soon made him one of the most brilliant members of the "Oude Kamer" and of the circle which met at the house of Hooft and Roemer Visscher. He was one of Tesselschade's many admirers and suitors, but his humble birth and convivial tastes did not recommend him to her father. But his experiences as a "lustig gezel," and an ensign in the Town Guard, made him intimately acquainted with the life of the people, and his best work in drama and song is that which reflects their life and moods.
Of Brederoo's comedies we shall speak later. His Boertigh amoreus en aendachtigh Groot Liedt-Boeck (1622) contains, as the name indicates, humorous, love, and religious songs. The first are by far the best, and it is only regrettable that he did not write more of them instead of essaying the more artificial and conventional love-poetry, in which he could not vie with the cultured Hooft. The Boerengezelschap, beginning—
"Arent Pieter Gysen, met Mieuwes, Jaap en Leen,
En Klaasjen, en Kloentjen, die trocken t's amen heen
Na 't Dorp van Vinckeveen
Wangt ouwe Frangs, die gaf sen Gangs
Die worden of ereen";[1]
- ↑ "Arent Pieter Gysen, with Mieuwes, Jaap, &e., went all together out to the village of Vinckeveen; for old Frana gave his geese to be ridden off." This barbarous sport consisted in riding under a live goose hung on a line by the feet, and pulling off its head in passing. It might be done from a punt carried swiftly under the rope stretched across the stream. Brederoo's poem has all the phases presented in Christ's Kirk on the Green and similar popular poems—the gathering in the morning, the jollification, the quarrel, and the dispersion. Wangt, Frangs, gangs for want, Frans and gans, are due to the Amsterdam pronunciation.
