In early life his face was pale and thin, but later, after the
disappearance of his strange malady, it became broad and full, and of a
healthful color, with glowing red cheeks. His forehead, not too high,
was broad and commanding, a fit arsenal for those thunderbolts of
invective that he knew so well how to employ. One of his eyebrows was
slightly higher than the other. Beneath them glowed two deep brown eyes,
large and penetrating--eagle eyes, full of fire, as if, naïvely says his
biographer, "he had satires in his head." His nose was sensitive and
somewhat large; his mouth of medium size, with rather thin lips. He
usually wore his hair short, his ears only half covered. On his chin
grew a small pointed beard, in early manhood a dark brown, later white
with age. Altogether a figure striking and noble, if not grand and
imposing--one that long acquaintance would only render the more
impressive, for it was stamped with character. Thus the outward man!
Would you learn the stature of his soul? Read his magnificent works.

Strange to say, he who was so full of thought and spirit in his writings
was still and silent in the presence of others. Once when dining with
Grotius, Vossius, and Barlæus--the three most learned men of the age--it
is related that during the course of the whole meal the poet said not
one word. He was usually grave and taciturn. When he did speak, however,
he was intense and pointed.

He was ever modest in his deportment and temperate in his habits. Though
living in an age of good fellowship and of royal tippling, when
post-prandial drunkenness was the rule rather than the exception, he was
never known to have indulged to excess. Like Dante, Milton, and
Petrarch, furthermore, his private life was pure. Not one accuser ever
threw mud at its whiteness.

His clothes, though in the fashion and in good taste, were always plain
and unassuming. He enjoyed the society of artists and men of letters,
learning, and judgment. He was extremely popular among his relatives,
which speaks well for his heart, and is surely a good index to his true
character.

Vondel was a true friend, and was ever ready to prove his devotion, if
need be, by the sacrifice of blood and treasure. Such a romantic
attachment as that of Dante for Beatrice was doubtless unknown to our
poet. His was the more natural ardor of a deep-seated affection. Yet he
had the capacity for suffering so characteristic of genius. We know
that, like William III., he was profoundly affected by the death of his
wife. For several years, indeed, he was in such a melancholy that his
thoughts fell still-born from his pen. He wrote little, and destroyed
all that he wrote. Life had lost all charms for him. He was, however,
awakened from this reverie of sorrow by the bugle blast of war; and only
in the roar of the conflict did he forget the sting of grief.

Vondel was in no sense a theologian, and had no patience with
hair-splitting distinctions. Though a fervid Catholic, his toleration is
shown by his remark that he would not "sit in the Inquisition as a judge
of anyone's life."

"There were some hot-headed Papists," he said, "who persecuted the pious
of other creeds. It is also true that the Papists of all time have
sought to rule the consciences of men. However, some reformers are
lately following in their footsteps." In regard to the wonderful legends
of the early Church, he remarked that they were "monkish fables written
in the dark ages for the ignorant people." That his Catholicism had not
lessened his love for freedom or for his country his later poems bear
excellent witness.

Though by his bitter lampoons and severe invective he had made many
enemies during the course of his long career, yet his popularity is seen
in the fact that his memory was honored by men of all creeds and
parties. The Jesuits of Antwerp placed his portrait in their cloister
among the most illustrious men of ancient and modern times.

He had gathered no riches with his poetry. On the contrary, his losses
were far greater than his gains. The most costly gift ever given him was
the golden locket and chain from her majesty Queen Christina of Sweden.
This present was worth about two hundred dollars. Amelia von Solms, the
widow of Frederic Henry, also honored him with a gold medal for a poem
on the marriage of her daughter, the Princess Henrietta. For his ode on
the dedication of the new Stadthuis, the authorities of Amsterdam
honored him with a silver cup. The visiting Elector of one of the German
States gave him, for some verses in his honor, "a small sixteen
guldens." For his eulogy in honor of the Archbishop of Cologne, the city
fathers allowed him thirty guldens.

His daughter Anna, dying before him, willed him her portion, which, with
his pension, proved amply sufficient for his maintenance.

A few months before his death he had willed all of his books to a
certain priest. Thinking that if they remained with him he might injure
his feeble health by reading, he allowed them to be taken away.
Afterwards, however, he bitterly regretted this, and, with tears in his
eyes, complained to one of his friends that all of his treasures had
been stolen, and that now nothing was left him.

In his youth his motto was: "Love conquers all things." Later he signed
his productions with the word "Zeal," or "Justice"--the last a play on
his name; sometimes, also, with the letters P.L., meaning _pro
libertate_, or with the initials P.V.K.--"Palamedes of Kologne." In some
of his works was to be seen a picture of David playing a harp, with the
device "Justus fide vivit," to which, of course, could be given a double
meaning: "The just man lives by faith," or "Justus lives by his lyre."

Vondel's diligence was phenomenal. Once he remarked in a letter to a
friend that the height of Parnassus can only be attained by much panting
and sweat, and that attention and exercise sharpen the intellect. The
multitude and the excellence of his works prove the worth of his
philosophy.

His thirst for knowledge was extraordinary, and he left few corners of
that vast field unfilled. To learn the best expressions for each trade
and profession he was wont to question all kinds and conditions of men
in regard to the words that they used in their trade or calling.
Farmers, carpenters, masons, artists, men of every business and
profession added to his vocabulary. He thus built up the language, and
himself attained a thorough mastery over his native tongue; one never
equalled by any of his countrymen, with the possible exception of the
poet Bilderdÿk.

He was, moreover, always ready to receive suggestions in regard to his
own productions, and often read them to his friends to obtain the
benefit of their criticism. This, however, was more true of his
translations than of his originals. He took much pleasure, also, in
praising the work of others, especially that of the younger poets.

That he was an excellent critic is shown by his prose essays, though he
was too impressionable to beauty to be very severe. He was exceedingly
modest in regard to his own powers. He considered Hooft the foremost
among the Dutch writers of his age, not only on account of his sweet
lyrics and stately tragedies, but also because of his historical works.

Constantine Huyghens he praised for his liveliness and fancy, his
subtlety, and his wonderful versatility. He also thought highly of Anslo
and de Dekker, and particularly of those two young giants, Vollenhove
and Antonides. In "The Y Stream" of the latter he saw extraordinary
promise, and he thenceforth called the younger poet his son, and was
always most tender and fatherly towards him, taking much delight in his
company. Of Vollenhove's "Triumph of Christ," he said: "There is a great
light in that man, but it is a pity that he is a clergyman." Brandt he
called "a good epigrammatist."

HIS FEELING FOR ART.

Art to Vondel was a revelation of the divine in man, and therefore the
best promoter of virtue. Hence his passion for poetry, and his
admiration for painting, music, and architecture. How fitting that he
who sang the union of the arts:

    "Blithe Poesy and Painting fair,
     Two sisters debonair,"

should be crowned "king of the feast" by a company of fellow artists!

Vondel was the painter's poet. He wrote numerous inscriptions for
paintings. He praises Raphael, Veronese, Titian, Bassano, Giulo Romano,
Lastman, Sandrart, Goltzius (the etcher), and Rubens. He apparently
preferred the idealists of the Italian school, for he says but little
about the realists of the day, Steen, Ostade, Brouwer, and Teniers; nor
even concerning those who copied nature like Douw, De Hoogh, and Mutsu.
The great Rembrandt he names but twice. In one place he speaks of the
portrait of Cornelis Anslo, of which he tamely says, "The visible part
is the least of him, and who would see Anslo must hear him." He seems
to have been more impressed by the fine portrait of Anna Wymers, for he
says: "Anna seems to be alive." Elsewhere, however, he speaks of "the
night-owl, who hides himself from the day in his shadows of cobweb;"
which is thought to be a covert reference to that magnificent study in
chiaroscuro, Rembrandt's "Night Patrol." It is certain, however, that he
did not realize the powerful genius of Holland's greatest artist.

Vondel, the admirer of the Italian classics, with their delicacy and
regularity, probably could not appreciate the revolutionary splendors of
this great magician. Nor is there any evidence to show that any
friendship existed between these two men, each the undying glory of his
country. And yet in some respects the poet and the painter were
strikingly alike. Both were masters of style, and grandly daring and
original. Both were in the highest sense creative, and dealt in
tremendous effects, soaring from mountain-top of grandeur into the
heaven of the sublime. Each was comprehensive and universal; each was a
personified mood of his nation and the maker of an epoch. Each suffered
poverty in old age.

Yet in one respect the painter had the advantage over the poet. He spoke
the universal language of the eye, and thus his message has reached
millions who were deaf to his tongue. The political obscurity, on the
other hand, into which little Holland was plunged so soon after the
meteoric blaze of her brief ascendancy, confined her language to her
narrow territory; and Vondel, equally worthy with Rembrandt of the
admiration of the world, became a sealed book save to his countrymen.
The former, however, was the very life of his time, its recognized
voice; the latter was in his life neglected, to become after his death
the most illustrious of his race, a name to conjure an age out of
obscurity.

Rubens, on the other hand, the poet fully appreciated. In the dedication
of his drama, "The Brothers," 1639, he calls the great Fleming "the
glory among the pencils of our age."

Music, we know, had a powerful fascination for our poet. He himself
played the lute, while his poetry throbs with the very heart of melody.
How lovingly he speaks of the divine art of song, that "charms the soul
out of the body, filling it with rare delight--a foretaste of the bliss
of the angels"!

How keen must have been his enjoyment when at Muiden he heard the lovely
singers of that age--the gifted Tesselschade on her guitar, or the
talented harpist, Christina van Erp; or when in his home in the
Warmoesstraat he heard the patriotic chimes of his beloved city pealing
the lingering hours into oblivion! How profoundly, too, must his deep,
earnest soul have been stirred by the grandeur of the Psalms, rising on
the wings of Zweling's noble melodies to the vaulted arches of the old
cathedral where he was wont to worship!

HIS FEELING FOR NATURE.

The attitude of a poet toward nature is always of peculiar and absorbing
interest. Is it because she is the perpetual fount of ideals, because of
her voiceless sympathy with his ever-changing mood, or because her
grandeur and loveliness have power to move the deeps of his soul?
However it be, the poets have almost without exception found her the
source of their inspiration.

Into her rude confessional they pour the unreserved tale of sorrows that
no man can understand; and she gently whispers peace. At her feet they
lay the guilty story of a soul; the love, the passions of a heart; the
joys, the pains, the riotous thoughts of life; and she gently whispers
peace. And here, too, Vondel opened his heart, and here he also obtained
comfort for the vexing ills of life.

It has been said that man's appreciation of the beauties of nature is
proportioned to the degree of his cultivation. In the ruder ages in
Holland, as in Germany, the mysterious forces of the physical world and
their various manifestations became personified in the good and bad
genii of the Teutonic mythology. In proportion as the worship of these
genii ceased, nature became appreciated for its own sake. It had first
to be divested of the fear-inspiring supernatural. To this Christianity
and the accumulating discoveries in science largely contributed.

Karel van Mander first introduced this feeling into painting; and
Hendrik Spieghel, into literature. And then came Hooft and Vondel, who
in this respect, as in all else, stood far above their contemporaries.

Vondel's enjoyment of nature is not so keen as that of Hooft, but it is
far deeper and stronger, and grew steadily to the end of his life. Now
and then his descriptions remind one of the brooding landscapes of the
"melancholy Ruysdael;" at other times of the creations of Lingelbach and
Pynacker, in those striking scenes where Dutch realism and Italian fancy
are oddly combined.

Under the influence of Seneca and Du Bartas, according to the artificial
fashion of the day, he at first employed high-sounding mythological
names as symbols for the things themselves; but he soon outgrew this
classical affectation. Already in his "Palamedes," especially in the
chorus of "Eubeers," is this feeling for nature apparent. This charming
bucolic is the picture of a Dutch landscape. Elsewhere we have mentioned
its resemblance to the "L'Allegro" of Milton.

Like the bard of Avon, our poet saw but little of the world. Twice he
made a business trip to Denmark, and shortly before his death he paid a
visit to Cologne. In addition to this, he made several inland
journeys--one to the Gooi:

    "Where the grand oak so thickly grows
     Beyond rich fields, where buckwheat glows."

To Vondel truly "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
showeth his handiwork." All of his poems, particularly the "Lucifer,"
are studded with figures of the stars.

The poet drew many of his figures, too, from animal life, as the beasts
and the birds in the sustained Virgilian similes in the "Lucifer." What
can be more exquisite, also, than his verses on the tame sparrow of the
lovely Susanne Bartelot, in the style of the "Passer, deliciæ suæ
puellæ" of Catullus?

The north wind he calls "a winter-bird, so cold and rough." The spring
is his delight. He is glad when he sees men busy fishing, planting, and
hunting, and engaged in all manner of bucolic occupations. In the Norway
pines unloaded on the River Y, he sees a forest of masts from which the
tricolor of his dear country will be unfurled in every clime.

Would you know his capacity for aesthetic symbolism? Read his superb ode
to the Rhine.

Flowers were to him the beautiful symbols of equally beautiful moral
truths. What a world of pathos in his voice where he says of Mary Queen
of Scots:

    "O! Roman Rose, cut from her bleeding stem!"

And where he speaks of the mournful rosemary in the death-wreath of his
little daughter Saartje! For little Maria, his darling grand-child, he
wishes "a winding sheet of flowers--of violets white and red and purple,
blue and yellow." In the garlands of his fancy he ever weaves the blooms
of his delight, lilies, violets, roses--white and red--and his national
flower, the glorious tulip.

He loved the open heaven and the airy freedom of solitude. "The welkin
wide is mine," he says, and like a wild bird adds, "and mine the open
sky." He loved the woods, where his ears were caressed by "the blithe
echoes of the careless birds."

