Isaac da Costa was a Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

.

Da Costa was born in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. His father, an aristocratic Sephardic Portuguese Jewish

Spanish and Portuguese Jews

Spanish and Portuguese Jews are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardim who have their main ethnic origins within the Jewish communities of the Iberian peninsula and who shaped communities mainly in Western Europe and the Americas from the late 16th century on...

, Daniel da Costa, a relative of Uriel Acosta, was a prominent merchant in the city of Amsterdam; his mother, Rebecca Ricardo, was a near relative of the English political economist David Ricardo

David Ricardo

David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...

. Daniel da Costa, soon recognizing his son's love for study, destined him for the bar, and sent him to the Latin school from 1806 to 1811. Here Isaac wrote his first verses. Through his Hebrew teacher, the mathematician and Hebraist Moses Lemans, he became acquainted with the great Dutch poet Bilderdijk, who, at the request of Isaac's father, agreed to supervise the boy's further education. Bilderdijk taught him Roman law, and a familiar intercourse sprang up between them, which afterward developed into an intimate friendship.

In 1817 Da Costa went to Leyden, where he again saw much of Bilderdijk. He there took his degree as doctor of law in 1818, and as doctor of philosophy June 21, 1821. Three weeks later he married his cousin, Hannah Belmonte, who had been educated in a Christian institution; and soon after, at the instance of Bilderdijk, he was baptized with her at Leyden. At that time he was already well known as a poet. After Bilderdijk's death Da Costa was generally recognized as his successor among Dutch poets. He was a faithful adherent of the religious views of his friend, was one of the leaders of the Orthodox Reformed party, and during the last years of his life was a teacher and a director of the seminary of the Independent Scotch Church. However severely his religious views and efforts be censured, his character, no less than his genius, was respected by his contemporaries. Although he wrote much on missionary matters, he is distinguished from many other converts in that, to the end of his life, he felt only reverence and love for his former coreligionists, was deeply interested in their past history, and often took their part.

Aside from his fifty-three longer and shorter poems, Da Costa wrote largely on theological subjects. He also wrote "Israel en de Volken" (2d ed., Haarlem, 1848-49), a survey of the history of the Jews to the nineteenth century, written from the standpoint of the Church. The third volume, dealing with the history of the Spanish-Portuguese Jews, is especially noteworthy on account of the mass of new material used. The work was translated into English, under the title "Israel and the Gentiles," by Ward Kennedy (London, 1850), and into German by "A Friend of God's Word" (Miss Thumb), published by K. Mann (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1855).

Da Costa's two papers, "The Jews in Spain and Portugal" and "The Jews from Spain and Portugal in the Netherlands," which appeared in 1836 in the "Nedersche Stemmen over Godsdienst, Staat-Geschied-en Letterkunde," may be considered as preliminary to the history. Of interest also are his works on the Von Schoonenberg (Belmonte) family ("Jahrb. für Holland," 1851) and on "The Noble Families Among the Jews" ("Navorscher," 1857, pp. 210 et seq., 269 et seq.; 1858, pp. 71 et seq.; 1859, pp. 110 et seq., 174 et seq., 242 et seq.). Da Costa possessed a valuable library which contained a large number of Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew manuscripts, as well as rare prints from the Spanish-Portuguese Jewish literature. It was sold at public auction a year after his death. A catalogue of the library, compiled by M. Roest, was published at Amsterdam in 1861.

Works

• Vijf-en-twintig Jaren ("Twenty-five years")
• De Slag bij Nieuwpoort ("The Battle of Nieuport")
• Alfonsus de Eerste
• Poëzy
• Bezwaren tegen den geest der eeuw. In this essay
  Essay
  An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
  
  , written in 1823, only 25 year old, he attacked the Encyclopaedists, Rousseau, Voltaire
  Voltaire
  François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
  
  , Diderot, Kant
  KANT
  KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
  
  , Robert Owen
  Robert Owen
  Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
  
   and Lord Byron.
• De Sadduceën
• Paulus, eene schriftbeschouwing
• Opmerkingen over het onderscheidende karakter der Groninger School
• Hagar
• Israël en de Volken; een overzicht van de geschiedenis der Joden tot op onzen tijd ("Israel and the Gentiles: Contributions to the History of the Jews From the Earliest Times to the Present Day")
• Een en twintig dagen te Londen, bij gelegenheid der zamenkomsten van de Evangelische Alliantie, doorgebracht
• Beschouwingen van het Evangelie van Lucas
• Bilderdijk herdacht
• Beschouwingen van de Handelingen der Apostelen
• Wat er door de Theologische Faculteit te Leiden al zoo geleerd wordt
• De Mensch en de dichter Willem Bilderdijk, eene bijdrage tot de kennis van zijn leven, karakter, en schriften
• Opstellen van godgeleerden en geschiedkundigen inhoud
• Da C.'s kompleete dichtwerken
• Bijbellezingen. Op geteekend en medegedeeld door Johan Frederik Schimsheimer

External links

• Isaac da Costa on Find A Grave