ISAAC CASAUBON
1559-1614
DOCTIORUM QUICQUJD EST ASSURGITE
HUIC TAM COLENDO NOMINI !
BY
MA RK PATTISON
RECTOR OP LINCOLN COLLEGE
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1875
[All rights reserved]
OXFORD:
BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
1. PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION. 1559 1578 ... 3
2. GENEVA. 1578 1596 8
3. MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599 ... .84
4. PARIS. 16001610 149
5. LONDON. 1610 1614 294
6. CASAUBON AND BARONIUS' CHURCH HISTORY . . 362
7. LONDON, ELY, AND CAMBRIDGE. 1610 1614 . . 384
8. OXFORD VISIT. 1613 397
9. LONDON. 1610 1614, continued 419
10. LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614 . 463
11. INDEX or CASAUBON'S WORKS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 534
TOV 8' OVT ap %eip.(i)v /cpuoeif, OVK opfipos a.TTtlp<t>v,
ov <p\b r)f\ioto fia/xa^erai, ov voaos alvr),
OVK eporis drjpov evapel p,evos, aXX' oy aTfipfjs
TfTorai vvKras re KOI rjpap.
THE sources for the biography of Isaac Casaubon
are unusually numerous and detailed. Indeed, no other
personage, eminent in letters, of the sixteenth century,
can be mentioned, for whose history there exist materials
equally rich.
These sources are partly manuscript, partly printed.
i. MSS.
1 . ADVEES. Sixty volumes of Adversaria preserved in the Bod-
leian Library.
2. BUENEY MSS. Seven volumes of letters addressed to Casau-
bon by his numerous correspondents; preserved in the
Burney collection in the British Museum.
3. BIBL. NAT. The National Library in Paris contains: (i) The
series of letters from Casaubon to de Thou, some confi-
dential portions of which were omitted purposely in Van
Almeloveen's edition. (2) Two independent sets of notes,
taken by hearers, of his lectures on Herodotus. (3) Other
notes on the Anthology, etc.
4. GENEVA MSS. The archives of the city of Geneva contain :
(i) The register of births, deaths, and marriages. (2) The
minute books of the Petit conseil. The city of Geneva has
had the singular good fortune of never having been taken,
sacked, or burnt. The series of order books of the Coun-
cil is complete. For the period of Casaubon's residence
these books form our principal authority. The entries
relating to the Academy and its professors are not nu-
merous, but they are significant, and enable us to form
a tolerably accurate conception of Casaubon's position,
B
occupations, and share in the general misery of the citizens
of Geneva. I take this opportunity of acknowledging my
great obligations to M. Theophile Dufour, who not only
guided my researches in this register, but most hand-
somely put into my hands the whole of the extracts from
it, which he had himself made with a view to illustrate
the history of Casaubon.
2. PRINTED DOCUMENTS.
EpH.=Ephemerides Isaaci Casauboni, ed. J. Russell, 2 vols.
8vo, Oxon. e Typographeo Academico, 1850.
Of this diary a full account will be given in the course
of the narrative.
EP. = Isaaci Casauboni Epistolae cur. Th. Janson ab Almeloveen,
fol. Rot. 1709.
This volume contains mo letters written by Casaubon
to his friends and correspondents, and 50 replies by them.
MER. CAS. PiETAS = Merici Casauboni . . . Pietas contra male-
dicos patrii nominis, 4to, Lond. 16, also reprinted in the
volume of Epistolse 1709.
BURH. SYLL. = Sylloge Epistolarum aviris illustribus scriptarum,
etc., 5 vols. 4to, Leid. 1727.
Single letters of Casaubon are to be found scattered about
in various published volumes of correspondence. The valu-
able series of Scaliger's letters to Casaubon is printed in
SCAL. Ep. = Scaligeri Epistolae, 8vo, Lugd. Bat., 1627.
BULL. Soc. DE L'HIST. PHOT. = Bulletin de la Societe de 1'Histoire
Protestante de la France, 17 vols. 8vo.
MEM. Soc. GEN. = Memoires et Documens publics par la Societe
d'Histoire et Archeologie de Geneve, 18 vols. 8vo.
Both these series contain original documents which are
of use in completing our knowledge of the affairs of the
Protestants in the latter end of the i6th century.
= Fragmens biographiques et historiques extraits des
Registres du Conseil d'Etat de la Republique de Geneve des
1535 a 1792, Gen. 1815.
Other references will probably be sufficiently full to ex-
plain themselves.
1.
PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION.
1559 1578.
ISAAC CASAUBON was born at Geneva, February 18,
(8 o. s.), 1559, being thus younger than Joseph Scaliger
by eighteen years.
He was the son of Arnold Casaubon and Jehanne
Mergine (nee) Kousseau 1 . They were emigrants who
had to fly for their lives from Gascony 2 , where Arnold
1 Geneva MSS. Reg. de baptesmes : ' Ce i o febvrier fut baptist
Isaac fils de Arnaud Casaubon et de Mergine sa femme presents'
par Francois Hklase'res (Eglise de St. Gervais).' But tbe certificate
of this entry in Advers. 9. 415 has Mewgine, and the entry of the
baptism of Sara, December 8, 1556, gives Mtwgine. It would seem
that there was, at the time, a difficulty in catching the exact sound
of this very unusual name. Meric, however, on the first page of the
Ephemerides, has written it Mergine, which Dr. Russell transformed
into 'meusnie.'
2 Ep. 453 : ' Je riasquis 1'an 1559, 8 Fevrier dans Geneve, ou mes
bons pere et mere s'e"toient retirez de Gascongne, ayant failli d'estre
bruslez a Bourtleaux.' Cf. ep. 879 : 'ex Aquitania.' Notwithstanding
these explicit passages, M. Nisard (Triumvirat Litt. p. 310), and the
biographical compilations generally, make Arnold Casaubon fly from
Bourdeaux in Dauphine". The source of the error is the Latin life
by the usually accurate Van Almeloveen, prefixed to his Epistolae 1709.
Isaac's own statement, sufficiently explicit, is confirmed by the ' Registre
d'habitation,' Geneva MSS., in which Arnold's name stands as ' Arnaud
Casaubon de Montfort, diocese Dax en Gascogne.' The entry is dated
ii janv. 1557. Montfort is conjectured by M. Th. Dufour, to whom
I owe this extract, (L'Interme'diaire, 3. 76), to be Montfort-en-Chalosse,
chef-lieu de canton, dep. Landes.
B 2
4 PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION. 1559 1578.
had a narrow escape from being burnt alive. The
persecuting edict of Chateaubriand (1551) was out-
stripped by the fanaticism of the religious mob, who
called for a constant supply of new victims. The
Huguenots were flying in every direction, and Arnold
Casaubon had found shelter at Geneva. He had
reached this city of refuge before December 1556,
when his first child was baptized.
The family of Casaubon was of old Gascon stock ;
in some of its branches noble 3 . The name is probably
to be traced to the town of Cazaubon, on the Douze
(d p. Gers), a few miles from Mont de Marsan. Arnold
Casaubon was received as ' habitant ' of Geneva,
January n, 1557, and at some later period he must
have been admitted 'bourgeois/ as his son Isaac is
afterwards described as ' citoien/ In the old Genevese
constitution the sons and descendants of one who had
been admitted ' bourgeois ' were entitled to full civic
rights. Arnold did not stay long at Geneva. A Pro-
testant congregation was organising itself at Crest, a
small town on the Drome (dep. Drome), a few leagues
above the confluence of that river with the Ehone. As
Mad e . Casaubon was from that part of Dauphine,
her husband was probably known to the reformed
party in the neighbourhood. He accepted a call to be
pastor of the church of Crest, in 1561. The child-
hood of Isaac was passed in the valleys of Dauphine,
amid the hardships and perils incident to the life of a
Huguenot minister during the wars of religion. His
father was his only instructor till he was nineteen.
Arnold had scholarship, and some reading. He had
been brought up in a celebrated school, the College
3 Bertrand de Vignolles Sieur de Casaubon Marquis de Vignolles,
b. 1565, wrote: M&noires des choses passe'es en Guienne.
PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION. 15591578. 5
of Guienne, at Bourdeaux. He must have been there
in 1547, at which time Muretus, with a brilliant staff
of colleagues, was teacher there. The man who could
recommend Strabo as instructive reading to his son 4 ,
must have known more than the rudiments of greek.
But the father's time was engrossed by his flock. His
talent and experience drew upon him much of the
affairs of the scattered congregations of Dauphine in
those critical years. He was able to' be but little at
home. And, even when he was with his family, it
might be but to fly with them to the hills. When
Isaac was nine years old, he was able to speak and
write latin. Just then, his father was called away to
attend the contingent, which Dauphine had to furnish
to the general levy of the Huguenots. The monstrous
edict of Saint-Maur, September 28, 1563, in which the
government unblushingly declared that former edicts of
toleration had been intended to be revoked as soon as
it was safe to do so, had shown the Protestants of
France that they had to choose between civil war and
extermination, and they were once more under arms.
Casaubon, the father, was absent this time three years.
When he returned to Crest, Isaac was found to have
forgotten all he had learnt. If what Meric Casaubon
relates of his father's precocity be true, perhaps it was
as well that lessons were suspended for the three years
from nine to twelve. For when the lessons were
resumed, Meric relates 5 , the boy 'threw himself into
study with such ardour, that if he had not been
checked by his father, his health, if not his life, would
have been endangered.' He had got as far as greek
grammar, and was having his first exercises in parsing,
4 Strabo, 1586, prsef. : ' Optimi parentis hortatu.'
5 Pietas, p. 72.
6 PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION. 15591578.
in Isocrates 'ad Demonicum/ when the news of the
S. Bartholomew (August, 1572) drove them into the
hills again. The greek lessons were continued in the
cave where they sheltered ; ' in silvis miseri, ingenti
tamen animo/ says Meric.
When they could return to their home again,
Arnold Casaubon was too much engrossed by the
urgent affairs of that dreadful crisis to have time
for teaching his son. Isaac, however, was launched,
and struggled on for himself. For five years, from
his 1 4th to his ipth year, he had no teacher,
and but few books. As an example of piety and
severe life, he owed much to his father, whose
memory he ever cherished with affection 6 . Writing
to a friend in 1613, twenty-seven years after his
father's death, he says : ' To my father I owe all I
have since learnt. Could you know the story of his
life, you would know how unworthy I am to bear the
name of a man so wise and experienced/ But the
want of regular training Isaac always considered to
have been a disadvantage to him. In 1605 he writes
to Yertunien 7 ; ' As to what Mr. Scaliger has said to
you of my age and of my learning, I must be fain to
confess that, on the first point, he is not far wrong.
Having been born in 1559, I am now (1605) on the
verge of being an old man, if not one already. But as
to the second head, I am sorry to say that I cannot
appropriate the thousandth part of what he has been
pleased to say of me. I was taught by my father,
a man of great capacity, but wholly absorbed in the
6 Ep. 908 : ' Ingratus sim erga Deum, nisi illi gratias agam, eo patre
esse me natum, cujus vita speculum est omnium virtutum. Illi ego
debeo quicquid in literis didici.'
7 Ep. 453-
PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION. 15591578. 7
affairs of the church ; sometimes absent from his family
for whole years together ; nearly every year turned out
of his house, to find it sacked on his return. So that
I cannot say that I began rny studies till I was twenty,
when I was sent by him to Geneva 8 . I am a self-
taught man ; d\^//xa0^? and auro^a/cro?. Instead of
the learning which Mons. de 1'Escale's goodness credits
me with, I can only console myself that I lost the best
part of my early years in persecution for the truth, a
memory, which is sweeter to me than honey or sugar/
At the age of nineteen he was sent by his father to
Geneva (1578), where he remained, first as a student,
and afterwards as professor, for the next eighteen
years.
8 Ep. 453 : ' Je puis dire avoir comment mes Etudes lors que ag6
de vingt ans je fus par lui envoy^ a Genbve.'
2.
GENEVA.
THE name of Casaubon is not to be found in the
matriculation book, or 'Livre du Recteur/ which is
still extant in the archives of Geneva. The register is
perfect, but the entry of names appears to have been
neglected for the two years 1577, 8. Of his student's
years no account is preserved. It appears probable
that he was intended to become a minister, and that
the destination of his after life was due to accident.
He had the advantage of learning greek under a fairly
competent scholar, Franciscus Portus, a native Greek
(he was of Crete), who had taught greek at Geneva
ever since 1562. Casaubon had hardly completed his
third academical year, when Portus died (aet. 71),
having suggested Casaubon as qualified to succeed to
his place. Portus was not only an accomplished scholar,
but a man who had seen much of the world, and of
the cultivated society of the time. Leaving his native
country as a child, he had lived so long in Italy
at Venice, at Modena, and Ferrara that Italian had
become his mother tongue. He had forgotten Romaic,
according to the testimony of Scaliger \ and his letter
in reply to Crusius is written in classical greek 2 .
His discerning eye picked out the young Casaubon
1 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 193. 2 Crusius, Turcograecia, p. 517.
GENEVA. 15781596. 9
as the one of all his pupils competent to succeed him.
Franciscus Portus deserves commemoration in the
history of learning, if for no other reason, for this,
that he turned Isaac Casaubon to the study of Greek.
Though Casaubon was not his only eminent pupil.
Portus had taught Sigonius, and Sigonius, then aet.
22, had succeeded Portus as teacher of Greek at
Modena, in 1546.
The council took a year to make the appointment,
and then, on the unanimous recommendation of the
Venerable Company and the Professors, received
Casaubon as Professor of Greek.
The entry in the register runs thus 3 :
' M. Isaac, fils de Arnaud Casabon, citoien de Geneve,
a este presente par M. de La Faie, recteur, pour estre
professeur de la langue grecque, suyvant 1' ad vis de
tous les ministres et professeurs. A este arreste quon
le recoyve, et suyvant ce a preste serment.'
The title ' Professor of Greek ' has an imposing
sound. But on closer inspection the reality is very
simple, and more than humble. There is no room to
infer with the biographers an unnatural precocity in
Casaubon. When the age of the wandering native
Greek teachers was past Franciscus Portus was one of
the last of them, men who knew Greek at all were
scarce, and men who knew it profoundly were not
to be found. Young men fresh from the schools had
at least not forgotten the rudiments. So Xylander
(Holtzmann) became 'Professor' of Greek at Heidel-
berg, aet. 26, and Daniel Heinsius lectured on it at
Ley den, set. 18. The Academy of Geneva was far
enough from ranking with the University of Heidel-
berg, and still less with that of Ley den.
3 Geneva MSS. Registre du petit conseil, f, 109, 5 juin, 1582.
10 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
Modern historians of Geneva, having before them
what Geneva became in the eighteenth century, may
be forgiven for having transported this picture to an
earlier period. Had Calvin conceived the idea, which
is attributed to him, of a school of general education,
neither time nor place would have permitted its real-
isation. The Geneva of Voltaire and Rousseau, the
cosmopolitan centre, its independence guaranteed by
the strength of the Swiss cantons at its back, and the
mutual jealousy of the great powers, was in a very
different position from the Geneva of Calvin. The
merit of Calvin consists not in largeness of mind, but
in the judgment which perceived exactly what was
wanted. It is in vain that Calvin's panegyrists persist
in attributing to him views, which he could not have
had, without ceasing to be the man he w#s the man
of his age and place. Haag would represent 4 him
as designing 'un grand etablissement ^instruction
publique dont Tenseignement devait embrasser 1'en-
semble de toutes les connoissances humaines/ Fine
phrase disguising the bare fact! Calvin planned for
Geneva that which the reformed church of the French
tongue wanted in 1559. An elementary school, and
a seminary for ministers this was what was wanted,
and this was what Calvin supplied. A grand Academy
of letters or science, such as the historians find in
his scheme, was as little in Calvin's thoughts as the
steamboats which now ply on the lake Leman. In
this, as in all his undertakings, Calvin projected what
was required, and what could be effected, with a dis-
tinctness of purpose and practical sense, which made
him what he was, the head of his party in a struggle
for life against fearful odds.
4 La France Protestante, art. Calvin.
GENEVA. 15781596. 11
Each of the Cantons, on embracing the reform, had
found the necessity of some institution for the training
of its own ministers. Bale had already, three genera-
tions old, a university with papal privileges (founded
1460). Zurich, Berne, and Lausanne, erected their
own academies. Geneva required its own, not less.
The preamble to the statutes of the academy of
Geneva (1559), drawn doubtless by. Calvin's hand,
does not go beyond this intention. ' Verily hath God
heretofore endowed our commonwealth with many and
notable adornments, yet hath it, to this day, had to seek
abroad, for instruction in good arts and disciplines for
its youth, with many lets and hindrances 5 / Note, in
the whole composition, the tone of measured solidity,
which says less than it means to perform. This self-
contained power, this suppressed moral force, which
is characteristic, not of Calvin alone, but of the whole
of the French reform, stands in noble contrast to the
vain-glorious style which Europe now is apt to ascribe
to France as catholicised by Louis xiv. Perhaps at the
time that Calvin gave utterance to this simple pro-
posal, he foresaw that his new school might have a
higher destiny. A seminary of ministers for Geneva
and Dauphine, that was the first thing. That it-
might become the seminary for the whole of the
French reform, nay beyond the French tongue, that
the Genevan academy would be the heart of the whole
presbyterian system throughout Europe, this hope may
have presented itself to Calvin's imagination. He was
not blind to the peculiar advantages, political, geo-
graphical, ethnical, of Geneva. Ten years before, in
1549, ne na( i written to Bullinger, 'when I consider
what aptitude this little corner has for promoting
5 Promulgatio legum Academise Genevensis ; Fick's reprint, 1859.
12 GENEVA. 15781596.
Christ's kingdom, I am naturally solicitous to keep
my hold of it 6 / But the idea of a metropolitan uni-
versity, a nursery of the arts and sciences, had no
place in the mind of Calvin, nor even in that of the more
cultivated Beza. The first object was to train pastors,
and he education given bore, in all its parts, the stamp
of the ecclesiastical seminary.
The Academy (so-called) at Geneva was the latest,
and not the least valuable of Calvin's institutions *.
It was not till after the final humiliation of the
republican party (1555), and the satisfactory un-
derstanding with Berne (1558) that he was able to
organise it. A town school, indeed, there had been
ever since the beginning of the independence of Geneva
(1536). But it had only given the rudiments of
learning. A Genevan youth, who wished to complete
his education, was obliged to go abroad to do so 7 .
The new institution was composed of two schools.
One for boys, a gymnasium, college, or grammar-school,
consisting, according to the universally received division,
of seven classes. In the sixth and seventh class the
rudiments were taught. From the fifth class upwards,
the instruction was in the classics. The other part of
the institution was one for higher education, and was
intended to carry on those pupils, who had passed
through the school. But it was not confined to them,
it was open to any who chose to enter their names
as students. In the latin statutes, this part of the
6 Ep. ad Bullinger. * See note A in Appendix.
7 Leges Academise, 1559 : ' Quum ad eum usque diem coacta fu-
isset civitas Genevensis, maximis cum incommodis ac difficultatibus,
ab iis urbibus et gentibus petere suse juventuti bonarum artium ae
disciplinarum cognitionem, quibus ipsa . . . syncerse religionis
scientiam de suo quodammodo largiebatur.'
GENEVA. 15781596. 13
institution was called the Schola Publica, and the lower
part, or college, is styled the Schola Privata. When
the term ' academy of Geneva ' is used, the upper, or
schol publica of professors and students is usually
intended, though ' academy ' is sometimes loosely said
of the whole institution t aken together. The academy
consisted at first of three chairs, Hebrew, Greek, and
Arts. The department of Theology, which was the
capital consideration, was taught by Calvin (afterwards
by Beza) as pastor, without the title of professor.
After a time, chairs in Law and Medicine were added.
Both schools, the upper and the lower, were under the
control of a rector cliosen every two years, but
re-eligible. How entirely the education of Geneva was
in the hands of the clergy may be judged from the
fact that rector, professors, head-master, and all the
masters in the lower school were appointed by the
Venerable company cf pastors, and only confirmed
by the Council.
In entering their names in the * rector's book' the
students of the academy subscribed the statutes, but
also a lengthened confession of calvinistic orthodoxy.
Considering the rigidity of everything else, it may seem
surprising that as early as 1576, in less than twenty
years from its establishment, this subscription had to be
abolished. Still more surprising is the tolerant motive
recorded in the register, that Lutherans and papists
may be no longer hindered from coming to study here ;
and that, further, it does not seem right to press a young
conscience which is unresolved to sign what it doth not
as yet understand ; and further that they of Saxony
have taken occasion herefrom to compel those who go
from hence to them to sign the confession of Augsburg 8 /
8 Registre clu conseil, ap. Gabarel, 2. 122.
14 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
Charles Perrot, one of the pastors, was put forward as
the mover of this liberal step. But there can be no
doubt that it had the approbation of Beza, without
which nothing was done, at that period. But for 200
years no further step was taken in that direction.
Though subscription was abolished for students, yet
down to 1796, no dissident, not even a lutheran, could
be a teacher in the academy, or even a citizen of
Geneva. Beza, and the sixteenth century, were, if not
more tolerant, more enlightened than the seventeenth
century. It was policy, not indifference to dogma.
The policy of the State of Geneva, its open-armed
hospitality, was extended to its school and university.
Originally designed for natives, the academy of Geneva
became very early a great resort of foreign students.
They nocked in from all parts of protestant Europe, even
from lutheran countries. That the discipline main-
tained was rigorous, and that it had a strictly church
character both these facts contributed to accredit the
school, throughoiit the reformed countries. In the
school the hour of opening was six in summer, seven
in winter. The boys brought their breakfast with
them, and ate it on the benches of the schoolroom.
They might not bring anything but the simplest food,
the same for rich and poor. The classrooms were open
to all the rigours of the seasons. In November 1564,
a master having petitioned that the windows might be
glazed, the council took it into its consideration. The
decision arrived at was, that 'the children might, if
they liked, paste paper over the openings next their
seats 9 .' There was a charcoal brazier in each classroom
in the very cold weather, at which, when the fingers
9 Goethe, Italian. Eeise, Werke, 19. 23, found, in 1787, papered
windows at Torbole.
vpfnsp.rl
GENEVA. 15781596. 15
refused their office, they might be thawed for a few
seconds. All the pupils had to attend in their place at
church, the Wednesday morning sermon, on Sunday
three times, morning and afternoon sermon and cate-
chism. Absence without a valid excuse was followed
by punishment. .
The students of the * public school' or academy
being in great .part strangers, gave more trouble-
especially the Germans. Accustomed to the licence
of the universities of the fatherland, they thought
to carry the privileges of the Bursch with them. They
were soon undeceived. Certain families, 'vivans selon
Dieu,' were selected, and the scholars not allowed to
lodge elsewhere. The severity of its discipline recom-
mended Geneva as much as the theological celebrity
of Calvin. Pious parents throughout Europe gladly
accepted the risks of the distance, and the dangerous
neighbourhood, to bring their sons under the shadow
of such a training.
On the numbers of the students the statements in
the histories are vague, and marked with the tendency
to amplify. The figure of 1000 in which the modern
writers, Henry, Gaberel, Stahelin, seem so unanimous,
is not traceable beyond an anonymous letter quoted
by Sayous 10 , ' C'est merveille des auditeurs des lemons
de M. Calvin j'estime qu'ils sont journellement plus
de mille.' Even if this unauthenticated statement be
accepted, it must be understood of the whole affluence
to Calvin's lectures, which were doubtless open to the
public. We know from the documentary evidence of
the ' Leges academies,' that on the day of opening
there were present * 600 scholars/ But this includes
the boys in the lower school with its seven classes,
10 Etudes litt^raires, p. 107.
16 GENEVA. 15781596.
comprising doubtless the whole of those between
seven and fifteen, who were of a rank to receive
grammar-school education. But there remains the
undeniable evidence of the matriculation book or
'livre du recteur/ From this we find that, throw-
ing out the exceptional years of the plague, the
Saint-Bartholomew, and the worst years of the re-
ligious war, the average of entries was about forty
per annum. Tholuck has proved that for the univer-
sities of Germany, at this period, we may assume
four years as the average duration of a student's
residence. If this average were applicable to Ge-
neva, we should have 160 as the total number of
students the ' Frequenz/ as the Germans call it. But
for various reasons it is probable that the average
stay of a student at Geneva did not reach four years.
We shall be nearer the mark, if we assume the
number of students, residing in any one year, at
from 100 to 120. In the exceptional years above
named, the actual numbers were much below this
average. In 1572 (Saint-Bartholomew) there were only
three matriculations. On the other hand, in 1597
(Edict of Nantes) they amounted to 120. When this
is clear to us, we understand how it was possible to
get on with so few professors. There w^ere at first
but three literary professors ; two more were added
afterwards. There were besides the two theological
professors ; but their lectures were, in fact, doctrinal
sermons, pastoral rather than professional. Calvin
never would take the title of professor. These lecture-
sermons, though doctrinal, were in the form of exegesis ;
they were commentaries on books of the bible. Scientific
' Dogmatik y was an invention of the 1 7th century.
The day opened with a service or sermon at 5 A.M.
GENEVA. 15781596.
17
in summer, 6 A.M. in winter. This, not for the stu-
dents, but for the congregation. This lasted an hour.
Immediately after the sermon followed the lecture of
the hebrew professor. This lecture was also exege-
tical. He was followed by the professor of greek,
who explained an author, of philosophy or ethics,
Aristotle, Plato, Plutarch, or some Christian writer.
Ten was the dinner hour. After dinner the greek
professor had a second hour, when ' he read some
greek poet, orator, or historian. Latin authors were
considered to belong to the province of the professor
of arts. But only on three days of the week did the
greek professor lecture twice. On Wednesday and
Friday he had no morning lectures ; on Saturday none
at all. But on Friday every professor had to attend
the weekly consistory, or conference of ministers.
The Sunday was spent in hearing the sermons. The
actual lecturing of the greek professor was thus only
eight hours per week.
But then his lectures were not mere grammar, or
construing lessons to learners. Greek was learnt in
the school. The boy began greek in the fourth class,
i. e. at ten or eleven years old. By the time he
quitted the first class he had read through some of
the principal authors. The greek professor, therefore,
was not doomed, like the Scottish professor, to teach
the elements. He had before him an advanced class,
in whom he might assume a knowledge, not of the
language only, but of the ordinary school cycle of
greek history and antiquities. We shall give some
account below of the subjects which Casaubon taught
at Geneva.
'High work did not mean high pay. 'The salaries
of the professors/ writes Calvin, ' are not at the
c
18 GENEVA. 15781596.
magnificent rate usual in Germany, but are on a par
with those of the pastors, barely sufficient for sup-
port 11 / They were fixed at 280 genevese florins.
Something could be added to this scanty pay by
boarding students, as the professors usually did.
Ninety florins were considered sufficient allowance for
board and lodging, out of which there could be little
profit, even though, as we are told in "the life of S.
Francis de Sales, ' Savoy is the country in all the
world where one can live the cheapest 12 / 'A Pro-
fessor of Law or Medicine it was necessary, then as
now, to pay more highly ; and we read of their having
600, 700, and even 800 genevese florins. With 800
florins, Ho toman, in 1577, found it impossible to live,
but then he had a family of nine children.
It is true, that this period, and the I7th century
also, echo with the complaints of the poverty of
professors. But, in Geneva, this economy was not
niggardliness, it was bare poverty. Indeed, in the
circumstances of the republic, it is more surprising
that the schools should have continued to exist at
all, than that the teachers should have shared in a
misery which was common to all. The struggle of
Geneva against the Dukes of Savoy was not that of
an affluent bourgeoisie ambitious of political independ-
ence ; it was a struggle for existence. Geneva was
not only a burgher aristocracy, hateful in the eyes of
sovereign princes 13 , but an outpost of Protestantism,
11 Epp. ap. Henry, Leben Calvin's, 3. 390.
12 Marsollier, Vie de S. Fra^ois, i. 433.
13 Zurich Letters, 2nd ser. p. 275 : 'As for Geneva, they not only
hate, but execrate it.' Of. the representations of S. Francis de Sales
to the Duke of Savoy, ap. Marsollier, i. 246 : ' Que les calvinistes
&oient naturellement republicans, et ennemis de 1'dtat monarclrique,'
etc.
GENEVA. 15781596. 19
encamped as it were within the very territory of Savoy.
Charles Emmanuel had sworn that ' he would have
Geneva if it cost him a million/ Twice in one year
(1584) well concerted plots, favoured by traitors within,
were detected when ripe for execution. Nor was it
only liberty, political and religious, which was at stake.
The savage cruelty, which was thought praiseworthy
in catholic soldiers dealing with Calvinists, told the
Genevese what to expect if the mercenaries once got
within the walls 14 . In 1589 the Duke of Savoy
brought up an army of 18000 regular troops, with
the determination to destroy the nest of heretics once
for all. The little republic, deserted at the critical
moment by Berne, and hated by the lutheran princes
of Germany, as much as by fanatically catholic France,
could only muster 2186 men capable of bearing arms.
History has not a more gallant struggle against odds
to record. Before it was released by the peace of
Vervins (1598), Geneva had lost 1500 men out of
its total levy of 2186. The importance of destroying
the city was fully understood by the catholic party.
It was especially urged by S. Francis de Sales in a
memorial presented to the Duke of Savoy. The schools
and the printing-presses are particularly pointed out, by
the catholic saint, as the instruments of mischief 15 .
14 A bishop of Geneva writes in 1534 ; Jussie, Levain du Calvinisme,
p. 84 : ' Que la, ou on trouverait des Luthe'riens on les pouvoit prendre,
tuer, ou pendre a un arbre, sans nulle difficult^ ou doute.'
15 Aug. Sales, Vita S. Francisci de Sales, p. 99 : ' Quid dicam de
prelis quse habent amplissima et munitissima, unde in omnem terram
pestiferos libros spargunt . . . accedunt ad hsec scholre ad quas plerique
nobili sanguine orti juvenes advolant a Francia.'
The protestants were equally aware that the printing-press had
been a great engine of the success of the reformation in the towns where
C 2
20 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
The misery suffered within the walls during this siege,
or e-7nrei^L(TL<s 9 was frightful. The population of Geneva
before the troubles in France is estimated at i2OOO 18 .
During the troubles hundreds of French families immi-
grated ; the foreigners almost outnumbered the native
townsmen 17 . In 1558, 279 foreigners were admitted
citizens in one day. Yet in 1589 the population was
only 1 3000 18 . Such had been the ravages of famine,
pestilence, misery, and war. Poverty and overcrowding
made the plague more than ordinarily deadly in Geneva.
In 1615, more than 4000 died of it a fourth of
the population. The refugees, happy to have escaped
with their lives, brought little capital with them.
The town had no trade, could have none, with an
enemy permanently encamped just outside the walls 19 .
It was at the hazard of life that travellers arrived or
left the city. Its fair had been long before transferred
to Lyons. The only industry was printing, mostly
little remunerative, as the example of Henri Estienne
shows. ' This commonwealth and church/ says Beza 20 ,
it was free. Grynseus, Epp. p. 26 : ' Turn solide doctorum virorum
voce viva et scriptis editis ; . . . turn officmarum tvpograplricarum,
quae maximo illis adjumento fuerunt.'
16 Bonivard, Chronique, 2. 385.
17 Ed. Mallet, Mdm. et Documens de la Sod4t6 de 1'Hist. de
Geneve, 8. 453.
18 Registre du conseil, ap. Grdnus, p. 68.
19 The system of the Duke of Savoy was to erect two forts, Santa
Catarina and ' Mommeliana/ a short distance from the city, on his
own territory, the garrison of which commanded the roads on the side
of Savoy and Franche Cornte'. These were not destroyed till the cam-
paign of 1600. Burney MSS. 365. 59, Lect. to Casaubon, 13 Nov.
1 600 : ' Extat etiamnum, quod mirere, Catharina . . . tamen, dedito
superioribus diebus Mommeliano, finem malorum speramus ab exempto.'
Cf. Thuanus, Hist. 125. 13.
20 Vita Calvini.
GENEVA, 1578 1596.
21
* may be truly called a nursery of poverty ' pauper-
tatis officina. One resource it had in the sympathy
of foreign churches, kindled by returned students, who
carried back reports of privation heroically endured.
The registers of the council, and the correspondence
of the period, are full of acknowledgments of such
aid. England, and English bishops, were not among
the most backward. Cox, Sandys, Grindal, never
send a letter to Zurich without enclosing a remem-
brance 21 . The bishop of Ely sends Gualter five
crowns. The bishop of London sends Bullinger enough
cloth to make a gown. This was to Zurich. But in
1583 the bishops procured a royal brief for a collection
through the churches of England in aid of Geneva.
It produced 5039. Two public quetes made in
Holland raised considerable sums, though the United
provinces were then engaged in their death struggle
with Philip IT. The maintenance of the schools at
Geneva was a special object of these subsidies. Many
of the reformed churches, too, maintained students
at Geneva. So Arminius was sent there at the charge
of the city of Amsterdam, and Utenbogaert at the
charge of Utrecht. Till the rise in credit of Ley den
(founded 1575), Holland, excluded from Louvain, was
compelled to seek education for its youth in foreign
countries. But Heidelberg, or Herborn in Nassau,
being more conveniently situated than Geneva, received
most of the Dutch students 22 .
In June, 1582, Casaubon had received his appoint-
ment. To one whose boyhood had been a school of
hardship, a fixed stipend of 10 a year and rooms in
21 Zurich Letters (publication of Parker Society), passim.
22 Schotel, Studenten Oproer in 1594.
22 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
the college, may have seemed provision for a family.
Under Calvin's rigid police early marriage was the
rule ; and the strength of numbers must have been
an object with any government of Geneva. Besides
there was the consideration of boarders. Accordingly,
in September, 1583, Casaubon married. His wife,
Mary, though, like himself, a native of Geneva, was,
like himself, the child of refugee parents. Her family
was from Bourdeaux in Dauphine. The union was
of short duration*. She died in April, 1585, leaving
one child, a daughter.
Meanwhile, distress inside the walls and terror
without, were slowly enveloping the little republic
and threatening it with extinction. The protestant
cause was lost in France, and it was now a question
not of liberty of conscience, but of life. Every one
who had anywhere else to go made their escape from
the doomed city, Bonaventure Bertram, professor of
hebrew, escaped to Frarikenthal, Hotoman to Bale.
Hotoman writes to Heidelberg : ' In the whole of
France there is no good man who is not suffering
severely. In our Savoy a large part of the popula-
tion has actually perished of famine, and now pesti-
lence is attacking those that have survived 24 .' The
assassination of the Prince of Orange, the repeated
attempts on the life of Elizabeth, and on that of the
King of Navarre, the growing fury of the League,
the armament of Philip n. against England, the
savage massacres which broke out from time to time
in the French towns, intimated that the policy of
S. Bartholomew, the extinction of protestantism by
the extermination of the protestants, was the aim of
* See note B in Appendix.
24 Hotom. Epp. ep. 147.
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 23
the triumphant party. The desperate position of
Geneva was such that foreign students ceased to come
at all, and the greek class, as was natural, was the
first to. drop. In November, 1585, we find 25 that
Casaubon was left with hardly any auditors. The
council amalgamated the professorship of greek with
that of history, and appointed Casaubon to the
double charge. But in 1586 things were worse, and
it was resolved to give up the academy. The council,
with many expressions of regret, intimated to the
professors the two theological professors excepted
that their functions must cease 26 . In this juncture
the Ven. company of pastors came forward (October 7)
and petitioned the council that such a public calamity
as the suppression of the academy might be averted,
and that their own salaries might be applied to the
payment of the professors. The petition was refused.
But at the next weekly meeting of the council the
Ven. company return to the charge (October 14).
They offer to raise among themselves 1000 crowns,
and lend it to the treasury, of course without interest,
for the relief of the present necessity. 'As for closing
the college,' says their memorial, 'our academy is
now regarded as the seminary of the churches of
France ; the school of La Eochelle being the only
one now left in that kingdom. The reputation of
our school is so widely spread that even England
25 Geneva MSS. Registre du pet. cons. f. 160. 22 nov. 1585:
' D'aultant que M. Casaubon n'a presque point d'auditeur.'
26 Geneva MSS. Kegistre du pet. cons. f. 226, 7 pctob. 1586 :
* Suyvant ce qui a est6 cy devant parl de les easier a cause des
charges que la ville supporte qui sont grandes, a estd arrest^ qu'en
ceste consideration, et d'aultant qu'ils n'ont a present des auditeurs,
qu'on les cong^die, et qu'on retieime leur mandement de ce quartier.'
24 GENEVA. 15781596.
sends us students. The honour of your lordships is
involved in the maintenance of this precious estab-
lishment. The classical languages and philosophy are
indispensable for theology. Now, more than ever,
ought we to cherish the study of the sciences, when
the Jesuits have founded such a quantity of schools
both in Switzerland and Savoy. It is said that the
number of students in our academy is become insig-
nificant. This is not so, seeing that at the last
" promotions " twenty-three passed from the lower
school to the public lectures. And as for the attend-
ance at these lectures, no one can say that M r . Casaubon
wants for auditors 27 . If the Council persists in its
resolution, our city will suffer in character ; and the
foreign students once diverted from us will not find
their way back when better times come/
Men, who were prepared to make such sacrifices,
were not altogether unworthy to exercise even the
despotic power which these ministers wielded. The
council, did not, for the present, think proper to grant
this request, and the lectures were suspended 28 . We
do not exactly know how long the suspension of the
schools continued. But, as Casaubon made a journey
to Frankfort in 1590, without applying for leave of
absence, it may be conjectured that he did not resume
before that year. These two or three years, 1568-88,
were the darkest period. In 1587 the plague was at
its worst. It made havoc in the uii ventilated dwellings
27 The lectures on Persius were delivered ' magna frequentia,'
Burmann, Syll. i. ep. 362; 'frequent! auditorio.' Schultze, epp.
inedd. p. 14.
28 Tholuck, Gesch. d. Rat. quotes a private letter of a law student
in 1586, which says, 'all the professors here have resigned for want
of hearers/
and cloS'
GENE VA. 1578 1596. 25
I
and close streets, in which were crowded a half-famished
population. The splendid quay, on which now rise
the magnificent hotels and warehouses, was then an
unwholesome marsh. The marauding parties of the
mercenary troops of Savoy made escape into the fresh
air of the mountains impossible. Duty on the walls
was incessant, day and night. ' The exhaustion of the
public treasury/ writes Casauboii, 29 'is complete. Our
burghers are entirely impoverished. The city is filled
with paupers and beggars. A large part of the popu-
lation is on the verge of starvation.'
We catch one authentic glimpse which shows the
growing esteem which he had conquered, even in this
time of general suffering. It is the more weighty as it
is embodied in the official proceedings of the council.
In August, 1591, the ministers return to the charge 30 .
The academy appears, at this date, to be in exercise
again, but to be poorly supported. The ministers apply
on behalf of the professors. Beza and Perrot were
deputed to wait on ( my Lords,' and to represent
to them 31 :
!9 Ep. 969 (to Stuck) : ' Ingens pauperum et mendicorum turba, vere
dico tibi, plerique nostrum eegre se et suos defendunt ab illo
!0 Hotoman writes to Tossanus at Heidelberg to use his influence
with Beza ' to restore as soon as possible the professors of Greek and
of Philosophy, by whose suspension this State has incurred a heavy,
perhaps incurable wound/ Hotomann. Epp. ep. 145.
31 Geneva MSS. Reg. du pet. cons, n aout, 1591, f. 149 : 'II y a
le sieur Casaubon, qui sera un tres rare personage si Dieu luy fuit la
grace de vivre, est trSs humble et paisible, mais la ne'cessite' le presse
. . . II est recherche* et pratique" d'ailleurs, car il escript tres bien.
M r . du Fresne 1'a recherche* pour 1* avoir pres de luy en Allemayne, et
pour le gagner luy a envoye' 50^, mais il a tout son coeur a ce public,
mais qu'il puisse vivoter, prient de luy faire quelque present de
. 26 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
' That this school is a treasure which God has blessed
in such sort, that there have issued from it instruments
of his glory. The ministers do not doubt that the
council intend to maintain the school in being, but they
would particularly recommend the case of M. Chevalier,
who discharges very well his duties as professor,
though it may be he has not many pupils. . . . There
is further the sieur Casaubon, who will become a very
rare personage, if God of his mercy grant him to live ;
he being very humble and peaceable; but he is in great
necessity, notwithstanding that they, the ministers,
have succoured him to the best of their ability. He is
already sought for and courted by persons abroad, for
his excellent writings ; M. de Fresne has desired to
attach him to himself in Germany, and has sent him
fifty crowns with this object. Notwithstanding he has
his whole heart in the service of this public ; and that
he may be able to support bare life, they pray the
council to make him a present of money out of the
unappropriated funds of the college, e.g. fifty crowns,
adding thereto some wheat for the relief of his present
wants/ Hereupon the council ordered that fifty crowns
and six bolls of wheat be delivered to Casaubon. In the
year following, 1592, he also receives, by order of the
council, a present of red wine, along with the ministers 32 .
It was an exceptional favour, as the other professors
are not mentioned.
The republic came through the ordeal reduced to
1'argent . . .' The expression ' a ce public ' is peculiar. An
inhabitant of Geneva could not speak of his country. Geneva was a
city of refuge filled with foreigners, whose ' patrie ' was France.
32 Geneva MSS. Reg. du pet. cons. 4 dec. 1592, f. 235, v. . . .
* Comprenant avec les dites ministres le S 1 . Casaubon professeur en
grec.'
GENEVA. 1578 1596.
.27
the lowest ebb of fortune, but unbroken in spirit.
Each pious bosom felt that no human arm, but that
of Providence alone, had interposed to save the bul-
wark of the church. History, perhaps, has never
crowded into two years a greater number of surprising
events impossible to predict. The first gleam of hope
came from the side of France. The signal victory of
Coutras, October 20, 1587, where the 'jeunesse doreV
of the party of massacre went down before half their
number of poor and despised Huguenots, gave im- .
mediate relief. Then the execution of Mary Stuart,
the annihilation of the Armada, the assassination of
the Guises, the union of the two Henrys against the
catholic League, and finally, the accession of Henri TV,
all these great events on the European theatre were
felt at Geneva, relaxing the tension put upon its
strength a strain which, had it been continued, must
have ended in breaking. In April, 1590, Casaubon
can write, ' Our affairs are, by the mercy of almighty
God, in not a little better condition than they were
when I received your letter, about five months back/
How Casaubon himself struggled through these
dismal years we are left to conjecture. It must be
remembered that we have, for this period, neither his
diary nor his letters by the aid of which we shall be
able, in the later years of his life, to follow his fortunes
with minuteness and accuracy. The principal events
of his life during the years of distress are, the course
of his studies ; his father's death ; his second marriage.
His father, Arnold, was attacked with low fever
on January i, [586. His physician pronounced the
symptoms favourable, and foretold a speedy recovery.
But the patient himself was convinced he should never
rise from his sick bed. It proved so. On February i
28 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
he died, not of age, he was only 63, but worn out
with the sufferings and anxieties of the 25 years of
persecution. His death took place at Die in Dauphine,
and his funeral was attended by all the notables of
the town, and many nobles of the province, it so
happening that a synod was being held at the time.
' 33 I alone of his children/ writes Isaac Casaubon, 'had
the misfortune to be absent.' Isaac received the intel-
ligence while he was writing his notes on the beginning
of the fifth book of Strabo. He confides his sorrow
to his commentary, as to a companion and friend. The
reader of Strabo to this day is called upon to sympa-
thise with Casaubon in his bereavement, in the middle
of a difficulty which he leaves unexplained for that
cause 34 . It is not only filial affection lacerated by death,
premature and unexpected. It is disgust with his
own occupation at the moment, when brought into
sudden contrast with the memory of a parent, whose
every thought and every hour had been given to sacred
things and the cause of God. 'There is a difficulty
here' in Strabo' s account of the southern shore of
the Italian peninsula 'which I leave to others who
have more leisure for such work. I have neither time
nor spirit for the discussion of such things. My mind,
overwhelmed by the intelligence just received, has no
more taste for these classical studies, and demands a
different strain to soothe and heal it.' Years after-
wards, when it became necessary for the Jesuit party
83 Isaac's own account of his father Arnold's death is given in ep.
893 to Lingelsheim in 1613. He repeats it again, with fuller detail,
in 'Exercitt. ad Baron.' 1614, reproduced in Prideaux, Castigatio,
p. 224. The shorter accounts in Meric, Pietas, p. 74, and Abbott,
Antilogia, ep. ad lect., are not independent testimony, being both com-
municated by Isaac. 34 Comm. in Strabon. p. 211.
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 29
to defame Casaubon, they put in circulation a story
that his father had been hanged. Gross as was the
fabrication, it wounded Casaubon s sensitive nature,
and, at the distance of twenty-five years, harrowed up
the pang with which he had first received the in-
telligence of his parent's death, himself, alone of his
children, away from his bed side.
His father died on February i ; in April Casaubon
married a second wife. Prudent it cannot have been
in the middle of the public calamities, when even his
poor 10 a year was precarious, to marry a girl of
eighteen without fortune. But in times of distress
men seek consolation, not welfare, and prudence is in
abeyance. And there were many things to recom-
mend the match. The lady had beauty, sense, worth,
and her grandfather s gentleness of disposition. Above
all, Florence Estienne was the daughter of the great
printer, Henri Estienne (Henricus Stephanus n.)
Casaubon was naturally attracted to the editor of the
Thesaurus, and had probably fallen in love with Es-
tienne's MSS. collections, before he began to pay his
court to the daughter.
But there was a difficulty in the way, over and
above the moody and fitful temper, which was grow-
ing upon Estienne with his failing fortunes. The
special difficulty was a literary offence. In 1566
Henri Estienne brought out one of his most magni-
ficent volumes, his ' Poetse grseci/ the cost of producing
which must have been very heavy. But no sooner
was it out, than Crespin put out a pocket volume of
poets, containing the Bucolic and Gnomic poets, who
had formed a part of Estienne's 'Corpus' (1569).
Estienne replied by a pocket edition of the Idyllic
poets (1579). Vignon, Crespin's successor, retorted
30 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
with a new edition of the book of 1569, on cheaper
paper. He solicited, and obtained, in an evil hour,
from Casaubon, a few pages of criticism to enliven
and recommend his volume. The rival books are, in
externals, precisely alike. And, as Estienne flourished
on his title page ' Observationes Henrici Stephani
in Theocritum,' Vignon has upon his ' Isaaci Hortiboni
Theocriticarum lectionum libellus/ Henri Estienne,
whose profits on his Greek books were, to say the
least, doubtful, naturally resented the rivalry in his
own domain, especially, if, as is almost always the case,
to competition was added underselling. But this was
not the worst. Estienne had, in each of his editions,
given emendations of the text of Theocritus. To correct
over the irascible veteran's head was indiscreet, and
Casaubon felt it to be so. He tried to mitigate the
storm by inscribing his ' Lectiones Theocriticse ' to
Estienne himself, and apologising most humbly for
their appearance at all. * He had allowed Vignon to
get a promise from him in an unguarded moment. He
had tried to be off it afterwards, but Vignon held him
to his pledge. It was difficult for him even to glean
after Estienne's harvest. His poor production con-
sisted merely of notes jotted down some time before,
for his own use, and without any view to print/
' Should you ever condescend to go through them,
you will greatly oblige me if you will mark all you
disapprove with a red pencil. Nothing will satisfy
me, but what I find to be satisfactory to you/ In
later years Casaubon learned to estimate better the
value of Estienne's 'red pencil/ This abject sentence
disappeared from the dedication when it was reprinted
by Commelin in 1596.
Besides this offence, the youth of Florence, and the
GENEVA. 15781596. 31
poverty of Casaubon were grounds on which the father
might justly disapprove the match. But he did not
interfere to prevent it, perhaps because he was occupied
with a suit on his own account. Immediately on
the expiry of his year's widowhood, April 24, 1586,
Casaubon and Florence Estienne were married, in S.
Peter's, and on May 9, Henri Estienne espoused his
third wife, Abigail Pouppart.
How tenderly Casaubon was attached to his wife
is evident throughout his diary. Even the moments
of impatience, consigned to the pages of that secret
record, may be taken to prove affection and general
harmony. He certainly complains bitterly on one
occasion of her interrupting him*. But over and above
Casaubon' s constitutional fretfulness, we must make
allowance for the irritability engendered by a life of
hard reading against time. Casaubon thought every
moment lost in which he was not acquiring knowledge.
He resented intrusion as a cruel injury. To take up
his time was to rob him of his only property. Casau-
bon' s imagination was impressed in a painful degree
with the truth of the dictum 'ars longa, vita
brevis.' As though with a presentiment that the
end would come to him early, he struggles, all
through a life of harass, to have his time for himself.
To his wife struggling also, in her way, with
the cares of a large household and narrow means,
he may naturally have seemed at times apathetic
to her difficulties, and selfishly 'burying himself in
his books.' This is the true interpretation of the
exceptional allusions in the diary. Its general tone
is that of true affection. When she is away from him
he writes to her by every post, and sometimes cannot
* See note C in Appendix.
32 GENEVA. 15781596.
give his attention to his books owing to the pain he
suffers at her absence. June 1599, ' dolor ex uxoris
absentia studia mea impediverunt.' ' To-day I got
two letters from my wife. When will the day come
that I shall see her again ? ' Every illness of hers is
recorded, and his time, of which he is avaricious, is
devoted to waiting upon her. Except in being too
prolific 35 , they had eighteen children, she proved an
excellent scholar's wife, according to the model which
is still traditional in Germany. She did not enter
into her husband's pursuits, but she encouraged and
sustained his temper naturally given to despondency.
She is his 'steady partner in all his vexations,' ep. 750.
She relieves him of all domestic cares, so that as he com-
plains to archbishop Spotswood, <36 when she is absent
from him, he finds himself lost and helpless.' She is
sure to find, if it can be found, a valuable volume belong-
ing to Lingelsheim ' because whatever she knows I have
at heart, she has at heart.' In 1613 he writes, <37 I
know by experience what a great help in our studies
is an agreeable and dearly-beloved wife.' There is
something touchingly simple in Florence's entry in
the Ephemerides, the solitary entry in her handwriting,
February 23, 1601. Casaubon had gone out of Paris
for the night, to attend the protestant worship, a
journey not without risk from the fanatical and fero-
cious catholic mob of Paris. Mad e . Casaubon takes
the volume and writes *ce jour dit, M. Casaubon a
este absent, que Dieu garde, et moi, et les nostres avec
lui.' Her economical talent comes out in the birthday
35 G-eneva MSS. Reg. du pet. cons. 17 oct. 1595, f. 184 : ' Sur la
n^cessitd de sa famille qui s'augrnente annuellement,' says the order in
council, not without a touch of humour.
36 Ep. 1047. 37 Ep. 853.
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 33
present she brought her husband in 1604 a purse of
more than 100 gold crowns, the saving of her thrift
out of their scanty income.
In other respects the connection with the Estienne
family brought with it nothing but vexation. Henri's
fortunes were brought to the lowest ebb, and that by
his own neglect. Florence's dower, whatever it was
that was promised, remained unpaid at her father's
death. <38 To hope to get my wife's dower paid by
Estienne,' Casaubon writes in 1596, 'would be to hope
for water from the rock.' Nor was it only loss of
fortune that he had to suffer. He had the mortifica-
tion of seeing one, who bore a name honoured through
Christendom, and who had achieved so much for
learning, losing daily the respect of others and his
own, and lowering himself to become a sycophant
and a beggar at the doors of bishops and princes.
Estienne was a perfect dragon in the close keeping
of his books and MSS. So far from marriage with
his daughter opening to Casaubon the father-in-law's
library, Casaubon was more rigidly excluded from it
after than before his marriage. Though Estienne was
absent on his wanderings for months even years at
a time, Casaubon never saw the inside of the library,
except on the one memorable occasion on which he
and Florence summoned courage to break it open.
Speaking of a new book of Camerarius, Casaubon
writes to Bongars 39 , ' Read it I have not ; seen it I
have ; but it was in the hands of Henri Estienne,
who would not so much as allow me to touch, much
less read it, while he is every day using, or abusing,
my books as if they were his own.' Eichard Thomson
applied to Casaubon to get him the loan of the MS.
38 Ep. 1010. 39 Ep. 21.
D
34 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
of Sextus Empiricus. The greek text of Sextus was
not yet printed in 1594, but Estienrie had a Florence
transcript, which he had bought in Italy in 1555.
Casaubon is obliged to reply to Thomson : ' * All that
I have is yours. But the MS. of Empiricus belongs to
.... (Henri Estienne). You know the man and his
peculiarities. I have no influence with him whatever.
He seems to have entered into a conspiracy for his
own ruin. Indeed he is not here (Geneva) as your
letter assumes. For the last nine months he has been
on his wanderings about Germany, settling nowhere/
Casaubon had been allowed the use of this greek
Sextus, and had quoted a long passage from it in the
' notes on Diogenes/ 1593, brandishing it in the reader's
eyes as 'noster codex.' He is now driven to confess
to Thomson, that he had gone too far. It was not only
not his, but he could not even have the use of it.
It will surprise no proprietor of MSS. that Estienne
should have been jealous of his treasures, and that he
should have preferred to retain the power of producing
the Editio princeps of Sextus Empiricus to himself.
In our own day, Cardinal Mai wished to monopolise
the whole of the greek MSS. in the Vatican. And
Casaubon was specially dangerous, as being ready and
able to correct and publish any greek he could lay his
hands on. Sylburgius knew this, and would not trust
his transcript of Scylax (then, 1594, unprinted) for an
hour in his hands. And the same instinct was latent
in Casaubon himself. At a later period when his own
books and papers had become valuable, he leaves the
strictest orders, on sailing for England, that ' 41 no one in
the world be allowed to touch or handle them.' And
40 Ep. 12.
41 Burney MSS. 367. p. 66 : ' Personne du monde ne les manie ni
louche.'
Casaubon
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 35
Casaubon exaggerates the facts when he says Estienne
would lend him no books. Both in the Strabo and
in the Athena3us he derived material assistance from
collations which Henri Estienne had made in Italy.
His expression about the Strabo seems indeed to
intimate that it had been obtained with difficulty.
' 42 Postquam codicem suum optime de literis meritus
socer Henricus Stephanas nobis concessit/
But the regard and respect which Casaubon enter-
tained for the veteran, whose enthusiasm for greek
learning had been his ruin, was proof against Es-
tienne's jealousy, and, what he must have felt keenly,
the old man's self-exposure of garrulous senility
through his press. Casaubon contributed to his
editions, deteriorating from year to year, to the Thu-
cydides of 1588, the latin Dionysius of the same year,
the Plinius of 1591, and to the Diogenes Laeitius of
1593. He was jealously excluded from all share in
the text and translation, or from any control of the
contents of the volumes. What he gave was extorted
from his good nature, that the title page of a badly
edited book might be decorated by the name of
Casaubon. Anger was lost in pity. Gruter sends
Casaubon his Seneca, 1593, in which were some sharp
reflections on Estienne. Casaubon, who knew how
just they were, expostulates with Gruter. ' 43 There
was but one drawback to the pleasure I had in
reading your book you know what. I could not
but feel pain at your strictures on one so nearly
related to me. Believe me, my friend, when I say
that if you only knew the man himself and his ways,
that even now you could not help loving him/ All
grievances were forgotten when the melancholy end
42 Comm. in Strab. p. 161. 43 Ep. 979.
D 2
36 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
came in 1598. In lamenting the ' charissimum caput' in
his diary, Casaubon was only thinking of the better days
of Henri's youth, and hopes that he himself may imitate
his father-in-law's unwearied industry in learning.
As his family increased, Casaubon began to feel the
pressure of distress. His wife's portion was not to
be had, and in the disturbed state of France it was
impossible to realise his father's estate. Besides, the
widow still lived, and had to be provided for. Casaubon
was obliged to appeal to the council. The treasury of
the republic was in no better plight than that of its
citizens. But necessitous as they were they did not
refuse to help Casaubon. October 28, 1594, a bonus
of 300 florins (genevese) is voted * M au sieur Isaac
Casaubon qui sert cette academic avec beaucoup
d'honneur, qui est dans la necessite, et qui se plaint
de ne pouvoir vivre de ses gages.' This in-
dulgence to Casaubon must be ascribed, not so much
to, personal esteem, but to the circumstance that his
classical lectures were the mainstay of the academy.
This we may infer not only from the general distress
of the treasury, which must have precluded all senti-
mental largesses, but from the fact that, two years
later, one of the law professors, Jacques Lect, was
suppressed altogether. And Lect was a more con-
siderable person in the city than Casaubon, and was,
at the time that he was cashiered, member of the
council. But he was not indispensable. For he was
one of two law professors, and could, therefore, be
regarded as a superfluity. Lect remonstrated, plead-
ing that he had embarked his prospects in the career
of law teacher, and had besides hurt his fortune by
buying the large quantity of books which was neces-
44 Registre du conseil, Gr&ms, p. 76.
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 37
sary. But his appeal was in vain. We may hazard
the conjecture, though the historians are silent, that
there was a jealousy between the two gowns, between
church and law. At any rate we find that the faculty
of law was introduced into the academy, by the
council, in the teeth of a remonstrance from the
pastors. In this remonstrance they allege, amongst
other objections to the study of law, ' 45 that those, who
apply themselves to this faculty, are for the most part
of dissolute habits, being young men of quality, whose
humour would not admit of their being subject to the
discipline of this church.' It may be that Lect was
thus punished by the ministers' party for opposition in
the council, where an able lawyer, <46 gentil personage/
like Lect, might make himself troublesome.
We may certainly infer from the fact of an aug-
mentation being granted to Casaubon, at a moment
when the treasury was empty, that his means were
confessedly straitened. At the same time, it is diffi-
cult to reconcile with his indigence his collection of
books. The valuable library he left at his death in
1614 must have been, in great part, the acquisition
of later years. Yet we know that before 1597 ne was
in possession of a fund of books, rich both as to
number and selection. The handlist which he made
when he shipped his books for Moiitpellier is pre-
served 47 . They made thirteen bales, and amount to
450 articles not volumes. Many authors, such as
S. Augustine, fill several volumes folio. Not a few
MSS. are among them.
From Casaubon's commentaries we see that the style
of his work demanded nothing less than a complete
' 5 Reg. du conseil, Gre'nus, p. 46. 46 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 138.
47 Adversaria, torn. 22.
38 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
collection of the classical remains. He wants to found
his remarks, not on this or that passage, but on a
complete induction. It seems easy for Bentley 48 to say,
'Astypalsea of Crete does not once occur in ancient
authors/ But a lifetime is behind this negation. It is
noticeable, how early in his career Casaubon had begun
to transcend the sphere of printed greek. In the
' Notes on Diogenes/ set. 25, we find that he had
managed to beg, borrow, or buy many anecdota
Polysenus ; Photius ; a fragment of Theocritus ; a
.Theodoret ' De servandis affectibus/ lent him by Pacius;
Scholia on Euripides, given him by Galesius 49 . It
must not be supposed that Casaubon could at this, or
any time, buy ancient greek MSS. What he bought
were transcripts made for sale. These were manu-
factured by Damarius. Damarius was one of the last
of the calligraphs, a race who long survived the in-
vention of printing. Damarius ' homo grsecus/ says
Casaubon, with a tinge of bitterness at the recollection
of some of his bargains had, it should seem, access to
the library at Venice, and went about Europe to sell his
copies. His transcripts are no c livres de luxe,' like the
productions of the pen of a Yergecio or a Rhosus
true works of art, made to adorn the collections of
princes and cardinals *. Damarius' books are hasty
transcripts, on poor paper, of any inedita he could get
hold of in Bessarion's library. 50 Casaubon may naturally
48 Diss. upon Phalaris, Works, i. 368.
9 Notae in Diogenem, pp. 3, 14, 16, 79, 120.
* See Note D in Appendix.
50 S. Hieronym. preef. in Job : ' Habeant qui volunt veteres libros,
vel in membranis purpureis auro argentoque descriptos, vel uncialibus,
ut vulgo aiunt, litteris, onera magis exarata quam codices, dummodo
mihi meisque permittant pauperes habere schedulas, et non tarn
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 39
have preferred, with S. Jerome,, correct books to orna-
mental books, but this he did not get from Damarius.
The transcripts of Damarius do not make up for their
want of external beauty by accuracy of text ; for the
transcriber does not seem to have known even the gram-
mar of classical greek. For these wretched copies he
was able to extract sums really vast. For the Polysenus
Casaubon had given a great sum 'magno sere.' A
Julius Africanus was sold to him, by the same vendor,
for 300 crowns, ' 51 almost its weight in silver/ But
Polygenus and Africanus were not then in print,
and Casaubon must have them. But of his printed
books many, the greek and hebrew especially, were not
books to be found in the shops. Even new books,
though their prices seem to us low, were not cheaper
in relation to the means of subsistence, then than now.