Long before Shelley he sang of the lark, "wiens keeltje steiltjes
steigert" ("whose throat so steeply soars"). Long before Keats he was
thrilled by the deep-toned nightingale.

    "The shrill-voiced nightingale,
     Who at thy casement bower
     Pours out his breathless tale,"

reminds him of the questioning soul at the window of eternity," peering
through panes on darkness unconfined." Then, again, he likens himself to
a nightingale, caged for days in the mournful cold, that bursts into a
rapturous melody to see the warm sun melt away the gloom.

His soul communed with nature in her deepest and quietest moods. The
peaceful meadow, the calm beauty of the woods, the forest-crowned
mountains, the tumultuous sea were all the themes of his song.

Though his feeling for nature was not so fine nor so intense as that of
some of the later poets, yet it was deeper and truer. In the world
around him he saw but a reflection of the grander world beyond.

Nor was the pantheistic conception strange to him. See the first chorus
of the "Lucifer," where he calls God "the soul of all we can conceive;"
and the second act, where he speaks of:

            "----the farthest rounds
     And endless circles of eternity,
     That, from the bounds of time and space set free,
     Revolve unceasingly around one God,
     Who is their centre and circumference.

How like the pantheism of Spinoza, first proclaimed some years later!

HIS PATRIOTISM.

Would you know him as a patriot? Hear his splendid tones of jubilation
over the victory of his countrymen--a victory where truth and freedom
triumphed. Hear his fine odes celebrating the commerce and the progress
of the growing commonwealth. Listen to his bursts of patriotism in his
"Orange May Song," and where he calls the ancient Greek sea-galleys,
"child's play beside ours."

Vondel was a representative Dutchman, and there was a strong national
stamp on all that he did. He was a grand type of the burgher of the
great Dutch middle class, which has ever been the glory of the
Netherlands, and which has given to the world such an illustrious array
of soldiers, painters, scholars, poets, and statesmen. In reading him
we are continually reminded that we are in the land of dykes and
windmills. Thus all of his heroes are invested with Holland dignities.
We hear of burghers, burgomasters, and stadtholders; of the dunes, the
sea, the dams, the strand, and the green, fertile meadows. Wherever the
scene of the play, we always recognize the streets, the canals, the
houses, the palaces, and the environs of Amsterdam. This was not due to
a lack of historical information, as was the case with Shakespeare, but
because the poet desired to bring the truth closer to the hearts of his
hearers. The fact, too, that this made the scenic requirements of a play
considerably less, thus reducing the expense of presentation, might also
have had some influence.

Vondel, furthermore, when representing the past, never forgot the
present. It was ever before his eyes. Hence many of his plays were
political allegories, and were significant for their bearing upon the
time.

The one universal characterization of all of his work, one that glows in
every poem, is his love of freedom--the ruling passion of his
countrymen. Already in the "Passover "--his first tragedy, written at
the age of twenty-six--we hear his cry, "O! sweetest freedom." Soon
afterwards, in his lyrics and in "Palamedes," he showed his strong
sympathy with Oldenbarneveldt; and during the bitter persecution that
followed, when he was forced to fly like a hunted beast from house to
house, this spirit grew by the opposition that it fed upon into a fierce
blaze, only quenched by death.

Like the Father of Tuscan literature, his thoughts were ever attuned to
the spirit of his age. Like Dante, too, he was ever in the heart of the
battle. Like him, also, he was not worldly wise, and was naturally of a
rebellious temperament. He was himself in perpetual revolt. This was
due, however, not to a saturnine disposition, but to a keen sense of
justice, and to the idealism of a lofty, cultivated mind. To compel the
age to conform to the measure of his own conceptions he often found
procrustean methods necessary. Hence his stern aggressiveness against
wrong.

He fain would have sat apart in silent contemplation, but he was
destined to know neither the Olympic calm of Goethe, nor the sublime
serenity of Shakespeare. "The life of the day, like an octopus, grasped
him and would not let him go." He drank in the wine of freedom, and his
soul was filled with the hunger of strife. His cry now became a
battle-cry. Wherever he saw wrong and injustice--and his eyes were ever
open--he donned his armor and dealt crushing blows for the cause of the
oppressed. Earnest, still, and passionate, great of soul and
impressionable of heart, the poet was a born fighter. His whole life was
a polemic against tyranny.

His dear fatherland was the alpha and omega of his inspiration, and he
was, perhaps, the first Dutchman who deeply felt the consciousness of
national power. The next object of his soul's affection was his city,
Amsterdam, whose glories he never grew tired of singing. His
characterization:

    "The town of commerce, Amsterdam,
     Known round the circle of the globe,"

might not improperly be reflected upon its new and yet more powerful
namesake in the New World, of whose grandeur he might well be deemed the
prophet, when, in his "Gysbrecht," with patriotic eloquence he pictures
the Amsterdam of the coming centuries. What though the ruling trident
has departed from the "Venice of the North," her peerless daughter, far
across the seas, yet holds triumphant sway!

In his fiery patriotism Vondel much reminds us of Milton. He also was at
heart a zealous republican, though he had a Christian's unshaken
reverence for the anointed kings of earth, and for what he thought a
God-constituted authority. Hence the "Lucifer," and his relentless
opposition to the regicides of England and to Cromwell, "that murderer
without God and shame, who dared to desecrate and to assault the Lord's
anointed," as he says bitterly in one of his polemics.

Like the great Englishman, the Hollander was also a good hater; and he
never spared what he hated. Though charitable, he was uncompromising,
and forgave not easily; always, however, deprecating the excesses of the
"root and branch" zealots of his own party. Just as Milton, after having
joined the Presbyterians, forsook them when they in turn began to
persecute the followers of other creeds, so, too, Vondel left the
Remonstrants when they crossed the jealous line of freedom.

We are indeed inclined to believe that his strongest trait was his love
of justice, which caused him to oppose tyranny under every guise, and to
stigmatize the faults of his own church and party with expletives as
crushing as those that he hurled against his enemies.

Thus his hatred of the Catholic Spaniards and of the Dutch Gomarists.
The bloody persecution of the one was in his eyes no worse than the
oppressive hypocrisy of the other. Even his beloved House of Orange drew
from him the bitterest opposition when, in Prince Maurice and in
William II., it threatened the liberty of his country and the privileges
of his beloved Amsterdam. Of him it may truly be said that his eyes were
never blinded by party prejudice.

Milton, in an immortal sonnet, blew a trumpet-blast of vengeance for the
slaughtered Piedmontese. Why was that trumpet silent w hen his own party
perpetrated a similar massacre at Drogheda? Vondel was, indeed, far more
magnanimous than his great English contemporary. He had more of "the
milk of human kindness."

How strong is our poet's admiration for the founders of the Republic,
the fathers of the "golden age," and for that grand race of intrepid
discoverers, pioneers, and explorers that pierced every corner of the
globe! How, too, flames his soul with pride, when he recounts the brave
deeds of those old sea-lions, Tromp and de Ruyter, and their fearless
companions, in the fierce battle against the growing English supremacy!
Not one of those heroes whom he did not crown with the wreath of an
immortal eulogy!

Yet Vondel, even as Dante, was at heart a man of peace. Like his
countrymen, he never sought the fray; but when battle was forced upon
him, it meant a fight to the death. All his fighting was for peace. In
one of his poems he speaks of peace as:

    "A treasure--Ah! its worth unknown,
     Surpassing far a triumph in renown."

Elsewhere he says, "The olive more than laurel pleases me." He never
forgot the high seriousness of his mission. He never lost sight of the
dignity of Christian manhood.

Vondel was in a large sense also the poet of Christendom; a crusader,
with his face ever towards the New Jerusalem, throned in ethereal
splendors. He felt himself a member of that large Christian alliance
that Henry IV. wished to found as a barrier against the encroachments of
the Turk, the arch-foe of Christendom.

    "He comes--the Turk! We stand with winged arms,"

he shouts in one of his poems. Yet he never forgot to pray, also, that
the erring ones, both Jew and Gentile, might be brought into the fold of
the "true Church."

HIS VIEWS ON LIFE.

Of particular interest are the views of so old and so profound a seer on
life; for every poet has his scheme of life. What men call genius is,
indeed, only the faculty of seeing life through the prism of a
temperament, and the poets are preëminently the men of temperament.
Vondel, with his earnest, sincere nature, out of the bewildering chaos
of his environment soon evolved his own philosophy of existence. "Life,
that sad tragedy," the youthful poet calls it in his "Passover." To him
already life was a passing pageant, and man, an exile. His epitome of
the world's history, moreover, is not unlike the celebrated epigram of
Rhÿnvis Feith, another Dutch poet:

    "Man, like a withered leaf, falls in oblivion's wave.
     We are, and fade away--the cradle and the grave;
     Between them flits a dream, a drama of the heart;
     Smart yields his place to Joy, and Joy again to Smart;
     The monarch mounts his throne; the slave bows to the floor;
     Death breathes upon the scene--the players are no more."

His gaze, like Milton's, was ever upward,
through the prison-bars of time, into the unconfined
vast of eternity. His tone, too, was most
glorious when singing "celestial things."

How like the voice of a Hebrew prophet his
note of warning, where he cries:

    "Batavians, repent;
     Think of Tyre and Sidon.
     Repent as the Ninevites!
     O! mourn your sins!"

And after all this painful revelry of life, this lust of action, and the
battle's roar, it is a "haven sweet and still" that his earth-tormented
soul longs for. How softly he whispers after his fiery trumpet tones are
done:

    "O! help me, O my God, to give my life to thee,
     My fragile self, my will, my little all. Let me,
     O thou beyond compare! O source of everything!
     In praises rich and deep thy matchless glory sing!"

In the pensive twilight of old age, he grew more and more conscious of
the true everlasting, and his patriotism became the all-embracing one of
the "fatherland above." He now began to look forward with child-like
faith to the revelations of the resurrection, though not forgetting
that:

    "The infant of eternity
     Must first be cradled in the tomb;"

but believing that from the cerements of mystery shall break a light to
lead the soul to heaven.

HIS PLACE AND ART.

Vondel, to an extraordinary degree, possessed that keen insight into
human nature which is the first requisite of the great satirist. He was
the Juvenal of his time. Though his wit is never delicate nor keen, it
is, however, sweeping and irresistible. His was no gentle zephyr of
irony to tickle the tender cuticle of a supersensitive age, but a very
cyclone of mockery to laugh a thick-skinned generation out of folly.

His poetry is ever the instrument of exaltation; and though in its
condemnation of evil it often by its directness and frankness gives some
offense to the delicate edge of our modern refinement, it is never
indecently coarse; it is never a pander to vice.

Indignation more intense, scorn more contemptuous, satire more powerful,
invective more tremendous than that glowing in the polemics of this
great satirist have never struck fear into the hardened hearts of the
wicked. Few men have been so hated; few have been so loved.

Yet the sublime is the true field of this poet, and sublimer thoughts
than his were surely never spoken. The grandeur of Job, the glory of the
Psalms, and the splendor of the Apocalypse are all to be found in his
magnificent Biblical tragedies, that noble series commencing with the
"Jerusalem Desolate" of his untried youth, and ending with the "Noah" of
his octogenarian ripeness.

The influence of the Bible on his art was prodigious. The Holy Writ was
the inexhaustible quarry from which he hewed his master, pieces;
throughout whose development may be traced the growth of a human soul.
See his paraphrase of the Psalms, if you would know his enjoyment of the
serene beauty of holiness.

The artistic truth of all his creations is seen in their elemental
objectivity--the portrayal by vivid flashes of feeling and by artful
representation of the ever-during and imperishable. In most of his
dramas is the sublimity of Æschylus with the fine proportion and the
directness of Sophocles. In others, as in the "Leeuwendalers," where he
sings the triumph of peace, is the sweetness and the feminine strength
of Euripides.

Of Vondel it has truly been said: "_Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit_;"
for to beauty--

    "God's handmaid, Beauty,
     Whose touch rounds
     A dew-drop or a world"--

he ever paid the incense of a passionate devotion.

"Æschylus does right without knowing it," said Sophocles; even so Vondel
possessed an unerring instinct for the true; ever stringing the jewelled
beads of fancy on the golden thread of truth.

Like Æschylus, too, he was at heart a lyric poet; yet who shall say that
in his character delineation, in the sweeping energy of his action, and
in the management of his plot, he was not almost equally as admirable?

Like Dryden, Vondel rose very slowly to the stature of his full power.
All of his dramas preceding the "Lucifer" show this gradual development;
all of those that come later maintain the same standard of excellence.

Like Goethe, the Dutch poet exerted an ennobling influence on the
theatre of his country. Like Dante, he was fond of a strong, bold
outline, and always chose a direct rather than a circuitous route. Like
Shakespeare, he was a keen observer of affairs, a student of life. His
works are the rimed chronicles of his age. His was a transcendent
genius, not oppressed by excessive culture, and with the creative ever
the ruling instinct. To him poetry was the divinest of the arts. It
became the ritual of his soul's worship; duty, beauty, and religion were
the three strings on his melodious lyre.

His works abound in little scholasticism. Pedantry and affectation were
his abomination; pith and vigor, directness and comprehensiveness, the
radical elements of his strength. In his works we find a harvest of such
glorious themes as store the granary of poet minds; we see everywhere
evidences of power. We are ever startled by:

    "The lightning flash of an immortal thought,
     The rolling thunder of a mighty line."

Vondel's similes are more striking than his metaphors; there is a
sustained glow in his imagery. In this respect, also, he shows the
Oriental bent of his genius. This is furthermore seen in his
personification of the elements of nature and of the stars and
constellations, as in the "Lucifer," which gives a barbaric splendor to
the play. Few poets, indeed, in any literature, contain such splendid
and elevated images.

