451 



VORST, CONRAD. 



VOSS, JOHANN HEINRICH. 



453 



are written in hexameters on the classical model, for which the Hun- 

 garian is perhaps better adapted than any other modern language. 

 His lyric as well as his epic poetry is estimated at a high value by 

 native critics; but the very qualities that excite their admiration 

 render their beauties difficult of transfer. 



VORST, or, Latinised, VO'RSTIUS, CONRAD, a celebrated German 

 divine, was born at Cologne on the 19th of July 1569. At the time 

 of his birth his family belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, but 

 some years after his father, with his whole family, consisting of his 

 wife and ten children, secretly embraced the Protestant religion. 

 After having received his preparatory education in a village near 

 Cologne, Conrad was sent to Dusseldorf, where he studied from 1583 

 till 1586. He continued his studies at Cologne, but was prevented 

 taking his degree, partly because he could not subscribe the deci- 

 sions of the Council of Trent, and partly because his father's means 

 were not sufficient to allow his son to go to a Protestant university. 

 For a time therefore his learned pursuits were abandoned, and Vorstius 

 began to prepare himself for a mercantile life. What enabled him 

 afterwards to continue his studies is not said, but in 1589 he went to 

 Herborn, where he devoted himself with great success to the study of 

 theology under the famous Piscator. During his stay there he gained 

 his living principally by giving private instruction, and in 1593 he 

 went with some of his pupils to Heidelberg, where he was honoured 

 the year after with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1595 he 

 visited the universities of Switzerland, where he took a part in some 

 of the theological controversies which were then carried on there. 

 For some time he delivered lectures at Geneva, which were so well 

 received that the regular professorship of divinity was offered to him 

 in that university. Br.u about this time Count Arnold of Bentheim 

 had founded a great school of divinity at Steinfurt, and he invited 

 Vorstius to a professorship, which he accepted. He soon acquired a 

 great reputation, and received very honourable invitations from several 

 universities; but all offers were refused, partly because his own family 

 did not wish him to go to any great distance from them, and partly 

 because Count Arnold was unwilling to part with him. The readiness 

 with which Vorstius complied with the count's request was afterwards 

 very honourably rewarded, for Vorstius was raised to the highest 

 ecclesiastical office in the count's dominions. About the year 1598 a 

 report got abroad that Vorstius had expressed himself in favour of the 

 doctrines of Socinus. The count hearing of it began to be alarmed, 

 and requested Vorstius to go to Heidelberg and clear himself of the 

 charge before the faculty, which had conferred upon him the degree 

 of Doctor of Diviuity. Vorstius succeeded in clearing himself of 

 Socinianism, but was obliged to own that he had used expressions 

 which might seem to justify the charge. After having expressed his 

 regret, and solemnly declared his abhorrence of the opinions of Socinus, 

 he returned to Steinfurt. Although he had thus outwardly cleared 

 himself, the suspicion which had once been raised could not be allayed. 

 The matter was brought to a crisis when, in 1610, he received an 

 invitation to the professorship of theology at Leyden, which had 

 become vacant by the death of Arminius. Vorstius, after some con- 

 sideration, accepted the offer, although he was well aware of the 

 difficulties which he would have to encounter ; but he was very much 

 pressed by the followers of Arminius, and he also hoped to find a 

 wider field for the free exercise of his powers than in the small princi- 

 pality of Bentheim. He went to Leyden provided with the most 

 satisfactory testimonials respecting his orthodoxy and his conduct; 

 but his appointment alarmed the Calvinistic party at Leyden and in 

 Holland generally. They protested most vehemently against the 

 appointment, and even solicited the interference of foreign universities, 

 and of James I., king of England. The work of Vorstius on which 

 their fears and accusations were chiefly founded was a collection of 

 dissertations which he had published at Steinfurt, in 1610, under the 

 title ' De Deo, sou Disputationes decem de Natura et Attributis Dei, 

 diverso tempore Steinfurti habitao.' This book was attacked more 

 fiercely than even the Koran had been by any Christian writer. King 

 James I., after having read the book, found it full of heresies, and had 

 it publicly burnt at Oxford, Cambridge, and London ; and he recom- 

 mended the States of Holland not to tolerate such a heretic within 

 their territory. The States instituted an investigation, and as the 

 contest grew hotter every day, Vorstius was obliged to quit Holland 

 and wait for the final decision in another country. The King of 

 England in the mean time wrote a tract against the unfortunate pro- 

 fessor, declared that burning was much too mild a punishment for 

 him, and threatened to cause all orthodox Protestants to unite their 

 strength against the Arminian heresies. The synod of Dortrecht at 

 length, in 1619, brought the matter to a close ; and it is said to have 

 been chiefly owing to the influence of the English deputies at this 

 synod that Vorstius was declared unworthy of the office to which he 

 had been appointed, and exiled from Holland for ever. For two years 

 Vorstius and his family lived in concealment, and his life was 

 threatened more than once by persons who thought it a religious duty 

 to kill a man who was capable of doing so much injury to the 

 Christian religion. At last the Duke of Holstein offered Vorstius and 

 the scattered remnants of the Arminians a place of refuge in his own 

 duchy, and assigned to them a tract of land, on which they built the 

 town of Friedrichstadt. Vorstius arrived in Holstein in the summer 

 of 1622, but he was taken ill soon after, and died on the 29th of 



September of the same year at Tonningen. His body was carried to 

 Friedrichstadt, and buried honourably. 



