HEINSIUS, or Heins, Daniel (1580-1655), one of the most famous scholars of the Dutch Renaissance, was born at Ghent, June 9, 1580. The troubles of the Spanish war drove his parents to settle first at Veere in Zealand, then in England, next at Ryswick, and lastly at Flushing. In 1594, being already remarkable for his attainments, he was sent to the university of Franeker to perfect himself in Greek under Henricus Schotanus. He stayed at Franeker half a year, and then settled at Leyden for the remaining sixty years of his life. There he studied under Joseph Scaliger, and there he found Marnix de St Aldegonde, Janus Douzι, Paulus Merula, and others, and was soon taken into the society of these celebrated men as their equal. His proficiency in the classic languages won the praise of all the best scholars of Europe, and offers were made to him, but in vain, to accept honourable positions outside Holland. He soon rose in dignity at the university of Leyden. In 1602 he was made professor of Latin, in 1605 professor of Greek, and at the death of Merula in 1607 he succeeded that illustrious scholar as librarian to the university. The remainder of his life is recorded in a list of his productions. He died at the Hague, February 25, 1655. The Dutch poetry of Heinsius is of the school of Roemer Visscher, but attains no very high excellence. It was, however, greatly admired by Martin Opitz, who was the pupil of Heinsius, and who, in translating the poetry of the latter, introduced the German public to the use of the rhyming alexandrine....
He published his original Latin poems in three volumes— Iambi (1602), Elegice (1603), and Poemata (1605); his Emblemata Amatoria, poems in Dutch and Latin, were first printed in 1604. In the same year he edited Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, having edited Hesiod in 1603. In 1609 he printed his Latin Orations. In 1610 he edited Horace, and in 1611 Aristotle and Seneca. In 1613 appeared in Dutch his tragedy of The Massacre of the Innocents ; andin 1614 his treatise De politica sapientia. In 1616 he collected his original Dutch poems into a volume. He edited Terence in 1618, Livy in 1620, published his oration De contemptu mortis in 1621, and brought out the Epistles of Joseph Scaliger in 1627.
HEINSIUS, Nikolaes (1620-1681), Dutch scholar, was the son of Daniel Heinsius, and scarcely less illustrious than his father. While, however, Daniel was the type of the stationary scholar, Nikolaes was by temperament restless and peripatetic. He was born at Leyden, July 20, 1620, and early displayed an extraordinary precocity. His boyish Latin poem of Breda Expuynata was printed in 1637, and attracted much attention. In 1642 he began his wanderings with a visit to England in search of MSS. of the classics; it is unhappily recorded that he met with great discourtesy from the English scholars. In 1644 he was sent to Spa to drink the waters; his health restored, he set out once more in search of codices, passing through Louvain, Brussels, Mechlin, Antwerp, and so back to Leyden, everywhere collating MSS. and taking philological and textual notes. Almost immediately he set out again, and arriving in Paris was welcomed with open arms by the French savants. After investigating all the classical texts he could lay hands on, he proceeded southwards, and visited on the same α k uest Lyons, Marseilles, Pisa, Florence (where he paused to issue a new edition of Ovid), and Rome. Next year, 1647, found him in Naples, from which he fled during the reign of Masaniello; he pursued his labours in Leghorn, Bologna, Venice, and Padua, at which latter city he published in 1648 his volume of original Latin verse entitled Italica. He proceeded to Milan, and worked for a considerable time in the Ambrosian library; he was preparing to explore Switzerland in the same patient manner, when the news of his father’s illness recalled him hurriedly to Leyden. He was soon called away to Stockholm at the invitation of Queen Christina, at whose court he waged war with Salmasius, who accused him of having supplied Milton with facts from the life of that great but irritable scholar. Heinsius paid a flying visit to Leyden in 1650, but immediately returned to Stockholm. In 1651 he once more visited Italy; the remainder of his life was divided between Upsala and Holland. He collected his Latin poems into a volume in 1653. His latest labours were the eliting of Velleius Paterculus in 1678, and of Valerius Flaccus in 1680. He died at the Hague, October 7,1681. Nikolaes Heinsius was one of the purest and most elegant of modern Latinists, and if his scholarship was not quite so perfect as that of his father, he displayed higher gifts as an origiml writer.
HEINSIUS, Nikolaes, an illegitimate son of the subject of last article, was born in 1655 at the Hague. At the age of twenty he wrote The Delightful Adventures and Wonderful Life of Mirander, a work of extraordinary humour and genius, the sole original romance produced in Hollιnd during the 17th century. Dr Ten Brink has pointed out that Mirander preceded Gil Blas, which it curiously resembles, by at least forty years. The author, however, added nothing else to literature. He was disowned by his father, driven from the house, and in 1677 had to flee the country on account of a murder which he committed at night in the streets of the Hague. He lived a precarious life as an outlaw in Paris, Rome, and elsewhere, and died in obscurity.
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