He, too, could woo discordant sounds to harmony, and wove the
consonantal Dutch into mellow meshes of ensnaring sound. A nobleness not
devoid of grace, a sublimity not austere, but warm with human sympathy;
a manner more remarkable for chaste strength and a rugged symmetry of
form than for delicacy or elegance--these are some of the
characteristics of his style.

Not for him the sweet felicities of the mincing phraser or the dreamy
languors of the riming troubadour. Not for him the gaysome zephyr or the
dim, romantic moon. He is ever on the serene altitude of lofty
contemplation, or in the valley, battling like a god. He is always
deeply serious. He is everywhere sincere. His is the whirlwind and the
storm; the noonday glare and the midnight gloom. His is the eagle's
bold, epic flight and the lark's wild, lyric soar. No nightingale of
sentiment trills her dulcet serenade amid the forest of his song. And
yet who can be more tender and affecting, who more truly, softly sweet?
All is virile; nothing is effeminate. All is manly, healthful, pure.
There is no morbid fever of a brain diseased and foul. There is no pale,
misleading will-o'-the-wisp of a heart decayed and bad. There is
freshness, there is beauty, there is truth. "Magnificent" is the one
word for his manner, "the grand style" of the Netherlands.

His was the sombre Occidental imagination fired with the splendor of the
Orient. His poetry is a Gothic cathedral, grand, towering, and
impressive, typical at once of the massive ruggedness of the oak and the
severe sublimity of the Alp; a Teutonic temple, in whose cloistered
corridors we hear the majestic sweep of unseen angels' wings, while the
glorious symphony of harps and psalteries, played by countless cherubim,
mingling with the rich bass of the organ and the ethereal tenor of
invisible choristers, rolls like a flood of celestial harmony through
all the deep diapason from heaven to hell.

The word "vondel" in the Brabantian dialect means a "little bridge,"
which suggests a not inapt analogy; for it was Vondel who bridged the
chasm between the crude Mystery and Miracle Plays of the Chambers of
Rhetoric, and the "Lucifer," a drama unequalled in the history of Dutch
literature. Between the dead abstractions of the Chambers and the warm,
concrete life of the sublime Vondelian drama, even as between "Gorboduc"
and "Hamlet," lay the experience of one soul.

Hooft, like Heiberg in Denmark and Lessing in Germany, instituted a
revolution in the world of taste. But Vondel, even more than Hooft,
developed the latent powers of the tongue, enlarged its resources, and
fixed its form. His is still the noblest of Dutch diction, possessing
that strange virility that defies time.

At the beginning of the century the language was hardly fit for literary
use. The school of Vondel in one generation--the first half of the
seventeenth century--did for Holland what the thirteenth century had
done for Italy and the sixteenth for England. Vondel, no less than
Shakespeare, was the creator of an epoch. His influence on his own
language was equally as wonderful, his impress on his country's
literature almost as great.

To him the poets of the following generations, even the great
Bilderdÿk, looked for inspiration. To him also they have ever paid
homage.

Like Homer, he also found his Zoilus, but the greatest intellects of his
country and his age--and surely few epochs have seen greater--Grotius,
Hooft, Vossius, Huyghens, and scores of others of almost equal fame
thought him not inferior to the noblest poets of antiquity.

Vondel lived in a memorable epoch and was its personification. It was
the Augustan Era of Holland, the Dutch Age of Pericles. Amsterdam, like
another Athens, had become the centre of the world's civilization.
Nowhere in that age were the arts so sedulously cultivated; nowhere had
their cultivation been rewarded by such high attainment.

Science, the world puzzler, opened his toy-box, the universe, and showed
its countless wonders. Philosophy, with guessive hand, played at the
riddle Destiny, and mild Religion, at the game of War. Literature, the
sum of all the arts and all the sciences, shone like the dazzling Arctic
sun in its brief midnight noon--one hour of glory in a day of gloom.
When the poet died, the epoch died with him. A night of mediocrity now
brooded over the marshy fens of Holland. A swarm of poetasters succeeded
the race of poets. Originality was banished. Affectation, with his
sycophantic wiles, had won the heart of a degenerate generation. Art,
like a flower suddenly deprived of the warm kisses of day, pined away in
the sterile cold. Genius was dead.

Vondel is preëminently the poet of freedom. The principles sanctified by
the blood of his countrymen, and won by nearly a century of the most
noble daring and heroic endurance, he, as the voice of his nation,
glorified in his beautiful pastoral, the "Leeuwendalers." These same
principles also became the rallying shout of the English Revolution of
1688. That same war-cry, reechoing at Lexington and Alamance, swept the
American Colonies from Bunker Hill to Guilford Court House like a
whirlwind of flame; and tyranny, with shuddering dread, fled to its
native lair.

The shibboleth of liberty, first blown with stirring trumpet tones
across the watery moors of Holland by the patriot-poet Vondel, was now
repeated in deathless prose at Mecklenburg and Philadelphia. A new
United States arose like a glorious phoenix from the ashes of the old.

For the American Constitution was but the grand conclusion of that
lingering bloody syllogism of freedom, of which the Treaty of Munster
was the major premise. And Vondel, inspired logician of the true,
unravelling the tangled skein of his country's destiny, also uncoiled
the golden thread of our great fate.

Of his magnificent works, the natural heritage of the American people,
we here present this choice fragment, the "Lucifer," aglow with the
eternal spirit of revolt.

And now we leave our poet. A spotless name, the record of a noble,
sacrificing life, a message of beauty, and a treasury of immortal
truths--this was Vondel's legacy to his countrymen.

L.C.v.N.

The "Lucifer."

    "Away, away, into the shadow-land,
     Where Myth and Mystery walk hand in hand;
     Where Legend cons her half-forgotten lore,
     And Sphinx and Gorgon throng the silent shore."

THE PARADISE HISTORY.

The Paradise history, as solving the problem of the origin of man and
the origin of evil, and as foreshadowing the goal of human destiny, has
always been a subject of universal concern; one full of fascination for
the imagination of the poet. Few subjects, indeed, have aroused such
widely diffused and long sustained interest.

Beginning with the "Creation" of the Spanish monk Dracontius, the
Biblical paraphrases of the old English poet Cædmon, and the Latin poem
of Avitus, Bishop of Vienna, we see, at different periods, various
studies of this absorbing theme, especially in Italy, where a score or
more poets and essayists made it the source of their inspiration.

Perhaps the most noted of these was Andrieni (1578-1652), who wrote the
"Adamo," a tragedy in five acts, whose subject is the fall of man. This
drama, however, is a rather crude affair, such allegorical abstractions
as Death, Sin, and Despair being the chief characters.

About the same period, strange to say, the Netherland imagination, not
long awakened from its medieval torpor, also became fired with this
theme. The youthful Grotius was the first to attempt it in his "Adamus
Exul," a Latin drama of considerable merit. This was in 1601, several
years before the "Adamo" of Andrieni. Two other Dutchmen of the same
generation, both far greater poets than Grotius, were also attracted by
this subject. One was the distinguished Father Cats in his idyll, "The
First Marriage;" the other was Justus van den Vondel in his "Lucifer."

We would, in passing, call attention to the curious coincidence that so
many poets of so many different nations, most of them doubtless without
knowledge of the others, should about the same time have chosen this
subject of such historical and symbolical importance. For besides the
poets mentioned were many others: the Scotchman Ramsay, the Spaniard de
Azevedo, the Portuguese Camoens, the Frenchman Du Bartas, and two
Englishmen, Phineas Fletcher and John Milton. A more remarkable instance
of telepathy is not, we believe, on record.

Of all of the works of the many authors who have treated this theme,
only two, however, have withstood the critical test of time; only two
have been awarded the palm of immortality. These two are Milton's
"Paradise Lost" and Vondel's "Lucifer": the former, the grandest of
English epics; the latter, the noblest of Dutch dramas. It is the
"Lucifer" that we have been asked to discuss.

DID MILTON BORROW FROM VONDEL?

The "Lucifer" was published thirteen years before "Paradise Lost." The
scheme of the English poem had, however, already been crystallized in
the mind of its author for fifteen years. This scheme originally
contemplated a drama, which the poet's powerful imagination gradually
developed into an epic.

To whom Vondel was indebted for the foundation of his tremendous drama
is easily ascertained. He himself mentions his authorities in his
admirable and learned preface. Among these were, besides the Holy Writ,
the various Church Fathers, the "Adamus Exul" of Grotius, the work of Du
Bartas, and a treatise on the fallen angels, by the English Protestant,
Richard Baker. His own imagination, however, soared far above the
fundamental hints that he received from any of these works on the
subject, so that the "Lucifer" is rightly considered one of the most
original and comprehensive poems in literature.

To whom Milton was indebted for the idea of his great epic is, on the
other hand, not so easy to discover, although generation after
generation of critics have thrown upon this problem the searchlight of
innumerable essays.

That the "Paradise Lost" is scintillant with many of the brightest gems
in the crown of the Greek and Latin classics is apparent even at a
cursory reading. That it is also studded with poetic paraphrases of many
modern authors has often been asserted.

However, the opportunity for originality was colossal, and Milton's
imagination proved equal to the task. The conception of "Paradise Lost"
alone makes it the grandest work of the imagination of modern times.

That the English poet occasionally borrowed a thought or a sentence can
not be doubted. Besides, he had a wonderful memory, long and tenacious,
which involuntarily emptied its gatherings into the flow of his thought
and into the stream of his discourse. That this was not always done
unconsciously is known from Milton's own confession, where he says: "To
borrow and to better in the borrowing is no plagiarie." And that he
bettered in the borrowing who can doubt? All that he touched turned to
gold; all that he thought came out transfigured. In the alembic of his
genius truth became beauty; the mortal, the immortal.

As the "Lucifer" and the "Paradise Lost" are both concerning the same
subject, and as they are both founded upon the Biblical account of the
creation, it is but natural that they should have much in common. A
comparison of the two poems, therefore, we feel sure would bring to
light some striking and curious resemblances and many equally strong and
remarkable contrasts.

As such comparison would expand this article beyond the prescribed
limits, we must leave it to the reader himself. Nor should he, for one
instant, forget the fundamental difference between the drama and the
epic.

The epic may wander through the dales of Arcady, along description's
slow, meandering way, to pluck the roses of beauty and the lilies of
sentiment there growing in so sweet abundance. The drama, with vigorous
step and bold, unerring eye, pursues a straight path to the mountain-top
of its climax, whence, with increasing momentum, it plunges down to its
awful catastrophe. It is the difference between narration and action.

We shall have to content ourselves, therefore, by a brief reference to
those who have already given this matter their attention.

That Milton was under great obligations to Vondel's drama has been
maintained by Dutch men of letters for generations. It has also become
the contention of several distinguished English critics. Even as far
back as 1825 the poet Beddoes, in a review of "Hayley's Life and
Letters" (_Quarterly Review_, vol. xxxi.), says: "An effect which has
hitherto not been noticed was then produced by the Dutch poets. In their
school Joshua Sylvester (who lived amongst them) learnt some of the
peculiarities of his versification; and if Milton was incited by the
perusal of any poem upon the same subject to compose his 'Paradise
Lost,' it was by studying the 'Lucifer' and 'Adam in Ballingschap' of
Vondel, for he tried his strength with the same great poet in the
'Samson Agonistes;' Vondel being, indeed, the only contemporary with
whom he would not have felt it a degradation to vie."

Mr. Edmund W. Gosse, in a brilliant essay entitled "Milton and Vondel,"
was, we believe, the first Englishman who gave the subject conscientious
study.

For this, on account of his knowledge of the difficult Dutch language,
he was peculiarly fitted. Mr. Gosse, in his own interesting manner,
tells how, during the seventeenth century, the Dutch, then one of the
most vigorous languages of Europe, was much more studied than it is
to-day; how the patriot Puritan, Roger Williams, having learned the
language in Holland during his exile there, taught it to John Milton,
then Cromwell's Latin secretary; how Milton also must have heard of the
great fame of the "Lucifer," and of the storm of fanatical opposition
that greeted its publication, from some of the Dutch diplomats whom it
was his place to entertain; how, too, he could hardly have been ignorant
of the name of the distinguished author of the drama, since it is known
that he was well acquainted with Hugo Grotius, who was a warm admirer
and the bosom friend of Vondel.

In addition to these and other reasons, Mr. Gosse then brings forward a
plausible array of internal evidence, showing many points of similarity
in the construction and in the treatment of the two poems, summing up
with the conclusion that Milton was undoubtedly under considerable
obligation to his great Dutch contemporary.

Rev. George Edmundson, M.A., of Middlesex, England, a graduate of
Oxford, in a scholarly and painstaking work of two hundred pages,
entitled "Milton and Vondel--a Literary Curiosity," next took up the
subject, carrying the comparison not only into these two poems, but into
all the works of Milton and into several others of Vondel.

Mr. Edmundson also discovered many wonderful coincidences and
innumerable parallelisms in phrase and in imagery. Inspired with the
motto, _Suum cuique honorem_, he has woven a tissue of most ingenious
arguments to prove that Milton borrowed assiduously from the "Lucifer,"
the "Adam," the "Samson," and other works of Vondel.

Mr. Vance Thompson, in the New York _Musical Courier_ of December 15,
1897, has also added some interesting data to the subject.

With all the conclusions of these gentlemen we are not yet, however,
prepared to agree. It is true we have not given the matter the
comparative study that they have given it. We would wait, therefore,
until we had thought more deeply about it before expressing our final
opinion. However, we believe that a critical and impartial comparison of
the two masterpieces will neither detract from the glory of Milton nor
dim the grandeur of Vondel.

THE SCENE OF THE PLAY.

