HOOFT, PETER CORNELIUS, an eminent Dutch poet and historian, and, with his great contemporary Vondel, the real founder of the Dutch stage, was born in 1581, at Amsterdam, of which city his father was burgomaster. After finishing his education at Leyden, he spent three years in foreign travelling, chiefly in France, Germany, and Italy. In the latter country in particular he devoted much time to the study of the mechanism of verse, which he mastered so thoroughly that his drama of Granida, published soon after his return home in 1601, is reckoned to this day one of the masterpieces of Danish literature, both for the harmony of its rhythm and the graceful elegance of its diction. In 1609 Hooft was appointed drossard of Muiden, a village about 5 miles from Amsterdam, where he spent the remainder of his life. During the whole of this period his house was the rendezvous of all the cultivators of polite letters in Holland, who were attracted to it both by the
Hoogheveen literary renown and the great social and moral worth of the host. Hoofft was twice married, and on both occasions very happily. His first wife died in 1624; his second survived him.
Hoogheveen Unlike most writers, Hoofft's fame is twofold. His merits as a historian and prose-writer are nowise inferior to his merits as a poet; and the services which he rendered to the prose literature of his country are both in kind and in degree as memorable as those which he rendered to the poetical. His History of Holland, one of the earliest, remains to this day one of the best of the Dutch classics, and is proudly pointed to by the countrymen of the author as a model of grace, purity, and vigour, both of thought and style. Hoofft displays most originality, however, in his Minnedigte, a collection of miscellaneous pieces in the style of Anacreon, whose grace, lightness, and fancy, have been very happily caught. In this vein he is still without a rival in Holland, unless perhaps Poot may claim the honour of that title. Hoofft died May 21, 1647, at the Hague, whither he had gone to attend the funeral rites of the Stadtholder Frederic Henry.