement that he had imitated Chaucer in Koekeloer; at any rate, his library contained a Chaucer edition 1687². Whether Bilderdijk also consulted Dryden's version remains an open question. There were certainly no copies of Dryden's poems in his library at the time of his death, but, as Da Costa informs us in the catalogue of the book auction, Bilderdijk had lost many books in his exile and wanderings in Europe. Anyhow, one or more of Dryden's critical essays had drawn Bilderdijk's attention right enough, as can be proved from his preface to De Ondergang van de Eerste Wareld. Here Bilderdijk discusses the difficulty to find suitable ‘machines’, those supernatural agencies thought to be an indispensable element for a true epic poem. The Ancients had their gods to interrupt the natural course of events in their epics; but angels and demons, or even God Himself, as conceived by Christians, can never replace the heathen deities. They are so far removed from human existence and so incomprehensible that they fail to inspire sufficient interest in a heroic poem³. Bilderdijk then continues to say,

‘Drijdens Beschermgeesten der Koninkrijken en Volken zijn even zeer krachteloos om belang te verwekken, en schoon ik niet zou willen ontkennen dat men daar eenig voordeel uit trekken kan, zy deelen misschien in de ongelegenheden van die allen’⁴.

It is to be expected that these ‘Guardian Angels of Monarchies and Nations’ are to be found in one of Dryden's critical essays. The question of ‘machines’ in epic poetry was the subject of lively discussions at the end of the seventeenth century; Dryden dealt with it in A Discourse con-

1 My italics.

2 The catalogue for the sale of Bilderdijk's library, 1832, p. 5: The works of our ancient, learned and excellent English poet Jeffrey Chaucer. Lond. 1687. (The last of the Speght editions was of 1687).

3 ‘Onze Christelijke begrippen van God en Geesten... zijn te zeer afwijkende en onbegrijpelijk voor ons menschen, om ons wederkeerige en genoegzame deelneming in te boezemen’.

4 Dryden's Guardian Angels of Monarchies and Nations are equally impotent to arouse interest and though I would not deny that sometimes these may be of some advantage to the poet, they partake of the deficiencies of all (supernatural beings invented by Christian poets).

[p. 94]

cerning the Original and Progress of Satire (Ker II, pp. 32-34). Bilderdijk's preface is at times strongly reminiscent of Dryden's reasoning in this Discourse. Christians, Dryden argues, cannot boast that their religion has furnished them with any such machines as have made the strength and beauty of ancient poetry. But then he ventures to make a suggestion of his own to replace the heathen deities in epics; he wants poets to look for supernatural agencies in the book of Daniel,

‘The perusing of one chapter in the prophecy of Daniel, and accomodating what there they find with the principles of Platonic philosophy...would have made the ministry of angels as strong an engine, for the working up heroic poetry, in our religion, as that of the Ancients has been to raise theirs by all the fables of their gods...’.

In the book of Daniel Dryden had discovered that,

‘....there are guardian angels, appointed by God Almighty,....for the protection and government of cities, provinces, kingdoms and monarchies’¹.

He advised his fellow-poets to use these guardian angels as the supernatural agencies in their heroic poetry. Here is no doubt the origin of Bilderdijk's reference to Dryden. Bilderdijk, however, would not follow Dryden's advice, but preferred to find his ‘machines’ in the world before the Flood, when the giants, though of divine origin, were human enough to arouse interest in the reader.

1 Later on Dryden referred to this passage in a letter to Dennis, published in 1696, ‘But the Guardian Angels of Monarchies and Kingdoms are not to be touched by every hand: a man must be deeply conversant in the Platonic philosophy to deal with them’.

Dryden in the Dutch periodicals and some other references.

What the Dutch actually knew about Dryden, they owed to their flourishing periodical press. Dozens of literary journals appeared towards the end of the seventeenth and in the beginning of the eighteenth century, containing announcements and reviews of new books in Holland and abroad. They were mostly written in French. The comparative freedom of the press in the United Provinces enabled reviewers and printers to publish what they thought fit; indefatigable French refugees

[p. 95]

and other people attracted by the religious toleration in the Netherlands, such as Bayle and le Clerc, filled volume after volume. Though most reviewers professed that the ‘belles lettres’ would have their constant attention, these magazines are somewhat disappointing as regards contemporary literature; the reviews are, for the most part, concerned with religion, science, philosophy and history. Consequently references to Dryden are scanty, but nevertheless interesting, and at least they made his name known in Holland. The epithets ‘fameux’ and ‘célèbre’ are never absent, but their criticism is nearly always unfavourable. And this is undoubtedly an additional reason why Dryden's works are rarely found in the libraries of eighteenth century Dutchmen.