And then, as now, if you wanted to make a book come
specially for yourself from a distance, you were obliged
to pay for it. We find Casaubon, in his earliest corres-
pondence, setting his friends to hunt for books difficult
to procure. In 1596, when Sylburgius 3 library is to be
sold at Heidelberg, Casaubon writes to Commelin, ' If
there is anything scarce in it 52 to secure it, that it may
not get into hands that can do nothing with it/ He
had commissioned the Genevan bookseller to get him
the Eoman LXX of 1587, ' at any cost ' ' quovis pretio.'
When Richard Thomson was in Italy, he offered to
pulchros codices quam emendates.' Mindful of the precept of Plinius,
' fateri per quos profeceris/ I must confess to owe this passage, so
important for the history of palaeography, to Cobet's Yarr. Lectt. p. 5,
note. Cobet derived it from ' Eckhel, Doctr. Numm. v. 4.'
51 Ep. 227 : ' Pene contra aurum.' JEn. Tact. p. 220, Sueton. p.
47, ed. 1611.
52 Ep. 1004 : * Si distrahatur Sylhurgii supellex, et sit aliquid rari,
id quseso vel tibi, vel mihi compara.'
40 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
look out books for Casaubon 53 . Casaubon writes in
reply 54 , 'I need send you no list of desiderata. My
little stock of books is well known to you, and since
you were here, I have riot acquired anything fresh.
Besides, knowing as I do your forwardness to do any-
thing for me, I cannot think of thus abusing your
generosity. However, if you should come across any-
thing which I have not seen, hebrew, greek, or latin, it
will be very welcome/ With the same independent
feeling, he writes, on another occasion, to Lambert
Canter 55 that he shall only ask him to procure books,
on the condition that he (Casaubon) is to pay for
them. Later, in 1608, we find 56 Biondi having a
standing commission to send books from Venice to
Casaubon.
How the means of this outlay were obtained we do
not know, while he was at the same time supplicating
the council for bare subsistence. Some may have been
paid in kind. He tells Commelin 57 that he ' will settle
his debt to him either by editing books for him, or in
some other way/ Both publishers and authors were
always forward to send him copies of their learned
publications. But then this had to be met, either by
a return of copies of Casaubon's books, or by some
service ; e. g. Sebastian Henrici-Petri of Bale 58 sends
him two copies of his second edition of Homer, one for
the king, and one for himself, but with the request that
he would get him a copyright privilege for France.
Besides new publications, presents of rarities were
53 Burney MSS. 366. p. 225. 64 Ep. 79, August 1596.
55 Ep. 88 1. 56 Burney MSS. 365. p. 285.
57 Ep. 8 1 : ' Contractum apud te ses alienum, vel /3i/3Xta avr\
rependens, vel alia ratione expungam.'
68 Burney MSS. 364. 250.
GENEVA. 15781596. 41
sometimes made him by wealthy friends or patrons.
He seems to have 59 begged books of Canaye de Fresne,
who responded to the appeal with great liberality.
Bongars especially, is thanked 60 for 'various gifts/
some of which were books. Thomson, though not
wealthy, had sent him at least three parcels of books
before 1596. Loans of great value were not seldom
made him for the purposes of his various editions.
These loans either became by lapse of time property,
Casaubon being tacitly suffered to retain them, or
still intending to use them. Certain it is that, at
his death, in 1614, many such were found in his
possession, and never reverted to the owners. Among
these may be identified a MS. Polysenus which belonged
to Bongars, having been a present from the court phy-
sician, Superville. Hoeschel of Augsburg had lent a
valuable MS. of the epitome of Athenseus. Hoeschel
outlived Casaubon, but never got his Atheriseus again,
both it and the Polysenus having been impounded, for
the king's library. Another MS. of Hoeschel's, an Ex-
cerpta of Polybius, and another Polybius which had
been lent by de Mesmes, remained in England, and
getting in Selden's hands, became part of his collection
by this process of adhesion. The same account is
probably to be given of a MS. Porphyrius de Prosodia,
which had been part of Corbinelli's collection, and was
found among Casaubon' s books at his death.
All these forms of supply were insufficient to feed
his reading. He writes to de Thou (1595), c 61 No want,
and I have many, is so sensibly felt by me as the
want of books books absolutely necessary for what
I am writing. The old. martyrologies e. g. among others.
And there are other books which are indispensable for
59 Ep. 972. fl Ep. 1008. 61 Ep. 28.
42 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
the elucidation of antiquity, which I have not as yet
been able to procure here (Geneva), and perhaps never
shall. 3
On the whole we may conclude that Casaubon had
strained his narrow means in this one direction of ex-
pense. Pinched everywhere else, he spent all he could
save on books 62 . Book-buying was to him not the in-
dulgence of a taste or a passion, it was the acquisition
of tools. While mere bibliomania is insatiable, the books
wanted for a given investigation are an assignable
quantity. At the present day, when the book-trade is
organised, a collection of classics complete enough to work
with, may be made in no long time. But at the period
of which we write, when there were no advertisements,
no booksellers' catalogues, and hardly any booksellers
(as distinct from printers), this was not possible. Your
only means of knowing what new books were being
published was to attend the half-yearly fair at Frank-
fort. Even then yon would only see the books of those
printers who attended the fair, and the stock they
brought with them. Each printer only troubled him-
self about the sale of his own publications, and in very
rare cases consented to sell those of another firm. In
1595, Casaubon writes to Commelin at Heidelberg,
4 63 If I ask you to send me direct all that issues from
your press, it is not believe me, dearest Commelin,
because I am unwilling to buy them, but because ]
am unable. Our booksellers here (Geneva) are a blinc
sort who don't care to bring back (from Frankfort) whai
they think will not pay. I except Favre, who is no j
so stupid as the rest. From him I bought such o:
62 Ep. 972 : ' Reculas pene omnes meas in aliis omne genus libris
absumsi.' Ep. 225 : He sold books he had read, to buy others with.
63 Ep. 44.
vours as
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 43
^ours as I have got. You will have to write to de
Tournes (a Genevan printer) to order him to deliver
me the Chrysostom, as he refuses to do so, till he has
your express commands.' From Rostock the lawyer
Hanniel writes to Scaliger (1607), ' 64 I have not been
lucky enough to see your Eusebius yet. The indiffer-
ence, or shall I say greed, of our booksellers is such
that they give themselves no trouble about good books,
but only think of their profits/
Nor was the limitation of a private collection made
good, as in our day, by a great public library. It is
true that Geneva, even then, had a public library,
which contained many valuable books. It was a leg-
acy from Bonivard. Here Casaubon found the Apu-
leius of 1469, the Suetonius of 1470, and it is probable
that it was the possession of these books that deter-
mined him to become the editor of those authors.
But the collection though valuable was small. ' Happy
they/ writes Casaubon to Pithou, * who enjoy such
libraries as yours and those of your brother. Here
(Geneva) there is no one who can assist me with the
loan of so much as a single old book. As for Esti-
enne ... he guards his books as the Indian griffins
do their gold ; he lets them go to rack and ruin ; but
what he has or what he has not got, I am entirely
ignorant' (ep. 41). And again: ' 65 It has been my
ill-fortune not to be able to come by any books but
common ones. So that the learned should make
allowances for me, if in my writings they find no
traces, or but few, of that more recondite learning
which is only to be gathered from worm-eaten pages/
The expression used here, ' blattarii libri/ would include
64 Burmann, Syll. 2. 743. 63 Ep. 76.
44 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
both MSS. and early editions, of the importance of
which in forming a text Casaubon had lately become
.aware. This cry for more books was not the mere
craving of a gluttonous reader, but a demand for ma-
terials for projected works. We shall therefore not
be surprised to find this necessity among the causes
inducing him to leave Geneva 66 .
As illustrating Casaubon' s circumstances, may be re-
lated the episode of his acquaintance with Sir Henry
Wotton. On June 22, 1593, young Henry Wotton,
then in his twenty-fifth year, arrived at Geneva, in the
course of a prolonged tour which had been extended
over Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. It
was rather a residence on the continent than a tour,
for he was nine years absent from England altogether,
acquiring that knowledge of foreign languages, which
afterwards qualified him for the Venetian embassy.
At the time of his arrival at Geneva he was poor and
unknown. It so chanced that he took up his lodging
in the house of Casaubon, to whom he was recom-
mended by Eichard Thomson. Wotton's first im-
pressions of Geneva are, though only a glimpse, a
graphic picture of its interior in those years.
Aug. 22, 1593, To Lord Zouch 67 . * Here I am placed,
to my very great contentment, in the house of Mr.
Isaac Casaubon, a person of sober condition among
the French. . . . Concerning news, your honour knows
we are here rather scholars than politicians, and sooner
good than wise. Yet thus much I must say, that the
state of the town is undone with war, even in manners,
66 Cf. Ep. 980 : <Nos, in eo ten-arum angulo positi, ubi scripta
ejus generis non facile reperiuntur, qusedam nulla diligentia consequi
adhuc possumus.' This was in 1594.
67 Ap. Reliquiae Wottonianse, p. 710.
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 45
for certainly I have not seen worse temptations in Italy.
Not to let your honour be melancholy, I cannot abstain
to tell you, that since the dayes began to shorten, the
women, before seeming to have digested certain hu-
mors with walking, do now shell hemp till an hour
or two in the night, upon the bankes (benches) in the
street, and fires before them made of those shales, a
custom drawing with it many pretty examples and
opportunities. In short, it was three days since for-
bidden with the sound of the trumpet 68 . Some accuse
the war, and lay the fault upon the Dutch (Germans)
as having brought into the town intemperance and
ebriety, and such other evils as follow them/
Casaubon was charmed with his inmate. Wotton
according to Walton (Life) was ' of a choice shape,
tall of stature, and of a most persuasive behaviour,
which was so mixed with sweet discourse and civil-
ities, as gained him much love from all persons with
whom he entered into an acquaintance/ Against such
winning qualities Casaubon was not proof, and allowed
the gay Englishman to run in debt to him for part of
his year's board and lodging. The usual tariff for board
and lodging was, as we have seen, about ninety florins.
Wotton, when at Vienna, paid two florins a week for
' chamber, stove and table/ at which rate he reckoned
that it cost him more by 5. 45. yearly than it would
cost a 'good careful scholar in the universities of
England/ If rhenish florins are meant, this rate
58 Ordinances or proclamations of the council were by ancient
custom so made known in the Swiss towns. Jussie, Levain, etc. p. 2 1 :
'A son trompette/ and Gaullieur, p. 128, quotes the Kegistre du
conseil, 9 mai, 1539: ' Arretd qu'on fasse publier a voix de trompe,
que nul n'aye a imprimer chose que soit . . . sans licence de
Messieurs.'
46 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
would be about 20 sterling per annum, of that day 69 .
Wotton had no attendant with him, and was in other
respects very economical. Indeed he had need to be
so, if his whole fortune was the rent charge of 100
marks, which had been left him by his father. Be
this as it may, from failure of remittances, he was not
able to pay his bill when he wanted to leave. The
sum of 33 gold crowns would have been a serious loss
to Casaubon. But this was not the worst. Wotton
had prevailed on Casaubon to become surety for a
much larger sum, which he had borrowed from a
banker, 124 gold crowns. And another creditor of
Wotton' s, who had lent him a further sum of 106
crowns, being himself about to leave Geneva, came
upon Casaubon to repay him. Even the very horse,
on which he had ridden away, Wotton had taken on
credit Casaubon' s credit and the dealer might come
any day to Casaubon to be paid. All was to be settled
by remittances from Frankfort. The autumn fair came
on, the merchants returned from Frankfort, and there
was not only no cash, but not even a line from Wotton.
Casaubon was in the depths of, despair. He could do
nothing and think of nothing but his loss. Two
hundred and sixty-three crowns, besides the horse !
It was impossible for him to raise the sum. He wrote
to Wotton in England, to Thomson, to Scaliger to
interest himself in his behalf with the French ambas-
sador at the Hague. It was Christmas before Wotton
paid. But he did so at last in full. Though we may
acquit Wotton of dishonesty, we must condemn him
for culpable neglect.
69 From Grynseus' epistles (Norimb. 1720) we learn that the usual
tariff at Bale, at this period, in a professor's house, was 26 to 30
batzen per week. A rhenish florin contained 2 1 batzen.
GENEVA. 15781596. 47
Poor as the provision made for Casaubon by the city
was, it was not compensated by leisure. Casaubon, in
these years, complains of poverty, he complains much
more of want of time. This complaint may seem
inconsistent with the fact, that his statute only bound
him to eight hours a week of lecture. But he had
now added latin to his greek lecturing, and for a time
supplied the place of the hebrew lecturer 70 . And it is
probable that he was driven by necessity to give
private instruction, or at least that he did so to the
young men who lodged in his house, or who came to
Geneva, as many now began to do, with special recom-
mendation to him. And the demand on his time 71
occasioned by lectures must not be measured by the
hours of delivery, but by those of preparation.
We have the means in our hands of measuring, with
some exactness, what the level of the greek and latin
classes at Geneva, in these years, was. Three, at least,
of Casaubon's published commentaries are, in substance,
reproductions of his courses dictated to his class at
Geneva. Of these, the Notes on Persius are of un-
certain date ; those on Theophrastus are not later
than 1590; those on the 2nd book of Suetonius are
of 1592. As the Notes on Diogenes Laertius give
us the measure of Casaubon's own acquirement set.
25, so these three commentaries enable us to form a
fair notion of what was the character of the instruction
expected, and given, in the academy of Geneva in the
70 Ep. 879: ' Vixi annos 14 Genevae, professor primo Graecarum
literarum, deinde etiam Latinarum, aliquando etiam Hebrsearum.'
The ' Latin ' professorship is that which is called in the order in
council, Geneva MSS, Kegistre du pet. cons. 22 nov. 1585, f. 160,
* Ung professeur en Eloquence pour lire 1'histoire.'
71 Ep. 972 : ' Docendi munere laboriosissimo fungor assidue.'
48 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
closing years of the i6th century 72 . Not that the
printed commentary is the lecture as delivered.
Casaubon's lectures were not written out, they were
extempore. But they were from the notes he took
into the classroom. These notes were chiefly refer-
ences to the relevant passages in other books. The
same nucleus of memoranda received a different
development, when written out in the shape of a
commentary for readers, and when addressed orally
to a class of pupils. But the substance and charac-
ter of the illustration remained the same. Nor is it
difficult in the commentary, e. g. on Theophrastus, to
pick out passages, the tone of which stamps them
as portions of a lecture. A lecturer will not go
where his class cannot follow. That Casaubon did
not, we know from the success and popularity of his
teaching. But we might infer it also from the dif-
ferent character of some ' Notes on Aristophanes' 73
which are the substance of a course delivered at
Paris in 1601. In that year Casaubon interpreted
* The Knights' to a circle of friends in his own
house 74 . Here we find the lecturer judiciously adapt-
ing himself to an audience composed of older persons,
but manifestly less advanced in knowledge of the
language than the younger class, with whom he had
read Theophrastus ten years before at Geneva 75 . Casau-
72 Schultze, Epp. inedd. p. 14 : ' Olim cum Genevse essem et
frequent! auditorio poetam ilium publice exponerem, id serio agebam,
ut etiam rudiorum rationem haberem. Hinc ilia XcTrroXoy^aTa, quee
doctos offendere non debent, quia illis scripta non sunt.'
73 First printed by L. Kuster in his Aristophanes, Amstel. 1710.
74 Eph. p. 384.
75 Kuster accordingly finds the Notes ' non seque elaborate ac alia,
quse habemus, eruditissimi illius viri opera, prselectiones enim potius
fuisse videotex in tironum usum conscriptse.'
GENEVA. 15781596. 49
bon had been transferred, almost without interval,
from the bench of the learner to the chair of the
teacher. What he had learned under Portus, he was
to teach to others. We cannot suppose that he raised,
at one stroke, the standard of the whole school, or
changed its character. What he did, Portus must have
been doing, though perhaps not so thoroughly, before
him.
Weighing all these facts, we can arrive at a tolerably
near estimate of the range and compass of classical
instruction in the academy of Geneva. We find a
width of reading possessed by the teacher, and a level
of philological curiosity assumed in the learner, which
it would not be easy to find surpassed in the most cele-
brated lecturerooms of our time. We may safely
affirm, that such teaching could neither have been
given nor appreciated without the most unremitting
effort on the part both of teacher and taught. Of him-
self the Professor has told us, that it taxed all his
energies to master the Eoman history of the first
century, A. D., in a way which was adequate to the
demands of his class 76 . The time demanded of the
Professor, eight hours per week, is not heavy ; but his
every hour was required to obtain the mastery of
the period, and the survey of the whole of the
authorities, without which he was not content to
pronounce an opinion on a single passage. He does
not content himself with the bare explanation of
the text of his author. He would grapple with all
the difficulties which emerge, not only in the text,
but in the matter. And these diificultes he will
76 Ded. in Sueton. : ' In quo negotio ut ea fide versarer, quam et
muneris mei ratio postulabat, et alacritas lionestissimorum adole-
scentium qui mihi assiduam operam navabant . . .'
E
50 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
meet, not by retailing solutions ready made by pre-
vious commentators ; he offers one founded on his
own reading and comparison of passages. And this
comparison is not one instituted for the particular
occasion by inspection of an isolated text or paragraph.
The whole of each author is read and possessed, and it
is with this complete feeling, that the citation required
is brought up as illustration. The sense of thorough-
ness, thus conveyed by a lecturer's method, renders a
wrong solution more valuable than a right one arrived
at by superficial reading, or taken upon the authority
of another expositor.
Besides the books already named, we find him taking
as his text-book, Arrianus' Diatribse, and Polybius.
Polybius was chosen with a view to catch the interest
of the military men. The lecturer went into the con-
stitution of the Roman army, and had, for this
purpose, that portion of the greek text separately
struck off. The Arrianus, as afterwards Persius, was
selected with a view to edification. The printed com-
mentaries retain traces of this moral purpose which
had inspired the lecturer. It was a sentiment which
dominated the academy, nay, the state. It was its moral
intensity more than its pure orthodoxy, which gave
Geneva the lead .of the calvinistic churches, and caused
its school to be sought from all parts. A few years
after Casaubon left, Valentin Andrese was struck with
the contrast between the religious earnestness of
Geneva, and the dogmatic scholasticism of German
lutheranism. Vice and luxury were here criminal
offences 77 . Casaubon's lectures are coloured, without
being corrupted, by the same tone. He never shirks
difficulties under the cover of moral reflection. But he
77 J. V. Andrese, Vita ab ipso conscripta, p. 24.
GENEVA. 15781596. 51
dms to vivify classical literature, and to read a stoical
book in the spirit in which it was written. It becomes
not a mere grammatical amusement, but an education
of character for the young, an instruction in life and
manners for persons of all ages. The affinity which
this temper felt for stoical literature for Arrianus, or
Persius, is easily understood. It is characteristic of
Beza, the able negotiator and man of affairs, that he
should have recommended Cicero's letters to Atticus as
a text-book. And when Casaubon wished to gratify
his own antiquarian taste by reading on Tertullianus
De Pallio, the ' coetus pastorum' vetoed the book, as
unedifying. Though his preference was for prose,
the tragic poets were not omitted, and Euripides was
often in hand.
These are all the authors mentioned by name as
having been taken for text-books by Casaubon. But
in the course of fourteen years' professorship many
others must have had their turn. He can hardly have
altogether ignored the requirements of his statute,
which names ' Aristotle, Plato, or Plutarch ' expressly
as books for the greek reader. Yet two inferences
from this fragmentary information seem to be war-
ranted. First, that Casaubon dwelt more fondly on
the historical, antiquarian, and learned literature of
Greece, than on the poets and philosophers of the best
period.
Secondly, that there did not exist in the academy
of Geneva anything like a prescribed curriculum of
classical study, through which each student must ne-
cessarily pass. Indeed if this fixed 'cursus' was not
laid down in theology, as it was not, it was much less
likely that the literae humaniores should have been
methodised. The German universities even seem, at
E 2
52 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
this period, to have left their professors very much to
their own choice of subject, in the philosophical
faculty. Much more was this the case at Geneva,
where edification and piety were the first or sole con-
cern. Moral and religious discipline was severe, and
rigidly enforced ; intellectual discipline had not come
into existence.
This latitude of choice, both as to text-book and as
to treatment, should have mitigated to Casaubon the
grievance of lecturing. For he could thus read before
his class the book, on which he was employed himself.
Yet there were bounds to this freedom. First, it was
limited by the approbation of the 'ccetus pastorum.'
The ministers exercised a strict surveillance over the
teaching, not only in the school, but in the academy.
When Casaubon proposed to lecture on Tertullianus
De Pallio, it was vetoed. A professor could not even
publish without first submitting his book to their
censorship. For 78 leave to print his innocent Notes on
Diogenes Laertius, Casaubon was compelled to get a
special permit from the council.
The lecturer was also obliged to have some regard
to the students. There were, it is true, no examina-
78 Geneva MSB. 12 fvr. 1583, f. 25 V : 'Mr. Isaac Casaubon, pro-
fesseur, qui a prdsente^ requeste tendant a luy permettre d'imprimer
deux livres qu'il a composes, 1'ung intituld Notse in Laertium, le second
Observationum liber, qui ont est6 vus par M r . de Bbze et M. Rotan, a
estd arrest^ qu'on luy ouctroie sa requeste.' Why Casaubon was
required to obtain an order for publication on this occasion, I am
unable to say. It does not appear that other Genevan authors did so,
nor did Casaubon do so for his later publications. The ' Observationum
liber,' which is said to have been submitted to the two ministers, was
never published, nor does any such MS. appear among the ' Adversaria.'
Cas. ep. 433, tells Bongars that he had kept back 'librum unum
Observationum nostrarum in sacros et ecclesiasticos scriptores.'
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 53
tions, no curriculum, nor even any established authors
imposed by opinion. But then the greek class in the
academy was not compulsory, and it was necessary to
carry your hearers with you. The kind of books on
which Casaubon would have willingly worked himself
were impossible. Theocritus would have been vetoed
by the censors; Athenseus would have been beyond
the reach of the class.
Thus the work of editing and the work of lecturing
were incompatible. In the conflict between the two,
there could be no doubt that the former would
ultimately carry the day. Casaubon does not share
the disgust which Scaliger expressed for profes-
sorial teaching 79 . Even in 1596 he declares himself 80
'ready to exert all his power to be of use to his
auditors,' but his interest now centres elsewhere.
His ambition is fired. He has extended his horizon
beyond the classroom to the republic of letters. He
has found that he can write, on classical antiquity,
what attracts the attention of the learned ; what
Scaliger does not disdain. He is now wild with
eagerness to prefix his name to some edition of a
capital work 81 . What he has hitherto done is mere
prelude, juvenile production, hurried scribblement.
What he has written, on Diogenes Laertius and
Theocritus, is ' 82 of that sort that he will not acknow-
79 ScaK i a . p. 1 8 : 'Si vitam Josepho Scaligero Deus longiorem
concesserit, nullus auctor futurus est, primaries dico, quern non emen-
daturus sit ; ad id enim aptus natus est, non a caqueter en chaire et
pedanter.' The words, thus reported by Vertunien, are doubtless
those which Scaliger himself used.
80 Ep. 50: 'Vires ingenii contendere.'
81 Ep. 74 :' Insanus quidam sestus rei literarise juvandse.'
Ep. 4.
54 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
ledge it for his.' The notes on the Gospels and
Acts ' were extorted from him by the publishers/
He is more than usually emphatic in depreciating
their value, and in promising what he ' will do in the
same field hereafter, if G-od shall give him leisure'
(Nota3 inN. T. fin.). The Strabo is < 83 no legitimate
offspring of his, a mere abortion.' He will show
what he can do by attacking the desperate chaos of
the great storehouse of classical wit and learning
Athenseus.
This literary ardour was, however, liable to be checked
by a controling religious sentiment, which was con-
tinually pushing Casaubon in the direction of theolo-
gical reading. This divine instinct was ever suggest-
ing the futility of worldly knowledge, and the superior
value of religious studies. This impression may be traced
to the early years of the son of the Huguenot pastor
who had to fly to the hills in the reign of Terror.
When in 1583 Isaac presented his literary first-born,
the Observations on Diogenes Laertius, to his father,
and laid before him the schemes of publication with
which at 24 his brain was teeming, the good man
smiled, commended his zeal for learning, but said,
1 he had rather have a single observation on the
sacred volume than all the fine things he was con-
cocting 8 V And this was not altogether the contempt
of ignorance, the dictum of a man who prizes the
Bible, because he knows no other book. The man
who had emphatically recommended Strabo to his
son 85 as useful reading could not have been a mere
ignorant zealot.
The sentiment thus implanted in early life was
83 Ep. ii. ^ Meric Cas. Pietas,p. 98.
85 See p. 5.
GENEVA. 15781596. 55
nourished by the atmosphere of Geneva. The pnpil
and admirer of Beza, who thought life scarce toler-
able away from Beza's side 86 , was not likely to be
allowed to regard classical learning as a worthy life--
pursuit. Beyond again these influences of early im-
pression and later environment, religious awe was
constitutional in Casaubon, and connected with his
depressed nervous organism. Hence . it was most
potent in his seasons of illness. Such an impulse
came over him when, set. 28, prostrated by the ten-
sion of overwork, he abandoned the study of the law
and betook himself to theology. Law was left for
ever ; but theology soon gave place to Strabo. Ten
years later, set. 38, he writes to Sibrand Lubbert,
professor of theology at Franequer, <87 You invite me
to take up some portion of the history of the pri-
mitive church. How willingly would I, if I might!
Believe me that if I have hitherto lived for studies
of another kind, it has been chance, not choice, that
has determined it so. Yet I have never so far for-
gotten myself as to form a deliberate resolve of
resigning myself to literature. Circumstances forced
me in early youth into this line of reading, and I
have been kept dreaming on the rocks of the Sirens
ever since. So the best part of my life has been
passed in studies very different from what I should
have chosen for myself/ This is in September 1596,
and he immediately plunges into his greatest classical
effort the edition of Athenseus. While he is work-
ing at Athenseus, he is wishing, all the while, that
he was reading the Fathers. ' 88 Oh ! when will the
6 Ep. 114 : 'Vivendi omnes causas mihi periisse puto.'
87 Ep. 77-
88 Ephem. p. 77.
5G GENEVA. 1578 1596.
day come/ sighs the diary of March 13, 1598, 'when
it shall be God's will that I shall have done with
this editing, and be free to give myself to better
studies/ In 1595 he writes to Bongars 89 , 'That
learning which was, in former days, my highest am-
bition, has now small charms for me ; amid all this
public misery one's mind requires somewhat on which
it can stay and repose itself.' From the first there
were in Casaubon two men, the theologian and the
scholar. He never rose to the point of union, where
theology falls into its place, as a branch of learning.
He was continually oscillating between the two, as
rival, and incompatible, claimants. The age, with its
predominant theological interests, was too much for
him. After seeming for a while to emancipate his
mind, and give it undivided to classical research, we
shall see him, in his later years, falling back again
into the attitude of t 1 e vulgar theological polemic.
If we recall the situation of Geneva during the 14
years of Casaubon's professorate, we shall see, that this
highly charged devotional atmosphere was nourished,
if not created, by the pressure of external peril. Ex-
posed to the incessant assaults of a powerful neighbour,
the city was almost perpetually in a state of siege, and
all its able-bodied citizens under arms. Its only hope
of support was from the Swiss confederation, and the
Protestant cantons, secure themselves, seem to have
looked upon the struggles of Geneva with apathy.
Grynaeus writes calmly to a friend (October 26, 1586),
<90 Dom. Beza makes many complaints of the public
89 Ep. 42 : ' Ilia quam tantopere olim ambiimus 7ro)(vp.ddeia . . .
nunc minus grata ; quserit enim animus, in his publicis miseriis aliud,
nescio quid, in quo acquiescat.' 9o Gryn. Epp. ep. 47.
GENEVA. 15781596.
57
miseries and straits of the city of Geneva/ The moral
result on a generation, growing up under such train-
ing, might well have been military barbarism. But
another counteracting influence came into play. The
aggression of the Duke of Savoy was not a war of
ambition and aggrandisement, but of religious passion.
To root out heresy was the paramount motive. The
fury of the catholic exterminator encountered an equal
religious exaltation in the calvinistic resistance. ' If
the Lord had not been on our side' was the heartfelt
ejaculation of the Genevan citizen as he witnessed the
repeated and miraculous escapes of his republic from
treacherous surprise, or the constant pressure of su-
perior .force. ' 91 Whatever has been achieved against
the enemy/ Casaubon writes in 1590, 'has been done
by God's own hand, which we have seen, I may
say, with our eyes/ Piety became not a personal
sentiment, but a public creed. The moral force thus
inspired into that generation Beza's generation was
more favourable to learning, than the external security
of the half-century which followed 1601. Learning
was not encouraged by the administration as such, but
it was not interfered with. Under the literal (calvin-
istic) orthodoxy of the i yth century it became impos-
sible for it to exist. But as long as Beza lived, it
received toleration, if not respect. ' 92 You may well be
surprised, but so it is,' says Casaubon, ' I have enjoyed,
through all, more leisure than ever I had, and I have
divided my time between the recension of the text of
Aristotle, and looking on at the wonders the Lord
hath wrought for us/ The enthusiasm of private
study alternates with fits of dejection when the student
91 Ep. 5- 92 Ep. 5. 1590.
58 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
looks on the world without. ' 93 You have been rightly
informed/ he tells Joachim Camerarius, 1 594, ' I am
deep in Athenaeus, and I hope my labour on the edition
will not be altogether in vain. But one's industry is
sadly damped by the reflection how greek is now neg-
lected and despised. Looking to posterity, or the next
generation, what motive has one for devotion to
study ]'
If it is the general law of nature that genius is
evoked and nourished by its environment, Casauboii is
a singular exception. Neither in Geneva, nor among
his wider circle of correspondents, if we except
Scaliger, whom he only came to know in 1594,
had he rivalry, example, or encouragement. In
Geneva nothing that could be called literary interest
existed. A poor and starved seminary for pious train-
ing ; a trading printing press for the sale of school-
books, and sermons ; a theology not formal, but inter-
fused through every day's life and thinking. An armed
enemy crouched at their gates, watching his oppor-
tunity for the death spring ; each day bringing news
of some fresh outrage on their coreligionists, in the
countries where the catholic reaction was in its full
tide. On this ungenial soil, Casaubon developed out
of his own instincts the true idea of classical learning.
Not an idea of scientific philology as we conceive it,
but that of a complete mastery of the ancient world
by exhaustive reading; a reconstruction of Greek and
Roman antiquity out of the extant remains of the
literature. Instead of wondering that he allowed
this ideal to be obscured to him by the clouds of party
polemics, what is surprising is that he should ever
93 Ep. 996.
u~ . u~
GENEVA. 1578 1596.
59
have been able, an untaught and unfriended man,
struggling himself with chill penury, to rise to it.
The depreciation of his own performance, which was
one of Casaubon's mental habits, was founded on the
disparagement of secular knowledge in comparison of
piety, which was the intellectual atmosphere he had
to breathe.
But it was further connected with that oppression
of mind, which the infinity of knowledge lays upon
its votaries. The man of science is often drawn as
standing on a proud pinnacle, from which he surveys
his conquests, and sees the universe, whose secret he
has wrested, spread at his feet. It is otherwise with
the man of learning. He may joy in pursuit, but he
can never exult in possession. The thought * quan-
tum est quod nescimus' Heinsius' motto keeps him
not only humble, but despondent. Even in science,
some of the greatest .men have shared the sense of
baffled endeavour. Newton's pebbles on the sea-shore
are become proverbial. La Place's dying words were,
' Thomme ne poursuit que de chimeres/ But it is the
scholar who is, more than other investigators, subject
to these periods of darkness and gloom. The hopeless-
ness of the task, which Casaubon had set himself, im-
parts a hurry and restlessness to his day.
The constant complaint of want of time reiterated
by Casaubon in every preface, in his commentaries, in
his letters c 94 1 am so busy that I have hardly time
to draw breath, 5 are not the mere apology for im-
perfection, like the * in haste' often added at the
bottom of a bad letter. They are indicative of a
settled habit of mind. Casaubon is oppressed not by
hours of teaching, but by his own studies. Research
94 Ep. 14. 1594.
60 GENEVA. 15781596.
is infinite ; it can never be finished. The speculative
philosopher, who has exhausted thought, may sit with
his head in the clouds, and feed himself on contem-
plation. But the commentator on a classical author
can never make an end. He is never sure that the
very passage which would explain his difficulty may
not have escaped him. ' 95 The author alludes,' Casaubon
notes on Diogenes Laertius, ' to a practice of that day,
which I do not remember to have seen noticed by any
other author or annotator/ But the allusion may
turn up. If he had but a little more time to read !
Casaubon is always ill at ease, unless he is acquiring,
and acquisition does but give him a glimpse of the
untravelled world beyond. He will do better things
in time, with more time that is the cry of these
years of the Genevan professorate. Bongars ventured
to expostulate with him on the slightness of so many
of the things he put his name to. Casaubon is thank-
ful for the reproof, and promises in future ' 96 to digest
with thorough care and diligence what I may prepare
for editing/ But he is not cured. In 1605 we hear:
497 1 am so distracted with engagements that I swear to
you that what I print goes to press almost before I
have thought it out.'
His aim is always far ahead of his achievement.
His repeated engagement that he will some day do
better is an illusion. But it is not the illusion of
presumption. He grounds his confidence not on his
own ability, but on the hope of leisure that leisure
which is always promised, but never comes to the
student. He knows the limitation of his own talent.
He tells Scaliger, ' 98 The disposition has never been
95 Notre in Diog. p. 66. 96 Ep. 18. 1594.
97 Ep. 457. 98 Ep. 17. 1594.
GENEVA. 1578 159G. 61
wanting, but I have lacked all helps, even the most
indispensable. I have never had time of my own.
And I have no talent. I mean natural gifts, not
learning, if I may call that learning which is pos-
sessed by men like me. Ambition is always impelling
me to greater aims, but the " frigidus circum prsecordia
sanguis" paralyses me. I never take up your books,
or those of your great father, but I lay them down
in despair at my own progress, and resolve to adopt
for my motto \a6e /3tWa?.'
Hence he is anxious for the good opinion of others ;
but only for that of those who are, able to judge.
All writing, at least all publication, is an appeal to
the verdict of the competent. When Newton wrote
(February 18, 1670), 'You have my leave to insert
the solution of the annuity problem in the " Philoso-
phical Transactions/' so it be without my name to it;
for I see not what there is desirable in public esteem,
were I able to acquire and maintain it/ it is not
* morbid temperament' as De Morgan" would call it.
It is contempt for the unfounded plaudits of the un-
instructed, a contempt which implies respect for the
appreciation of experts. Towards the close of his
Genevan period, Casaubon is ever ready to enlarge
his circle of friends, yet not by making promiscuous
acquaintance, but by cultivating the likeminded, wher-
ever they could be found. Before he left Geneva,
and before the publication of his Athenseus, he was
becoming known, not only by name, but personally,
to the reading world. The greek scholars who formed
a select company within the general body of the
reading public, had now their attention fixed on
Casaubon as the rising light, from which illumination
99 Budget of Paradoxes, p. 456
62 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
was to be looked for. They court his notice, or he
seeks their acquaintance, by letter. The area of his
correspondence extends rapidly each year. By-and-
bye his letters will come to constitute a new demand
on his time. In April 1590, he undertakes a journey
to the Frankfort fair, for the purpose of meeting
Lipsius. He is disappointed. Lipsius does not come ;
Casaubon is obliged to be content with writing to
Lipsius from Frankfort, to say that if he had leisure,
he would go all the way to Belgium to make his ac-
quaintance.
Casaubon's earlier friends, so far as they were
learned we should say literary, all literature was
then learned were among his colleagues in the
academy. Among these the first place is due to the
venerable Beza. To the aged Beza, by 40 years his
senior, Casaubon looked up as a son to a parent.
Years after Beza's death, Casaubon writes to Prideaux
(April 7, 1613) : ^During the 14 years of my Genevan
professorship, the whole company of pastors and pro-
fessors at Geneva regarded me, as they still regard
me, with sincere affection. To Beza, above the rest,
was I very dear, he treating me as his son, while I
respected him as a parent. Were I boastingly inclined,
I might boast of having been for so many years Beza's
colleague. But from him I learnt to think humbly
of myself, and if I have been able to do aught in
letters to ascribe all the glory to God/ Beza's time
and thought had, indeed, for many years been absorbed
by the public affairs of the reformed churches or by
those of his pastoral office. But Beza was a man of
no vulgar learning. Though he had long relinquished
the classics himself, he knew the value of greek.
1 E P . 879.
Casaubor
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 63
)asaubon preserved among his papers two pages of
conjectures on the text of Plutarch, which had been
given him by Beza, 'manus suaa monimentum/ as an
autograph 2 . Beza's own attainments 3 were consider-
able ; he knew, what few did, how far Scaliger's went
beyond those of any other living man. On Beza's
death, Casaubon writes to Scaliger (November, 1605),
6 1 may tell you what I know, that in him you have
lost one of the few who know how rightly to esteem
you. I was seldom with him, but we spoke of you,
and I do not know if there was any one else in all
that country, except Beza, who thoroughly understood
your position in the republic of letters 4 / It is to
Casaubon that we owe one of the last glimpses of the
Genevan reformer 5 . On a visit to Geneva in June
1603, he spent a day in the company of Beza, then
2 Adversaria, torn. 1 1 .
3 Though we must not adopt the exaggerating assertion of Dieterici,
Antiq. Bibl. prolegg. p. 18, that Beza, before he began his notes on the
N. T., had ' gone through (evolverit) all the Greek authors, sacred and
profane.'
4 Ep. 479-
6 Eph. p. 493 : 'Hoc die . . Beza . . etiam ccena nos accepit, me,
inquam, uxorem, et amicissimum Pinaldum. Deus bone ! qui vir 1
qua? pietas ? quse doctrina 1 o vere magnum virum,' etc. Compare
with L'Estoile, Registre-journal, 25 aug. 1603 : ' M. Casaubon, revenu
de son voyage de Dauphin^, ayant passe' par Geneve, rne conta, qu'il
y avoit vu M. de Beze, ag pour le present de 85 ans, et qu'ayant
long-terns communique' avec lui, il n'y avoit apperu aucune dimi-
nution d'esprit et de me'moire pour le regard de sa the'ologie et des
bonnes lettres, mais pour les affaires du monde ; qu'il en avoit perdu
du tout la me'moire et la connoissance ; demandait a tout le monde
comme se portait la reine d'Angleterre ; ne lui avoit jamais pu per-
suader d'e'crire au roi d'Angleterre, disant qu'il e'toit mort au monde,
et qu'il lui falloit songer de mourir, et non d'e'crire aux rois et aux
reiries '
64 GENEVA. 1578 1596
aged 84, who entertained him at dinner in the evening.
Though his memory for the facts of the day was gone,
so that he could not remember that Elizabeth had
ceased to be Queen of England, yet when the talk
was of religion or theology, he spoke with all his
usual verve, and was ready to quote the words of the
New Testament, either in latin or in the original.
Of all Casaubon's Genevan friends for his relation
to Beza was filial rather than friendly Lect was the
dearest and most intimate. Jacques Lect was law
professor till poverty obliged the council to cashier
him. He was Casaubon's own age, and no mere
lawyer, but occupied himself with the classics, at least
in his leisure hours. Thus, while his professorship was
suspended, he published an edition of Symmachus 6 .
In 1585 the council had voted him a gratuity of 100
florins, ' 7 vu le grand nombre des livres qu'il est oblige
d' avoir/ He was the only man in Geneva who
could give any sympathy to Casaubon in his classical
studies. When Casaubon removed to Montpellier,
Lect felt himself alone in his native city 8 . 'Would
that we could be again together, and see the suns down,
as we used ! ' writes Casaubon to him 9 . ' My dearest
wish is either to have you here (Montpellier) or to
be there (Geneva) with you, so that we may spend
together what remains of life. Without you life to
me is no life/
6 In 1587. See Symm. Epp. ded. : ' Per id temporis dum a publica
juris interpretatione vaco.'
7 Eegistre du conseil, ap. Grdnus, 1585.
8 Burney MSS. 365. p. 52 : 'Dolens mcerensque vixi ego; postquam
sine te, mi Casaubone ... in hac solitudine.'
9 Ep. 112:' Utinam, mi Lecti, iterum utinam vel tu hie mecum, vel
ego istic tecum vitse quod superest degere, unaque soles, ut eramus
soliti, condere aliquando possimus.'
With
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 65
With the celebrated Pacius Pacio de Beriga the
other law-professor, Casaubon was on friendly but not
intimate terms. Pacius was a reader and editor of
Aristotle, and Casaubon had been his pupil in civil law
and philosophy 10 . Pacius always impressed upon his
pupils the importance of classical reading, and in a
letter to Casaubon 11 , regrets the tendency of the law
students to neglect the classics. ' I wish/ he writes,
' you had not quitted Montpellier before my arrival. I
flatter myself you never would have done so. Our pro-
fessions, though different, are allied, and aid each other/
Next to his colleagues came his pupils, among whom
a few could value his vast acquirements, and none
could be insensible to his amiable and affectionate dis-
position. Besides, the metropolis of Calvinism drew
pilgrims, ' religionis ergo/ from all the reformed
countries. And travellers, without religious objects,
already began to take Geneva as a desirable halting-
place en route from Italy. Others, who came not to
Geneva, men of rank and influence, began to offer him
their friendship or their patronage.
Of these last the most distinguished wore de Thou
(Thuanus), Bongars, and de Fresne. These three
eminent men served France in important diplomatic
missions, and the first two were devoted to ancient
learning, and collectors of greek books.
10 Ep. 879 : 'Tres annos impend! iis studiis, publice et privatim
usus doctore Pacio, cujus Organon, et alia scripta philosophica, opinor,
vidisti.'
11 Burney MSS. 365, p. 284 : ' Ego humaniores istas literas, in
quibus excellis, plurimi facio, doleo autem plerosque studiosos vel
aversari, vel negligere, qui cum juri dent operam, quicquid
auctoritatis habeo, totum in id insumpsissem ut tibi essent addicti,
quod et ipsis et reipublicse utilissimuni arbitror.'
F
66 GENEVA. 15781596.
Jacques Auguste de Thou was the last, and most
illustrious, example of those public men who were
formed to affairs upon the study of greek and^roman
history. Instead of composing his memoirs, like his
cotemporaries, in French, he chose Latin, not because it
was the language of diplomacy, but because it alone
was .capable of classical hanging. Thrust into em-
ployment against his will, dragged perpetually from
the retirement he loved to undertake difficult or
dangerous negotiations, his heart was in his library,
and his historical work. The history of 'Thuanus' was
long the manual of statesmen all over Europe. It is
now wholly neglected, even in the country of its
author. The cause of this neglect is not merely the
language, a difficulty which might have been overcome
by translation. It is because it is too minute. Even
in 1733, and before the revolution of '89 had opened a
new and absorbing page of history, Lord Carteret
pointed to the extent of the work as fatal to its popu-
larity. Containing the history of only sixty-four years,
it has been calculated 12 that de Thou's folios would re-
quire twelve months, at four hours a day, for their
perusal. The world has now too long a history for us
to afford time to know it ! Thus the very merit of de
Thou's ' Historia,' its completeness, is the cause of its
being left unread. De Thou was a catholic, but a
' politique/ and would gladly have secured Casaubon
for France, without attempting to convert him.
Jacques Bongars was a calvinist, and a calvinist who
would not allow his faith to be tampered with, but he
was of the moderate school, who, under the cant name
of ' moyenneurs/ were odious to the zealots. Casaubon
12 Legendre, r 56.
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 67
never mentions Bongars, but he couples a reference to
his ' piety ' with praise of his love for letters. Bongars
was much relied on by Henri iv. in his negotiations
with South-Germany and the Swiss cantons, by reason
of the thorough knowledge he possessed of their affairs.
He was chiefly stationed at Strassburg, which, as the
frontier city of the empire, and at the same time a free
town, was a convenient post of observation for a French
envoy. Bongars had made Casaubon's acquaintance
when he was on his hasty visit to Frankfort in 1590,
and was attracted at once, by his enthusiasm for learn-
ing, and by religious sympathy. Bongars, like de
Thou, had prepared himself for a diplomatic career, by
the study of the roman law and of the classics. In 1 58 1 ,
when only in his 2/th year, he had published an
edition of Justin, which earned for him from Niebuhr
the praise of ' distinguished interpreter 13 / The text,
which Bongars constructed from a real collation of
MSS, however faulty, had remained untouched at the
time when Niebuhr spoke. But Bongars studied the
classics with the aims of a man of the world. He thus
indicates his early studies in a letter to a friend 14 :
' It is not the travelled man only who has seen life ;
he may be said to have seen it too, who has made
himself acquainted with the revolutions of states, the
geography of countries, and the manners of different
nations. This knowledge we may acquire from the
writings of historians. So, while you linger in Italy to
enjoy the conversation of its learned men, I have been
running over a great portion of the greek and latin
historians. 3 His letters, as giving the thread of the
13 Vortrage iib. alte Gesch. p. 13.
14 Bongars to Rose, 1581.
F 2
68 GENEVA. 15781596.
South-German politics, were, though written by a
protestant, reprinted by permission of Louis xiv,.for
the use of the Dauphin, but with characteristic
omissions.
Neither the pressure of public employments, nor the
corrupting example of the French court, extinguished
Bongars' love for learning and learned books. In
1604 he writes to a friend: 'You will smile at my
folly, I, who though a courtier, and not wealthy,
when all are flocking about the king, to get out of him
what they can, turn my back on it all, and post off into
the country to waste my substance in buying up worm-
eaten books (i. e. at the sale of Cujas' library). My
court is paid to my books ; oh ! could I only sit down
in quiet to enjoy them, I would not envy either the
Persians, or Sully, their wealth!' The books which
Bongars thus loved were nowhere collected together, but
were at his death found dispersed, like the library of
Eichard Heber, in several places. As he was liberal in
lending them, many never returned to him at all.
So generous was he, to Casaubon in particular, that
Casaubon seems to have ceased to distinguish between
those books which were given, and those which were
only lent him. The British Museum now possesses
more than one of Bongars 7 greek MSS. which passed to
it along with the other books of Casaubon which have
found their resting-place there.
Philip Canaye, the sieur de Fresne, had also been
bred up on the civil law and classical books. He had
translated, into French, extracts from Aristotle's Or-
ganon (Paris, 1589), a translation made, perhaps with
Casaubon's aid, at Lausanne, where he resided as
representative of the king of France. After being
employed in various negotiations by Henri TV, among
GENEVA. 1578 1596.
69
others one in England (1590), he was named president
of the ' chambre mipartie ' in the Parlement of Lan-
guedoc, which sate at Castres. At the conference of
Fontainebleau (1600) he was convinced by the argu-
ments of Du Perron, or rather qualified himself for the
Venetian embassy, by declaring himself a catholic.
These three personages, de Thou, Bongars, and
de Fresne, were, along with Pierre Pithou, at this
period, Casaubon's most influential friends and well
wishers on the French side. They made it their
common object to secure him for France. And it
was through de Fresne' s influence that his removal to
Montpellier was brought about. Before we come to
this event in his life we may finish the survey of his
circle of friends.
We have said that some of the learned, or lovers of
learning, sought Casaubon's acquaintance by writing
to him directly, or by sending him a polite message
through a common friend. The acquaintance of others
Casaubon challenged, by writing to them to propose
friendship. This was not always a safe proceeding.
Casaubon had, in this way, solicited Leunclavius in a
letter charged to the muzzle with gratifying com-
pliments. He ascertained that the letter reached
Leunclavius, and his irritation at getting no response
sharpened the language of some (otherwise just)
censure of Leunclavius 5 Dio Cassius (1592), as Casau-
bon himself confesses, not without some remorse 15 .
He 'was more successful in a quarter of much more
consequence. Casaubon must naturally have wished
for a word of approbation or encouragement, from the
dictator of letters. But none came. Scaliger had
been, 1593, settled some months at Leyden, had bidden
15 Ep. 994.
70 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
farewell to France, and seemed thus to be removed
to a distance, from which Casaubon could hardly hope
to be visible to his eye. After much hesitation
Casaubon plucked up courage to send a greeting to
Scaliger, by Eichard Thomson, the young M.A. of Clare
hall, who was returning to England, via Leyden.
Having gone so far, he went a step further, and
followed up his message by a letter, in which he
introduced himself in terms, which were certainly
humble, but not more so than became their respective
age and position. To the letter came no answer.
Casaubon began to feel the awkwardness of a man
who has made unacceptable advances, when Thomson,
who was making some stay at Leyden, wrote to inform
him that his message had been graciously accepted,
arid that the archcritic had uttered an emphatic com-
mendation of Casaubon. The Theophrastus had just
reached Leyden, and Scaliger, who may not have been
greatly struck with such of Casaubon's books as he
had previously seen, had instantly recognised the merits
of this commentary, replete with knowledge. Thomson
further hinted that why Casaubon had never been
noticed before, was, that he had not sent Scaliger any
of his publications. On the receipt of this message,
Casaubon wrote again, prostrating himself at the feet
of the prince of letters, in terms which we should
call extravagant, if they were not so obviously sincere.
He apologised for not having offered any of his
books, because none of them had been worthy of
Scaliger's notice. He promised to send the Strabo
(1587), but not till he had gone through it again, and
purged it of a few of its many errors 16 . This was
March 4. Still no reply. On April 25, Casaubon wrote
6 Ep. 1 1 : ' Ex mendis fcedissimis quibus totus scatebat.'
again, {
GENEVA. 15781596. 71
again, announcing his being at work on Suetonius, and
asking help. The explanation came at last in the
course of the summer of '94. It had not been dis-
dain on Scaliger's part, it was simply non-delivery
of letters. Casaubon's letters had been so slow in
reaching Leyden, that the two first had been delivered
together. And Scaliger's reply to the two, though
written at once, had been entrusted to Thomson to
forward to Geneva, vid England. Scaliger's answer
to Casaubon's third he had given to Commelin, the
Heidelberg publisher, who had lost it along with a
presentation copy of the Cyclometrica. But when
the Scaliger letter arrived, Casaubon must have felt
that it was worth waiting for. Scaliger, who was
contemptuous towards pretenders, and concealed his
contempt too little for his own peace, was no niggard
of praise for true learning. If he bestowed his praise
rarely, it was because he rarely had occasion. He
must have understood from Thomson, that Casaubon's
dejected temperament and isolated position required
encouragement. He gave it in no measured terms.
' Casaubon was not to suppose that his merits were
now for the first time revealed to Scaliger. Scaliger's
eye had been on him long, and his voice had never
been wanting to proclaim them.' From this time till
Scaliger's death (1609) their correspondence was un-
interrupted. After the first exchange of letters in
1594 its tone becomes that of intimate friendship and
sympathy. They never met, yet esteem and sympathy
grew up into affection. Scaliger's last letter to
Casaubon, dated August 28, 1608, on his narrow
escape from drowning in the Seine, is an expression
of heartfelt thankfulness for the providential deliver-
ance. Casaubon's entry in his diary, when the news
72 GENEVA, 1578 1596.
reaches Paris of Scaliger's death, says, that he has
lost ' the guide of his studies, the incomparable friend,
the sweet patron of his life/ What other men say
to each other as complimentary forms of speech, these
two sincerely said of each other in private. Not in
his letters, but in his private journal, Scaliger is to
Casaubon 'lumen literarum, sseculi nostri lampas,
ornamentum unicum Europse/ In more discriminating
style, Scaliger always spoke to his young friends of
Casaubon as ' doctissimus/ 'He is the greatest man
we have now in greek. There I yield the jpas to him.
I am his pupil; I have a sense of things, but not
learning. Casaubon is the most learned man now
living. His latin style is excellent ; terse, not diffuse,
Italian latin. I keep all his letters 17 .'
Casaubon always regarded Scaliger as the ' author
of his reputation,' ' autorem famse 18 / Scaliger would
have gladly served his fortunes. As early as 1594 he
began to sound the feeling in Leyden about getting
him invited thither 19 . Theodore Dousa was being edu-
cated at Geneva, and served as a channel of communi-
cation. Thomson, too, coming fresh from the same
place, might report, as Blackburn did of Butler, that
Casaubon was not dead but buried. The idea, from
whatever cause, was not taken up by the curators of
Leyden. Scaliger had not given Casaubon any hint
of his attempt to serve him. But Thomson had not
been so prudent. And though Casaubon did not ven-
ture to hope for such an honour as a call to Leyden,
he began, from this time, to be restless, and to seek
an opportunity of getting away from Geneva. If
17 Scaligerana, 2*. p. 45. l8 Ib. p. 47.
19 Pithou to Seal. ep. 80.
GENEVA. 15781596. 73
yden was beyond his reach, there remained the
choice between Germany and France. In Germany,
Strassburg and Tubingen w^ere closed to him by their
lutheran. orthodoxy. But there was Heidelberg to
which he might aspire.
The university of Heidelberg was, at this time, en-
joying its golden age, too soon to be exchanged for
the miseries of the thirty years' war, in which the
Palatinate had so large a share. The elector, Fre-
derick iv, 1592-1610, was himself not without acquire-
ments. Portus could write to him in Greek 18 . Though
fond of the vanities and amusements of a court, he
took a lively interest in his university. At fourteen
he had acted the part of rector, and, when he came
to his majority, he continued occasionally to preside
at the acts and disputations. He had a pride in
collecting eminent men. Toleration indeed was not
thought of. A profession of Calvinism was required
of all who entered. But Calvinism, intolerant as it
was, was not so narrow, nor had it so cramping an
effect on the mind, as the cotemporary lutheranism.
At the neighbouring universities, on either side the
Rhine, theological disputation was in full vogue. At
Strassburg the work of Sturm had been destroyed, in
a generation, by the lutheran preachers. At Tubingen
all heads were busy with the question of the ubiquity
of the body of Christ. At Heidelberg, the principle of
liberality was already germinating. Though Pareus'
'Irenicum' did not appear till 1615, it was the ex-
pression of a tendency which had been growing up
in the university, for the previous twenty-five years.
A paternal, but economical, patronage of learning had
20 Ap. Schelhorn, Vita Gamer, p. 195.
74 GENE VA . 1578 1 596.
created a new interest. Science and learning were
drawing to themselves talents, which were elsewhere
wasted on theological controversy. Heidelberg could
show, at one moment, a list of names which might
almost rival that of Leyden, if Scaliger were ex-
cepted from the comparison. Pareus, Pacius, Denis
Godefroy, Freher, Gruterus, Surets, Obsopaaus,
Christinann, were among the professors; Sylburg
was librarian of the university, Schede (Melissus) of
the Palatine library, as yet unplundered of its MSS.
treasures.
Nothing could be more in the course of nature than
that Casaubon, a calvinist, and the rising greek scholar
of his generation, should have been thought of for Hei-
delberg. We must suppose that Casaubon had thought
of it for himself, when his uneasiness at Geneva
had risen to a point, which made him catch at a faint hint
even of a call to Franequer. In 1596 a place in the
faculty of arts at Heidelberg was actually vacant by the
death of Pithopseus in January of that year. Casaubon
does not stir. The place was filled by ^Emilius Portus
(son of Casaubon's own teacher), a man much below
Casaubon, both in the repute and the reality of learn-
ing, and who has earned from Bentley the title of ' homo
futilissimus/ And Portus was backed by Casaubon's
patron, de Fresne, who had before endeavoured to
get him placed at Altdorf. Denis Godefroy, who had
formerly taught at Geneva, was called to Heidelberg in
1598 (or according to Hautz in 1600). Yet I find no
trace, at this time, either of Casaubon seeking Heidel-
berg, or of his being sought for it. At a later period 21
a chair was offered him there, but the time was gone
by. And he himself knew the attractions of Heidelberg.
21 1608. See Ephem. p. 571.
G'ENEVA. 15781596. 75
He had visited it twice'", en route to Frankfort, had
made acquaintance with the men and manners. It is
true, that the salaries at Heidelberg were on the most
economical scale. But then they were better than the
starvation pay of Geneva ; the necessaries of life were
far cheaper 22 , and there was the Palatine library to set
against the absolute dearth of books at Geneva.
One reason why Casaubon did not turn towards
Heidelberg may have been that his wishes and hopes
were strongly directed towards the French side. Though
a native of Geneva, Casaubon was a Frenchman, and
always speaks of himself as such. Language, manners,
and connection all drew him that way. And about the
very time when his dissatisfaction with Geneva began,
a prospect was held out to him of removal, on advanta-
geous terms, into France.
His anxiety to get away from Geneva begins to show
itself in May 1 594, and gradually becomes the dominant
feeling. The motive has been variously sought by
the biographers, in a constitutional fretfulness of tem-
perament, or in personal disagreement with his col-
leagues, or with the members of the government of
the republic.
This last supposition is founded upon Casaubon' s
many bitter utterances against the authorities of
Geneva. Casaubon had, in his letters, brought so
heavy charges of dishonest dealing against his com-
patriots, that Grotius thought 23 that Eivet, the editor
of the letters, would not venture, even in Holland, and
in 1636, to print passages which could be so little to
the taste of the Genevese (' minus ad Genevalem stoma-
* See note E in Appendix.
Ep. 72. * Grot. Epp. App. ep. 372.
76 GENEVA. 1578 1596.
chum'). But the transaction which raised Casaubon's
anger was of a date much posterior to his quitting
Geneva in 1596. That affair was as follows. When
Henri Estienne died in 1598, Madame Casaubon's mar-
riage portion was still unpaid. When Casaubon pro-
ceeded to claim it, he found he was only one among
a number of creditors, of whom the principal was Nicolas
Leclerc, for 400 crowns. A judgment was obtained and
the estate of the intestate was ordered to be realised
for the settlement of his debts. The widow of Henri
had died shortly after her husband. Leclerc obtained
only 50 per cent, of his debt, viz. 200 crowns, but he
retained ample security for the remaining half. The
other creditors likewise got a dividend, on principal and
interest. Madame Casaubon and the three other sur-
viving children of Henri claimed the residue. But
Casaubon got nothing. His claim was disallowed by the
Genevese tribunal on the ground of Robert Estienne's
will. This had provided that his printing establish-
ment should never be removed from Geneva under
penalty of forfeiture to the State. It was accordingly
decided that Casaubon's part of the liquidation could
not be removed from the city, but had lapsed to the
exchequer. Casaubon speaks of himself as having ' lost
1300 crowns/ but this must be considered an excited
statement. He must mean that 1300 crowns was the
whole value of the estate of which he lost his share.
This is the ground for his passionate denunciations, in his
diary and letters, of the Genevese. Swindlers ; rascally
brigands ; humbugging pharisees ; diabolical hypocrites,
with their mock piety! The intelligence reached him
at Paris in the autumn of 1607, and disturbed him so
as to distract him for weeks from his books. His
equanimity was gone for a time, and his day was en-
GENEVA. 1578 1596.
77
croached upon by the necessity of urging his remon-
strances at Geneva, or endeavouring to obtain redress
by the intervention of the French government.
This grievance, which did not arise till 1607, had
then nothing to do with his discontent at Geneva,
which began in 1594.
Nor was it mere love of change that instigated his
projects of removal. The cause is not obscure. It
was the pressure of positive evil. The disadvantages
he laboured under at Geneva may be shortly enume-
rated. An insufficient salary ; high prices caused by
the blockade on the side of Savoy ; the want of books ;
the want of leisure. A minor evil was the narrow
accommodation of his apartments in the college, where
his only study looked upon the court, in which the boys
of the school disturbed him with their games during
play hours. The first of these evils it might be
thought was remediable. A small augmentation
might have enabled him to exist. But the republic
was not only poor, but exhausted. And letters were
of small, rather of no, account in Geneva. For the
purposes of their academy, they did not want anything
so good as Casaubon. If Casaubon was valued at all,
it was only because he attracted pupils. Except for
this any young regent could do all the teaching re-
quired. In Geneva there was no prospect for him in
the future, and even the present scanty stipend was
not secure. The council that had dismissed Lect
might, any day, teh 1 Casaubon that they could pay him
no longer. He had exhausted the classical books he
had been able to procure; his father-in-law's library
was closed against him. But the aid of books was
indispensable if he was to produce anything exhaustive
of a subject. Above all he sighed for leisure, and to be
78 GENEVA. 15781596.
set free from the drudgery of teaching. He would
gladly have passed the rest of his days at Geneva, were
these difficulties removable. But they were not. He
must leave. When he moves, it must be into France.
