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The first Dutch pastoral romance in its second, most complete edition edited by Caspar Barlaeus

HEEMSKERK, Johan van.
Batavische Arcadia, waar in, onder 't loof-werck van liefkooserytjes, gehandelt werdt, van den oorspronck van 't oud Batavien, vryheydt der Bataviers, vrye zee, zee-vonden, vinders van verburgen schatten, verbeurt-maecken van goederen, uyt-perssen der waarheid door pynigen, onheyl van de lanckwyligheyde der rechts-plegingen, en andere diergelycke ernstige saken meer.

With engraved frontispiece including two scenes with the 'Janplezier' (charabanc) in which the youths make their trip.

With engraved frontispiece including two scenes with the 'Janplezier' (charabanc) in which the youths make their trip.

With engraved frontispiece including two scenes with the 'Janplezier' (charabanc) in which the youths make their trip.

With engraved frontispiece including two scenes with the 'Janplezier' (charabanc) in which the youths make their trip.



Amsterdam, for Gerrit Jansz., 1647. 12mo. Contemporary vellum with title in ink on spine. With engraved frontispiece including two scenes with the 'Janplezier' (charabanc) in which the youths make their trip. 916 (53, 1 blank) pp.

First complete edition of the famous Batavische Arcadia, the first pastoral romance in Dutch, by Johan van Heemskerk (1597-1656). In 1637 Heemskerk's Inleydinghe tot een ontwerp van een Batavische Arcadia was published for Gerrit Jansz. by Nicolaes van Ravensteyn in Amsterdam, which contained only 233 pp. The present very much enlarged edition contains, besides the index and epilogue, no less than 916 pp. 
On demand of Van Heemskerk this edition was finished and edited by the famous professor of the Athenaeum Illustre in Amsterdam and Neo-Latin poet Caspar Barlaeus. As a member of the High Court, Van Heemskerk was so busy that he could not find time for it himself. Barleaus added many scholarly annotations, partly in Latin, and signed the epilogue with 'C.V.B.' = Caspar Van Baerle.
The work describes an excursion of youths in a so-called 'Janplezier' (charabanc) from The Hague to Leiden, Katwijk (on the coast), and Wassenaar. A party of 'nymphs and shepherds' go out on a holiday trip of one day, and there indulge in polite and pastoral discourse, full of brightness and versatility. The report of the trip offers, interwoven with popular pastoral and love-songs, a wealth of information and instruction on Dutch antiquity, history, navigation, law (with an excursion on the objectionable rack), etc., and was dedicated to Dutch youth. It is interesting to note that the author demanded of the parents to tell their children stories of the 80-years War etc., rather than 'stupid' fairy-tales full of witchcraft and superstition.

Johan van Heemskerk, Dutch poet, was born at Amsterdam and entered the university of Leiden in 1617. In 1621 he went abroad on a Grand tour, leaving behind him his first volume of poems, Minnekunst (The Art of Love), which appeared in 1622. He was absent from Holland for four years, during which time he was made master of arts at Bourges in 1623, and in 1624 visited Hugo Grotius in Paris.
He proceeded to Amsterdam in 1640, where he published in 1647 with the help of Barlaeus, his most famous work, this much enlarged edition of the Batavische Arcadia, which he had founded on the Astrée of Honoré d'Urfé. The romance has enjoyed a great popularity for more than a century, and passed through twelve editions. It provoked a host of more or less able imitations, of which the most distinguished were the Dordrechtsche Arcadia (1663) of Lambert van den Bos, the Saanlandsche Arcadia (1658) of Hendrik Soeteboom and the Rotterdamsche Arcadia (1703) of Willem den Elger.

Good copy from the library of Albertus Perk ('Hilversum, 1860'; 1795-1880: a prominent magistrate and historian from Hilversum; the Hilversum historical society is named after him).- (Frontispiece and title half loose).
Muller 23; De Vries 12; Van Doorninck 281; Bodel Nijenhuis 954; Scheurleer, Liedboeken, p. 159; Waller 687; Cat. Six I, 1419; Worp, in: Oud Holland, 7 (1889), pp. 97-8.

Related Subjects: 17th Century  Dutch  Literature  Low Countries  Music  Songbooks 

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