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 Gooila