"Lucifer" is not the story "of man's first disobedience," though this is
the outcome of the catastrophe. It is the drama of the fall of the
angels. Yet man is the one subject of contention. Our first parents are,
therefore, kept in the logical background of cause and effect. The
creation of Adam, his bliss and his growing eminence, were the prime
cause of the angelic conspiracy. The two-fold effect of the revolt was
to the rebellious angels loss of Heaven, and to Adam loss of Eden.

Vondel, moreover, follows the doctrines of certain theologians that
Christ would have become man even had Adam not sinned. Like Milton, he
measures the scene of his heroic action with "the endless radius of
infinitude," and by the artful use of terrestrial analogies conveys to
the reader that idea of incomprehensible vastness that the transcendent
nature of the subject demands. Vondel is, indeed, even more vague; the
drama not giving opportunity for detailed description. Both are a
wonderful contrast to the minute visual exactness of Dante.

The attempt to reconcile the spiritual qualities of the divine world
with the physical properties of this, necessarily introduces some
unavoidable incongruities. How can a material conception of the
immaterial be given save through the symbols of the real! How else can
the unknown be ascertained save through the equation of the known! How
else, save by visual and sensuous images, express such impalpable
thought!

    "Thus measuring things in Heaven by things on earth,"

the poet gives us a finite picture of the infinite; a picture which yet,
by means of shadowy outlines and an artistic vagueness, impresses us
with the awful sublimity of the illimitable and eternal. The physical
immensity of the poem is unsurpassed.

Humanized gods and Titanic passions shadowed by fate upon the immaculate
canvas of sacred legend--this is the play. The personality of the author
is never seen; yet when we know the man and his life, we cannot but see
therein the reflex of his own experience. The scene is in Heaven and
never leaves it. When actions occur elsewhere, they are described.

Infinities above the scene of contention, far beyond "Heaven's blazing
archipelagoes," where no imagination dares to soar, reigns He

                 "Before whose face
     The universe with its eternity
     Is but a mote, a moment poised in space."

There

          "Stand the hidden springs of life revealed,
     The wondrous mechanism from earth concealed.
     There Nature's primal premises appear
     In simple grandeur, deep and crystal clear,
     Flowing from out the heart of boundless ocean
     Of the eternal Now. With rapt devotion
     A myriad ministering forces there await
     The summons of His awful eyes of fate,
     The mandates of His all-compelling voice."

Far, far below those empyrean vaults is Earth, with its pristine
inhabitants. God and man--the Creator and the thing created, the First
Cause and the last effect--are both judiciously only introduced into the
drama by hearsay.

Deep in the vague immensity lies Chaos, the uninhabited, through which
the vanquished rebels are to be hurled to their endless doom.

But the poet also takes us

    "Where meteors glare and stormy glooms invest;"

as, leaving Elysium's fields of light, he views

                  "Hell's punishments and horrors dire,
     Its gulfs of woe and lakes of rayless fire,
     Where demons laugh and fiends and furies rage
     Round writhing victims whose parched tongues assuage
     No cooling drops of hope."

Such is the grand perspective from the scene of this stupendous drama.

THE PEACEFUL JOYS OF PARADISE.

The play opens as softly as the opening strains of some grand oratorio.
The first act is largely descriptive, a picture of the beautiful
serenity of Heaven and of the joys of Paradise.

Belzebub, the second devil, first comes on the scene, and, as he stands
upon those "heights flushed in creation's morn," by means of a few
words, vibrant with suggestion and of far-reaching import, he at once
gives us the key to the opening situation, indicating the relative
positions of the two chief personages of the drama--the antithesis of
Lucifer and Adam.

Apollion has been sent below to gain some tidings of the new race of
earth. With speedy wings he soars back through the blue crystalline and
past the wondering spheres, bearing a golden bough laden with choice
fruit, that apple sweet whose juice is wine of destiny. He is brimming
with enthusiasm over the wonders that he has just witnessed.

Belzebub, who has been anxiously awaiting his return, listens intently
to his glowing description of the beauty of Eden and its primal
innocence, occasionally interrupting with exclamations of wonder.
Question after question suggests itself to his excited imagination. At
first he is aflame with curiosity, then jealousy begins to tincture his
ardor, and his admiration soon changes into mockery.

Apollion then describes the primeval pair and their unalloyed bliss, and
confesses that in the delightful blaze of Eve's charms his snowy wings
were singed. Indeed, to curb his increasing desire, he covered his eyes
with both hands and wings. Even when godlike resolution had impelled him
to return on high, he thrice turned back a lingering gaze towards the
more than seraphic beauty of the first woman. Far sweeter than even the
music of the spheres, those nightingales of space, is this most
beautiful note in the song of creation!

Indescribably delicate is his account of the joys of that first marriage:

         "And then he kissed
     His bride and she her bridegroom--thus on joy
     Their nuptials fed, on feasts of fiery love,
     Better imagined far than told--a bliss
     Divine beyond all angel ken;"

adding, with exquisite pathos,

                                "How poor
     Our loneliness; for us no union sweet
     Of two-fold sex--of maiden and of man--
     Alas! how much of good we miss; we know
     No mate or happy marriage in a Heaven
     Devoid of woman."

With Belzebub, that mighty spirit severely masculine, it is the growing
power of the new race that furnishes food for thought and ground for an
ulterior motive. The prospect of human rivalry impresses him far more
than the description of a happiness to which the sexless angels must
ever be strangers. His soul is keyed in a grander, more passionless
mood. Apollion, however, cannot forget this charming vision of idyllic
joy. He repeats the same enchanting strain again and again. He even
forgets to answer his chief's questions, and returns to the same
fascinating theme in:

                            "Their life consists
     Alone in loving and in being loved--
     One sweet, one mutual joy, by them indulged
     Perpetually, yet e'er unquenchable."

In this masterly manner the two controlling motives of the play, the
envy of man's power, and the jealousy of human happiness, are seen to
originate. The latter, however, is soon merged into the former, for
Apollion, failing to elicit sympathy with his tenderer emotions, begins
to sympathize with the more heroic mood of Belzebub, and even attempts
to inflame it by artful suggestion.

The Archangel Gabriel, "The Herald from the towering Throne of Thrones,"
now approaches, with all the choristers of Heaven, to unfold the last
divine decree.

From the mouth of his golden trumpet fall the silvery tones of peace.
With jubilant tongue he praises the glorious attributes of the Deity and
the boundless beneficence of the Godhead. In yet grander strain he
prophesies the ascent of man,

    "Who shall mount up by the stairway of the world,
     The firmament of beatific light
     Within, into the ne'er-created glow:"

and foretells the future incarnation of the Son of God, who, "on his
high seat in his unshadowed Realm," shall judge both men and angels.

Here the chorus, after the manner of the antique drama, bursts into a
line of pious affirmation. Gabriel then continues his address in a
sterner tone. Obedience to the divine command, and honor to the new race
is henceforth the bounden duty of the angelic hosts. Then follows a
description of the three hierarchies of Heaven, founded upon the
doctrine of the Church Fathers, ending with an eloquent iteration of
the divine command. As yet all is serene. Even those spirits who soon
shall unfurl the black banner of rebellion in that "virgin realm of
peace" are yet unaware that within their breasts slumbers a passion
that, awaking, will fill those holy courts with the tumultuous discord
of revolt.

The ringing echoes of Gabriel's clarion trumpet have scarcely died away,
when, throughout the clear hyaline, millions of angelic choristers burst
into that sublime hymn of praise--that "anthem sung to harps of gold
"--the grandest ever penned:

    "Who is it on His Throne, high-seated?"

Triumphant songs and glad hosannahs now float down those "arching voids
of empyrean stair." "All that pleaseth God is well" is the devout
conclusion of this splendid outburst of celestial praise. Harmony
re-echoes harmony; and with this glorious ode of jubilation the act comes
to an end.

THE CLOUD OF CONSPIRACY.

In the second act, the protagonist first comes on the scene, like a god,

                              "With thunder shod,
     Crowned with the stars, and with the morning stoled."

He has until now been artfully kept in the background. Drawn by
fire-winged cherubim, he sweeps into view, and voices, in no uncertain
tone, his dissatisfaction with the divine decree.

Gabriel, the angel of revelation, is with admirable art now placed over
against the Stadtholder. Lucifer would argue--would know the exact
nature of Heaven's last decree. Gabriel, however, merely replies to his
eager questioning with a dignified affirmation of God's command, and
departs, leaving the divine injunction behind.

Belzebub, with untiring malignity, now prods the wounded pride of the
fiery Stadtholder, and Lucifer again and again blazes into the most
intense and bitter defiance. Listen to this speech, seething with the
soul of rebellion:

    "Now swear I by my crown upon this chance
     To venture all, to raise my seat amid
     The firmament, the spheres, the splendor of
     The stars above. The Heaven of Heavens shall then
     My palace be; the rainbow be my throne;
     The starry vast, my court; while down beneath,
     The Earth shall be my foot-stool and support;
     I shall, then swiftly drawn through air and light,
     High-seated on a chariot of cloud,
     With lightning-stroke and thunder grind to dust
     Whate'er above, around, below doth us
     Oppose, were it God's Marshal grand himself;
     Yea, e'er we yield, these empyrean vaults,
     Proud in their towering masonry, shall burst,
     With all their airy arches, and dissolve
     Before our eyes; this huge and joint-racked earth
     Like a misshapen monster lifeless lie;
     This wondrous universe to chaos fall,
     And to its primal desolation change.
     Who dares, who dares defy great Lucifer?"

Surely the spirit of revolt never found fiercer and more poetical
expression! Surely more eloquent and stupendous daring was never uttered
than the blasting fulminations of this celestial rebel, who now stands,
like a colossus of evil in the realm of good!

The leaders of the conspiracy then meet together and hatch their deep,
nefarious plot. Lucifer towers magnificent, the controlling spirit in
every plan, full of impelling thought and of tremendous action.
Apollion, that "master wit with craftiness the spirits to seduce," and
Belial, whose "countenance, smooth-varnished with dissimulation's hue,"
knows no superior in deception, at Lucifer's command now sow the seeds
of dissension broadcast throughout the Heavens. The dialogue between
these two celestial rogues shows great dramatic skill, and abounds in
subtleties worthy of the chief himself. Their whole plan seems to be:

    "Through something specious, 'neath some seeming guised,"

to win first the various chiefs and then the bravest warriors to the
standard of the Morning-star; and then with these

                          "For all eternity
     Mankind to lock without the gate of Heaven."

A high-sounding resolve,

    "That tinkles well in the angelic ear,
     And flashes like a flame from choir to choir."

The chorus of good angels again comes on the stage, and with antiphonal
harmonies reveals the growing discontent. How eloquently it pictures the
serene beauties of Heaven, now tarnished with "mournful mists from
darkness driven!" A beautiful and poetic synthesis of the preceding act!

THE GATHERING GLOOM.

In the third act, the Heavens are in a blaze of uproar. The rebellion is
now widespread; and revolution is imminent. The whole act is one grand
antithesis of the loyal and the seditious angels, or Luciferians, as the
latter are called. It is strophe and anti-strophe nearly all the way
through. It is argument and counter-argument from beginning to end.

With wonderful art, our sympathy for the rank and file of the
rebellious spirits is first awakened. One is made to feel that their
disaffection is genuine and that their sorrow is unaffected. They
represent the dissatisfied people, brought to the verge of frenzy by the
wily arts of the demagogue; the howling mob, wanting only the kindling
spark to flash into the flame of revolt; the maddened rabble, waiting
for the master-spirit to spur them into open revolution.

And the master-spirit appears. Belzebub, by his colossal hypocrisy and
diabolical cunning, succeeds in drawing them into an incriminating
attitude. Michael, austere and magnificent, approaches at this crisis,
and these two chiefs are then thrown into admirable juxtaposition.
Michael's grandeur has already been foreshadowed, and his character in
every way equals the conception of him that we were led to form.

Like Lucifer, he is preëminently the incarnation of action. He will not
argue. He does not appeal. He is a god of battle; not a divinity of
words. He is stern and powerful. He is terse and terribly severe; and
after a few words full of scathing scorn and ominous with threat, he
commands the virtuous angels to part at once from the rebellious horde.
He then leaves to learn the will of the Most High.

The disappearance of Michael is the signal for the advent of the head of
the rebellion himself. Lucifer now comes opportunely to the front. With
great art the meeting of the Field-marshal and the Stadtholder has been
avoided. Such a meeting would have brought about a premature crisis. The
Luciferians, in a splendid burst of appeal, beg the Stadtholder's
protection. To this appeal Lucifer replies in a speech that is sublime
in its hypocrisy. He professes blind attachment to God, and proceeds to
test their sincerity by skillfully opposing questions of prudence and
arguments of peace, while at the same time he admits, apparently with
great reluctance, that their grievances are well founded. He hopes, too,
that their displeasure will not be accounted as a stain on high, and
that God will forgive their righteous resentment.

When, however, he discovers that they are firm in their determination to
obtain their rights by force of arms, that they sincerely desire him as
their chief, and that at least one-third of all the spirits are already
numbered among the rebels, he throws off his mask, and quickly changes
front:

    "Then shall we venture all, our favor lost
     To the oppressors of your lawful right."

He now again appears as the imperious prince of revolt, and at
Belzebub's solicitation mounts the throne which the latter has
meanwhile prepared for him. Belzebub enjoins the hosts to swear
allegiance to Lucifer and to his morning-star, which oath is given with
a will, and the act is at an end.

The chorus of Luciferians then extol their leader in an ode breathing
defiance and blazing with the flame of rebellion. The clanging tread of
a mailed warrior resounds in every line. The note of triumph rings out
boldly; and with professions of fealty to their chief, and kindling with
adoration for his morning-star, they march off the stage. This ode is a
curious medley of antique metres, trochees, dactyls, and spondees,
attuned to tumultuous emotion. Boldly regular in its classic
irregularity, it echoes and re-echoes with the clamor of battle and the
shout of revelry. It is a pæan keyed in the strident chord of Hell.

