Johan Meerman

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Portrait of Johan Meermans by Willem van Senus (1817)

Johan Meerman , Lord of Dalem and Vuren (born November 1, 1753 in The Hague , † August 19, 1815 ibid) was a Dutch statesman, scholar and writer.

Life

Johan Meerman was the only son of the learned book collector Gerard Meerman , who gave him a good education. Johan Meerman showed a marked talent for literary work at an early stage. At the age of ten years he translated with the help of his tutor, the Mariage forcé of Molière , and this translation was published in 1764 in Rotterdam in print. At the age of 14 he was sent to Leipzig to study in 1767 and Ernesti took him into the house. After spending a few years here, he went to Göttingen to continue his studies , where he made friends with Heyne , and finally to Leiden to complete his academic training .

After earning a doctorate in law , Meerman made a major trip through England , France , Switzerland , Italy , Germany and Austria in 1774 . In 1780 he published a supplement to the Novus thesaurus juris civilis et canonici published by his father . The French Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres awarded him a prize in 1784 for his treatise Comparer ensemble la Ligue des Achéens , celle des Suisses in 1307, et la ligue des Provinces-Unies in 1579 . In 1785 he married Anna Cornelia, b. Mollerus (1749–1821), widow of the Swiss lawyer and politician Abraham Perrenot . He was also aiming for a political career and had already tried several times in vain for an office in the local government of Friesland around 1780 , but then, thanks to a change in the political situation at the end of the 1780s, was twice city councilor of Leiden. In 1791, accompanied by his wife, he made another long trip through Prussia , Austria, Italy and Malta and returned to his fatherland in 1792. Close to the party of the nobility, he wrote a vicious pamphlet against the principles of the French Revolution when the French armies marched in 1793 . From June 1797 to September 1800 he toured Denmark , Sweden , Russia , Poland and Prussia with his wife .

From 1802 Meerman belonged to the departmental administration of Holland. During Napoleon's reign , he was promoted to General Director for Science and Art in October 1807. King Louis Bonaparte also made him a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Literature and Fine Arts ( Koninklijk Instituut van Wetenschappen, Letterkunde en Schoone Kunsten ) in Amsterdam in May 1808 . After the Netherlands was incorporated into the French Empire , Napoleon made him Count of the Empire on April 17, 1812, after he had already become one of the six Dutch members of the French Senate on December 30, 1810 . In his poem Montmartre (1812) , written in hexameters , he did not hesitate to direct submissive flattery to Napoleon. After his fall, he returned to The Hague. He died on August 19, 1815 at the age of 61 without heirs and bequeathed his father's rich library, which he himself had significantly increased, to the city of The Hague. When it was auctioned in 1824, it brought in 171,000 Dutch guilders. At this auction, Meerman's great-nephew Willem Hendrik Jacob, Baron van Westreenen van Tiellandt, acquired a substantial part of the book collection. When he died in 1848, he left the book collection to the Dutch state, and from 1852 it was housed in the Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum . Johan Meerman's widow, Anna Cornelia, who also made a name for herself as a poet, published a biography of her different husband.

Works (selection)

  • Geschiedenis van graaf Willem van Holland, roomsch koning , 5 vols., The Hague 1783–97
  • Some reports from Groot-Brittannien en Ierland , The Hague 1787
  • Discours sur les meilleurs moyens d'exciter le patriotisme dans une monarchie , Leiden 1789
  • Some reports omtrent de Pruissische, Oostenryksche en Siciliaansche monarchiën, benevens sommige daar aan bordering states , 4 vols., The Hague 1793–94
  • Hugonis Grotii parallelon rerum publicarum liber tertius 3 vol., Haarlem 1801–02, with Dutch translation
  • Dutch translation of the Messiah by Klopstock , The Hague 1803–15 (with 20 engravings and the portraits of the poet and the translator)
  • Some reports about the north and north of Europe , 6 vols., The Hague 1804-06
  • Hugonis Grotii epistolae ineditae, ex museo Meermaniano , Haarlem 1806
  • Aan den hoogleeraar Siegenbeek, over de vocaal-verdubbeling in het Nederduitsch volgens den Regel, withered de Commissie der psalmberijming in MDCCLXXIII zich ten dien opzichte heeft voorgeschreeven , Den Haag 1806
  • Over de blijken der Goddelijke wijsheid, welke de Geschiedenis oplevert , The Hague 1806
  • Josia , Antoninus Pius en Hendrik IV met elkander vergeleeken , The Hague 1807
  • Montmartre , poem, Paris 1812, with French prose translation
  • Discours sur le premier voyage de Pierre le Grand , principalement en Hollande , Paris 1812

literature

personal data
SURNAME Meerman, Johan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch statesman, scholar and writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1753
PLACE OF BIRTH The hague
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1815
Place of death The hague