A well-known periodical in the vernacular was De Boekzaal¹, started by one Rabus in 1692. Apart from short announcements of newly printed books of Dryden's, we find the first reference to this poet in the May-June number for 1695. Here Rabus reviews Pope Blount's De Re Poëtica, of which he says:

‘d' Oudheid der Poezy treed eerst voor den dag, opgepronkt met het zeggen van den vermaarden Engelschen Dichter Mr. Dryden (want Britsche vernuften komen hier meest te pas) dat in het menschdom, zelf het allerwoeste, de zaden der digtkunde zyn ingeplant’².

A few years later De Boekzaal was continued by Willem Sewel, the grandson of a Brownist refugee, and although he completely identified himself with his Dutch environment, he still had a good knowledge of English. In the number for 1705 on page 275 he discusses English poetry. The triplets, it seems, were something of a thorn in his flesh. He says:

‘het is nu al een goed getal van jaaren herwaards de mode geweest, driemaal achter één 't zelfde rym te laaten klinken; en opdat men die fraaiheyd niet ongemerkt zoude voorbygaan, zetten ze achter die drie regels altoos een haakje, en pronken ermee als iets moois.

1 De Boekzaal (The Library) had a long life. Sometimes under a slightly different title, it ran into 200 volumes.

2 ‘First the antiquity of Poetry comes to light, embellished by the saying of the famous English poet Mr. Dryden (for British geniusses occur most in this book) that in mankind, even in the most savage part of it, the seeds of poetry were implanted’. (Dryden said so in A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, 1693, ‘Mankind, even the most barbarous, have the seeds of poetry implanted in them’. Ker II, p. 45).

[p. 96]

Indien dit nu geschiedde na een vast en gezet getal van regelen, ‘t was nog iets; maar dat komt alleenlyk naar 't valt...’¹.

As an example he quotes one of Dryden's triplets:

‘Millions of opening mouths to Fame belong;

And every mouth is furnish'd with a tongue

And round with list'ning ears the flying Plague is hung’².

In these lines was more for Sewel to find fault with. His Dutch readers had to be informed that ‘hung’ rhymes with ‘tongue’ but not with ‘belong’. Ironically he adds: ‘Dit puykje....is van den Engelschen Hoofdpoëet Dryden; zoud het dan niet goed weezen?’³ Sewel admits that there were English poets who had expressed lofty and significant thoughts in forceful and beautiful words, but they could improve their poetry very much and their verses would flow more smoothly, if only they would learn from the Dutch. But as a rule the English are unwilling to learn from foreigners,

‘Doch ik weet wel, dat het een aangeboorene eygenschap der Engelschen is, ongaern van Uytheemschen te willen leeren; en hierom zullen zy 't my moogelyk slechten dank weeten, dat ik bestaa hen te berispen.’⁴

The same superior standpoint is to be found in Sewel's dictionary⁵. ‘To fill up an empty page or two’ he adds a short essay (in English) at the end of the book. With the Amsterdam literary society Nil Volentibus Arduum in mind, he reproaches the English poets for their lack of concentrated effort to set standards for English verse. He says:

1 ‘For a good many years it has been the fashion (in England) to use the same rhyme in three consecutive lines and to prevent that such a fine thing would pass unnoticed they always put a brace after it...if it only happened after a fixed number of lines, it would be something; but it occurs only by chance’.

2 They are lines 263-265 of the translation of the fourth book of the Aeneis. (Guy Montgomery, Concordance to the Poetical Works of John Dryden, Los Angeles 1957, is an indispensable guide for locating quotations).

3 ‘This fine specimen...has been written by the chief of the English poets, Dryden, and would it not therefore be good?’
Instead of indulging in a sneer, Sewel should have tried to refute Dryden's defence of the triplets, which occurs in the same work as the quoted lines, dedication of the Aeneis, Ker II, p. 228.