Scarcely have these fiercely jubilant tones died away, when the good
angels follow with a plaintive ode of sorrow that is a striking
antithesis to the passionate outburst of hate with which the air is yet
reverberating.

Strophe and antistrophe proceed in the same mournful iambic measure, in
verses sweetly musical with curious rimes, when suddenly in the epode
they break into a livelier strain, and in tripping trochaics give voice
to an entirely different mood--a fiery indignation mingled with a deep
sense of the grave crisis that threatens the autonomy of Heaven.

Here, too, is a foreshadowing of the transcendent power that shall quell
this treason. Nothing can be more original and artistic than these
lyrics themselves. Nothing can be more harmonious than their blending
with the action. Vondel is never more admirable than here.

THE SEETHING SEAS OF SEDITION.

In the fourth act the rebellion has become a conflagration:

    "The whole of Heaven glows with the fierce blaze
     Of tumult and of treachery."

Gabriel, winged with command, comes on the scene, and orders Michael, in
the name of God,

    "To burn out with a glow of fire and zeal
     These dark, polluting stains."

Michael is astounded to learn of the treachery of Lucifer, and, in reply
to his inquiries, Gabriel gives a beautiful and pathetic account of the
progress of the revolt, and tells how the radiant joy of God became
overshadowed with mournfulness. Michael now summons Uriel, his
armor-bearer, to his side, and at once proceeds to put on his armor, at
the same time shouting his orders to his myriad legions around him. In
the twinkling of an eye the celestial host stands in marching array and
is rapidly hurried forward.

We are now transported into the hostile camp, where Lucifer is seen
questioning his generals as to the number and the disposition of his
forces. Belzebub replies with a lucid and highly colored report, saying
that the deserters sweep onward with

    "A rush and roar from every firmament,
     Like a vast sea aglow with radiant lights."

Lucifer is much pleased to learn this, and from his throne addresses his
flaming squadrons in a speech bristling with warlike reason and full of
indomitable courage.

He fully apprehends the enormity of his offense, and cunningly makes his
hearers equal sharers in his guilt. Retreat is now impossible. The
celestial Rubicon is crossed. They have already burnt all bridges behind
them. "Necessity, therefore," he says, "must be our law." If defeated,
God himself cannot wholly annihilate them; while if they chance to win,
"the hated tyranny of Heaven" shall then be changed into a state of
freedom; nor shall the angels then be forced

"To pant beneath the yoke of servitude forever."

Once more he demands the oath of allegiance, and is about to give the
command, "Forward!" when Belzebub espies the beautiful figure of Rafael
winging his golden way trough the crystal empyrean on a mission of
mercy.

Even Belzebub is touched at this unlooked-for sign of angelic affection,
and his tone, usually so sarcastic and so severely deliberate, as he
announces his advent, is softened to a transient tenderness. For once he
has forgotten his usual mocking air, and this exquisite touch does much
to relieve the sombre impression of his tremendous malignity.

Rafael, a celestial St. John, melting with love for the Stadtholder,
falls in a paroxysm of grief and tenderness upon his neck. We
intuitively feel that some secret bond of sympathy must bind these two
angels, so dissimilar in spirit and in character, together.

Lucifer, overwhelming in passion, gigantic in intellect, resistless in
will--magnificent in his whole personality; Rafael, sublime in devotion,
infinite in pity, immaculate in holiness--the apotheosis of all that is
beautiful! Lucifer, whose eyes flash ambition and whose heart flames
hate; Rafael, whose gaze is aspiration and whose soul is love! The
genius of evil and the spirit of virtue; the proudly wicked and the
meekly good! The infernal masculine stands confronted by the heavenly
feminine; harsh violence is caressed by loving gentleness, and pride and
humility embrace! Truly a masterly antithesis!

In a strain of glorious appeal, Rafael begs Lucifer to desist, and first
aims at the weakest point in his armor--his pride. How splendid his
description of Lucifer's glory! His former pomp is here artistically
pictured to heighten the contrast with his fall.

He next proceeds to threaten, and gives an equally vivid picture of the
horrible punishments--"the worm, endless remorse, and ever-during
pain"--reserved for him. He then offers his olive branch as a token of
divine mercy, and urges immediate acceptance before it is forever too
late. Truth offers hope to error on the high-road to despair; peace
pours her golden offering at the iron feet of war!

Lucifer, proud in his consciousness of strength, as the chosen head of
millions of angelic warriors, one-third of the entire spirit world, is,
however, unmoved. He asseverates that he merely wishes to uphold the
ancient charter. The standard of revolt is also the banner of right.
Duty has called; justice commanded; friendship inspired him to take this
step for the protection of the celestial Fatherland. He, too, then,

                            "With necessity,
     The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds."

Hear his own words:

    "I shall maintain the holy right, compelled
     By high necessity, thus urged at length,
     Though much against my will, by the complaints
     And mournful groans of myriad tongues."

Rafael stands aghast at the picture of such hardened wickedness. His
hairs rise with fear to hear the Archangel's shameless confession, and
he promptly accuses him of ambition and of gross deceit.

Lucifer, however, indignantly denies this, and proudly asserts that he
has always done his full duty. Rafael then reads aloud his evil purpose
as it is written in lurid letters on his heart. The astonished chief no
longer denies his lust for power, but claims the prerogative of his
position as the Stadtholder of God. At last he is brought to the
acknowledgment that the ascent of man is the stone upon which his
"battle-axe shall whet its edge."

Rafael, like an angel of light, then pleads with this spirit of darkness
in tones of sweetest tenderness. He stands here like a personified
conscience. He would be the guardian angel of the great Stadtholder.
Not a harsh word escapes the stern lips of the flaming Archangel. His
own vast knowledge and his deep heart testify how good are the
intentions of his friend. What visions are here called up of the happy
days of their friendship, when they basked in the untarnished splendors
of Heaven, before a thought of evil had tolled the funeral knell of
peace!

Argument after argument, in cumulative progression, falls from the
pleader's mellifluous tongue. Lucifer is stern and unyielding. Still
Rafael pleads on. For an instant Lucifer falters. Rafael sees his
advantage; and not only again offers him his olive branch, but appoints
himself as Lucifer's hostage with God--so sure is he of obtaining
mercy.

Lucifer is almost overcome; but the thought of his morning-star setting
in shame and darkness, and a vision of his enemies defiant on the
throne, still steels his heart in its obstinate resolve.

Rafael next pictures for him, in lurid colors, the lake of brimstone
down below, whose mouth yawns for his destruction. Once more, for the
third time, he offers the Archrebel the branch of peace, and promises
full grace.

Lucifer then gives voice to that grand soliloquy, beginning:

    "What creature else so wretched is as I?
     On the one side flicker feeble rays of hope,
     While on the other yawns a flaming horror."

Here he reveals for the first time his inmost heart. This is the crisis
of his career--the climax of the whole play. Nowhere is the suspense so
keen. One wonders how the Archangel will decide in this critical moment:

    "This brevity twixt bliss and endless doom."

His pride of will has in one stroke become a chaos of indecision. We are
made to sympathize with his terrible anguish, as the logic of his
remorse-throbbing conscience leads him to the bitter adversative:

    "But 'tis too late--all hope is past."

The ominous sound of Michael's battle trumpet rudely awakes him from his
revery, and forces him to the stern realization of the impending strife.
Just at this moment, also, Apollion soars into his presence with the
news of the near approach of God's Field-marshal.

Lucifer, however, is as yet too agitated, so soon after his sudden
apprehension of the enormity of his crime and of the terrible punishment
reserved for him in the probable event of his defeat, to respond with
alacrity to the summons. It is with great difficulty that he rouses
himself from his soliloquizing mood. He must think; but although he
feels far more than his followers that

    "The heavy bolt of war should not be weighed
     Too lightly,"

and although he well knows that the odds are against him, he has, by the
time that his other chieftains approach, quite recovered himself, and at
once gives the quick, sharp command of the soldier. The time for action
has come. Behind their towering leader, amid the blare of bugles and the
trumpet's stirring tones, his serried battalions march with waving
banners off the stage.

Of this busy scene Rafael, meanwhile, has been a silent but interested
spectator. Now alone in his sorrow, he melts into a compassionate
monologue; and, joined by the chorus, gives utterance to that beautiful
lyric of grief, that tender prayer so full of the sweet melody of
appeal, at the end of the fourth act. Amid the jarring clamor and the
frenzied shout of the departing squadrons, this anthem of mercy rises to
God like a benediction. Over the passion waves of the tumultuous hell of
rebellion around them, their voices tremble like the echoes of a heaven
forever lost.

Surely, the emotion of forgiving compassion was never combined with a
more musical sorrow. Here, as in all of Vondel's lyrics, there is a
perfect harmony between the form and the thought.

FLOOD AND FLAME.

At the opening of the last act, Rafael is discovered on the battlements
of Heaven. He is in a fever of anxiety to learn the result of the
contest, and peers into the empyrean for some sign of a messenger from
the field,

    "Where armies reel on slopes with lightning crowned."

The glad sounds of approaching triumph fall on his ear. Across the pure
hyaline now dart meteoric flashes of light. Each shield of the
victorious legions dazzles like a sun:

    "Each shield-sun streams a day of triumph forth."

Far in advance of the returning battalions speeds Uriel, "Angel with
swiftest wing," bearing the message of victory. With incredible
velocity--for he is winged with good news--he flashes through the air,
in his "aery wheels" exultingly waving his "flaming, keen, two-edged
sword." He has reached the serene altitude of Heaven. He has gained the
farthest wall. He is at hand.

Rafael is full of eagerness to hear the details of the fight, the
particulars of "this the first campaign in Heaven." Uriel then, "with
sequence just," gives a vivid account of the preparations for battle,
beginning with the moment when Gabriel first informed Michael of the
defection of the Stadtholder.

He tells how the countless loyal legions, at their chief's command,
deploy themselves in battle line until they form in serried rank

                            "One firm
     Trilateral host that like a triangle
     Thrust out its edges sharp upon the eye."

Michael, the Field-marshal, stands in the heart of this triangle,
towering high above his fellows, the personification of judgment,

                           "With the glow
     Of lurid lightnings in his lifted hand."

Splendid is the picture of the infernal host; their squadrons,

    "Battalion on battalion, riders pale
     On dim mysterious chargers,"

advance in the form of a crescent moon. Belzebub and Belial command the
two horns of this formidable array,

    "Both standing there in shining panoply,
     Vying in splendors grand."

Lucifer himself holds the centre, "the point strategic" of his army,
while Apollion behind him bears on high the lofty standard with its
streaming morning-star.

Rafael, in his excitement, occasionally interrupts this graphic
description with exclamations of wonder, and, as the story of the
terrible conflict progresses, also with occasional cries of horror and
of pity. Great art is shown in the introduction of these exclamatory
pauses into the long account of the battle scene. It not only gives the
narrator time to get breath, but voices the feelings of the listener,
and intensifies his suspense.

Then follows a brilliant account of the Stadtholder. As the rebel chief
is the protagonist, and as the seditious angels furnish the subject
matter for the drama, the poet has artistically described them at great
length. At last the two armies confront each other. We are now made to
see how they

    "Panted for strife and for destruction flamed."

Then follows the famous battle scene, which must be read in the poet's
own thrilling words. Here is action in every line, a battle stroke in
each word.

After the first onset, the celestial legions begin by circling wheels to
soar aloft, whence, like a falcon, they shall soon precipitate
themselves upon their enemies, who, having also risen, but with heavier
sail, are likened to a flock of drowsing herons, thrown into sudden
consternation by the sight of their dreaded foe.

Uriel now gives a striking picture of the grand perspective above--the
celestial legions, high in the empyrean, arrayed like a shining
triangle, the symbol of the Trinity; far beneath, the infernal phalanx,
gleaming like a crescent on the turbaned brow of night, the sign of the
Turk, whose ferocious hordes, even in Vondel's time, were yet thundering
at the gate of Christendom. Thus each army hangs:

    "Suspended like a silent cloud,
     Full weighted 'gainst the balanced air."

Again the celestial triangle, with terrific force, crashes into the
infernal half-moon, and flames of brimstone, red and blue, flash far out
into the sky. Thunderbolt on thunderbolt, unchained, leap with angry
roar into the surging horde, leaving havoc, ruin, and desolation in
their lurid wake. The centre of the half-moon begins to break; and its
pointed horns nearly meet together behind the resistless triangle.

Lucifer performs wonderful feats of valor. High on his blazing chariot,
he is a conspicuous figure. His fierce team, "the lion and the dragon
blue," symbolic of pride and envy, enraged by the battle-strokes rained
upon their starry backs, fly forward with fearful strides--the lion,
with dreadful bellows, biting and rending; while his terrible mate
shoots pest-provoking poisons from his frothy tongue, and,

                  "... Raving, fills the air
     With smoke blown from his nostrils far and wide."

On every side the infernal chief is surrounded by his enemies. They try
to overpower him with mere numbers. He parries every stroke, or breaks
their force upon his shield. He then waves his battle-axe aloft to fell
God's glowing banner, when Michael, clad in glittering armor, "like a
god amid a ring of suns," suddenly confronts him.

The Archangel sternly calls upon the rebel Prince to surrender. But
Lucifer, unmoved, three times with his war-axe strives to cleave the
diamond shield of Michael, wherein blazed God's most holy name. The axe
rebounds and shivers into fragments; and we cannot but sympathize with
the Archrebel, who is now in a bad plight indeed. The grand catastrophe
to which the swift current of his wickedness has been bearing him is at
last at hand, reserved with consummate art until the middle of this
act.

