ation and went to Leyden in 1817.

But these personal troubles in no way interfered with his talent. On the
contrary, the history of literature has seldom known so great an
activity and productiveness; all in all, his works amounted to almost a
hundred volumes. What he accomplished during his stay in Germany was
almost incredible. He gave lessons to exiled Dutch in a great variety of
branches, he saw volume upon volume through print; he wrote his famous
'Het Buitenleven' (Country Life) after Delille, he translated Fingal
after Ossian, he wrote 'Vaderlandsche Orangezucht' (Patriotic Love for
Orange). After his return to Holland he wrote 'De Ziekte der Geleerden'
(The Disease of Genius: 1817), 'Leyden's Kamp' (Leyden's Battle: 1808),
and the first five songs of 'De Ondergang der eerste Wereld'
(Destruction of the First World: 1809), probably his masterpiece;
moreover, the dramas 'Floris V.,' 'Willem van Holland,' and 'Kounak.'
The volumes published between 1815 and 1819 bore the double signature
Willem and Wilhelmina Katherina Bilderdijk.

But it was as though time had left him behind. The younger Holland shook
its head over the old gentleman of the past century, with his antagonism
for the poetry of the day and his rage against Shakespeare and the
latter's "puerile" 'King Lear.' For to Bilderdijk even more than to
Voltaire, Shakespeare was an abomination. Then in 1830 he received the
severest blow of his life: Katherina Wilhelmina died. This happened in
Haarlem, whither he had gone in 1827. With this calamity his strength
was broken and his life at an end. He followed her in 1831.

He was in every way a son of the eighteenth century; he began as a
didactic and patriotic poet, and might at first be considered a follower
of Jakob Cats. He became principally a lyric poet, but his lyric knew no
deep sentiment, no suppressed feeling; its greatness lay in its
rhetorical power. His ode to Napoleon may therefore be one of the best
to characterize his genius. When he returned to his native country after
eleven years' exile, with heart and mind full of Holland, it was old
Holland he sought and did not find. He did not understand young Holland.
In spite of this, his fame and powerful personality had an attraction
for the young; but it was the attraction of a past time, the fascination
of the glorious ruin. Young Holland wanted freedom, individual
independence, and this Bilderdijk considered a misfortune. "One should
not let child