4 ‘But I know that it is an inborn characteristic of the English to be unwilling to learn from foreigners; that's why they will probably not be grateful to me that I venture to reprove them...’.

5 W. Sewel, A Large Dictionary English and Dutch, Amsterdam 1708.

[p. 97]

‘If their famous Dryden, who was indeed a transcendent Wit, and who was pleased to call the Dutch heavy and gross-witted fellows¹, would have broken the ice, as our Vondel did with us, the thing might have been effected’.

In this short essay Sewel takes up his favourite subject again, arrogantly stating that English poetry could achieve a higher perfection, if in imitation of the Dutch, the poets would be more precise. They should not make ‘feast’ rhyme with ‘guest’, ‘well’ with ‘meal’, ‘proud’ with ‘load’, ‘ease’ with ‘palaces’, ‘praise’ with ‘Hercules’, ‘heir’ with ‘theater’, ‘where’ with ‘vinegar’, ‘him’ with ‘crime’, ‘clean’ with ‘green’², ‘live’ with ‘drive’, ‘return’ with ‘born’. As Dryden is the only English poet mentioned in this short essay, we may expect that Sewel had culled this collection of imperfect rhymes from him. And indeed, with the exception of ‘proud - load’, they all occur in Dryden's poetry³. The strange combinations ‘ease - palaces’, ‘praise - Hercules’, ‘heir - theater’, ‘where - vinegar are to be found in the translation of the third satire of Juvenal, so that we may safely conclude that Sewel had read this poem carefully, and no wonder, since he was interested in Juvenal. He had translated the thirteenth satire into Dutch six years before Dryden edited the translation of Juvenal.

But to return to the periodicals. De Boekzaal is of no further interest for our purpose after Sewel gave up the editorship; the index for the volumes 1715-1759 makes no mention of Dryden's name. Our search for Drydeniana in Holland must now extend to the periodicals printed there but written in French. These journals, though they were also circulated abroad, were of course primarily intended for Dutch readers.

1 This is a rare instance of a Dutchman knowing of Dryden's disdain for Holland. Sewel must have read the dedication of Examen Poeticum, where the passage occurs.

2 We may wonder why Sewel objects to the rhyme ‘clean-green’. The explanation is to be found in his English Grammar, attached to his dictionary, ‘EA. Wordt uytgesprooken als EE, gelijk...clean; lees tleen’ p. 4. EE represents the long close monophthong [e:]; in the Dutch grammar, also attached to the dictionary, we find the counterpart statement: ‘EE. Is always pronounced as EA in English, as in Zee...read Zea’ p. 38.

3 swell - meal, translation of the third book of Lucretius, lines 190, 191.
him - crime, Sigismonda and Guiscardo, lines 278, 279.
born - return, ibidem lines 557, 558.
drive - live, Prologue spoken at the opening of the New House, lines, 38, 39.
Feast - guest occurs no less than 13 times in Dryden's poetry.

[p. 98]

‘Ce genre de Poesie (blank verse)... est moins gouté dans nos Provinces’ says one of them¹. Another, the Bibliothèque Universelle, names the towns and booksellers where this periodical was for sale. They are all Dutch except one, ‘à Londres chez S. Smith’². Many volumes of these journals were to be found in Dutch private libraries between 1700 and 1750. A choice had to be made out of a veritable profusion of French titles, so that our search was limited to such as were widely read at the time³. One of the oldest French periodicals printed in Holland, the Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans, sometimes mentions Dryden's name. As early as May 1694 Love Triumphant is announced, ‘une Tragedie de Mr. Dryden l'un des meilleurs Poëtes d'Angleterre’. The editor, Henri Basnage de Bauval, refugee, lawyer and critic, tried to give courteous and impartial book reviews. In the number for May 1698, where he announces The Mock Astrologer, he cannot refrain from giving an example of Dryden's profaneness, citing part of a dialogue between two devils. When one of them sneezes, the other says politely, God bless you. The former replies that he had caught a cold because he was not accustomed to being removed from the fire for a long time.

The Nouvelles de la République des Lettres is of some interest in connection with Dryden's death. ‘La Parque n'eut pas plutot coupé le filet fatal de sa vie, que ses chers Confreres se préparerent à verser des torrens de larmes sur son Tombeau’,⁴ we read in the number for September 1700. Then follow titles of obituary poems and we are advised to read A Description of Mr. Dryden's Funeral. The editor, Jacques Bernard, a Huguenot cleric, informs his readers that Dryden and Milton surpass the ancients, because true religion is far better able to establish harmony between reason and the passions than pagan beliefs⁵. One wonders if he had read Dryden's plays.