Michael lifts his terrible right hand, and through the helmet and head
of his disarmed but yet unconquered foe he smites his lightnings,
cleaving unto his very eyes. The force of this blow is such that Lucifer
is hurled from his chariot, which follows him downward, whirling round
and round in its descent:

    "Thus lion, dragon, driver, all plunge down."

In vain the fierce swarms of warring rebels attempt to stay their chief.
Uriel engages Apollion, and succeeds in wresting from him the rebel
banner with its morning-star. Belzebub and Belial still fight on; but
their legions are all confused. The crescent has now become a
disorganized mob,

    "And o'er them fell destruction rolls its flood."

In vain Apollion comes back into the field, reinforced by the monsters
from the firmament of Heaven, which may be supposed to typify, as Vondel
says in his preface, the abuse of the forces of nature by the Devil to
effect his evil designs.

Orion, shrieking until the very air grows faint, strives to crush the
head of the assault, that

                    "... Heedless of
     Orion or his club, moves grandly on."

The Northern Bears stand upon their haunches to oppose their brutish
strength. The Hydra gapes with poison-breathing throats. But, unmindful
of all these, the triangle still advances. Numerous other episodes, in
the meanwhile, are happening along the line of battle; but the suspense
is at last over. The victory of the celestial angels is a glorious fact.

Rafael now gives utterance to exclamations of praise, and asks Uriel
concerning the effect of his defeat on the fallen Archangel. Uriel then
recounts his terrible punishment, and relates how his splendid beauty
was now become, in falling, a complication of seven dreadful monsters,
typifying the seven deadly sins. That beast, says the narrator,

    "Doth shrink to view its own deformity,
     And veils with darkling mists its Gorgon face."

The fate of the protagonist being known, Rafael next wishes to learn
what became of the rest of the rebel host. Then follows the account of
the tumultuous rout, wherein the fleeing hordes, in their descent to
Hell, also undergo a metamorphosis into the forms of strange and uncouth
monsters.

At this point the triumphant Michael himself approaches with his
victorious legions, laden with glorious plunder. The celestial
choristers, strewing their laurel leaves, accompanied by the sound of
cymbal, pipe, and drum, now greet him with a song of jubilation which,
even more than most of Vondel's lyrics, is peculiar for the intricacy of
its rimes.

"Hail to the hero, hail," they cry. The spirit and liveliness of this
pæan are eminently suited to voice the long pent-up plaudits of the
angels. The regularity of this ode, with its rapid melodious swing, is a
marked contrast to the strident enthusiasm and the discordant harmony of
the chorus of Luciferians at the end of Act III.

As soon as the joyful reverberations of the battle-hymn have ceased to
roll through the interminable arches on high, Michael addresses his
legions and the assembled hosts in a speech of great dignity, ascribing
the glory of the victory to God alone. He speaks proudly of the spoils
of battle, which have already been hung on the bright axis of Heaven.

"No more shall we," says he,

    "Behold the glow of Majesty supreme
     Dimmed by the damp of base ingratitude."

He next pictures the defeated rebels as:

            "...All blind and overcast
     With shrouding mists, and horribly deformed."

Then he concludes with stern sententiousness:

    "Thus is his fate who would assail God's Throne,"

which the choristers as gravely repeat.

The expected catastrophe has occurred, and the terrible conclusion has
been described. In the stormy wake of the sad fall of the angels follows
the no less sad fall of man--the loss of

    "The primal innocence 'mid Eden's bowers."

The heaving, seething seas of rebellion, "swollen to the skies," have,
it is true, subsided; but again they gather momentum for one more wave
of disaster, which now breaks upon the shore of Earth, spreading death
and desolation throughout the sinless groves of Paradise; for Gabriel
now approaches and hurls into the joyful camp a thunderbolt of sad
surprise. "Alas! alas!" he cries, breaking into lamentation, "our
triumph is in vain;" and he announces the fall of Adam.

Michael is astounded, and shudders as he hears the news. With infinite
distress he listens to Gabriel's interesting account of how the
overthrow was effected. Gabriel first describes the "dim, infernal
consistory" far, far below. Here Lucifer called together all his
chieftains, who now

    "Unto each other turned abhorring gaze."

Then,

    "High-seated 'mid his councillors of state,"

the Archfiend, whose character is now shown in its full development,
addressed his followers in words full of bitter rage against God--a
striking contrast to the dignity of Michael's address.

His heart is now a hell of hate, boiling with passion for revenge. The
Heavens must be persecuted and circumvented, and this must be done by
the ruin of man. With prophetic eye he pictures his future dominion on
earth, and the myriad miseries into which the fall shall plunge mankind.
He then promises his fellow-conspirators the future adoration of the
human race, when as heathen gods and pagan deities they shall receive
the praise of countless multitudes of men.

At this point Michael breaks into fierce execrations, making a vow of
summary and condign punishment. Gabriel then continues to relate how
Lucifer selected Belial as the most worthy instrument to seduce the
happy pair. Belial, taking upon himself the form of the Serpent,
succeeds most fiendishly in his unholy mission, first, as in the
Biblical account, alluring Eve, who in turn tempts Adam. Their fall and
shame and misery are pathetically told. In the midst of this sad story
the chorus interjects its wail of sympathy, while Gabriel continues by
narrating the colloquy of the hapless twain with God.

Gabriel then gives the woeful details of their penalty, and presents a
dismal picture of future wretchedness, against the blackness of which,
however, is one bright star--the promise of the Strong One, the Hero who
shall crush the Serpent's head.

Gabriel now commands Michael to place all things in their wonted place
lest the malicious spirits should "further mischief brew." Michael, the
spirit of eternal order, then proceeds to reduce this chaos of evil to
final subjection.

He first sends Uriel down,

    "To drive the pair from Eden who have dared
     Transgress, so rash and blind, the primal law."

His duty it is, also, to force mankind

    "To labor, sweat, and arduous slavery."

He is, furthermore, to act as sentinel over the garden and over the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.

Ozias is enjoined to capture and securely bind the host of the infernal
animals with the lion and the dragon, who so furiously raged against
the standard of Heaven. Listen to this stern command:

    "Sweep from the sky these hordes accursed, and bind
     Them neck and claw, and chain them forcibly."

Azarias is entrusted with the key of the bottomless abyss, wherein he is
commanded to lock all that assail the powers of Heaven. To Maceda is
given the torch to light the sulphurous lake down in the centre of the
earth, wherein Lucifer, the evil-breeding protagonist, with poetic
justice, so near the scene of his last flagrant crime, is doomed to
endless solitary torment; there,

                    "... In the eternal fire
     Unquenchable, with chilling frosts commingled,"

        "Amid the bitter blast of memory's regret,"

to suffer the throes of ten thousand hells, and to discover

    "How slow time limps upon a crutch of pain,"

through an eternity of keen remorse.

For the last time the chorus comes on the stage, echoing in a brief
epilogue the one silvery voice of hope that speaks from that dark
conclusion of multitudinous despair.

It, too, gives promise of a brighter dawn, wherein the "grand
deliverer" shall cleanse fallen man of the "foul taint original,"
opening for him a fairer Paradise on high, where the thrones, made
vacant by the fall of the angels, shall, as in Cædmon, be filled by the
glorified souls of the children of men Thus the spectator is left
attuned to the triumph of Christ in the promised reconciliation, and the
work of redemption is made complete.

In this noble ending, evil, though not annihilated, is controlled; the
good is victorious; and Heaven is once more restored to its pristine
holiness. The fallen angels, the imperious lords of Heaven, have been
succeeded by the lowly third estate, the human worms whom they so much
despised.

Thus here, too, revolution has proved progression. The storm of war has
ceased, and above the thunder-mantled sky shines the glorious rainbow of
peace.

THE "LUCIFER" AS A DRAMA.

Like all of Vondel's dramas, the "Lucifer" is after the Greek model; and
surely that model was never inspiration for a more splendid tragedy.
Vondel's idea of the classic drama was derived from the close study of
the ancients and their modern Dutch commentators--Heinsius, Vossius,
Grotius, Barlæus, and other Latinists of renown.

The "Lucifer" is a tragedy after Chaucer's own heart:

    "Tragedis is to sayn a certeyn storie,
     As olde bokes maken us memorie,
     Of hem that stood in greet prosperité,
     And is yfallen out of heigh degree
     Into miserie, and endith wrecchedly."

There is no death, no blood, no murder. It is the drama of a magnificent
ruin!

The action of the play, pursuing the straight track of one controlling
purpose, and moving with terrible majesty to the goal of an inevitable
destiny, also makes it a tragedy in the larger dramatic sense. The
wonderful characterization and the overpowering ethical motive also make
its application universal. The epico-lyrical quality of this drama,
furthermore, gives it a force and cohesiveness unattainable by either
epic or lyric.

True, the "Lucifer" as a drama does not deal with men. However, this is
a distinction without a difference; for the characters, while they
command our awe as divinities not subject to the limitations of this
carnal shroud, the body, are yet sufficiently human to elicit our
warmest sympathy.

It is, moreover, a play full of heart-agitating passion; and it is
addressed, in a most extraordinary degree, to the moral nature--the
chief function of all tragedy. Here, too, as in the great drama of the
universe, the divine law is the first propelling cause of the action.

The clash of interests and the logical destiny of cause and effect carry
the tragic subject without apparent effort to its denouement. The causes
are everywhere adequate to produce the effects, and no trivial effects
are the result of the huge action; no mountain is set in travail to
bring forth a mouse. The disposition of the characters also conforms to
our sense of justice, and their development is everywhere within the
range of probability.

Besides the main theme, ambition, and the chief object,
self-aggrandizement, are various incidental themes and objects which
naturally arise out of the circumstances and conditions of the play.
This is, however, but natural, and only renders the drama more varied
and interesting; these little streams of interest being but tributaries
to the main stream of the action, contributing to, rather than
retarding, its majestic sweep to the Niagara of its catastrophe.

The drama, though concerning the divine beings of another sphere,
conforms, except where tradition or religion has invested these with
extraordinary qualities and powers, to the physical requirements of
this, thus making it more probable and the action more dramatic.

The dramatist is a veritable illusion-weaving magician, leading the
spectator through tortuous mazes of expectation into a labyrinth of
suspense. The end is reached, and lo! the path which appeared so
bewilderingly crooked is straight and direct, without a turn to its
starting point. Everywhere, too, the mind of the reader coöperates with
the mind of the poet in his logical appeals to the heart.

The action, moreover, has its mainspring in error, and ends in showing
the natural consequences of crime, with a picture of the sin atoned
though not unpunished.

Nowhere is the human interest of this drama lessened by grand scenic
displays. These are truly splendid; but even such sublime properties as
the universe affords only heighten the interest by showing that, after
all, "the thinking will" we call the soul is the noblest work of God. As
played on the stage, the drama must have had exceedingly simple, though
perhaps somewhat costly, accessories.

Nothing in the play is more admirable than the uninterrupted contrast of
thought and the constant antithesis of character. Nothing, furthermore,
can surpass the inimitable art with which the monologue is handled at
the critical moments that determine a character, as in Lucifer's
soul-revealing soliloquy in the fourth act. Here the action, though
still sweeping irresistibly on, seems to be in perfect poise, while the
inmost secrets of the heart are laid bare.

In his dialogue, also, Vondel is simple and direct. The conversation is
always used to recall, to suggest, or to display some motive that binds,
while, at the same time, it urges, the action. In such scenes, of
course, talk is action.

If art is, as some assert, a thing of proportions, then surely this
drama is entitled to the highest praise; for its proportions are
irreprehensible. If, too, as Ruskin says, "Poetry is the suggestion by
the imagination of noble grounds for the noble emotions," as a poem,
also, it is unsurpassed. There are, indeed, as many definitions of
poetry as there are poets. The "Lucifer" is Vondel's definition.

It is conception that suggests the correlated thought. It is
construction that shapes it to the stature of a grand design; and
construction is the highest form of the creative intellect; for was it
not this same power that framed the templed universe out of the
scattered fragments of countless millions of stars? It is in
construction, the highest requisite of the dramatist, wherein the
"Lucifer" is most grand. The architecture of the play is as symmetrical
as a beautiful Greek temple.

There is no obscurity in this classic drama, into which, moreover, the
poet has introduced enough of the modern romantic to lend it vivacity
and interest. Such a subject could not have been cast save in a classic
mould. The romantic drama would not have been equal to the majestic
dignity and the stately style demanded by this sublime theme.

Each act, with its own subordinate conclusion, is followed by a chorus
which not only fills the pause, but also intensifies, while at the same
time it relieves, the suspense. These choruses, noble melodies of
retrospect, are yet charged with the rumbling thunder of the coming
catastrophe. Each is, as it were, an incarnate conscience, the
concentrated echo of the preceding act, gathering around it the action,
and blending harmoniously with it.

Vondel is one of the few moderns who grasped the fact that the Hellenic
drama originated in rhythmic song, and that around the choral ode should
gather the action and the interest of the play. His chorus, therefore,
act both as singers and as interpreters of the action, relieving the
measured tread of stately tragedy with pauses of musical suspense.
Often, also, they break into the dialogue, and act as mediators and as
moralists.

The chorus represent the populi of Heaven, and voice the sentiments of
the many. The interchange of thoughts between chorus and chorus, and the
chorus and the persons, produces variety. To this the swift changes of
thought and emotion also contribute.

Here, also, as in the Greek dramas, we observe the proper subordination
of the chorus to the protagonist and the chief characters, and of the
lyric to the dramatic elements, while through the whole play the length
of the speeches is artfully suited to the character and the situation.
Much, too, might be said about Vondel's felicities of rime, his sweet
feminine rimes, his stately, sonorous hexameters, his trimeters and
tetrameters, his frequent use of the various classic metres, and his
admirable shifting of the cæsura to suit the feeling of the speaker.

