known as Father Cats
born Nov. 10, 1577, Brouwershaven, Zeeland, Spanish Netherlands
died Sept. 12, 1660, Zorgvliet, near The Hague
Dutch poet.
A magistrate and high official, he was enormously popular as a writer of emblem books, consisting of woodcuts or engravings with verses possessing a moral. His Mirror of Old and New Times (1632) contains many quotations that have become household sayings in the Netherlands, and he used it to express the ethical concerns of Dutch Calvinists, especially about love and marriage.