The first criticism of Dryden in a Dutch paper on a more extensive scale occurs in the Journal Littéraire 1717, pp. 157-216, in an article which was ‘of paramount importance for the spread of a knowledge of

1 Journal Littéraire, 1730, p. 319. My italics?

2 Dryden actually read this journal. This will be discussed under Jean le Clerc.

3 S.A. Krijn examined 100 catalogues of libraries sold between 1700 and 1750. From her account in De Nieuwe Taalgids XI, 1917. p. 161, we learn what periodicals were the most popular in Holland.

4 Spelling of the author Bernard.

5 The Nouvelles for January 1703.

[p. 99]

English literature’¹. This essay bears no signature, but the writer has been identified by Pienaar as Justus van Effen². Among his co-editors van Effen was indeed the most suitable person to write this article, which appeared during his stay in England. Judging from the style and the parallel drawn between Shakespeare and Vondel, which is in keeping with van Effen's views³, Pienaar did not hesitate to ascribe the authorship to him. Van Effen called his essay, Dissertation sur la poesie Angloise. He touches briefly on the difference between the French and the English language; the former is much impoverished by the purists, the latter far more copious and energetic. As to poetry he declares that the French poets are sometimes the slaves of rhyme and he hopes that in future some of them will imitate the English and try blank verse in poems of great length⁴. Such predilection for certain aspects of English language and literature is quite remarkable for a gallicised Dutchman in the eighteenth century. When Dryden comes up for discussion, van Effen says:

‘Dryden...avoit encore des talens extraordinaires pour la Satyre, qu'il gatoit tout de même par une malignité odieuse, & par une dégoutante obscenité. Les moeurs licencieuses de la Cour de Charles II ne fournissoient que trop de matiere au libertinage de cette plume, qui a bien osé jetter tout son venin sur ce Prince, sur ses favoris & ses favorites, sans prendre d'autre précaution que de cacher Charles, Monmouth & Londres, sous les noms de David, d'Absalon & de Jerusalem. Il y a dans cette piéce (sic) du feu infiniment, des pensées fort neuves, mais en recompense bien de l'obscenité & de profanation. L'on y voit un portrait d'une affreuse force, des infamies d'une Cour qui ressembloit fort peu à celle de David, & par consequent qui ne pouvoit gueres être déguisée sous les noms allegoriques dont l'Auteur avoit affecté de se servir’ (spelling van Effen's).

1 According to J.G. Robertson, The Modern Language Review I, 1906, p. 316.

2 Cf. W.J.B. Pienaar, English Influences in Dutch Literature and Justus van Effen as Intermediary, Cambridge 1929, p. 212.

3 According to van Effen, Vondel was an untutored romantic genius.

4 It is not clear, why professor Robertson says in the above-mentioned article that Van Effen regarded the rhymeless verse of the English as no better than good prose. On the contrary, Van Effen writes, ‘... dans des Ouvrages de longue haleine, ils (English poets) se contentent de la mesure en renonçant à la rime, cequi soulage & le Poëte & le Lecteur, en epargnant de la peine à l'un, & de l'ennui à l'autre. Il seroit á souhaiter que les François voulussent imiter une hardiesse si raisonnable’.

[p. 100]

It seems that van Effen missed the point in Absalom and Achitophel, considering it as a satire on a licentious King and his court. There is more evidence that his criticism of Dryden was faulty and unfair; it is even doubtful if he sufficiently realized Dryden's prominent position among seventeenth century men of letters, once calling him ‘a contemporary of the Earl of Rochester’. Van Effen returns to Dryden when he discusses the comedies. They are farces full of spirit, he says, but the plots are confused, the characters ill sustained and too coarse and licentious, while poetic justice is seldom observed in them. Moreover the English steal unscrupulously from the French.

‘C'est comme en agi M. Dryden, dans sa Comédie apellée Le Chevalier gâte-tout ou la fausse innocence; ce sont deux Comédies en une, dont la moitié est à fort peu de chose près l'Etourdi de Molière’.