Vorstius was a pious and devout man. There is no evidence what- 

 ever that he had adopted the Arminian doctrines previous to his going 

 to Leyden. Bayle justly remarks that the persecutions of his enemies 

 for errors of which he was not guilty drove him into them ; for that 

 he was an Arminiau during the last period of his life is attested by 

 his own evidence. Vorstius was a man of considerable learning, great 

 independence of mind, and of sound judgment. He wrote a great 

 number of works, most of which are of a controversial nature, aud 

 directed partly against the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and 

 partly against his opponents among the Protestants. Some few are of 

 a devotional and religious character. Most of them are written in 

 Latin, some in German, and some in Dutch. Lists of them are given 

 in Jocher's ' Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon,' and in Bayle's ' Dictioii- 

 naire Historique et Critique.' 



(Sandius, Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum ; Gualterus, Oratio in obilum 

 Conradi Vorstii.) 



VOS, MARTIN DE, one of the most remarkable painters of his 

 time, was born at Antwerp in 1520, or more probably 1531. His 

 father, Peter de Vos, who was likewise a painter and a member of the 

 Academy of Antwerp, gave him. the first instruction in his art, arid he 

 afterwards attended the school of the celebrated Frans Floris. From 

 the school of Floris he went to Italy, where he studied some tiiu-.; at 

 Rome, and at Venice with Tintoretto, whose style he adopted, aud for 

 whom he painted several landscapes as backgrounds to some of his 

 pictures. He distinguished himself in history and portrait, and 

 painted many portraits for the house of Medici. After a stay of eight 

 years in Italy he returned to Antwerp, aud brought home with him, 

 besides other studies, a large collection of drawings from ancient vases, 

 &c., from Greek and Roman monuments, which he made use of to 

 great advantage in several pictures of feasts and such subjects. In 

 1559, shortly after his return, he was made a member of the Academy 

 of Antwerp. He executed an immense number of works : there are 

 more than six hundred prints after his designs; he painted more 

 pictures than any man of his time. He amassed a considerable 

 fortune, and died in 1603, aged seventy-two, or, according to the 

 common account, in 1604, aged eighty-four. 



De Vos had great ability, and many of his great pictures are composed, 

 designed, and coloured in a masterly style, yet his figures, like those 

 of his model Tintoretto, are often forced and exaggerated in their 

 attitudes. He formed a good school, and educated several excellent 

 scholars ; the most distinguished were his nephew William de Vos, 

 and Wenceslaus Koeberger or Coubergher. 



William de Vos was one of the painters whose portraits were painted 

 by Vandyck for the collection of the distinguished artists of his time. 

 There were several other painters of this name, of the same aud of 

 different families. There was a Peter de Vos, the brother of Martin; 

 a Simon de Vos (born at Antwerp in 1603, and died in 166^), the 

 scholar of Rubens, who excelled in portrait and in animal painting ; a 

 Paul de Vos (born at Aelst about 1600, died in 1654), a celebrated 

 battle-painter, and. his son Cornelius, who was a good historical 

 painter; he died at Antwerp in 1751, aged sixty-one. There was 

 another Cornelius de Vos, who studied under and imitated Vaudyck; 

 and there was also a Lambert de Vos of Mechlin, who, in 1574, went 

 to Turkey and made many excellent water-colour drawings of Turkish 

 costume. A volume of these drawings upon Turkish paper is or was 

 in the gymnasium library of Bremen. 



VOSS, JOHANN HEINRICH, was born on the 20th of February 

 1751, at Sommersdorf, near Wahren in Mecklenburg. His father was 

 originally a farmer; but, soon after the birth of his son, he got the 

 office of collector of the tolls for Count Malzahn in the little town of 

 Penzlin, and had a house and the privilege of brewing and distilling^ 

 In this place Johann Heinrich received his first education. He 

 showed such an extraordinary memory and such a desire to learn, that 

 his father, although his circumstances were continually growing 

 worse, sent him to the public school at Neu-Braudeuburg. 15 no- 

 volent friends and relatives contributed towards the expenses of his 

 education, as he showed all the signs of extraordinary talent. Greek 

 was then taught at Neu-Brandenburg in a very unsatisfactory way. 

 Voss felt it ; and being already charmed with the beauties of that 

 language, he and some of his schoolfellows had their weekly meetings, 

 in which they communicated to one another what they had learned in 

 private, and thus studied the Greek writers themselves. German 

 poetry also was read and discussed at these meetings, and Voss 

 already commenced writing German poetry which attracted the 

 attention of his friends and acquaintances. After having been at Neu- 

 Brandenburg for two years, he saw that a longer stay would be useless; 

 and as he had no means of continuing his studies at a university, he 

 gladly accepted a place as private tutor in the family of a country 

 gentleman near Penzlin. He entered this situation in 1769. As he 

 had not yet been at a university, his salary was less than that of the 

 cook in the family ; and he had to endure many humiliations which 

 might have broken his spirits if he had not thought it his duty to hold 

 out in order to get a small sum which might enable him at least to 

 begin his academical career. Another circumstance which helped 

 him over the difficulties of his position was the friendship of a neigh- 

 bouring clergyman, who saw the great talents of Voss, made him 



