WILLEM

BILDERDIJK (1756–1831)  , Dutch poet, the son of an Amsterdam physician, was born on the 7th of September 1756 . When he was six years old an accident to his foot incapacitated him for ten years, and he developed habits of continuous and concentrated study . His parents were ardent partisans of the house of Orange, and Bilderdijk grew up with strong monarchical and Calvinistic convictions . He was, says Da Costa, " anti-revolutionary, anti-Barneveldtian, anti-Loevesteinish, anti-liberal." After studying at Leiden University, he obtained his doctorate in law in 1782, and began to practise as an advocate at the Hague . Three years later he contracted an unhappy marriage with Rebecca Woesthoven . He refused in 1795 to take the oath to the new administration, and was consequently obliged to leave Holland . He went to Hamburg, and then to London, where his great learning procured him consideration . There he had as a pupil Katharina Wilhelmina Schweickhardt (1776–1830), the daughter of a Dutch painter and herself a poet . When he left London in June 1797 for Braunschweig, this lady followed him, and after he had formally divorced his first wife (1802) they were married . In 18o6 he was persuaded by his friends to return to Holland . He was kindly received by Louis Napoleon, who made him his librarian, and a member and eventually president (1809-1811) of the Royal Institute . After the abdication of Louis Napoleon he suffered great poverty; on the accession of William of Orange in 1813 he hoped to be made a professor, but was disappointed and became a history tutor at Leiden .

He continued his vigorous

campaign against liberal ideas to his death, which took place at Haarlem on the 18th of December 1831 . A picture of the Bilderdijk household is given in the letters (vol. v., 185o) of Robert Southey, who stayed some time with Bilderdijk in 1825 . Madame Bilderdijk had translated Roderick into Dutch (1823–1824) . For his work as a poet see DUTCH LITERATURE . His many-sided activity showed itself also in historical criticism—Geschiedenis des Vaderlands (1832–1851, 13 vols.), a conservative commentary on Wagenaar's Vaderlandsche h istorie; in translations from Sophocles (1779 and 1789), of part of the Iliad, of the hymns and epigrams of Callimachus, and from the Latin poets; in philology—Taal en Dichtkundige Verscheidenheden (1820–1825, 4 vols.); and in drama—the tragedies, Floris de Vijfde (,8o8), Willem I. van Holland (18o8), and others . His most important poetical works are the didactic poem, De Ziekte der geleerden (" The Disease of the Learned "), 2 vols., 1807; a descriptive poem in the manner of Delille in Het Buitenleven (1803); and his fragmentary epic, De Ondergang der eerste wereld (182o) . Other volumes were Mijne Verlustigung (Leiden, 1781), Bloemtjens (1785), Mengelpoezij (1799, 2 vols.), Poezij (1803–1807, 4 vols.), Mengelingen (1804–18o8, 4vols.), Nieuwe Mengelingen (18'o6,2 vols.), Hollands Verlossing (1813-1814, 2 vols.), Vaderlandsche Uitboezemingen (Leiden, 1815), Winterbloemen (1811, 2 vols.), &c., in some of which his wife collaborated . His poetical works were collected by I. da Costa (Haarlem, 1856-1859, 16 vols.), with a biography of the poet . See also " Mijne Levensbeschrijving " in Mengelingen en Fragmenten . . . (1834); his Brieven (ed . 1836–1837) by I. da Costa and W .

Messchert; Dr R . A . Kollewijn, Bilderdijk, Zijn

Leven en werken . . . (2 vols., 18191) .