Van Effen repeats the same theme, when he turns to the tragedies,

‘Dryden un des plus estimez dans le genre dramatique ose traiter de crême fouettée les Ouvrages de Corneille même, et cependant on n'a qu' à confronter son Oedipe avec celui de ce Poëte François, pour voir que tout cequ'il y de plus beau est pillé, et même que des scenes entieres y sont copiées par une traduction literale’.

Here van Effen is on the wrong track again; he merely repeats what Dryden's calumniators had written, in disregard of the preface to the play, where Dryden (and his co-operator Lee) criticize Corneille and honestly avow that they had followed Sophocles ‘as close as possibly they could’. Indeed, later investigators have shown that only eleven lines may have been translated from Corneille against 250 from Sophocles¹.

Though van Effen did not fail to stress some better traits of Dryden's art, his extraordinary talent for satire, his new ideas, his remarkably powerful portraiture, yet his criticism was on the whole far from laudatory and sometimes beside the mark. His essay is nevertheless unique, also because it contains one of the earliest introductions to Dryden's work in the cosmopolitan literature of Europe.

Another and important means by which van Effen promoted interest in Dryden throughout Holland and the Continent, was his translation

1 Cf. Werner Bentzien, Studien zu Drydens Oedipus, Rostock 1910.

[p. 101]

of The Spectator (begun in 1714)¹. Here, of course, he could not give opinions of his own, but the references to and quotations from Dryden in this periodical², incoherent as they are, gave educated people in Europe some impression of Dryden's importance. Such was the popularity of van Effen's French translation of The Spectator that a Dutch version became necessary, evidently meant for less educated Dutchmen. The task fell to a capable translator of English books, Pierre Leclercq. Again we find references to Dryden, but now in the vernacular. We read about his aversion to the unnatural use and maltreatment of words in acrostics, illustrated by lines 205-208 of Mac Flecknoe. Dryden's definition of Wit as ‘a propriety of thoughts and words’³ is criticized with the common sense remark that Euclid's handbook might be considered as the best literature in the world, if this definition were complete.

Paragraphs of Dryden's dedication of the Aeneis are quoted to prove his preference of Virgil to Ovid and his disdain for ‘mob readers’⁴. Attention is drawn to the popularity of Absalom and Achitophel and some lines of The Cock and the Fox (lines 455-460) have been translated into eighteenth century Dutch:

(De Heer Dryden doet de Haan in zijne Fabel spreeken):

‘Toen draayende om zyn Hen, zeide hy tot haar, Myn waarde
Aanzie den blyden staat der vruchteteelende aarde;
Hoe nu de lente zich met kruidt en bloemen ciert;
't Gevogelt in de lucht van vreugde tiereliert:
Dit alles is voor ons, voor ons alleen geschapen;
En ik zie met vermaak my van den Mensch na-aapen,
Hem juist gelyk als ik, recht op twee beenen gaan,
Hoovaardig op den tredt en gangh van eenen Haan’.

Van Effen's efforts to bring English belles-lettres within the intellectual horizon of the Dutch soon began to bear fruit. A fresh impetus was given to the growing interest in English literature when the erratic French

1 According to Robertson in M.L.R. I, p. 316, the most important contributions to the introduction of English literature on the Continent were 1. Van Effen's French translation of The Spectator 1714, 2. Van Effen's Dissertation on English poetry in the Journal Littéraire, 1717, 3. Muralt's Lettres sur les Anglois, 1725.

2 Most, but not all. Van Effen translated about 500 out of more than 600 articles of The Spectator.

3 Preface to Albion and Albanius, Ker I, p. 270.

4 Ker II, pp. 193, 194, 223, 224.

[p. 102]

priest Antoine Prévost started a new periodical in The Hague, Le Pour et Contre (1733). It bore the subtitle Ouvrage périodique d'un goût nouveau. What is meant by this ‘goût nouveau’ is partly explained by his announcement,

‘Il faut commencer par se défaire du préjugé national, & croire un moment que le bon goût de la Poësie n'est pas borné à la France’.

Small wonder that English prose and poetry play a conspicuous part in this periodical and that Glorious John was to turn up sooner or later. In Tome X (1738) we come across a prose translation of Alexander's Feast.

