Carel Vosmaer

He studied law at the University of Leiden, obtaining a degree in 1851, and was for many years Deputy Recorder to the High Court of Justice in his native town, "an office he resigned in 1873, in order to devote himself wholly to art and letters.

It was not until after the sensational appearance of Multatuli (pen name of Edward Douwes-Dekker) that Vosmaer, at the age of forty, woke up to a consciousness of his own talent.

[2] Vosmaer became a contributor to, and then the leading spirit and editor of, a journal which played an immense part in the awakening of Dutch literature; this was the Nederlandsche Spectator, in which a great many of his own works, in prose and verse, originally appeared.

In 1881 he published an archaeological novel called Amazone, described as an "art-novel", the scene of which was laid in Naples and Rome, and which described the raptures of a Dutch antiquary in love.

In 1873 he went to London to visit his lifelong friend, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and on his return published Londinias, an exceedingly brilliant mock-heroic poem in hexameters.