HELMERS, JAN FREDERIK, a popular Dutch poet, one of whose works is still frequently reprinted and much read in Holland. He was born at Amsterdam in 1767, was educated for commerce, but after the success of an ' Ode to Night' and of a poem in three cantos entitled 'Socrates,' gave himself up to literature, and published his principal poem, 'De Hollandsehe /s'atie,' or 'The Dutch Nation,' not long before his death, which took place on the 26th of February 1813. The work is divided into six cantos, the first treating of morality, the second of heroism by land, the third of heroism at sea, the fourth of navigation, the fifth of sciences, and the sixth of flue arts, in all of which the 'Dutch nation' is represented as leaving all other nations immeasurably in the rear. In the sixth canto we are gravely told that "no Briton, no Gaul, no Garman, no Italian" will be admitted by the poet to excel his countrymen in the domain of the fine arts, but he condescends to add that there was one race "that even more than equalled it," and allows that the Greeks surpassed the Dutch.
In another passage he calls attention to the fact that his countrymen could boast of a Vondel, when the barbarism of Shakspere still sounded beautiful to British ears. The only excuse for the hyper belie 11 laudation of his countrymen which pervades the poem is that it was published at a period when Holland was lying crushed beneath the feet of Napoleon, and when a patriot might naturally revolt at the contempt with which he saw the real glories of his country treated. But though the poem contains passages of considerable merit, its continued popularity is not creditable to the fine feelings of taste, which in one passage the poet asserts is born with every Dutchman.