HEINSIUS, DANIEL, a distinguished Dutch scholar, was born at Ghent, of a noble family, in 1580. The Low Countries were then distracted by civil wars, which compelled his father to fly with him for safety to England. After a short residence in that country, the family returned home, and the young Heinsius was sent to Franeker to study law. He soon exchanged law for Greek, however, and removed from Franeker to Leyden to enjoy the tuition of Joseph Scaliger. After holding some minor appointments at that university, he was made professor of politics and history at the age of twenty-five, and, on the death of Paul Merula, librarian and secretary of the university. His editions of the classics made him so famous that his services were courted by nearly every crowned head in Europe, but he steadily refused to leave his country, whose historiographer he had now become. In 1618 he acted as secretary to the synod of Dort, having already distinguished himself in the theological controversies of the day. In his later years he suffered greatly from the failure of his memory. He died Feb. 23, 1655. His works consist of—Editions of the Greek and Latin classics, or works of criticism connected with them, amounting to eighteen in number—Latin poetry, particularly Iambi; Atriacus, a tragedy; Herodes Infanticida, also a tragedy; De Contemptu Mortis, a poem in four books; fugitive pieces under the titles of Extemporanea and Juvenilia, and some Greek poems; Latin harangues, which have been collected under the title of Orationes Varii Argumenti, Leyden, 1615, 1620, in 12mo; Rerum ad Sylvam Ducis atque alibi in Belgio aut a Belgis anno 1629 gestarum Historia, Leyden, 1631, in folio. (J. v.—E.)