The three unities are here also carefully preserved, which perhaps was
the more easily done on account of the divinity of the characters, to
which a celerity of movement was natural not possible to mortals.

Hence, the time of the whole drama from the inception of the revolt
until the final catastrophe could very probably be included in
twenty-four hours. The unity of action we have already spoken of. The
unity of place is equally well kept. The "Lucifer," hardly two thousand
seven hundred lines, including the choruses, conforms also in respect to
length to the classic standard.

The growth of the play is no less wonderful than the characterization,
many preparations and conspiracies developing at last into a battle,
many scenes into a definite situation; the numberless changes of cause
and effect at length resulting in a plot full of the force of an
action-impelling motive. Thus from the varied complexities of
circumstance and situation is at last evolved the one controlling
purpose.

A fine antithesis to the turbulent catastrophe is the quiet climax,
Lucifer's soliloquy in Act IV.; where, however, all that precedes is
resolved into one intense situation. The advent of Rafael here,
furthermore, is an unforeseen complication to heighten the interest.

The end, by suggestive reminiscence of the fading perspective of the
beginning, unites the commencement with the close, making the drama an
organic whole, whose soul is purpose and whose heart is truth.

The exquisite blending of the action with the characters, each shaping
the other, has rarely been equalled. It is the characters, after all,
that are the chief interest and that control the action. We see here the
strange anomaly of a classic play where the individual shapes the
action, and is yet conquered by law.

Here, where the will of a god clashes with the supreme will of the
Supreme God, great art is necessary to sustain human interest--to delay
the interposition of the superior deity until the very close.

The primary motive, self-exaltation, fails grandly; yet in its failure
it brings into partial fulfilment the secondary motive, the fall of man.
True, the logical catastrophe does not occasion surprise. It has all
along, as in every tragedy, been foreshadowed by circumstances big with
fate. Yet Vondel has added the element of surprise, and to a remarkable
degree, by the introduction of a second catastrophe, the expulsion of
Adam from Paradise, the natural result of the first. Thus curiosity and
reason only end with the play itself. One by one, too, the various
episodes are seen to spring from the action, which, moreover, requires
no introduction of antecedent circumstance to set it in motion.

The _ensemble_ scenes, or groups, a sure test of the great dramatist,
are handled in a masterly manner. There is also a delightful retardation
which heightens the suspense and delays the catastrophe, until, like an
electric cloud, it bursts into the thunder of its own generating.

Each messenger, in the play, brings vividly before the eye of the
spectator the consequential scene which he himself has just
witnessed--of which, perhaps, he has been a part.

Thus, by the artful use of motive-producing complications, the action,
once projected, moves on to its end, where the totality of figures,
thoughts, and emotions are drawn into one maelstrom of ruin.

There is no distraction. There is no swerving from the opening to the
catastrophe; from the catastrophe to the conclusion, the awful
retribution.

As in the tragedy of life, so, too, in this drama, the innocent suffer
through the punishment that overtakes the guilty; witness the sorrow of
Rafael and the good angels at the fall of their fellows; the sin of Adam
and Eve, and the doom pronounced upon their innocent descendants.

The truth of Vondel's poetic conception is seen in the fact that its
essential elements are coeval with man and coeternal with the universe.
As in Sophocles, we hardly know which most to admire, the balanced
proportions of the play, or its general conception. Here, also, we
often, in a single sentence, find a synthesis of a situation or a
character.

Vondel, moreover, most impressively introduces into the ancient Greek
form, with its suggestion of an over-ruling destiny, the modern idea of
free will. And he does it so admirably that there is no confusion.
Simple in its complexity, splendid in its largeness of design, grand in
its harmony, magnificent in its whole conception, the drama sweeps
irresistibly through the whole gamut of human emotion.

Such epic breadth and intense lyric concentration have rarely been
combined in one poem. Such a drama is, indeed, the sum of all the arts!

THE CHARACTERIZATION.

Vondel's devils are no devils, until the last act, when they act no
more, but are described. Then truly they are the incarnations of Hell's
deepest deviltries, and are as splendid in their malignity as they were
formerly superb in their wickedness.

The sophistries of these evil spirits are scarcely inferior to those in
"Faust." They are the meshes of a gigantic delusion woven by the leaders
of the conspiracy around the rank and file of the angels, seducing them
from bliss to doom.

Belzebub is the cynic of the play--a compound of Iago and
Mephistopheles. This dark contriver of hellish plots is colossal in his
malignity. He is the first in Heaven to make a prurient suggestion. He
is more fiend than his noble superior. Sleepless, unrelenting,
resourceful, alert, he conjures motives of evil even from the tender
beauty of the primal innocence. He finds the gall of hate even in the
sweet flower of Eden's sinless love. His is the deliberating intellect
necessary for the Stadtholder's counsellor; and though slowly unfolding
the many sides of his malign nature, he is, we feel, evil from the
beginning, grandly diabolical.

Belial, conscienceless and without remorse, is utterly depraved; a vile
seducer, the genius of deceit, who does evil for its own sake; a useful
tool to serve the baser purposes of the chief devil. Apollion has some
gleams of goodness in his nature, but is weak, lustful, and easily
influenced by the hope of gain--a type of the traitor. All of the
devils, and they are the chief characters of the play, may be supposed
to represent the different phases of evil; while the good angels, whose
characteristics have been but briefly indicated, show the different
attributes of the Deity.

As in the "Œdipus Tyrannus," "the country must be purged," so here,
too, the Heavens must be cleansed of "this perjured scum,"--the
rebellious angels.

We must now proceed to speak of Lucifer: his all-consuming wrath, his
ambition, his pride, and infernal energy. These traits are exhibited in
gigantic outlines even before his fall. After his defeat, what can be
more impressive than his all-enduring Archangelic passion, glorious in
its all-defying mood? Not his the wild outbursts nor the mad ravings of
Lear. Every ebullition of his anger is fraught with purpose, and is
transmuted into revengeful action. Mind and spirit are, after all, the
conquering forces of the universe. Material circumstance and physical
environment cannot thwart their design. It is this ennobling
consciousness of intellectual power, supplemented by unconquerable and
irresistible will, that makes the magnificence of the personality of
Lucifer. Like Milton's Satan, he is, we feel, most near a god when he is
most a devil.

Lucifer, like Macbeth, is not influenced all at once. With a god-like
circumspection, he first weighs every atom of probability. However, when
the die is cast and the line of rebellion has once been crossed, he
fights to the last ditch.

Lucifer is a sublime egoist--the spirit of negation placed against the
limitations of the positive. He is overpowering. No one, even for an
instant, dares to dispute his power, not even the grand Michael. His is
the unconquerable Batavian heart. He dominates the entire action, and
like a magnet draws all the other characters around him. Though jealousy
of man is the animating passion of the lower devils and the excuse of
the protagonist himself, yet we feel that he uses this merely as a
stalking horse for his overweening ambition. Lucifer would become God
himself. It is an unwritten law of great tragedy that the villain,
though a villain, must be admirable. Lucifer, arch-villain that he is,
is superb in his constructive villany--a very god of evil, with
resources at his command formidable enough to make or to mar a world,
and yet resulting only in his own undoing. Proud in the consciousness of
godlike powers, he thinks,

    "I have a bit of fiat in my soul,
     And can myself create a little world."

His confidence, however, proves to be but the fiat of his damnation.

"There is no fiercer hell than the failure in a great undertaking." Into
this hell Lucifer was forever thrust. Yet he is allowed one brief moment
of happiness; it is where he proclaims himself a god, and is worshipped
by his followers.

Lucifer is the prince of thinkers, and a monarch among actors. His is
the intellect to plan and to conceive, and the will to execute; and will
is above all the one quality emphasized. As much as he is in this
respect supereminent, so much greater the degree of his guilt. Could the
force of this faculty have been better shown than in the picture of the
fallen Archangel, where, in the agonies of torture and the throes of
expiation, he not only deliberates, resolves, and executes, but even
exults, as, culling the bitter sweetness of a hopeless hope from the
hell-flower of despair, he rejoices in the fiendish triumph that he
knows is but the prelude to everlasting doom? Unlike the unconquerable
and torture-racked Prometheus, he allows not one sigh to escape from the
depths of his anguish; not one moan rises from his abysmal despair.
Malediction alone can unlock his implacable lips. From even the caverns
of Hell he projects his evil genius back into space to accomplish a
predetermined revenge.

Lucifer reasons with Rafael and with Gabriel; but with Michael only war
is possible. The two chiefs are too equal in power, too proud, and too
warlike to waste time in words. Each, accustomed to command, will brook
no authority in the other. The pathos and the tenderness of Rafael, on
the other hand, present a strong relief to the sombre passions of
Lucifer. It is the ethical portraiture of this drama that is its most
powerful feature.

Lucifer, also, in a certain sense, represents the ideal
Dutchman--combining in a losing struggle the daring of Civilis and the
intellect of Erasmus with the astuteness and magnanimity of William the
Silent--a grand hero in a bad cause! Lucifer has indeed "set the time
out of joint" for Adam's seed; yet the play also gives promise of the
Christ who will again make all things right; there is here, also, a
suggestion of the "Paradise Regained."

The drama is ended; the thunders have ceased to roll, and are again
chained to the chariot of the Deity; the lightnings once more slumber in
the bosom of the night. The battle is over, the air is again pure and
clear. The good has been exalted; the bad has been debased. The heart of
the spectator, too, has been the scene of the battle of the passions:
terror, pity, hope, despair, love, joy, peace have each alternated in
brief possession. The _katharsis_ of the soul is accomplished. It has
been purified of all that is gross and earthly. It has become
spiritualized. It has become conscious of its wings, thrilled with
aspiration for the ethereal and for the stars beyond.

IS THE "LUCIFER" A POLITICAL ALLEGORY?

It is maintained by several eminent Dutch critics that the "Lucifer" is
a political allegory like the "Palamedes" and several other tragedies of
Vondel.

Some of these literati have displayed considerable ingenuity in their
attempt to prove that it typifies the struggle of the Netherlands
against Spain; Orange corresponding to Lucifer, Philip II. to God, Alva
to Michael, the Cardinal Granvelle to Adam.

Many of the situations of the play bear out this analogy. Lucifer, like
Orange, was the idol of his followers. Both desire to change a hated
tyranny to a state of freedom. Both speak grandiloquently of a charter
disannulled and of ancient privileges violated.

The simile of the sea dashing in vain against the rock in the
battle-scene of the "Lucifer" may be supposed to illustrate the device
of Orange: "_Sævis tranquillus in undis._" The crescent array of the
rebels may refer to the shibboleth of the water-beggars: "Rather Turk
than Papist."

The lion and the dragon that draw the chariot of the Archfiend are also
blazoned upon the crest of the two provinces, Holland and Zealand, which
were the chief supporters of Orange. The medley of seven beasts into
which Lucifer, in falling, was changed, may be taken to represent the
seven Northern provinces that became the Dutch Republic, while the
Southern provinces, which remained loyal to Spain, nearly two-thirds of
the whole number, may be typified by the faithful angels.

Lucifer renewed the fight three times; so did Orange. Both pretended to
fight "_pro lege, rege, et grege_."

In that age, before successful revolutions had established a precedent,
no revolt could hope for success unless by conforming to the maxim "the
king can do no wrong"--a cardinal principle in every religion of that
day. By this political fiction rebels professed to fight for the king,
though really fighting against him. Vondel pictured his revolt after
these examples, the most prominent of which was the revolt of his own
country against Philip II. Lucifer, however, fell, and Orange triumphed;
though the assassination of the latter might be taken as equivalent to a
fall. Lucifer accomplished the fall of Adam, even as Orange brought
about the expulsion of Granvelle. Alva, like Michael, furthermore,
received the charge "to burn out with a glow of fire and zeal" the
polluting stains of heresy. Egmont and Montigny, like Gabriel and
Rafael, acted as ambassadors.

The cause of the jealousy of the Netherlander, as in the "Lucifer," was
the fact that greater privileges were accorded to foreigners (the
Spaniards) than to the hereditary princes of the land. As in the drama
Gabriel's proclamation is followed by protest and rebellion, so in the
Netherlands the unjust edicts of Philip were the primary cause of
revolt.

It was the sworn duty of the Stadtholder, William of Orange, even as of
the Stadtholder Lucifer, to maintain the laws of his superior. Orange
also held a position similar to that of Lucifer. He was the favorite of
Charles V., Stadtholder of Holland, and Knight of the Golden Fleece.
Each placed himself at the head of the disaffected at their earnest
importunity. Each was accused of ambition. Each accomplished his designs
by Machiavelian methods, and attained a brief exaltation.

Cardinal Granvelle, who held a position similar to Adam in the drama,
was, like him, of low descent; and was honored with greater privileges
than even the nobles themselves, who hated him intensely. The opponents
of the Cardinal changed the liveries of their servants into motley to
mock him; so, also, we hear Lucifer say to his minions:

    "Lay off your morning rays and wreaths of light."

The nobles complained of the presence of Spanish troops in the land; so
the Luciferians speak of "Adam's life-guard, many thousand strong." The
arguments of the drama were also the arguments advanced by the several
parties in the Dutch revolt.

The three hierarchies of Heaven in the "Lucifer" correspond to
Margaret's three Councils of State. Lucifer, though described as nighest
to God, belonged only to the third rank of the hierarchies; just as
Orange, though first among the Dutch noblemen, and next to Philip II.,
was yet subject to the State as Stadtholder.

Brederode, as the head of the aristocrats who went with supplications to
Margaret of Parma, bears a close analogy to Belzebub, where the latter
says to the Luciferians,

    "With prayers ye first and best might gain your end,"

and where, too, he expresses his willingness to act as mediator. In this
scheme, furthermore, Apollion would represent Louis of Nassau, and
Belial, Marnix St. Aldegonde.

