Lindo, Mark Prager

Lindo, Mark Prager (1819-1879), Dutch prose writer, of English-Jewish descent, was born in London on the 18th of September 1810. He went to Holland when nineteen years of age, and once established there as a private teacher of the English language, he soon made up his mind to remain. In 1842 he passed his examination at Arnhem, qualifying him as a professor of English in Holland, subsequently becoming a teacher of the English language and literature at the gymnasium in that town. In 1853 he was appointed in a similar capacity at the Royal Military Academy in Breda. Meanwhile Lindo had obtained a thorough grasp of the Dutch language, partly during his student years at Utrecht University, where in 1854 he gained the degree of doctor of literature. His proficiency in the two languages led him to translate into Dutch several of the works of Dickens, Thackeray and others, and afterwards also of Fielding, Sterne and Walter Scott. Some of Lindo’s translations bore the imprint of hasty and careless work, and all were very unequal in quality. His name is much more likely to endure as the writer of humorous original sketches and novelettes in Dutch, which he published under the pseudonym of De Oude Herr Smits (“Old Mr Smits”). Among the most popular are; Brieven en Ontboezemingen (“Letters and Confessions,” 1853, with three “Continuations”); Familie van Ons (“Family of Ours,” 1855); Bekentenissen eener Jonge Dame (“Confessions of a Young Lady,” 1858); Uittreksels uit het Dagboek van Wijlen den Heer Janus Snor (“Extracts from the Diary of the late Mr Janus Snor,” 1865); Typen (“Types,” 1871); and, particularly, Afdrukken van Indrukken (“Impressions from Impressions,” 1854, reprinted many times). The last-named was written in collaboration with Lodewyk Mulder, who contributed some of its drollest whimsicalities of Dutch life and character, which, for that reason, are almost untranslatable. Lodewyk Mulder and Lindo also founded together, and carried on, for a considerable time alone, the Nederlandsche Spectator (“The Dutch Spectator”), a literary weekly, still published at The Hague, which bears little resemblance to its English prototype, and which perhaps reached its greatest popularity and influence when Vosmaer contributed to it a brilliant weekly letter under the fanciful title of Vlugmaren (“Swifts”). Lindo’s serious original Dutch writings he published under his own name, the principal one being De Opkomst en Ontwikkeling van het Engelsche Volk (“The Rise and Development of the British People,” 2 vols. 1868-1874)—a valuable history. Lodewyk Mulder published in 1877-1879 a collected edition of Lindo’s writings in five volumes, and there has since been a popular reissue. Lindo was appointed an inspector of primary schools in the province of South Holland in 1865, a post he held until his death at The Hague on the 9th of March 1879.