Books, leisure, necessaries these are the conditions.
Where can they be found ?
In 1594 a proposal was made to him from Mont-
pellier. The conditions were not tempting. Mont-
pellier was almost as poor as Geneva, and the
protestants in Languedoc not more secure than
those in Geneva. Sarrasin arid Bongars dissuade.
Casaubon is willing, but refuses in compliance with
their advice. De Fresne, however, who had secretly
prompted the first offer, continues to press the
municipal council at Montpellier, and obtains better
terms 24 . In October, 1595, a formal request from
the city of Montpellier is made to the council of
Geneva, to send them, either on loan or permanently,
Simon Goulart and Isaac Casaubon, 25 ' tant pour con-
server parmi eux la pure et vraye religion, que pour
instruire leur jeunesse es lettres humaines/ The
council refuse. The two are ' men who cannot be done
24 De Fresne was instigating the municipality of Montpellier. But
behind de Fresne was de Thou, who was the first person to urge the
acquisition of Casaubon for France. See ep. 785 : 'Primo tibi venit
in mentem traducendum me esse in Galliam.'
25 Geneva MSS. Reg. du pet. cons. 15 octob. 1595, f. 183 : '. . . ont
este' venues lettres escrites a Mess rs . par le Sieur des Fresnes en jum
dernier, et autres du 24 de 7 bre dernier par les consuls conseil et con-
sistoire de la ville de Montpellier, et de leur mandement, priant les
favoriser de tant que de leur accorder lesd. S r . Goulard et Casaubon,
tant pour conserver parmi eux la pure et vraye religion, que pour
instruire leur jeunesse B lettres humaines, a este* arrestd qu'on s'en
excuse envers eux, par lettres, le plus doucement et honorablement que
faire se pourra sur la ne'cessite' de tels personnages.'
GENEVA. 1578 1596. 79
without/ But the principals had not been consulted
in the transaction. When they are told of it, they are
found to be willing to leave. Goulart, after some
resistance, at last consents to remain at Geneva 26 . But
Casaubon will not. He cannot maintain himself on his
Genevan pay. But the council are in earnest. They
are aware ' what profit and honour the learning and
renown of the sieur Casaubon confer upon Geneva, 5
they will double his pay for this year, and will do the
same year by year. Only this last intention is not to
be made public, in order not to rouse the jealousy of
the other professors.
But it is now no use. Casaubon wishes to visit his
mother ; he has long designed a journey to Montpellier
to see de Fresne. In short, he is determined to settle
in France. He has outgrown Geneva ; he is become, as
was afterwards said of Madame de Stael : ' trop grand
poisson pour notre lac ;' he will migrate into more
spacious waters.
26 Geneva MSS. Reg. du pet. cons. 17 octob. 1595, f. 184: '. . led.
Sp. Goulard apres quelque difficult^ faite a fmalement consent! de
continuer icy sa charge; mais led. sieur Casaubon s'est tellement
excuse* sur la ne'cessite' de sa famille, qui s'augmente annuellement, qu'il
les a resolus de ne pouvoir plus servir a si petits gages, ayant d'ail-
leurs des longtemps propose" de faire un voiage aud. Montpellier pour
visiter sa mere, prians les d. sp. ministres, que Messeigneurs pdsent
comnie il faut le profit et honeur qu'aporte en ceste ville la doctrine
et le renom dud. sieur Casaubon, pour y avoir tel esgard que de raison,
a estd arrests' qu'on luy augmente ses gages pour ce coup de trois cent
florins, et qu'on advise de le gratifier d'an en an de mesme somme, sans
ne'antmoins qu'on le luy die, afin d'eViter toute jalousie des autres
professeurs.'
APPENDIX TO 2.
Note A. p. 12.
WHILE every university, almost every school, in Germany has its
history, there is no special monograph on the Academy of Geneva.
Materials are not wanting. Professor Celle'rier has traced an outline
only of what might be written : Bulletin de la Soci^td cle 1'Histoire pro-
test, tome 4. M. Crottet has printed a journal of one Merlin, who must
have been a student along with Isaac Casaubon. The accounts in the
current lives of Calvin are very loose and inexact, e. g. they mostly
speak of the ' academy ' as distinct from the ' school.' But the statutes
'Leges' of 1559 call the whole institution ' Academia/ and dis-
tinguish the lower section of it as ' gymnasium/ The contem-
porary writers generally speak of * the schools,' * les escholes.' As to
the number of the students, the number 1000 has established itself,
doubtless permanently, in the modern histories. Henry, Leben
Calvin's, 3. 391, 'more than a thousand daily,' followed by Dyer,
Life of Calvin, p. 459. The authority for this figure is an anonymous
letter, quoted in Sayous, Etudes, i. 107, 'c'est merveille des
auditeurs des Ie9ons de M. Calvin ; j'estime qu'ils sont journellement
plus de mille.' But these are the congregation who followed Calvin's
doctrinal sermons, of which he preached 2025. Stahelin, however,
Johannes Calvin, Leben, i. 494, will have '900 regular students,'
' nicht weniger als neunhundert junge Manner,' a blunder apparently
arising from mistranslating Gaberel's 'cent neuf.' Gaberel, j. 338,
gives the number of students exactly, from the ' livre du recteur,' as
109, and distinguishes them from the auditors of Calvin, whom he
reckons at 800. The total number of scholars, including the boys in
the lower school, was 600 (Leges Academies, p. i). Beza (to Farel.
ap. Baum. Leben, etc. i. 519) says the ' scholastici ' at Lausanne, in
1558, were ' nearly 700.' The foreign students formed the larger part
of the whole ; cf. Doschius, Vita Hotoman. : ' cum propter urbis et
APPENDIX TO 2.
81
doctorum celebritatem undique confluerent auditores, interque eos e
Germama aliquot adolescentes principum filii.' Tossanus, writing to
Hotoman, in 1586 (Hotoman. Epp. ep. 143), names, among the
German nobles, two Counts Witgenstein, Count Karl von Ortemburg,
with his tutor Theodor Clement. Cf. Goldasti, Epp. p. 118. The
existence of the academy was still precarious in 1611, and it was
occasionally subvented by the reformed churches throughout France.
Me'm. et Corresp. de Du Plessis-Mornay, n. 296. sept. 1611 : 'J'ai
repr^sentd le me'rite de vostre seigneurie, e*glise, et academic; la
necessity aussi a laquelle tant de mise'rables affaires avaient reduict
vostre ville ; telle que vostre dicte acaddmie, qui en faict une bonne
partie, estoit en danger de de'pe'rir s'il n'y estoit d'ailleurs pourveu.'
Note B. p. 22.
The evidence for this fact are three documents printed by M. Th.
Dufour, L'Interme'd. 3. 81. i. The minute-book of a notary, Jean
Jovenon, preserved at Geneva, has, under date 24 aout, 1583, a
contract of marriage between 'Spect. Isaac Cazaubon, prof, en grec,
fils de Spect. Arnault Casaubon, ministre du saint vangile en I'dglise
refforme'e de Crest et Verre en Daulphine'e d'une part, et honn. fille
Marye Prolyot, fille de feu honn. M. Pierre Prolyot, en son vivant
maistre chirurgien, et de Dame Jehanne Duret, de la ville de Bour-
deaux, habitant a Geneve, d'autre (part).' 2. The second document
is the Registre des ddces, in which the entry is ' Marye, femme de
Isac Casaubon, bourgeois, est morte d'une apoplexie, age'e d'environ
25 ans, ce 27 may, 1585, au collayge.' 3. The register of baptisms
contains the entry of the baptism of their daughter, called Jeanne,
after Isaac's mother, 7 Jan. 1585.
"We must suppose that this daughter, Jeanne, died young, as no
mention, that I am aware of, is made of her anywhere in Casaubon's
papers. It must have been before 1598, as the daughter born in that
year received the name Jeanne. That there should have been no
allusion to the first wife would not have been surprising, as we have
hardly any memoranda which go back as far as 1585. But it is very
probable, as M. Dufour conjectures, that Cas. ep. 3, date August 23,
I 5^5, where he speaks of a great misfortune which has suddenly
overtaken him, is to be understood of his wife's death. The words
are, ' Dum ille discessum parat, ecce repentina calamitate, ceu fluctu
decumano aliquo, ita totus obruor, ut omnem continue et scribendi et
82 APPENDIX TO 2.
aliud quidvis agendi curam omitterem. sic factum est, ut ille ad
vos sine meis literis rediret ; ac nunc quoque quominus pluribus ad te
scribam, idem me casus tristissimus impedit.'
Note C. p. 31.
Ephemerides, p. 57. 9 kal. Jan. 1597 : ' Studium, non sine dolore
animi ob internam, et tibi, o Deus, notam caussam. Domine, fateor
ita maritam esse meam ut quse alleviationi et auxilio esse debet, sit
interdum studiis nostris impedimento. scis tamen, o Pater, quantam
morositatem quo animo feram, dum illud unice vereor, ne semel prin-
cipium aliquod discordise in utriusque mentem penetret/ Ibid, p. 4 1 :
' Tu scis, mi Deus, mei doloris caussam domesticam. vel igitur niedere
huic incommode studiorum meorum, si ita placet, o Pater, aut ei
ferendo da vires.' Complaints of this sort, besides that they are found
only in the earlier pages of the diary, are greatly overbalanced by the
far more numerous passages which testify not only to intense affection,
but to helpless dependence on Florence's watchful care ; e. g. ep. 603,
to Cappell : ' Quotidie videtur dolor crescere, nunc utique absente
uxore, in qua una ex humanis rebus, curarum mearum est solatium
ac levamen.' Eph. p. 131: 'Deum O. M. supplex veneror regat
uxorem liberosque meos. non est ilia quidem dimidia pars animae
mese, sed tota quasi anima.'
Note D. p. 38.
Specimens of Damarius' transcription are Brit. Mus. King's MSS.
1 6 xi. 1 6 xiv. 1 6 xviii.
Note E. p. 75.
There were two visits to Germany. The first was in April, 1590.
On this occasion Casaubon was at Frankfort and Heidelberg. Ep. 5,
to Theodore Canter, was written from Frankfort. A letter to Lipsius
(Burmann, Syll. i. 348) is dated 20 April, o. s. 1590, from the shop
of Le Preux, as he is on the point of setting out for Heidelberg. This
was the visit on which he must have made the excerpta from the
'Fasti Siculi/ in the Palatine library, spoken of ep. 252, and possibly
inspected the Palatine Athenseus, which he afterwards obtained on loan,
ep. 229.
APPENDIX TO 2. 83
The second visit was in Jan. 1593. For this journey he obtained
leave of absence from the Council. Geneva MSB. Reg. du pet. cons.
15 decemb. 1592. f. 242 : ' S r . Isaac Casaubon . . . ayant estd
ordonne' de luy bailler des gages aultant qu'a ung de la ville, a estd
raportd qu'il desire faire ung voyage jusque a Francfort vers M. du
Fresne, ayant promis de revenir au service de la Seigneurie, arrest^
qu'ou luy donne cong a ceste condition/ Ded. of Suetonius to
Canaye du Fresne, p. 2 : ' In Germaniam tuo accitu veni.' I do
not find that he went further than Strassburg. Adversaria, torn. 23 :
' Itinere meo Germanico.' Ibid. : * In Aristophahe observata, 6Sov
, Argentinse, a. d. kal. feb. 1593.'
Q 2
3.
MONTPELLIEB.
15961599.
MONTPELLIER \ during the sovereignty of the kings
of Majorca, had been a flourishing entrepdt of com-
merce. Nominally dependent, it had enjoyed real
self-government, and, as in the case of the free cities
of the empire, this independence had led to wealth.
Incorporation with France had begun its decline. It
was a decaying town before the wars of religion
came, at the close of the i6th century, to desolate
Languedoc.
In 1596, the city, though saved by its fortifications
from the worst extremities, had lost its commerce in
the troubles. Though still the second city in Lan-
1 On the Academy of Montpellier, I have had recourse to Faucillon,
ap. Mdmoires de 1'acade'mie des sciences de Montpellier, 3. 500; Ger-
main, in Me*m. de la Soc. arche'ologique de Montp. for 1856, p. 247,
seq, ; Hist, de la Commune de Montpellier, 1851 ; Academia Mons-
peliensis a Jacobo Primirosio Monspeliensi et Oxoniensi doctore
descripta, Oxon. 1631; Astruc, Me'moires pour servir a 1'his-
toire de la Faculte* de me'decine a Montpellier, Paris, 1867. A
paper in Me'm. de 1'Acad. d. Sciences de Montp. 1872, tome 5, p. 207,
seq. by M. Germain, with the promising title, 'Isaac Casaubon a
Montpellier,' is compiled only from printed sources, and adds nothing
to our information.
MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
85
guedoc, its treasury was empty, and in the general
depreciation of property it could scarcely support the
weight of the general taxation. The university, having
no independent endowments, was sharing the depres-
sion of the town. The university was an old foun-
dation, its medical school having existed long before
it received a charter by papal bull 1289. It rose
upon the ruins of Cordova, destroyed by catholic
fanaticism, to be the first medical school out of Italy.
Padua where our Harvey was now (1598) following
the lectures of Fabricius ab Acquapendente, had, for
a century, held the first place. But the flourishing
period of Montpellier was now over. Its throngs of
students had disappeared, and the six regius readers
of physic alone represented the numerous readers and
demonstrators of anatomy, whom the fees of the
students had once sufficed to maintain. Yet the
spirit of better days was not wholly lost in these
years of distress. The school of Montpellier was not
saved by its endowments. The salary of the royal
readers remained at its old figure, 50 livres a mere
nominal stipend, even if it had been regularly paid.
It was saved by the tradition of science. Thirty
years, a whole generation, of religious war, had not
extinguished this tradition in the medical school. As
soon as the breathing time came, after the accession of
Henri iv, the old habits and usages revived of them-
selves. The salaries of the professors were raised, by
royal ordinance, and the strict requirements which had
contributed to the former celebrity of the school were
spontaneously restored. These were principally four.
The examinations for the degree of M.D. were more
severe than anywhere else, not only in France, but
in Europe, more severe even than Padua. First and
8 6 MONTFELLIER. 15961599.
last, sixteen of them had to be passed before the doctor's
hood could be assumed. Numbers of students would
come to follow the lectures at Montpellier, and go
away to get the degree at other universities, where
it could be had on easier terms.
The old practice of disputation was adhered to as
the form in which the exercises for degrees were
chiefly exacted, instead of the more convenient and
otiose practice of written thesis. Disputations were
going on most days in the week, so often, indeed, as
to leave scant time for lectures. In the course of a
year there was scarce any medical theorem but would
be debated in public, 'to the great profit of the
students.'
The professorial chairs Were awarded by com-
petition. An instance is recorded in which this
was carried to an unreasonable excess, when eleven
candidates disputed a chair for thirteen months, each
maintaining twelve theses.
Lastly, besides the six salaried, or royal, readers the
old custom was not wholly disused that any doctor
of medicine might teach.
The consequence of this revival was, in a very few
years, the recovery of the celebrity of the school. A
throng of medical pupils from all nations was to be
found there. Dr. Primrose, who studied at Mont-
pellier in the early part of the iyth century, found
there Spaniards, Germans, Poles, Danes, Swedes, Swiss,
and Scotch, besides the French students. He himself
was the only Englishman : though born and educated
in France, he was the son of Dr. Primrose, canon of
Windsor. From his notes the above account has been
chiefly derived.
The faculty of law was wholly provincial, and as
4- V* S\-V*S\ TT1
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. 87
there was another faculty in exercise at Toulouse, it
could at best divide the province of La*iguedoc with
its rival. But the law schools, both of Toulouse and
Montpellier, had been reduced to the lowest condition
during the troubles. The rector of the university
of Toulouse, in July 1598, complains of the decay
of the school : declares that it cannot subsist much
longer : that the youth of Languedoc will have
to be sent to other universities to get that legal
training which they cannot find at home : and reminds
his audience that Cujas and Gregoire would neither
of them stay to teach in their native town, because
of the miserable poverty of the stipends 2 . The
school of Montpellier was in no better condition. It
had indeed four royal or salaried regents of civil
law. But during the catholic reaction civil law was
out of favour ; the salary was insignificant, and not
made up by pupils 7 fees. We are not surprised to
hear that in 1590 there were only two of these four
readers remaining, and these threatening to resign
unless something were done for them.
The lowest place was held by the faculty of arts.
There had, indeed, from ancient times existed a school
of arts which was elevated into a faculty in the I5th
century. But while the medical and law faculties
enjoyed, each of them separately and independently
of the other, the title of a 'university, 5 and were
governed by their own statutes, the faculty of arts
was only known as the 'Ecole-mage' (majeure). It
2 Me*ge, Hist, de Languedoc, 4. 625. Malenfont, in 1617 (in
Cousin, Fragm. Philos. 3. 79) reckons the number of persons who spoke
latin in Toulouse at 6000. But far the larger part of these must
have been monks and other ecclesiastics. Eicheome, Expost. Apol.
p. 54, says that the number of students at Toulouse had sunk to 300.
88 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
was not till a much later time (1723) that the three
faculties were incorporated into one university. During
the civil wars, the ecole-mage ceased to function. The
building in which it was held became a ruin, and the
commune was unable to pay the salary even of a single
regent. As soon as there began to be a prospect of
a settled government in the province, one of the first
cares of the consuls of Montpellier was the restoration
of their school. In 1 594 they obtained a royal ordinance
for restoring the cival law readers, and augmenting
their stipends to 300 livres. Two new professors were
chosen by public competition, and the faculty of law
entered upon a new and brilliant period. It only
remained to place the school of arts on a level with
the two superior faculties. The appointment of the
regent in this school was in the hands of the consuls.
For Montpellier, having become almost entirely cal-
vinist, had chasse its bishop, who had hitherto exercised
the function of chancellor of the university. And
though the parlement of Languedoc, sitting at Tou-
louse, had arrogated to itself a right of interference
in the affairs of the university, it was not able to
enforce its claim upon a protestant population pro-
tected by their walls. The constant intercourse between
the church of Montpellier and that of Geneva might
have naturally led the consuls to fix their eyes upon
Casaubon ; but they were besides prompted by de
Fresne, who was bent upon getting Casaubon into
France. De Fresne, who was located at Castres,
worked through Eanchin. William Ranchin was of
an old legal family at Montpellier. He had succeeded
his father in one of the regius readerships of law, an
office which he continued to hold after he was trans-
ferred (1601) to the 'chambre de 1'^dit/ performing
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 89
the duties of reader by deputy. He was a man of
reputation and weight, and is spoken of by Casaubon
as ' doctissimus/ and that in the private diary. In
1594, though only 34 years of age, he was chosen
first consul of his native town, as his father had been
before him, and his brother became after him.
In that year (1594), and through Ranchin, came the
first proposal to Casaubon. The conditions are not
stated, but they were such that Casaubon rejected them
at once, not without expressing some surprise that
de Fresne, so much his friend, should have sanctioned
such an offer. We may conjecture that it was the
precariousness of the position that deterred Casaubon.
For the regents in medicine and law had a salary
secured by patent, partly upon the revenues of the
university, and partly upon the general taxes of
Languedoc. Of the 300 livres the amount of the
annual stipend a sixth part was charged upon the
university revenues, which consisted wholly in fees,
and was payable by the faculty ; the remainder was
secured on the gabelle, and was payable by the
officers of the revenue. Small as the stipend was, it
was at any rate a certainty. But the faculty of arts
had no such resources ; indeed the faculty had no
existence ; for there were not only no regents, but no
graduates. It was necessary to recreate the faculty,
and to place its professor upon the same permanent
footing as those in the superior faculties. A fresh
application was made to the government of Henri iv.
Notwithstanding the frightful anarchy of the whole
realm, the embarrassment of the finances, and the
foreign invasion on the northern frontier, the appli-
cation was immediately met. The restoration of the
decayed educational establishments was a primary object
90 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
with the council of state. At this very time a com-
mission was engaged in reforming the statutes of the
university of Paris. July 9, 1596, ]etters patent
were issued, providing for the restoration of the
college which used to be at Montpellier. The patent
sets out the general views of the government for the
restoration of schools, and proceeds ; * seeing that our
city of Montpellier is the second city of our province
of Languedoc, that it hath in its neighbourhood
several other towns, boroughs, and villages, in the
which a number of young persons, from want of a
college, occupy their time in unprofitable courses to
the damage of our state ; and further seeing that
there arrive and abide in the aforesaid city many
learned and sufficient personages, who continue of no
use to the public and without occupation, we ordain
and enjoin, etc/ The patent goes on to direct the
consuls of Montpellier to restore the school of arts,
and to provide it with a sufficient number of regents
for instruction in the liberal arts, humane letters, and
the greek and latin languages, 3 ' in such sort as to
render youth capable of learning the other sciences/
The cost may be charged on the gabelle, and an ad-
ditional tax of 12 deniers on each quintal of salt is
specially affected to this service.
On the strength of this appropriation of funds,
the town-council of Montpellier proceeded to appoint
a delegacy of eight persons (octumviri) to prepare a
scheme for the college of Arts. As the school was
to be mixed, the commission was ' mipartie/ four
protestants, and four catholics, one of the calvinist
3 The letters patent are printed in Mm. de la Soci^td archeologique
de Montp. i. 276. The deed of appointment of March 12, 1597, is
printed in appendix, note A, from the original in Burney MSS. 367. 127.
Tnirnsf.prc
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 91
ministers, Gigord, being a member of it, but no
catholic ecclesiastic. This commission having now
an authorised position to offer, soon concluded an
arrangement with Casaubon. He was to have the
titles of ' conseiller du roi/ and 4 ' professeur stipendie
aux langues et bonnes lettres/ The ' stipendie/
though in writing to Scaliger 5 Casaubon omits it,
signals his position as of the same rank with the
medical and law readers. He was to have 266
ecus, in money, with lodging, fuel, and some other
small perquisites in kind. The 266 ecus were,
twelve months later, raised to 1000 livres, nearly
i oo Stirling. * Honestissimse conditiones,' Casaubon
calls these terms, implying that they were very
respectable, but not brilliant. They were at least a
great improvement upon Geneva. And he was
besides promised that he would find at Montpellier
no lack of lovers of classical letters, who were long-
ing for the arrival of a teacher, and who would
welcome him with open arms. Behind these positive
advantages, there was a secret suggestion which
came from de Fresne, and which probably worked
more powerfully than all the rest, a suggestion of
further promotion in the distance. What the pro-
motion might be, or what must be its indispensable
condition, were considerations too remote for imme-
diate computation. The libraries and book-resources
of Paris were all that Casaubon saw on the distant
horizon.
He was allowed to depart from Geneva, where he
4 So the letters patent. This proves Casaubon' s exactitude in
writing to Seal. ep. 117, where he calls his professorship 'linguarum
et humaniorum literarum professio.'
5 Ep. 117,
92 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
had represented classical learning as it never was
represented there before or since, without any effort
to detain him, without any recognition of his ser-
vices. Goulart indeed wrote to Scaliger that 6< notre
escole est maigre, surtout depuis le depart de Mons r .
Casaubon, fort respecte en Languedoc.' But Goulart
was an exception. The public opinion of Geneva,
which did not care to retain him, charged love of
money as his motive. ' He wanted to raise his price
upon his native city, which would show him that it
could do without him.' Casaubon's aimable heart
consented to ascribe these sneers only to the excess of
the love his friends bore him, making them unjust
to him. 7< What have I not tried/ he writes, 'to be
allowed to be here ! God is my witness that I have
sought nothing more than such a small increase, as
should allow me to give all my mind to my studies,
by setting me free from anxiety about the means of
life. Wealth I have not desired; but it was high
time that I should at last make some provision for
myself, my wife, and children, a provision which is
denied me here/
On September 23, 1596, he closed with the Mont-
pellier offer. On November 20 he obtained his conge
from the Genevan council. At Lyons he took boat
down the river, and arrived at Montpellier on the
last day of the year.
Casaubon's entry into Montpellier was a triumphant
procession. A mile beyond the gates he was met by
a cortege composed of his own friends, of the regents
of the faculties, and at their head more than one of
the consuls of the year, though not the first consul.
6 Ep. frang. p. 265. 7 Gas. epp. 109 and 115.
MONTPELLIEE. 15961599.
93
A few months later, when the bishop made his entry,
none of the regents would join the procession, not,
as they said, on account of reh'gion, but because they
would not yield the precedence claimed by the juge-
mage. Casaubon's welcome was unanimous. He was
conducted by this troop of honour to the abode pre-
pared for him. Several days were spent in receiving
the calls of ceremony or friendship. But he was less
impatient of this sacrifice of time, as it seemed to him,
because his books, which were to follow him by
water from Lyons, had not yet arrived. Seventy
years later, Edward Browne, son of Sir Thomas, de-
scribed the population of Montpellier as prepossessing
in their manner towards strangers. He writes (i664) 8 ,
' This place is the most delightful of all France, being
seated upon a hill in sight of the sea, inhabited by a
people the most handsome in the world ; the meanest
of them going neatly drest every day, and their
carriage so free, that the merest stranger hath ac-
quaintance with those of the best rank of the town
immediately/ In 1597, just emerging from the pas-
sions and the sufferings of a religious war, there may
well have been less civility. Yet we find a hint in
Casaubon's letters that he felt he was no longer in
the rigid atmosphere of Geneva. Though he declares 9
that 'this church is indeed flourishing in piety and
good works if any is so in France/ yet he writes
to Beza, ' My wife, I assure you, arranges her life
in such a way that all may easily see that she was
8 Ap. Sir Thos. Browne, Works, i. 70. The reader of Rabelais will
recall Pantagruel's experience of Montpellier, Pantag. 2. 5 : C 0u il
trouva fort bons vins de Mirevaulx, et joyeuse compagnie.'
9 Ep. 134.
94 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
born at Geneva, and brought up in the church there.
10 The style of living is very different here/
What gratifies him more than the attentions paid
him, is the discovery that the city furnished no small
number of men with a taste for classical letters. True,
civil disorder and religious exaltation had been un-
favourable to study, and the standard of attainment
might not be generally high. But the professional
study of medicine and law was not then pursued in
the technical spirit in which it is now. The study of
medicine included the reading of Hippocrates and Galen,
in a latin version, even if not in the original greek.
Where a civil lawyer is, there the traditions of the
Eoman empire can never be wholly extinguished. In
the question which divided the legal profession at this
time, viz. whether a lawyer should be liberally or pro-
fessionally educated, the bar at Montpellier was on the
side of liberality as against the Bartholists. At Geneva,
what zeal there was was all theological. Beza had not
ceased to value classics, but had ceased to read them.
The Genevese had let Pacius and Hotoman go, and Lect,
having no pupils and no salary any longer, had gone
in for council business. At Montpelh'er, Casaubon is
delighted to find not only a number of students desirous
to learn, but public officers, civil servants, practising
lawyers, n 'taking an interest in our literature/ 12 'Here
we have to do not with boys, no, not with youths,
but with men of mature age/ There is no allusion
to the clerical order as furnishing aspirants of classical
studies. The catholic clergy were engaged in a struggle
for existence, the bishop being altogether excluded from
10 Ep. 114 : ' Nam hie quidem aliter vivitur/
11 Ep. in:' Nostrarum literarum percupidi.'
12 Ep- 123-
MONTPELLTER. 15961599. 95
the town, and they being allowed only one church, ' la ca-
nourge,' for the catholic culte 13 . When the bishop did
succeed in edging himself into the city, in November of
this year, and before he was formally restored by the
Edict of Nantes, he was on terms of civility with
Casaubon. Guitard de Eatte was not altogether with-
out a taste for letters, and had books dedicated to him,
but by men of a bad stamp, e. g. Theodorus Marcilius,
and John a Wouveren. The calvinist ministers of
Montpellier, however respectable for their piety, had
as little taste for secular learning as those of Geneva.
Jean Gigord was the principal pastor, and is called by
Casaubon u f a genuine theologian/ He lectured on
theology in the calvinist provincial seminary. And the
synod of Languedoc, which had met at Montpellier in
the preceding August, had voted him a small sum for the
formation of a library 15 . But the books were theo-
logical. Gigord was also one of the eight members
of the board of studies. But he was there to represent
the church, not learning. It would have been thought
an impropriety in a minister of the reformed churches
to have been known to devote any part of his time to
secular studies. His attitude towards them differed
from that of the catholic priest, secular or regular.
The priest of this generation feared and hated learning.
The reformed minister approved it for others, as edu-
cation, as discipline, but would have been ashamed to
13 Mm. de 1'Acad. des Sciences de Montp. 3.
' yvrja-ios theologus,' Ephem. p. 130.
15 Gigord writes to Casaubon to lay out part of this money for him at
Geneva. Burney MSS. 376. p. 125 : ' Je vous prie sur tout de me faire
recouvrer les livres, desquels vous verrez le rolle et aviser au prix.'
Even the ordinary theological books were not to be got at Montpellier.
96 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
have owned to it himself. In the course of the next
century the tide began to turn ; the education of the
French priest improved, that of the average pastor
deteriorated. To this contrast certainly eminent ex-
ceptions can be at once quoted. Even in Casaubon's
time, 1597, the other ministers at Montpellier were of
a grade of intellect below Gigord. Casaubon tells us 16
of a young minister, he does not name him, who in-
veighed in his sermon against the practice of those
preachers, who uncovered the head whenever they had
occasion to mention the divine name. On coming out
of church, Casaubon ventured to tell the youth that
this was the practice of all the reformed churches in
Germany and Switzerland ; to which the young zealot
replied that 'he anathematised all those churches/
* He was one of those/ observes Casaubon, ' who be-
lieve themselves gifted with all wisdom and all know-
ledge to begin with/ Such men of the true puritan
stamp, divinely enlightened, coritemners of human
learning, might be found among the ministers of that
day. But the management of the reformed churches
was in better hands. Literature was respected. But
the respect paid it was made up mainly of a sense of its
Utility in controversy, in a less degree of a perception,
never wholly wanting, of its intrinsic worth. Casaubon,
though not an official deputy, was invited to be present,
as ' amicus curiae/ at the national synod held at Mont-
pellier in August, 1598. The ministers patronised or
tolerated him. He did not even assume to be on equal
terms. He writes in 1597 to the synod of Sauve, ex-
cusing himself from attending on account of illness,
but begging the * fathers' to direct his humble services
16 Ephem. pp. 120. 113.
to the be
MONTPELLIER. 159G 1599. 97
to the benefit of the church, and assuring them that it
was his particular wish to be of use to the students
of theology, i.e. in the calvinist seminary at Mont-
pellier 17 . He once went so far as to say 18 but this was
to Beza after proposing his own interpretation of
Matth. 28. 17, 'but be assured that I shall finally
acquiesce in that meaning which you shall decide to
be the true meaning/
That the friends found at Montpellier were nume-
rous, is evident from the diary, where their visits are
recorded, and lamented. But the names are seldom
given. Only three recur often for mention : W. Ban-
chin, already spoken of; Sarrasin, a medical professor,
who published Dioscorides in 1598 ; and Canaye de
Fresne, who lived not at Montpellier, but at Carcassonne.
To him Gasaubon paid his first visit, through the storms
and snows of January, and took his advice as to the
character he should impress upon his teaching.
It was on his return from this visit to de Fresne
that he began the ' Ephemerides.' On his 3 8th birth-
day, being February 18 ( = 8), 1597, he resolved, as
many literary men have resolved, to keep a diary.
But he continued to keep it with the same persever-
ance which he carried into everything, daily, till within
a fortnight of his death in 1614. It is literally 'nulla
dies sine linea.' I recollect but one other example
of such regularity, that of Joseph Priestley, who began
to keep a diary of his studies, aet. 22, and continued it
till within three or four days of his death, set. 71. Cas-
aubon never omitted in his many illnesses, hardly on his
various journeys, a single day. When he travels, the cur-
rent volume accompanies him upon the sumpter-horse,
17 E P . 136. 18 E P . 131.
H
98 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
and he makes a note, however brief, of the spent day,
in ink, which he takes also with him. On one occasion,
having left it behind him, when he went out of Paris
for the night, his wife makes the entry in his stead :
' 23 fev. 1 60 1 : ce jour dit M. Casaubon a este absent,
que Dieu garde, et moi, et les nostres avec lui,
Amen.' The daughter of Henri Estienne had for-
gotten the latin once so familiar in her father's house,
and she makes her entry in the vernacular 19 . Casaubon
himself employs uniformly latin, but thickly inter-
spersed with greek words, even occasionally with
greek sentences. He could express himself with
almost equal facility in the one language as in the
other. He was once asked by a Greek, who professed
to be a descendant of Lascaris, to turn a petition for
him from latin into greek. He did it at once, off
hand 20 . He never required a lexicon 21 . Cardinal
Du Perron, the earliest French pulpit orator, said of
him, 22 * When Casaubon talks french, he talks like a
peasant ; but when latin, he speaks it like his mother
tongue. He has neglected the one, and thrown all his
mind into the other. 5 The latin of Casaubon in his
diary, and his letters, is the latin of a master of the
language in its resources and its idiom. But it is
wanting in character, and though far above the vapid
theme-latin of the Ciceronian imitators, it has not the
verve arid pungency of Scaliger's style.
19 Isaac's letters to Mad e . Casaubon are always in french. On one
occasion she opened a letter from her son John, which arrived in
Isaac's absence, and could not read it because it was in latin. Ep.
757 : 'Quas ilia pro suo jure aperuerat, sed, quia latine erant scriptse,
parum intellexerat.'
20 Eph. p. 228. 21 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 45.
22 Perroniana, p. 128.
The *
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. 99
The Ephemerides extend from February 18, 1597^0
June 1 6, 1614. On July i, 1614, Casaubon died. A
journal so regular is rarely written, and, when written,
is too often lost to history through the jealousy or
weakness of relatives or executors. In Priestley's case
the diary shared the fate of all his collections, and
became the victim of the savages of one of our great
cities. We owe the preservation of this. precious record
of the seventeenth century to the piety of Mad e . Cas-
aubon and her son Meric. Meric, who was prebend
of Canterbury, deposited, before his death in 1671, in
the chapter library of that cathedral, the six fasciculi
which he had inherited. For of seven volumes which
Isaac had written, one, the fourth, containing the
entries of three years and six months, viz. from Jan-
uary i, 1604, to July 21, 1607, was lost, at what period
is not known 23 . The MS. had been consulted where it
was deposited by various persons. Batteley, arch-
deacon and prebend of Canterbury, supplied a copy of
the material parts of the Ephemerides to Janssen Van
Almeloveen, who used them in writing the * Vita Ca-
sauboni,' which he prefixed to his magnificent edition
of the letters. At last, Dr. Russell, another prebend
of Canterbury, transcribed the whole MS. and prevailed
upon the managers of the Clarendon press to print it,
in the year 1850. The faithful accuracy of an editor
23 Adversaria, torn. 22, has an entry written by James Casaubon at
Meric's dictation, Jan. 9, 1639: ' Ephemerides ab anno vitse 39
incipiente, qui erat a Christo 1597, sunt omnino sex scapi separatim,
aut tot saltern penes me sunt, nam deest quartus, qui ternpus annorum
4 ab A.D. 1603 usque ad 1607 complectebatur. jam et ante statim a
patris obitu desideratum fuisse scapum unum, testis est fratris Joannis
epistola super ea re ad me scripta matris nomine, haud multo post
adventum meum Oxoniam.'
H 2
100 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
who religiously gave every word of his MS, where there
was so much temptation to excerpt, deserves commemo-
ration. In other respects, Dr. Russell fulfilled none of
the duties of editor. He did not explain one of the
many difficulties, or clear up a single obscurity in the
names mentioned, or the facts alluded to, by the diarist.
He did far less for Casaubon's memory than Almeloveen,
the Dutch editor of the letters, had done 150 years
before.
No form of autobiography is calculated to be more
popular than a private journal. But the interest of
Casaubon's Ephemerides suffers a heavy abatement from
three causes. First, it is written in latin ; secondly, it
does not concern itself with events of public interest;
and lastly, it is surcharged with the language of de-
votion.
A scholar's life is seldom one of incident, and his
annals can have little else to tell than what he reads
and writes. Casaubon records what he read day by
day, but does not mix remarks of his own upon it.
These were reserved for the margins, or blank leaves, of
his books, or thrown upon loose sheets of paper without
order. Sixty volumes of such Adversaria are still kept
in existence, which have been made by binding these
sheets together. In a few instances he has extracted
into the Ephemerides a passage which struck him, and
which he wished to dwell upon, sometimes in greek ?
occasionally a hebrew text. Such extracts have mostly
a devout, not a philological, purpose. He does not, like
Fynes Clinton, record how many pages, but how many
hours, he read. Besides this timekeeping of the daily
task, the journal notices, but with great brevity, and as
secondary matter, his family affairs, visits, journeys, let-
ters, conversations, descending even to his expenditure,
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 101
all indicated with the brevity of a time-saving man, so
that an 8vo page of print seldom contains less than
three days, often a week or more. Public events are
little noticed, the chief exception being the Fontaine-
bleau conference, which fills seven pages. The assassi-
nation of Henri iv, the most memorable occurrence of
the period, scarcely takes a page, and that . contains no
particulars, but is a commonplace lament and prayer on
the occasion. His wife's confinement takes two pages,
but with the same proportion of prayer and thanks-
giving. Of the whole diary it may be computed that
no less than one third is occupied with these litanies.
That such pious aspirations should continually ascend
to heaven, from the devout soul of Casaubon, can be no
matter of regret. But it must be permitted us to wish
that he had not thought it necessary to write them
down, and so fill his pages with mere repetition, to the
exclusion of more interesting matters. One observa-
tion may be made on the outpourings of prayer and
praise. They attest the pure and simple-minded
character of the man. Here is no taint of cant ; not
the faintest suggestion of that unsoundness or in-
sincerity, which seldom fails to attend the public
parade of the language of devotion. We feel that
we have surprised Casaubon on his knees alone in his
closet. He does not write so, not even in his most
familiar letters ; he did not talk so in his ordinary con-
versation. Nothing but a heart overflowing with re-
ligious feeling could have prompted a passionate
student, so jealous of his moments, to write and re-
write the refrain of the same ejaculation.
If we are tempted to turn away from Casaubon's
journal in disappointment at its barrenness of events,
we must remember that it was undertaken bv him with
102 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
one special object in view. It was not written, like the
cotemporary ' Begistre-journar of Pierre Lestoile, for
the instruction of posterity ; not even of his own family.
Casaubon had no autobiographical purpose in view. He
thus states his own motive in opening the diary. 24< The
expenditure of time being the most costly of all those
we make, and considering the truth of what is said
by the latin stoic that " there is one reputable kind of
avarice, viz. to be avaricious of our time," I have this
day resolved to begin this record of my time, in
order that I may have by me an account of my
spending so precious a commodity. Thus, when I look
back, if any of it hath been well laid out, I may rejoice
and give almighty G-od thanks for his grace ; if again
any of it hath been idle or ill spent, I may be aware
thereof, and know my fault or misfortune therein.' This
purpose of noting how the time goes, is the paramount
purpose of the Ephemerides. If we find them more bar-
ren of events than we could wish, we must call to mind
that they were not destined to be a record of events,
but a register of time. Casaubon anxiously compares the
hours spent in his study with those bestowed on any
other occupation. Unless the first greatly preponderate,
he is unhappy. When the claims of business or society
have taken up any considerable part of a day, his
outcries are those of a man who is being robbed. When
he has read continuously a whole day, from early morn-
ing till late at night, * noctem addens operi,' he enters
a satisfactory ' to-day, I have truly lived/ ' hodie vixi/
Taking some entries of the first period, we have such as
the following :
' To-day I began my work very early in the morning,
24 Ephem. p. i .
notwitli
MONTPELL1ER. 1596 1599. 103
notwithstanding my having kept it up last night till
very late.'
' Nearly the whole morning, and quite all the after-
noon perished, through writing letters. Oh ! heavy
loss, more lamentable than loss of money \'
' To-day I got six hours for study. When shall I get
my whole day \ Whenever, my Father, it shall be
thy will!'
' This morning not to my books till 7 o'clock or
after ; alas me ! and after that the whole morning
lost ; nay, the whole day. O God of my salvation,
aid my studies, without which life is to me not life/
' This morning, reading, but not without interrup-
tion. After dinner, however, as if they had conspired
the destruction of my studies, friends came and broke
them off/
' This morning a good spell of study. After dinner
friends, and trifling talk, but very bothering ; at last
got back to my books/
* To-day, though far from well, got eight hours for
rny books/
Such is the general character of the entries during
the first period. The simple ' studuimus et viximus' is
the short expression of the feeling of this time.
The sociable disposition of the people of Montpellier
caused him grievous trials. Morning visiting was the
mode of the place ; not calls of ceremony, but ' dropping
in' to have a chat. Casaubon was liked for himself, as
well as respected for his learning. He, too, could talk,
though his french were french of Geneva. Serious
talk with well-informed persons he does not regard as
time ill spent. For a tete-&-tete with Eanchin or de
Fresne, with Sarrasin or de Serres, persons more or
less behind the scenes of the public drama ; to lament
104 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
the gloomy prospects of the reformed churches, the
backsliding of Henri iv, the rapid strides of the Jesu-
its, to hear of the last new conversion at court, for
this he is ever ready. Nor was he altogether insen-
sible to the allurements of ordinary companionship.
He is not unwilling to gossip with the gossips. But
these Montpellier neighbours know no seasons. They
come at all hours, they stay, unconscious of the lapse
of minutes. Casaubon sits there fretting, watching the
clock, wishing them gone, with his thoughts on that
25 ' last wretched page' of his animadversions on Athe-
na3us, still unwritten. Oh ! ' the friends, how little
friendly ! ' amici quam parum amici who come be-
tween him and his books. Is it suggested he might
shut them out \ How is he to shut them out, when he
has only two rooms, an inner and an outer, a sitting-
room and a bedroom ? All his study has to be done
in the one room in which the family Hve. What a
power of abstraction must be required even to follow
a book, and how entirely must be wanting ' the bless-
ings of contemplation in that sweet solitariness, which
collecteth the mind, as shutting the eyes does the sight ! '
(Bacon). His resource against the plague of friends
is to take the early morning, and the late night, hours.
Eut I can find no authority for the statement of the
biographers, that he bathed his eyes with vinegar to
keep them open. The ' legende erudite' has done little
to embellish Casaubon' s life, for this is almost the
only exception 26 . He has no space to set out his
25 Ephem. p. 69 : ' Ilia pagina misella.'
26 I find no other authority for this than the latin life of Van
Almeloveen, p. 73 : ' Aiunt Casaubonum, ne concubia nocte somno
corriperetur, oculis infudisse acetum.' Almeloveen gives us himself
the source from which he drew the statement, and the means of
MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
105
books on shelves. In time he gets into a more roomy
abode, but the repeated removals have introduced
chaos into his books and papers. The time lost in
searching for a missing volume is so grievous, that it
is matter of entry in the diary, with thanksgiving
when found 27 . We cannot wonder that in such a
menage Florence Casaubon should sometimes lose her
good temper, wish that her husband could find a little
time to attend to his affairs, or even hint that he might
be a little more companionable. This was the severest
of all his trials. For even in his new house, where he
had a private study up-stairs, Mad e . Casaubon was not
to be excluded 28 . So tender is Casaubon' s feeling, that
even in his private diary he does not name her when
he alludes to 29 'this domestic hindrance to my studies.'
A true and loving helpmeet she was to him, as he
always confesses, and on the whole really promoted
his studious abstraction, by relieving him of all house-
hold cares. When she is away from him he is helpless
in these matters as a child. 30< Deliver me, my heavenly
Father, from these miseries, which the absence of my
wife, and the management of my household, create
for me. Not being used to keep our accounts, I am per-
fectly aghast when I see the expenditure of this family/
refuting it. He quotes 'Moyse Amyraut, Morale chre'tienne.' But what
Amyraut says is, not that Casaubon used vinegar, but that some one,
unnamed, who wished, like Casaubon, to study through the night,
bathed his eyes with vinegar. ' Celuy qui, pour imiter Casaubon, qui
estudioit la plus grande partie de la nuit, se mettoit du vinaigre dans
les yeux pour en chasser le sommeil, monstroit bien qu'il avoit de la
ge*nerosite, et une grande affection pour les lettres.'
27 Ephern. p. 82.
18 Ephem. p. 1 8 : ' Inter turbas domesticas lectio aliquot hora-
rum.'
29 Ephem.. p. 42. 30 Ephem. p. 998.
106 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
It might have been better if she had disturbed him
oftener. His life might have been prolonged some
years, if she had more often routed him from his desk,
and driven him into the air. For in these years he
was laying the seeds of disease, and preparing his early
grave. He had timely warning of his fate. Serious
attacks, not once, but repeated, prostrated him in 1597
and '98, of relaxation of, and discharge from, the mu-
cous lining of the air passages. These attacks were
attended with violent fever, and had for sequel a lan-
guor of body and mind, which occasioned a further
wrench, when he dragged himself back to work in spite
of it. They were the first of a series, which harassed
him all the remainder of his life the beginning of
the end.
This presentiment that his space of life would be
curtailed haunted him already, and served to augment
the fever of work which consumed him. He doles out
his hours as one who knows they are counted, yet he
is but thirty-seven. Six a.m. was a late hour for
him to enter his study ; 5 a.m. is more usual. He is
not rarely later. * Mane diei melior pars,' was his
maxim. Like all persons of weak constitution, his
working powers were freshest in the morning, and
flagged as the day went on. But hours, which seem
to us incredibly early, were the rule in the schools of
France. Henri de Mesmes describes himself as going
to school at 5 a.m., 31 ' with our big books under our
arms, our portfolios and lanterns in our hands.'
31 Me'm. de Henri de Mesmes, ap. Rollin, Traitd des Etudes, i :
' Nous etions debout a quatre heures, et ayant pri Dieu, allions a
cinq heures aux estudes, nos gros livres sous le bras, nos escritoires et
nos chandeliers a la main.' This was at Toulouse, in 1545. Even in
Paris, where hours were later, 6 a.m. was the hour for the greek class
in the Jesuit college of Clermont.
On r^a
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. 107
On reaching his study, his first act is one of devotion
on his knees. Unless specially busied otherwise, he
takes the first half- hour for religious reading, often of
:he hebrew scriptures. Then the author he has in hand
3upies him till the dinner hour. This was in schools,
tiversi ties, and burgher life, generally at 10 a.m. The
)urt dined late, at 1 2, or even as late as i on hunting
lys. After dinner, he spends some hours in preparing
for his lecture, which was at 4 p.m. An hour, four
days per week, is his prescribed duty. But after the
end of the first nine months, he adds, as a voluntary,
a greek elementary class. After lecture, friends, supper,
and then to books again, if friends will only go away
in good time. Saturday was given up to the disputa-
tions ; Wednesday was a holiday. The usual holiday
in the schools and universities was Thursday. In the
medical school of Montpellier, exceptionally, the day
was Wednesday, dies Mercurii, there styled 'jour d'Hip-
pocrate,' and the other faculties conformed to the prac-
tice of the leading faculty. On Sundays, an attendance
on two sermons was expected by public opinion, and
sanctioned by custom, though it was not a statutable
duty. This was the case also with the Wednesday
morning sermon, to which the boys in the lower school
were taken by their regents, and catechised afterwards.
When Gigord or de Serres was the preacher, Casaubon
would not find it so hard to quit Chrysostom or Basil,
at 8 and at 12 (these were the hours), but on ordinary
days an hour's discourse must have been a heavy burden,
when the pastors were such as he describes. 32< One,
very aged, and hence, without his own fault, lethargic,
the other a mere youth, quite unequal to the post of
first pastor in such a large congregation/ Heylin,
32 E P . 174.
108 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
writing in 1625, says of the reformed preachers:
33 ' Their sermons are very plain and home-spun, little
in them of the fathers, and less of human learning,
it being concluded in the synod of Gappe that only
the scriptures should be used in their pulpits. They
consist much of exhortation and use, and of nothing
in a manner which concerneth knowledge ; a ready
way to raise up and edify the will and affection, but
withal to starve the understanding.'
Though Sunday is a public holiday, Casaubon does
not allow himself one. He marks it by reading some
theological book, often one of the fathers. But after
a spell of this reading, he turns to his task of every
day. This, too, is his day for writing letters. The
Scotch c sabbath ' was unknown to the French reformed
churches of the 1 6th century, as it was to the catholics.
The faculties kept holiday, but the disputations of the
surgeons and apothecaries, both at Montpellier and
Lyons, were held on the Sunday. Sometimes, but
very sparingly, he takes a walk beyond the walls on a
holiday to visit a friend's country villa, or down to the
sea, to look at the ruins of Maguelonne. There are three
regular vacations in the year of three or four weeks
each at Christmas, at Easter, and in July-August.
In these he makes his more distant visits. His first
was to de Fresne ; the summer vacation of 1597 ne
devotes to a visit to his mother at Die (dep. Drome).
The summer of 1598 affords a much longer excursion
to Lyons and Paris, after which he is surprised to find
how improved his health is. In November, 1598, but
after he had ceased to act as professor, he goes again
to stay with de Fresne, who is now established at
Castres, (dep. Tarn,) as protestant president of the
33 Heylin, Travels, p. 120.
MONTPELLIER. 1 5 9 G 1599. 109
chambre mipartie of Languedoc. He spares an
occasional hour to be present at the medical disputa-
tions, or at a dissection. Once he goes to the dis-
putations of the surgeons. Nor does he quit Mont-
pellier without having witnessed the sight of the
place the manufacture of the popular electuary,
kermes, which, says the German Sincerus, 34 ' no one
should quit Moiitpellier without going to see/ He was
appointed rector of the faculty of arts, for the scholar
year 1597; held the office again for a short time in
1599 in the absence of the rector, and found it greatly
troublesome and time-devouring.
When rector or not, no one at Montpellier was likely
to interfere with his choice of subjects of lecture.
This choice was guided by the fact already mentioned,
that his audience consisted largely of men past pupil-
lage. Just about 1597 there was a short reaction
against the barbarism produced by the civil war.
Men turned again with eagerness to the reopened
source of ancient learning. Even in the worst times
there had not wanted lovers of good books. The
tradition of literature still lingered among the mem-
bers of the French bar. Toulouse was, perhaps, the
most fanatical city in the kingdom, yet in the parle-
ment of Languedoc, now again restored to Toulouse,
were not a few men who rose above the political
passion of the day. Pierre Du Faur, Sieurde Sanjorry,
first president, had a fine collection of books, and had
written on law 35 . A catholic, but not a leaguer, he
84 Jodocus Sincerus, Itinerarium Gallise, 1627, p. 160 : 'Nolim hinc
inoveas non visa prius electuarii Alkermes confectione.' The alkermes
was a popular stomachic electuary, prepared from the kermis, an oak-
gall gathered in Languedoc, Spain, and Portugal.
35 Scaliger a . 2 a . p. 81 : ' Ce n'est q'un amasseur, il ne juge rien.'
110 MONTPELLIER, 1596 1599.
sent Casaubon a message of civility through de Fresne,
to which Casaubon replied by claiming his friendship
and patronage, and calling him the Varro of his age.
This might pass as a complimentary flourish, were it
not confirmed by Scaliger's mention of him as one of
France's learned men, though he adds that his books
were only compilations, a failing not uncommon among
book-collectors. Another member of the same court,
and president au mortier in it, Ciron, followed, as col-
lector, the footsteps of his chief. Jacques de Maussac,
father of the editor of Harpocration, makes a third
learned library at Toulouse. It is impossible that the
example of the supreme court should have been
without influence on the province. Accordingly, at
Montpellier, there was a rush to Casaubon' s lecture-
room, not only of younger members of the bar, but
even of the law professors, and more than one of the
presiding judges in the various courts. Men whose
heads were grey, president Philip, ' optimus et doctis-
simus senex ; ' M. de Massilon, ' vere eruditus et nostras
litteras callens/ were occasionally present. If any
stranger of distinction passed by Montpellier, one of
the amusements provided for him was to hear Casau-
bon. The hour assigned to Casaubon was the hour of
honour, 4 p.m., the latest hour in the academical day,
in order to allow this class of professional men the
opportunity of attending after their business was over.
Grynseus, writing from Bale, in 1584, says, 36< I have
been induced by my curators to institute a lecture on
history twice a week. It will be at an hour at which
the professional and business men can spare a little time
Pierre Du Faur is cited by Grrotius, De Jure Belli, 2. 16. i, as
' eminentissimse eruditionis Petrus Faber.'
36 Grynseus, Epp. p. 101.
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. Ill
for the good of their minds, viz. 4 p.m.' Men with
these tastes were to be found, but it is not to be sup-
posed that they abounded. The French noblesse,
especially the haute noblesse, were, as a body, illiterate,
and gloried in being so. The constable Montmorency
could not sign his name.
Nor in Italy, where (Rome excepted) culture was
more widely diffused, especially in ecclesiastical circles,
than in France, were things otherwise* Paolo Gualdo,
writing in 1604, apologises for his own tastes, 37 'I
know there are not wanting persons who think these
studies ridiculous/ At Rome ambition had not only
extinguished learning, but created a hatred of it.
Seguier writes to de Thou : ' Anything composed in
classical latin is suspected at Rome of impiety/
The subjects chosen by Casaubon for his lectures
during his profession at Montpellier were as foUows :
i. An Account of the administration and officers of
the Roman republic. 2. A Synopsis of Roman his-
tory. 3. The Laws of the xii Tables. 4. The
citations in the Digest from Ulpianus on the subject
of dress 38 . 5. Persius. 6. Plautus, Capteivi. 7. The
Physician's oath (opKos) of Hippocrates. 8. Aristotle's
Ethics.
These were all the subjects of his public lectures,
and they seem certainly enoiigh to occupy a year and a
half at four days a week, with three months' vacation
in the year.
The adaptation of these courses to the audience he
found at Montpellier is unmistakable. There is only
one of them ah 1 , viz. the Plautus, which must have
been a purely philological, or language, lecture. And
37 Vita Pinelli, p. 330. 38 viz. Digest, lib. 34. tit. 2.
112 MONTPELLIER. 1 596 1599.
this was the only one which was not chosen by himself,
but was taken at the request of his class 39 . In the
selection of i, 2, 3, and 4, the men of the robe, whether
lawyers or civil employes, were evidently considered.
No. 5, the Persius, was convenient to himself, as having
by him notes of his Genevan lectures. But his en-
deavour was to give to the lecture an ethical cast, as
he expressly says in the dedication, and as is still
evident in the published book 40 . Though we have not
his notes on the Ethics of Aristotle, we cannot doubt
that this was also treated in the same practical spirit.
' Abeunt studia in mores ' was his principle. The senti-
ment is continually escaping him that the classics were
an instrument of moral training : 41 'I desire to excite
myself to the love of virtue and the hatred of vice, and
to aid the studious youth in the same endeavour, an
object which has been too little regarded by former
commentators/
Having done thus much for the students, the bar,
and- the public, that the doctors might have their turn,
he takes up the Physician's oath of Hippocrates.
These public lectures were in latin ; they were also all,
or nearly all, on latin texts. The Aristotle's Ethics, as
it was meant for edification, must have been a com-
59 Ephem. p. 64 : ' Eogatu eorum quorum studiis prodesse tene-
mur,' i. e. the students as distinct from the public.
40 Persii Sat. ed. 1605. ded. to Achille de Harlay. Here Casaubon
pursues the theme of the cultivation of the moral nature by the
classics, as being their proper use in education.
41 Even greek grammars were composed with the same view.
Chytrseus, Regula Stud. 1595. p. 100, recommends the syntax of
Posselius, on account of the examples which followed the rules : ' Qure
non modo prseceptorum usum monstrant, verum etiam utiles admoni-
tiones de Deo, de gubernatione vitse, et regendis moribus complec-
tuntur.'
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 113
meiitary on the matter, such that it could be easily
followed by those who w r ould not take much interest in
questions of interpretation. The term he employs with
respect to the "Opco? of Hippocrates (interpretari) seems
to imply that he made the original the text of his
lecture, and some knowledge of greek was still exacted
for the degree of M.D. at Montpellier 42 . Towards the
end of his time, Casaubon put on a greek lecture
first Homer, then Pindar but these were extra and
voluntary lectures, intended for a younger and special
class, and were not part of his public duty.
The freedom with which he mixes long greek cita-
tions, and the time he spends on asserting the true
meaning of greek words, in his lectures on Persius,
show, however, that he addressed an audience to
whom greek was not wholly unintelligible, or unin-
structing. Yet the fact that latin was the chosen
subject of his public lectures, at the very time when
his private reading was chiefly greek, is in conformity
with all we know of the character of instruction in
France at this period.
M. Nisard says 43 that after the definitive triumph
of Catholicism in France, greek became offensive as the
language of heresy. This is perhaps to say too much.
But it is certainly true that more strenuous efforts
were made at this moment to keep up greek and
hebrew in the protestant academies, poor as they were,
2 The ' Registre des procureurs/ at Montpellier, cited by M. Egger,
Hellenisme, i. 175, has an entry ' Magister Rabelaisius pro suo ordi-
nario elegit librum " Prognosticorum " Hippocratis quern grsece inter-
pretatus est.' But it seems clear from Rabelais' own account, that
he only referred to the Greek to correct the errors of the Latin
version on which he read. Aphorismi Hippocrat. ded.
13 Lit. Fran. vol. i. p. 431.
I
114 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
than in the catholic and Jesuit colleges and universities.
This was certainly from no sympathy on the part of
the French reformed with the true mind of classical
Greece, which was as much out of their reach as out of
the reach of a servile Jesuit. But catholic France felt
that affinity for the Christian empire and its language,
which has always been predominant among the romance
nationalities. ' Manners,' says M. Nisard, ' would have
effected, in the course of nature, that which religious
passion brought about violently. We are the sons of
the latins, and the latin genius has always had our
preference. We have the practical spirit of Rome, and
the roman taste for the universal, which, in our political
history, has shown itself in our well-known passion to
subdue and regulate everything according to our own
pattern/
Casaubon's habit of intermixing greek words and
phrases was not a pedantic affectation, but the
natural language of a man, who spent most of the
hours of every day in the company of greek books.
With all his wonderful command of latin, even for
uncommon occasions, the greek phrase would occur
first, and he takes it without waiting to think of the
latin. Though he wrote out his inaugural, his daily
lectures were delivered from notes. These notes were
chiefly passages from greek authors, sometimes inter-
pretative of a word, sometimes illustrating and enforcing
his author's statement. With these two objects to
interpret the author, or to enforce his statement he
is exclusively occupied. There is no ad captandum
rhetoric, no original thought, no flourish of trumpets to
awaken the sleepy, or arouse the listless. He does not
forget that he is there to teach, not to please. If we
ask how lectures which are so unmistakably dull, which
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 115
are so thickly sprinkled with greek, which not all
could follow, yet came to be popular, the explanation is,
that the lecturer did what he proposed to do, and the
audience expected no more. He proposed to interpret
an author, and the audience went with their books to
have the interpretation. When he lectured on Aris-
totle's Ethics, I conceive his auditors to have followed
in the latin version, and that the lecturer referred to
the greek which was printed on the same page, in critical
passages, and for leading terms. Eeading the classics
was not a profession confined to experts. The classics
were the literature of the educated, and they wanted
to be helped to understand that literature. Casaubon,
busy on his point, and keeping to it, was just the man
for them. The completeness of his knowledge uncon-
sciously impressed even those, who were incompetent
to appreciate how complete it was. They felt they
were in the hands of a master of the craft. Medicine
and law, it was said, they had always had at Montpel-
lier, now at last Casaubon had brought the Muses 44 .
Casaubon was too modest to be carried away by this
sudden popularity. But he was gratified by tasting
general recognition, and pleased to be able to announce
to his patron de Fresne that his experiment had been
so successful, and to let his friends at Geneva know
that the prophet, who had no honour in his own
country, had found it elsewhere.
One evil this public expectation brought with it. It
was necessary to respond to it. The applause which
attended his course, imposed fresh labour. He was
obliged to devote hours to preparation, hours which
he wanted for his unfinished Athenaeus. His very
44 Ep. 115: ' Multorum opinio est, illatas in hanc provinciam
musas adventu nostro.'
I 2
116 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
success was a hindrance to him. He had sought
leisure in coming to Montpellier, and not found it.
45< Such studies as these/ he writes in September 1600,
' require leisure and profound repose. I have been, by a
succession of various accidents, called away from work-
ing at my task, and may say that I have not had a
single month's, hardly a single day's, perfect quiet
among my books/ And again a little later, ' Leisure is
what I desire more than anything, if it might be God's
will to give it me. My literary schemes are of such
a nature that they demand repose of mind as an in-
dispensable condition/
But not all his day was given to his lecture and
to preparing his Athenaeus. The diary enables us to
trace day by day his private reading at this period.
