Gerard Brandt

A well-known writer in his own time, his works include a Life of Michiel de Ruyter (1687, Het Leven en bedryf van den Heere Michiel de Ruiter - an important source on the admiral's life) and a Historie der vermaerde zee- en koopstadt Enkhuisen (1666, Geschiedenis van Enkhuizen - still an important source for that city's early history).

Aged 17 Gerard junior wrote the play De Veinzende Torquatus, later put on in the Amsterdamse Schouwburg, of which his father was regent.

Hooft in 1647, a translation of Jacques Du Perron's eulogy of Ronsard which he had performed by the actor Van Germez.

He also continued his own work, in which he was accused of plagiarism in Aen den onbeschaemden letter-dief, a speech in which he called Hooft "the only poet Amstel has produced", a clear attack on Vondel.

[2] In his work on the biographies of artists, Arnold Houbraken quotes Gerard Brand's biography,[3] relating the anecdote where Willem van de Velde the Elder asked Admiral de Ruyter permission to have a galley row him around for a good view of the proceedings on the evening of the sea battle in 1666, an event known as the Four Days Battle.