Bilderdijk

Bilderdijk, Willem, poet, was born in 1756 at Amsterdam. He studied law at Leyden, and while there, as well as when pursuing his calling as an advocate at the Hague, cultivated literature and the Muses. He left his country on its invasion by the French, and amongst other places visited London, supporting himself by lecturing. In 1806, when he went back to the Netherlands, Louis Buonaparte, who was now king, appointed him president of the new institute at Amsterdam, and he was otherwise well treated. Many of his publications are translations or imitations; of his original pieces the best known are Rural Life and The Love of Fatherland. Besides some war songs he also wrote a geological treatise and a History of the Netherlands. He died in 1831 at Haarlem.