Besides the devotional book in the early morning, he
looks into a variety of books in the course of the
day, but has always one author whom he steadily
goes on with every day till he has read him through.
The first such achievement in 1597 is Basil, the whole
of whom is read between February 19 and March IT.
As this must have been Froben's edition of 1551,
which contains 698 folio pages of greek type, packed
exceptionally close, we have an average reading of
thirty-five pages per day ; yet he was ill most of the
time, and more than one day out of the twenty was
curtailed or lost altogether by business. Either his
own health or the atmosphere of the place set him
next upon Hippocrates, the whole of which takes
him only twenty-five days, though here he was helped
by the Easter holidays. After this feat it seems dis-
proportionate that Cedrenus takes thirteen days, but
" 5 Ep. 2 1 3 : < Otium et quietem altam studia hsec postulant.' Ep.
1023 : <Ea molimur in literis, quse animi tranquillitatem desiderant/
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. 117
other books were in hand during the time. We have
mention, besides, of Jerome, Chrysostom, Tertullianus,
Menander Rhetor, Philostratus, Apicius, all between
January and July. And yet the diary omits to men-
tion many readings. This is evident, not only from
citations in his commentaries on authors, but from
the volumes once in his possession still extant. There
is, e. g. in the British Museum, a copy of Calvin's
'Epistolse/ edition of Hanau 1597, marked throughout
by Casaubon's pen. We have in it a volume of 780
pages, in small type, and not on a classical subject,
read attentively, and yet not noticed in the diary,
unless we assume that a Frankfort book, published
in 1597, did not come into Casaubon's hands till after
1603. In this case it might have been spoken of in
that fascicule of the diary which is lost. While
lectures are proceeding, Athenaeus is in hand ; he is
continually ill, has his correspondence to keep up, and,
worst of all, is Rector of the faculty. This is the
most vexing distraction of all 46 . It involves him, be-
sides the comparatively simple business of the faculty,
in looking after the lower school, and providing it
with regents. This * hated office' (munus invisum)
was fortunately only for a year. Books of controversy,
e. g. Bulenger against Du Plessis, he looks into in what
he calls his * leisure hours/ ' horse succisivse/ though
it is not easy to see where, in the life we have de-
scribed, were any such.
It was clear, then, that whatever else Montpellier
could give him, it had not given him his long desired
leisure. He soon began to find that it did not realise
even the expectations he had most certainly formed.
Popularity is from its nature shortlived, nowhere more
46 Eph. p. 30 : ' Officia a studiis avocantia, et valde inofficiosa.'
118 MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
so than in France, where it is the course of nature
to ' smile, adore, abuse, discard, forget.' The audiences
fell off, the novelty was gone and the interest abated.
The terms of his engagement, originally * not brilliant,'
were ill performed. He had been promised six months 7
back salary towards the expense of moving. He
could not get any part of it. He was to have 150
crowns to furnish with, this was cut down to 100.
A house had been promised. He was obliged to
huddle his family into two rooms. After some delay,
Verchant, one of the elders of the church, offered a
house. But he had to pay ten crowns a year for it,
and one year's rent was deducted from his stipend
in advance. Firewood had been stipulated, a costly
article in a part of the country far from the great
forests, and where the cold in winter is occasion-
ally intense. It was doled out to him in a niggardly
way, not a tenth part given of his consumption.
Finally, his salary itself was allowed to fall into ar-
rear, the two-monthly term, which was in the con-
tract, was not observed. The poor scholar was driven
to humiliating importunity. His own and his wife's
ill-health, and the death of a daughter, Elisabeth, of
fever, brought back his habitual despondency about
his family affairs. De Fresne and Ranchin were both
absent. He wrote to them to Paris to ask them to
use their influence in his behalf. The effect of their
doing so was to produce civil excuses in reply to
fresh applications. The governor, the Due de Yenta-
dour, was absent ; or one of the consuls was ill in
bed ; or the salt duties, out of which the stipend was
payable, could not be collected because of the troubles.
He had to pay a heavy fee on the royal diploma con-
ferring his title and his chair. He applied for letters
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 119
naturalisation, but the fee demanded by the chan-
cery of Paris, though Ranchin applied personally, was
so enormous that Casaubon declined to take them out.
.The same difficulty was renewed on his applying for
a copyright protection of his volume of Notes on
Athenseus, without which no publisher would under-
take the expense of printing. He feels, as Erskine
did, his children pulling the skirts of his coat and
crying 47 'get us bread/ He could not have got
along but for help from friends. Jean de Serres, him-
self only a poor minister, shared his purse with
Casaubon. A considerable present was unexpectedly
sent by an admirer, the governor of Rodez, to whom
he was not even personally known. Bongars con-
tinued his donations of valuable books. In time some
of his worst grievances were remedied. He threatened
departure to Bale, or back to Geneva. To see him
go back in disgust to Geneva would have been humi-
liating to the council of Montpellier, which had enjoyed
the triumph of alluring him away. They agreed to
raise his salary to 1000 livres, in lieu of all perqui-
sites ; payment seems to have been more punctual,
and he removed to a better house.
But he could not settle down in Montpellier. Even
before he went there his friends had let fall hints of
something further in store. De Fresne and Ranchin
were in Paris in the autumn of 1597, and their report
of Casaubon had filled the literary set there with the
desire to get him to Paris. When they returned to
Montpellier, they dropped hints of a mysterious nature.
There was nothing definite named, perhaps nothing
definite conceived. But the king's name was used.
' It was not unlikely the king might do something
47 Eph. p. 74 : 'Charissimi liberi aurem vellunt/
120 MONTPELL1ER. 15961599.
for him.' Casaubon might have been in the dark as
to how little the king could, or would, do. But still,
what was said was enough to unsettle him, in a place
in which he had never become rooted, and to prevent
him from ever trying to make the best of its vexations.
To these were now to be added the loss of a young
daughter, Elisabeth, after a few days' illness, and the
continual aggression of the catholic clergy, who were
pushing to regain their old ascendancy in the university.
This small cloud was big with elements of future dis-
turbance. No sooner was the bishop restored than the
chapter began to claim the college de Mende, the build-
ing in which the classes were held, as their property.
The present bishop, de Ratte, was an antileaguer,
a man of some letters, and on friendly terms with
Casaubon. His successor, Fenouillet, was a fanatic,
a pupil of S. Francois de Sales. But even with the
politic de Ilatte, the restoration of the authority of the
church was a paramount object. The agitation never
ceased. Inch by inch the lost ground was reconquered.
In 1600 the clergy recovered the college de Mende. By
1613 the victory over the university was completed, the
bishop 'visited' by his vicar-general, and new statutes,
in a catholic spirit, were promulgated, which required
every member of the university to attend mass daily.
Of this sap and siege Casaubon only saw the com-
mencement, but it was enough to make it count among
the discomforts, which made him ready to embrace any
opening in another quarter.
The immediate occasion of his leaving Montpellier
was his edition of Athenseus. This he considered the
work on which he first really ventured his reputation,
as it proved to be the work of his life. All previous
books he spoke of as untimely births, the produce of his
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. 121
apprentice years. He would not own them. To Athen-
aeus he was about to commit himself.
We first find him engaged upon Athenseus as early
as 1590. In that year, in the flush of youthful strength,
he announced 48 to a young friend that he might soon
look for a volume of observations on Athenaeus, of which
author he had been fortunate enough 'to get good
MSS.' In 1594, he repeats the announcement to
Scaliger, but it is now an edition of Athenaeus
which he contemplates. In 1596, when he left
Geneva, he had completed a recension of the text,
and passed a great part of the sheets through the
press. He had been printing this under his own eye,
at the press of Paul Estienne, though it was pub-
lished for him by Jerome Commelin at Heidelberg, in
1597. Being hurried by his removal, the last sheets
of the book were not so correct as they should have
been 49 ; the volume was without preface or dedication,
and it contained not a single note. The first six
months at Montpellier were too much occupied with
their own duties, and it was not till the summer vaca-
tion that he could sit down regularly to the task. He
did not propose to himself to write a commentary on
Atheneeus 50 , but only to attempt some correction of
its most corrupt text, and some explanation of the
many obscurities arising out of that corruption. When
he began the work, June 23, 1597, he had no notion of
the time that it would require. Looking back upon
the finished sheets, he says, ' It would be impossible to
explain to you, reader, unless you had yourself some
48 Ep. 5.
19 Ariimadvv. in Ath. prsef. : * Migratio nostra ex Allobrogum
finibus in Galliam, fuit in causa ut ea editio inemendatior prodiret.'
50 Prsefat.in Ath.: 'Nee commentarium in A. scribere consilium iiobis.'
122 MONTPELLIER. 159G 1599.
experience of this kind of investigation, what a world
of labour and vexation this work has cost me.' He
calculated that if he could revise the original at the
rate of four pages per day it might be done within
a few months. As the volume of text contained 705
pages, six months at this rate of progress would have
sufficed. So much had he underrated the peculiar
difficulties of this author, and the consumption of
time in literary research, that three years and two
months of his herculean labour were required to bring
the Observations to a close, without the prolegomena.
The diary enables us to compute the time almost
the days and hours occupied in the undertaking.
The foundation had been laid, and memoranda accu-
mulated, during the revision of the text at Geneva.
He began to write the ' Animadversiones' at Mont-
pellier, June 23, 1597, he completed them April 16,
1 598. This was the first rough draft of a folio volume, of
648 pages. Within a few days he commenced a revision
of the whole of what he had written. The remainder
of this year was much broken into by journeys and
visits. He began to print the first sheet March 20,
1599, and corrected the last at Lyons, August 9, 1600.
Admitted thus behind the scenes to a sixteenth-cen-
tury workshop, we feel that we are now in the age of
erudition. The renaissance, the spring-tide of modern
life, with its genial freshness, is far behind us. The
creative period is past, the accumulative is set in.
Genius can now do nothing, the day is to dull in-
dustry. The prophet is departed, and in his place we
have the priest of the book. Casaubon knows so much
of ancient lore, that not only his faculties, but his spirits
are oppressed by the knowledge. He can neither cre-
ate nor enjoy ; he groans under his load. The scholar
MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
123
ol 1500 gambols in the free air of classical poetry, as
in an atmosphere of joy. The scholar of 1600 has a
century of compilation behind him, and ' drags at each
jmove a lengthening chain/ If anyone thinks that
to write and read books is a life of idleness, let him
look at Casaubon's diary. Pope, during his engage-
ment on Homer, used to be haunted by it in his dreams,
and ' wished to be hanged a hundred times.' Vergil,
having undertaken the ^Eneid, said of himself that ' he
thought he must have been out of his senses when he
did so/ But of the blood and sweat, the groans and
sighs, which enter into the composition of a folio vo-
lume of learned research, no more faithful record has
ever been written than Casaubon's ' Ephemerides/
Throughout its entire progress, the ' Animadversiones '
on Athenaeus was an ungrateful and irksome task,
' catenati in ergastulo labores/ He can hardly open
Athenaeus without disgust, and he prays God, day by
day, that he may get away from such trifles to better
reading.
In some instances the travail pangs and throbs atten-
dant on composition are repaid by the delight of the
parent in contemplating the offspring. This was not
Casaubon's case. To himself the labour and its result
were equally repulsive and disappointing. He felt
most bitterly, on its termination, how far he had fallen
short of his aim, moderate as his ambition was. For
he called his book ' Animadversiones in A. Deipnoso-
phistas,' ' Observations on Athenseus/ not a ' Commen-
tary.' He invokes Scaliger's aid to amend some passages,
whose corruption was beyond his own skill. To have
done with the work was all the satisfaction it gave
him. Nor indeed did he ever quite finish it. He
projected ' Prolegomena,' which were to give a full,
124 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
(prolixe,) account of the author, and of the plan and
construction of the Deipnosophists. He shut himself
up ' parturiens/ trying to put these into shape. But
after three days' labour he desisted from the attempt,
being unable to satisfy himself 51 .
When he was ready with the copy of the Observa-
tions, the next thing was to find a publisher. The
city of Hippocrates contained no greek press in 1600,
any more than it had done seventy years before, when
Rabelais had sent his edition of the Hippocratic ' Apho-
risms' to be printed at Lyons. The earliest book known
as printed at Montpellier is not earlier than 1597. Pre-
fixed to this a law-book are some twenty lines of
greek. So that Jean Gilet, the Montpellier publisher,
had some greek type. When Casaubon says 52 that
their only printer had no greek type, he must be taken
to mean not enough for an undertaking such as the
' Animadversions ' on Athenseus.
Commelin the publisher of his former volume, the
text, was dead, and with Casaubon' s present prospects
it was desirable that the book should be published in
France. He endeavoured to get a Genevan printer to
establish a press with a greek fount, and a learned cor-
rector, at Montpellier 53 . But there was no scope for
a learned press even in a university town. We may
remember, that Oxford did not get greek types fill
1586, and that Whitgift in 1584, doubted the ex-
pediency of allowing a press at all at Cambridge 54 .
51 Eph. p. 289.
52 Ep. 153: ' Typographum hie habemus, cujus operse utamur,
imllum : qui adest, grsecis literis caret.'
53 After Casaubon' s departure, Francis Chouet, of Geneva, seems
to have acted on his suggestion, and to have opened a branch at Mont-
pellier. See Cotton, Typogr. Gaz. 2 d . series, s. v.
54 Whitgift to Burghley, Hey wood's Transactions, i. 381.
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 125
There was indeed a greek press at Toulouse, perhaps
now, certainly in 1615, when young Maussac* edited
a tract of Plutarch, and Psellus ' De lapidum virtu-
tibus/ But no heretic could print, or even be, at
Toulouse, a city where even the Edict could never be
put in force 55 . What Casaubon would have preferred 56
was the splendour of Parisian type and paper Morel
or Patisson whose editions, even in degenerate days,
were ' editions de luxe' when placed by the side of the
smudgy and faded pages, which now issued from the
presses of Geneva or Heidelberg. But when proof
sheets could not be transmitted by a rapid post, you
could only print where you lived. To print in Paris,
you must be in Paris. In 1558, Hadrian Junius had
thought it necessary to convey his own MS. copy of his
Adagia from Haarlem to Bale, not considering the
ordinary channels safe. And in 1600 when Casaubon
sent by 'the ordinary' a portion of the I5th book of
Athenaeus from Paris to Lyons, it was not wit hout
great misgivings 67 . There remained Lyons.
Lyons was the staple of the French book-trade, such
as that trade had now become. In the middle of the
century the Lyons presses, stimulated by the example
of the Swabian Gryphius, had imitated and rivalled
those of Italy. Sebastian Greiff died 1556 ; soon the
religious disturbances began, and Lyons itself fell under
the influence of the catholic epidemic. The Lyonnese
* See note B in Appendix.
5 Toulouse was the scene of the burning alive of Vanini, in 1619.
The ferocious fanaticism of the place was not subdued in 1761, as we
find from the frightful tragedy of Jean Galas.
56 Ep. 169.
57 Scheltema, Vita Junii, p. 58 : ' Vix reperias, cui tuto perferendum
aliquid credas.' Cas. Eph. p. 247: ' Hodie quod supererat libri 15
Athensei Lugdunum misi, non sine sollicitudine propter incerta
casuum.'
126 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
presses took a new direction, and entered upon a
rivalry, not with Aldus, but with Geneva, in the fa-
brication of wares for the cheap market. While
Geneva supplied bibles and calvinistic theology, Lyons
was equally industrious in the production of missals
and books of hours. And not content with the mono-
poly of their respective provinces, Geneva attempted
surreptitious editions of Jesuit publications, and Lyons
sent calvinistic hymn-books into the protestant market.
In classical and law books the competition was open and
keen. Before Reform was heard of, a strong com-
mercial jealousy had been entertained by the old
Eoman municipium, towards the rising town on the
Leman lake. Theological antipathy came to embitter
an old grudge. And when the French refugees led
Geneva largely into the printing business, which Lyons
had hitherto practised as a monopoly, and attracted the
Lyonnese compositors by higher wages, the exaspera-
tion at Lyons knew no bounds. The Lyonnese printers
availed themselves of the brand of ' heretic ' to get the
Genevan books confiscated at the frontier, and thus
secure at least the French market. Protestant coun-
tries had no index, and the Genevan printers could
not retaliate in kind. They therefore endeavoured
more irritating still to undersell. For the German
market, Geneva had the advantage of being more
conveniently situated towards Frankfort-, then the
staple of the German book-trade. The Lyonnese
printers, though they continued to frequent the fairs
at Frankfort, did a much smaller business there than
those of Geneva. But the Genevese printers had no
idea of foregoing the French sale, now that it began to
revive at the peace, and they had recourse to various
expedients to evade the prohibition. They omitted
NONTPELLIER. 1596 1599 127
om the title the obnoxious ' Genevae/ or substituted
some other place, e. g. ' Aurefise/ ' Colonise/ ' St. Ger-
vais/ ' Antwerp/ They even obtained from Henri iv,
in his capacity of protector of the republic, a patent
permitting them to use the imprint * Colonise Allo-
brogum ' for latin, and ' Cologny ' for french books.
Another device was for two members of the same
family or firm to have establishments at both places.
This was done by Pesnot, by the de Tournes, by
Lepreux, and by Le Maire. The 'Aristotle's Works'
of 1590, which Casaubon had seen through the press,
was thus printed by Le Maire at Geneva, though it
had Lyons (Lugduni) in the title.
While Casaubon was at a loss for a printer, his
father-in-law's death occurred at Lyons (January,
1598). It became necessary that Casaubon should go
to Geneva, to see after his wife's portion, which he
had never received. On his way he stopped at Lyons,
where, most unexpectedly, a patron was awaiting him.
This was Meric de Vie, who was now residing at
Lyons, in capacity of ' surintendant de la justice/ De
Vic was himself not without classical instruction 58 ;
Madame de Vic was a woman of superior understanding.
They both liked to have about them men of letters,
and questions of even professional erudition might be
heard discussed at their table. Casaubon has recorded
one such occasion, when the talk turned on the early
date of the corruptions found in classical texts. The
instance of the transposition of leaves in the fourth
book of Athenaeus, was cited by one of the company,
no doubt by Casaubon himself, as he alone would have
58 Of Merle de Vic, Grotius says in 1622, Grotii Epp. ep. 171 :
' Lit eras quantum amaret, in Casaubono ostendit, et mihi
non obscura dedit benevolentise suse bigna.'
128 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
known of it. De Vic, in later years the patron of
Grotius, became now, by de Thon's intervention 59 , the
patron of Casaubon, and insisted upon his becoming his
guest. The plague raging just then at Geneva, de
Vic would not suffer him to proceed on his journey.
Suddenly summoned to Paris to attend the king, de
Vic proposed to Casaubon to go in his train. Under
these favourable auspices he saw Paris for the first
time.
He found himself received with open arms, and as
one well-known to them, by the best set in the
capital.
This circle of men, a society such as even Paris has not
been able to produce again, consisted chiefly of members
of the bar, or magistrature. Their centre of resort
was the house of J. A. de Thou, the historian, president
of the court of parlement. Their presiding genius had
been Pierre Pithou, who was just lost to them by death,
1596, and at the time of Casaubon's coming to them
they were none of them young. None of them, neither
Nicholas Rapin, nor Passerat, nor Servin, nor Jacques
Gillot, nor even Francois Pithou, had the solid classical
learning of Pierre. Francois Pithou was a scientific
j urist, and was deeply versed in the old Frankish codes,
the Salic, Blpuarian, and the capitulaire 60 ; Passerat
and Eapin were elegant versifiers, but all alike agreed
in the love and cultivation of greek and latin letters.
Yet they were no mere literary triflers, witness the
c Historia ' of de Thou, the ( Annales Francorum ' of
Pierre. Some of them filled the highest civil or judi-
59 Ep. 1020.
60 Scaligera. 2 a . p. 187 : ' Fra^ois Pithou est le plus doete d'au-
jourduy en ces auteurs du dernier temps, comme leges Eipuariorum,
Capitularia, etc., apres luy peut estre mis Freherus.'
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. 129
cial offices ; all of them had gone through the time of
the League, and the Sixteen; some had sate in the
parlement of Tours, or been sent to the Bastille by
Bussi-Leclerc. They were catholics, but of all nuances,
from Francois, who was devot, and hung about the
convents, to Pierre, who was a protestant brought into
the catholic fold by terrorism. They were catholics,
but catholics who were united in a veritable culte of
the absent Scaliger, and who sought to locate Casaubon
in Paris, Out of their reunion had issued the Satyre
Menippee, a literary pamphlet, whose surprising public
effect ranks it with the ' Epistolse obscurorum virorum, '
the letters of Junius, or the ' Que ce que le Tiers-etat \ '
All past suffering is a possession, and the trials from
which they had barely emerged, already old men, had
given firmness to their character, and breadth and
largeness to their views.
Thirty years later the Academie fran9aise took its
rise in such a reunion of like-minded men, who desired
for their literary activity the encouragement and
stimulus of social converse. 61< In 1629 some private
persons, lodged in remote parts of Paris, finding it
highly inconvenient, by reason of the great extent of
the city, to visit each other with the chance of not
meeting, resolved to see each other one day in each
week at the house of M. Conrart, which was centrally
situated/ The assemblages at M. Conr art's house are
remembered because they have given birth to a cele-
brated society, the only institution in France which is
more than a century old. The meetings at the house
of de Thou are less famous, yet the men who there
came together were cast in a nobler and more manly
mould than the dilettante critics who founded the
61 Pellisson, Hist, de 1'acad. fran9. i . 8.
K
130 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
academic. Ecclesiastical terrorism, which condemned the
history of de Thou, as unfit reading for good catholics,
had made in one generation sad havoc with the indepen-
dence and integrity of the French character. In 1629
we find ourselves in a salon of men polished, ingenious,
and loving letters, but wanting the more robust consti-
tuents both of character and intellect.
The meetings at de Thou's house, in 1598, were but
a revival of an earlier Sunday-morning assemblage, in
a time before the S. Bartholomew had come to cast a
gloom over Parisian life. In the cloisters of the
Cordeliers, from eight to eleven, or in Christophe de
Thou's house, after dinner, there used to assemble the
two Pithous, Claude du Puy, Le Fevre, Francois Hot-
man, the young Scaliger, with others less famous.
J. A. de Thou was but a youth and a listener. He
used to say 62< he had learnt all he knew from the con-
versation of these men, who there discoursed of letters.
It required anyone to be thoroughly well read to take
a part/ To the later period of which we now write,
Bigault's 63 description applies; ' Numerously attended
assemblages at the house of de Thou maintained our
circle of friends. Hither flocked all the best and most
instructed men of all ranks, from every province of the
kingdom and from foreign parts. There you heard and
discussed everything noteworthy that occurred in the
city or parlement, all the news that sails, oars, posts
brought in from over seas, or the countries beyond the
Alps or Pyrenees.'
12 Thuana, p. 188 : ' La ils communiquoient des lettres, et falloit
estre bien fond pour estre de leur compagnie ; et pour moi, je ne
faisois qu'escouter. Cette compagriie se trouvoit chez moy les festes
apres disner, ou M. Scaliger estoit souvent.'
63 Rigaltii Vit. Pit. p. 24.
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 131
The men who have been named, with others, formed
an inner circle which was comprehended in one wider.
' One secret/ says M. Ren an 64 , ' of the power of french
esprit is the close union which has ever existed among
us between those who write books, and those who read
and appreciate them/ The larger society is known
to history as the party of the ' politiques/ and consisted,
to speak broadly, of all the men of any education in
France. The bar, the magistrature, the lesser noblesse,
and even the church, contributed to this larger circle,
which comprehended calvinistic seigneurs, as well as
gallican prelates. It was not numerically strong, but,
like the party of enlightenment in every period, its
influence was greater than its numbers warranted. It
is the policy of such a party to ally itself with litera-
ture, as it is the only party which the press can really
serve. But the * politique ' and gallican party of 1600
was not only alMed with literature, its leading men
themselves were of classical culture and tastes, Such
were still, or had been, Paul de Foix, Henri de Mesme,
Schomberg, d'Ossat, Achille de Harlay, Le Maitre, Du
Vair, the cardinal Joyeuse, Servin, Edouard Mole, men
in whose lives, the camp, the court, or diplomacy, had
whetted the appetite for knowledge, and the desire
of recurring to good books, as the food of the mind.
' II nous faut, si nous esperons de parvenir a quelque
gloire, hanter avec les morts/ the words of Du Vair 65 ,
was the rule and practice of them all. Paul de Foix
had a travelling library, which was unpacked for his
use, and that of his suite, every evening on their
arrival at the place where they were to lodge.
This grave and solid generation, the salt of french
society at that epoch, still moves before us in the
64 Etudes morales, p. 340. 65 De I'eloquence fran9. (Euvr. p. 227.
K 2
132 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
* Memoires ' of de Thou, or the ' Voyages en cour ' of
Groulart. The weight of these men was some set off
against the mass of the noblesse, destitute of culture
and despising it 66 , and the mass of the town populations
deprived of all ideas but those which they gathered
inside the walls of the churches. But the men of edu-
cation by no means balanced the united weight of the
men of the sword and the clergy. With this latter
party sided the vast majority of the nation, and with it
rested the real force of the government. The central
power in France was not strong enough to go against
the inert mass of this catholic majority, on any matter
of public policy, which lay within its apprehension.
The small educated section of which we speak were
employed by the government, but they did not direct
it. If the experiment of placing government in the
hands of men of letters has been one of the misfortunes
of France in recent times 67 , the want of political know-
ledge among the noblesse was most unfortunate for the
France of Henri iv. Hence, they were at the mercy
of the Jesuits, who were thus enabled to work France
in the interests of an ultramontane policy. The party
of enlightenment were obliged to be content with the
subordinate functions of administration, and with alle-
viating the mischief of a policy which they could not
controul. Their best leverage was found in the per-
sonal character of the king. This was especially the
case in matters connected with public instruction, for it
is in these matters that the personal tastes of the prince
66 Poirson, Hist, du regne de Henri iv, 3. 630. Amelot de la
Houssaye, in Card. d'Ossat. lettr. 195 : 'Henri iv. disoit qn'avec son
chancelier (de Sillery) qui ne savoit point de latin, et son constable,
qui ne savoit ni lire ni crire, il pouvoit venir a bout des affaires les
plus difficiles.' <* Morley, Voltaire, p. 57.
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599. 133
are most influential. The encouragement of science
and letters is almost always a personal influence,
Henri iv. had learnt regularly the usual latin and
greek, but he hated men of any pretensions to learning,
for their independent bearing. Scaliger he honoured
with his especial aversion. But his intelligence was
too good, and his views too wide for him not to feel
the advantage which general culture gives in the
handling of affairs. 'Les lettres ouvrent Tesprit a
tout/ he said, and, though he disliked the scholar by
profession, he preferred to employ and to trust a well-
informed lawyer, rather than an ignorant and arrogant
grand seigneur. He would listen to de Thou, even if
unwilling or unable to act on his suggestions. 68 ' The
king,' Casaubon writes to Scaliger, ' though, as you
know, not greatly given to literature, yet promises
himself much credit from patronising my studies.
This I owe to your exaggerated praises of me, which
he is fond of repeating/ Henry iv, like Francis I,
like Louis xiv, had a royal sense of his duty as
patron of learning, and enlightenment enough to
understand the lustre such patronage could shed upon
his country and reign.
Knowing all this of the king's disposition, Casaubon' s
friends resolved to venture upon producing their pro-
tege in person at court. The experiment succeeded ;
he made a favourable impression. The king grand
hableur kept him three hours talking over the affairs
of the university of Paris, and ended by inviting him
to Paris to be professor in it 69 . That he might be
58 Ep. 208 : ' Rex, etsi lit scis, ov p-ova-iKoaTaros . . . illis tuis
fidera veri excedentibus elogiis adductus, quse sunt illi quotidie in ore,
nihil mediocre de studiis nostris sibi pollicetur.'
69 Casaubon has not himself described this first interview with
134 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
known to the heir presumptive, as well as to the reign-
ing sovereign, Nicolas Le Fevre presented him to the
young prince of Conde', who was being brought up as
a catholic, but was fortunate in an enlightened pre-
ceptor. The prince began immediately to ask about
Scaliger 70 : ' Would he return \ Such a man ought not
to be lost to France ! ' In taking Casaubon with him
to the house of de Thou, de Vic was not introducing
a stranger. Casaubon had been in correspondence with
de Thou for many years, having introduced himself in
1592, by a present of the first edition of his ' Theo-
phrastus.' He had heard much of de Thou's library,
but it surprised his expectation 71 . When he entered the
splendid collection and read the titles authors he had
never seen, or even known to exist in print his heart
sank at the thought of how little he knew. De Thou
had been employed forty years in making this collec-
tion, which at the time of his death consisted of 8000
volumes of printed books, and 1000 MSS, all in that
sumptuous binding so well known to amateurs. To
Casaubon, to whom friends were another name for
impediments to study, the society of de Thou's salon
might not present much temptation. But the libraries
de Thou's and the royal, with which Queen Cathe-
Henri iv. It rests on the authority of Frai^ois Pithou, and as the
date of the epistle is doubtful, it may possibly relate to a later time.
Gudii epp. ep. 180: 'Cum Casaubono de academia Parisiensi insti-
tuenda per tres horas locutus, scribitur a Francisco Pithseo.'
ro Ep. 176 : 'Post prima salutationis verba, quaesivit a me princeps,
numquid scirem quid valeret Scaliger ? quid nunc ageret ? an reditum
in Galliam cogitaret ? tantum virum non debere abesse Gallia.'
1 Ep. 175 : 'Lutetiam, quod felix sit, hodie primum vidi; et statim
magni Thuani museum ingressus, quam multa ignorarem, quam parum,
aut nihil, scirem, agnovi.'
MONTPELLIER. 15961599.
135
fine's had now been united opened to him that supply
for which he had so long thirsted. From this moment
his desire to remove to Paris became paramount.
On October 27, Casaubon returned to Montpellier ;
but not to resume the regular duties of his profession.
He was waiting. The appointment was delayed, but
the king's promise was passed, and there could be no
doubt it would be fulfilled. He even announced his
impending resignation to the consuls. It would have
been unbecoming in him, he thought, to quit the service
of those, who on the whole had treated him with much
respect, without requesting his conge in form. Not to
be idle 72 , he gave a voluntary course of greek, and
allowed the duties of rector, which he detested, to be
imposed on him for a short time. He paid a visit of
a fortnight to de Fresne at Castres. AIL this while not
intermitting his daily study, which turned, among other
things, on Theophrastus' botanical works, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, and S. Jerome. The third volume of
the works of S. Jerome brought him to the close of
the year 1598, still the expected nomination did not
arrive.
The long delay seemed ominous ; but at last,
January 24, 1599, after supper, the expected packet
was put into his hands. But it was no nomination to
a professorship, or to any office whatever. It was
simply an order, under the sign-manual, to leave Mont-
pellier, and to hasten to Paris, ' where it is our inten-
tion to employ you in the profession of classical letters
in the university/ The letter missive did not even as-
sign any stipend or pension, but only intimated that such
a stipend, as well as the expenses of removal, would
be forthcoming. The original, which was preserved
72 Eph. p. 102 : * Ne otiosi essemus.'
136 MONTPELLIER. 1596-1599.
by Casaubon among his papers, and printed by Meric
in his ' Pietas,' ran as follows :
' Monsieur de Casaubon,
'Ayant delibere de remettre sus TUniversite de
Paris, et d'y attirer pour cest effect le plus de savans
personnages qu'il me sera possible ; sachant le bruit
que vous avez d'estre aujourd'huy des premiers de ce
nombre ;. je me suis resolu de me servir de vous, pour
la profession des bonnes Lettres, en laditte Universite,
et vous ay, a ceste fin, ordonne tel appointement, que
je m'assure que vous vous en contenterez. Partant
vous ne faudrez incontinent la presente receue de
vous preparer k vous acheminer par de^a, pour vous y
rendre le plustost que le pourrez faire/ etc. etc.
To remove all difficulty with regard to his present
employment, the consuls of Montpellier were specially
enjoined to release him from his engagement, and to
offer every facility for his departure. On February 26,
having previously sent off his wife, children, and books,
he bade farewell to Montpellier, from which he said he
carried away nothing but a good character. 73 Yet it
was not without regret that he parted from kind
friends, and a flourishing protestant community, to go
out into an unfriendly catholic world.
He deviated from the direct route to Lyons to visit
his mother, who was settled at Bourdeaux in Dauphine.
There he found his wife and children, and tasted a
74 * wonderful sweetness ' in being again among his
family friends. Yet though only there two days he
managed each day to get a ' few hours ' for study, and
73 Eph. p. 136 : 'Non sine mcerore urbem nostri amantem reliqui-
mus, florentissimam ibi ecclesiam non sine gemitu, tenellam filiolam
non sine suspiritibus.'
74 Eph. p. 138 : 'Mira suavitate.'
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1 599.
137
read Du Plessis' book on the ' Eucharist' just pub-
lished. He saw again Crest, where he had been brought
up, and where, in the Terror, his father had been
minister. On approaching Lyons he met de Vic, who
had come out to meet him, and who would not suffer
him to go to an inn, but received him and his whole
household into his hotel.
He reached Lyons, en route for Paris, March 7, 1599.
Instead of continuing his journey, however, he re-
mained at Lyons, and chiefly in de Vic's house, nearly
twelve months. It was not till February 28, 1600,
that he at last set out for Paris. Of this delay, in
spite of the urgency of the letter missive, which had
ordered him ' immediately on the receipt of these
presents ' to repair to Paris, there seems no satisfactory
account to be given in his letters or diary. That de
Vic persuaded him to await the king's visit to Lyons,
where he was expected: that he had to make two
journeys to Geneva about his father-in-law's affairs :
that he resolved upon printing his ' Observations ' at
Lyons these reasons are at different times alleged,
but are insufficient to account for his conduct. Besides
the contumelious neglect of the royal mandate, he was
incessantly urged by the letters of the Paris friends,
severe] y blaming his unreasonable procrastination 75 ,
and his indifference to a favour which had cost them
so much solicitation. As for the printing of the
Athenseus, which he repeatedly assigns as the object
of his stay in Lyons, he would have much preferred to
have had it done in Paris. It was with difficulty that
a printer was found for it a,t Lyons, where there were
r5 Ep. 191 : ' Amici nostram moram increpantes Lutetiam conviciis
vocant.'
138 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
no greek compositors, and where it was very badly
done when it was done.
The true explanation of Casaubon's seeming way-
wardness is, I believe, that at Lyons it began to dawn
upon him, that a condition was to be attached to the
appointment now held out to him ; that he was to
purchase a professorship, as Henri iv. had the crown,
by abjuration. It is impossible to doubt, nor did
Scaliger doubt 76 , that the Paris friends acted in good
faith, and were quite content to have Casaubon among
them, all calvinist as he was. But they could only
persuade and solicit. Those who were nearer the king,
those who had the bestowal of royal favour, were of
another sort. Du Perron and the catholic junta would
not give gratis. From the first, they resolved to dangle
the professorship before his eyes, but not to bestow it,
till they had the recantation. This is the explanation
of the mysterious language of the mandate, which
calls him to Paris to profess classics, yet does not
appoint him professor. Nor was it only the knavish
section of the party which beset him. De Vic and
Madame de Yic, out of pure concern for his eternal
welfare, prevailed upon him to talk over the disputed
points with two capuchins. Madame de Yic endea-
voured to inveigle him into being present at mass, just
out of curiosity, to see a ceremony he had never seen
in his life. She thought, in her goodness of heart, that
it might be blessed to him.
From this time a report began to spread, that Cas-
aubon was preparing to ' go over.' Conversions were
the fashion of the day. From the great ladies of the
court, down to the meanest monk, good catholics were
competing eagerly for the credit of bringing souls into
76 Seal. Ep. 50.
the churc
MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
139
ie church. The ' convertisseurs' were incessantly at
their work. An abundant harvest of success rewarded
their efforts. All places of profit or distinction being
reserved for catholics, abjuration became the necessary-
step to preferment. The skill of the converter con-
sisted only in humouring the self-respect of the convert.
He heard a solemn dispute, was overpowered by argu-
ment and quotation, submitted himself to instruction,
went into retreat for a week, and came out white-
washed. The ascendancy in opinion, and consequent
mastery in controversy, which, forty years before, had
been on the side of the protestants, had now passed
to the catholics. Daniel Chamier says 77 of pere Coton :
'Reboul had represented to me Coton as not only
learned but modest. And in fact, when I came to have
to do with him, I found him more temperate and rea-
sonable than Loyolites in general. Still he too had
adopted that attitude, which all Jesuits assume in their
intercourse with us, that of laying down the law as
a teacher to a pupil, not disputing with us on equal
terms/ For an illustrious heretic a public conference
would be arranged, where bishops and cardinals sat in
imposing array. For those of lower degree, a dispute
between a Jesuit and a minister was a sufficient occasion
for the would-be convert to declare, that he was con-
vinced of his error.
Casaubon presented an obvious mark for this game,
from his reputation and his personal character. He
was now confessedly the most eminent living scholar
after Scaliger; his name was known wherever greek
letters were read. As it was well understood that
Scaliger was impossible, Casaubon' s conversion was
the highest prize of the kind which was open to the
77 Epp. Jesuit. Prsef.
140 MONTPELLIEE. 15961599.
efforts of the ' convertisseurs/ The personal character
of the man, of an anxious piety : not enthusiastic but
devout to depression ; though a sincere huguenot, yet
moderate and equitable towards catholics; too learned
not to be aware of the many weak points in the cal-
vinistic armour; a weakness of will proceeding from
mingled ill health, amiability, and excessive reading;
all these characteristics were, in engineering phrase, in
favour of the attack. More especially his intimate
acquaintance with the greek and latin fathers, and a
sentiment for Christian antiquity, indicated an affinity
for catholic rather than calvinistic divinity. The con-
temptuous treatment of antiquity on the part of the
protestants was not only unbecoming; it was a his-
torical error, an error which revolted those to whom
antiquity was better known. These facts, which soon
became known in the Jesuit camp, always well served
with intelligence, afforded ground for hope, that Cas-
aubon's case was one where, instead of the usual
comedy of ' coming over' being enacted, a real conver-
sion might be effected. His having quitted Geneva,
and having come into France ; his being the close
friend of Canaye de Fresne, who was known by the
Jesuits (though Casaubon was innocent of it) to be
preparing to desert ; his quitting calvinistic Mont-
pellier to establish himself in fanatical Lyons, in the
house of the catholic de Vic; and his being known
to be expecting preferment from the court; these
were certainly circumstances calculated not only to
give hopes to the Jesuit faction, but to create an im-
pression on the public at large, that Casaubon was
about to do what everybody else, who wished to get
on, was doing around him.
Casaubon was deeply concerned when he found that
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 141
reports of this nature began to be credited among his
own co-religionists. 78 Even during his residence at
Lyons, he had to suffer from the suspicions of his
friends, who hinted that he was about to leave a losing
cause. If ever man was sincere in his belief, Casaubon
was. His after conduct proves that he was prepared
to make any sacrifice for it. But though his conduct
was firm and consistent, the publication of his private
diary has revealed to us, that there was a moment
when his mind wavered. The traces indeed are slight,
but they are sufficient. It could not be otherwise.
Belief is so much a matter of sympathy and contagion,
that when all we hear and see goes one way, we re-
ceive an insensible impulse in the same direction. An
uneducated mind, in which religious belief is a mere
matter of habit, might not be affected by epidemic
Catholicism. But Casaubon had applied his know-
ledge to the grounds of his faith. Examining and
re-examining as he was compeUed to do, the balance
of the evidence must at different times have seemed
to be on opposite sides. There was no doubt on which
side his interest lay. When he finally decided against
his interest, he gave the highest evidence man can give
of a sincere love of truth. These traces of momentary
wavering are a measure of the force of the catholic
reaction in France. As part of Casaubon' s biography,
they must be read in connection with the whole of
his confessions. The pages of the diary during the
following years of trial continue to abound in evidence,
as well of humble piety as of single-eyed love of what
78 Ep. 2ii : among the reasons he assigns for wishing to get
away from Lyons, one is : ' Odium nostri conflatum in animis plero-
rumque T>V TO. fj^repa (frpovovvTw, cum in hac urbe (Lyons) turn in
vicinis provinciis.'
142 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
seemed to him truth. We quote one entry. On his
forty- third birthday Casaubon enters as follows 79 :
'I am not excusing my act (not going to church).
If religious feeling were as vigorous in my mind as
it ought to be, neither the impediment to which I
allude, nor yet more serious difficulties, would have in-
terfered with the journey. I here confess to thee, my
God, what is the truth, zeal for religion is languid both
in my own mind, and among those belonging to me.
Do thou, o merciful Father, stir it up, and kindle it
into flame. Make us so to live henceforward that those,
who are endeavouring with so much pertinacity to per-
vert me, may know that thou, o Grod, wilt not suffer
our faith even to be imperilled/
The suspicions of those of his own church were not
the only vexations which he had to support during his
stay in Lyons. He had with difficulty found a printer 80
for his * Observationes ' and de Vic had generously
advanced a portion of the expense. The remainder
was to be found by the author himself, who em-
barked his slender savings in the enterprise. Of profit
there was no thought, but he might look forward to be
repaid his outlay by the sale of the book. He found,
in Antoine de Harsy 81 , one of those cormorants, who
79 Eph. P . 333.
80 Ep. 1020 : 'Parum grsecis edendis assuetse sunt opera Lugdu-
nenses.' A compositor was expected to know latin, in order to set it
up in type. Corranus complains of the London printers in 1574,
Zurich Letters, 2 d . ser. p. 254 : 'So many errors have crept in
through the carelessness of the printer, who is unacquainted with latin,
as are almost all the printers in this country/
81 Antoine de Harsy, son, or grandson of Denis de Harsy, also
printer, f 1614, after which the business was carried on by his -Yv'idow.
Eph. 291 : ' Curis anxius propter improbitatem istius Harsii, quse
MONTPELLIER. 15961599. 143
about this time began to sit hard by the tree of know-
ledge. The publisher hitherto had been the friend and
co-operator of the author, even when not author in his
own person. Casaubon's Athenseus is an early instance
of spoliation, though there was not here the usual
excuse that the publisher was risking his capital on
the credit of the author's name. Madame de Harsy,
who transacted the business in her husband's absence,
was even more extortionate. As soon as she ascer-
tained that Casaubon was obliged to leave Lyons on a
certain day, she took advantage of it to mulct him
of a large sum as extra charges. He might have
resisted in the law courts, where he knew the judge
would have befriended him. But he could not post-
pone his departure, and was obliged to pay. The
pangs which Casaubon suffered from these Lyonnese
sharks will be understood, when we remember how he
had toiled in the compilation of his volume, and what
hopes he had rested on its production. This was all
that was wanting as the fitting close of the scholar's
toil the last chapter in the calamities of authors.
Nor did his pecuniary losses end here. Henri
Estienne had died intestate. While Casaubon super-
intended the printing of his Athenaeus, Madame Cas-
aubon went to Geneva to look after her share of her
father's property. Henri's affairs were found to be
more involved even than had been feared, and it
became necessary that Casaubon should interrupt his
edition, and make first one, and then a second, journey
to Geneva, in the business. The affair dragged on in
the courts till 1607. Casaubon persisted in accusing
the council, and even the Genevese in general, of
miris modis me vexat per somnum, scelus, dum edito libro inhiat,
et pecuniis quas ibi posuimus.'
144 MONTPELLIER. 1596 1599.
conspiring to rob him, and sometimes breaks out into
frantic denunciations of the * hypocrisy and phari-
saism which was covered by the long cloak.' Even if
he did not exaggerate his loss, he could not on cool
reflection implicate the city of Geneva in the decision of
a judicial tribunal, even supposing that decision to
have been unjust. It was on this occasion that he
entered, and only for the second time in his life 82 , his
father-in-law's library. ' Such a wreck of vast pro-
jects ! A memorial of stupendous labour P he exclaimed
on seeing it. He used his influence with the co-heirs
to allow the MSS. to pass to Paul Estienne, who in-
herited the greek press under his grandfather's will.
The printed books were sold for the benefit of the
creditors. Sold for a soog, Casaubon says. The
matrixes of the greek types remained in pawn in the
hands of le Clerc. With true disinterestedness for if
there was anything which Casaubon coveted it was a
greek MS. he asked nothing for himself, but begged
Paul to lend Hoeschel a transcript of Photius which he
found in Henri's handwriting. In telling Hoeschel
what he had done, Casaubon writes 83 : * If I ask you
when you have occasion to mention Henri Estienne, to
do so with as much respect as you can, you will think I
wrong your goodness of heart. I know your excellent
disposition, but you are aware that it is the fashion,
now he is gone, to run him down and insult his
memory. I am not going to justify his moody and
82 In October, 1598, he tells Scaliger, ep. 175 : ' Volo, tamen, scias,
nondum mihi visam Stephani bibliothecam ; non dico ab ejus obitu, sed
omnino invisam earn esse nobis.'
83 Ep. 1 86 : 'Quantus ille vir (Henri Estienne) fuerit in literis, si
nesciebam ante, potui adfatim discere, ex iis quse reperta sunt mihi in
bibliotheca.'
MONTPELLIER. \ 596 1 599.
145
irascible temper ; some of his latest things I could
wish unwritten. He had, indeed, many faults ; but
how truly great he was in letters, even had I not
known before, I should have learnt on entering his
library, where I saw incredible monuments of learning,
and the love of it.' What Casaubon was foregoing for
himself, may be understood from the fact, that he had
never read Photius' Bibliotheca, which was not then
printed, and knew that it must contain some things
which would have been of use to him in his notes on
Athenseus 84 .
To these annoyances was added another, brought
upon him by his good nature. He had taken into his
family his nephew, Pierre Chabanes. This youth, at
once stupid and froward, could not be induced to behave
himself in de Vic's family. He was always quarrelling
with the servants, and once nearly set the house on fire
by throwing hot coals at them in the kitchen. The cir-
cumstance only brought into relief the sweet temper of
Madame de Vic, who was content with a gentle repri-
mand, and would not allow Casaubon to turn the
young mule out of the house, within the hour, as he
proposed to do. Indeed, he kept the nephew with
him till his death, which happened in 1602. In
spite of his bad disposition, his patient uncle mourns
for his loss, as for that of a child of his own 85 .
De Vic continued to be the adviser by whom all
Casaubon's plans were now directed 86 .
crux, et mors mea,
14 Ep. 197.
15 Eph. p. 1 60: < Petulantissimum .
animo vilissimo.'
6 Eph. p. 233 : ' Cujus consiliis naviculam nostram gubernari par
est.'
APPENDIX TO 3.
NOTE A. p. 91.
DEED OF APPOINTMENT AS PROFESSOR AT MONTPELLIER.
Burney MSS. 367. f. 127.
LAN mil cinq cens quatre vingt et dix sept et le douziesme Jour du
moys de Mars dans la maion Consull' de MotpelK En personne
hounorab' hommes messieurs mre Pierre Cavassin erg 8 (sic) droictz,
mre Anthonie Atgier S r . de la Bastide, Anthonie de Burgens, Ber-
nardin Durant, Imbert Coste et Anthonie Barrat Consul' de la Ville de
Montpell r lesquelz de leur gre ensuivant les precedates derliberacons
du Con fil de Vingt quatre avec Ratifficaon de ce qua este' faict et com-
mence" et de tout ce quy sest passe* pour avoir appelle* et plusieurs fois
eit faict venir en fin de la ville de Geneve en ceste ville Monsieur mre
Isac Cazaubon professeur aus langues et bonnes Ires pour y faire
doresnavat sa residence et demeurans tant qu'il plera a Dieu pour y
lire publicquement et faire excercice publicq' de ses langues et bonnes
Ires soubz les Pactes et condicons a luy acordes et y teneues, en lacte
que luy a este envoyee par S r Denis Pasturel marchand de ceste ville
envoye expres devers luy pour le conduire a faire lesd' voyage qui sont
telz que sensuivent. Premierement que les d' Sieures Consuls suivant
lad' desliberacon du con ei * du vingt septic Octob' dernier passe seront
teneues comme ont promis et promettant aud' S r . Casaubon present et
aceptant pour son entretenement et gages annelz luy faire payer la
somme de deux cents soixante six escus deux tiers payable par antici-
pacio en deux thermes au commencement' de chaseun demy annee.
Lesquels gaiges courront et ont commence des le jour de son
depart dud' Geneve que feust le neufrnesme de Decemb' dernier sans
en ce comprendre to les fraiz et despences par eulx desja faicts et
fournis a la conduicte dud' sieur Casaubon de sa famille et bibliotbeque
despuis lad' ville de Geneve jusques en cestes ville comme luy auroit
este promis et acorde p led' Conseill' et ausquels frais a este desja
satisfaict aussi seront teneus lesd' Sieurs Consuls comme ils ont promis
APPENDIX TO 3.
147
et promettent au non de toute la ville et cornmunaulte de luy dormer
et faire approver dans son logis chascung an, la quantite de cent
quintaulx de bois de valleur et luy fournir une maison et logis com-
mode po r son habitacon et demeuran' tant quil servira a la ville, aut e
despens dicelle po r lameublement de laquelle maion pour une fois
suivant le que luy auroit este acorde lesd' Sieurs Consuls luy auroient
faict payer ainsi que led' S r . Casaubon a confessd la somine de cent
escus suivant le mandement que luy auroit este despeche p lesd' Sieurs
Consuls sur cornmis a la levee de la cour dung sous
po r . chung quintal sel ordonne po r . 1'establissement dung College de
ceste ville, dont il sera content, et a quitte la d' ville et communaulte
moyenant lesquelz susd' pactes led' S r . de Casaubon a promis et
promet au.sd' Sieurs consuls ville et communaulte de bien et deue-
ment verser en sa profession en la d' ville, et de bien et deuement
faire son debvoir a la lecture desd' langues et bonnes Ires, tout
ainsi qu'il a desja commence de faire comme aussi a este* conveneu
et acorde, que ny lad' ville ny led' S r . Casaubon ne se pourront
oncques de present ny a la venir despartir du pnt contract que dung
mutuel et reciproque consentement. Et po r tout ce dessus acorder et
server restituo de to r . despens domaiges et intberests lesd' Sieurs
Consuls ont oblige* tous et chacungs les biens de la communaulte de
lad' ville, et led' S r . Casaubon les siens propres meubles et imeubles
present et advenir que pource faire ont soubzines aulz rigueurs des
cours de Monsieur le gouverneur presidial petit sul (?) royal ordinance
dud' MontpelK et aides requizes et necessaires In vue chiine dicelles
et ainsi lont promis et dirre et Renon a tous droictz et loix a ce
dessus contraires.
Faict et recitte* dans MotpelK et dans la Maison Consull r en pre-
sence de S r . Fran' Sartie Borgeois, Noble Guillaume . . . et S r . Jean
Costier, habitans dans Motpell r . soubznes t . . i es d' parties a loriginal,
et moy Pierre Pesquet Nota r . Royal dud' Motpellier soubz ne .
PESQUET, Note r .
NOTE B. p. 125.
Maussac's Toulouse editions are : Plutarchi libellus de fluviorum et
montium nominibus . . . Philip. Jacob. Maussacus recensuit, latine
vertit, et notis illustravit, Tolosse, ap. Dominicum Bose, 1615, 8.;
Pselli de lapidum virtutibus libellus ; Philippus Jacobus Maussacus
primus vulgavit, latine vertit, et emendavit, Tolosse, typis viduse J.
L 2
148
APPENDIX TO 3.
Colomerii regis et universitatis typographi sub signo nominis Jesu,
1615, 8^.
Hoffmann assigns the first edition of Scaliger's ' Aristoteles Hist.
Animal.' to the year 1591, which would be earlier evidence of a Greek
press at Toulouse. But this date is an error, a thing of very rare
occurrence in that accurate bibliographer. Maussac published the
' Historia Animal.' for the first time in 1619.
4,
PARIS.
1600 1610.
1600. DE Vic was now in Paris. In February lie
wrote despondingly to Casaubon to tell him that all
past promises were forgotten ; that his friends were
now powerless ; that the ultramontane party were
wholly indifferent, and that in short he was not to
look to the court for anything. Casaubon, having long
made up his mind that it would be so, was not dis-
concerted at intelligence which was no news, but
continued with steady perseverance to work at his
Athenaeus. A fortnight, however, had hardly elapsed
before de Yic wrote a summons to him to come to
Paris immediately, without explaining his reasons, but
in a tone which compelled compliance. On February
28, he took horse, and used such expedition that, not-
withstanding the badness of the roads, and the heavy
inundations, he reached de Vic's house in Paris upon
the seventh day. He was admitted to an audience,
and received with suspicious courtesy by the king and
the lords. Henri again repeated what he had said
about employing Casaubon in the ' restoration of the
university/ and the next day, in council, spon-
taneously mentioned Casaubon's name, and his own
150 PARIS. 1GOO 1610.
intentions. Casaubon received an order to wait upon
Monsieur de Rosny, and, as an earnest of what was to
come, received a gratification of two hundred crowns.
After this nothing further was done ; he remained in
Paris, apparently forgotten and useless, separated from
the two objects of his affection, his family and his
books, and the Lyons press at a standstill. Of course
reading not less, but even more, than usual. For he
was now in a land of books, and had besides brought
along with him in his baggage the Photius he had
received as a present from Hoeschel, which he now
read for the first time.
In the midst of this desultory life, he was surprised
by a summons from the king, calling him to Fontaine-
bleau, where the court then was, for an ' affair which he
had much at heart/ * l ~M?. Cazobon, Je desire vous veoir
et vous communiquer ung affaire que j'ay fort a cueur
cest pourquoy vous ne fauldrez incontinent la presente
receue de vous acheminer en ce lieu et vous y rendre
pour le plus tard dimanche au soir, et m'asseurant que
vous n'y manquiez je ne feray celle cy plus longue que
pour prier Dieu qu'il vous ait en sa s te garde. Ce
soir de Fontaynebleau ce 28 me jour d'Avril 1600,
Henry 1 /
Casaubon must now have begun to understand for
what purpose he had been brought up from Lyons in
such hot haste.
The fashion of conferences, and their adroit manage-
ment by the catholic reaction, has been already noticed.
In the earlier days of the religious troubles, a con-
ference was a bon fide attempt to come to an under-
1 Preserved by Casaubon among his papers, and now in Burney
MSS. 36 7.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 151
standing. Such, e. g. had been the colloquy of Poissy,
1561. Afterwards, when the ascendancy in opinion
was finally secured to the catholics, these public dispu-
tations were merely blinds, under cover of which those
desirous of apostatizing could decorously effect their
retreat. It may seem surprising, that the huguenot
party, after so much experience, especially after the
farce of the conference of Mantes, 1593, could allow
themselves to be, again and again, entrapped in the same
way. The explanation is partly to be found in the cir-
cumstance, that, while the catholics acted with the una-
nimity of an organised party, the protestants, dispirited
and dispersed, had no centre of policy. Thus, they re-
peated their mistakes, in the different provinces, with
that want of tactic which always attends a losing game.
The conference of Fontainebleau, 1 600, was the most
tragical of these self-imposed defeats, because it struck
a noble soul.
Philippe de Mornay, seigneur du Plessis Marly, is
justly described by Voltaire as ' the greatest and most
virtuous man of the protestant party/ It is little to
say of him, that he was superior to personal interest 2 ,
for merely to remain protestant, was now to sacrifice
interest to conscience. Clear of the least suspicion of
making a tool of his party, he had staked life and
fortune in the cause of Henri iv. None of his
adherents had rendered the king such services as had
de Mornay. Besides his personal exertions, he had
2 Even in the caricature of the ' Henriade,' where the figures of
the wars of religion are set up in gilt gingerbread in the taste of the
' grand sie'cle,' the noble lineaments of the calvinist seigneur stand out
as if incapable of disfigurement. See the lines, chant 9 : ' Son ex-
emple instruisait bien mieux que ses discours; Les solides vertus
furent ses seuls amours/ etc.
152 PARIS. 1600 1610.
nearly ruined himself by loans, still unrepaid. With a
catholic education, de Mornay had become protestant
before he was twenty, by study of the controversy.
He continued, notwithstanding his public engagements,
to read theology, and collected a valuable library from
the dispersion of the monastic treasures. Had he not
been grand seigneur, he would have passed for learned.
He talked well, adding to the accent of a gentleman,
the authority of knowledge. Du Perron, who had
learning, but with the servile manners of a court
chaplain, envied him what he tauntingly calls 3 his
' eloquence de Pericles/ In 1593, de Mornay was too
much of a statesman not to see that abjuration was a
political necessity for Henri iv. But he had understood
that the royal conversion was to carry with it such a
reform of the abuses of the church, as might have
healed the religious schism ; a reform of such a kind,
as had taken place in England. He never expected to
see Henri of Navarre go in for rampant ultramon-
tanism. The crafty Bearnais took care to encourage
his illusion, and not to undeceive his friend, till he
could do without him. At the stiffnecked Calvinism
of a mere soldier like d'Aubigne", Henri could afford to
laugh ; the consistent integrity of a statesman like de
Mornay was a standing reproach to him. He was not
sorry for an opportunity of discrediting his old ad-
herent, and comrade in arms. Such an opportunity
was now afforded him.
De Mornay had, unfortunately, written a book. He
had always been fond of writing, as well as reading,
theology, and he had now employed the leisure which
his retirement from politics gave him, in compiling a
controversial treatise on the eucharist. The celebrity
3 Actes de la Conferenceded.
PARIS. 16001610. 153
of the author, and the fact that the book was composed
in french, would have sufficed to give vogue even to
a superficial treatment of the reigning controversy.
But de Mornay's book was not a fugitive pamphlet.
It was a solid volume of 888 pages 8vo. ' Opus prae-
stantissimum,' said Scaliger 4 , 'and better than any of
the books of the professed theologians, except those of
Calvin and Beza.' We are only concerned with the
citations. These amount to nearly 5000, it being a
principal object of the book to show that the Eoman
doctrines of the mass, etc., are not conformable to the
opinions of the fathers, or schoolmen. Whatever the
merit of the argument, the book made a prodigious
sensation. It occupied alike the pulpits and the salons.
The clergy were enraged to find, that, though every-
thing else was restored to them, their old power of
putting down heretical writings by force was not yet
recovered. They were driven to the miserable re-
source of answering it. They put on Bulenger, one
of the king's chaplains ; the Jesuits made Fronto le
Due and Bicheome, two of their best men, write
answers. The strong point of the book was its cita-
tions. Bomanist errors were to be crushed by sho wing-
that they were novelties. But it was soon discovered
by hostile eyes, that, in this show of vast reading, lay
the weakness of the book. The refutations all took the
form not of counter argument, but of exposure of false
quotations. The general public, indifferent, especially
in France, to mere inexactitude, persisted in regarding
the main issue, and these answers did not avail to arrest
the effect of de Mornay's book. He himself took a con-
temptuous tone towards his critics. ' I did not know
that "episcopus miniatensis" meant bishop of Mende.
4 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 161.
154 PARIS. 1600 1610.
I should have known it. I translated "tiburiensis," "tibur-
tine," and "concilium Sardicense," "council of Sardes."
I should not have done so, but ! * The errors, how-
ever, were so many and grave that they invited
a more eclatant exposure. For this the man was Du
Perron.
The part of chaplain-man-of-the-world, a part often
played, and still playable, has never been played with
more success than by Messire Jacques Davy Du Perron,
bishop of Evreux, senior chaplain to the king, member
of both councils, grand and privy. He had begun life
as a protestant, but went over early, not only into
Catholicism, but also into ultramontanism, though he
kept this in the background during Henri's life. This
clever talker went about everywhere saying, that he
had not examined the whole of the big book, but that,
as far as he had gone, he had discovered 500 false cita-
tions in it 5 . He had really spent eighteen months in
carefully getting it up, and was only watching for an
opportunity to bring his criticism to bear on it. Just
at this time de Mornay came to town. He had held
himself retired in his government at Saumur, in his
dissatisfaction at the catholic policy, into which the
court was rushing. He now came to Paris to endea-
5 Du Perron told Fra Paolo, Life of Father Paul, 1651, p. 6 1, that
he had not only found the Huguenots ' without learning or knowledge,
especially in the old fathers, in councils and historians, but he had
likewise found them choleric and impatient ; whereupon, whensoever he
disputed with any of them, his chief aim was by some piquant words,
or argutenesse, to put them into choler, and that being done, he waa
assured to carry the victory.' Cf. with this Casaub. ep. 214. It was
out of modesty, thinks the Carthusian d'Argonne, Vigneul Marville
Melanges d'Hist. i. 64, that the cardinal said this. He must, of
course, being a cardinal, have been too strong in controversy for
heretics.
