ANTONIDES VANDER GOES, JOHN, an eminent Dutch poet, born at Goes in Zealand, the 3d of April 1647. His parents were Anabaptists, people of good character, but of low circumstances. They went to live at Amsterdam when Antonides was about four years old;
Antonides, old; and, in the ninth year of his age, he began his stu-
Antoninus. dies, under the direction of Hadrian Junius and James
Cocceius. Antonides took great pleasure in reading
the Latin poets, and carefully compared them with
Grotius, Heinſius, &c. By this means he acquired a
taste for poetry, and enriched his mind with noble
ideas. He first attempted to translate some pieces of
Ovid, Horace, and other ancients; and, having formed
his taste on these excellent models, he at length
undertook one of the most difficult tasks in poetry, to
write a tragedy: This was entitled Trazil, or, The in-
vasion of China. Antonides, however, was so modest,
as not to permit it to be published. Vondel, who was
then engaged in a dramatic piece, which was taken
also from some event that happened in China, read An-
tonides's tragedy; and was so well pleased with it, that
he declared, if the author would not print it, he would
take some passages out of it, and make use of them in
his own tragedy. He accordingly did so; and it was
reckoned much to the honour of Antonides, to have
written what might be adopted by so great a poet as
Vondel was acknowledged to be by all good judges.
Upon the conclusion of the peace between Great Bri-
tain and Holland, in the year 1674, Antonides wrote
a piece, entitled Bellona aan band, i. e. "Bellona
chained;" a very elegant poem, consisting of several
hundred verses. He next wrote an ingenious heroic
poem, which he entitled The River Y (the river on
which Amsterdam is built).
Antonides's parents had bred him up an apothecary;
but his remarkable genius for poetry soon gained him
the esteem and friendship of several persons of distinc-
tion; and particularly of Mr Buſſero, one of the lords
of the admiralty at Amsterdam, and a great lover of
poetry, who sent him at his expence to pursue his stu-
dies at Leyden, where he remained till he took his de-
gree of doctor of physic, and then his patron gave him
a place in the admiralty. In 1678, Antonides married
Susanna Bermans, a minister's daughter, who had also
a talent for poetry. His marriage was celebrated by
several eminent poets, particularly by the famous Pe-
ter Francius, professor of eloquence, who composed
some Latin verses on the occasion. After marriage, he
did not much indulge his poetic genius; and within a
few years he fell into a consumption, of which he died
on the 18th September 1684, being then but thirty-
seven years and a few months old. He is esteemed the
most eminent Dutch poet after Vondel. His works
have been printed several times, having been collected
by Father Antony Tanſz. The last edition was
printed by Nicholas Ten Hoom, at Amsterdam, in
the year 1714, in 4to, under the direction of David
Van Hoogſtraaten, one of the masters of the Latin
school of that city, who added to it also the life of the
poet.