took the command of a company of troops. His own resolution encouraged the regents and citizens to prolong the defense. On the foundation of the Leiden University by William the Silent, Dousa was appointed first curator, and he held this office for nearly thirty years. Through his friendships with foreign scholars, he drew to Leiden many illustrious teachers and professors. After the assassination of the Prince of Orange in 1584, Dousa undertook a private journey to England to try to persuade Queen Elizabeth to support the cause of the states, and in 1585 he went at the head of a formal embassy for the same purpose. She refused to accept the sovereignty of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, because she did not want to risk a war with Spain, but she was willing to send Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, with a small army, to lend support. About the same time Dousa was appointed keeper of the archive of Holland (registermeester van Holland), and the opportunities thus afforded him of historical research he turned to good account. In 1591 he was appointed a justice in the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland which he remained till his death. He died at Noordwijk and was interred at the Hague; but no monument was erected to his memory until 1792, when one of his descendants placed a tomb to his honour in the church of Noordwyck. There are good portraits of the Great Dousa, as he is often called, by Visscher and Houbraken. Family He had twelve children, but only nine of them, seven sons and two daughters, reached adult age. All his sons acquired a reputation for learning, especially Janus Dousa Filius ('the son'), but he died in 1596 at the age of 25, well before his father. Publications In 1569 Dousa published his first collection of poems (epigrams, satires, elegies, etc.). A new collection appeared in 1575. This collection contains (among other poems) five Odae Lugdunenses on the siege of Leiden. In 1584 a volume of epodes was issued. In 1585 Dousa wrote the Odae Britannicae. 1586 saw the release of a new book of elegies. In 1599 and 1601 Dousa's historiographical works appeared. In 1603 a poetic volume called Echo and a collection of three odes was released. Some more works were issued posthumously. Apart from these literary works Dousa published collections of text-critical remarks on and