‘Veut-on lire un chef-d'oeuvre de nos Voisins, & goûter du moins une partie du plaisir qu'il a causé dans sa Langue naturelle?... La Piece que je publie est du célebre Dryden’. (Prévost's spelling).

Then follows Fête d'Alexandre ou Le Pouvoir de la Musique in prose. In a postscript he summarizes the contents. The poet makes the soul pass through various degrees of violent passions. Some parts had been difficult for him to translate, for instance the metamorphosis of Jove, but he hopes that some poet will undertake a verse translation. It would justify the labour of any hero of the Parnassus.

Sometimes it would seem as if Prévost speaks over the heads of the Dutch to his own countrymen in France. Yet the ‘advertissements’ leave no doubt that he relied on a large reading public in the United Provinces; the periodical was only for sale in the principal towns of this country. Thus eighteenth century Holland became acquainted with Dryden's famous ode, be it in a French translation. It was not until the next century that Dutch versions of the same ode appeared¹.

Such periodicals as the Bibliothèque Angloise (1717-1728) and the Memoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne (1720-1724) offer disappointingly little concerning Dryden, in spite of their promising titles. Practically the only item is an anecdote of very doubtful authenticity in the Bibliothèque Angloise IV, p. 540. A friend of Milton's (in a note indicated as Mr. Dryden, fameux Poëte), having read Paradise Lost, said to him: ‘It seems clear to me from reading your poem that you are an Arian’. ‘Pray, don't speak about it’, answered Milton, ‘for the clergy have not yet found it out’.

Even Pierre Bayle, the greatest of the polyhistors in Holland and

1 Translations by Da Costa (1821) and Heye (1866).

[p. 103]

founder of the oldest Dutch periodical¹, is silent about Dryden in his journals, and there is only a short reference to Dryden in his famous Dictionnaire Historique et Critique², under Milton, where he discusses Paradise Lost. Bayle says:

‘Le fameux Poëte Dryden en a tiré une Piece de Théatre, qui fut extrêmement applaudie. Le même Dryden admirant le Poëme du Paradis perdu a jugé que la Grece, l'Italie, & l'Angleterre on produit trois Poëtes en différens Siecles: Homère, Virgile & Milton: que le premier excelle par la sublimité des penseés; & le second par la majesté, & que la nature ne pouvant aller au delà, avoit formé le troisieme par l'assemblage des perfections des deux autres. C'est le sujet d'une Epigramme de Mr. Dryden insérée par Mr. Toland à la page 129 de la Vie de Milton’.

And then in a note, as if to spare his readers a disappointment: ‘Elle est en Anglois’.

In spite of occasional announcements of Dryden's works in the Dutch periodicals³, our conclusion as to his influence in Holland must be that he was little known and read here. English was to the great majority of the Dutch a ‘barbarous’ language. Though English books on philosophy, religion and science were appreciated and often translated, the time had not yet come for English literature as a whole to find acclaim in Holland. This was to change through the mediation of Justus van Effen and others; their comment on Dryden, however, was mainly adverse; licentiousness, profaneness and plagiarism were laid to his charge. This may be one of the reasons why he was so little known in the United Provinces, for where there was praise for English works in the periodicals, this was often followed by translations and imitations (Paradise Lost, Cato, Tale of a Tub etc.) Dryden's influence in Holland was less than in France⁴, the country that was considered as the interpreter between England and mankind. But in this process Dutch men of letters and Dutch printers formed an important link; ‘they gave France not merely

1 The Nouvelles de la Rép. des Lettres (1684).

2 Third edition, Rotterdam 1720.

3 In the Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans are announced, Love Triumphant (May 1694), The Georgics (Febr. 1695), The Art of Painting (Aug. 1695), ‘Une traduction de Virgile’ (March 1698), The Mock Astrologer (May 1698). The folio edition of 1701 is announced in the Nouvelles de la Rép. des Lettres (Jan. 1701).

4 About Dryden's influence in Germany cf. M.D. Baumgartner, Dryden's relation to Germany, Univ. Studies of Nebraska, 1914.

[p. 104]

the science of Newton and the philosophy of Locke but by a constant process of diffusion a whole range of the best in English literature’¹. Dryden was also included in this ‘process of diffusion’; the Dutch periodicals - mostly written in French - in their sparse critiques and references made his name known on the Continent before such authors as Voltaire, Prévost and de Muralt did so in France.

