JOHN, a Protestant writer of great learning, born at Oudenarde in Flanders in 1555. He was designed for the study of divinity; but his father being outlawed, and deprived of his estate, they both retired to England, where the son became professor of the oriental languages at Oxford: but upon the pacification of Ghent, they returned to their own country, where Druus was also appointed professor of the oriental languages. From thence he returned to Friesland, where he was admitted Hebrew professor in the university of Franeker; the functions of which he discharged with great honour till his death in 1616. His works show him to have been well skilled in Hebrew; and the states-general employed him in 1600 to write notes on the most difficult passages in the Old Testament, with a pension of 400 florins a-year: but being frequently disturbed in this undertaking, it was not published till after his death. He held a vast correspondence with the learned; for besides letters in Hebrew, Greek, and other languages, there were found 2300 Latin letters among his papers. He had a son John, who died in England at 21, and was a prodigy for his early acquisition of learning; he wrote Notes on the Proverbs of Solomon, with many letters and verses in Hebrew.