PARIS. 160Q 1610. 155
vour to recover some part of the sums owing to him.
To sting the veteran into sending a challenge to Du
Perron, the princess of Orange was employed as
picadore. The daughter of Coligny, the widow of
William the Silent, a protestant, but who, as grande
dame, was equally powerful in catholic circles, offered
a convenient channel of communication. De Mornay
was made to believe that his personal honour was
implicated, and he could no longer hold back. The
challenge was sent, and became immediately, says
1'Estoile 6 , the talk of the town. Henri iv. took it up,
and insisted upon having a debate in form at Fontaine-
bleau, where he would be present himself. The matter
in dispute was to be adjudicated upon by six commis-
saries, four catholic, and two protestant. The catholic
commissioners were the chancellor Bellievre, a pro-
nounced ultramontane, Francois Pithou, de Thou, and
the king's physician in ordinary, Jean Martin. A
masterly stroke was the nomination, as the two
protestant commissioners, of Canaye de Fresne, and
Casaubon. The first was known to be wanting a
pretext for conversion, and Casaubon, known to be
honest, was supposed to be yielding. It was in vain
that his protestant friends dissuaded ; that the church
of Paris sent Du Moulin to him, imploring him to
abstain. He listened to de Thou, and his new catholic
allies, who were equally urgent with him to consent
to act. He went to Fontainebleau ; he found Henri iv.
going in for the sport with his usual energy. The
king could think of nothing else. Difficulties arising
about the terms of the disputation, the king spent the
6 L/Estoile, Registre Journal, p. 312 : 'Cette dispute fait 1'entr^tien
de tout Paris ; dans les chaires, dans les dcoles, chez les grands et
chez les petits, on ne parle que de cet appel.'
156 PAEIS. 1600 1610.
whole of the third of May, from 10 a.m. till 1 1 p.m., in
talking them over with the parties. He sat up till
that late hour to get the final list of Du Perron's
passages, and fixed 8 a.m. next morning for the hearing.
Amid many difficulties, one thing was agreed on on
all sides, that this was not a dispute about the truth of
doctrine, but about the correctness of the quotations in
the book ' De 1'Eucharistie/ The nuntio had very early
got scent of what was going on, and had declared, that
the pope would not suffer a doctrinal disputation to
be held without his sanction. The insult to the crown
of France was allowed to pass, but such a disputation
had never been in contemplation. The difficulties
were raised by de Mornay, who,, feeling that he had
made a false step, insisted on impossible conditions.
He first demanded that a list of all the 500 impugned
passages should be rendered to him, before he went into
the conference. He said, it was quite likely that among
5000 or more citations, some might be inexact. If these
were condemned, and the conference should not go on
to the examination of the whole, it would be taking for
granted that the whole 500 were equally faulty. The
fact was, he suspected that the bishop, in his usual style
of bavardage, had taken a little latitude with the num-
ber, and that, though it was certain he had found some
mistakes, he could not produce anything like 500. Du
Perron, as his adversary expected, declined to give any
list of 500, and de Mornay refused the conference,
except on that condition. The king, in his ardour,
ordered that the inquest into the book should be held,
whether the author was present or absent. But this
would have ruined the scheme. A condemnation of the
book, in de Mornay 's absence, would have produced no
effect on opinion; it was absolutely necessary that he
PARIS. 1600 1610. 157
should be formally heard in his defence. The wise heads
therefore advised compromise, and after some negocia-
tion, de Mornay was induced to abide the arbitration
on condition that 50 alleged falsities were produced at
once. Du Perron, to show his resources, gave in a list
of 6 1. The pourparlers had taken so long, that it was
1 1 p.m., before the list of 61 errors was handed in to de
Mornay, and the hearing was to be at 8 next morning.
He had to sit up all night to verify his references,
and to borrow for the purpose the necessary books from
his adversary, who had brought a waggon load with
him from the chateau de Conde. He was only able to
examine 1 9 of the passages. Upon these he told the
king next morning, that ' he was ready to stake his
honour and life, that not one would be found false.'
Even 1 9 were found to be more than enough occupation
for one day. Preparations took so long, that the confer-
ence could not begin till after dinner, one o'clock. Though
the session was continued till nearly 7 pjn., there was
only time to examine 9 citations. The scene was the
council chamber at Fontainebleau. In the middle, a long
table of porphyry ; at one end of which sat the king.
On the king's right towards the fire, the place of honour,
the bishop of Evreux ; on the left of the king, in the
second place, the sieur deMorna y. Down the table, the
commissioners; the chancellor first, Casaubon lowest;
at the lower end of the table, the reporters. Behind
the king's chair, various archbishops and bishops, the
princes of the blood, and other seigneurs of quality,
catholic and protestant. The room, which could only
hold about 200, was filled with spectators. The
books were in a neighbouring room, and were
brought in as they were required. Short opening
addresses were made by the chancellor, the king,
158 PARIS. 1600 1610.
and the bishop of Evreux, with much profession of
impartiality, but with a lofty assumption of the
truth of the catholic doctrine. The bishop, indeed,
had allowed himself to accent the words * false,'
'falsification/ etc. in such a way as to bring upon
himself a rebuke from the king, who desired him
1 to abstain from irritating language. They were here
to judge a question of fact.'
A question of fact, it may seem, ought to have
been easily determinable. But on going into the
passages singly, the question was discovered to be
by no means so simple as it appeared. The bishop's
challenge alleged, 500 ' faussetez enormes ... si evi-
dentes que la seule ouverture des livres suffiroit pour
le convaincre/ He must have been disappointed,
when, after an hour's debate, on the first passage
only, he could not convince a body of arbiters, of
whom the majority were catholic. On this passage
they pronounced a ' non liquet/ The charge of ' false
quotation' was an ambiguous charge. De Mornay
had cited his authorities in three methods, i. He
had given the whole passage literally ; 2. He had
abridged the passage in the words of the original ;
or 3. neglecting the words, he had presented the
sense of the author, as he conceived it, in his own
words. Where he had employed the second method,
that of abridgment, dispute arose as to whether the
words omitted were, or were not, material. Where
he had adopted the third method, that of rendering
the substance of a long passage, it was a still more
critical business to decide, if his statement fairly repre-
sented the author's meaning. So far was it from being
a mere matter of verification of citation, that it was
impossible even to confine the disputation to a judi-
PARIS. 1600 1610. 159
cial comparison of the equivalents of propositions. It
was impossible but that some truth should be assumed;
and the truth of catholic doctrine was not to be called
n question.
One instance may serve as a specimen. De Mornay
had alleged some sentences of Theodoret 7 in a very
abridged form, as follows : * God doeth that which
pleaseth him, but images are made, such as it pleaseth
men to make them ; they have abodes of sensible matter,
but they have no senses, being thus of less worth than in-
sects ; and it is right that those who adore them should
lose their reason and their senses/ If the judges had
had to decide only if the citation thus abridged was
a fair abridgment of the original, they must have de-
cided that it was so. But de Mornay had employed
the passage as telling against what the protestants
called the ' idolatry' of the church of Rome. The
bishop charged him with having concealed the fact
that Theodoret was here speaking of the ' idols ' of
the heathen, not of the * images ' of the Christians, and
of .having omitted words which disclosed this purpose.
As the protestants everywhere were in the habit of
using the scripture denunciations of idolatry, as a con-
demnation of the use of images in churches; and as
everybody knew that Ps. 113, on which Theodoret is
here commenting, speaks of the heathen idols, it is im-
possible to suppose that de Mornay could have either
wished to conceal the fact, or thought there was any-
thing to conceal. The decision of the judges was this :
* The passage of Theodoret must be understood of the
pagan idols, not of the images of the Christians; and
that this appeared by words which had been omitted
7 Theod. Comm. in Ps. 113. Opp. i. 662.
160 PARTS. 1600 1610.
in the citation.' This decision therefore was not a con-
demnation of de Mornay for false quotation, which was
the point submitted to the tribunal. It was in effect
a theological decision, declaring that those passages
of scripture in which idols are denounced are not
applicable to images in Christian churches; deciding,
that is, this vexed question of interpretation in favour
of the catholic, as against the protestant, expositor.
In this exegesis the judges may have been right.
Casaubon thought so. But it was not the question
they had to decide; yet by concurring in their de-
cision, he allowed it to appear to the world, with the
sanction of his name, that de Mornay had been con-
victed of an ' e'norme faussete ' in respect of a quo-
tation.
Casaubon 8 bitterly repented afterwards of the false
step he had allowed himself to take 9 , especially when
he saw the king's letter to the due d'Epernon, in which
he, Henri of Navarre paraded this stage trick, as a
grand ' stroke for the church of Grod.'
' Mon amy, le diocese d'Evreux a gaigne celuy de Saul-
mur, et la douceur dont on y a procede a oste F occasion
8 Casaubon had begun to enter in the ' Ephemerides/ p. 250, a
detailed account of the Fontainebleau conference. But he breaks it
off at the second contested passage, finding that his memory would not
serve him, either as to the sequence of the discussion, or even as to
the decision of the umpires. Two blank pages are left, but were
never filled in. Meanwhile, we have two authentic reports of the
conference, by the respective parties, i. Actes de la conference, etc.
Evreux, 1601. This was drawn up by the cardinal himself, and
printed at his private press. For the use of this rare volume, I am
indebted to the library of Balliol college. 2 . Discours veritable de la
conference tenue a Fontainebelleau s. 1. 1600; inspired, if not author-
ised, by Du Plessis Mornay himself. See Note A in appendix.
9 Ep. 214 : 'Memoriam illius rei luctu refugit animus.'
a quelqu<
PARTS. 16001610.
161
quelque hugenote quo ce soit de dire que rien y ait eu
force que la verite ; le porteur y estoit qui vous contera
comme j'y ai faict merveilles ; certes c'est un des plus
grants coups pour Teglise de Dieu, qu'il se soit faict
il y a longtemps; suyvant ces erres, nous ramenerons
plus de separez de Feglise en un an que par une
aultre voye en cinquante.'
This gasconade was printed, and circulated, by the
catholic party, to announce their i victory' in every
part of France. Besides the * grant coup pour 1'eglise
de Dieu/ Henri gained by it the humiliation of his
faithful friend and servant, Du Plessis Mornay, who
retired heart-broken to Saumur. Canaye de Fresne
availed himself of it, as a justification of the apostacy
he had long meditated, and was rewarded at once by
the Venetian embassy 10 . Both friends and foes now
made sure that Casaubon would be the next to go. Du
Perron closeted him and talked with learned unction
on religion. n May 12, 1600, 'To-day serious conver-
sation on religion with the bishop of Evreux/ Casaubon
was eagerly claimed by the one side, and angrily de-
nounced by the other, as having aided and abetted this
great victory of Fontainebleau. Daniel Chamier, Jean
Gigord, Pinaud, the leading calvinist ministers at Mont-
pellier and Geneva; Jean Galas, doctor of law, a person
of great weight at Nimes ; wrote bitter expostulations
on his conduct in the affair, by which he was cut to the
heart. The protestants seem to have thought that
their champion might have made a few slips among
so many thousand quotations, but that Casaubon, like
a good advocate, might have brought him through. In
vain Casaubon represented that he had been appointed
10 Eph. p. 720: 'Vel rationes, vel necessitates domesticse in ro-
manam ecclesiam transtulerunt/ n Eph. p. 260.
M
162 PARIS. 16001610.
a judge and not an advocate, and a judge of a literary
quarrel, not of a religious controversy, and that the
sentence of the arbitrators, in each of the eight passages,
was unquestionably right. Technically, his defence of
himself was good; substantially, the protestant griev-
ance was just. Though he had only adjudicated on
the correctness of de Mornay's quotations, the result
had been appropriated as a party victory by the cath-
olics, a victory of truth over error, of honest interpre-
tation over heretical falsification . ' Even your Casaubon
is obliged to admit that antiquity is for us/ Du Perron
could say.
Casaubon was terrified to find that the report of his
apostacy was now 12< spread through the whole of
France/ Nay, it had reached Rome. Whenever any
mischief was to be done by tale-bearing or slandering
Scioppius was sure to be in it. This creditable person,
it seems, had alleged, as one motive of his own con-
version, that he had learnt that Casaubon was medi-
tating the same step. To do something towards
counteracting the scandal, Casaubon addressed a formal
epistle to the protestant synod assembled at Gergeau,
asseverating his constancy, and appealing both to his
early education and to his daily studies as its sufficient
guarantee. The occasion was considered one of such
public importance, that a translation was published at
Geneva both of Casaubon' s letter and the response, for
wider circulation in classes in which latin was not
read 13 . More than the violent rage of the ministers he
12 Ep. 232 : ' Sparsum de nobis tota Gallia rumorem.'
3 The original is in latin, in the collected volume of Epistolse, ep.
232. The french translation has on the title page, Gen. 1601. There
is a copy in the Brit. Mus. with a note, in sir H. Wotton's hand,
stating that the translator was de Montliard.
PARIS. 16001610. 163
feared the cool penetration of Scaliger's judgment.
Scaliger would not pronounce an opinion till he had
heard all the circumstances. He begs for Casaubon's
own account. Not till September 22 did Casaubon
even mention the subject to him, and then in as few
words as possible, and with reluctance ' hsec scribo
prope invitus.' He laments the exposure of de
Mornay's weakness, who would never have gone there
if he had acted with his usual prudence. He admits
that the defeat was complete, clothing the admission in
greek to hide it from prying eyes (ra irep\ r^v Traitielav
eXarrw/xara). 'I could weep when I call to mind the
sad spectacle of that day, the theatrical triumph over
the noble, the talented, the true ! There are, who
blame. the k . Whenever I have pleaded the cause
of our friend to him, his answer has been "it is
his own fault. What did I do f" Scaliger's reproof
was conveyed by his silence. He never alluded to the
transaction, though continuing a steady correspondence
with Casaubon. What his opinion was we know from
Vassan's notes of his conversation in 1603. He said 14 ,
* Casaubon ought never to have gone to that con-
ference ; he was the ass among the apes ; the only
learned man among the judges/
An impartial writer, de Burigny, thinks Scaliger
could not have said this, because de Thou and Pithou
were men of merit, and at least de Thou was highly
esteemed by Scaliger himself. Both of them were, it
is true, men of great reading, even learning. But not
in the matter in hand. Their reading was not in the
schoolmen or fathers. Neither of them could be consi-
dered qualified, upon the spot and without preparation,
14 Scalig a . 2 a . p. 45 : 'Casaubonus non debebat interesse colloquio
Plessiseano ; erat asinus inter simias, doctus inter imperitos.'
M 2
164 PARIS. 1600 1610.
to say, e. g. what was Durandus' real opinion on tran-
substantiation. They were imperiti, not indocti. They
were overborne by the volubility and readiness of Du
Perron, whose art of controversy consisted in accumu-
lating quotations 15 . He was, as Casaubon pleads in apo-
logy, ' skilled in all the jugglery of the sophistic art.'
Casaubon returned to Paris, with his plans still
unsettled, uncertain what his occupation, even where
his home, was. Madame Casaubon was still at Geneva.
The Athenseus hung in the Lyons press, and he
found it would be impossible to get it out without
being on the spot. As this was the most urgent call,
he resolved to go back to Lyons and to see his book
published. The summer months of 1600 were accord-
ingly passed at Lyons, and on August 9 he sent to the
press the last corrected sheet of this !6 'most wearisome
work.'
All this while he had been harassed, not only by the
conflict with his publisher, but by anxiety as to his
own future. He was, and he was not, in the service of
the king. The acts of the conference at Fontainebleau
style him ' le sieur de Cazaubon lecteur de Sa Majeste;'
a title which may be explained as titular professor,
professor not of the university, such as were the professors
of the College royal. In this capacity he had received
money from Eosny, and that more than once ; as lately
as May 12, 300 escus for journey money for himself, his
family, and his books. This he had taken, and yet
here he is at Lyons debating if he shall return to Paris
at all. De Vic, as envoy to the Swiss confederation,
is going to remove from Lyons to settle at Soleure, and
wished to take Casaubon with him. It was painful to
him to refuse the offer of his benefactor, whose house
15 D'Aubigne', M&n. i. 147. 16 See supra, p. 140.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 165
he had been using as his own all these months, to
whom, especially to Madame de Vic, he was sincerely
attached. But to be permanently settled in the house-
hold of a strong catholic must strengthen the suspicions
already entertained, and expose him to daily trials.
Soleure was a catholic canton, and in the town itself
was no protestant temple. This privation of public
worship, both himself and Madame Casaubon had ill
supported at Lyons, and could not bear to think of
making it permanent. These considerations, not to
mention the want of a library, and of persons of edu-
cation, neither of which existed at Soleure, the re-
proaches he must expect from the Paris friends that he
was deserting them, and the obligation he had incurred
by receiving money from the exchequer, decided him
to refuse. De Vic was highly incensed, and when he
left for Soleure, did so without taking leave of Casau-
bon. They met again years afterwards, but it does
not appear that their former close friendship was
renewed.
The die was now cast, and Casaubon returned to
Paris, for good or for evil. As he now had his family
and books with him, he found it expedient to abandon
the post-horse travelling (relais) which he had used
before, for the slower, more economical, water convey-
ance. The * relais' was one of the excellent institu-
tions of Sully, and one which was so well appointed,
that it had been possible for Casaubon in March to
reach Paris on the seventh day from Lyons. This
implied an average of fifty miles (english) per day;
severe riding for a sedentary scholar, in feeble health,
unaccustomed to any exercise. Yet he found he could
bear it ; though as the worst dressed, and least likely
looking cavalier of the party he was always put off
166 PARIS. 1600 1610.
with the worst hack 17 . But it was cheap travelling,
the tariff being fixed at thirty sous, equal five francs
forty cents per day. Sumpter-horses could also be
hired for the transport of the traveller's baggage.
From Lyons to Paris, however, the Loire offered faci-
lities which, when speed was not an object, made that
route generally preferred. You embarked on the river
at Hoanne, and left it at Orleans. Thus the distance
which had to be ridden was reduced to the fifty-four
miles from Lyons to Roanne, and the seventy-three
miles from Orleans to Paris. The rest of the distance
was performed in the coche d'eau, a covered barge, not
towed, but impeUed by the stream, aided and guided
by sails. The miseries of travelling were thus miti-
gated, but not wholly escaped. The water in the
Loire is always low in September, and the neglect of
the embankment in the troubles had aggravated the
evil. Water conveyance was a security against
highway robbery, an incident not unknown on the
French roads at the time. Indeed, the post-book
printed and sold by the Estienne, for the government,
gave it a sort of legitimisation, marking certain points
on the Lyons road with a * and adding the note * here
look out for brigands/ The true brigands, however,
were those of the custom-house. On arriving at
La Charite, the officers of the douane, or peage, insisted
that Casaubon's baggage and books were merchandise,
and made the captain of the boat pay for them as such,
a fraud which cost Casaubon more than four gold
crowns. It took seven days to descend from Koanne
to Orleans. It was usual to bring to for the night,
17 Eph. p. 233 : 'Pessimis semper usi equis cum meliores ro> KO.\\IOV
iQfv darentur neque ego recusarem.'
PARIS. 16001610. 167
and land at some village in search of bed and pro-
visions. Inns in the villages on the river bank were
probably not at any time famous. France and Italy
were yet the only countries in which the comfort of
the traveller was at all attended to. A generation
later, France could vaunt with truth 18< la belle com-
modite des hostelleries ou Ton est recu comme chez
soi/ But in 1 600, thirty years of barbarism had told
cruelly on manners. The system of relais had been
only three years in operation, and had not had time to
reintroduce civility along the road. To the ordinary
causes of the malignity of the ' caupo/ were now
added those of religious hatred. When the Casaubons
arrived at midnight, at the door of the inn, wet
through and hungry, Madame Casaubon in a delicate
condition, the cherished daughter Philippa, a frail
creature, already drooping into an untimely grave, it
was whispered that they were Huguenot. Not a hand
was stirred for their service. No food, no fire, no light.
Their own bargeman lighted them with a blazing wisp
of straw, but not to bed ; there was none for them.
They might sleep on the floor, perhaps on clean straw,
such as Tollius 19 , in 1687, found to be still the ordinary
bedding in the Westphalian inns. Thus it was, all
through the catholic Borbonnais, nor did their entertain-
ment mend till they reached Orleans, where the calvin-
ists, though crushed, were still numerous. Here they
were hospitably received in the house of Turquois,
refreshed after their fatigues, made a great deal of, and,
at last, dismissed with presents of books.
The party arrived at Paris in health and safety,
September 13, having been fifteen days on the road.
18 Guide des Chemins, 1643. 19 Epp. itin. p. 17.
168 PARIS. 16001610.
They were housed by Henri Estienne, a first cousin
of Madame Casaubon. One of Robert Estienne's sons
had returned to Paris, and to the catholic church. In
this instance, however, the ties of blood were not sac-
rificed to those of party. The publishing business of
the Parisian Estienne was carried on by the Patissons,
some of the grandsons of Robert I. being concerned in
it as partners. Of these Parisian Estienne, La Croix
du Maine says, ' nez aux lettres et desireux d'apprendre
de pere en fils ; ' and of two of them in particular,
Robert and Frangois, that they were learned in greek
and latin. We find Casaubon buying a book in order
to make it a present to Robert, who he thought ought
rather to have given him books. Henri, a younger
brother, was not in the firm, but had a place in the
exchequer, that of ' tre'sorier des batimens du roi/ Not-
withstanding this, he was a man of probity, and had
been entrusted with Casaubon's little capital, for w Inch-
he faithfully accounted. He continued a firm friend
of the Casaubons, as long as they lived in Paris, and
their children, second cousins, afterwards intermarried.
In March, Isaac had been lodged by this cousin of his
wife's, and Estienne now took the whole party in, till
an apartment could be found 20 .
In his choice of a lodging, Casaubon was obliged to
consult, not only his small means, but convenience of
situation. It might have been supposed that the king's
reader, titular professor classical, would have wished to
establish himself in the university quarter. There were
the libraries, there were the pupils, if he meant to have
any. But for various reasons, he chose to settle as far
in the other direction as possible, on the court side of
!0 Eph. p. 306 : ' Me meamque omnem familiam domi apud se
detinuit, et omnibus rebus necessariis fovit.'
PARIS. 1600 1610. 169
the river. Scaliger, who knew France and Paris, arid,
from Leyden, saw things much more clearly than Cas-
aubon on the spot, had warned him of three evils
which he would have to contend with, in his new po-
sition. The first of these was the consequence of his
own celebrity. Casaubon's wishes were few, indeed
maintenance once secured, they were only two, books,
and leisure to read them. Paris was the place for
books. Besides the libraries, there was the rue S.
Jacques, according to Coryat, 1608, 'very full of book-
sellers that have faire shoppes most plentifully fur-
nished with bookes/ ' But/ writes Scaliger 21 , ' if you
expect to be left alone, you are very much mistaken.
You are now too widely known to hope for that un-
noticed and inglorious retirement, for which every
muse-smitten mortal of us longs. That out-of-the-
way corner of Paris, in which you are proposing to
bury yourself, will not secure you against the constant
invasion of your friends.' The prediction was abun-
dantly verified, as we shall have occasion to see.
During the whole ten years of his Paris sojourn,
we shall find Casaubon incessantly scheming to go to
some other place. When we review the inconveniences
attached to his situation, as a huguenot dependent of
a catholic court, we should not be justified in ascribing
this inquietude to mere restlessness of disposition. It
had its justification, but too well founded, in the sense
that his position, depending as it did on the life of
Henri iv, hung by a thread. On the other hand, it
does not seem altogether without reason, that the bio-
graphers charge him with habitual fidgettiness. This
appears in his many removals in Paris, chasing
comfort, from lodging to lodging, without ever finding
21 Seal. E P . 53.
170 PARIS. 16001610.
it. Between 1600 and 1607, he changed his abode in
the capital seven times.
I. On arriving in the city, March 6, 1600, he was
temporarily entertained in de Vic's hotel. 2. March 28,
de Vic returned to Lyons, and Casaubon became the
guest of his wife's cousin, Henri Estienne. He goes
to Lyons, where he stays in de Vic's house, and re-
turns to Estienne's in Paris, September 13. 3. October
25, he at last establishes himself in a lodging of his
own. 4. January 24, 1601, he quits this inconvenient
lodging, to occupy one in the house of an ' honest man
one Georges/ 5. July 17, another removal, to a house
found for him by Achille de Harlay, who, says G-illot,
' 1'a loge bravement, et assez pres de nous.' It was on
the court side of the water, and ' far from the library.'
His friends had got him among them, but this soon
turned out an inconvenience not to be supported, and
he shifts again. 6. October, 1604, he goes over the
water, to be away from his friends. After some search
he finds an apartment in, or attached to, the house of
one Coq, a member of the bar, who, having built a large
new house for himself, let off a detached portion to
Casaubon. This was in the faubourg S. Germain.
7. Finally, he settled himself close to the library, oppo-
site the great convent known as the Cordeliers, on the
site of which is now the musee Dupuytren. For this
house, which was a large one, he paid the enormous
rent of 400 livres 22 . Besides his apartment in Paris,
22 From the rents paid by Casaubon we may infer that he required
a tolerably spacious apartment to house his family and books. We
find from Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, that in 1595 a single chamber
could be hired for two crowns a month = 72 livres a year =267 francs
at the present day. Itin. pt. 3. p. 135 : 'He may have a well
furnished chamber at Paris for some two crowns a mouth.'
PARIS. 1600 1610. 171
he had occasional country quarters; first at Madrid, in
the Bois, afterwards at La Bretonniere. And, ulti-
mately, he established himself in a country house at
Grigny, on the terres of his intimate friend Josias
Mercier, seigneur Des Bordes*.
Each of these removals had its special and sufficient
reason; yet all taken together, and along with the
discontent with where he is, the incessant sighing to
be somewhere else, the cry for ' leisure/ we cannot be
surprised that his contemporaries should have thought
of Casaubon as a querulous dissatisfied man, and that
the biographers should have enhanced this impression
still further.
The true account of the matter is, it seems to me,
that Casaubon had the nervous sensibility of the hard
student. This susceptibility made him unequal to face
the fret and worry of life, and especially of Parisian
existence. But he shunned the outer world not as
trouble, but as interruption ; he wanted to be free,
not for an epicurean inaction, but for hard work
the work he felt he could do. To do this, he would
fain have been released from that he could not do.
If he is solicitous, more than we think is dignified,
about provision for his own necessities and those of
his family, it is not covetousness, it is that with a
free mind he may bestow it all on his one object in life.
The nomadic Italian humanist of the fifteenth cen-
tury roved incessantly from court to court, with the
aim, which in a scholar is sordid, of bettering his for-
tunes. Casaubon's removals were dictated by the
single desire to secure time for his work.
Achille de Harlay had bestowed a doubtful benefit
* See note B in Appendix.
172 PARIS. 1600 1610.
on him when he had found him a lodging ' assez pres
de nous.' The diary begins again to echo with groans
over time running to waste. He tells Lipsius 23 that he
is driven to do his translation of Polybius as the sheets
pass through the press, 'from want of time. The
greater part of my day is wasted upon wretched
nothings in this busy capital, busy because all the
men have nothing to do.' Day after day the entry in
the diary is, * This day, too, my friends have made me
lose ! amici studiorum meorum inimici.' ' Aug. 3, 1601,
O woe, O wretchedness, all study is at an end for me,
how much of each day do I spend in reading, each day
do I say, a whole week is gone, a whole month, and I
can hardly get to look at a book.' The wailings of
Montpellier are revived, but upon a greater stage.
Being a sort of court pensioner, Casaubon too is part
of the court. He has to wait upon the king ; to wait,
a good deal, upon Kosny ; upon various grands seigneurs,
a little in his own affairs, much in those of his friends.
He began to experience the annoyances which await
one who is supposed to stand well with men in power.
4 This morning my friends ad proceres me rapuerunt
negotiorum suorum causa ! ' ' Put my lord Bolingbroke
in mind To get my warrant quickly sign'd, Consider 'tis
my first request/ He felt most grateful to the chan-
cellor Bellievre, who being told one day, that Casaubon
was waiting in his ante-chamber, sent him word to
go home to his books, and not waste his valuable time
in that way ; he might state his friend's case by
letter. Other duties of friendship besides solicitation
23 Burm. Sylloge, i. 366: 'Ad hoc . . . adigit me temporis
inopia, cujus pars maxima in hac civitate negotiosissima, otiosorum
hominum matre, misere quotidie mihi surreptum perit.'
PARIS. 16001610. 173
bad to be discharged. De Thou lost his wife in the
prime of life, set. 35, and Casaubon could not but
devote much time to sympathy, and condolence. He
was with him daily for some time ; one day no less than
twelve hours. Besides the constant attendance on, and
visits from the parisian friends, there are the strangers.
Going and coming, every one passes through Paris, every
one who reads, wishes to see Casaubon. -His house is
a shrine of protestant pilgrimage. Hear e. g. the Od-
combian, 25 ' I enjoyed one thing in Paris, which I most
desired above all things, and oftentimes wished for before
I saw the citie, even the sight and company of that
rare ornament of learning, Isaac Casaubonus, with whom
I had much familiar conversation at his house, near
unto St. German's gate within the citie. I found him
very affable and courteous, and learned in his dis-
courses, and by so much the more willing to give me
entertainment, by how much the more I made relation
to him of his learned workes, whereof some I have read.
For many excellent bookes hath this man (who is the
very glory of the french protestants) set forth to the
great benefit, and utility of the common weale of
learning/ Nay, long after, in the middle of the i8th
century, old learning, and with it Casaubon' s memory,
was not yet obliterated. In 1755, when Ruhnken
spent a year in Paris, there were still antiquaries a
few Capperonier, no doubt who preserved the me-
mory of where Casaubon had lived for study 26 .
Euhnken did not fail to visit the house, and perhaps
25 Coryat, Crudities, i. 42. ed. 1776.
26 Wyttenb. Vita Euhnk. p. 67 : ' ^Ediculam, in qua Casaubonus
literis operari solebat, Ruhnkenio monstrarunt Parisienses quidam,
qui pauci veterem venustatem retinerent, eoque ventitarent quasi salu-
tatum manes herois de optimo hominum genere optime meriti.'
174 PARIS. 16001610.
in company with Musgrave and Tyrwhitt, to salute
the manes of the heroic man! The house to which
these visits were paid was not that found for him by
de Harlay, but the librarian's house, close to Cordeliers,
and in the very heart of the pays latin.
Casaubon's aversion to the university had led him,
in the first instance, to seek an abode as remote from it
as possible. This was the second of the three sources
of vexation which Scaliger's experience had pointed
out. It is necessary to enter into some explanation of
Casaubon's relations to the -university of Paris. This
cannot be done without touching upon the general con-
dition of the university at this period, circ. 1 600 *.
Casaubon had left an honourable, though poor, posi-
tion at Montpellier, in virtue of a summons which
invited him to aid ' in restoring the university of Paris,'
and offered him * la profession des bonnes lettres en
laditte universite.' When he waited upon the king, in
March 1 600, Henri repeated more than once 27 , with his
own mouth, the words of the letter of January 1599,
'Remettre sus T universiteV 'To restore the university/
the phrase requires explanation, for it was not one ha-
zarded by the king on. the moment ; it was a phrase
current at the time, and employed as well by the friends
as the enemies of the university. It is the consecrated
expression in all the memoirs and documents of the
period. The formal petition addressed by the uni-
versity itself to the parlement of Paris, asks 28 that court
1 to set up again the decaying, and almost ruinous,
* See note C in Appendix.
27 Ep. 208 : ' Non semel demonstravit nobis voluntatem suam opem
nostram utendi in restauranda hac schola.'
28 Libellus supplex, p. 3 1 : ' Labentem et pene cadentem academiam
erigere.'
PARIS. 1600 1610. 175
iniversity.' The lament of the university is reechoed
oy its enemy and pushing rival, the Jesuits, who
Pounded on this fact of decay their own claims to
admission. It was safe then for Casaubon, in the
dedication of his Athenseus, to pray the king 29 ' not to
permit that university once the shining light, not only
of France but of Europe, to lie for ever prostrate/
The decay thus familiar in men's mouths did not
mean decay of learning. Such decay had, indeed,
taken place. The deterioration of the standard of
learning in the university of Paris, circ. 1600, is a
striking fact in the literary history of Europe ; a fact
so manifest to us, that when the writers of Henri iv's
reign speak of ' decay,' we are ready at once to inter-
pret their language of intellectual decay. This, how-
ever, was not what they meant. It was true, but
they did not know it. Decay creeps on a literary
corporation, as on the individual, insensibly to its
subject.
The university of Paris had been, for some cen-
turies, not only the first university of Christendom,
Ded. Obs. in Athenaeum (to Henri iv) : ' Patieris, princeps
benignissime, jacere aeternum tuam illam Academiam, clarissimum
quondam non solum Galliarum, sed totius Europae lumen.' M. Gustave
Masson, Bull, de la Soc. de 1'Hist. prot. [8. 398, n. refers these
words to the college royal. It is with great hesitation that I differ
from one who is the highest english authority on the history of the
french reform. But it is clear to me that Casaubon, here and else-
where, speaks of the university of Paris. And it is very far from
being true of the college royal, that ' Henri iv lui rendit en effet tout
son e'clat/ The regius chairs continued to be filled, from ecclesiastical
considerations, with incompetent persons. The series of greek pro-
fessors in the years of reaction, was, 1595, George Crichton; 1603,
Jerome Goulu ; 161 r, Nicolas Bourbon ; 1619, Pierre Valens ; 1623,
Pierre de Montmaur.
176 PARIS. 1600 1610.
but the centre of intellectual life and freedom. As
long as the scholastic philosophy had been the ex-
pression of this life, Paris continued the chosen home
of the study, which it had created and developed.
But now the intellectual life of Europe had passed
into the study of the classics, and into the art and
science, which were to spring from that study. For
a short time it had seemed as if this new life of the
classical renaissance, exiled from Italy, was about to
select its home in Paris. But the beginning so aus-
piciously made by the foundation of the college royal
was cut short by religious fanaticism. The S. Bar-
tholomew, 1572, and its sequel, involved protestantism
and classical learning in a common ruin. Ramus
owed his death as much to the fact that he was a
university reformer, as that he was suspected of cal-
vinism. The days of BudaBus, of Turnebus, Lambi-
nus, Danes, Vatable, Tusan, Gralland, Eamus, were
passed. Their chairs remained, but filled by a name-
less generation, of baser metal. How inferior none
cared ; indeed few knew. The tradition of classical
learning was preserved by french scholars, but by
Scaliger who was an exile, by Casaubon who was an
alien.
The decay complained of then was not decay of
learning, but material decay.
In this respect the university of Paris came out of
the religious wars a wreck. It had suffered in its
property. Its students had disappeared. Discipline
was at an end. This was the natural result of thirty
years of civil war, a drama including such acts as the
massacre of '72* the League, the barricades, the siege
of '93. During the siege the attendance had reached
the lowest point. One college alone, that of Lisieux,
PARIS. 1600 1610. 177
Continued in exercise. To this had come down the
30000 students 30 of which the university used to
boast before the troubles. To be without students
was to be without means. For the university of
Paris, even at a time when its renown filled Europe,
was poor, without revenues, without buildings, as a
university. Till the foundation of the college royal
by Francis i, none of its teachers had enjoyed
an endowment. The teachers depended for payment
on their pupils. Six crowns a year, = 2 sterling,
was the highest fee usual in the three first classes ;
in the lower classes it was less ; the notoriously
poor were excused payment altogether. What pro-
perty the university had belonged to the colleges.
For the university of Paris, like the English uni-
versities, consisted of its colleges. But, unlike the
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, the colleges of
the university of Paris had but slender endowments,
often nothing beyond their buildings. In some col-
leges ' bourses ' were founded, which provided a scanty
The mystical number of 30000 reappearing at this period may
seem suspicious, especially as there is no appearance of a register of
scholars. It can have been at most an approximative computation.
But as such it is confirmed by many contemporary authorities. In
the time of Charles vn the number had been estimated at 25000.
In 1546, Marino Cavalli (Tommasseo, Kelations des ambass. Venit. i.
263) gives 16000 to 20000 as the number. The larger number of
30000 is the popular estimate for the period preceding the religious
troubles Gamier, n. on Ronsard, (Euvres, 2. 1379. Scalig a . 2 a . p.
179 : 'Parisiis erant meo tempore 30000 studiosorum, semel armati
sunt a Condaeo/ Lippomanno (Tommasseo, 2. 605) in 1577 :
1 L'universitd est rarement frequence par moins de 30000 ^tudiants,
c'est a dire, autant et peut-etre plus que n'en ont toutes les universites
d'ltalie prises ensemble.' Du Moulin, Defense de la foy catholique,
p. 53 : ' Ou est ceste university de Paris qui avoit plus de 30000
escholiers,' etc. Arnauld, Discours au Roi, p. 65.
N
178 PARIS. 16001610.
maintenance for students (chiefly in theology), through
a more prolonged course of study, and enabling them
to reach the doctorate.
At the time of which we write, the forty colleges
were empty of students. A solitary principal, without
fees to pay tutors, or keep house, 'tacitis regnabat
Amyclis ! ' Some colleges were in ruins. Spanish
and Neapolitan soldiers of the garrison had installed
themselves in the chambers, had burnt the humble
furniture for firewood, had stabled their horses in
the chapel. Others were invaded by poor peasant
families from the banlieu, rendered houseless by the
devastation of the siege. Others had been so long
untenanted, that thistles and brambles covered the
court. In those which had fared best, discipline was
entirely disorganised. The 'boursiers,' who may be
compared to the scholars and fellows of our colleges,
as they were tern. James i, had possessed themselves
of what property remained. They were engaged
either in dividing the capital among themselves, or
in living on the revenue without performing the
statutable exercises, and in resisting the attempts of the
principal to reduce them to obedience. The authority
of the principals, or grand masters, had lapsed from
their hands. The regents ( = tutors of our colleges) had
disappeared with their pupils.
These were, or seemed to be, the consequences ol
war. But now there was peace, and a prospect of a
settled government. It might have been expected
therefore that, by the mere operation of social habit,
the colleges would fill again, and the university thus
restore itself. For it must be remembered that the
university of Paris was not merely what we now
understand by a university, a place which takes up;
PARIS. 16001610.
179
roung men where school ends. It was at once school and
university. It received on its benches the boy at nine
years old, and carried him on to the doctorate at thirty-
five. It was the great grammar school for the whole
of Paris. For Paris, it was protected by a monopoly.
No individual was permitted by law to open a school,
or hold a class, or to teach publicly or privately,
unless he himself had regularly graduated, or been
admitted as graduate of the university, and his pupils
had become matriculated. Private tutors, living in
the family, were bound to send their eleves to the
classes of some college.
Under this monopoly, and with the prestige of the
university, it might have been anticipated that peace
and settled government were all that was required
to restore prosperity to the colleges, and that the
classes would have been again full. The decay
continued, and was indeed so alarming that it forced
itself upon the attention of government. Of the
three leading constituents of Paris, the small Paris
of Henri iv, with its population of some 400000,
out of the three factors of its prosperity, the convents,
the court, and the university,- one seemed lost. There
was a loud call upon the paternal government of
Henri iv, which was doing so much for the restoration
of the country, to undertake the restoration of 'the
schools/ ' les ecoles/ as the university was called.
The first step towards remedying the decay, was to
ascertain its cause. The ultimate cause stated in
general terms, was that the education offered in the
schools of Paris no longer met the demands of the day.
The statutes by which it was governed, and on which
its system was founded, were those which had been
framed by the cardinal d'Estouteville, papal legate in
N 2
180 PARIS. 16001610.
1452. Since that period the classical renaissance had
come, and had changed the material, and the form, of
education throughout western Europe. But Paris, the
leader of fashion, had remained as unchangeable as
Salamanca. Philosophy, become a lifeless verbiage,
was still the prescribed curriculum of the faculty of
arts. That the teaching offered in the colleges of Paris
no longer met the requirements of french society, was
the remote cause of the falling off of students. This is
clear to our eyes, but it was not so to those of con-
temporaries. Had they seen it as we see it, they
would have found the immediate remedy in remodelling
the curriculum of arts. But they looked, as practical
men always look, for proximate causes. They saw that
the schools of Paris were empty, and they asked,
Where, then, was the youth of France ? It was in the
colleges of the Jesuits. Many poor families, ruined
and disorganised by the war, let their sons go without
education in letters. Others, better off, engaged private
tutors at home. Bicher 31 asserts that the custom of
private instruction, scarcely known before, had become
very common since the wars. But the vast majority
of the middle class youth who formerly peopled the
schools of the university were in the colleges of the
Jesuits. Not in the college of Clermont, rue S. Jacques,
which was shut up, but in the provinces at Toulouse
or Bordeaux, Auch, Agen, Bhodez, Perigueux, Limoges,
Le Puy, Aubenas, Beziers, Tournon, in the colleges of
Flanders and Lorraine, Douai, or Pont-a-Mousson,
places beyond the jurisdiction of the parlement of
Paris, or even of the crown of France. It is character-
istic of the legislative confusion of the period, that the
banishment of the society of Jesus from the district of
31 Vie,, p. 38.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 181
Paris had been by arret of the parlement of Paris
alone, and had never been confirmed by the crown 32 .
Lyons loudly demanded a Jesuit college, and even the
huguenot Lesdiguieres, almost king in Dauphine, was
preparing to erect one at Grenoble. Amiens, Eeims,
Bouen, Dijon, Bourges, were only waiting a favour-
able opportunity to introduce the Jesuits within their
walls.
Here, then, was the cause of the ' decay ' of the
university of Paris. Friends and foes of the university
alike agreed in attributing its fallen condition to the
rivalry of the new teachers. There were only two
methods by which the university and the old colleges
could be saved. Either the competition of the Jesuits
must be put down, or the old colleges must be re-
formed to be able to compete with the new. The
university, of course, preferred the former method.
Some of its more judicious friends desired to try the
latter 33 .
The former method was tried. An arret of the
parlement of Paris was procured, prohibiting parents
from sending their children out of Paris to the Jesuit
32 Cre'tineau-Joly, 2. 463.
33 Antoine Arnauld, father of a more famous Antoine Arnauld,
in his ' Discours au Hoi/ 1594, is the one of the complainants who
comes nearest the real gravamen. But even this bold advocate
could not utter the simple truth, that the zeal of the Jesuits for the
'education' of the young was a mask for their one object, ultra-
montane propagand. Arnauld's pleading, and the answer to it by
Eicheome, ' Plainte apolog^tique, Bordeaux, 1603,' are only the prin-
cipal, and semi-official, manifestoes on either side, Richeome goes
into the causes of the decay of the university of Paris. It is
not due to the Jesuit competition, but to the rise of catholic uni-
versities in other countries. See p. 52 of the latin translation, Lugd.
1606.
182 PARIS. 16001610.
colleges, in or out of France. The order was simply
neglected. It was reiterated in 1598, again in 1603;
the repetition is but proof enough that it was dis-
obeyed. The Jesuit schools overflowed with pupils.
In Flanders there was not a town of any consideration
in which the whole education of the place was not in
the hands of the Jesuits. At Douai the logic class
alone contained 400. To put down the Jesuit colleges
in 1 600 would have required much greater power than
the parlement of Paris ever enjoyed. The Jesuits
were the rage of the period. The catholic reaction
was in full flow, and the society was floated onwards
on the crest of the wave. Jesuit confessors, preachers,
spiritual directors, were everywhere superseding the
older orders. Especially Jesuit schools enjoyed the
confidence of the public in a degree which placed them
beyond competition.
There remained for the university to attempt to
reform its system of study in such a way as to enable
it to compete with the Jesuits. This course was
urged by the enlightened section of the parlement, de
Harlay, de Thou, etc. It was obvious to say to the
university as the king did say 34 : 'If the Jesuit schools
are full, and yours empty, c'a este pour ce qu'ils
faisoient mieux que les autres/ In this originated the
celebrated reform of the university of Paris. The com-
mission obtained for the purpose, on which de Harlay
and his friends contrived to get a majority of the
tolerant party nominated, framed revised statutes, by
which the university was governed for 170 years.
These statutes removed some of the more flagrant
54 ' Discours au Roi,' Lat. trans, p. 24 : ' Agite vos, industria vincatis
jesuitas . . . atque numero auditorum sine dubitatione vincetis.'
PARIS. 1600 1610. 183
abuses of the university, and partially introduced the
new classical curriculum.
But the case was one in which legislative relief could
do but little. It was in vain the statutes were changed,
and the studies remodelled the old spirit was un-
changed. The classics were there, and might be read,
but the spirit of the university remained ecclesiastical
and scholastic. Theology still held the first place ; the
faculty of arts languished. What was wanted was men.
The best statutes will not make a university without
men in whom is the breath of life. The mere intro-
duction of the classics into the curriculum of arts was
nothing without the living voice to teach their use.
The treasures of ancient tradition, ' ein lebendiges fur
die lebendigen geschrieben,' are mere dry leaves to
those who have not learnt to love them.
It was therefore the wish of the commissioners that,
in order to .give impulse to the new studies, some new
philological power should be imported into the teaching
personnel. Two men at the moment took the lead of
classical learning in Europe, Scaliger and Casaubon ;
and it so happened both were of french nationality.
Of Scaliger it was useless to think, for other reasons,
but also for one decisive one, it was well known that
he would not consent to teach. But Casaubon was
not only french, but was actually teaching in a french
university. Even had he not been personally known
to de Thou, it was inevitable that the commissioners
should turn their eyes upon him. That he was in-
tended to be placed in the university, is evident from
his patent of appointment, which bore upon its face the
royal purpose, ' pour remettre sus TuniversiteY On the
strength of this brief he had relinquished his situation
at Moritpellier, had come to Paris, had seen the king,
184 PARIS. 1600 1610.
who then repeated his promise of the appointment.
He then proceeded to remove his family to Paris, and
established himself there. We gradually cease to hear
of the proposed professorship, till we find Causabon
in the receipt of a pension unconnected with the
university, and waiting for the vacancy of the place
of sub-librarian to the king, of which he has the
reversion.
Notwithstanding that we have both Casaubon's diary
and his confidential letters of this period, the nature
of this hitch in the business is nowhere explicitly de-
clared. But there is no doubt whatever that it had its
source in the religious difficulty.
By the new statutes of the university no person
could teach, or take a degree, or even be admitted as a
bursar or student of any college, who did not make
profession of the catholic religion, apostolic and roman.
This clause, not in the old statutes, was introduced into
the new code of 1600. These statutes had been drawn
by the tolerant party, and emanated from the parle-
ment. It is significant of the state of public opinion,
and of the reduced condition of the huguenots, that such
a clause should have been forced upon the framers of
the statute. Indeed, the exclusion was not sufficiently
complete to satisfy the feeling of the Parisians. For
though, by the statute, the optioa of becoming a day
scholar was left open to the children of protestants, in
fact they dared not avail themselves even of this privi-
lege. A protestant having, in the reign of Louis xm,
claimed his right of being admitted to the lectures of
the professors, it required an arret of the parlement of
Paris to enforce it. The parlement rendered such a decree
in his favour. But the necessity of appealing to it is
evidence that the right was not habitually enjoyed.
I PARIS. 1600 1610. 185
Casaubon then, as a dissident, was statutably ex-
cluded from any university appointment. It was still
possible to have appointed him to one of the chairs in
the college royal. For these chairs were outside the
corporation of the university, and were not regulated
by the new statutes. The chair of latin, or * eloquence/
as it was styled, was not vacant. It was filled by
Federic Morel 35 , who has left memorials of himself in
numerous greek editions, especially the handsome
Libanius of 1606. Morel was king's printer as well as
king's professor, and was more equal to the duties of
the former, than of the latter, office. In his Libanius
the editing is by no means on a level with the splen-
dour of the typography. Ernestine Eeiske 36 says of it :
* Morel's text is so full of faults that, perhaps, no other
ancient author has been so incorrectly edited/
But the chair of ' eloquence/ or as we should say,
' latin composition/ was not the one for which Casaubon
was particularly fitted. For the chair of greek, how-
ever, he was without a rival ; by Scaliger's own
admission, the first greek scholar in the world. And
by a singular chance it became vacant in 1603, just
when Casaubon was in Paris, and was deliberating
whither he should go for a maintenance. Here was an
opportunity, which those who wished to ' restore the
35 Morel is styled by Goujet, College de France, 2. 326: ' Lecteur et
professeur royal en Eloquence grecque et latin.' By Duval, Coll.
royal, Par. 1644, he is placed among the Professors ' eloquentise.'
This is strictly correct, and it was, perhaps, because Morel occupied
himself more with greek than with latin that Goujet uses the epithet
' grecque.' It is an incongruous epithet, as, by the usage of the time,
the word ' eloquentia ' was appropriated to the professor of latin.
36 E. Reiske, Libanius, 1791, t. i. prsef. : ' Textus Morellianus adeo
scatet vitiis, ut non alius scriptor antiquus mendosius editus videatur.'
Cf. Reiske, prsef. in Dion. Chrysost.
186 PARIS. 16001610.
university' must have gladly availed themselves of.
The chair is immediately filled but not by Casaubon
by Jerome Goulu, a young man, of merit possibly, but
also a protege of cardinal Du Perron. To this young
man of twenty-two, the cardinal had the effrontery to
give a testimonial in which he declared that ' he knew
no one at that time who surpassed him in a know-
ledge of the greek tongue, and of the authors who have
written in it.' Jerome Goulu had the sense not to
commit himself by printing a single page of greek, but
to justify his appointment in the eyes of the university
by his 'zeal for the true religion/ 37 'he would never
suffer, as far as he could prevent it, any calvinist to
take a degree.' What else could be expected in a
learned university in which Pierre Cayet was regius
professor of hebrew, and in which the great question,
whether or no wax tapers for the feast of the purifica-
tion should be distributed to the grand messengers, was
sufficient to occupy all minds 38 .
Casaubon was not spoken of for the greek professor-
ship. It does not appear that he thought of it himself.
At least there is no trace of disappointment in his diary
or letters, nor does he anywhere mention the name of
the man who had been preferred to him. It was pos-
sible to have appointed him a supernumerary. This
was not done. Though he was officially styled ' lecteur
du roi/ and his friends so addressed his private letters,
37 Goujet, Coll. de France, i. 538: 'II tait zel pour la vraie
religion . . . ne soffrit jamais, autant qu'il fut en lui, qu'aucun
calviniste s'introduisit dans la faculteY
38 Crevier, Hist, de 1'univ. de Paris, 7. 48. The point could not be
determined theologically on the merits. The distribution was nega-
tived because the finances of the university were not equal to the
expense.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 187
he never was connected with the university of Paris.
What was done was to assign him a pension, and to go
on hinting at the appointment in the university as
something to come. We must conclude that the friends
who procured the original nomination, which was sent
him at Montpellier, reckoned upon his conversion.
This would have removed all obstacles, and in no other
way could they be removed. It was supposed that
Casaubon was not altogether unwilling to do what his
best friend, Canaye de Fresne, was doing. All the
worldly considerations pointed in that direction, and
public opinion had decided that the balance of con-
troversy was heavily in favour of the catholic side of
the question. We cannot be surprised that Casaubon's
change of religion was considered imminent, that it
was repeatedly announced as an accomplished fact.
Baronius 39 himself writing from Borne, November, 1603,
says that he had heard of it there.
However much his friends may have desired to get
Casaubon settled in the university, they could not
have done it as long as he remained a heretic. But it
began gradually to appear that even if the religious
difficulty were removed, Casaubon himself might not be
willing to accept the appointment. He began to be no
longer so desirous of it as he had been at first. His
feeling on the subject was not the fastidious aversion
for teaching, as such, which was avowed by Scaliger.
Casaubon had no disinclination to lecture. In the
winter of 1601-2 he gave, in his own apartment, a
course of greek lectures, first on Herodotus, and after-
wards on Aristophanes 40 . These were originally intended
19 Burney MSS. 363.
10 Ep. 294 : ' Amicorum rogatu, in privatis sedibus, ejus (Herodoti)
interpretationem suscepissem, horis succisivis.' Two sets of notes,
188 PARIS. 1600 1610.
for some six or seven young friends of his own. But
no sooner was it known that Casaubon was giving a
greek lecture than his room was crowded by men of
distinction from all parts of Paris. Even this gave
such umbrage to the professors on the other side of the
water, that ' strong reasons ' were soon given him
which induced him to discontinue. Health was the plea
easily 42 , and too truly, alleged for his sudden withdrawal
from teaching. He never again attempted it, and
though enjoying brevet rank as ' regius reader/ from
this time he had nothing to do with the university 43 .
For as he came to see the university nearer, he dis-
cerned that, difficulty of creed apart, it was no place
for him. The university of Paris, once the symbol and
centre of European intelligence, was sunk into a
corporation of trading teachers, whose highest ambition
was to compete with the Jesuits in a lucrative pro-
fession. It was become a school, of which the professors
were the masters. They shrank from contact with
real knowledge, such as Casaubon possessed, and carried
it loftily towards him on the ground of their superior
orthodoxy. They shut themselves up with their pupils,
before whose wondering eyes they paraded their crude
reading. A portrait of a professor of the period has
been drawn for us by Casaubon, who never draws upon
taken down by hearers, are still preserved in the Bibl. nat. an9. fonds.
6252. I do not know if either of them is in the writing of Pierre Du
Puy. But Rigaltius says (Vit. Putean. p. 14) that the brothers Du
Puy, at some time or other, ' heard lectures of Casaubon,' which must
have been on this occasion.
12 Ep. 294 : ' Causas graves habui, ut valetudini mese consulerem, et
abstinerem.'
3 Ep. 687 : 'Ego res academies hujus non magis attingo, quam vel
tu, vel quicunque alius hinc abest &s
PARIS. 1600 1610. 189
his imagination, in the person of Theodore Marcilius.
Marcilius had succeeded Passerat as professor of elo-
quence 44 in the college royal. A Dutchman, but a
catholic, he had been trained in the school of much
reading. His learning was prodigious. A small man
of wiry frame, and sound health, he had passed ten
years, like another Pythagoras, so ran the legend, with-
out quitting the walls of his college, the college of
Plessis, in which he had taught a class, before becoming
regius professor. He had read so much that Scaliger 45
wickedly said of him that he ' had read himself into
ignorance/ But he had also read himself into re-
nown. The hermit of the college de Plessis was
46 ' grand personnage.' When Oasaubon first came to
Paris, 1599, Marcilius sent him a message, that if he
wished to see him he might call upon him. Casaubon
meekly complied, and his account of his visit, written
to Scaliger, rises, for once, almost into humour. Pre-
senting himself at the college gate, he was bidden to
mount to the top of a staircase pointed out by the
porter. Here, under the tiles, he found the 'paeda-
gogorum Apollo ' in an apartment, the walls of which
were lined with pigeon-holes. In these were stored
44 As Morel was at this time professor ' eloquentise,' there must
have been two co-ordinate professors of the same subject. Or Morel
may have been 'professor emeritus.' Goujet, Hist, du college de
France, is much more full than Duval, but is wanting in exactness,
as well as in appreciation of his own matter.
45 Seal, to Gas., Seal. Epp. p. 198: ' Quum animum remittere
volo, assumo in manus scripta illius qui amphitheatrum Martialis, et
Persium, nuper KcnWxoSei/. nam nunquam suavius rideo, quam cum
aliquid ejus lucumonis video, ssepe mirari soleo ilium tantum scrip-
torum legisse, ideo ut nihil sciret et tamen habet admi-
ratores. habeat . . . sed Parisienses.'
46 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 151.
190 PARIS. 1600 1610.
away the fruits of his vigils, not in one, but in all,
departments of ancient learning. There were com-
mentaries on the civil law ; treatises on roman antiqui-
ties ; translations of the principal Aristotelian treatises.
What he most prized were the notes of his philological
lectures, on the greek and latin classics, which had
been accumulating during his twenty years' teaching,
first at Toulouse, then at Paris. He informed Cas-
aubon that the trifles he had hitherto edited, such as
the ' Aurea carmina/ and the ' Martial/ were the
follies of his youth, and that what he should publish
henceforth would be of a very different order, but that
they would not see the light till all the learned of the
day had printed their blundering attempts. It was
no secret to Casaubon who were meant. He had been
told that Marcilius was accustomed to spice his lectures
with contemptuous flings at Scaliger and himself, and to
correct their mistakes for the edification of his class. 47
The removal to Paris, which brought Casaubon nearer,
made the man of real learning more offensive to the
charlatan. Marcilius redoubled the bitterness of his
invectives. He certainly succeeded in provoking ir-
ritation. Casaubon, who was submissive to the arro-
gance of Scaliger, could not brook the presumption of
Marcilius. His language to his correspondents about
Marcilius displays a passionate displeasure, which seems
disproportionate to its object. Casaubon, indeed, was
extremely thin-skinned. Had he been the butt of a
tenth part of the obloquy which Scaliger had to bear,
it must have killed him. Marcilius' insults drew from
him expressions of anger more contemptuous than he
exhibits towards any other person whatever. Nor was
the antipathy confined to private letters. Casaubon
47 Cas. ep. 199.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 191
takes occasion, in various of his notes 48 , to make sar-
castic allusions to an ignoramus whom he does not
name. To Scaliger he writes that he 49< has been read-
ing the stuff which a Parisian schoolmaster, the most
arrogant of all living two-legged creatures, has blurted
out about Persius. Before I took the book up I knew I
was not to expect great things from the buffoon, but
the ignorance, the stupendous asinity of the man, is
beyond anything I had conceived/ It could not but
gall him to see 5 'this discreditable pretender drawn
from his obscurity and placed in that chair from which
Turnebus, Mercerus, and other eminent men have in
old time delivered oracles. Happy you who see not
these things.' Marcilius, from the regius chair, con-
tinued to bespatter Casaubon 51 , till he was informed
that the king had expressed his displeasure. He then
changed his tone, and sent a Catullus of his editing
(the Catullus of 1604), with a message to Casaubon,
that he was now sorry for having assailed him, and
wished to be friends with him. Casaubon, who was as
placable as he was inflammatory, accepted the apology,
and sent Marcilius word that he had only to speak, as
he ought to speak, of those who had done letters good
service, and he should find a friend in Casaubon.
Casaubon's time in Paris was being spent very little
to his own satisfaction. ' jacturam temporis !' records
the diary of July 23, 1602. On July 24 same com-
plaint. * Busy the whole day, yet very few hours
48 See among other passages, Hist. Aug. Scriptt. (ed. 1603) P- 5^5 :
' Commodum offertur mihi musteus adhuc liber pantosophomastigis
illius magistelli,' etc.
49 Ep. 370. 50 Cas. to Seal. ep. 370.
51 Gillot to Seal. ep. fran9. p. 101 : ' Ce fol insense', arrogant, de
Marsilius a escrit centre M. Casaubon cles injures de harangere.'
192 PARIS. 1600 1610.
well spent.' On the 25th he writes to Hoeschel 52 : 'A
thoroughly wretched life it is that I lead here ; not
among my books, but among engagements of I know
not what kind, which sometimes do not allow of my
opening a book from morning till night. Life cannot
but be bitter to me, when I am thus robbed of my one
solace. I have now been returned home fifteen days,
and have hardly had as many hours' reading, all the
rest of the time has been taken from me by friends, or
by the discharge of social duties/
His day was then only spent to his satisfaction when
he had had it for unbroken study from early dawn.
One serious drain upon his time, which he felt sorrow-
fully, but did not dare to complain of, was attendance
at court. From time to time Casaubon waited on the
king at the Louvre, a duty which was expected of all
who belonged to the court, in which category the ' lec-
teurs du roi' were included. He was always received
with favour, sometimes, as he notes, with marked distinc-
tion. 'June 19, 1602: The king, as usual, received
me most graciously, and called me, in jest, " an accom-
plice of Biron." Then becoming grave, he said, (I give
his very words), " Vous voyez combien j'ai de peine
afin que vous estudiez surement." ' When Casaubon,
in the same year, meditated removal from court, the
king caused it to be intimated to him that he desired
his stay, and gave him 53 ' no small testimony of his
favour/ On more than one occasion Henri repeated
his intention of appointing Casaubon custodian of the
library, whenever it should become vacant. July 5,
1 60 1, the diary records 'a day lost in attendance at
court. Yet perhaps it was worth something to have
M Ep. 298, 53 Ep. 274.
PARIS. 16001610. 193
received so marked a token of the king's favour.'
