SCHRIJVER, PETER (1576–1660), Dutch author, better known as Scriverius, was born at Haarlem on the 12th of January 1576. He was educated at the university of Leiden, where he formed a close intimacy with Daniel Heinsius. He belonged to the party of Oldenbarneveldt and Grotius, and brought down the displeasure of the government by a copy of Latin verses in honour of their friend Hoogerbeets. Most of his life was passed in Leiden, but in 1650 he became blind, and the last years of his life were spent in his son’s house at Oudewater, where he died on the 30th of April 1660.
He is best known as a scholar by his notes on Martial, Ausonius, the Pervigilium Veneris; editions of the poems of Scaliger (Leiden, 1615), of the De re militari of Vegetius Renatus, the tragedies of Seneca (P. Scriverii collectanea veterum tragicorum, 1621), &c. His Opera anecdota, philologica, et poëtica (Utrecht, 1738) were edited by A. H. Westerhovius, and his Nederduitsche Gedichten (1738) by S. Dockes. He made many valuable contributions to the history of Holland: Batavia Illustrata (4 parts, Leiden, 1609); Corte historische Beschryvinghe der Nederlandscher Oorlogen (1612); Inferioris Germaniae . . . historia (1611, 4 parts); Beschryvinghe van Out Batavien (Arnheim, 1612); Het oude gontsche Chronycxken van Hollandt, edited by him, and printed at Amsterdam in 1663; Principes Hollandiae Zelandiae et Frisiae (Haarlem, 1650), translated (1678) into Dutch by Pieter Brugman.
See Peerlkamp, Vitae Belgarum qui latina carmina scripserunt (Brussels, 1822), and J. H. Hoeufft, Parnassus latino-belgicus (Amsterdam, 1819).