Willem Bilderdijk, a Dutch poet, born in Amsterdam, Sept. 7,1756, died in Haarlem, Dec. 18, 1831. He was educated at Leyden, published in 1779 a volume of poems, consisting principally of imitations and translations of the Greek poets, and the next year gained a prize from the literary society of Leyden. He practised as an advocate at the Hague, attached himself to the house of Orange, and was obliged to emigrate when the French invaded Holland in 1795. He visited Germany, remaining two years at Brunswick, where he published various small pieces, a didactic poem on astronomy, and a translation of Voltaire's Ce qui plait aux dames. He passed thence in 1800 to London, where he lectured upon literature and jurisprudence, and translated into Dutch many of the poems of Ossian. Returning to Amsterdam in 1806, he was appointed by Louis Bonaparte member and professor of the newly established institute of Holland; but upon the king's abdication in 1810 he lost the pension which the latter had given him, and retired to Haarlem. Though not as remarkable for his artistic taste as for his vigor of thought, his countrymen place him by the side of Schiller and Byron, and he is better known out of Holland than almost any other Dutch poet.

Besides smaller poems, translations, and patriotic fragments, he left a number of tragedies, and an epic, "The Destruction of the First World" (De ondergang der eerste wereld, Amsterdam, 1820). His historical work on Holland, Geschiedenis des vader-lands, was edited after his death by Tijdemann (12 vols., Leyden, 1832-9); and his complete poetical works (Bichtwerken) were published at Haarlem in 1857-'60, in 16 vols. - His second wife (1777-1830) wrote excellent poetry (Dichtwerken, 2 vols., 1859), besides tragedies. A translation of Southey's "Roderick" into Dutch verse (Rodrigo de Goth) is one of her finest productions.