a Dutch botanist, engraver, writer, and translator. At age 14 he was registered as a gownsman on 3 June 1610 at Leiden University, his native city. His interest was botany, but he was unable to acquire a teaching position in that field and took a position as secretary at Heusden Castle. A member of the Muiderkring, the arts and sciences coterie whose central figure was P. C. Hooft, he was known as a "dilettante" with an interest in natural philosophy (the work of Francis Bacon) and a classical scholar, and his interest in literature is proven in his scattered poems