Others see in the drama the career of the great Wallenstein, the
ambitious Generalissimo of the Thirty Years' War. In his envy of the son
of his emperor, and in his desire to place the crown of Hungary on his
own head, an analogy is suggested to Lucifer's attitude to Adam. Even
as the celestial rebels swore their chief allegiance, so, too, his
generals, after the reverse of Pilsen, when his enemies wished to
deprive him of his command, swore him faith and fealty.

Vondel, it is asserted, was conscious of this when he dedicated this
drama to Ferdinand the Third, Emperor of Austria, who was no other than
the intended King of Hungary who had aroused the envy of Wallenstein,
and whose succession to the crown had been so much endangered by the
latter's treachery.

But there is yet another view of the subject, which has even more show
of probability than either of the others. It is supposed by many that
the "Lucifer" was intended to represent the English Rebellion of 1648.
Lucifer in this analogy is supposed to represent Cromwell, whom Vondel
hated so bitterly and against whom he thundered such tremendous
invective. Indeed, there are some external circumstances in support of
this theory. Speaking of his lampoons on the great English rebel, the
poet says that they were written the same year that he "taught Lucifer
his rôle to play." He also says elsewhere that the "Lucifer" was
presented,

                 "Forsooth, as edifying lore,
     Wherein proud England hath much store."

If the last supposition be true, the drama is remarkable as prophesying
the fall of the Commonwealth, and the Restoration. It would then,
moreover, not be uninteresting to compare it with Dryden's "Absalom and
Achitophel," in which Oliver Cromwell is also one of the chief
characters.

THE INTERPRETATION.

Yet we cannot believe that the "Lucifer" is a political allegory. Vondel
was no more the poet of the "Palamedes." Those thirty years had
wonderfully developed his art. Nor is it an idyllic allegory like the
"Comus;" but, like the "Divina Commedia," an allegory of the world. Yet
behind the characters of the sacred legend we may also see the national
heroes, Siegfried, Beowulf, Civilis, Orange.

The "Lucifer" represents the gigantic and eternal battle of evil with
good, with the universe as the battle-field--a type of the unending
conflict in which the good finally conquers. We see here the Oriental
imagination curbed by the reason of the Occident--the cold, statuesque
Greek form aglow with the blazing Hebrew soul. The flaming Seraph of
Christianity, winged with truth and armed with the lightning sword of
Jehovah and the blasting thunderbolts of Jupiter, sweeps triumphant
through the whole drama. Right prevails; wrong is overthrown.

The "Lucifer" is a theory of existence, a scheme of the universe. It is
the revolt of the aspiring ideal against the invincible actual. It is
the material against the spiritual; the unknown rendered comprehensible
by the symbolism of the known.

  "From shadowy types to truth; from flesh to spirit"

--this is the order of its progression.

It is the revolution of the speculative against the rule of dogma; an
impassioned contemplation of life, in which the whole gamut of human
feelings is harmoniously sounded; in which every link in the chain of
causation is struck into the music of its meaning; in which the past and
the future are mirrored in the present.

It is the struggle of a soul against the unchangeable environment of
fate; the drama of the collective human soul aspiring from a chaos of
unrest to the unattainable peace of absolute truth.

Furthermore, the tragedy typifies the character of the Hollanders
themselves; a people who, as Charles V. once remarked, made "the best of
subjects, but the worst of slaves;" a nation that has ever been in
revolt, not only against man, but even against the sublime forces of
nature; a race that has never known defeat.

The Batavians, who under Claudius Civilis carried on a successful
rebellion against the all-conquering eagles of Rome--the only Germans
who never bowed beneath the Latin yoke--and their Saxon descendants, who
were the strongest foes of the territorial aggressions of Charlemagne,
were all flamed with the same unconquerable spirit. It was this spirit,
too, that enabled the Hollanders of the seventeenth century, after more
than eighty years of terrible conflict, to free themselves alike from
the grinding oppression of Spain and the still more oppressive coils of
religious tyranny.

The Dutch struggle itself was a terrific drama, of which William the
Silent was the protagonist, and liberty the one controlling purpose that
animated every character, that impelled every action. It was the
details, the reasons, the arguments, and the conditions of this
stupendous struggle that were before the poet's mind when he wrote this
tragedy.

The "Lucifer," though a symbolic sketch of the age which preceded it, is
essentially a drama embodying the spirit of the time in which it was
created. It is a reflex of the life of that epoch, the embodiment of the
soul consciousness of the "storm and stress" period of Vondel's own
life. He himself was in perpetual revolt against the universal practices
of his age.

Is it a wonder that men, seeing in it not only a picture of themselves,
but also of their time, were at once attracted by its significance?

The Titanic imagination of the "Nibelungen" and the tremendous imagery
of "Beowulf" were both the inevitable expression of the tumultuous soul
of the Teuton, conscious of a great destiny. This was in the dawn of the
nation's childhood.

We next view the race in the pride of its glorious youth, rousing
itself, after the sleep of centuries, to gigantic action. From that age
sprang the "Lucifer."

We then see it in the maturity of noble, reflecting manhood, whose years
have given dignity and strength. "Faust" stands before us as its full
expression. And Vondel and Goethe are each the "Seeing Eye" that pierced
the hidden mystery of his time. Each in his own way solved the world
riddle.

Like "Faust," the "Lucifer" is "ever more a striving towards the highest
existence." True, the striving hero has here been hurled to the depths
of the lowest abyss; yet is not his motive also the animating spirit of
the race, ever onward and upward towards the unattainable?

Like the defeated Lucifer in Hell, the Teuton is ever evolving courage
for a new attempt, fired with the hope that never despairs.

"Siegfried," "Beowulf," and "Lucifer," all typify the Anglo-Saxon spirit
of revolt, that love of freedom and that strong individualism which has
always been the distinguishing characteristic of the Low Germans.

Of the "Lucifer," therefore, it may truly be said, it is the biography
of a national soul.

TRANSLATOR.

Bibliography of Vondelian Literature.

JOOST VAN DEN VONDEL, SEIN LEBEN UND SEINE WERKE. Von A. Baumgartner,
S.J. Freiburg-im Breisgau, 1882. Pages 344-347, synopsis of Vondel's
works.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF VONDEL'S WORKS. J.H.W. Unger. Amsterdam, 1888 (Frederic
Muller & Co.). All editions of the "Lucifer" are here mentioned. This
volume is in the library of Columbia University.

For the student we would recommend the excellent little edition of the
"Lucifer" edited by N.A. Cramer (1891). Price 40 cents. Publisher,
W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink, Zwolle, Holland.

BIOGRAPHY OF VONDEL. By Brandt. W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink, Zwolle.

BIOGRAPHY OF VONDEL. By Dr. G. Kalff. W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink, Zwolle.

We also heartily recommend the following studies by Dr. Kalff: "The
Literature and Drama of Amsterdam during the Seventeenth Century;" "The
Sources of Vondel's Works," in vol. xii. of Oud Holland (magazine);
"Vondel as Translator," in Tydschrift (magazine) Voor Nederlandsche Taal
en Letterkunde (1894); "Vondel's Self-Criticism," same magazine (1895);
"Origin and Growth of Vondel's Poems," same magazine (1896).

VONDEL AND MILTON. August Müller. 1864.

ÜBER MILTON'S ABHÄNGIGKEIT VON VONDEL. Berlin, 1891.

MILTON AND VONDEL: A Curiosity of Literature. George Edmundson, M.A.
Trübner & Co., London, 1885.

VONDEL AND MILTON. Edmund W. Gosse. "Northern Studies." Also in
"Littell's Living Age," vol. cxxxiii., page 500; and in the "Academy,"
vol. xxxviii., page 613.

David Haek (1854). JUSTUS VON DEN VONDEL: ein betrag zur geschichte des
Niederländischen schriftthums. Hamburg, 1890.

WORKS OF VONDEL, twelve volumes, in association with his life, by Jacob
van Lennep.

VONDEL'S LUCIFER. Agnes Repplier. "Catholic World," vol. xlii., page
959.

[Illustration: The Fallen Morning-star]

"Praecipitemque immani turbine adegit"

J. van Vondel's

Lucifer

A tragedy

1654

DEDICATION.

To the invincible Prince and Lord, the Lord Ferdinand the Third, elected
Emperor of Rome, Perpetual Increaser of the Empire.

As the Divine Majesty is throned amid unapproachable splendors, so, too,
the Sovran Powers of the world, which owe their lustre to God, and are
made in the image of the Godhead, are seated on high, crowned with
glory. But as the Godhead, or, rather, the Supreme Goodness, favors the
least and most humble with access to His throne, so, too, doth the
temporal power deem its most insignificant subject worthy to kneel
reverentially at its feet.

Inspired with this hope, my muse is encouraged from afar to dedicate to
your Imperial Majesty this Tragedy of Lucifer, whose style demands a
most liberal degree of that gravity and stateliness of which the poet
speaks:

    "Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragoedia vincit."

        "Sublime in style and deep in tone,
         The tragic art doth stand alone."

Though whatever of the requisite sublimity may be wanting in the style
will be compensated by the subject of the drama, and the title, name,
and eminence of the personage who, the mirror of all ungrateful and
ambitious ones, doth here invest the tragic scene, the Heavens; from
which he, who once presumed to sit by the side of God, and thought to
become His equal, was cast, and justly condemned to eternal darkness.

This unhappy example of Lucifer, the Archangel, and at one time the most
glorious of all the Angels, has since been followed, through nearly all
the centuries, by various rebellious usurpers, of which both ancient and
modern histories bear witness, showing how violence, cunning, and the
wily plots of the wicked, disguised beneath a show and pretext of
lawfulness, are idle and powerless so long as God's Providence protects
the anointed Powers and Dynasties, to the peace and safety of divers
states, which, without a lawful supreme head, could not exist in civil
intercourse. Therefore, God's Oracle Himself, for the good of mankind,
by one word identified the Sovran Power as His own, when He commanded
that to God and to Caesar should be rendered the things that to each
were due.

Christendom, so often attacked on every side, and at present beset by
Turk and Tartar, like unto a ship on a stormy sea, in danger of
ship-wreck, demands to the highest degree this universal reverence for
the Empire, that thereby the hereditary foe of Christ's name may be
repulsed, and that the Realm and its frontiers may be strengthened and
rendered safe against the incursions of his savage hordes; wherefore it
behooves us to praise God that it pleased Him to continue the Authority
and the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, at the last Imperial Diet,
before his father's death, in the son, Ferdinand the Fourth, a blessing
which has filled so many nations with courage, and which causes the
tragic trumpet of our Netherland Muse to sound more boldly before the
throne of the High Germans concerning the vanquished Lucifer, borne
along in Michael's triumph.

Your Imperial Majesty's Most humble servant,

J.V. VONDEL.

ON HIS MAJESTY'S PORTRAIT

On the Portrait of His Imperial Majesty. Ferdinand the Third.

When Joachim Sandrart van Stokou, out of Vienna, in Austria, honored me
with his Majesty's portrait, adorned with festoons and other ornaments.

                    _Deus nobis haec otia fecit._

The Sun of Austria uplifts his glorious rays
  From shadow-glooms of art to bless each wondering eye.
  Behold him on his throne, high towering in the sky!
Nor doth he scorn to beam on all his glance surveys.

Good Ferdinand the Third, born for the sovran crown.
  A Father of the Peace, a new Augustus, shows
  His Son the heights whereon the heavenly palace glows;
And teaches how with arms of Peace to win renown.

How blest the mighty realm, how blest their destinies,
  O'er which his gracious eyes keep sleepless vigils kind.
  And where he holds the Scales for holy Justice blind!
An Eagle brought him sword and sceptre from the skies.

A crown adorns the head which empires grand engage:
  This Head adorns the Crown, and makes a golden age.

VONDEL'S FOREWORD

A Word to All Fellow-Academicians and Patrons of the Drama.

To reïnkindle your zeal for art, and at the same time to edify and to
quicken your spirit, the holy tragic scene, which represents the
Heavens, is here presented to your view.

The great Archangels. Lucifer and Michael, each strengthened by his
followers, come on the stage, and play their parts.

The stage and the actors are, in sooth, of such nature, and so glorious,
that they demand a grander style and higher buskins than I know how to
put on. No one who understands the speech of the infallible oracles of
the Holy Spirit will judge that we present here the story of Salmoneus,
who, in Elis, mounted upon his chariot, while defying Jupiter, and
imitating his thunder and lightning by riding over a brazen bridge,
holding a burning torch, was slain by a thunderbolt.

Nor do we renew here the grey fable of the war of the Titans, in which
disguise Poesy sought to make its auditors forget their reckless
presumption and godless sacrilege, and to acquire a knowledge of nature
instead; namely, that the air and the winds, locked within the hollow
belly and the sulphurous bowels of the earth, seeking, at times, an
outlet, accompanied by the violence of bursting rocks, and by smoke and
steam and flames and earthquakes and dreadful mutterings, are vomited,
and, rising heavenwards, again descend, strewing and heaping the surface
of land and sea with stones and ashes.

Among the Prophets, Isaiah and Ezekiel assure us of the fall of the
Archangel and his faction. In the Evangelist, Christ, truest of all
oracles, with His voice, out of the Heavens, enjoins us to hear; and
finally, Judas Thaddeus, His faithful apostle; which parables are
worthy to be engraved in eternal diamond, and, more worthy still, upon
our hearts.

Isaiah cries: "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, who didst
rise in the morning! How art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound
the nations!

"And thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend to Heaven, I will exalt my
throne above the stars of God. I will sit in the mountain of the
covenant, in the sides of the north:

"I will ascend above the height of the clouds. I will be like the Most
High.

"But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit."

God speaks through Ezekiel thus: "Thou wast the seal of resemblance,
full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. Thou wast in the pleasures of the