rm. She fell in love with
her teacher and followed him to Brunswick, where she lived in his house
under the name of Frau van Heusden. In spite of this arrangement, the
poet seems to have considered himself a most faithful husband; and he
did his best to persuade his wife to join him with their children, but
naturally without success. In 1802 the marriage was legally annulled,
and Frau van Heusden took his name. She did her best to atone for the
blot on her repute by a self-sacrificing lovableness, and was in close
sympathy with Bilderdijk on the intellectual side. Like him she was
familiar with all the resources of the art of poetry. Most famous of her
poems are the long one 'Rodrigo de Goth,' and her touching, graceful
'Gedichten voor Kinderen' (Poems for Children). Bilderdijk's verses show
what she was to him:--

In the shadow of my verdure, firmly on my trunk depending,
Grew the tender branch of cedar, never longing once to leave me;
Faithfully through rain and tempest, modest at my side it rested,
Bearing to my honor solely the first twig it might its own call;
Fair the wreath thy flowers made me for my knotted trunk fast withering,
And my soul with pride was swelling at the crown of thy young blossoms;
Straight and strong and firmly rooted, tall and green thy head arises,
Bright the glory of its freshness; never yet by aught bedimmed.
Lo! my crown to thine now bending, only thine the radiant freshness,
And my soul finds rest and comfort in thy sheltering foliage.

Meanwhile he was no better off materially. The Duke of Brunswick, who
had known him previously, received the famous Dutch exile with open
arms, and granted him a pension; but it never sufficed. Many efforts
were made to have his decree of exile annulled; but they failed through
his own peevish insolence and his boundless ingratitude. King Louis
(Bonaparte) of Holland extended his protection to the dissatisfied old
poet; and all these royal gentlemen were most generous. When the house
of Orange returned to Holland, William I. continued the favor already
shown him, obtained a high pension for him, and when it proved
insufficient, supplemented it with gifts. In this way Bilderdijk's
income in the year 1816 amounted to twenty thousand gold pieces. That
this should be sufficient to keep the wolf from the door in a city like
Amsterdam, Bilderdijk thought too much to expect, and consequently left
in great indign