What the token *non obscurum testimonium' was,
we learn, this time, from a letter of Gillot to Scaliger, 54
giving an account of this very interview. 'The day
before yesterday the king gave Casaubon a hearty re-
ception, reproaching him with having wished to leave
him, and telling him " he would never find so good a
master who would love him as he (the king) did. That
he intended to place him in his library, and that the
present librarian could not live another year. That he
should then look up his fine books, and tell him what
was in them, for he himself didn't understand things
of that sort." In a word, he treated Casaubon with
marked distinction. Yesterday Casaubon supped with
me, when I encouraged him in his resolution to remain
among us, telling him there were still many of us who
were his admirers, and honoured his virtue, and that
he would want for nothing. I feel sure that he will
make up his mind to stay. Indeed, do what we will,
we cannot, and do not, deserve to keep him. I hardly
think France is worthy of such a man, whether one
regards his learning or his character. I never part
from him myself without feeling the better for his
company/ It should, be remembered that the writer
was a catholic, and, though a counsellor in the parle-
ment, held a canonry in the Sainte chapelle. Henri's
favour towards Casaubon was founded on a personal
liking, and was maintained in spite of Casaubon's pro-
testantism. Henri iv. was not one of those cradled
princes who can know of men only what they are
told, and who thus become the sure prey of sycophants
and partisans. Early and long training in the equal
school of camps had made him a shrewd judge of
64 Ep. fran9. p. 105.
o
194 PARIS. 16001610.
character. He was, says Dupleix 55 , 'autant habile
qu'homme de son royaume pour juger de 1'humeur,
et du merite des personnes/ Frank and sociable, he
liked to talk with Casaubon ; not as James i. did, of
' classics, fathers, wits,' but he heard from him of
Geneva, of Montpellier, of the grievances and wishes
of the calvinists. He took Casaubon's learning for
granted, but appreciated the sterling worth of the
man. At times he was angry at Casaubon's 'obsti-
nacy;' at times he understood that there was a depth
of conviction which could not be reached by the trivial
topics of controversial rhetoric.
Standing thus high in the royal favour, and with
these repeated promises of the succession to the li-
brary, it was to be supposed, that, whenever the va-
cancy should occur, Casaubon would step into the
place as matter of course. The promises indeed were
not confined to mere words. In November, 1601, a
patent was issued to Casaubon, in regular form, ap-
pointing him to the office of librarian, though with
the proviso that the present holder, Gosselin, should
not be disturbed. The salary, however, named in
the instrument, and which was to be in addition to
his pension, was to commence at once. Casaubon,
with great delicacy, never mentioned to G-osselin that
he was in possession of such a patent. This was all
the more creditable, as Casaubon was perpetually
being thwarted in his natural curiosity to explore
the treasures of the library, by the morose temper
of the custodian. ' I knew his way,' writes Sca-
liger 56 , in 1605, * forty-four years ago ; too ignorant to
65 Dupleix, Hist, de France, quoted by Cr^tineau-Joly, Hist, de
la comp. de Jsus, 3. 36. 5<3 Seal. ep. p. 273.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 195
use the library himself, too jealous to allow others
to use it/
Scaliger's reminiscence carries us back to 1561, the
commencement of Gosselin's librarianship. He was
appointed in 1560, and held the office four-and-forty
years. Jean Gosselin was not an ignorant man, at
least only relatively so. He was a mathematician,
and author of several treatises in that -department 57 .
He was well known in the literary society of the
former generation, and is celebrated among the wits
of the day by de la Boderie, in la Galliade (1578),
* Gosselin, ornement de sa ville de Vire, etc.' But, of
the greek and latin MSS, of which he was keeper, he
was, likely enough, ignorant, and probably threw im-
pediments in the way of the young and impetuous
Gascon, who rushed upon the king's MSS. as he after-
wards did upon those of 'Cujas at Valence, 58 * M. Cujas
disoit que j'avais depucelle les MSS/ If Gosselin
was ignorant of the contents of his books, he was
their faithful custodian, through risks and adventures
far more serious than those which our royal library went
through in the time of the Commonwealth. Gosselin
was now in the imbecility of extreme old age, but
still clutched his treasures with desperate grip. He
was near one hundred years old, and might have
lived on, but for accident.
In November, 1604, the poor old man came to a
melancholy end. Left by his attendant sitting alone
before the fire, he was found in the morning burnt
to death, having fallen out of his chair in helpless
57 A list of his publications is given by Frere, Manuel de bibliogr.
normande, 2. 32. Some account of Gosselin is in Bulletin du biblio-
phile for 1871. 58 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 60.
2
196 PARIS. 16001610.
decrepitude 59 . The post of librarian thus vacant, why
did not Casaubon immediately come forward and claim
an appointment which was already his own 1
Legal instruments and royal nominations were facts
of weight, but in France at this time there was another
power which was weightier still 60 . The vacancy in the
library had occurred at a moment when the ultra-
montane flood had risen higher than ever. The furious
fanaticism of the League was indeed out of fashion, but
it had been followed, not by a reaction, but by a more
cool and calculating political Catholicism. The ter-
rorism of the S. Bartholomew had done its work, and it
was now replaced by the system of political exclusion.
In vain the edict of Nantes declared protestants ad-
missible to all offices and employments, it was a mere
paper law which could not be enforced. Exclusion was
the mot d'ordre. For any protestant who wanted a
career there was only one way open ' se faire catho-
lique.' The power of the clergy, and the popularity of
the religious orders, which had been distinctly seen to
totter fifty years before, was now higher than ever.
Swarms of orders, new and old, male and female, recol-
lets, feuillants, teresians, capucins, barnabites, settled
down upon the fair face of France. The grand affair of
1603 had been the recall of the Jesuits. To get the
Jesuits back to France, and to give the king a Jesuit con-
fessor, these were the objects of the highest European
59 Ep. 428 : 'Belictus a famulo decrepitus senex ante focum, semi-
ustulatus et vitse expers postridie est inventus.' Compare with this
Lestoile, Reg. journal, suppl. p. 380, ed. Champollion. Scaligerana 2 a .
p. 97. The attendant was suspected of having hastened his master's
end, but, it seems, without grounds.
Ep. 256: 'Quod si non obstaret pontificis Romani respectus,
pridem factum esset, ut regis jussu publice doceremus.'
PARIS. 1600 1610. 197
smanship. In 1603 they were achieved. Henri, who
had contracted a second marriage at the age of forty-
seven, and had supplied the place of Gabrielle with
Henriette, was besides visibly enfeebled by an obstinate
disorder, and yielded to the pressure brought to bear
upon him. Father Coton was passed upon him. By his
insinuating address, by an adroit mixture of terrorism
and meekness, he completely tamed the prince. Henri
was charmed with him, had never had any confessor
like him. Fascinated himself by the address of the
Jesuit, he supposed others must yield to the charm.
Unfortunately he ordered Coton to try his powers
upon Casaubon. By the king's command Casaubon
waited upon the Jesuit in the library. But Casaubon,
who was occasionally seriously embarrassed by the
learned objections of Du Perron, was not in any danger
from the honeyed tongue of Coton, in whom Gillot 61
found that ' though he talks well, he has d'instruc-
tion peu ou point.' Coton' s failure exasperated him,
and he resolved that Casaubon should not have the
library. The danger was dwelt upon of committing
the custody of the books to a heretic, who might make
an ill use of what he found in them. They told Henri
that Lipsius was the most learned man of the age, and
should be invited from Flanders to be librarian. Cas-
aubon is not only heretic, but an ' obstinate heretic/
i. e. one that knows the truth and hardens himself
against it, and has not the excuse of ignorance.
The king took to the suggestion of Lipsius' name.
' I have been told/ he said one day to Thiou des Fortes,
'that Lipsius is the most learned man of the age/ Des
Fortes immediately named Scaliger, affirming that Sca-
liger possessed more knowledge of all sciences and all
61 Ep. frans. p. 435.
198 PARIS. 16001610.
languages than Lipsius had of any one. Henri replied,
' They have never told me that.' Des Fortes ventured
to say that ' after Scaliger, Casaubon deserved to be
included in the very small number of the truly learned/
and added adroitly, ' they are both Frenchmen/ The
lawyers also pointed out to the king the danger of the
precedent if an appointment once made were cancelled
on a religious ground. This the church party met by
a proposal to call the young Grotius from the Hague,
in order to make it appear that the objection to Casau-
bon was not merely his protestantism. When Cas-
aubon was told of this manoeuvre, he only remarked
' that if Grotius would be pleased to come, he (Casau-
bon) would be well pleased to see him there.'
The matter being thus in suspense, Casaubon's friends
thought that his best chance lay in a personal applica-
tion to the monarch. They built upon the public
favour with which he was always received, and the
esteem which Henri had always been accustomed to
express for the threadbare scholar. As long as the
king was absent, Casaubon sturdily refused to make
any suit to the secretary, Yilleroy, or to move in the
matter at all 62 . But when Henri returned to Paris from
the Sedan expedition in December, Casaubon could not
refuse to pay his respects among the rest, and, as assist-
ant in the library, to inform him of Gosselin's death.
This he did simply, without reminding Henri of his
promise, or proffering any solicitation for himself. He
did not fail to observe the unwonted coldness of the
king's manner, and withdrew in the belief that the day
of his favour was gone by. Great, then, was his as-
" 2 Ep. 371 : 'Securus in museo expecto quid jussurus sit, cujus est
imperium (i. e. the king), nam ut de ea re verba cuiquam faciam,
nemo a me impetraverit.'
PARIS. 16001610.
199
z
tonishment when, three days afterwards, the king's
private secretary came to him with his appointment to
the royal library, ready made out, and, what was more,
ith an augmentation of 400 livres to his former
ary. The influence was that of de Thou, an in-
fluence never exerted but for good, and though just now
minimized, yet never wholly destroyed even in the
worst times. In June, 1605, Gillot 63 writes to Scaliger,
We are now completely under the loyolite yoke.
There is a general rush into their camp. Father
Gossyp (Coton) is the greatest person that ever was.
We breathe only Eome, " et Gallia submittit fasces/'
The first president (de Harlay) has been ill of a fever,
and many an. ear was pricked up thereupon. God
preserve us from such a change ; for he, with our de
Thou, is the only one who has still some hold over the
helm, and still makes head against a general wreck.'
The welcome addition to his salary was the unsolicited
act of Villeroy 64 . Villeroy, though ex-leaguer, Spanish,
a corrupt intriguer who was for an exclusively catholic
policy, was generous in money matters, and not with
the public money only, and now threw a scrap to a
starving scholar. Scaliger expressed himself 65 highly
gratified, not only with Casaubon's success, but with the
check given to the Jesuit party, who had used all their
influence against him. At the same time, he warned
his friend that the same interest which had worked to
keep him out would be incessantly plied against him,
13 Ep. fran. p. 416.
64 Villeroy befriended Casaubon to the last.
Henri iv's discrimi-
nating character of this old servant of the crown may be read in the
Pseudo-Sully, 7. 224, among other things, it is said of him : ' II a le
cceur gdne'reux ; n'est nullement adonne' a Vavarice.'
65 Seal. Epp. p. 272.
200 PARIS. 16001610.
and therefore his position would call for great circum-
spection.
The office which the dominant party had thought it
worth while to dispute, and which had been variously
intrigued for by others underhand, by interest, and by
money 66 , was in value 400 livres, about 35 sterling,
per annum. It was the pay of a professor in a pro-
vincial university a classical, not a law professor,
these got much higher stipends, or a principal regent
in a provincial college.
The official title was ' Garde de la librairie du roi,'
' keeper/ in fact, sub-librarian under the ' Maltre de la
librairie/ The maltre at present was de Thou, a
position which had enabled him, at the last moment, to
exert a deciding influence in the appointment of the
garde. The office of maitre had been created by
Francis i. in 1522. It was intended to be, and had
been hitherto regarded as, a post of dignity, the highest
literary prize in the realm. It carried the salary of a
household officer, 1200 livres, about 110 sterling, and
imposed no laborious duties. The services of per-
sonal attendance and administration were discharged
by the keeper.
The library was not, in its original destination, a
public library ; it was the king's library, and had been
formed for the use, or the pride, of the monarch. It is
an interesting fact in the life of the unfortunate Peter
Ramus, that he was the first person to suggest that the
books should be removed to Paris, to be made useful to
the learned. The primitive nucleus of the collection
had been formed in the chateau at Blois. Francis i. had
the books at Blois removed to Fontainebleau, and may
be considered the real creator of the library, which is
56 Cas. Ep. 376 : 'Cum alii gratia, alii pecunia, rem tentareut.'
PARIS. 16001610. 201
ow the bibliotheque nationale, by the vast collections
which he caused to be made. In the reign of Charles TX,
books were not in demand at court, and Ramus' pro-
position to convert the king's library to the use of the
public was graciously acceded to. The collection was
removed to Paris, not to the Louvre, but to some room
in the neighbourhood of the colleges, though the pre-
cise situation is not ascertainable. Like our own royal
library during the reign of the puritans, the library
of Francis I. ran great dangers during the league.
Gosselin, who had come with it from Fontainebleau,
was in charge of it all through the troubles, and has
left a short account of its escape 67 . Casaubon used to
chafe at Gosselin for impeding his free access to the
books, but Gosselin's experiences are his sufficient
excuse. He thanks God for having given him grace to
save this library several times from dispersion or ruin,
and notably during the last troubles, when some of the
imps of the league would have forced themselves into
the place under colour of ordering it after their fashion.
Gosselin, thinking that they would have more liberty
to do mischief if he were there, than if he were out of
the way, withdrew to the royalist head-quarters, at
S. Denis, fastening the door of the library with a strong
lock, and besides with a padlock attached to a stout
bar of iron on the inside. So effectually had Gosselin
secured the door that de Nully was unable to force it
open, and was compelled to break a hole in the wall to
get in. He was there several times with his folk, and
each time they were seen to retire carrying pretty big
67 Gosselin's own narrative has been found recently. It is a memo-
randum written on the first page of a MS, La Marguerite of Jean
Massue. It has been printed in Bulletin du bibliophile, 1871,
P- 4i5-
202 PARIS. 16001610.
packages away under their cloaks. Barrabas (Bar-
nabas) Brisson, who however might plead that he knew
how to use books, more decently borrowed a great
many. After his unhappy end, his widow sold them for
a mere song. After the surrender of Paris to Henri iv,
Gosselin returned to find the havoc which had been
committed. But the perils of the library were not yet
at an end 68 . A claimant arose for the whole collection
in the person of the cardinal Bourbon, who said that
Henri in. had given it to him. It required an inter-
position of despotic authority on the part of Henri iv.
to vindicate it as an heirloom of the crown. He sent
the claimant word that ' he (the king) could take better
care of it than could the cardinal, and that the cardinal
was rich enough to buy himself another.' After a
series of adventures of this character, we can hardly
wonder if Gosselin forgot everything except the safe
custody of his treasures.
When the Jesuits were expelled from Paris, 1595,
the college of Clermont, rue S. Jacques, was appro-
priated for the reception of the books, and the revenues
of the college, not very considerable, were laid out in
binding. De Thou obtained a rich accession for the
library in the books of Catherine de Medicis. These,
chiefly MSS, many greek, gathered in Italy, had be-
longed to marshal Strozzi. Catherine, who had sump-
tuous tastes, had bought the collection from Strozzi's
heirs. It is hardly necessary to say they had not, at
her death, been paid for. As she did not leave any-
thing, 69 * pas meme .un seul sol/ the creditors seized
the books, or would have done so, but for the abbe de
58 Sylloge scriptorum, Thuana, p. 200.
9 Brant ome, i. 85.
PARIS. 16001610. 203
Bellebranche, who saved them till they also were
claimed by Henri iv, and united with the royal books
in the college of Clermont in 1599. Here the library
remained from October 1595 to 1605. In this year,
the first of Casaubon's librarianship, the Jesuits re-
covered their college, and would have been well pleased
to keep the books too. They said they had lost a good
library by confiscation, and would have to form another.
But de Thou and Casaubon were able to save the books,
though they had to evacuate the building, and they
removed their treasures to an empty hall in the great
convent of the Cordeliers, famous in 1790, and which
occupied the site of the present ecole de me'decine 70 .
It was close to the porte S. Germain, and to the city
wall. After Casaubon, the guardian lived in the library.
But it was not possible for a married man to live
within the enceinte of a Franciscan convent, and Cas-
aubon had to hire an apartment close by ; ' vis-a-vis des
Cordeliers,' his letters are addressed. This was the
seventh removal that he had undergone in less than
seven years since his first arrival in Paris. He com-
plains that now he could no longer find his own books,
he had so often placed and replaced them in a different
arrangement. This house, outside the porte S. Ger-
main, and therefore in the faubourg, not in the city, is
the house which was remembered in after times as
Casaubon's house 71 . For this house he says he paid
500 livres.
It must have been with peculiar gratification that
Casaubon, who all his life had been thirsting for books,
found so rich a treasure all at once at his uncontrolled
disposition. In greek MSS. the king's library was then,
70 The mus^e Dupuytren stands on the site of the refectory.
71 See above, p. 171.
204 PARIS. 16001610.
as it still is, second only to the Vatican. The actual
number of MSS. in the united libraries was considerable;
but as there was no complete catalogue, and no nume-
ration, the quantity was as usual exaggerated by the
anticipations of the learned world. A catalogue, which
was compiled by Casaubon's successor, Eigault, in 1620,
informs us that the total of the Foiitainebleau collection
was upwards of 4700 MSS. But of these the greater
part were modern papers, charters, records, and state
documents. At least 260 of these were greek MSS, for
the old catalogue of Vergecio (circ. 1550) vouches for
that number. To these must be added Catherine's
books. These numbered 4500 volumes, of which 800
the Strozzi coUection were MSS, greek, latin, or
hebrew. But the interest excited by the deposit was
occasioned not so much by the number of volumes, as
by the fact that the MSS. had been only partially
examined. During a librarianship of forty-four years
Gosselin had not accomplished the task of making a
catalogue. If we are disposed to think that this laches
substantiates Scaliger's charge of ignorance, and that
Gosselin did not catalogue the MSS. because he could
not, we may remember that he was no longer young
when he was first appointed, that the books were imme-
diately removed from Fontainebleau to narrow rooms,
that they were shifted and shifted again, that these
years were years of trouble and confusion, especially in
the capital, and that the keeper received a mere pittance
for his services. Casaubon, himself acting librarian for
six years, and titular for more, does not seem to have
attempted a catalogue, though he complained much
before he succeeded to the office of the imperfections of
that which existed.
The expectation of the learned as to the find which
PARIS. 1600 1610. 205
awaited them was unlimited. The demand came not
from France, sunk in religious and political party, but
from foreign countries. Lying in the heart of the
colleges and convents of Paris, the classical treasures
were unheeded by, and were unintelligible to, their
occupants. Federic Morel, regius professor, alone con-
tinued to issue from his press a series of greek tractates
transcribed or edited from the MSS, far too rapidly to be
done with any care. It was from Leyden and from
Germany that the requisitions poured in. Scaliger, of
course, was among the most urgent. But Scaliger
now, set. 64, was weighed down by his vast work
the Eusebius and asked only for what immediately
bore upon the task which he sometimes feared he
should not live to complete. One of Casaubon's first
cares was to send off to Leyden some excerpta of a greek
chronologer *, which he had discovered, and thought
might be of use. Scaliger immediately recognised por-
tions of book i. of Eusebius' Chronicon, and considered
it the most valuable contribution which had been made
to his Thesaurus temporum 72 'the Minerva of Phidias
among the other sculptures/ Besides Scaliger he
supplied Heinsius at Leyden, Gruter and Freher at
Heidelberg, Hoeschel at Augsburg, and Savile at Eton
with materials or collations for their publications. He
complains much of the consumption of time in these
friendly offices, though he now began to have the im-
portant assistance of Charles Labbe. Labbe was one of
the troop of young scholars formed in the school of
Scaliger, who, while refusing the professor's chair, sowed
the seeds of learning wherever he came in contact with
* See note D in Appendix.
72 Seal. epp. p. 292: ' Fragmentum illud TO>V (rraStoviKcov, quod nobis
liberalitas tua impertivit, est ut Minerva Phidise in nostro opere.'
206 PARIS. 16001610.
a capable mind. Labbe 73 docte et infatigable trans-
cribed for his master, in a greek hand of such exquisite
neatness that it surpasses, in this respect, that of the
master himself, while Casaubon writes a straggling
greek 74 , which can have given him no satisfaction in
the transcriber's weary task.
But of this work he did little. While Scaliger im-
posed upon himself the task of writing out whole
books 75 ' books which are only lent me for a short time,
syriac, arabic, hebrew,' and that at 65, when the 'labour
will profit only those who shall possess my library after
me/ Casaubon, though he noted much, copied little.
The longest excerpt remaining among his papers is
a portion of Leo's Tactica, transcribed in the country
in the vintage season of 1609. The use he made of the
library was one, which no librarian ought to make
it was to read the books. Casaubon, indeed, was
what he was by his incessant reading, seconded
by a capacious memory. Early in life he had made
his own all the classical remains accessible in print.
He had pined in the south because he could not
get books, though he borrowed from all his friends
who had them. Exhaustive reading of the greek and
latin writers was what he proposed to himself. When
he first came to Paris, not knowing how short his
stay might prove, he made the resolve to read
those books which he could not hope to get else-
where 76 . His written memoranda as well as his pub-
lished notes bear witness to the eagerness with which
he devoured the royal MSS 77 .
73 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 134.
7 * Seal. 2 a . p. 45 : ' II a uiie trbs mauvaise lettre grecque.'
75 Seal. Ep. p. 299. 76 Eph. p. 340.
77 Eph. p. 339 : ' Libris nostris renunciamus, soils illis operam daturi,
Tf, will
PARIS. 1600 1610. 207
It will not therefore surprise us to find that he did
nothing for arranging or cataloguing, hardly anything
for publishing new texts. The librarian who reads is
lost. There was now at his disposal a rich mine of
greek anecdota. But he left the glory of communi-
cating these to the world to Meursius and Morel. His
own pleasure was to read them ; who liked might print
them. For he has no jealousy, none of that desire of
keeping things for himself which used to govern all
libraries, and still lingers, if report be true, about the
Vatican. When any correspondent asked for any
book, he tried to find it, but he never made any
thorough and complete investigation, once for all, of
what was there, much less a catalogue. In 1608
Hoeschel applied to him for MSS. of Arrianus. Though
Casaubon had then been nearly four years in full
possession of the library, he did not know if there
were any MSS. of Arrianus, but would look 78 . He found,
on searching, at least two. As late as 1607, in reply to
Scaliger's urgent entreaty for any fragments of a chron-
ological nature, he says he will have a good search
through all the cases. He began to have access to the
books, though restricted access, in 1599. From 1605 to
October 1 6 1 o, the library was wholly at his disposal, yet
the only anecdotum he publishes is ^Eneas Tacticus 79 .
The selection of this author was not determined by the
value of the royal library codex. What he found there
was only a modern sixteenth century transcript by
Vergecio, and Casaubon had in his own hands a much
older MS, which had been lent him by Bongars.
quos alibi nancisci non possemus, hie possumus segre quidem, sed tamen
possumus. hujus generis sunt libri regise bibliothecae.' 78 Ep. 607.
79 Commentarius tacticus et obsidionalis, in the Polybius of 1609.
It is the Ed. Pr. of the text of ^Eneas.
208 PARIS. 16001610.
A large part of these years was given to his edition
of Polybius. This again was a choice not guided by
the merit of the royal MSS. It was an old design of
Casaubon to edit Polybius, an intention which he had
announced as far back as 1595, and indeed had pub-
licly pledged himself to in the first Suetonius 80 . Here
again he only used from the royal collection a modern
MS 81 , again one of Vergecio's copies, and indeed nothing
more than a transcript, made in 1 547, from the printed
text of Opsopaeus' edition, though Casaubon did not
know this. This neglect of good things would be
more amazing if it were the fact that cod. reg. 1648
(A. Sch weigh.) was actually among Catherine's books,
and that Casaubon had not found it out.
Besides his Polybius, and ^Eneas Tacticus, he prints
during this period two inedited pieces, but neither of
them from royal MSS. One was the ' Inscriptio Hero-
dis/ which he printed from a copy sent from Eome to
Gillot by Christophe Du Puy ; the other was an epistle
of Gregorius of Nyssa from a MS. of Nicolas le Fevre.
All this while he had untold treasures under his hand,
e.g. the 'De administrando imperio' of Constantinus
Porphyrogeneta, which he names himself as worthy of
publication by royal command 82 . He himself was
content to have read it. He describes his own feel-
ings among the MSS. when he writes to Saumaise,
who was revelling in the treasures of the Palatine,
yet unplundered, that 83< he must be suffering the
torment of Tantalus, not being able to read all the
books at once.'
80 Sueton. Tib. cap. 65, and ded.
81 Cod. reg. 1649. 82 Prsef. in Polyb.
3 Ep. 543 : ' Videor mihi videre te in mediis aquis Tantalo simi-
lem ; neque enim potes omnibus perfrui Palatinse bibliothecse divitiis.'
PARIS. 16001610. 209
When Casaubon succeeded to the care of the library
he was only forty-six. Though premature infirmity
had already begun to undermine his strength, he had
still an enormous appetite for reading, but his taste
was gradually taking a direction which was leading
him away from greek. He did not conceive that he
was renouncing old studies to take up with new. He
continued to labour at Polybius, and expended much
time and research on his edition. But his leisure hours,
as he calls them, were given to controversial reading,
and his interests were passing over, in spite of himself,
to this, the fashionable, topic.
It has been already noticed that Casaubon suffered,
all his life, from the disease of double-mindedness. He
was a man of a divided interest avr/p Styvxos. While
he was reading classics, he was always wishing to be
reading the fathers. While editing Athenasus he was
longing to have done with it, that he might give him-
self to Christian antiquity. The literary gossips have
put upon this fact the vulgar interpretation, that he
was fluctuating in his choice between the rival
churches. The truth is, he was staying himself in a
learned equilibrium between opposite fanaticisms
the biblical and the ecclesiastical. In order to hold
his own in the midst of the fray, he was compelled
to bestow no little attention on the facts involved.
He had to articulate the argument, and, against such
an adversary as Du Perron, to defend it by citation
from the authoritative books. Thus the kind of reading
which he secretly liked was stimulated by an external
necessity, while the study of the classics had to be sus-
tained in the face of total neglect on the part of the
|public. The inward strife of conflicting tastes is
[common to all gifted natures in youth. But it is
p
210 PARIS. 1600 1610.
usually composed long before mid-age by a deliberate
decision, which selects for good one goal. That youthful
state of mind which Donne 83 describes himself as
suffering from, 'an hydroptique immoderate desire of
humane learning and languages/ either dies out, or
takes some specific direction, before forty. The cir-
cumstances into which Casaubon was thrown by his
position in Paris maintained a life-long distraction
between two tendencies.
We have seen the assault upon his religious con-
victions commence with his arrival in Paris in 1599.
When it was found that the citadel was not carried
by a coup de main, it seemed at first that the attacking
party retired in disgust. The king was angry, and
looked coldly upon him. Why did not Casaubon fulfil
the condition on which he had been brought from Mont-
pellier ? They had made so sure of his conversion that
they told the duchesse de Bar, the king's sister, that it
was quite settled. This Casaubon contradicted inform,
obtaining an audience from the high lady for the pur-
pose 84 . This was too bad, not only to persist himself,
but to spoil the game with Madame. Casaubon's coming
over would bring many others with him ; but he could
not be allowed to go about confirming other heretics
in their obstinacy. He must be dismissed in disgrace.
Casaubon had made up his mind that so it must be.
Suddenly the policy of the Jesuits altered. They are
all smiles and blandishments. Casaubon 85 writes to
Scaliger in October, 1604:
* I must now tell you that things are changed with
83 Donne, Letters, p. 51.
84 Eph. p. 378 : ' Venimus ad rfjv SeWoii/av, et sine fuco et fallaciis
quid de recta fide . . . judicaremus, prolixe exposuimus/
86 Ep. 416.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 211
me here ; I who was an object of hate to the loyolites
for my steadiness in the profession of pure religion,
am now become their dearest friend. Whether I am
in town, or retired into the country, I must be among
them, and converse with them. Lately I had a visit
from Gonter, with I know not how many bishops ;
next day, when I was deep in my books, coxes Fronto
le Due. ... He had no sooner saluted me, than he
began to tell me he was sent by the king with orders
to press it upon me, as a thing which the king had
very much at heart. I made them all the same answer,
to the effect, viz. That truth had always been my one
aim ; that I would always be ready to consider and
weigh all real arguments which could be advanced,
but that promises of favour from my prince would
have no weight whatever in such a matter. I ex-
pressed my surprise that after the emphatic proofs I
had already given of my firmness in my present con-
victions, any further attempt should be made upon me/
The explanation of this change of tactic was that
the Jesuits had seen that the vulgar motives of royal
favour, and pension, which sufficed in so many cases,
would not succeed with Casaubon. He was ready,
if need were, to give up his place and go into exile.
He not only declared this, it was easy to see that
he was man enough to do it. But the wily emis-
saries of Rome, who have always piqued themselves
upon their knowledge of men, saw, or thought they
saw, that the case was not hopeless for all that.
There was a side of Casaubon on which he was
assailable. This was his learning. He knew too
much to go in for all the untenable notions of his
own church and friends. On a rude unlettered pastor,
who knew nothing but his french bible and Calvin's
p 2
212 PARIS. 1600 1610.
Institutes, there was no prize. But a learned man,
who appealed to antiquity, who admitted the fathers
and councils as authority, must be to be had.
Honestly convinced that fathers and councils were
on their side, the Jesuits conceived that they had but
to get him into controversy, to show him that the
fact was BO, in order to convince him of his error,
and bring him to renounce it. He himself had said
he would do so.
It was in this way that Casaubon was drawn into
controversy, and through controversy to interest, and
further reading on the controverted points. The
management of the business, indeed, passed out of
the immediate hands of the Jesuits. The most
learned man they had at the moment available was
Fronto le Due. But Fronto, though translator and
editor of greek fathers, and notably of Chrysostom,
had not strength enough to cope with Casaubon.
Du Perron was obliged to be called in. It was im-
possible for Casaubon to decline frequent encounters
with * the archsophist.' The cardinal, as grand au-
monier, had a general superintendence over the
publication of theological books. Casaubon' s library
duties brought him into constant intercourse with
him 86 . Notwithstanding his many defeats and disap-
pointments, these reunions were used unceasingly by
Du Perron for controversy, by the king's command,
86 I have not been able to ascertain what was the nature of the
authority which cardinal Du Perron exercised over the library. The
editor of the splendid History, too splendid for use, issued from the
Imprimerie imp^riale, knows nothing of it. But it is clear from
Casaubun's correspondence, that, in some way, Du Perron was his
official superior. See Cas. epp. ep. 652, ep. 624. On the other hand,
in Eph. p. 666, he says on one occasion when the cardinal sent for
him, that it was ' nomine regis.'
PARIS. 16001610. 213
he said. Scaliger thought it 87 not unlikely that this
was true, looking at Casaubon's great reputation, and
Henri's eager desire to please the pope. * He thinks
if he could only vanquish you, and suspend the
spoils of your firmness on the fisherman's doors, that
it would greatly increase his credit among his trans-
tiberine friends/
A letter of Casaubon, written in 1604, gives us an
insight into the trouble occasioned him by the state
of siege in which he was compelled to live 88 :
'If I had attached the importance to these dis-
putations which I find others do, I would have
taken care that you should have heard from myself
what took place on the occasion. Being invited
lately to breakfast by cardinal Perron, he started a
desultory discussion on religious subjects. I own I
was surprised at this, for for some years past he has
not opened his mouth to me on these matters at all,
and I perceived that it was a plot directed against
my simplicity, and originating with some other per-
sons who were at table. Be this as it may, I was
in for what became a very lively controversy. And
87 Seal. epp. p. 271 : *Non parvam lauclem putat apud transtibe-
rinos fore, si spolium constantly vestrae ad illos referat, quod e valvia
piscatoris aliquando pendeat.'
88 Ep. 420. This interesting letter was printed by Gronovius, in
1638, as addressed to an anonymous correspondent, N. N. Almeloveen
in reprinting it, 1709, appended to it a note of Colomie's, in which
it is conjectured that the correspondent was Paul Petau. The con-
jecture is wrong. The letter was really addressed to de Thou, and
the original is still to be seen in the MS. volume of Casaubon's
letters to de Thou, Bibl. nat. coll. Dupuy, 708. The disclosure of the
desperate attempts to get over Casaubon, and their failure, was still in
1638 a matter sufficiently delicate to make it desirable to suppress the
name of de Thou, as Casaubon's confidant on the subject.
214 PARIS. 16001610.
I was led to suspect that many of the company, who
were net in the secret, supposed this to be one < f
those farcical disputations which they get up, and
was concerted with me, to give a colour to my con-
version. And it so fell out, that immediately the
party broke up, the rumour was bruited about the
town that I had given in, and that my conversion
was now imminent. At first I tried to laugh it off.
And, indeed, I cannot but think it ridiculous to make
a serious n atter out of one's conversation at table.
But, finding that my character was at stake, I was
obliged to write to the cardinal a letter of expostula-
tion, of which letter I enclose you a copy, reserving
further particulars for our next meeting/
Compelled thus to encounter an adversary whose
learning he respected 89 , and whose argumentative
dexterity embarrassed him, it was impossible for
Casaubon not to give some time to theological read-
ing. It grew upon him as the struggle intensified,
and came to occupy more and more of his thoughts.
He had always been longing for the time when he
might steep himself in Christian antiquity, and now
the subject was forced upon him. 90 ' O that some
man would arise,' he cries in 1 606, ' who would
revive the study of true ecclesiastical archaeology ! '
89 Casaubon always speaks with respect of Du Perron's reading, and
with something like awe of his controversial ability. The Italian
biographer of Fra Paolo, Engl. transl. p. 61, says of the cardinal,
' truly that elevated spirit of his had an argute manner of disputing
and extremely provocative,' a description identical with Casaubon's,
Ep. 214: TTJS <ro(ptcrTucfi$ reptipfias rpifiav. Thus he was more power-
ful as a disputant than as a writer, yet his controversial books are
singled out by Jer. Taylor, Dissuasive, 6. 486, as ' the more learned
answers of Bellarmine and Perron,' in contrast to 'the more weak
answers offered.' * Ep. 518.
PARIS. 16001610. 215
There was store of patristic greek in the royal
library, which Casaubon could have approached, as
no one has yet approached it, with a complete read-
ing of pagan antiquity. Here was his true occu-
pation, one in which he might have satisfied at once
both of the instincts which divided him. Instead of
this, he was driven to Polybius, and to the transcription
of the military writers, an alien subject, to which he
could bring but a factitious interest. From his own
peculiar field he was excluded by the theologians,
who would not allow a heretic to handle the fathers 91 .
His own Chrysostom, of whom there were sixty MSS.
in the royal library, was forbidden to Casaubon, and
reserved for Fronto le Due.
For Casaubon' s efforts were not wholly in vain. It
would not do to have this heretic librarian going about
saying, that the king's collection was full of most
valuable greek MSS. of the fathers, that he was
desirous to print them, but that the clergy would not
let him. What made it worse was that he was the one
man most competent in France, in the world for
the work. Something must be done. Would the
king not find the funds necessary for an undertaking
which would be so glorious for his reign 1 Ask
Sully, who grudged Casaubon's keep already, thought
'he cost the king too much,' if he would pay for
printing the fathers? Would he not reply by asking,
Why don't you do it yourselves out of your rich
benefices, you bishops and abbots ? Such a public-
spirited act would shed great lustre on the church!'
If the mass of the dignified clergy were little likely
11 Ep. 509 : ' Editionem patrum hie curare non possum, quia non
permittitur homini hseretico id genus librorum attingere, multo minus
quicquam adjicere mearuui observationum.' Cf. ep! 647.
216 PARIS. 1600 1610.
to listen to such a suggestion, there was a small
minority among the bishops possessed of sufficient
culture to think it not quite absurd. In an assembly
which they held in Paris in 1606, it was suggested
that as the estate of the clergy had just received a
remission of their tenths from the crown, to the amount
of 400000 crowns, a portion of this sum might be de-
voted to printing the fathers. No more, however, could
be extracted than 2000 crowns, to which, by cardinal Du
Perron's influence, was afterwards added another thou-
sand. Fortified with this small subvention a bookseller,
01. Morel, engaged to bring out the works of Chrysos-
tom. As the Eton Chrysostom (1612) cost sir H. Savile
8000 sterling to produce, it is clear that Morel must have
relied on the sale to the public to repay his expenses.
But though Casaubon might not use the MSS. of
the royal library, he might use others, and nothing
could interfere with his printing in a foreign country.
His earliest essay in patristic criticism he thus speaks
of in 1596, in writing to Bongars, 92< I had begun
lately to put together in a book, "Observations on
the ecclesiastical writers ; " but I afterwards forebore ;
well enough, methinks, is soon enough/ It was not till
1605 that he stole into the world, unobtrusively,
almost timidly, with a first essay in this forbidden
walk. His friend Hoeschel was publishing at Augs-
burg, ' Origen against Celsus,' a greek text then un-
printed, setting herein, with far inferior resources, an
example of what might have been done in Paris.
The treatise was to be accompanied by the eloge of
Gregorius of Neocaesareia on Origen, which had been
once before printed, in a very bad state, in 1587.
The text of this last piece Hoeschel communicated to
92 Ep. 433-
i
PAfrfS. 1600 1610. 217
Casaubon, who sent back a few pages of emenda-
tions. Hoeschel, glad to adorn his book with Casaubon' s
name, printed these notes along with Casaubon's letter
at the end of his volume. Being purely critical, they
excited no attention in Paris, and were so little
known at all, that Meric even 93 had never seen them *.
In the next year, 1606, grown more bold, he ventured
print in Paris, and with his name, a- little volume
mtainirig an inedited epistle of Gregorius of Nyssa,
with a preface and notes. It was published by his
cousin and friend Eobert Estienne, in partnership with
the heirs of Patisson. It attracted some attention, as
having the name of Casaubon on the title. Lestoile
mentions it 94 as 'bien digne d'estre recueilliee/ and
it was cheap enough, being sold, bound in parchment,
for a quarter of a crown. But if Lestoile, or the
public, expected a theological manifesto they were
disappointed. The notes are not theological, but
illustrative and interpretative only. The different
usage of the same word by the ecclesiastical, and by
the classical writers, is often richly exemplified. Yet
there are allusions which show how full the editors
mind was of the present. There is an oblique glance,
p. 60, at the ' invent iuncul se humanse mentis ' on the
subject of pilgrimage. And the preface is altogether
a concealed allusion to the circumstances of the day,
for it is a recommendation to concord among Chris-
tians. In the sensitive state of the public mind in
Paris, to insinuate that the huguenots were Christians
was a spark on gunpowder. Casaubon was admon-
ished, and given to understand that his position as li-
brarian and king's pensioner must not be used for the
83 Pietas, p. 98. * See note D in Appendix.
94 Registre-journal, p. 402.
218 PARIS. 16001610.
subversion of the catholic faith. In his disappointment
he wrote to Vertunien 95 that 'he should never be at
rest till he found himself in a free country, where
he might have liberty to reply to the Jesuits. 5 Casau-
bon had only himself to blame, for having taken the
opportunity of a greek book to make an edifying
application.
If he might not write as a protestant, there was
another controversy on foot, in which he thought the
* king's librarian ' might without rebuke take up a
pen. The old debate between the gallican and ultra-
montane parties, indigenous to french soil, had just
now sprung up again into the question of the day,
owing to the struggle going on between Pius v. and
the republic of Venice. The gallican party in Paris
sympathised keenly with the republic in its courageous
resistance, and were desirous of having an argument
on the principle drawn for circulation in France.
Casaubon had, independently, from his own point of
view, read with keen interest the books and pamphlets
which inundated the press in these years. He had
been 96 especially attracted by those of Fra Paolo, the
Servite, in which he recognised the flavour of that
ecclesiastical science, which was his own unattainable
ideal. The distance between the real learning of
Casaubon, and the disputative energy of Du Perron
may be measured by their respective judgments on
05 Ep. frang. p. 524: 'Mondict sieur Casaubon m'a mandd qu'il
n'auroit jamais repos en son ame qu'il ne se veit en lieu libre pour
respondre aux calomnies et impostures des Jdsuistes.'
96 Ep, 542. Gas. to Scaliger : ' Vidistine, obsecro, quse Venetiis pro-
diere scripta a paucis mensibus ? prsesertim magni illius Pauli Veneti
. . . ego cum ilia lego, spe nescio qua ducor, futurum illic ali-
quando et literis sacris, et meliori literature locum.'
PARIS. 16001610. 219
Fra Paolo. 'I met Fra Paolo at Venice/ said the
cardinal 97 , 'I saw nothing eminent about him ; he has
good judgment and good sense, but no great knowledge'
Casaubon was easily prevailed upon to undertake
the subject, as that which he would have preferred
was closed to him. But as a protestant name would
have damaged the effect of the book, it was to be
anonymous, after the precedent of Ranchin's 'Keview
of the Council of Trent/ Casaubon himself is careful
not to tell his correspondents what it is on which he
is engaged. But it could not be kept altogether
secret. EC rly sheets were procured by the nuncio
during the progress of the work, and Fra Paolo
wrote 98 that it was eagerly expected in Venice.
Casaubon threw himself into the fray with zeal.
The pamphlet was becoming a book, and the sheets
were printed off as fa c t as they were written.
Fifteen sheets were already thrown off when the
nuncio interfered, and demanded the suppression of
the book. He had before obtained an interdict to
stop the reprint of Gerson, * De Potestate ecclesiastica/
and he had no difficulty in now procuring an inhibi-
tion of Casaubon's book ". The king was very angry,
'grandement indigne/ and Casaubon was fain to write
a letter to Villeroy to excuse himself. He does this
as well as he can 1 , but cannot deny the fact that he
17 Perromana, p. 259. 98 Burney MSS. 365. p. 285.
99 The suggestion that Casaubon should be engaged to write came
originally from Venice. Camdeni Epp. ep. 65. Becher to Camden,
June 4, 1607 : ' Monsieur Casaubon hath two pieces coming forth, but
neither of them yet finished, Polybius, and another, De libertate eccle-
siastica, at the instance of the Venetian ambassador ; and although
their difference be compounded, yet it goeth forward, and there is
great expectation of it.' Cf. Cas. ep. 882. Burney MSS. 363. p. 93.
1 % 557-
220 PARIS. 16001610.
has been writing ' against the pope/ The government
of Henri 2 , which was at this period wholly ultra-
montane, seconded the nuncio. The 'De libertate
ecclesiastica 3 ' remained not only unprinted, but un-
written. Some copies, however, of the printed sheets
had got abroad, and from one of these Melchior
Goldast reprinted the fragment in Germany, 1612,
and, by a curious coincidence, in the same collection
of tracts which contained Gerson, ' De Potestate/
Casaubon had lost much precious time over an
abortive scheme ; but his eagerness for the fray was
not abated. He wanted to write a review of Baronius'
' Annals/ This, where the argument was not political,
where the discussion turned entirely on the interpreta-
tion of ancient authors, was Casaubon's proper territory.
Here he might expatiate in the field of ecclesiastical
archaeology which he was sighing to enter. But he
could not do it, even in his own moderate style, without
permission. He applied for this permission and it was
refused ; gently indeed, but seriously ; ' the time was
not yet come/ The strictest orders had been issued in
Italy 4 that no one should be allowed ' to write against
Baronius ;' an order, as Fra Paolo remarks, * which
shows there was a good deal to be said/ Father Paul
2 Michelet, vol. 5. p. 463, thinks that Henri iv. desired to act in
favour of the protestants as early as 1600. If this was so, it coulc
only have been a momentary impulse. It seems to me that it was noi
till the dispute between Venice and the see of Rome, that a Gallican
party began to make itself felt in France, and that Henri iv. began to
lean towards it.
8 The fragment De Libertate is in Goldasti Monarchia S. Romani
imperil, Hanov. 1612. vol. i. pp. 674-716.
4 Burney MSS. 365. p. 285. Fra Paolo to Cas. : '. . . ne quid
vel minimum contra Baronium scribatur, vel alibi scriptum in Italiam
importetur.'
PARIS. 16001610. 221
\ r ould have answered it himself, had he been permitted,
lut Venice soon made up its quarrel with Home, and
the opportunity was past. France was equally under
Ilornan influence, and Casaubon must defer his criti-
cism of Baronius to a later day, and a freer country.
Thus precluded from the topic in which his interests
were most engaged, Casaubon was compelled to fall
back upon the classics. If we must regret -that Casau-
bon laid out some of his best years upon Polybius, we
must remember that he was driven upon it, by being
debarred from the better work he would have* done,
but might not.
In taking up Polybius, he took up an old thread.
Years ago, in 1595, he had pledged himself to an
edition, and the author was not unsuitable to his turn
of mind. Notwithstanding his admiration of Theo-
critus, he was destitute, if ever mortal was, of poetic
feeling. The erotic and wanton greek muse offended
his huguenot asceticism. He had no metrical skill. He
had as little taste for philosophy as for poetry. In
working upon Athenseus, though he had expatiated on
the antiquarianism, he had been wearied with the fri-
volity of the dilettante litterateur. The level good
sense and practical intelligibility of Polybius suited
him. Living about a court like that of Henri iv,
where literature was in low esteem, he felt keenly the
desire to evince its value to men of the world. Not
Eon sard, but Malherbe, the versifier of good sense,
was now the fashionable poet. Casaubon' s celebrated
preface to his Polybius, which was long considered one
of the masterpieces of modern latin, is entirely a piece
de circonstance. It must be read as addressed to the
court the court of 1609. * The statesman should read
history,' is its thesis ; and by history, classical history is
222 PARIS. 16001610.
intended. In it, history, and pre-eminently that of the
Greeks and Romans, is held up as the school of civil
prudence and military skill. The mere literary use of
the classics, the reading of a book like Caesar's Com-
mentaries, only to acquire a pure style, is condemned.
Of Polybius' sixth book he says that it ought not only
to be read, but to be learned by heart, by all princes,
generals, and public men. Argument and example are
employed with force, and without tedious accumulation,
to show the utility of the classics to public men. The
pleading is an argumentum ad hominem, for it is ad-
dressed to the ear of Henri iv's court. But it is good
for all time, and is indeed the basis on which the
defence of classical education must ultimately rest.
' The finest prefaces ever written,' said Joseph Warton 5 ,
adopting a dictum of Bayle, 'were perhaps that of
Thuanus to his History, of Calvin to his Institutes, and
of Casaubon to his Polybius/ Warton, a critic who
had the distinction of being also a scholar, admired it
for its general style and subject. It is no less in-
teresting to us as a historical document, peculiarly
addressed to a special audience, and giving us a
measure of the taste and acquirements of what was
called * the court ' in 1609.
The object he had in view in editing Polybius not
only inspired the preface, but governed the character
of the whole volume. From not attending to this
purpose, subsequent editors have misjudged the edition.
Schweighseuser has blamed Casaubon for his negligent
indication of the sources of the emendations introduced
into his text. The usual apology is, ' Such was the
habit of the editors of that age/ But Casaubon's
5 Warton's Pope's Works, 1797, vol. i. p. i ; Bayle, Diet, Art.
Calvin, note F.
PARIS. 1600 1610.
223
omission of this duty must be ascribed not to want of
accuracy, but to such accuracy being beside his purpose.
He wanted to make Polybius readable. If he were to
be read, he must be presented in latin. Accordingly,
upon the latin translation Casaubon spent his labour.
In 1588, when he gave Polyaenus to the press, he had
said contemptuously that 6 ' he could not afford to invest
good hours in making latin translations; that was a
kind of business he was content to leave to others.'
Now it is precisely the reverse. The translation is his
first concern. His Polybius is rather to be described as
a translation accompanied by the text, than as an
edition of the text. He has indeed altered Ursinus'
text much, but often, too, the emendation, which he
should have introduced into the text, appears only in
the version. The version does not, in these cases,
correspond to the text in the accompanying column.
But, in such cases, it is the latin, and not the greek,
which gives what Casaubon supposed Polybius to have
written. 7t I can answer for the fidelity of my transla-
tion/ he writes to Scaliger. 'I wish I was equally
certain of its latinity. But how few of us now can
write good latin! By the way I can tell you what
will amuse you. You know how the Italians have
admired Perotti's latin in his version (of Polybius.) No
wonder ! for when the good fellow is puzzled by
Polybius' greek, which happens sometimes, he has
transcribed the parallel passage from Livy, who, you
know, follows Polybius often pretty closely.'
If it is a matter of regret that Casaubon should have
been driven from Chrysostom to Polybius, it must be
more so that he should have embarked four years of
his limited span upon what is little more than a latin
Praef. in Polysen. 1588. 7 Ep. 485.
224 PARIS. 16001610.
translation. For there was no commentary. The
notes were reserved for a second volume, which never
appeared, and which was never written. What was
found of this kind after his death among his papers
amounted to about 200 pages, and was published in
a small volume by Antoine Estienne, 1617. In these
notes, though the old manner of illustration is pre-
served, there is constantly present an intention of
dwelling upon the practical lessons of history. He
will turn aside to quote something not very relevant
because it contains words of political wisdom 8 .
Yet, after all these imperfections, such is the power
of knowledge, that Casaubon's Polybius has deserved
that Schweighseuser 9 should say of it, that ' there is not
a page of it which does not show how much Polybius
owes to the learning and sagacity of that industrious
editor.' It may be instructive to observe that even
Casaubon's knowledge did not preserve him from
making blunders as a translator. Henri Valois 10 says
on this: 'Out of the numbers of translators of greek
books whom we have had, who is there who has not
occasionally slipped? The latin version of Polybius
by Isaac Casaubon is held by common consent as one
of the best and most correct which we have. And yet
it is not free from blunders/
The work engaged him from the end of August,
1605, to August 28, 1609, on which day he revised
the last proof sheet. He did not print with his wife's
connection, Estienne and Patisson, who had published
the Gregorius Nyssenus for him in 1606. Though
8 Comm. in Polyb. p. 88 : * Verba civilis prudenfeiae plenissima.'
9 Schweigh. praef. in Polyb. p. Ixxx.
10 Excerpta Constantini, 1634, ad lect.
PARIS. 1600 1610.
225
ley possessed some greek type, they had neither the
capital nor the plant for a folio of 1250 pages. Esti-
enne (R. Stephanus in.) was also a notoriously slow
printer, out of whom it was difficult to extract a proof
sheet. It is true his slowness proceeded from his scru-
pulous accuracy, and even learning. He would come
down himself, all the way, to Casaubon to consult him
about an accent which he thought wrong placed 11 .
Though inferior to the best specimens of Eobert Esti-
enne (E. Stephanus I.) 'or Turnebus of fifty years
before, the Polybius of 1609 is among the finest speci-
mens of Paris printing. But latin and greek upon the
same page cannot show either type to advantage.
It was turned out by Drouard (Jerome), who had
published the Hist. Aug. Scriptores in 1603, and who
afterwards with Cramoisy, Beys, and Co., formed the
association known as 'a la navire/ for publishing the
greek fathers. Drouard had a connection with Wechel
at Frankfort, which enabled him to secure the German
sale for his books. Early sheets were transmitted
through the ambassador to Marny, who carried on
Wechel's business, and he issued the book for Germany
with another title-page as his own 12 . This was not a
piratical invasion of Drouard's property, but an arrange-
ment between the publishers, by which the copyright
was secured in the empire. Drouard was a man of
substance, for such a volume could not be produced
without a large outlay, at the present day it would
cost from 800 to 900 to bring out and we . hear
of none of the vexations which attended the publica-
tion of the Athenseus with the de Harsy of Lyons, or
of any advances of cash by Casaubon towards the cost
of printing.
11 Ep. 550. 12 Goldasti epp. p. 156.
Q
226 PARIS. 16001610. .
Casaubon had applied, through the chancellor Sillery,
for permission to dedicate to the king. Bruslart de
Sillery, who had recently become chancellor, 1607, had
known Casaubon many years before at Geneva, when on
a diplomatic mission to Switzerland. Like some others
of ' the court/ he was not without his share of letters,
and Casaubon had brought out liis Theophrastus in
1592 under his patronage. But his interests were
now entirely gone into making his political career,
and if he patronised Casaubon on this occasion, jealousy
of Sully had probably more to do with it, than favour
to the book 13 . However, the chancellor obtained the
permission, which was given in a way which seemed to
intimate that the dedication would be more acceptable
from a catholic 14 . The king's name was an adver-
tisement, and it was the interest both of editor and
printer that it should figure on the title-page 15 .
Next came the business of presenting copies, hand-
somely bound, the binding at the author's cost. This
was often a heavy tax ; Casaubon, with his many great
friends, had to give away fifty-five copies of Polybiiis.
The tax on time was heavy too, as many of these had
to be offered in person. The first copy was for the
chancellor, who had obtained the permission, and who
now undertook to bespeak a favourable moment for
the presentation of the royal copy. On a day ap-
13 Casaubon acknowledges that de Sillery had always stood hi
friend. Ep. 934 : ' Dominum cancellarium, cujus unius ope atqu
auctoritate reculas meas isthic stare nullus dubito.'
14 Eph. p. 651: 'Vocatus ad prandium hodie a cancellario Fr.
(Francise) D. Silerio nonnulla cum spe sum reversus, fore ut Polybius
noster regi sit acceptus. sed ego artes aulicorum novi.' -
15 Eph. 474 : ' Hie fructus nostrarum vigiliarum, quas postquam in
lucem emisimus, ingens occurrit numerus eorum quibus necessario clandi
sint.'
PARIS. 1600 1610.
227
pointed. Casaubon attends at the Tuileries. The hour
is not propitious ; he is desired to come again, or better,
to Fontainebleau, where royalty has more leisure. He
waits a fortnight, and goes out to Fontainebleau,
carrying his folio. His own reception was, as always,
gracious ; but 16 * my work was received, as it was to
be expected it would, by one who is absolutely illiterate/
The chancellor, who had repeatedly promised to explain
to Henri what the business was, had, of course, for-
gotten all about it. Casaubon' s elaborate compliments in
the preface were thrown away. In vain he had reminded
Henri ' of what you once told me yourself, Sire, that
you had, when a child, translated the whole of Coesar's
Commentaries into french, for your preceptor Florent
Chrestien/ He returned from Fontainebleau disgusted
with courts, angry with himself for his dedication,
laughing a bitter laugh at the folly of it all. How-
ever, after he was gone, some one, perhaps Sillery,
made the king understand, not the latin preface, but
his obligation as dedicatee. When La Boderie, am-
bassador at S. James', was asked 17< if Henri iv. would
receive a copy of James I's " Apologia pro juramento,"
he discreetly answered that his master would doubtless
receive it, but he would not answer for his reading
it/ That Henri would read a line of Casaubon's elabo-
rate preface, is not to be supposed. But he could
understand that a poor scholar, with a host of children,
had embarked all his time and learning for many
years in the present now laid at his feet. A few days
afterwards Casaubon was surprised by a call from a
maltre de requetes, one de Gourges, who was great in
the business of conversions, and hung much about
16 Eph. p. 693 : 'Qui literarum est reAe'cos rudis.'
17 Fortescue Papers, Camden Society, p. 4, note.
Q 2
228 'PARIS. 1600 1610.
Casaubon with this view. On this occasion it was
not Casaubon's soul he came to save, but a thousand
crowns he brought and this not in a paper order, which
might have been subject to a heavy discount, but so
many hard gold pieces in a bag.
The entry in the diasy 18 lets us see that acceptable
as the money was, the appreciation pleased much more.
The present was handsome ; too much for a huguenot.
But then Henri had just given 100000 crowns to the
Jesuits of La Fleche to finish their chapel with. And
1000 crowns, after all, was about half what he had once
paid for an embroidered handkerchief for Gabrielle.
What of literary appreciation might be in store for
the Polybius must come from abroad. In Paris it
passed unheeded. In the university of Paris there was
no one who could distinguish greek of Casaubon from
greek of Morel or Fronto le Due. Lestoile, who col-
lected all the pamphlets and squibs of the day, and
gives us title and cost of each, makes no mention of
Casaubon's publication, though he had evidently seen
the book, and been reading it, as he quotes from it,
under September 7, two passages, one of which he finds
very applicable to Sully, whom he detested. In 1607,
William Becher sends Camden 19 ,< among other Paris
gossip, the news that ' Mons r . Casaubon hath two pieces
coming forth, but neither of them yet finished, Poly-
bius, and another, " De libertate ecclesiastica," ' adding
that of the latter w ' there is great expectation/
During the four years' work on Polybius, we have
a renewal of the same mental symptoms and conditions
as were brought out by the Athenseus. At one time
18 Eph. 696 : ' Non sine honore yerborum.'
19 Camdeni Epp. ep. 65.
20 See above, p. 219.
PARIS. 16001610. 229
jrish intensity of application, impatient of any inter-
ruption ; at another disgust at the self-imposed task,
and wish to be reading Christian literature. There are
times when, as he tells Eitterhusius 21 , he is ' thankful
to be compelled by his engagement to busy himself in
his task, that he may shut out the many sorrows and
vexations of his life/ His shrinking from intrusion and
hindrance amounts to an indifference to external events,
an indifference which grows upon him. Then physical
fatigue, the amount of mere mechanical labour attend-
ant on the production of a thick folio, the irregularity
of the printers, the workmen one while taking un-
reasonable holiday, ' improbe luxuriantur ; ' at another,
pressing for copy till he has to send each sentence of
translation to press as fast as it is made, * ut quasque
periodus erat versa/ break him down momentarily, and
he longs to be quit of it. No sooner is he quit than he
begins again. He allows the booksellers to extort from
him 22 promises to revise for second editions his ' Theo-
phrastus ' and his ' Suetonius.' As soon as these are
done he will set about his commentary on Polybius.
Meanwhile, he undertakes to lecture to a class on
Aristotle's Politics.'
Slavish work at the desk, begun sometimes at 3 a.m.,
and worry out of doors, seem at this period to make up
the sum of our author's life. But the picture is not one
of unmitigated gloom. The refrain 23 , ' ego vero vix, ac
ne vix quidem jam aerumnis par sum/ from time to
time gives place to a somewhat more cheerful strain.
The five years, from 1605 to 1610, were, on the whole
for Casaubon as for France, years of prosperity and
!1 Ep. 6 u : ' Juvit me non mediocriter quod per inchoatam
dudum Polybii editionem cessare mihi non licebat.'
22 Ep- 654- 23 Eph. 546-
230 PARIS. 16001610.
comfort, if not of calm. Casaubon's timorous and ap-
prehensive spirit occasionally feels these influences.
Halcyon days of repose otium he calls them once or
twice 23 , but adds characteristically, that this repose
* has a suspiciousness about it when he thinks of his
sins/ But this repose otium means for him not the
dreamy slippered ease of the literateur of academy
days, but sustained and fagging drudgery. Many a
day the only entry in the diary is, ' My daily task,
thanks be to God 24 / The amount of labour, mental
and mechanical, which is intimated by this short phrase,
must be estimated by reference to his printed books,
and to the still extant Adversaria, from which his
books proceeded.
Rare were the occasions on which he allowed him-
self relaxation. In 1603 he took a couple of months,
May and June, for a visit to his mother and friends in
the south, and at Geneva. Madame Casaubon accom-
panied him, making the journey on horseback, except
the last stage from Dijon to Paris, when she took the
coach. The rate of travelling by this conveyance may
be inferred from the fact that Casaubon, who was on
horseback, arrived at home some hours before the
coach 25 .
A retirement into country shades from Paris glare
and dust was as necessary then as since. Casaubon
was occasionally invited to pass a few days at de Thou's
country house at Villebonne, the retreat of the learned
and the wise, as his hotel in Paris was their gathering
place 26 . Such visits might not be all holiday. On
23 Eph. pp. 447. 545. 24 ra eyKVKXia 6fo> x<*P ts '
25 Eph. 504.
26 Eph. 441 : 'Diem egimus in hoc amoenissimo praetorio, et sua-
one of 1
PARIS. 16001610. 231
me of these Bigaltius began his edition of ' Arte-
midorus,' and found the genius loci, or the society of de
Thou, a great aid 27 . On another occasion Casaubon is
obliged to put off his visit for a week by the physician,
who is bleeding him. And he regrets it because ' I had
already in imagination devoured one or two books in
your library, which I had decided on reading at Ville-
bonne 28 / At another time Casaubon makes a party to
visit the palace, new and old, at S. Germain's 29 ; not,
however, without a groan at the loss of time, and a
prayer that as much as he came short in learning* so
much he might profit in piety ! These were rare in-
dulgences, once or twice in the season. By-and-bye he
seeks to secure a pied-a-terre for himself. First at
Madrid, in the Bois, where a few houses had grown
round the summer-house built by Francis i. after his
captivity in Spain. Henri iv. did not much affect
Madrid. But on one occasion his restless roaming
brought him thither, on a day, August 22, 1601, when
Casaubon happened to be there. The Persian etiquette
of the i/th century, which separated prince and sub-
ject, did not yet exist. Henri immediately took Cas-
aubon into his company, and showed him over the
rooms in the chateau, talking all the while most
seriously on religious subjects 30 .
