BROUKHUSIUS (JONUS), or JOHN BROEKHUIZEN, a distinguished scholar in Holland, was born November 20. 1649, at Amsterdam, where his father was a clerk in the admiralty. He learned the Latin tongue under Hadrian Junius, and made a prodigious progress in polite literature; but, his father dying when he was very young, he was taken from literary pursuits, and placed with an apothecary at Amsterdam, with whom he lived some years. Not liking this, he went into the army, where his behaviour raised him to the rank of lieutenant-captain; and, in 1674, was sent with his regiment to America in the fleet under admiral de Ruyter, but returned to Holland the same year. In 1678, he was sent to the garrison at Utrecht, where he contracted a friendship with the celebrated Grænius; and here, though a person of an excellent temper, he had the misfortune to be so deeply engaged in a duel, that, according to the laws of Holland, his life was forfeited: but Grænius wrote immediately to Nicholas Heinus, who obtained his pardon from the Stadtholder. Not long after, he became a captain of one of the companies then at Amsterdam; which post placed him in an easy situation, and gave him leisure to pursue his studies. His company being disbanded in 1697, a pension was granted him; upon which he
Brouncker retired to a country-house near Amsterdam, where he
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Browallia. faw but little company, and spent his time among books.
He died December 15th 1707.
As a classical editor, he is distinguished by his labours upon Tibullus and Propertius; the latter was published in 1702, the former in 1708. He was an excellent Latin poet himself: a volume of his poems was published at Utrecht, 1684, in 12mo; but a very noble edition of them was given by Van Hoogstraeten at Amsterdam, 1711, in 4to. His "Dutch poems" were also published at Amsterdam, 1712, in 8vo, by the same person, who prefixed his life, extracted from Peter Burman's funeral oration upon him. Broukhuus was also an editor of Sannazarius's and Palearius's Latin works. With regard to his Latin poems, the authors of the "Journal de Trevoux" have delivered themselves thus (and what they have said may be applied to the bulk of modern Latin poems): "His verses are written in good Latin enough; but they want fire. We find in them a great many passages borrowed from Tibullus and Propertius, but not their genius. The author was a poet by art, not by nature."