155 



we find in the following number of tliat paper, that if it has not been 

 translated it is not worth translating ; and to j^rove his assertion he does 

 not give any extracts from the work, but mentions the dramatis personoe, 

 which, he says, speak for tliemselves. But turning from these critics to 

 one who seems to have really perused his works, I find in the Penny 

 Cyclopedia the following remarks : " Never has poetic genius displayed 

 itself more forcibly or with greater sublimity, than it has in all his best 

 productions. He was one of those superior spirits who give celebrity 

 to their country and to their age ; and if Camoens singly has sufficed for 

 the literary glory of Portugal, Vondel alone would have been sufficient 

 to confer fame upon his country." (Ait. Netherlands.) 



A comparison between Milton and Vondel would be a very interesting 

 task. The former would no doubt prove superior, " but the latter 

 will be found a worthy competitor in the same field of literature. 

 Allowance must be made for the disadvantage under which a dramatist 

 labours ; for unless we see the di'ama represented on the stage it 

 is no more than a skeleton, whilst an ejiic poem describes all the 

 minutia, and is therefore more striking to the reader. An epic 

 poem has moreover a wider scope for the display of the imagination, 

 which can picture to the mind more mysteries than the stage can repre- 

 sent. When "Lucifer" was first introduced on the stage it was 

 suppressed as a subject unfit for representation. But being published, 

 no less than a thousand copies were sold in a few days, — an immense 

 success consideruig the extent of the country, and the age m which it 

 was written.- 



The limits to which this Paper is confined compel me to hasten to a 

 conclusion, without noticing any of the other works of Vondel. In the 

 year 1025, he sank into the most desponding melancholy, which 

 rendered him incapable of any exertion. When recovered, he composed, 

 among other poems, his " Hanekot," in which his hero is a certain 

 preacher who had been ejected by the synod. In all his poems of this 

 kind he writes with great sevei-ity against the clergy for interfering in 

 civil matters. He was once heard to say of the clergy, that " Whenever 

 he got hold of them he felt quite inspired." In the year 1628 he went 

 to Denmark to collect some debts, thence to Sweden, and at Guttenburg 

 he composed a poem called the " Oracle," in which he foretold that Gus- 



* Among llie " CliPster Plav^" tliere is one called " The Fall of Lutiler." The editor 

 remarks — "The legeinlary story of the fall of Lucifer ajipears to have been exceedingly 

 popular in the west from the earliest ages of Chri.slianily iu these parts. Milton, perhaps, 

 founded some of his most magnificent pictures on the rude ground-work of these mysteries." 



