Soon after his return to Amsterdam, the great poet who had celebrated so many distinguished personages, and who had become the pride of his nation, was, by the bankruptcy of his profligate son, brought to the very verge of poverty.
Besides the little Constantine, whose early death we have elsewhere recorded, the poet had three children: one son, Justus, and two daughters, Sarah and Anna. Sarah died in childhood, and Anna, who was said to resemble her father both in intellect and in appearance, lived with him, and was ever a loving and devoted daughter. The son, "Joost," was both stupid and dissolute. His ignorance was so great that, when some one spoke of his father's tragedy, "Joseph in Egypt," he inquired if Joseph was not also a Catholic. During the life of his first wife, a woman of some force, this unworthy son of a distinguished sire kept within due bounds. Shortly after her death, however, he was united to a shallow spendthrift with whom he wasted his substance in riotous living, while the shop, of course, was neglected; and the business, in consequence, soon ruined.
At this the old man was so grieved that, with his daughter, who was yet with him, he moved away to another part of the city.
Here he was many times heard to say, "Had I not the comfort and the quickening of the Psalms"--of which at that time he was making his version--"I should die in my misery." He often also said to his friends, "Name no child by your own name; for if he should not turn out well it is forever branded."
In the meantime the son went from bad to worse. He squandered not only all of his own property, but also much that had been intrusted into his hands by others.
He stood on the point of bankruptcy, with the penalty of imprisonment staring him in the face, when his father, with a keen sense of honor and of family pride, satisfied all creditors by the sacrifice of his own snug little fortune of forty thousand guldens, the savings of half a century.
Friends of the family advised the erring son to go to the Dutch Colonies in the East Indies, there to begin life anew. But he obstinately refused even to listen to such a proposition, and continued his wild career unchecked. The unhappy father was finally compelled to ask the Burgomaster of the city to use the gentle compulsion of the law, which was done.