HUYGENS, SIR CONSTANTIJN Dutch poet and diplomatist, was born at The Hague on Sept. 4, 1 S96. His father, Christiaan Huygens, was secretary to the State coun cil. Constantijn received a liberal education, became a master of Latin verse, a great gymnast, a good musician and an accom plished artist. After a year's further study at Leyden, he went, in 1618, to London with the English ambassador Dudley Carleton; he remained in London for some months, and then went to Ox ford, where he studied for some time in the Bodleian library, and to Woodstock, Windsor and Cambridge; he was introduced at the English court, and played the lute before James I. An inti macy sprang up between the young Dutch poet and John Donne, for whose genius Huygens preserved through life an unbounded admiration. He returned to Holland in company with the Eng lish contingent of the synod of Dort, and in 1619 he received a diplomatic mission at Venice ; on his return he nearly lost his life in scaling the topmost spire of Strasbourg cathedral. In 1621 he published his Batava Tempe, and in the same year he pro ceeded again to London, as secretary to the ambassador, Wijngaer dan, but returned in three months. During his third diplomatic visit (1621-23) his volume of satires, 't Costelick Mal, dedicated to Jacob Cats, appeared at The Hague. In the autumn of 1622 he was knighted by James I. In 1625 he was appointed private secretary to the stadholder, and in 163o a member of the privy council. In 1634 he is supposed to have completed his long talked-of version of the poems of Donne, fragments of which exist. In 1637 his wife, Susanna van Baerle, died. Their married life is celebrated in the didactic poem, Dagwerck. Ho f wi jck (16J3) describes the splendid house and garden which Huygens built for himself at The Hague. In 1647 he wrote his poem Oogentroost, to gratify his blind friend Lucretia van Trollo. Huygens wrote only one play, Tri jnt je Cornelis Klacht, which deals with the adventures of the wife of a ship's captain at Zaan dam. In 1658 he rearranged his poems, and issued them with many additions, under the title of Corn Flowers. He proposed to the Government that the present highway from The Hague to the sea at Scheveningen should be constructed, and during his absence on a diplomatic mission to the French court in 1666 the road was made as a compliment to the venerable statesman, who expressed his gratitude in a descriptive poem entitled Zees traet. Huygens edited his poems for the last time in 1672, and died in his 91st year, on March 28, 1687. He was buried, with the pomp of a national funeral, in the church of St. Jacob, on April 4. His second son, Christiaan, the eminent astronomer, is noticed separately.
Constantijn Huygens is the most brilliant figure in Dutch lit erary history. Other statesmen surpassed him in political influ ence, and at least two other poets surpassed him in the value and originality of their writings. But his figure was more dignified and splendid, his talents were more varied, and his general accom plishments more remarkable than those of any other person of his age, the greatest age in the history of the Netherlands. Huy gens is the grand seigneur of the republic, the type of aristocratic oligarchy, the jewel and ornament of Dutch liberty. As a poet Huygens shows a finer sense of form than any other early Dutch writer; the language, in his hands, becomes as flexible as Italian. His epistles and lighter pieces, in particular, display his metrical ease and facility to perfection.
See the complete edition by T. A. Worp of his works (9 vols., 1892 99), and of his correspondence (6 vols., 1913-17) ; also G. Kalif, Con stantin Huygens (1900). (E. G.; X.)