Vondel then wrote a tragedy, "Messalina," which, however, he destroyed because some of the actors, while rehearsing their parts, through some adventitious remark of the poet, had inferred that the play possessed a certain political significance, and that it was an allegory picturing forth some of the notables of the day, after the manner of the "Palamedes."
The poet fearing that it might breed mischief, and seeing that it was impossible to rectify the matter, since it had already become a subject of conversation among the actors, begged the parts of the three leading _rôles_, pretending that he wished to make some important corrections. Having obtained possession of these parts, he took good care to burn them, thus preventing the presentation of the play, and putting a stop to the silly chatter of the players.
His next undertaking was the translation of the "Electra" of Sophocles, being aided in the work by Isaac Vossius, a son of the celebrated Leyden professor, who was himself also a profound scholar. As was usual with this poet, the translation of this tragedy was followed by one of his own, the drama of "The Virgins; or, Saint Ursula." This he dedicated to the city of his birth, Cologne; where, the legend says, a British princess, with eleven thousand other maidens, at the command of Attila, the ferocious Hun, suffered a martyr's death. This tragedy also received the praises of Grotius; and it may safely be said that no man of his time, with the possible exception of John Milton, was so capable of judging according to the rigid rules of the antique as Grotius. For besides being the most learned man of his age, an accomplished Grecian, and an unsurpassed Latinist, he was himself a poet of no mean order.
"The Virgins," notwithstanding its beauty and tenderness, was the cause of much sorrow to the friends of Vondel, in that it unmistakably showed the poet's inclination towards Romanism.
True, as has been narrated, this had for some years been suspected from the tone of several other productions that preceded it; but then it was only a suspicion, now there was no longer a doubt.
Vondel was plainly on the high road to Rome, and it was whispered that he, having become tired of his loneliness, had been attracted by a certain Catholic widow, whose seductive charms were largely responsible for his wavering faith.