WANDERING WOODS AGAIN 51
dus’ posthumous poemata of 1541 there is one book of Silvae; its title
was probably given by the editors, his two brothers, and in this case it
seems to imply “leftovers”. Anyway, most of these poems are very
unstatiuslike, such as two bucolic verse dialogues mostly based on
Lucian, or an epithalamium in hendecasyllables which rather resem-
bles Secundus’ own famous Basia. His longer-lived brother Grudius
(1504–70), a poet in his own right, composed a similar book of Syl-
vae.^22 At first sight it seems likely that Janus Dousa (1545–1604)
played a part in brokering Statius or Silvae in whatever sense. This
nobleman was the key-figure in the founding of Leiden University,
and in everything concerning its first thirty years. He was also a pro-
lific and original poet, whose influence on Dutch Neolatin poetry can
hardly be overestimated, who had lived in Paris for some years in the
early sixties of the century, in a circle of scholars and poets. However,
in his poetry there is hardly a trace of Statius, whom of course he
knew as he knew all of Latin poetry, and especially Martial. But he
preferred archaic and classical literature; in his philological work he
busied himself with Plautus, Lucilius and Catullus. He composed two
books of Sylvae (1569), but their content does not at all remind of
Statius. The first book does exploit the theme of variety, with its 14
poems in different metres addressed to friends, but improvisation or
occasion play no part in it. The second book contains the Adoptiva. In
fact, in working through the old but indispensable book on Dutch
Neolatin poetry by Hofman Peerlkamp, one finds hardly anything
between 1500 and 1600 that could point to a poetical interest in Sta-
tius (or Poliziano).^23 And this seems to apply to scholarly work as
well—although I cannot pretend to have studied that in any depth. The
only references and quotations of Statius’ (or Poliziano’s) Silvae by
early Dutch humanists occur in the circle of Murmellius around 1510,
but these early examples remain isolated. So here my result is nega-
tive: neither Italy nor Paris exported the Silvae to the North in this
period.
As a matter of fact, the Silvae seem to shoot up almost overnight in
the Netherlands towards 1600, in the 1595 edition of Statius’ works
by Johan Bernaert (1568–1601), a text with some notes (thirteen pages
22 In Vulcanius 16 12. It contains Theocritean eclogues (Narcissus and Myrtilus), a
Lucianic dialogue and two other poems.
23 Hofman Peerlkamp 1838, see also van Dam 1996a, 316–7 with note 8 and van
Dam forthcoming (n. 20). The selection in Adam 1988, 327 ff. seems rather arbitrary.