Everything about Jacob Cats totally explained
Jacob Cats (
November 10,
1577,
Brouwershaven (
Zeeland) -
September 12,
1660,
the Hague) was a
Dutch poet,
humorist,
jurist and
politician.
Having lost his mother at an early age, and being adopted with his three brothers by an uncle, Cats was sent to school at
Zierikzee. He then studied law at
Leiden and at
Orleans, and, returning to Holland, he settled at the Hague, where he began to practise as an advocate. His pleading in defence of a person accused of
witchcraft brought him many clients and some reputation. He had a serious love affair about this time, which was broken off on the very eve of marriage by his catching a tertian fever which defied all attempts at cure for some two years. For medical advice and change of air Cats went to
England, where he consulted the highest authorities in vain. He returned to Zeeland to die, but was cured mysteriously by a strolling
quack. He married in 1602 a lady of some property,
Elizabeth van Valkenburg, and thenceforward lived at
Grijpskerke in Zeeland, where he devoted himself to farming and poetry.
In 1621, on the expiration of the twelve year truce with Spain, the breaking of the
dykes drove him from his farm. He was made pensionary (stipendiary magistrate) of
Middelburg; and two years afterwards of
Dordrecht. In 1627 Cats came to England on a mission to
Charles I, who made him a
knight. In 1636 he was made
Grand Pensionary of Holland, and in 1648 keeper of the
great seal; in 1651 he resigned his offices, but in 1657 he was sent a second time to England on what proved to be an unsuccessful mission to
Oliver Cromwell. In the seclusion of his villa of Sorgvliet (Fly-from-Care), near the Hague, he lived from this time till his death, occupied in the composition of his autobiography (
Eighty-two Years of My Life, first printed at Leiden in 1734) and of his poems. He died on the 12th of September 1660, and was buried by torchlight, and with great ceremony, in the Klooster-Kerk at the Hague. He is still spoken of as Father Cats by his countrymen.
Cats was contemporary with
Hooft and
Vondel and other distinguished Dutch writers in the golden age of Dutch literature, but his
Orangist and
Calvinistic opinions separated him from the liberal school of Amsterdam poets. He was, however, intimate with
Constantijn Huygens, whose political opinions were more nearly in agreement with his own. Hardly known outside of Holland, among his own people for nearly two centuries he enjoyed an enormous popularity. His diffuseness and the antiquated character of his matter and diction, have, however, come to be regarded as difficulties in the way of study, and he's more renowned than read. A statue to him was erected at Brouwershaven in 1829.
See Jacob Cats, Complete Works (1790-1800, 19 vols.), later editions by van Vloten (Zwolle, 1858-1866; and at Schiedam, 1869-1870): Pigott, Moral Emblems, with Aphorisms, etc., from Jacob Cats (1860); and
P. C. Witsen Geijsbeek,
Het Leven en de Verdiensten van Jacob Cats (1829). Southey has a very complimentary reference to Cats in his Epistle to Allan Cunningham.
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