Having found that Dryden failed to make an impression in letter loving Holland when he had reached the pinnacle of his fame (the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century), we cannot expect much of importance in subsequent ages, when other great names superseded Dryden's in capturing the fancy of those Dutchmen that felt attracted to England's literature. Even Rijklof van Goens (1748-1810), who had an amazing knowledge of European literature and was moreover half British by birth, does not seem to mention Dryden in his works², though Dryden's poems were in his library³. But Willem de Clercq, also a promoter of comparative studies in nineteenth century Holland, refers a few times to Dryden in his unpublished memoirs⁴. Some notes jotted down in his diary - they can hardly be considered serious criticism - are quite interesting as an illustration of what literary minded Dutchmen thought about Dryden. De Clercq approached Dryden's poetry without prejudice; there is no evidence that literary historians had already biassed his mind. It was the pleasure he took in reading Pope that induced him to take up Dryden with great expectations. In 1812 he began to read Dryden systematically but was very much disappointed (fort trompé dans mon attente). Starting from the funeral ode on Cromwell and Astraea Redux he was at once annoyed by the gross flattery in these poems. ‘Ceci ne donne pas une idée avantageuse de l'auteur’.

Next he read Annus Mirabilis, where Dryden's disdain for the Dutch hurt his patriotic feelings and the description of the Four days' battle

1 Charles Wilson, Holland and Britain, p. 66.

2 Cf. P.J.C. de Boer, Rijklof Michael van Goens 1748-1810 en zijn verhouding tot de literatuur van West Europa, Amsterdam 1938.

3 Original Poems and Translations by Mr. Dryden, Lond. 1762 and Fables Ancient and Modern by J. Dryden, Glascow 1752 (nos. 6015-6018 in the Catalogue fait sur un plan nouveau systématique et raisonné d'une Bibliothèque de littérature, Utrecht 1776.)

4 For the text of these references to Dryden in de Clercq's unpublished memoirs I am indebted to Miss. M.H. Schenkeveld, who is writing a study on de Clercq.

[p. 105]

as an English victory offended his historical sense. But there is also a note of positive appreciation when he admits, ‘Il y a de beaux morceaux sur l'incendie de Londres’. Absalom and Achitophel is, still according to de Clercq, as cold as ice; The Medall and The Hind and the Panther simply baffled him; he frankly confesses that he does not understand these poems. The latter seems to him an allegory on the quarrels and intrigues of the court! ‘Diablement ennuyeux à lire’ is his verdict on the Prologues, but among the Epistles there are some full of spirit and poetry and a few Elegies are rather nice (assez jolies).

In one week he read as far as the Fables. He seems to have appreciated Palamon and Arcite and Sigismonda and Guiscardo, but confined himself to narrating the contents without comment. Sixteen years later he tried to occupy himself with Dryden once more (5-8 Febr. 1828), especially with The Hind and the Panther and Annus Mirabilis, but again they disappointed him as poetry and as history.

If such was the opinion of a man who had more than an ordinary interest in European literature, we should not be surprised to find that references to Dryden in Dutch literature up to our own times are scanty.

Apart from Bilderdijk, Da Costa and Heye, already mentioned, the poet Cornelis Loots (1765-1834) devoted a few lines to Dryden in his poetry. In a patriotic effusion, called De Overwinning der Nederlanders bij Chattam (sic) he described the spectacle of the burning English men-of-war on the river Medway; he continued, evidently referring to Annus Mirabilis:

‘Grijp, Dryden! grijp de lier, gesnaard om laf te vleien;
Zing, kruipend voor uw' vorst, gelijk gij eenmaal deedt,
De glorie van zijn volk, daar 't felle slagting leed;
Zing thans: Iö triumf! tree voort aan 't hoofd der reijen.
Maar neen! op 't zien der vloot, vergaan in d'ergsten brand,
Glipt straks de valsche lier u uit de ontstelde hand’.

This quotation is exceptional. Dryden's anti-Dutch feelings and activities are hardly ever referred to in our country's literature. Yet they may at least partly account for that marked difference which exists in the appreciation of Dryden and Pope. The latter found ample praise and admiration from Dutch men of letters; his spiritual father Dryden was neglected or referred to as the base flatterer, the plagiarist and the licentious dramatist.