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Jan Frederik Helmers




His early poems, ''Night'' (1788) and ''Socrates'' (1790), were tame and sentimental, but after 1805 he determined, in company with his brother-in-law, Cornelis Loots (1765-1834), to rouse national feeling by a burst of patriotic poetry.

His ''Poems'' (2 vols, 1809-1810), but especially his great work ''The Dutch Nation'', a poem in six Canto s (1812), created great enthusiasm and enjoyed immense success.

He owed his success mainly to the integrity of his patriotism and the opportune moment at which he sounded his counter-blast to the French oppression. His posthumous poems were collected in 1815 .