In 1606 came the year of the plague, and consequent
vissimis de literis sermonibus, aut ambulationibus cum magno Thuano,
uxore mea, aut aliis amicis.'
' 2r Artemidorus TUgaltii, 1603. prsef. : 'Quum una tecum essem in
Villabonio tuo, ne amcenissima rusticatione abuti viderer . , .'
28 MSS. bibl. nat. collection Dupuy, 708. Cas. to de Thou, without
date, but probably 1609: 'Jam spe certa devoraveram unum aut
alterum librum quern isthic legere constitueram.'
!9 Eph. 302. 80 Eph. 367 : ' Graves de pietate sermones.'
232 PARIS. 16001610.
panic, when all who could rushed from the city. Cas-
aubon at first resolved to stay by his work and the
library. Indeed, Lestoile affirms 31 that the alarm was
greater than the danger; that the death-rate of Paris
in ordinary times was eight per day, and this was not
increased by the pestilence. And Casaubon thinks 32
that the hard winter of 1607-8 carried off more than
the plague of 1606 had done. He complains of the
want of sanitary police in Paris, the nurses from the
hospitals walking about the streets in broad day with-
out' so much as warning those they met to keep their
distance, a thing which would not have been tolerated
in Lyons. When his own friends and neighbours began
to die off, he thought it prudent to withdraw to a
greater distance than Madrid. The place he selected
was La Bretonniere, eight leagues from Paris, in the
neighbourhood of Chartres. The following summer
was one of excessive heat, succeeded by a winter of
great severity 33 . He now accepted from his friend
Mercier des Bordes a refuge on his estate at Grigny,
on the Seine above Paris. Besides the convenience of
water conveyance for the distance of five leagues, it
was near Hablon, and the chateau of des Bordes had
itself the right of exercise of the reformed worship 34 .
This gite Casaubon retained to the end of his life, even
after his removal to England.
Attendance on the public ordinances of his sect was
not to Casaubon an irksome duty which he discharged
with reluctance, it was a delight and a solace. He well
understood that to read Chrysostom in his study was
31 Eegistre-journal, p. 409. 32 Ep. 593.
33 Dan. Chamier, Journal, p. 64.
34 Undei; the Edict, the assembly for this purpose in the manoirs of
lords, not being hauts justiciers, must not exceed thirty persons.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 233
ore edifying than most of what was to be heard in
a sermon. But the congregational sentiment, powerful
at all times, becomes an urgent necessity to a down-
trodden sect, writhing under the insults of a wealthy and
arrogant church. Avaricious, as we have seen, of his
hours and minutes, Casaubon never grudges the whole
day which his journey to Hablon or Charenton con-
sumed. He goes, not regularly, it was impossible, but
whenever he can. He records a regret whenever he is
prevented from going. This, indeed, happens often ;
no wonder, when we remember his multiplied engage-
ments in a dependent position, and the preparation
required to face the distance and the bad weather so
common in the fickle climate of Paris. For four years
of his residence there, 1601-1606, the place of meeting
for the protestants of the capital was at Hablon, ten miles
distant from the centre of the city. The Parisians who,
says Lestoile, ' would think it less wicked to enter a
brothel than a protestant meeting-house/ could not en-
dure heresy nearer. Hablon was on the Seine, and the
journey to and fro was made, when the state of the
water permitted, in a towbarge. At other times Cas-
aubon must walk both ways, unless he could get a
seat 'in the carriage of some rich coreligionist the
Arnalds or Du Plessis Mornay. The diary abounds
in entries which relate to the pains and pleasures of
these Sunday expeditions.
'March 3, 1602. To-day, self, wife, daughter, and
some of our household got to Hablon, and though we
suffered much from the bitter wind, we returned safe
and sound/
'March 24, 1602. Set off, self, wife, and Philippa
for Hablon. But on getting down to the quay, found
that the boat was already full three times over/
234 PARIS. 1600 1610.
'May 13, 1602. Went down to the quay, but the
boat could not start as the wind was too high/
' December 29, 1602. The service to-day was longer
than usual. I was returning ]ate in the carriage of
two noble ladies, Madame de Cricebant, and Madame
de Mantaleon, when the coachman lost the way in the
dark. One of the horses got into the river, and was
with difficulty got out, half drowned. It was a mercy
we were not all lost/
'December 24, 1607. The fatigue of yesterday (walk-
ing both ways to Charenton) prevented me from doing
anything all day/
'January 6, 1608. My wife was to have gone to
Charenton to-day in the carriage of the ladies Arnald.
But finding the cold too severe, she arranged that
I should take her seat. We set off, but could not
go very far ; the icy cutting wind made it impracticable
for the horses to move against it/
' November 8, 1609. The church throughout France
keeps its fast to-day. We went and heard three sermons,
from Du Moulin, Le Faucheur, and Durand, discourses
adapted to the occasion with wonderful skill and piety.
I was so moved, that I was hardly master of myself.
Both myself and my wife forgetting the miseries we had
gone through in the morning in a wretched little barge,
prayed God that he would grant us more such days/
On one of these expeditions he was in very great
danger. We relate the incident in his own words
he tells it twice, once in a letter to Scaliger 35 and in
the diary under date,
'August 20, 1608. We set off for Charenton, my
wife, John, Meric, and my sister. When we got down j
to the quay, though it had not yet struck seven, we i
39 Ep. 706.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 235
the boats gone except a wretched wherry,
without any awning. After some hesitation, we got
into it, as we did not wish to lose our service. We had
got half way, when, by some mismanagement, a heavy
barge, towed by two horses, ran into us astern. John
and Meric and my sister scrambled into the barge. I
looked round for my wife, and saw her faint with
terror, fallen into the Seine with half her body, the rest
in the wherry, which began to fill. With a sudden
exertion of all my forces, physical and moral, I got her
within reach of the people in the barge, who pulled her
in. In doing this, I had let go my hold on the larger
boat, and was nearly lost myself, if my wife's cries had
not called the others to my succour. The only loss I
sustained in the accident was my book of psalms my
greek testament I recovered ah 1 wet out of the water.
The psalm-book was precious to me, as I had presented
it on our marriage to my dear wife, and had used it con-
tinually for two-and-twenty years. I did not find it
out till we began to sing in the temple, and I put my
hand into my pocket, and it was gone. By a sin-
gular coincidence the psalm was 86 : " Tirant ma vie
du bord Du bas tombeau de la mort." We had been
singing, I and my wife, on board the boat, as we usually
do, and had just arrived at the seventh verse of the
92nd psalm when the collision took place. I could
not but remember that place of S. Ambrose, where he
says .... that " this is the peculiarity of the book of
Psalms, that every one can use its words as if they
were peculiarly and individually his own."
We may imagine what must have been the suffer-
ings of the women and the delicate, we hear of
infants dying on their way to baptism. As long 'as
only poor huguenots endured these hardships, they
236 PARIS. 16001610.
might have continued unrelieved. But two men, who
still retained influence at court, happened to be of the
persecuted sect, Sully and de Calignon. By their in-
fluence an edict was obtained removing the place of
exercise to Charenton S.- Maurice, distant only two
miles, and also on the Seine, the temple being close to
the landing-place of the boats. Nearer than this it
was not safe to bring the place of exercise. But some-
times the duchess of Bar came to court and braved
her brother's displeasure by having la preche in her
lodging. At times there was a French sermon 36 at the
English embassy, and on all such occasions Casaubon
gladly embraces the opportunity of attending.
That his public communion with his church was a sen-
timent which lay near Casaubon' s heart is more surely
proved by the large part it occupies in his thoughts,
and the sacrifices of time he ungrudgingly makes to it,
than by any overt assurances he utters. Indeed the
impediments to the free exercise of his culte, and the
desire to taste its unrestricted enjoyment, had no small
share among the motives which made him seek removal
from Paris. In 1601 he wrote to Heraldus 37 , 'Both
my wife and myself are impatient under the famine of
the word of God, which we endure here. It is seldom
and with much difficulty that we can get out to
Hablon. We have not been accustomed to this de-
privation/ The desire had not abated in 1607, though
Casaubon' s ideas had undergone considerable enlarge-
ment in the interval, and his calvinistic prejudices were
being supplanted by a church ideal founded on the
fathers of the fourth century.
Besides the deprivation of the ordinances of religion,
there were other reasons why a protestant, and a pen-
38 Eph. 597. 3T Ep. 1023.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 237
sioner of the court, should feel his position in Paris
precarious. The animus of the lower populace towards
the calvinists was not changed since the Bartholomew,
it was only lulled to sleep. The pays latin, the
students, the swarms of fanatical friars and monks,
which the countless convents harboured, were no less
ready for a bloody fray than they had ever been.
On Sunday, September 18, i6o5 38 , a .placard was
found posted up at the gate Saint Victor, summoning
the scholars (they had ceased to be called clercs) to
assemble after dinner on the banks of the Seine with
clubs and arms, ' pour la s'opposer aux insolences de la
maudite sect huguenote et abloniste.' The police was
strong enough to prevent worse consequences on this
occasion than a single assassination. But the ' vaches a
Colas ' (this was the slang designation of the hu-
guenots) had an intimation on this, and on one or
two other like occasions, of the volcano that was-
sleeping below.
The violence of the mob was uncertain and re-
strained by the government ; the gradual undermining
of the legal liberties secured to the protestants was
allowed and encouraged. Henri had undertaken to the
pope, Clement vin, so to manipulate ' the edict which
I have published for the tranquillity of my kingdom
that its solid results shall be in favour of the catholic
religion/ He kept his promise. The system, which went
on till it culminated in the revocation of the edict, may be
said to have commenced from its first publication, 1598.
To worry the protestants became the occupation of
every bishop throughout France. To interpret the edict
always in favour of the catholic suitor was the rule for
38 Lestoile, Reg.-journ. siippl. p. 388.
238 PARIS. 1600 1610
every court of justice. To goad them into revolt, and
then to crush them with armed hand, was the policy of
every civil governor who sought to recommend himself
to authority. The clergy never met in their annual
assemblies without lodging gravamina of the * insolence '
of the heretics, and extorting from the crown an en-
largement of their own privileges, which was always
stated pro forma, to be * without prejudice to the
edict.'
Still, as long as Henri lived, no general attempt to
upset the edict was to be apprehended. In 1605,
Casaubon was greatly alarmed at the turn things were
taking, and had almost made up his mind to leave.
Scaliger writes back 39 that gloomy as the prospect was
for the future, he saw no reason for thinking the danger
was immediate. That even if Casaubon was resolved
upon departure, he could not do so without permission
obtained from the king, and that whether the permis-
sion were granted or not, the having asked it would be
equally an offence.
Looking to the sources of the troubles and annoy-
ances which beset Casaubon during his Parisian period,
creating in him the constant desire to get away, they
are found to be very various, and some of them such
as change of place could not have remedied.
i. The discomforts and perils attending the practices
of the reformed culte have been already noticed. But
the religious difficulty was by no means confined to
these occasions. The efforts to convert him occasionally
intermitted, but only to revive again with fresh vigour,
and in a more overbearing tone. His resistance was
resented. His obstinacy in heresy was ascribed to
moral defects ; he was charged with ingratitude to-
39 Seal. epp. p. 293.
PAMIS. 1600 1610. 239
wards a benefactor. It was plainly insinuated that the
king had by his favours bought his religion, and that
as the price had been paid, it was now quite time that
the article should be delivered. When the manage-
ment of this difficult case was handed over to Du
Perron, it took, as we have seen, a different turn. The
vulgar means of suasion were replaced by learned
argument. The former kind of appeal could be met by
blank refusal ; argument must be encountered by ar-
gument, citation by counter citation. Hence a grievous
expenditure of precious time in preparation, in resisting
an assault sure to be renewed on the next occasion.
' Loth I am, my God is witness, to waste my time in
this kind of disputation. It is not my fauJt. I am
compelled by necessity to undergo it, though I take
care to let them know how immovable I am in matter
of religion.' The siege laid to his religious convictions
had begun with his removal to Paris. It had abated
nothing of its vigour in the last year of his residence,
1609-10. The pages of the diary are full of such
entries as the -following :
' March 6. Several hours to day with the cardinal.
He sent for me in the king's name, and I went, though
most unwillingly. We had much and serious talk of
religion/
' December 10. To-day with cardinal Du Perron, and
long talk of religion.'
'December n. Again to-day, a severe encounter
with the cardinal.'
* December 21. wretched life ! cannot they let me
alone, but must make it their business to pry into
my faith. This is what makes my life a burden!
What folly to try to persuade me that their church
cannot err ! '
240 PARIS. 1600 1610.
'December 22. With cardinal Perron to-day, having
been repeatedly sent for by him.'
' December 28. To-day with cardinal Perron. He is
really great. Would that he may always be a de-
fender of sound learning ! '
The catastrophe of May 14, 1610, suspended, but
only for a time, the persevering attempts of the cardinal.
Du Perron now renewed the bait, offered years before,
of a professor's chair in the university, and the per-
secution was only broken off 40 by Casaubon's de-
parture from Paris. Rosweyd asserted, and no doubt
believed, ' that Casaubon, convinced by the weight of
Du Perron's logic, had given a promise to abjure
at Whitsuntide. That the death of the king alone
interfered with the execution of the promise, causing
a panic among the calvinists as if S. Bartholomew
was to be repeated, and inducing Casaubon to with-
draw for safety to England/
Baffled by Casaubon himself, the convertisseurs had
turned their attention to Madame Casaubon. Here,
however, they could get no prize of any kind. Simple
Genevan detestation of popery was impenetrable. They
tried the daughter, Philippa. From this cherished
daughter the father did not conceal his most secret
thoughts.
He subjected her to a trial which we might hardly have
thought justifiable, but that he considered it a duty to
let her understand how her worldly interest was in-
volved in her creed. He explained to her the temporal
advantages which he could secure for her if she became
a convert. He told her ' that she was penniless ;
that after the wreck of his patrimony, he could give
her no portion at which any respectable Parisian bour-
40 Rosweyd, Lex Talionis, ap. Meric, Pietas, p. 85.
PARIS. 16001610. 241
geois would look ; that he anxiously desired to see her
well married ; that the only hope of this was in the royal
bounty, which could only be obtained by conforming/
This was. indeed to put his child to a hard trial.
But it was with a thrill of delight that the father
heard the temptation, not only overcome, but indig-
nantly spurned by the generous girl. ' It was wicked/
she said, * even to deliberate on such a choice. She
was prepared to take up her cross, and follow Christ
even to her last breath ; if her father could leave
her nothing, God would provide for her; she would
work, and could live upon a very little/ God did pro-
vide for her ; she was removed from this world at the
age of nineteen.
With the eldest son, John, they had more success.
A* little controversy backed by a promise of a pen-
sion of 200 crowns, but more, perhaps, the spirit of
the time and place, and the example of those about
him, carried him over in August 1610. The blow
fell heavily on Isaac at a period of general calamity.
After Isaac's death, the conversion of his son was
exploite by the flemish Jesuit, Hosweyd, as evidence
of the father's catholic leanings. Rosweyd roundly
asserted 41 that John had been placed under a scotch
Jesuit, George Strahan, ostensibly as mathematical
tutor, but with secret instructions to draw him in-
sensibly over to the catholic religion. With refer-
ence to this charge, Lancelot Andrewes, bishop of
Winchester, told Meric 43 that he had himself ques-
tioned John Casaubon on the subject. John had then
made the following declaration : l As to the step I took
in changing my religion, I am obliged by my con-
science to clear my father before God and men of
11 Kosweyd, Lex Talionis, praef. 42 Meric, Pietas, p. 87.
R
242 PARIS. 1600 1610.
all cognizance of the act. It was wholly my own
act, I did not consult him/ But the diary here is
the best evidence, and evinces how untrustworthy is
the gossip of the Jesuit colleges, which Rosweyd cre-
dulously states as fact. Isaac was informed of his son's
perversion Aug. 14, 1610, and the entry on that day is
one mixed of anguish and wrath ; bitter ejaculations
against the generation of vipers who have compassed
this treachery against him, and entangled in their
controversial net a youth wholly ignorant of theology.
Besides John, a nephew of Madame Casaubon, An-
toine Estienne, son of Paul, was received into the church
by cardinal Du Perron, who rewarded him by making
him publisher of his own popular writings.
2. Casaubon's dependence on the court was, in other
ways than that of being regarded as an unfulfilled bar-
gain, a source of constant discomfort to him. Later in
the century, under Louis x-iv, pensions were the fashion,
and a literary man could accept one from a sovereign
without any sense of humiliation, even with pride at
being distinguished. And as Casaubon fairly earned his
salary at the library, he had nothing to feel on this
score. On the other hand, there was as yet no public
service. All employe's were the servants of the
monarch. The librarian was so in an especial manner.
It was 'the king's library/ and he was 'king's li-
brarian/ He belonged to the court, and had his
share in the obligations which the court imposed on
all within its circle. There was no humiliation, but
also there was no independence. Life then was a
system of dependence. The roturier placeman was
dependent on the favour of the noble ; the lesser
noble on ' les grands ; ' the great noble himself,
though not, at this period, so entirely as at a later
PARIS. 1600 1610. 243
ime, upon the king. The lowliness of Casaubon's
situation, and the paltriness of his pay, only made
the ownership more unmistakable. A man who sells
himself so cheap must be supposed to have sold
himself on servile conditions to have made himself
over, body and soul. A mistress purchased almost at
her weight in crown pieces, may bear herself proudly,
and repel her royal lover with insolent disdain. The
poet or the scholar, to whom a pitiful sum is
grudgingly doled out, may not think, speak, or
write his own thoughts. Write against Baronius !
No, the pope does not allow it. Edit a greek father !
That is not for such as you. Even what he received,
Casaubon had not the consolation of believing to be
given as recognition of learning. His literary emi-
nence had no other value in the eyes of the Bdarnais
roue, but as it made him worth buying as a convert.
3. Another crook in his lot was connected with
his religion, in the personal share he began to have
in the system of public defamation set on foot at
this time by the Jesuits. Casaubon was named, but
only named, not pilloried, in the ( Amphitheatrum '
(1605). The order went round that he was to be
spared in print, because there were hopes of him.
But he was to be threatened, and might be talked
against. They sent him, from their libel-manu-
factory at Maintz, a title-page of a book which they
professed to have in the press against him 43 . It
went no further at present than letting him know
that Scioppius, at Eome, spoke of him as Thraso and
atheist. Casaubon says of this in a letter 44 to Chessel
| (Caselius) at Helmstadt : ' There is, I believe, no-
j thing of Thraso in my writings ; and if I were an
43 Ep. 555. Ep. 516.
R 2
244 PARIS. 16001610.
atheist, I should now be at Borne, whither I have
been often invited. I am resolved to make no reply
to the snarlings of such a cur/ When Henri iv.
expressed his displeasure for the book he was writing
' against the pope/ Casaubon alleged, in his own
defence 45 , that 'for the- space of three years last past,
they have been describing me as a wicked atheist,
as prodigiously ignorant, and are now engaged in
compiling a special book against me, full of scurrility/
It is observable that these brutalities did not
emanate from France or from the french Jesuits.
Twenty years before, the furious preachers of the
league had vented enough of foul language. But
literary controversy in France, even when most bitter,
has on the whole been creditably decorous. It has
often been cruel and insolent, but it has not known
the depths of degradation in which the German-
Jesuit pamphlets of this period, compounds of the
beerhouse, the cloister, and the brothel, are steeped.
Scaliger expostulates 46 with Marc Welser, an Augs-
burg catholic, on this ground. 'It is Germany, look
you, Germany, once the mother of learning and
learned men, that is now turning the service of letters
into brigandage. My France produces none of these
foul scurrilities. From your presses it is that the poi-
sonous matter comes forth. Antwerp, you will say;
but Antwerp only reprints what you produce. The
wretch (Scioppius) has no other motive for assailing
Casaubon, than mortification at his surpassing merit.
45 E P . 557-
46 Seal. epp. p. 406 : ' Vestra Germania, mi Velsere, quse tot eru-
dites olim viros protulit, solum hoc spectare videtur, ut nulla alia
gens sanctissimum litterarum ministerium in latrocinium convertisse
videatur. ilia sane portenta mea Gallia non producit.'
PARIS. 16001610. 245
It is Casaubons superiority that will not allow them
to rest. They bark whenever they hear his name,
and I would take my oath that they can't understand
the tenth part of what he writes/
Though Casaubon was spared for the moment, yet
he was only on good behaviour, and was under the
surveillance of the bandits. He could not, too, but
share keenly in the pain inflicted upon. his honoured
friend and master. He gave Scaliger all the sym-
pathy and affection it was possible to give under his
trial. Good men everywhere, even among the Pari-
sian catholics, disapproved the ' Amphitheatrum/ but
not as emphatically as they ought to have done.
Scaliger was bespattered with dirt, and though the
hand that threw it was the hand of a scoundrel, they
were not quite sorry it was done. It was the in-
terest of the church that the credit of the huguenot
critic should be lowered. Few felt, as Casaubon felt,
that learning itself was insulted and outraged in the
person of Scaliger. Casaubon's personal share might
be less than Scaliger's. But to both of them it was
a bitter disillusion to find that knowledge which they
had devoted life to acquire, was the unpardonable
crime which drew down upon them an overwhelming
load of slander and abuse.
4. But it was not only on the side of catholics that
Casaubon had to endure much misrepresentation. His
own co-religionaries were not a little troublesome to
him. In their anxiety for his steadfastness, they beset
him with exhortation, remonstrance, or objurgation,
according as the fears or hopes of the writer pre-
dominated at the moment. In 1601, he had found it
advisable, as we have seen, to give a public assurance
of his attachment to his principles, in a letter to the
246 PARIS. 16001610.
synod of Gergeau. This served for a time. But the
reports gathered head again, from time to time, and
not unnaturally. When his conversion was so repeat-
edly announced as a fact by the catholic party, it could
not but acquire some credit among the protestants,
especially at a distance. In 1604, when Gillot re-
turned to Paris from Poitou 47 , he found the colporteurs
in the streets crying a broadside, ' The conversion of
M. Ca^aubon/ and people ' talking ' of nothing else.
But it was in 1610 that the report acquired fresh con-
sistency. CasauJ^on had recently received a severe
injury, as he conceived, at the hands of the autho-
rities of Geneva. He did not scruple to go about
using strong language in condemnation of their be-
haviour to him. He was closeted, day after day,
with cardinal Du t Perron. Offers of promotion were
made him. In his disputes with the cardinal he gave
up much of the ground which the calvinist polemics
were accustomed to maintain ; and it was becoming
known that he disapproved the neglect or contempt
of Christian antiquity which the calvinist doctors pro-
fessed. Especially on the eucharist, he did not con-
ceal that the doctrine of the catholics was nearer, than
that of the calvinist churches, to what he conceived to
be the opinion of the ancient church. We find him
admitting to his friends that * there were many weak
points in the protestant system ;' that the writings
of the fathers were often ' strongly forced to get from
them a sense favourable to the protestant view ;' that
Du Moulin' s position that, ' Scripture is so plain that
it needs no interpreter/ is false and dangerous. We
can imagine that his appearances at the Temple of
Charenton, often far between, were narrowly watched,
47 Ep. fran9aises, p. 419.
and what
PARIS. 16001610. 247
and what a scandal must have been created, when the
man, who a few years before thought it a sin to be
present at mass, now heard (on passion Sunday 1610)
a papist preach, and could approve much not by any
means all he said.
I The ground now taken up by Casaubon was, in
ality, much firmer than that he had occupied before,
asmuch as it was one of knowledge. Some few of
the best men of the party fully understood this, e.g.
Du Plessis Mornay writes 48 to Erpenius, January, 1611,
' 1 have never, as you know, believed that he would
draw near to Eome/ But the calvinist public could
not know this ; what they did know was, that he no
longer shared all their ideas and sentiments. This
was quite enough to make him an object of suspicion,
at least, to his own party, a party heated by a sense of
defeat, and kept in a perpetual state of nervous appre-
hension by continued injustice and encroachment. The
eyes of all the reformed congregations throughout
France were on Casaubon ; they were watching his
every movement with disquietude, and were agitated
with reports of his backsliding.
It would have calmed their apprehensions if the
pastors of his own church, the church of Paris, could
have given him a certificate of orthodoxy. But un-
fortunately the leading minister at this period, Pierre
Du Moulin, had grievances of his own against this
illustrious member of his flock, whose reputation threw
his own into the shade. Du Moulin was a zealous
religionist, who had given up a secure and honourable
position at Leyden, for the illrewarded and battered
life of minister in his native country. Fond of dispute,
and vain of his powers, he spent his life in discussion
48 Mem. et corresp. de Duplessis-Mornay, n. 143.
248 PARIS. 16001610.
and controversies, or in writing attacks and answers.
A man who maintained so much, and so dogmatically,
was naturally obliged to be content sometimes with
weak, sometimes with false, arguments. Casaubon, who
had to hear his learned displays before his wondering
and obedient flock at Charenton, could not help at
times throwing out hints of the insufficiency of his
glib references to the fathers, or regrets at the levity
with which Christian antiquity was set aside. He read
Du Moulin's pamphlets, and on the margin of one of
these, the * Defence of King James' confession of faith/
had marked a few of the writer's errors. This copy had
been seen by some mutual friends, and Du Moulin
called on Casaubon and insisted on having it. Casaubon
gave it up, begging him to take his notes in good part.
This was just before Casaubon's departure from Paris,
but it was the climax of a condition of distant relations
between the straying sheep and his spiritual shepherd.
That Casaubon had not the least thought of quitting
the communion of his church because the minister who
preached to him was one of the half-learned, is evident
from his whole mental attitude at this time. One
passage of the diary may be quoted which bears on
this subject. He enters, September 5, 1610 : 'Com-
municated, and heard the learned sermon of Du Moulin.
I cannot indeed deny that the ancients thought very
differently of this sacred mystery, and administered it
otherwise. I could wish that we had not departed so
far from either their faith or their ritual. But inas-
much as neither that faith nor that ritual rests upon
the explicit word of God, and I am but a private
individual whose duty it is to follow, and not to lead
in the church, I have no just ground for making any
change myself; least of all so at a time when every
PARIS. 16001610. 249
ibrt is being made to establish all the superstitious
figments which ages have accumulated.'
To be looked on coldly by the calvinistic Du Moulin
was enough to increase the suspicions afloat of Casau-
bon's unsoundness in the reformed faith. He added to
this another error, that of being in friendly relations
with theologians of a freer cast of doctrine. Neither
Daniel Tilenus, nor John Uytenbogaert -could be ac-
cused of inclining to popery ; but their sentiments
were felt to be not altogether those of the old fashioned
calvinistic school. The new Arminian protestantism
which was in the next twenty years to play such a
part in Holland and England, had not been taken up
in France, where the reformed churches were too severly
pressed upon by the catholics. But it had been heard
of, and Uytenbogaert was already (1610) in ill odour
with orthodox calvinists 49 . With Uytenbogaert, Casau-
bon only became acquainted in the last year of his
Paris residence, when he attended the embassy which
came in the spring of 1610 from the States General to
Henri iv. Casaubon heard the remonstrant champion
preach, with approbation 60 . They had together a long
conference on theological topics. Of this conference
no mention is found in the diary. But notes of it
were taken by Uytenbogaert at the time, and though
it must be read with the latitude required as con-
versation reported from memory, it is valuable evidence
of Casaubon's sentiments at the period (1610). It is
therefore given entire (from Epp. ecclesiasticse (1704),
p. 250).
19 Daersen writes to Uytenbogaert, in 1610, epp. eccles. p. 245:
' Vostre nom n'est pas peu descri en plusieurs endroits de ce royaume
... la France qui est la plus inquiete en pareilles matieres . . .'
50 Eph. p. 736.
250 PARIS. 16001610.
' Cas. Je suis fils d'un ministre. Les ministres
point a leur aise pour maintenant.
Uyt. II cuidoit estre brusle a Bourdeaux.
Cas. Dieu a voulu que je viensse icy, depuis ceux
de Geneve m'ont fait la plus grande iniquite du monde.
Les papist es pensoyent a cette occasion se prevaloir de
moy ; me solliciterent fort, meme le roy. Je luy dis
que je le suppliois ne me faire rien faire contre ma
conscience ; qu'il en feroit un hypocrite. II dit qu'il
ne voulust pas que je changeasse de religion, mais que
je conservasse. Depuis je suis ete fort attaque, nom-
mement de M. Du Perron, qui a la verite est fulmen
nominis ; car comme je suis bibliothecaire du roy,
quand il vient en la bibliotheque, les occasions ne luy
manquent point. J'ay subsisted jusques ores, graces
a Dieu ; mais il faut que cependant je vous confesse
qu'il m'a donne beaucoup de scrupules, qui me restent,
et ausquels je ne s^ay pas bien respondre ; il me fasche
de rougir. L'eschappade que je prens est, que je n'y
puis respondre, mais que j'y penseray.
Je confesse que je ne puis approuver le concile de
Trente, en ce qu'il a deer ete touchant les livres apo-
cryphes ; c'est chose abominable, car ce sont des fables ;
id pour la translation latine ; c'est chose abominable.
La tyrannic aussi du pape est intolerable. Et pour ]e
fait des images, ainsi comme cela maintenant est en
usage, c'est un abus trop manifeste, et tout plein d'autres
choses. Mais il fault, monsieur, que je vous confesse,
qu'il y en a d'autres que me mettent en peine, quand
je considere ceste venerable antiquite. Pour nostre
police ecclesiastique, elle ne me semble pas accorder
avec 1' antiquite.
Uyt. Icy je consens.
Addit. Que M. de Beze luy avoit dit, que M. Calvin,
yoyant les
PARIS. 1600 1610. 251
yant les abus de 1'eglise Romaine en cest endroit,
avoit racle cela ; mais qu'en effet M. Calvin estoit
evesque de Geneve, et que peu devant son trespas, il
en avoit nomme de Beze, qui n'en voulut point. Un jour
M. de Beze avoit fait un preche oii il avoit exhorte le
magistrat de son debvoir sur quelque proces, affin que
justice tint la balance droite. Monsieur de la Faye,
recitant ces propres mots, en avoit preche centre. Moy
m'addressant a M. de Beze, qui en pleuroit de regret,
(c'estoit une ame vrayement chrestienne, qui me dit uii
jour qu'il avoit occasion de demander pardon a Dieu
de ses pe"ches, mais que jamais il n'en demanderoit de
1'ambition ; vice auquel il estoit le moins addonne)
Je luy dis, que s'il avoit la police de 1'antiquite, cela
n'adviendroit pas ; ce que m'advoua. Je luy demandai,
pourquoy done il avoit tant resiste a TAngleterre r ( il ne
respondit rien. 2. Nous n'avons plus de devotion ;
en 1'acte meme de faire la sainte cene, comme nous
allasmes, quelque un me demanda, comment se porte
le coque de vos poules d'Inde ? se dire des injures.
3. Pour les malades porter la cene, cela est dans
1'antiquite. 4. Pour le baptesme, est advenu qu'en
un temps extremement rude quelqu'un portoit son
enfant pour estre baptise a Charenton, Tenfant estant
malade a la mort, on ne voulut pas le baptiser devant"
le preche ; Tenfant mourut, le pere se revolta. 5. Pour
le sacrement, mesmes il est certain, que 1'antiquite
donne a entendre, qu'il y a bien quelque autre chose.
Plessis beaucoup de faussetez. Moulin aussi au 3 chap,
de S. Denis 71-^009 fyopavrov Sapov. 6. Pour la predes-
tination, il est mal aise de ne tirer la consequence,
Deus est author mali. 7. Pour le liberal arbitre,
M. Calvin fait dire a S. Augustin, ce qu'il ne dit pas.
8. Pour les bonnes oeuvres, il y a quelque autre chose
252 PARIS. 1600 1610.
qu'on ce dit ; pour le moins, il les faudroit plus prescher ;
M. Perrot disoit un fois a Geneve, qu'on avoit trop
preche la justification par la seule foy ; il est temps
qu'on parle des oeuvres. 9. Pour la descente aux
enfers, M. Calvin parle trop cruement. Je scay que
M. Calvin a este grand person nage, mais ses disciples
empirent les affaires. II y a un vray Pharisaisme.
M. Goulart un jour taschoit de faire jurer les Institu-
tions de M. Calvin. Je suis en la plus grande peine du
monde. D'un coste et d'autre je suis mal, non obstant
qu'il y a des gens doctes, graces a Dieu, qui m'aiment.'
The rest of the memorandum is in Latin. Casaubon
inquires if Arminius had expressed himself dissatisfied
with the current tenets of the church to which he
belonged \ Uytenbogaert answers : '.He did so, but
his main point was the reunion of Christendom ; and
the basis he projected was, the drawing a line between
fundamentals and non-fundamentals/ Casaubon ex-
claimed, ' O pious intentions !' . . . Here the conversa-
tion was interrupted by the entrance of Reygersberg.
These notes bear internal evidence of their genuine-
ness. The Arminian party valued them for the sake of
giving their views the authority of Casaubon' s name.
We cannot wonder, if this was the style of his conver-
sation, at his becoming a scandal and stumbling-block
to believing calvinists. They afford no evidence of a
disposition to embrace Catholicism, while they suffi-
ciently account for the origin and prevalence of such
a rumour.
Daniel Tilenus, professor of theology at Sedan, had
long been one of his trusted correspondents. It was a
letter to Tilenus which had brought Casaubon into
trouble some years before. In 1602, he had in few
and simple terms expressed his indignation at the tone
PARIS. 1GOO 1610. 253
lopted by Canaye de Fresne, who had no sooner
?one over than he began to indulge in abusive language
of those who did not follow his example. A copy of
the letter was shown to Canaye de Fresne at Venice,
and seems to have stung a conscience, not quite easy
at his act, to fury. He set on the catholic bloodhound,
Scioppius, and made a formal complaint to the king.
This complaint could come to nothing, as there was
really nothing to complain of. In 1 6 1 o, Tilenus is still
the person to whom Casaubon is able best to confide
his misgivings as to the calvinistic system, while at the
same time he reasserts his own steadfastness as against
the inducements held out to him to desert to Rome.
He tells Tilenus 51 that it is quite true that the people
and government of Geneva have done him a great
injury, but not true that he ever thought of abandoning
his religious principles on that account. ' I thank you/
he continues, 'for informing me that such reports are
current. But is it possible that you yourself were
inclined to attach any credence to them 1 Have I
ever shown any particular desire of wealth and honour 1
Have I not had golden fortune knocking at my door,
almost breaking it open, and have I not resisted the
temptation ?
' How then; you will ask, did a report to this effect
originate 1 Let me remind you of the situation in
which I have been placed. For years past I have
scarce had a day free from contests with persons pro-
fessing a different religion. With what freedom, with
what zeal I have spoken on these occasions, God knows.
I never invited these conflicts ; they were always
forced upon me. I was not a theologian, but being
compelled .to give reasons for my opinions, I was
51 Ep. 1023.
254 PARIS. 16001610.
driven to suspend all other studies and to give myself
up to this one. I compared the writings of our friends
and their opponents with the doctrine of the ancient
church. Among the rest I read Bellarmine. On
scripture, tradition, the authority of the old com-
mentators, on the power of the pope, on images, on
indulgences, I could by certain reasons demonstrate all
Bellarmine' s positions to be false. But when I come
to the chapter on the sacraments (though there be also
some things which can be refuted), it is no less clear to
me that the whole of antiquity with one consent is on
the side of our opponents, and that our writers who
have attempted to show that the fathers have held our
views have egregiously wasted their time. The careful
study of the ancients has raised certain scruples in my
mind. About these I would give a kingdom to be able
to consult you, for all I desire is to learn. That I am
staggered by the consent of the whole ancient and
orthodox church I cannot conceal/
When things had gone so far as this, we must
admit that if there was no real foundation, there was at
least some justification, for the alarms of the protestants
and their jealousy that Casaubon was about to desert
them.
5. Other sorrows which attend our advancing years
now began to crowd round Casaubon. The death of
his mother in 1607 was in the course of nature. She
had survived her husband twenty-two years, and her
declining age had been sustained by the affection of
her illustrious son, who, poor as he was, had, out of
his poverty, ministered to her comfort. She had
declined to follow him to -Paris, naturally preferring
the climate of her native south, and a protestant neigh-
bourhood. As Ions: as Casaubon resided at Geneva or
PARIS. 1600 1610. , 255
Montpellier, she made frequent and long visits to him.
After his removal to Paris, he visited her as often as he
could; the last time, in 1603; visits which Casaubon
could dwell upon after her death 52 as consolatory. He
writes 53 to Pierre Perillau of the incredible satisfaction
which he has had in this visit to his mother, from
which he is just returned. ' I wanted to have located
her at Geneva ; but she would not. I have therefore
purchased a house for her at Bordeaux (in Dauphine)
and have done my possible, nay, more, to relieve her
from all apprehension about the future. Thank God,
she is now in sufficiently easy circumstances for a
person who has so few wants.'
In 1602 he had lost the best of his sisters, Sara Cha-
banes. One of her sons, Pierre, Isaac had undertaken
to educate and provide for. Just as the youth was
beginning to be very useful to Casaubon, both in his
reading, and in the library, when he was just of age,
he fell a victim to one of the voyages to Hablon.
He caught his death in the boat on a bitter Palm
Sunday, such as Parisians know too well.
The heaviest blow was the loss of his much-cherished
daughter, Philippa. Superior endowments of mind, and
a generous elevation of character, had endeared this
daughter to the father above all his many children.
Philippa was his pride and his consolation. Without
beauty, she had the sweet charm of graceful serious-
ness, or softened melancholy, which belonged to the
huguenot women of that generation. A presentiment
of her early grave perhaps hung about herself, which
her delicacy of constitution, and frequent ailments, too
surely predicted to the apprehensive mind of the fond
father.
82 Eph. 558. 53 Bulletin de la soc. prot. 2. 290.
256 PARIS. 1600 - 1610.
Philippa had been much noticed by the family of the
English ambassador, Carew. Lady Carew (she was a
Godolphin) took such a liking to her that she offered to
taka her into her house as companion. The other
advantages were great, but the opportunity of learning
the language was what chiefly attracted Philippa,
whose young life was clouded with dread of a time
when they might all have to fly for life, and looked to
England as the place of refuge. The parents, though
loth to part with their darling, thought they ought not
to reject such an introduction for her. In a few months
she became an established favourite in the household of
the Carews, who told the parents they ought to think
themselves happy indeed in such a child. The flower
was nipt in the bud by a fever which carried her off,
after a few days' iUness, set. 19. The entry of the inter-
ment in the cemetery of the faubourg S. Germain is
dated February 26, i6o8 54 . Lady Carew joined her
tears with those of Madame Casaubon 55 . For Isaac all
attempts to return to his books were for some time
fruitless.
The blow was the more severe as none of the other
children seemed likely to replace the lost one, but were
rather a source of discomfort. John, the eldest, early
developed a crooked disposition. We find him 56 , set.
1 8, thieving from his parents' poor purse nine crowns,
and otherwise distressing them by lending a favourable
ear to the professional convertisseurs. Twelve months
afterwards, set. 19, he went over, as has been already
related. It was in great measure upon the lies set
54 Bulletin de la soc. prot. 12. 276. Heg. de decks, 26 fdvr. 1608:
' Philippe Casaubon, fille de M. Casaubon, professeur du roy, et garde
de sa bibliotheque.'
55 Eph. 589 : 'Suas nostris lacrimas adjungens.' 56 Eph. 625.
PARIS. 16001610. 257
loat by this young rogue among his new associates
that the reports were founded of Isaac's apostacy.
Of his children in general the diary says 57 , in 1607,
' They are almost all great troubles to me, some of
them because they are always ill, some because they
make no progress either in virtue or in letters/ He
is in fear that more of them will follow John's ex-
ample 58 . This grievous disappointment was not to
extend to Meric. Meric, at the date when this wail was
wrung from the desponding father, was only seven.
In the following year, aet. 8, he was sent to school at
Sedan, under Samuel Neran. Here he remained till
16 ii, when he rejoined his father in England. Isaac
lived to see Meric confirmed, but not to see developed
in him those learned tastes and accomplishments which
might have consoled the father for the degeneracy of
the rest of the children. The only letter which Meric
preserved of those written to him in his school-days, is
so characteristic of the writer that it is thought right to
give it. It is dated Paris, September 18, 1609.
' Meric, I am glad that you write to me tolerably
often, and shall be more so if you do so oftener. I
shall, however, expect each letter to show some pro-
gress since the one which preceded it. I see that you
are beginning to compose latin themes, but not without
bad mistakes. Learn something every-day. Exercise
your memory diligently. If Terence is one of the
books you read at school, I desire that you will commit
it to memory from beginning to end. No one will ever
speak latin well who has not thumbed Terence.
Write me word if you read Terence, and what it is you
read at school. Above all, be good, fear God, pray for
father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Honour your
67 Eph. p. 546 58 Eph. p. 764.
258 PARIS. 1600 1610.
teachers, and be obedient to them. Be careful not to
waste time. If you do this, God will bless your studies.
I have written to the master, and to the person with
whom you board, not to let you want for anything.
Your mother sends her remembrances, and desires you
will, from her, kiss Mrs. Capell's hands, as I do also.
Your father, Is. Casaubon. Eemember me to the
Hotomans/
In the same year that his mother died, 1607, his
surviving sister, Anna, left a widow by the death of her
husband, Jean Hi got, came to Paris. Isaac had por-
tioned her, giving her, with Madame Casaubon' s con-
sent, 500 crowns, their joint savings intended for
Philippa. Her husband's brothers, the Bigots, had some
claim upon Jean, which, after a litigation of twelve
years, resulted in a decision adverse to Anna. She was
left penniless, and Isaac, who had maintained her as
well as his mother, now took her to live with him.
Her temper soon proved the bane of his household 59 .
She and Madame Casaubon could not agree, ' fire and
water sooner,' says the diary 60 . It went on from bad
to worse. She soon turned on Isaac, reproaching him
with doing no more for her. At last she became so
unreasonable that it was doubtful if she were in her
right mind. Yet the long-suffering man continued to
keep this 61f monstrum mulieris ' in his household.
Well might he ask Eutgers 62 , who offered him hospi-
tality, 'Are you a Crassus that you can lodge an
army ? Were I really to appear with my whole estab-
lishment, you would be alarmed.'
6. Other troubles originated with the family of
60
Eph. p. 629 : ' Nube tristissima hanc domum obfuscavit.'
Eph. p. 517. Eph. p. 672. 6 * Ep. 723.
PARTS. 1600 1610. 253
iis wife. Paul Estienne, Madame Casaubon's brother,
though himself a member of the council of 200 at
Geneva, was somehow compromised in the treasonable
practices of the syndic Blondel. Blondel was exe-
cuted in September 1606. Paul, however, who was
perhaps guilty of nothing more heinous than the de-
sire to save Blondel, got off for a few weeks' im-
prisonment. He was released on engaging to appear
whenever called upon. He had before this neglected
his business 63 , and in 1607 he made his appearance
in Paris in a state of penury. The business which
brought him was the affair of the greek matrixes
before spoken to. It would seem that sir Henry
Savile was desirous of employing the royal type in
his edition of S. Chrysostom, and for this purpose
would have been willing to purchase the set of
matrixes which were at Geneva. In this negotiation
Savile sought the mediation of Casaubon, who had
supplied him with collations from the royal library,
and lodged 500 crowns in the hands of the English
ambassador at Paris. Casaubon, or his wife, as co-
heir of Henri Estienne, was joint owner of the ma-
trixes. But as Henri, in his lifetime, had been
compelled to mortgage this property, they must be
disengaged before they could be sold. Isaac Casaubon,
besides finding Paul in a supply of cash for his im-
mediate necessities, became surety for 200 crowns,
and sent him back to Geneva, to effect the object.
But when it became known that the matrixes were
about to be sold to England, the authorities of Ge-
neva interfered. They claimed them as part of the
establishment of Eobert Estienne, and as irremovable
63 Ep. 605 : ' Fatal! circa rem familiarem negligentia.'
S 2
260 PARIS. 1600 1610.
from Geneva under his will 64 . At the same time
the Genevan courts of law decided, on the suit of
Nicolas Leclerc, the mortgagee, in his favour, to
the effect that he should be repaid the amount of
his advance, 400 crowns, out of the estate of Henri
Estienne. As neither Paul Estienne, nor Anna Bigot,
had a single crown which they could call their own,
this was to decide that Isaac Casaubon should pay
his father-in-law's debts, and yet not get possession
of the valuable property pledged to meet them. He
had to satisfy Henri Estienne's creditors out of his
own purse. No wonder that his denunciations were
passionate and bitter. Besides the heavy pecuniary
loss, he was irritated by the injustice, and by the
quarter from which it proceeded, 'his own Geneva,
for which he would readily have laid down his life.'
Worse still, he met with 110 sympathy from his
Genevese friends. In all the city, Diodati, the pro-
fessor of Hebrew, was the only person who offered
condolence. All Geneva approved the sentence.
Laurence, the scholarch, Casaubon's successor as clas-
sical professor, in writing to the victim himself 65 ,
could not conceal his delight. Lect, his own advo-
cate, and legal adviser in the business, who did not
defend the decision, hinted that it was hardly ra-
tional to ascribe a decision of a court of law to the
rapacity of the pastors and professors, as Casaubon
did. The letter of remonstrance 66 written by Simon
4 The will of Robert Estienne is printed from the archives of
Geneva in Re*nouard, Annales des Estienne, ed. 3. p. 578. The
affairs of the Estienne are still involved in some obscurity, I have
given the best account I can of Casaubon's implication in the business,
but am in some doubt as to parts of my statement,
65 Ep. 600. M Burriey MSS. 367.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 261
Goulart, in the name of the ' ccetus pastorum,' and in-
tended to pacify Casaubon, was little adapted to do
so, being written in a canting tone, alleging their
wellknown god-fearing character as. proof that they
could not have wronged him.
7. As there are men who continually grow richer
without effort, so there are others who are con-
tinually impoverished without any fault of their own.
Capital, small or large, requires an attentive eye to
nurse it, and the scholar's attention is necessarily
elsewhere. Isaac Casaubon seems never to touch
money but to lose it. He lost for himself, he lost
for his sister, he had lost before for his mother.
His own little patrimony at Bourdeaux, his wife's
dower at Geneva, his sister's portion, all disappeared,
not spent, but lost. Biographers rap out the con-
secrated phrases about ' bearing losses with philo-
sophy.' Philosophy teaches the contrary lesson ; it
teaches the all importance of money, as the condition
of moral activity. Casaubon's financial calamity dwelt
on his mind and interfered seriously with his read-
ing : 67 ' For some months past I have lost that spring
of mind which used to bear me up, amid my studies.'
Casaubon' s financial grievances are a pervading topic
of his diary and letters, in which they occupy a more
prominent place than will be approved by those who
think that scholars ought to affect to live on greek
roots. This biography is not intended as an apology,
but as a portrait, and therefore must present what it
finds. But indeed no apology is needed. If it be
to a man's credit to be unworldly, Casaubon was
eminently unworldly. His money troubles are the
57 Ep. 587 : ' Ab aliquot mensibus alacritatem illam prorsus amisi-
mus ? quse studia nostra plurimum gublevabat/
262 PARIS. 16001610.
troubles of a man who could neither get it nor keep
it, a man for whom the world is too keen and sharp,
who is conscious that he is surrounded by money-
getting creatures more able than himself. Nor does
he, any more than any other philosopher, desire
wealth apart from its uses. Through all his moan-
ings and wailirigs, his outcries, and wringing of hands,
the one object of his existence is perceptibly in his
thoughts, leisure and books books and leisure to
read them, the scholar's life income only as its
means and guarantee.
He does not complain of the insufficiency of his
salary. Indeed his salary and pension together were
of larger amount than the average of academical or
scholastic incomes at the time. Besides this there
come occasional presents, not often such munificent
gifts as those of the king and de Harlay. Then he got
something, small but something, for his books from
the booksellers, something also from dedicatees for
dedications. Chouet, the German bookseller, was to
give him a half escu per sheet for revising his Sue-
tonius, and something besides ' quantum sequum erit '
for new matter 68 . He takes boarders occasionally
into his house, but only the sons of great people,
who might be expected to pay, e. g. lord Herbert 69 of
Cherbury, the two sons of Calignon, the chancellor
of Navarre, and the son of Sapieha, chancellor of
Lithuania. And though the rent of his house in
68 Burney MSS. 365. p. 62.
69 Life of Lord Herbert, p. 67, about 1608, in company with Aurelian
Townsend : ' Through the recommendation of the lord ambassador,
I was received to the house of that incomparable scholar, Isaac
Casaubon, by whose learned conversation I much benefited myself.'
Cf. eph. p. 641 : ' Angli hodie nos adierunt.' Patrick Young, son of
Sir Patrick, was intended to have been sent to Casaubon in 1608.
Smith, Vita Junii, p. 9.
PARIS. 1600-1610. 263
the faubourg S. Germain is uncommonly high, it
should seem that Mercier des Bordes had some arrange-
ment by which he shared it with him, as well as,
possibly, provided his country retreat at Grigny.
But, on the other hand, the scale of living, and every
other expense, especially firewood, was then, as now,
excessively high in the capital as compared with
the provinces. At Montpellier 30 livres had been
sufficient to find him a lodging. In Paris he must
pay 400. A parisian laquais would spurn the modest
portion which would be accepted as suitable with a
daughter, by a provincial bourgeois. When the city
of Nimes offered Casaubon 1800 livres, they told
him 70 that he would find it more at Nimes than the
larger salary he was actually receiving.
At one time difficulties experienced in the payment
of his stipend counted as one of his standing troubles.
The aversion of de Rosny (Sully) for all pensions was
proverbial. He justly dreaded Henri's facility in grant-
ing orders on the treasury, and resisted or evaded pay-
ment as long as it was possible. He had acquired the
character, most valuable to any keeper of an exchequer,
of being a dragon of the public money. He was the
terror of the holders of orders, whom he snubbed and
humiliated even when compelled to pay 71 . Casaubon
had at first to run the gauntlet of Sully 's antechamber,
to go and wait hours, and then be told to come again
another day.
* March 13, 1 60 1. This day also wholly lost. Went
to Rosny, who gave me plainly enough to understand
what I may look for at his hands. . . De Thou and other
great friends who really care for my interest, have no
influence with this barbarous man/
70 Ep. 456. 71 Lestoile, Keg.-journal, p. 531.
264 PARIS. 1600 1610.
'December 19, 1603. Some work early; then to
Rosny, but fruitlessly ; he was at home and disengaged,
but I could not get speech of him/ In October 1604,
Scaliger writes 72 to him that he is not afraid of Henri
abandoning him ; ' more is to be feared from the dragon
that guards the golden fleece, than from your avowed
enemies. He is the only person who can convince the
king that " plus capere intestina philologi, quam arcam
unius TTopvoftoa-Kov" '
But Sully did not take this view of their comparative
claims. Casaubon's demands were a bagatelle by the
side of the lavish extravagance which Sully was daily
called on to meet. To mistresses so many 100000
livres. To the great nobles so many millions. Sully
himself was on the pension list for 20000 francs. But
then king and nobles, these were beings who had a
right to existence! Sully' s own account of the matter
was 73 , ( Henri invited Casaubon to come to Paris with
his family, and assigned him a pension which permitted
him to live as becomes a man of that sort, who is not
called to govern the state/ Besides the just dislike of
' mere nothings' which the true pursekeeper has, Sully
wanted to see Casaubon ' do something for his money/
and told him so 74 : ' Vous coutez trop an roi, monsieur ;
vous avez plus que deux bons capitaines ; et vous ne
servez de rien.'
Even the professors of the college royal could not
get their nominal salaries paid. Etienne Hubert, for
example, an intimate friend of Casaubon, and a man of
real merit, was regius reader of Arabic. He had been
employed by the government in negotiations with the
Algerines, and sent out to Morocco. On his return he
72 Seal. epp. p. 271. rs (Econ. royales.
M Esprit de Henri iv, p. 104.
PARIS. 16001610. 265
was rewarded with the chair of Arabic. The king gave
the chair, but Sully had to pay the salary, and never
did. For himself, Casaubon's own personal favour with
Henri got him out of the difficulty. * When you want
to be paid 75 , you come to me and I will give you a
password, which will enable you to get your money.
Never mind Eosny ; it is his share of the business to
say the disagreeable things ; the saying -the pleasant
things I keep for myself.' Accordingly, in the later
years of the Paris residence we find no further com-
plaints from Casaubon of non-payment. What the
nature of the password was we are not told. But
whatever it was it was good only for Casaubon him-
self. He failed entirely to get the same privilege for
Hubert. In vain he used his own small influence, and
got de Harlay to promise to take the matter up. De
Harlay undertook to speak to Sully, and said the affair
would soon be settled. It never was settled, and
Hubert was obliged to leave his arabic studies and
chair, and go off to Orleans, to earn his bread by the
practice of medicine.
Among all the pensions 76 , that to Casaubon was the
only outlay Henri made on literature. And the excep-
tion confirms the rule. Even in this unique 2000
livres, literature had the least share. The consideration
for which it was given was only partly Casaubon's ser-
vices as librarian ; it was much more the anticipated
conversion. To the last Henri continued to expect
75 I quote these words of the king from ' L'esprit de Henri iv/ p.
104, which gives, as its authority, 'manuscrit in 4.'
6 Henri iv. invited Malherbe to court, telling him 'qu'il lui ferait
du bien.' He never did anything. It was not till after Henri's death
that the poet obtained a pension of 1 500 livres from the government
of the queen regent.
266 PARIS. 16001610.
the recantation, to urge it through Du Perron, and
to refuse Casaubon's repeated request 76 to be dismissed.
These applications were made through Villeroy 77 , through
Sully himself, nothing loth. Sully was mollified, and
permitted himself to be gracious to Casaubon when he
found that his pensioner, instead of hanging on about
the court for what he could get, wanted much more
to be gone elsewhere. It was Henri's personal good
will that chained Casaubon so long in the uncongenial
]ife of the intensely catholic capital. It would perhaps
be unjust not to allow that some humane feeling
mingled with the egotistic monarch's arriere pensee.
He treated his scholar, whenever he saw him, with so
much bonhommie, that we cannot but wish that he had
been able to appreciate him. We feel disposed to say
with Scipio Gentilis 78 , ' One thing only is wanting in
your great king to make him perfect, viz. that he does
not sufficiently value your learning. ! if he only
knew latin to be able to do so ! ' Casaubon well under-
stood that nothing but Henri's personal favour pro-
tected him. The thought could not but often occur :
* If anything should happen to it was too dreadful !
If that thread should break, what would become, not
merely of Casaubon, but of the whole huguenot
population of Paris ! '
8. Death began, as time went on, to be busy among
76 Exercc. in Baron, p. 42.
77 Ep. 557 : ' Que sa Majeste* me permette me retirer ailleurs, si
tot que mon grand ouvrage de Polybe . . . sra acheve.' Cas.
to Villeroy, June, 1607.
78 Burney MSS. 364. p. 137: 'Ad summum et perfectissimum om- j
nium virtutum culmen una res deesse magno regi videmus, quod vir- j.
tutem et eruditionem tuam non satis intelligat, intelligent autem
satis, si latine modo sciret.' Scipio Gentilis to Cas. 1609.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 267
friends. In 1606 died his friend and patron
Calignon, chancellor of Navarre, one of the few great
men who remained stanch huguenots, and yet retained
some influence at court. In 1607 he lost Lefebre, his
trusted physician, who best knew his constitution 79 .
Lefebre had attained the age of seventy-two, but
Hadrian Williams of Flushing was cut off in the flower
of youth. In him Casaubon had just found, what he
had long sought in vain, a young and eager disciple,
athirst for knowledge, and giving his whole soul to
acquiring it. He had come with an introduction from
Scaliger, and had at once recommended himself to
Casaubon by his simple modest manners, and ardour of
study. He was a student of medicine, and was eager
to penetrate the great secret of nature. Such means of
observation as the medical school of Paris afforded he
used industriously, but thought, as was commonly
thought then, that more might be learned from the
arabian writers. Though every part of knowledge
had attractions for his ample curiosity, arabic was the
immediate point of contact between Hadrian and Cas-
aubon. Hadrian had come to Paris more for the sake
of being near Casaubon than for the schools 80 . Isaac
soon found that whatever might be his own superiority
in greek, in arabic the young Fleming was qualified to
be his teacher. ' He had thumbed Avicenna by con-
stant use ; the Koran was so familiar to him, that after
you,' Casaubon writes to Scaliger 81 , ' I suppose no Euro-
pean would come near him/ He was preparing to go
in the suite of the french ambassador to Constan-
79 Eph. p. 475 : ' Sapientissimus medicus atque exercitatissimus
Faber sic tractandas vires hujus infirmi corpusculi judicat.'
80 Seal. epp. p. 185 : 'Non urbis celebiitas, sed eximia eruditio tua
evocavit.' 81 Ep. 402.
268 PARIS. 1600 1610.
tinople, when he was seized with inflammation of the
bowels, and died after a few days' illness. His projects
and accomplishments vanished into air ! and Casaubon's
arabic reading was discontinued when the instructor
and the stimulus were withdrawn 82 . Charles Labbe,
though intimate, and even useful, never came into the
place which Hadrian's death left vacant.
The death which searched Casaubon most deeply was
that of Scaliger. Had he lost, in losing him, only the
patron of his fame and fortunes, the true and sympa-
thetic friend to whom he told the secret troubles of his
life, the loss would have been heavy, and at fifty irre-
placeable. But Scaliger was, besides this, the oracle
who could resolve his learned difficulties, the only
reader who could appreciate his classical work 83 . For
whom should he write, now Scaliger was not there to
read 1 Others might applaud, but it was with a pur-
blind admiration. The death of Scaliger was like the
setting of the sun. It was now, not dark, in the re-
public of letters, but starlight only. To the last he
saw and read everything that came out, with his
faculties and his memory perfect, and appraised it at
its value. In his correspondence with Casaubon his
amiable qualities, often obscured by his contact with a
malignant and unscrupulous party, come into full
evidence. Their intercourse had been conducted
wholly by letter. They never met. Scaliger left
France for Holland in 1593, before Casaubon quitted
Geneva ; and Casaubon, though often scheming a visit
to Leyden, had never found it possible to put the
design into execution. Yet a fast and intimate friend-
82 Ep. 548.
83 To appreciate Casaubon's books was claimed by Scaliger as his
peculiar privilege. Seal, opuscula, p. 520. epp. p. 301.
PARIS. 1600 1610.
269
ship had grown up between them. There is, perhaps,
hardly another instance on record of such a perfect
intimacy created and maintained without personal
intercourse. Something may have been due to the
mediation of friends, especially Eichard Thomson and
young Dousa, towards exciting in Scaliger affection for
the man, whose learning he had begun to respect from
his books. It is the charm of their mutual correspon-
dence, which we have still complete on both sides, that
in it we can trace, from its first germ, the formation,
growth, and development of this perfect friendship,
which, from first to last, was never once clouded by a
moment's suspicion, disagreement, or misunderstanding.
Casaubon introduced himself to Scaliger by an
epistle, simply asking for his acquaintance, an epistle
such as he addressed to many other men of learning.
The request was prompted by the yearning for sym-
pathy, which every engrossing study creates, a yearn-
ing which found no response in theological Geneva.
