EFFEN, JUSTUS VAN, a Dutch man of lettere of the 18th century who was connected in various ways with the literature of France and England, was born ou the 11th of February (old style) at Utrecht, and studied at that univeraity and at Leyden, where he finally took his degree as Doctor of Law. So early as at the age of fifteen he became private tutor to the son of a nobleman at the university, aud spent the greater part of his life in the same IMO of occupation, for which he seems to have been peculiarly qualified. It was not till he was seven teen that he became acquainted with the French language, of which he made himself such a master that some of his anonymous productiona in it had the honour of being attributed to Fontenelle. His first work of any conaeqnence was Lo Misanthrope,' a series of periodical essays in French on the plan of the English Spectator.' The original had been commenced at London in March 1711, and the imitation made its appearanco at the Hague in May—a atriking proof of the rapid popularity of the masterpieces of Addison. Three years afterwarda Van Effen visited England in the capacity of secretary of embasay to the Baron Van Waaseoaer Duiveuwoorde, the father of his first pupil, who was sent by the States to congratulate George L on his accession to the throne. He afterwards made a second visit as secretary of embassy to Count Van Welderen, who was sent on a similar occasion to congratulate George II. Theae journeys, and one which he made to Sweden as a companion to the Prince of Hesse-Philipethal, seem to have been the only occasions of his leaving Holland.
When he was first in London he heard so much in society of Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' and of the difficulty, if not impracticability, of transferring its force and humour to any other language, that he resolved to make the attempt, and produced a successful French translation. He afterwards rendered the same service to the Guardiau' when it appeared, and to 'Robinson Cruaoe.' His most important literary labours however were in connection with the, `Journal Littdraire,' a review published in the Hague, in which Van Effen took the principal part, sometimes writing whole numbers, and in which he had for a colleague, among othera, Dr. Maty, who after
wards resided in England, and became principal librarian of the British Museum. All these works and some others, La Bagatelle,' Le Nouveau Spectateur,' dm, were in French, and Van Effen, who had never been in France, was forty-seven years of age before he published anything in his native language. In 1731 he commenced, and, as was usual with him anonymously, 'De Hollandache Spectator,' or ' Dutch Spectator,' a fresh imitation of the English work, which he had begun his literary career by imitating. He kept it up with very little assistance till the 8th of April 1735, and he died on the 18th of September in the same year at Bois-le-due, where he bad been living for some time in easy competence, on the profits of a place which had been secured for him by one of his patrons.
The French works of Van Effen were collected and published at Amsterdam in 1742, in five volumes, with his life prefixed. Another and fuller life by Verwer is given in the second edition of his Hollandsche Spectator,' published at Amsterdam in 1756. The French works have long ceased to be reprinted; the Dutch one, which is by much Van Ellen's beat, is still in high repute for the beauty and lucidity of its style, in regard to which Van Effen may be considered as the Addison of Holland. In the select collation of the Dutch classics now publishing by Fuhri at the Hague, one volume is formed by 'feat and Earnest, from the Dutch Spectator.' The pieces which have been taken in this selection are chiefly ethical essays or pictures of manners, one of which Kobus en Agnietje,' a sketch of courtship among the middlo classes, is especially popular; but to an English reader some of the most interesting portions of the `Spectator' are those which are omitted, the frequent references to English society, manners, and language, which have the recommendations of coming from an enlightened foreigner who had seen the London of Addison and Pope.