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5 ‘Dear Song’: Scholarly Whitewashing of the Correspondence between Constantijn Huygens and Dorothea van Dorp I want here to explore the self-fashioning of a successful seventeenthcentury individual via the written form most typical of self-awareness in the period – the familiar letter. Nowhere is that image-shaping more energetic, pragmatic and, we might say, obvious than in Constantijn Huygens’s early personal life, as this ambitious young member of the élite circle in The Hague explored every available avenue of patronage and service, so as to assure himself a successful and privileged future career. 1 Yet precisely here, it seems, scholars have tended to turn a blind eye to the amount of self-construction involved in crafting his meteoric rise. Rather than subjecting the early letters to close critical scrutiny, they have preferred to accept Constantijn’s self-evaluation – as a virtuous, unassuming, amiable sort of a fellow – at face value. They have, furthermore, largely used Huygens’s highly contrived early poems as the biographical basis for their account. 2 1 Huygens’s early letters home to his parents from his embassy trips abroad are full of descriptions of his manoeuvring to secure himself a desirable official appointment, and he displays considerable self-consciousness about this: ‘Il faut que le contentement cede un peu à la necessité, mon tour viendra s’il plait à Dieu’ (J. A. Worp, De Briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens (1608–1687). [’s-Gravenhage 1911–1917] nr. 25 [not transcribed]). In a letter to his parents (usually his enthusiastic supporters in every move to secure a future role for himself at court) written in January 1622, Huygens responds to a rebuke from them which suggests that even they are finding his aspirations towards preferment excessive. They have, it seems, commented on his high-blown language: ‘Je ne considere point sur quoy se fonde la reproche de mon stile affetté. Certes, quand l’envie m’en prendroit, le loisir m’en reculeroit bien. C’est une vanité que j’ay tousjours detestée en autruy, evitée en moy mesme. Aussi n’est ce point devers mes parents que je presumeroye d’en user. Je pense m’estre esvertué au possible, en vous faisant entendre ce qui me vient au devant en aussi peu de paroles que les affaires de mes maistres me permettent de jetter à la haste; d’affiquets ou de fard ne croyez pas que je m’y mette. Ce seroit me friser les cheveux, où à grand peine ay-je loisir à me les peigner’ (Worp, nr. 120). 2 On Huygens’s life, see most recently J. Smit, De grootmeester van woord- en snarenspel. Het leven van Constantijn Huygens (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980). On Huygens and ‘Dear Song’ 65
In many ways, this is surprising. There are plenty of clues to be found in Constantijn’s early poems revealing the extent of his selfconscious efforts towards appropriate presentation of himself and his emotions for success in public life at this time. Thus, for example, Jan Bloemendal and Ad Leerintveld have elegantly excavated the way he uses contemporary, typically Dutch emblem books, such as Otto Vaenius’s Amorum Emblemata, to construct a highly wrought, conventionally recognisable version of the emotional bond between himself and the ‘girl next door’, Dorothea van Dorp, as a virtuous friendship, in his January 1619 poem ‘Is ‘t quelling sonder maet’. 3 Each stanza of that poem – which he may have presented in manuscript as a gift to Dorothea – is contrived from a carefully chosen emblem, so as to craft and locate their feelings for one another into a form identifiable within a well-understood contemporary context, thereby proposing a passionate commitment directed towards spiritual and intellectual, rather than worldly (let alone carnal) goals. Bloemendal and Leerintveld prefer not to reach a conclusion as to the motive behind Huygens’s flamboyantly erudite verses. I suggest that ‘Is ’t quelling sonder maet’ is a well-executed example, carefully matched to contemporary expectations (the very basis for a plausible self-fashioning) for the consumption of those around the pair who might remark on their intimacy, of the poetic re-presentation of an actual love affair as a conventional, appropriately chaste, morally admirable and decorous, socially acceptable literary relationship. Although not a reliable source of the ‘facts’ behind the Huygens Dorp affair, Huygens’s poetry may give us some pointers towards decoding their contemporary epistolary exchanges. The careful Dorothea van Dorp, see J. A. Alberdingk Thijm, ‘Constantin Huygens en de familie van Dorp’, De Dietsche Warande (1864) 465–89, and ‘Constantin Huygens. Onuitgegeven Hss. en nadere letterkundige bizonderheden. Nog iets over Dorothea van Dorp’, De Dietsche Warande (1869) 477–82; J. A. Worp, ‘Brieven van Constantijn Huygens aan Dorothea van Dorp’, De Dietsche Warande (1892) 335–44; F. L. Zwaan, ‘Huygens en Dorothea’, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 98 (1982) 131–6; E. Keesing, Het volk met lange rokken. Vrouwen rondom Constantijn Huygens (Amsterdam: Querido, 1987) and ‘Hoe is het met Dorothée van Dorp verder gegaan?’, De Zeventiende Eeuw 3 (1987), 115–24. On Dorothea van Dorp, see J. M. L. Lechanteur: ‘Dorp, Dorothea van’, in Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DVN/ lemmata/data/DorotheavanDorp. 3 J. Bloemendal and A. Leerintveld, ‘De “Literaire” vriendschap tussen Constantijn Huygens en Dorothea van Dorp: Een verliefde jongen te rade bij een emblematicus?’, Spiegel der Letteren 47 (2005), 275–85. See also A. Leerintveld (ed.), Constantijn Huygens, Nederlandse gedichten 1614–1625. Historisch-kritische uitgave, verzorgd door Ad Leerintveld, 2 vols (Den Haag: Constantijn Huygens Instituut, 2001), Monumenta Literaria Neerlandica 12, 1–2. For a full, commented version of Vaenius’s Amorum Emblemata (1608), see the full text and transcription in the collection of online emblem books at Utrecht University: http:// emblems.let.uu.nl/v1608.html. 66 TEMPTATION IN THE ARCHIVES
