Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831), Poet and Historian

Early in 1810 Willem Bilderdijk seemed to have come through. One of the best-known Dutch poets of his day, he had refused in 1795 to swear loyalty to the new Batavian Republic, which cost him 11 years of exile, first in London and then in Germany. He came home in 1806, and King Louis Napoleon, the brother Napoleon had put on the Dutch throne, took him up. Bilderdijk taught the king Dutch and became his librarian.

Hodges painted him at his table with his books, Homer's works among them. The papers in front of him belong to the epic he was writing for the king, The Destruction of the First World. Six months later Louis abdicated and the country was annexed to France. Bilderdijk lost the king's generous salary, and the epic stayed unfinished.