It is no wonder, then, that the guilds,
which had found favor formerly, should gradually be crushed, in
proportion as the rulers sought to check the spirit of reform. Among
the authors of this period may be mentioned Everaert and Machet. The
_refrain_ was much cultivated, and not, like the drama, for the
expression of dissatisfaction. Anna Byns, an oracle with the Catholic
party, wrote when the language was in its most degenerate state, under
Margaret of Austria. She was styled the Sappho of Brabant, though her
poems are all religious. They were translated into Latin, and were
read as masterpieces till the middle of the last century.
A taste for religious writing prevailed in the Netherlands throughout
the sixteenth century. William van Zuylen van Nyevelt first published
a collection of the Psalms of David. These, in imitation of the French
Calvinists, were sung to the most popular melodies. Zuylen found many
imitators. The Catholic party composed songs in opposition to the
Reformers; and we have psalms and songs by Utenhove, the painters Luc
de Heere and Van Mander, by Van Haecht and Fruytiers. A long list of
obscure names, if we except those of Marnix and Houwaert, is mentioned
as belonging to this period,--their works mostly didactic or
controversial. Houwaert, a Catholic, one of the avowed friends and
partisans of the Prince of Orange, courted the Muses in the hottest
days of civil strife. He published a poem, in sixteen cantos, entitled
"The Gardens of the Virgins," tending to show the dangers to which the
fair sex is exposed, and condemning as unreal all love not centred in
God.
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