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lisa Jardine Temptation i n t he Ar
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Temptation in the Archives Essays i
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For Arnoud Visser Amicus est tamqua
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which brought down the barrier betw
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Acknowledgements I owe so many debt
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Contents CHAPTER ONE Temptation in
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the northern Netherlands of Frederi
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Laud by letter to have Margaret pai
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knowledge. There is little doubt th
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As the record of [Elizabeth of Bohe
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me that in all her time checking Gr
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St Leger (who has a better nose tha
Page 29 and 30: Croft had suggested to me. But unfo
Page 31 and 32: Dickens, Thomas Babington Macaulay
Page 33 and 34: 2 1688 And All That: Some Curious C
Page 35 and 36: The Dutch success was so sudden and
Page 37 and 38: my own fortune, and I had already p
Page 39 and 40: clear in his letters to Constantijn
Page 41 and 42: of Pembroke), first published in 16
Page 43 and 44: He visited Wren’s new buildings:
Page 45 and 46: was only so far, given university p
Page 47 and 48: contribution he would be able to ma
Page 49 and 50: Island of Fuego, which is one of th
Page 51 and 52: announcing that they would retaliat
Page 53 and 54: we last parted. However, I have spo
Page 55 and 56: Since my Letters from Cape Coast we
Page 57 and 58: our Philosophers here are not incli
Page 59 and 60: In february 1664 as I remember my
Page 61 and 62: Fifty years have not changed that p
Page 63 and 64: Holland [beaver] hat’. Would Huyg
Page 65 and 66: sitting for by Michael van Mierevel
Page 67 and 68: collection of works of art, to esta
Page 69 and 70: This important piece of internation
Page 71 and 72: you where I am now living. Furtherm
Page 73 and 74: I have received no response. So you
Page 75 and 76: of the Stadholder. This gives us a
Page 77 and 78: The owner of this outstanding instr
Page 79: okered or presided over with the as
Page 83 and 84: Critics have identified this poem a
Page 85 and 86: In spite of her celebrated talents,
Page 87 and 88: source of all virtue, and I can gua
Page 89 and 90: Even more strikingly, the two lette
Page 91 and 92: with her ‘snow-white throat’ an
Page 93 and 94: the affection I vowed to the seruic
Page 95 and 96: First, Constantijn orchestrates - l
Page 97 and 98: understand the way things are in de
Page 99 and 100: 6 The Afterlife of Homo Ludens: Fro
Page 101 and 102: To be sure, since the 1980s, schola
Page 103 and 104: Colie’s contribution depended on
Page 105 and 106: In Colie’s own important book, Pa
Page 107 and 108: village community, clarifying the r
Page 109 and 110: ‘Imposture’ stands not as an is
Page 111 and 112: poised between engagement and detac
Page 113 and 114: of ill-health. For the remainder of
Page 115 and 116: My whole book . . . is an explorati
Page 117 and 118: Appendix I ‘Temptation in the Arc
Page 119 and 120: que par charité. M[onsieur] le duc
Page 121 and 122: Worp 1033. Aan den Hertog van Bouil
Page 123 and 124: Mlle Croft’s intercepted letter:
Page 125 and 126: d’Enchuysen: ou entre autres chos
Page 127 and 128: liures de poids depuis quatre ans q
Page 129 and 130: the Burgomaster of that place visit
Page 131 and 132:
and looked like one too. Another ch
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children of fortune: but with those
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Letters from Christiaan Huygens to
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Appendix III ‘Never Trust a Pirat
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nay though equated w th . a Cycloei
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stiff and not at all plyable betwee
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& france. nor could I find any bett
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t dragen sal, warme sij mijn groote
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arré et enmanché par Maistre Nico
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manger de lavenaizon d’Angleterre
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à S[eigneur] Thomas, mais à vous
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l’ingratitude qui la puisse dispu
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il y a en Sa parole, qu’il m’es
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Colie, Rosalie L. 45-6, 64, 86-91,
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jewellers, jewellery 15, 57-60 Jews
Page 161 and 162:
society 69, 96, 98-9 behaviour in 9
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