I have to complain of injustice done by a correspondent of "NOTES AND QUERIES," to the Dutch poet Vondel. To the question mooted by F. (Vol. i. p. 142.), whether my countryman's _Lucifer_ has ever been translated into English, Hermes answers by a passage taken from the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ for April, 1829; and subjoins a list of the _dramatis personae_ "given from the _original Dutch_ before him. The tragedy itself is condensed by your correspondent into a simple "&c." Now, if HERMES, instead of referring to a stale review for a comparison between Vondel's tragedy and the _Paradise Lost_, without showing by _any_ proof that Milton's justly renowned epic {508} is indeed superior to this, one of the Dutch poet's masterpiece--if HERMES, being, as I conclude from his own words, conversant with the language of _our_ Shakspeare, had taken pains to _read Lucifer_, he would not have repeated a statement unfavourable to Vondel's poetical genius. I, for my part, will _not_ hazard a judgment on poems so different and yet so alike, I will _not_ sneer at Milton's demon-gods of Olympus, nor laugh at "their artillery discharged in the daylight of heaven;" for such instances of bad taste are to be considered as clouds setting off the glories of the whole; but _this_ I will say, that Vondel wrote his _Lucifer_ in 1654, the sixty-seventh of his life, while Milton's _Paradise Lost_ was composed four years later. The honour of precedence, in time, at least, belongs to my countryman. All the odds were against the British poet's competitor, if one who wrote before him may be so called; for, while Milton enjoyed every privilege of a sound classical education, Vondel had still to begin a course of study when more than twenty-six years of age; and, while the Dutch poet told the price of homely stockings to prosaic burghers, the writer of _Paradise Lost_ was speaking the language of Torquato Tasso in the country enraptured by the first sight of _la divina comedia_. I am no friend of polemical writing, and I believe the less we see of it in your friendly periodical, the better it is; but still I _must_ protest against such copying of partially-written judgments, when good information can be got. I say not by stretching out a hand, for the book was already opened by your correspondent--but alone by using one's eyes and turning over a leaf or two. Else, why did HERMES learn the Dutch language? I ask your subscribers if the following verses are _weak_, and if they would not have done honour to the English Vondel? CHORUS OF ANGELS. (From _Lucifer_.)