Nearly twenty years younger than Scaliger, and still
unknown, Casaubon ventured to approach the prince of
letters, timidly, and on his knees, with homage, which
would seem overacted, only that it is not acting at
all. Scaliger, at first somewhat condescending and
patronising, as Casaubon grows bigger and bigger,
gradually admits him to an equal familiarity of ad-
dress, conceding to him distinctly the superiority in the
matter of greek reading. This is done without affecta-
tion, without mortification, rather with undisguised
satisfaction in the discovery. From the moment he
saw the Suetonius (1595) he wished to get him called
to Leyden, and endeavoured it, but in vain 84 . After
84 Seal. epp. p. 153.
270 PARIS. 16001610.
Casaubon was settled in Paris, Scaliger was steady in
advising him to stay, where he was tolerably well
off, and ever endeavoured to soothe his friend's restless
fears. But he pressed for the visit which was ever
promised. 85< Should it please the Almighty Father to
prolong my days till the spring, that I might receive
you here, I should indeed be happy in seeing that
which many things forbade me ever to hope. If you
do think of coming, take my advice, and come in May
not earlier. In this climate, winter leaves its mark
even so late ; no trace of spring is visible till Taurus is
pretty well set. But only come ; come even in mid-
winter if you choose to do so. We will counteract
him by the cheerful fire which I will keep in your bed-
chamber, sparely furnished maybe, but clean ; for I
have only to offer the " concha salis puri," and a heart
which is devoted to you/ Casaubon 86 replies, ' That he
had resolved not to be a burden to Scaliger during his
stay in Ley den, but rather to go to the inn. After
such an invitation, however, he was afraid he should
not be able to resist the temptation/ Though Scaliger
speaks of his humble saltcellar, the Heidelberg book-
seller, Coinmelin, thought his entertainment, on his visit
to Leyden, magnificent. This invitation was sent in
1604-5. Then the visit was deferred from year to
year. In the autumn of 1608 the weakness which
began to confine Scaliger to his bed declared itself, and
the visit never took place at all.
Twelve months prior to his last illness, Scaliger had
made a will, and dividing a few memorials among his
friends, he left Casaubon a piece of plate 87 . * Touchaiit
85 Seal. epp. p. 268. 86 Ep. 428.
87 This cup is left by Casaubon's will 'to that sonne, who
PARIS. 1600 1610. 271
pen que j'ay d'or on argent en ceuvre, je legue au
Sieur Isaac Casaubon soubs maltre de la librairie du
roi, urie coupe d' argent doree avec son estuy, que les
messieurs des etats de Zeelande m'ont donne 88 .' He
tells Casaubon that he had given him something ; ' I
have left trifling remembrances among my friends,
proofs of affection, not of wealth. Enrich them I
cannot, nor will they expect it. The little matter I
have left you, I could wish had been better and larger ;
but I trust it will gratify you, as it is an honour to me
to have named you even in my last will/ So well was
it understood that Casaubon was the nearest and
dearest, that it was to him that Henisius addressed the
graphic and touching narrative of the hero's last hours.
Casaubon was to communicate it to de Thou. To
Casaubon was assigned, by consent of all the friends,
the composition of a prefatory eloge to Scaliger's col-
lected essays, which was published in 1610, a piece
which Scipio Gentilis, cast away in the pine-barrens
of Franconia, could not read without tears 89 . Indeed,
Casaubon had not waited for death to sanctify such an
effusion, but had given vent to his feelings in a preface
to Scaliger's translation of Martial, a panegyric upon
the living which was intended as compensation for the
brutal attack of the ' Amphitheatrum/ and was taken
by Scaliger as such 90 .
Casaubon's letters to Scaliger are truly autobiogra-
walkinge in the feare of God, shal be fittest to sustayne my family, I
doe give the cup of M r . Scaliger, of moste happie memory.' See
note A in app. to chap, j o.
i8 Burney MSS. 367, and see Bullet, de la soc. prot. 18. 595.
!9 Burney MSS. 364. p. 141.
90 Seal. epp. p. 337: 'Ego profecto illam non ad meam laudem,
sed ad defensionem mei comparatam esse judico.'
272 PARIS. 1600 1610.
phical. In the whole folio volume, among more than
1 200 letters, there are none which have the same confi-
ding tone, the perfect trust that what is said will fall
on a friendly ear, and be secure of friendly response.
Scaliger is an accurate and satisfactory correspondent :
replying himself to each topic started in the letter he is
answering ; a punctuality which Casaubon does not
imitate. From no one does Casaubon receive in his
griefs that solid comfort which Scaliger was prompt
to offer. * I cannot tell you/ writes Casaubon 91 in
July, 1608, 'the satisfaction your last gave me. It
was so unmistakably evident how much you loved
me, and how deeply you felt my adverse fortune.
You were the only one who sympathised with me
when I was swindled by the petty tyrants of the
lake (Geneva). And now again this thunderbolt has
fallen on my house (death of Philippa), your letters
show that you feel it with me. The labour you
spent in writing to me was not thrown away, Sie
ye'pov, the reading of your epistle was no small com-
fort to me/ Casaubon' s affectionate nature having
found a strong soul to which to cling, abandoned
itself to the culte of the hero with a devotion which
bordered on idolatry. 'I know/ he writes 92 in 1605,
' what the good and the learned owe to you ; how
much more do I owe ! Were I to spend my life
in your service, in executing your commands, I could
not repay a tenth part of the debt. What a father
is to a son, that you are to me ; I am your devol
client/ While the loss was recent he writes
Kirchmann 93 : ' What tears are enough at this
funeral ? Past ages have never seen his like ; per-
haps no future time will. The more conversant air
91 Ep. 606. 92 Ep. 460. 3 Ep. 628.
PARIS. 16001610.
one becomes with letters," the more grand will he
find that incomparable hero in his writings !' To
Du Plessis Mornay he says 94 , ' His death has taken
away all my courage. Now I can do nothing more/
To all these losses, sorrows, and vexations must be
added another constant source of misery. This was
the habitual ill-health of himself and almost all his
family. Madame Casaubon, besides her twenty-two
confinements, was always ailing, often alarmingly ill,
though she survived her husband, notwithstanding,
many years. On the occasion of these frequent at-
tacks, which seem to have been of the nature of
intermittent fever, Isaac was assiduous in waiting on
his wife, and sacrificed his hours without a murmur.
The children were equally troublesome ; first one, then
another, sometimes all at once. January, 1604, he
writes to Du Puy, * Since you left us we have hardly
spent a single day free from illness, either of myself
or my wife, or both.' September 12, 1610, the diary
has, 'My wife, setting off to receive the sacrament of
the Lord's supper, had no sooner entered the barge than
she began to be unwell. She communicated, but was
immediately after brought home by our two friends,
M. Herauld and Dr. Arbault (the physician), and she
now lies suffering from a severe attack of fever.
Meanwhile the greater part of our children are in
bed with fever, and I too have begun to be unwell.
God eternal, look upon this prostrate family/
Upon Isaac himself the shadow of death was slowly
advancing for years before the closing scene. His
ailment was constitutional, but was aggravated by the
sedentary life he had led from his early youth. Sca-
liger already in 1606 knew of him, by description,
94 E P . 624.
T
274 PARIH. 1600 1610.
as ' tout courbe d'estude/ he was then only forty-seven.
August, 1 6 10, is the first occasion on which the
diary notes the passing of gravel, though as a symp-
tom which had appeared sometime before. He is
always dosing himself with purgatives, or being treated
or bled by his doctors. After the death of Lefevre,
' who best knew how to treat this weakly carcase of
mine/ there were Arbault and Mayerne, the latter of
whom he again met in England. From what we
hear of their treatment, it seems to have been gov-
erned exclusively by a fear of fever, and by the pre-
sence of gravel. He drinks Spa water, which was as
procurable in Paris then as now. For years he had
used little or no wine. * Wine does not make men
more disposed to study/ he says in correcting <pi\iav
for (piXoo-ofoav in Athenseus, 5. i. As early as 1597,
Varanda, the Montpellier physician 95 , used to tell him
that if he continued to live as he was then doing,
he would have, like Achilles, a glorious career but a
short one.
The bodily languor, of which he constantly com-
plains, manifested itself in a dejected and apprehen-
sive condition of mind. This grew upon him. He
begins to consider himself a marked man, against
whom the fates have conspired. His letters are lost ;
no one else's are, of course 96 . ' I recognise my luck,
a man to whom for months past nothing has hap-
pened, but what is disagreeable and contrary.' This
general tinge of sadness not only colours the diary,
it is visible in all he writes. He expresses 97 his fear
that traces of this depression will be found in th<
Polybius; in the commentary, no doubt, for it coulc
95 Ep. 132, where Veranseus is, no doubt, Varanda.
96 Ep. 604. 97 Ep. 623.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 275
iardly infect translation. Translation, demanding close
ittention and watchful care, but no intellectual elas-
ticity, was just the occupation to deaden sorrow.
Polybius, he tells Eitterhusius 98 , had been his refuge
md solace, the only anodyne of his suffering under
the loss of his daughter, which else had been un-
bearable. Heavy grief, such as this, drove him to
lis books, lesser annoyances and worries took him
Torn them", so fretted his mind, 'that he must
almost renounce the Muses.' This happens especially
on occasions of Madame Casaubon's absence. The
cares of the household are then thrown upon him ;
a hungry craving for her presence takes possession of
rim ; he is in positive anguish if she does not write
)y every post ; if she postpones her return from
Grigny for a single day, he is the most wretched of
men.
There is, indeed, in the faces, as in the words, of all
the old huguenots of Henri iv/s reign, a common trait
of mournfulness. They write as men for whom hope
is extinct, whose cause is lost ; with a consciousness
hat they belong to a past age, that they have no-
thing to look for in this world. They sit waiting for
death as the hour of relief. 1{ My last sad consola-
tion/ writes Scaliger, in 1606, * is that if any general
disaster is in the air, death is near at hand to deliver
me.' De Calignon, aet. 57, sank under the weight
of chagrin in the same year, saying, 2 'good men
had no reason to desire to live.' Da Plessis Mor-
nay we have seen retire broken-hearted to his petty
98 E P . 6n. " Ep. 584-
1 Seal. epp. p. 327: 'Ultima est ilia consolatio, sed miserrima,
quod si qua futura est calanritas, eo brevior erit, quo propius a morte
absum.' 2 Thuani Hist. 6. 381.
T 2
276 PARTS. 16001610.
governorship of Sauniur ; D'Aubigne was equally
estranged ; de Thou struggled, alone and in vain,
against the spirit of the times, and the tendencies
of the age.
Forgetfulness was surely the only condition on
which a huguenot could live in Paris. It is surpris-
ing, after what had occurred, after 1572, and the ten
subsequent years, to find them within twenty years
domiciled in the capital, still stained with their blood,
and going about among a populace which was still
taught to execrate them. The administration of
Henri iv, though not what can be called a strong
police, was firm and just enough to be respected.
Yet no executive has been secure against surprise by
the excitable Parisian mob, and much mischief could
be done before armed help could come. Scaliger's
estimate of the situation at the time of the huguenot
panic of 1605 seems to put it in a clear light. Him-
self in a safe retreat, yet having his most valued
friends in the place of danger, and in intimate rela-
tions with the french embassy at the Hague, he
was better informed than Casaubon, though on the
spot. He writes July 24, 1605, 'The two principal
topics in your last, viz. the perpetual terror in which
you live, and the offer from Nimes, require more time,
and more consideration, if I am to make an advised
answer. But I can now only write a few hurried
words, as young Yassan, who takes this, is leaving
immediately. You tell me you do not think your-
self safe where you are, where bad men have the
upper hand, and the influence of the good is diminish-
ing daily. I make allowance for some misgiving;
there is too much ground for it, you share it witl
all good men ; and I cannot be surprised that you
PARIS. 1600 1610.
277
should have thought of removing. But if one looks
oaore closely into the grounds of this panic, it does
not certainly seem to me that there is sufficient
reason for forming any such desperate resolution.
After all, the bad have not yet reached such a
height of power as to have the good at their mercy ;
nor under the present sovereign is the innocent less
safe there than the bully. I do not see any ground
for thinking that you cannot continue to live there
in safety. If you come to the inscrutable future
(TO afyXov rov fieXXovro?) and urge that the part of
prudence is to anticipate the fall of the house, and
not to wait till it has tumbled in upon you, I remind
you that a man is a man, and not God, who alone
can know future events. If it is the part of the
wise to suspect a calm, I rejoin it is also his part
not to believe every alarming rumour.'
The obscure allusion in the last sentences is to what
neither of the correspondents would put into words,
but what was in both their thoughts. The catastrophe
of May 14, 1 6 10, was felt, and known to be coming,
even then, at five years 7 distance.
It was not, then, mere fretful restlessness which
urged Casaubon, during his twelve years' sojourn in
Paris, to be always planning to leave. The uncertain
tenure of his office, the insecurity of life itself, com-
bined with the wearying distractions of society, to
engage him to seek quiet and safety elsewhere. It
was so well known that he was on the wing, that over-
tures were being continually made to him, from various
quarters. With each of these he dallied for a time,
but when it came to the point, the negotiation was
always broken off. The real reason was that he could
not make up his mind to offend Henri iv, who made
278 PARIS. 1600 1610.
his stay a personal matter, and would have made his
departure a personal quarrel. By going elsewhere he
might get rid of importunate visitors, but would sacri-
fice valuable friends. And what library could replace
to him the royal library 1
Of all places Geneva, his native city, which had so
wronged him, was least likely to be the chosen Zoar.
Yet his friends in Geneva, Lect and Diodati, were not
without hope. In 1 60 1, Lect writes 3 that their poverty,
and the Savoy fort, prevented them from thinking of
establishing a second, or extraordinary professorship of
classics, and that it was equally impossible to disturb
the actual holder, Du Laurens, in the professorship
which had been Casaubon's. After the destruction of
the fort, Lect writes again that they had invited
Godefroy to be professor of law, but that he could
never describe the academy as flourishing, till they
got Casaubon back. It was at Lect's house that
Casaubon was lodged during his visit in 1603*; Lect
was also his lawyer in his Genevan affairs, and was a
member of the council. So that there was no want
either of goodwill or opportunity on Lect's part.
But we do not find that Casaubon much encouraged
these overtures, if they can be so called. He had
outgrown the situation. He was aware that Geneva,
with its narrow religionism, was no longer any
place for him. Church politics were the one only
interest in the calvinist capital. They had given
Casaubon a handsome reception, in 1603, poor as they
were ; had invited him to a public banquet, but it
3 Burney MSS. 365. pp. 60. 68.
4 At the time of this visit, Lect writes to Goldast, Goldasti epp.
p. 1 1 8, mentioning Casaubon's being at Geneva, but without any hint
of his being invited to remain.
PARIS. 16001610. 279
ras as a ' distinguished coreligionist ; ' and Pierre Du
Moulin shortly afterwards received the same honour 6 .
For learning there was in Geneva not a spark of
intelligence, sympathy, or appreciation. Casaubon too
lust have been shocked at the poverty-stricken aspect
>f the city. Beza in a letter dated October 18, 1603,
describes it 6 : * This poor republic supports a burden
under which it is a miracle that it does not sink ; being
obliged to keep up a garrison of from 360 to 400 men.
The very houses are fast becoming ruinous, and all
things are much changed since you left/ Godefroy,
who at first accepted the invitation sent him, when he
saw what the place was like 7 , preferred to return to
Heidelberg. The duke of Savoy, unable to capture
the city, had succeeded in nearly ruining it. Had
Casaubon ever seriously entertained the thought of
returning to settle, at Geneva, it became impossible
after they had confiscated his father-in-law's property,
and he had proclaimed them in Paris as hypocritical
thieves !
We have seen 8 that, at an earlier period of his life,
Casaubon might have been glad of a call to the uni-
versity of Heidelberg. The position which was then
desirable, was become now highly eligible. The Pala-
tinate, its court and university, had been making rapid
progress not only in political importance, but in educa-
tion and culture. It was become the intellectual centre
of western Germany. Refinement is perhaps a term
hardly applicable to any German court of the period.
Hunting and hawking, heavy feasts prolonged to swinish
intoxication, were the serious occupations of the princes
5 Du Moulin, autobiographic, Bullet, de la soc. prot. 7. 342.
6 Bullet, de la soc. prot. 20. 162.
7 Goldasti epp. p. 118. 8 See above, p. 74.
280 PARIS. 1600 1610.
and nobles ; genealogy their only science. Frederick iv,
elector Palatine (t 1 6 TO), was not exempt from the failings
of his class, and possibly hastened his end by intemper-
ance. Yet the debasing habits of his nation and class 9
had not extinguished in Frederick iv. a taste for better
things. He was able to take an intelligent share not
only in the administration of his hereditary principal-
ities, but in the political complication which was en-
veloping the Palatinate in its fatal web. The electress
Louisa Juliana, daughter of William of Orange and
Charlotte of Bourbon, imported into her german court
something both of french breeding, and of republican
simplicity. The test men of the protestant party, such
as Christian of Anhalt, came and went as frequent
visitors. Lingelsheim, who had been preceptor, and
was now minister, of the elector, was a devoted admirer
of Scaliger, and had been for some time among Isaac
Casaubon's correspondents. Marquard Freher, another
member of the prince's council, eminent as a teutonic
antiquary, had corresponded with him since 1594.
Another link with Heidelberg was Bongars, one of
Isaac's best friends and earliest patrons, who was agent,
or envoy, for France to the german princes, and was
perpetually passing between Paris and the Rhenane
cities. Christian of Anhalt, during his visits to Paris,
had taken much notice of Casaubon. To von Buwink-
hausen, the Wurtemberg envoy, he ' had dedicated his
Gregorius Nyssenus. All these were men of influence
9 Stamler writes to Ritterhusius, in 1603, that Pacius declines a
call to Heidelberg because ' a principe indocto, cui docti et literse
sordent, aulici plus quam studiosa juventus et professores amentur.'
Vita Camerarii, p. 201. There was, however, a not inconsiderable
amount of life in the university. See the vague panegyric of Hausser,
Geschichte der Pfalz. 2. 260.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 281
i.nd position. Beside them Casaubon was lie' with the
more eminent men of letters they were not many,
who were to be found on the upper Rhine, with Denis
Grodefroy, with Grater, Jungerman, Scipio Gentilis,
and stood himself in the light of patron to the young
Saumaise, a french scholar, who was now engaged in
disinterring the MS. treasures of the Palatine library.
It was natural, on both sides, that Casaubon should
think of Heidelberg as his place of retirement, and
that the Palatine Athens should offer an invitation.
In August, 1607, Casaubon gives Lingelsheim to
understand that he may have to leave Paris 10 :
1 1 have little doubt, most noble sir, that Denis
Godefroy has reported to you something of the con-
versations we had, with much mention of you, during
a is visit to this place (Paris). He may have hinted
to you that the present state of tranquillity we have
enjoyed by favour of the Almighty for some years past,
is only on the surface, as it were skin-deep, and is
watched with much anxiety by those who can read
the signs of the times. During the late distemper of
our prince, all good men were in great alarm. I, for
my part, was meditating flight. God was merciful, and
restored health to him, on whose safety ours depends.
I trust I may never see a day so woful to our France.
But should it happen otherwise (which God forbid) I
have resolved upon taking refuge among you, and
placing me and mine out of danger.'
On this hint, the electors council authorised von
Buwinkhausen to make overtures to Casaubon. What
was proposed to him was a theological chair of some
kind, probably ecclesiastical history. The offer did not
come till July 1608, but it must have been decided on
10 Ep. 562.
282 PARIS. 1600 1610.
some time before, as Lingelsheim speaks of it 11 as
already mooted in November 1607, and Scaliger, at
Leyden, knew of the intention as early as March 1608.
He wrote to Casaubon then, and received for reply 12
that he had heard something of the sort talked of, but
did not believe there was anything in it. In December
1607, Lingelsheim expresses himself as ' out of patience
with the usual dilatoriness with which Casaubon's
business proceeds/ In July 1608, the offer was made
in form. Casaubon, with many professions of his own
unworthiness, accepted. The arrangements were to be
completed after the return of the envoy, who was going
out of town for a short time. He did not return as
soon as expected, and when he did the matter was not
resumed. Why, I am unable to explain. Casaubon
speaks 13 of impediments quae id inceptum circum-
stent impedimenta in a way to imply that they were
on the german side, and not on his.
After Heidelberg, the most eligible offer was from
Nimes 14 . The college of arts in this town was a founda-
tion of Francis i, which had survived the troubles of
religion. Like the town generally, it was protestant,
and managed by the consuls. The administration of
the college was conducted by a rector, who was by the
statutes one of the professors, elected for two years
only. But he was re-eligible, and in practice it had
become customary to continue him in the office as long
as he chose. The celebrated Julius Pacius, in the course
of his wandering existence, had held the rectorate at!
Nimes for two or three years. When Scaliger said that
11 Lingelshemii epp. ep. 80. 12 Ep. 593. 13 Ep. 623.
14 The account which pastor Borrell has given of the academy of
Nimes, Bullet, de la soc. prot. 13. 288, would have been more valuable \
if the authorities, on which it is based, had been cited.
PARIS. 16001610. 283
if he were to quit Leyden, the place he should choose
to set up his staff in would be Nimes 15 ; he had in
view not only the climate, but the character of the
college.
Theology was less exclusively dominant there than
in any of the other protestant academies. This is not
saying much ; and though there were teachers of some
repute at the college, among them several Scots, there
was not sun and air enough for a Casaubon, much less
for a Scaliger. In 1605, however, the consuls made
Isaac the formal offer of a chair, and the rectorate.
They would give 600 crowns, and a roomy house. The
amount shows the importance they attached to Casau-
bon's presence, as the previous rector, Charles d'Aubus,
had only a third of the sum. Even Pacius at Mont-
pellier, where he now was, was only at 500 crowns,
besides fees however. Six hundred crowns was the
highest honorarium then paid to any teacher in the
faculty of arts, and was only given in rare cases ; e. g.
it was what had been offered to Lipsius to induce him
to settle in the university of Paris. ' Never,' writes
Casaubon 16 , ' do I remember to have been in greater
perplexity as to what I should do. For months past
I have been agitated by this deliberation. When I
,think of my studies, I should choose to live and die
here, where there is wealth of books. And de Thou
bids me not to think of removal. I must consider my
great patron too, who, I know, likes me one point
only excepted. And then the distance from you
(Scaliger) ! ' In 1 606 the negotiation is still pending.
Adam Abernethey, one of the Scottish regents, writes
15 Scaligerana, p. 169 : 'Si je voulois demeurer en quelque lieu je
choisirois ce pays de Nismes pour y planter mon bourdon.'
18 Ep. 456.
284 PARIS. 16001610.
to Casaubon 17 , promising himself great profit in learn-
ing from his settlement at Mmes. But across this
proposal came the more eligible Heidelberg offer, and
Nimes was dropped.
Another place of retreat, of which Casaubon had once
thought, was Sedan 18 . In the little court kept by the
due de Bouillon, there were to be seen nobles and
princes, among them the duke's nephews, the sons of
the elector palatine, resorting thither as a place where
they could combine a protestant education with the
advantage of learning the french tongue. It was not
that he might mix with princes and nobles that Sedan
was chosen by Isaac as Meric's school. As a kind of
frontier fort on the confines of the protestant north,
it offered facilities for escape in case of a religious
outbreak. We find, however, no actual proposal for
settling there made by Isaac. The unsettled relations
between the duke and the french government in these
years made it .uncertain how long the little principality
would continue to enjoy that semi-independence
which was the only guarantee of its preserving its
protestantism.
At one time Isaac planned a visit to Venice. This
was suggested by Fra Paolo. Not that the father
invited him. On the contrary, he gave him a hint ta
stay away. ' The air of Italy might easily disagree
with him 19 ;' a significant hint from one who had just
escaped assassination. Casaubon had been in correspond-
ence with this remarkable person since 1604. It was
indeed a correspondence conducted under difficulties.
Casaubon could not use the channel of the french am-
bassador, his former friend, now become, like all perverts,
an ultramontane enrage. Consequently, his letters
17 Burney MSS. 363. 18 Ep. 233. 19 Ep. 811.
PARIS. 16001610. 285
were long on the road ; one of them, with a copy of the
Polybius, eleven months 20 . Casaubon had introduced
himself to Fra Paolo in his usual way. The father
knew of him, of course, and not only knew of him in
1604, when Isaac had already acquired a name, but
had done so ever since his notes on Diogenes Laertius.
This fact shows how closely Fra Paolo watched the
publishing world. A scrubby volume, of no particular
mark, published in the capital of heresy, had not
escaped his eye. In 1606, when father Sarpi's writings
on the interdict reached Paris, Casaubon's attention
was immediately arrested by them. ' Have you seen/
he asks 21 Scaliger, * the brochures which have been,
published at Venice within the last few months ? If
you have, I should like to hear your opinion of them,
especially of that of the great father Paul. In reading
them, I cannot but hope that the time is at hand when
letters and sacred learning may find a place in those
countries.' This hope was hardly uttered before it was
extinguished by the settlement of the dispute, France,
as always, throwing its weight into the ultramontane
scale. But Fra Paolo still lived, in spite of the papal
daggers. Accordingly, in March 1610, when delivered
from the task of revising his Suetonius, Isaac planned a
visit to Venice 22 . * I wish to see the country, and the
learned men who are there, but above all the greatest
of them, the famous Paul. I desire also to see with
my own eyes the greek church, and to make myself
acquainted with its faith and observances. God eternal,
do thou forward me on this journey, if it be for the
promotion of thy glory, and the welfare of me and
mine ; if otherwise, prevent it/ The events which
20 Burney MSS. 365. 21 Ep. 542. 22 Eph. p. 724.
286 PARIS. 1600 1610.
shortly followed may have been the answer to this
prayer, making, the Italian visit impossible. Saumaise
formed a few years later a like purpose, but was diverted
from it by a dream 23 . Saumaise' s object was to see
the classical remains. It will be remarked, as charac-
teristic of the predominance of theological ideas in
Isaac Casaubon's mind, that, though his life had been
spent upon the classics, and latterly upon Roman
history, Polybius, Suetonius, the Augustan historians,
he never thinks of the Roman architecture among the
objects of a journey to Italy. What he wishes to see
is the greek church ! The importance of the monu-
ments was not generally recognised by the scholars till
the end of the century. To Casaubon, as to his contem-
poraries, the ancient world was comprised in books.
Clement, writing the life of Saumaise in 1656, asks,
' What had, or has, Rome, that the learned should be
so desirous of seeing it 1 Everything which can pro-
mote learning and the knowledge of antiquity, be it
inscriptions or monuments, is now to be had printed,
or engraved, with accuracy, and with far greater neat-
ness and distinctness, than they would be seen in
situ/
On the other hand, it must be placed to Casaubon's
credit that he recognised the importance of Paolo Sarpi,
and gives him the epithet of ' great,' which is here well
placed. In the same way it gives the measure of car-
dinal Du Perron out of his own mouth, that that char-
latan could see nothing eminent in the father, nothing
more than common. ' II a un bon jugement et bon
sens, mais de grand s^avoir point. Je n'y vis rien que
de commun/ He who to Du Perron seemed ' like any
other monk/ was a man whom Casaubon would fain
23 Vita Salmasii, p. xxxix.
PARIS. 1600 1610. 287
ave made a pilgrimage to Venice to see. Among
ether traits by which our Robert Sanderson reminds
us of Isaac Casaubon, is a speech of his recorded by
Walton 24 , that he wished he had gone as chaplain to
sir Henry Wotton, on the Venetian embassy, as was
ntended, ' as by that means I might have known one
of the late miracles of mankind for general learning,
prudence, and modesty, Padre Paolo/
Fra Paolo continued to correspond with Casaubon,
and to procure him books, such as, especially Hebrew
)ooks 25 , could not be met with in France. Casaubon
particularly prized his letters 26 . One of these has a
Deculiar value, as putting forward the father s position
towards his own church, as a position for which he
could expect sympathy from Casaubon 27 . * I commend
you in that you disapprove those persons who seek
force the fathers to be of their minds. Indeed that
and of interpretation by violence is most reprehen-
sible ; but no less a wrong is done to the same fathers
when an authority is claimed for them which they
never thought of claiming for themselves. Who wishes
X) be taught by the fathers, should first learn from
them, how much weight properly attaches to their
words/ He quotes passages of S. Augustin in this
sense and proceeds : ' You meet with absurdities on
this subject among your friends as well as among ours,
and I would not have you lose any temper thereat.
As long as there are men, there will be fanaticisms.
The wisest man has warned us not to expect the world
ever to improve so much that the better part of man-
kind will be the majority. No wise man undertakes
24 Life of Sanderson, Works, 6. 326.
25 Burney MSS. 365. p. 286.
26 Ep. 812. 2r Burney MSS. 365. p. 288.
288 PARIS. 16001610.
to correct the disorders of the public estate. Be it
enough for you, if you do some good to me. The wise
man again saith, that he who cannot endure the mad-
ness of the public, but goeth about to think he can
cure it, is himself no less mad than the rest. Since
God has enabled you to see the truth, do you, like
Timotheus, sing to yourself and the muses. The just
shall live by his faith. Leave the rest alone, your
own mind is theatre enough for yourself. Venice,
August 17, 1610.'
It is natural to enquire why was not Casaubon in-
vited to Leyden on Scaliger's death in 1 609 ? That
place was not filled till 1632 by the call of Saumaise,
who was expressly invited, not to teach, but as Voorst
insists in his funeral oration 28 , ' that he might shed
upon the university the honour of his name, illustrate
it by his writings, adorn it by his presence/ The
intervening period is an unhappy page of dutch his-
tory. Patriotism and public spirit were lost amid
doctrinal disputes, in which, barren and unmeaning as
they were, all the intellectual energy of the schools
of Holland was merged. In 1653, Gronovius (J. F.) 29
writes thus bitterly of the decay of Leyden : ' Expect
nothing from us in letters, I do not say great, but not
even liberal, or becoming a gentleman. This condition
of things has long been preparing. As far back as
Scaliger's death, when they might have had Casaubon
for lifting up a finger, he was kept out of it, as Bochart
28 Vita Salmas. p. xlii : ' Ut nominis sui honorem academiae huic
impertiret, scriptis eandem illustraret, prsesentia condecoraret.'
29 Burmann, Syll. 5. p. 208 : e . . . Casaubonum, cum post
Scaligeri mortem, percussione, ut sic dicam, digitorum possent habere,
excluserunt illi maxime semuli, quos ille sibi fidissimos ibi putabat . .'
There can be no doubt that Dan. Heinsius is the person intended.
PARIS. 16001610. 289
was lately, by the jealousy of the very persons whom
he thought he could most rely upon. They expelled
Vossius, they expelled Meursius. Themselves, they
never formed a single disciple, or follower who was
worth anything ; never gave any advice worth having
about the method of study. Their only object was to
deter or suppress rising talent, while they openly pro-
fessed a cynical contempt of the very studies which
had brought themselves into notice/
Casaubon had many friends in Holland, which was
now becoming a centre of learning, and rendezvous
of learned men. Vulcanius, Baudius, Bertius, Scrive-
rius, Cunaeus, Drusius, Meursius, with all these he
was in relations more or less close. With Grotius he
had been in correspondence since 1602, and became
personally acquainted with him in England at a later
period. Vandermyle, the ambassador from the States
General to the court of France, was among his pa-
trons. But his principal correspondent at Leyden,
after the death of Scaliger, was Daniel Heinsius.
They were both united in the culte of the hero, and
this was their only bond of union. Heinsius did not
realise in his maturity the promise of his early years.
Instead of a second Scaliger he turned out a fine
writer. An elegant latinist, his lectures and ora-
tions were charming. In this spirit he edited various
classical writers, with commentaries in which super-
ficial knowledge is thinly concealed by refined taste.
His mind was given elsewhere, to pushing his for-
tunes and he wrote of the classics as a man of the
world writes of them. Casaubon, who saw the Poetics,
the Theophrastus, and the Horatius, cannot have been
blind to their worthlessness. But he will not say
so. It was not that he was disarmed by the constant
290 PARIS. 1600 1610.
homage paid by the commentator to himself as 'vir
incomparabilis/ it is that the memory of Heinsius'
devotion to Scaliger protects him from criticism, nay,
even extorts praise of the garrulous notes, elegant,
witty, but uninstructive. But Casaubon's praise is
cold, and altogether his correspondence with Heinsius,
though it was continued to the last, is the most un-
satisfactory of any that has been preserved after they
cease to write about Scaliger. The two correspondents
are always complaining of each other for not writing,
and wishing each other to write oftener, and when
they do write, they have nothing to send each other,
but forced compliments. Casaubon would have sent
over Meric to study under Heinsius, whose eager
nature and ready abundance made him an excellent
teacher. But in 1610 it would not have suited Hein-
sius 7 purpose to have had Isaac himself at Leyden,
any more than the call of Saumaise suited him in
1630.
APPENDIX TO 4.
NOTE A. p. 1 60.
IN the ' Tre'sor des merveilles de Fontainebleau, par le Pkre Dan,
1642, is an account of the conference, founded upon information given
the author by one who was present. One incident, in which Cas-
aubon's name occurs, I have not met with elsewhere. P. 162 : ' Alors un
certain ministre de Terreur, qui estoit proche du sieur Casaubon, luy
ayant dit qu'il n'y avoit point au texte grec (of S. Chrysostoin) de
negation, et Casaubon, qui tenoit le livre, luy faisant voir du contraire,
il demeura si confus qu'il se retira promptement parmy la presse, et
servit de risee a la compagnie. le roy dit alors ce bon mot ; " que
c'estoit un jeune carabin, qui apr&s avoir tird son coup de pistolet,
s'estoit retir a 1'^cart." '
NOTE B. p. 171.
The authorities for Casaubon's seven removals of abode in Paris
are as follows. Ep. 541: ' Spatio annorum vix septem, septies hue
illuc libraria mea supellex est circumlata.' i. He arrives in Paris
March 6, 1600, at de Vic's hotel. Eph. p. 234 : 2. March 28, he
leaves de Vic to become the guest of his wife's cousin, Henri Estienne.
Eph. p. 239 : ' Cujus probitas nos illexit ut ejus hospitio vellemus uti.'
He leaves for Lyons May 30, and returns, this time with all his house-
hold, to Henri Estienne's. Eph. pp. 261, 298. 3. October 25, he
first establishes himself in an apartment of his own. Eph. p. 306 :
'Demum conducto hospitio.' It is very uncomfortable. Eph. p. 326:
'Incommodi non parum ex habitatione priore/ and 4. he quits it,
anuary 24, 1601, for one in the house of 'viri honesti D. Georgii.'
. July 17. Another removal. Eph. p. 360: 'Familia in has sedes
igravit.' This was a house found him by Achille de Harlay. Gillot,
p. fran9_ p. 105 : ' Monsieur le premier president qui 1'ayme comme
U 2
292 APPENDIX TO 4.
sa vertu le me'rite, 1'a log bravement et assez pres de nous.' Eph.
p. 360: 'J3dium commoditas.' Ep. 385: 'Abest longius a biblio-
theca.' 6. October, 1604. Ep. 432: ' Mihi tandem inventum hos-
pitium ; illud quidem angustum et non nimis commodum, sed in quo
tamen, ego atque uxor, hoc prsesertim rerum statu, acquiescimus.
Dominus aedium est senator Gallus, sive Coq, qui vastissimam domum
sibi nuper aedificavit, et angulum quendam a reliquo corpore separavit
quod mercede locaret. TO ZVOLKIOV est aureorum centum.' It was in the
faubourg S. Germain. Address of letters, Burney MSS. 365. p. 23.
7. Finally, he settled close to the library. Ep. 461 : ' Notissima est
Franciscanorum \avpa, in qua regione habito prope sedem illorum.'
Ep. 456 : ' Libras pendo annuatim in hac urbe quingentas.' Address
of letters, Burney MSS. 364. p. 12, 'vis-a-vis des Cordeliers.' Madrid
he began to frequent in May, 1604, Ep. 397, Schulze, ep. 9. La
Bretouniere was substituted for Madrid in the summer of 1606,
Burney MSS. 365. address of letters. Grigny was acquired in 1607,
Eph. p. 540.
NOTE C. p. 174.
The long struggle of the university of Paris against the Jesuits
(15641620) has been generally treated as an episode of the history
of the Gallican church. It ought to be viewed as an integral part of
the history of letters and civilisation in France. The official history by
M. Jourdain, which is sufficiently copious in point of detail, does not
place the true issue clearly before the reader. University reform was
the terrain upon which the liberals contended with the reaction. On
this, as on every other point, the victory, after the avenement of
Henri iv, remained with the catholic and obscurantist party. This
fact is entirely disguised, or ignored, in the general histories, which
make much of the reformation of September 18, 1600. Ultra-
montanism, indeed, received a signal check. The authority of the
lay sovereign was vindicated, as against the ecclesiastical. Whereas
the previous ' reform ' had been carried through by a cardinal legate,
in the name of the pope, the reform of 1600 was conducted without
reference to the legate, by a royal commission. This point, and it was
a great one, gained for the gallican and national party, the reformers had
exhausted their strength. The first article of the new statutes enacted
the exclusion of all non-catholics not only from teaching, but from
being taught, in the public schools. Whatever de Thou and Achille !
APPENDIX TO 4. 293
de Harlay may have wished, they could not have got Casaubon ap-
pointed one of the professors of the college royal. M. Martin,
indeed, makes him one, Hist, de France, 10. 478: 'En de*pit des
lettres patentes de Charles ix, qui avaient exclu le protestant Ramus,
Henri iv. appela parrni les professeurs le protestant Casaubon,
1'e'rudition incarne'e.' M. Martin adds that the reform of 1600 was so
sound and durable that ' au fond nous en vivons encore.' That is
true, except that the insignificance of the university of Paris in point
of science and learning dates from 1572 instead of from 1600. For
a full exposd of the character of the statutes of 1600, M. Martin refers
to 'un tres bon chapitre' of II. Poirson's elaborate monograph on
Henri iv. M. Poirson is equally blind to the capital fact of this
' reform,' viz. that it was the triumph of Catholicism. The university
was kept in subordination to the church. Over this decisive fact M.
Poirson glides, by the statement, 3. 763 : ' Les statutes pourvoient des
les premiers articles, a ce que la jeunesse des colleges soit e'leve'e dans
la connoissance et la pratique de la religion, a ce que son Education
soit e'minemment chre'tienne.'
NOTE D. p. 205.
The * Excerpta Eusebiana ' form the most considerable fragments
remaining of the greek ' Chronica ' of Eusebius. They are found in
cod. reg. 2600, a MS. of (-see. 15, consisting of miscellaneous extracts,
grammatical, historical, etc. They are printed in Scaliger's 'The-
saurus Temporum,' Add. p. 224, and more fully, in Cramer, Anecd.
Paris, 2. 115. The copy sent to Scaliger at Leyden was made by
Charles Labbe', and collated with the original by Casaubon. Ep.
446: ' Contulimus, et studiose anoypafyov ipsius (Labbe') cum auto-
grapho contendimus, ut de fide lectionis clubitare non debeas. Quod
si qusedam occurrent mendosa, occurrent autem nonnulla, scito non
aliter in regio codice esse scriptum.' The errors which Cramer
attributes to Scaliger's text are, according to Bernays, corrections
silently made by Scaliger. See fuller account of the find, and the
delight which it gave Scaliger, in Bernays, J. J. Scaliger, Bel. no. 73,
Casaubonische Excerpte.
5.
LONDON.
1610 1614.
OF possible places of refuge in case of necessity,
there remained England. Had it been 200 years
earlier, nothing would have been more simple, than
that a learned man, who was dissatisfied in Paris,
should have migrated to Oxford, for a time, or for
life. But now it was different. Neither North nor
South Britain entered into the comity of nations, in
such a way that natives of all countries indiscrimi-
nately circulated through our universities, either as
students or professors, as they had once done, and as
they still did in the other parts of western Europe.
Casaubon tells Baudius \ ( It is not the manner of the
English to import distinguished men of learning from
other countries.' And Thomson writes to the same 2 ;
' Our English students seldom travel abroad, so that
you need not wonder that you see so few of them
where you are.' But the settlement of the foreigner
1 Ep. 853 : ' Non est mos Anglorum, ut viros eruditione claros
aliunde accersant.'
2 Baudii epp. p. 514: 'Angli nostri studiosi raro peregrinantur, j
quare minim non est si pauci ad vos confluunt.' Thomson to Dom.
Baudius, 1605.
LONDON. 1610 1G 14. 295
in London was of common occurrence, while, more
often still, travelled Englishmen contracted intimacy
and maintained correspondence with continental
scholars.
Alberic Gentilis had recently died (1608) as pro-
fessor of civil law at Oxford ; Saravia was still living
as canon of Canterbury ; Theodore Diodati was re-
siding in Aldersgate ; Dr. Raphael Thoris, a native of
Flanders, lived in Broad Street ; and Lobel at High-
gate, through in extreme old age. Even at the uni-
versities, in the first twenty years of the seventeenth
century, more than twenty names of foreigners, en-
tered or graduated at Oxford, may be found in the
records.
Besides, there were other conditions, at the present
juncture, which might serve to recommend England
to Casaubon as his choice, or reconcile him to it as
a necessity.
The reigning prince was a lover, if not of learning,
at least of a kind of theological lore which borrowed
its lights from learning. James I. surrounded himself
with divines whose talk was of fathers and councils.
' He doth wondrously covet learned discourse,' writes
lord Howard to Harington 3 , not indeed of the grand
classical antiquity, for which none about him had eye
or ear, but the bastard antiquity of the fourth cen-
tury. They searched the ecclesiastical writers for
precedents in support of English episcopacy, but they
read them in the original, and this served to main-
tain greek at a premium. For the first and the last
time in our annals, the court was the theatre of
these learned discussions. Notwithstanding foibles
which have handed down his character to ridicule,
3 Harington, Nugae antiq. i. 390.
296 LONDON. 1610 1614.
neither the understanding nor the attainments of James
were contemptible. But his speech and action had
a taint of puerility which degraded them. The ironical
nickname of the British Solomon incurably clings to
the only English prince who has carried to the throne
knowledge derived from reading, or any considerable
amount of literature. Despised by the men of busi-
ness as a pedant, James had 'by far the best head
in his council 4 .' In the piteous condition of learning
and the learned at that time, without patron or home,
it was natural that the eyes of these outcasts of so-
ciety should be directed to the only court in Europe
where their profession was in any degree appreciated.
And Casaubon was not wholly without acquaintance
and correspondents even among insular Britons.
We have seen how his position at Geneva led
to his acquaintance with the 'roving Englishman/
and in the instances of Wotton and Thomson even
to intimacy. In 1601, Spotswood, then only minister
of Calder, afterwards archbishop of Glasgow, and
Andrew Lamb, afterwards bishop of Galloway, came
over to Paris in the suite of the duke of Lennox,
ambassador extraordinary from the king of Scots.
Even in 1601, Casaubon was sufficiently known to be
sought out by foreigners of curiosity who visited
Paris. Spotswood brought, not exactly a message
from James vi, but told Casaubon that his learning
and piety were well known to that learned monarch.
Spotswood urged him to address a letter of com-
pliment to James. Casaubon did so, and wasted, to
his great grief, two days in penning an inflated
epistle in the usual style of tasteless adulation,
which Spotswood carried back and duly delivered.
4 Speckling, Life of Bacon, 4. 278.
LONDON. 16101614. 297
Tames replied to his dearest Casaubon, telling him
that, ' besides the care of the church, it was his
fixed resolve to encourage letters and learned men,
as he considered them the strength, as well as the
ornament, of kingdoms/ He concluded by hoping
that Casaubon would visit him in Edinburgh, now
he was so near, as he would much prefer talking to
him to writing to him. Casaubon could from this
time reckon a crowned head among his regular cor-
respondents. But James' accession to the English
throne, which was the signal for others, who had over-
looked him before, to fall on the knee before him as
suitors, only deterred Casaubon from further corre-
spondence. Indeed his stock of flattery must have
been exhausted, and the two letters which he ad-
dressed in 1 60 1 and 1602 to 'a sovereign such as
Plato had imagined but never seen/ consisted of
very commonplace incense. He not only did not
join the throng of applicants, but did not even
write the congratulatory epistle, which might na-
turally have been expected of him. He would not
' come with his pitcher to Jacob's well as others do/
as Bacon said of himself. He had indeed solicited,
through Spotswood, the charity of the king of Scots,
but not for himself, for Beza, who in extreme age
was without the most necessary comforts, for the
Academy of Geneva which was struggling to exist
with an empty exchequer and no resources 5 . From
this time there were constant reports among Casau-
bon' s friends in France and Germany that he had
been invited to England, long before any thought
of this kind had been entertained by any one in this
. 343-
298 LONDON. 16101614.
country. In 1603, L' Hermit e had heard it at Soleure 8 .
In 1609, Scipio Gentilis had heard it at Altorf. ' Nugae,
nugse,' writes Casaubon 7 in answer to this letter. 'I
have been invited, but not by the king, and in a
way quite different from what you suppose.' The in-
vitations were from friends to pay them a visit, not
offers of preferment from a patron.
Gradually Casaubon began to plan a visit ; but a
visit might be a reconnaissance. He would see if
the island could afford him a safe retirement from the
worry and controversial baiting which made his life
in Paris intolerable. He mentioned the scheme as a
thing he had in view, to Scaliger. Scaliger dis-
couraged it. As early as 1604 he wrote 8 : 'Surely
you will not give up a certainty for an uncertainty.
Settlement in a foreign country is at best but a
hazardous experiment. You would put yourself to
the cost of a removal, and then only be laughed at
by all the court monkeys for your credulity. I could
tell you much of the English, what a disagreeable
people they are, inhospitable to foreigners, particu-
larly churlish to Frenchmen, against whom they
cherish a traditional antipathy. If it be in the fates
that you are to settle in England, at least do not
precipitate the event. Wait till you are called; do
not offer yourself, and sell your venture at as high
a price as you can/
Scaliger's advice was dictated by his own feelings.
He overlooked one attraction which the English in-
vitation contained for Casaubon, because it would
have been no attraction for himself. In 1604, when
Scaliger's advice as above was given, Casaubon had
6 Barney MSS. 364, L'Hermite to Casaubon, 1603.
7 Ep. 630. 8 Scalig. Epp. pp. 241. 253.
LONDON. 16101614. 299
hardly begun that dissatisfaction with the calvinist
worship which in 1610 had grown into a serious
grievance to his conscience. He had been gradually
worked into this state of mind by the necessity of
daily encountering the catholic disputants. The
ministers of his own communion scouted antiquity, of
which they were ignorant, and which Casaubon re-
garded as the only arbiter of the quarrel. Books
fell in his way written on this side of the channel,
in w^hich he met with a line of argument very dif-
ferent from the uninstructed, but presumptuous dog-
matism of the calvinist ministers. He found to his
surprise and delight that there were others besides
himself who could respect the authority of the fathers,
without surrendering their reason to the dicta of the
papal church. The young anglo-catholic school which
was then forming in England took precisely the ground
which Casaubon had been led to take against Du
Perron.
The change of face which English theology effected
in the reign of James I. is, to our generation, one of
the best known facts in the history of our church.
But it is often taken for granted that this revolution
was brought about by the ascendancy of one man,
whose name is often used, to denominate the school
as the Laudian school of divines. Laud was the
political leader, but in this capacity only the agent
of a mode of thinking which he did not invent.
Anglo-catholic theology is not a system of which any
individual thinker can claim the invention. It arose
necessarily, or by natural development, out of the
controversy with the papal advocates, as soon as that
controversy was brought out of the domain of pure
reason into that of learning. That this peculiar
300 LONDON. 1610 1614.
compromise, or via media, between romanism arid
Calvinism developed itself in England, and nowhere
else in Christendom, is owing to causes which this is
not the place to investigate. But that it was a pro-
duct, not of english soil, but of theological learning
wherever sufficient learning existed, is evidenced by
the history of Casaubon 's mind, who now found him-
self, in 1610, an anglican ready made, as the mere
effect of reading the fathers to meet Du Perron's in-
cessant attacks.
England thus seemed to open to Isaac Casaubon
not only an asylum from the teasing persecution of
the convertisseurs, but a church whose doctrines and
ministrations were more congenial than were afforded
him in his own communion, and which in a great
measure realised the ideal he had formed from the
study of catholic antiquity.
His wish, formerly entertained, to visit Venice in
search of the greek church, now gave place to a desire
to visit England, and see for himself the english
church. He mentioned his wish to the king, and
begged leave of absence. Henri always put him off,
wishing the irrevocable step of conversion to be taken
before he trusted him out of his sight. But Casaubon,
though obliged to defer its execution, persisted in his
intention. On April 20 he wrote to James I, inti-
mating clearly the wish at which he had before only
distantly hinted. But he could not leave, even for
a visit, without an open rupture with a master to
whom he was bound by duty, gratitude, and interest.
On May 14, 1610, these bonds were severed in a
fatal moment by the knife of a wretched fanatic. The
first moments of terror were passed by Casaubon at
Grigny, where he was when the news reached him.
LONDON. 16101614. 301
ie king was wounded. The evening was spent in
dreadful suspense. Next morning a special messenger
sent out by Madame Casaubon brought the real truth.
Death had followed instantaneously upon the second
stroke of the assassin's knife, but the secret had been
so well kept that Lestoile tells us 9 that at 5 p.m. it
was only at the Louvre it was known that the king
was dead. Casaubon determined, whatever the danger
might be, to share it with his friends, and immedi-
ately returned to Paris 10 . The terror of the huguenots
was sufficiently visible in the irresolution of Sully.
He set off, on the i4th, to drive to the Louvre,
thinking the king only wounded. But finding he
was dead, he dared not show himself, and retired to
the arsenal. It was not till the next morning that
he ventured to appear in his place at the council.
The protestants had expected the mob to rise and
repeat '72. No movement of the sort took place.
The Parisians were stunned for the moment by* the
greatness of the blow.
The assassination took place on April 14. On the
i yth Du Perron returned to the charge. Casaubon
was sent for, and had to hear a lecture upon the true
sense of some of the passages usually relied on against
transubstaiitiation. The cardinal saw that if he were
to have Casaubon it must be now. The tie that had
bound him to France was severed. He knew Casau-
bori's cherished wish to visit England, and foreboded
in what the visit would end.
Both parties felt that the crisis of the long struggle
was come. Casaubon, simple-minded as he was, must
9 Registre-journal, p. 586.
10 Ep. 695 : c Ut quicquid bonis futurum esset, sors illorum mihi
cum bonis ess?et commimis.'
302 LONDON. 1610 1614.
have understood that he was now at the mercy of the
court. The alternative offered him now, whatever it
might have been before, was conversion or dismissal >
But the cardinal, with a fine tact, continued to treat
the question as one of pure learning, and love of truth.
He makes no allusion to Casaubon's altered circum-
stances, avoiding thus any alarm to his conscience or
his pride. Casaubon, on his part, though aware that
the bread of his family is at stake, and though agi-
tated to distraction by the complication in which he
finds himself entangled, exhibits himself to us, not only
in his familiar letters, but in the secret pages of the
diary, endeavouring, with an honest and honourable
soul, to find out on which side his actual opinions
placed him. It is clear that his struggle is not be-
tween his conscience and his preferment, it is an in-
tellectual struggle, an endeavour to choose between
the riva] churches.
It is not surprising that historians, looking at the
broad outline of things, should have fixed on Casaubon
the charge of 'wavering.' Meric has replied to the
round assertion of Heribert Rosweyd that his father
Isaac had promised the cardinal to make his recanta-
tion at Whitsuntide, but was anticipated by the english
invitation. The only answer which this unsupported
assertion admitted of, or deserved, was a flat contra-
diction. It was simply a lie with a circumstance, such
as were hatched by the dozen in the Jesuit colleges
of that period. But impartial historians, e. g. Hallam 11 ,
have spoken of Casaubon's ' wavering' as a fact. If
there be a moment in his life on which the charge of
having wavered can be fixed, it is the moment at
which we are now arrived. Yet at this very moment,
11 Hallam, Lit. Hist. 2. 302.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 303
e perversion of his eldest son, John, of which he
beard August 14, drew from him the bitter cry of
pain which is recorded under that date. The heart
from which that cry of paternal anguish was wrung
was in no mood to fraternise with the crew of intriguers
}y whom the blow had been dealt. What on a cursory
inspection of Casaubon's remains looks like wavering
will, I think, be found on a closer view to be a more
complex mental state. He was indeed in an intellec-
tual difficulty, but it was that he found his own
opinions coincide neither with Calvinism, nor with
ultramontanism. He had been forced by reading,
and controversy, into a middle position between the
two, and did not yet know how far the position thus
created was a tenable one, or that it was shared by
others besides himself. Circumstances were preparing
bis removal to a country, in which to his surprise he
found a whole national church encamped on the
ground, on which he had believed himself to be an
isolated adventurer.
Meantime he had escaped into the country, and hid
himself in his retreat at Grigny as much as his duties
in the library would allow. The cardinal, too, had
graver business to call him off from his pursuit of
Casaubon. Things in France were rapidly going in
the direction which had been foreseen. The first shock
had sobered parties and inspired a momentary patri-
otism. On June i, Casaubon 12 wrote that the hand
of providence was visible in the unanimity of all the
great men and nobles to fly to the aid of their country.
Before another month his language is changed. On
June 25 he writes to Heinsius 13 : 'The most grievous
thing to me is the murder not being pursued in the
12 E P . 674. u E P . 675.
304 LONDON. 1610 1614.
way of justice as it ought to be. It is notorious whose
teaching it was* that instigated the fatal deed, who
they are who have proclaimed regicide as a principle ;
yet we sleep on in utter indifference. I cannot express
to you the anguish of mind from which I am now
suffering. It is not mere regard for my own individual
prospects which tortures me, and makes me pass sleep-
less nights, but a sense of the public calamity which
is fallen on my country/
On June 15 the english embassy had written 14 to
the same effect : ' The duke D'Espernon doth act, if
not the chiefest, at the least the most busy and in-
truding part in this comedy, I pray God it do not
prove a tragedy, who, joyned with the count of
Soissons and the jesuites, together with some of the
greatest officers, doth begin by their meanes to en-
croach upon the chiefest authority and administration/
To the .same effect Casaubon 15 writes on September 6 :
' Things here are come to that pass that we shall all
soon be mere slaves of the loyolites. I know my
countrymen well enough to know that they will not
submit to the yoke without some convulsive spasms ;
but submit they will in the end ; the powers that be
are engaged on that side/ Nor was it only the court
which was inclining to the roman and Spanish in-
terest. The passions of the mob were engaged in
the cause, and in the hot nights of midsummer the
panic of the huguenots was renewed. If there were
an outbreak, they knew that they would be the first
victims. The Jesuit writers affirm that these terrors
were feigned. They may have been unreasonable
a panic always is but they were real. Casaubon's !
14 Winwood, Memorials, 3. 189, Beaulieu to TrumbulL
15 Ep. 684.
LONDON. 16101614. 305
liary records that on July 19 he was unable to do
anything, owing to his friends flocking in terror to his
house, which was in the most dangerous (the latin)
quarter. On July ,V Beaulieu 16 , wrote from Paris :
' There have been such alarms taken these three or
four nights by those of the weaker side, that the duke
of Bouillon and the prince of Conde ... did sit up
with all their household in arms almost all those nights
long. . . . A man can see nothing almost in the streets
but carrying and providing of arms in every house,
as it were upon assured expectation of imminent
disorder.'
It was in the thick of these alarms that the de-
cisive invitation to England reached Casaubon's hands
(July 20). It was an official invitation from the
archbishop of Canterbury 17 . As far back as March,
or earlier, definite proposals had been sent him in an
unofficial way through sir George Carew, the ex-
ambassador, in whose household Philippa had died.
The archbishop (Bancroft) now writes himself, re-
iterating the terms which had been before proposed.
Casaubon was assured ' that his coming among them
would be welcomed by them all ; that a prebend of
Canterbury, then actually vacant, was reserved for
him ; and as the income of the stall might not be
sufficient for his maintenance, a promise was added
that it might be increased from other sources. He
might come over and see for himself. Or, if he
chose to throw himself for good upon the generosity
of the king, and to rely upon the assurances now
given him by the archbishop, he might remove his
family at once. In the latter case he was to draw
6 Winwood's Mem. 3. 191.
17 Burney MFS. 263, printed ap. Russell, p. 1097.
X
306 LONDON. 16101614.
upon the english embassy for 30 for the expenses
of the journey. Any how, when he comes he would
find the archbishop ready to do his utmost in his
behalf. Finally, the archbishop, while leaving the
choice entirely to Casaubon's own discretion, seemed
to recommend a private retreat, in preference to a
public withdrawal from the French service.
The terms of this communication were somewhat
vague, but Casaubon was able to put an exact value
upon them by the aid of sir G. Carew's letter of
March 12, ' The archbishop, it will be observed, speaks
of the king's generosity, and the archbishop's honour.
This was delicate, as the provision designed for him
was a contribution to be made up out of the bishops'
own purses. The prebendal stall was valued at 88,
besides house, fuel, and corn, and the bishops were
to subscribe among themselves what would make it
up to equal what he was getting in France, till he
could be further provided for out of church revenues.
The king does not appear to have promised anything,
though he may have intended to give him some-
thing more in the church. The invitation was from
the archbishop, but there can be no doubt that the
king himself was promoting the step. As early as
1608, Bancroft had carried a copy of the 'De libertate
ecclesiastica ' to James, who had been so delighted
with it, that for many days he could talk of nothing
but Casaubon 18 .
The stalls at Canterbury were not of the arch-
bishop's collation. But Bancroft was not unwilling
to be the channel of communication, as it cost him
nothing, and it was well understood in England that
Casaubon was as little inclined to favour Bancroft's
u Burney MSB. 366. p. 141.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 307
enemies, the puritans, as the king's enemies, the
ultramontanes. He viewed Casaubon, and no other
view was taken of him by the other persons concerned,
the king excepted, as an instrument of controversy,
which it was desirable to enlist in the service of the
english church. James himself, who was just now
very busy with pamphlet writing, and who was com-
missioning his ambassador at the Hague 19< to find
some smart Jesuit with a quick and nimble spirit'
to write against Vorstius, doubtless designed employ-
ment of the same sort for Casaubon. But he also
promised himself much delectation from this addition
to his sanhedrim.
After the receipt of the official invitation, Casaubon
still lingered some months in France. The delay
was caused by the difficulty of obtaining the necessary
permission from the court. He did not think proper
to make the clandestine departure which Bancroft
had suggested. He applied for, and at last obtained,
a furlough in form. It was understood 20 that he
was to make a visit of a few weeks, leaving his
family and his library behind; and 21 he solemnly
engaged himself to return whenever he should be
summoned.
The ambassador extraordinary, lord Wotton of
iMarley, who was on his return to England, offered
I him a place in his suite. Besides a free passage, he
I thus enjoyed many advantages above the ordinary
traveller. Yet his sufferings were still such as to
|make us wonder at the readiness with which our an-
cestors met the dangers and horrors of the channel.
9 Wiriwood's Mem. 3. 311.
20 Ep. 864 : ' Qui paucas hebdomadas me hsesurum in Britannia
H>opoiideram.' 2l Ep. 700.
X 2
308 LONDON. 1610 1614.
We abridge his own graphic narrative from the diary
and the letters to his family 22 .
The cavalcade were eight days on the road between
Paris and Calais, which they reached October 15.
Here they were detained, waiting for the king's ship,
which was to be sent to bring over the ambassador.
'The i/th of October was Sunday, when I would
fain have joined public worship, but had to think of
somewhat else. For my lord had ordered two trans-
ports, one for our baggage, the other for the horses;
and the whole morning was spent in getting them
on board. As the ship of the royal navy did not
arrive, my lord was much in doubt whether he
should wait for it, or should hire one that lay in
the harbour, where there were some 150 vessels,
small, and mostly fishing boats. As we could hardly
hope to set sail this day, my lord bade us sit down
to dinner. Himself and his lady would not eat, in
case they might, after all, have to go on board.
We sat down and had gotten to about the second
course, when word was brought that the wind had
now become dead against the passage to England.
Upon this the ambassador and his lady also sat down.
After dinner I walked down to the harbour, and had
hardly returned to the inn, when I found the face
of things changed, and that we were to sail at I
once. A ship had come from England, not indeed |
a king's ship, but one of large burden, too big toj
enter the harbour, and was now at anchor a league i
out to sea. We were rowed off to it in boats, I
having wrapped myself up in my galligaskins against!
the cold. It was about two when we got on board,!
and, the wind being favourable, we hoped to be at;
2 Eph. p. 769, compared with ep. 691.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 309
over in about three or four hours. Joyful therefore,
I stepped on to the big ship, the first vessel of any
size I had ever seen, with three sails and the royal
arms of England on a silken flag. We got mider
way, our hopes mounting high, when on a sudden
the wind veered round dead against us. Do what
we could, we could not make head against it, and
night coming on, the captain knew not' whereabouts
we were. One while we were said to be within ten
miles of the English coast ; then back at Calais or
Peronne, or I know not where. Having never been
at sea before, I was badly sea sick from the first,
and for some hours suffered much from pain and
faintness. Nothing could exceed the kindness shown
me by my lord and lady and by many of the suite.
They took me down into my lord's private cabin and
placed me in his bed. At last the violent rain driv-
ing my lord and lady off the deck, I was obliged to
be removed to an aftercabin with many charges
that I should be taken care of. Here I could have
done pretty well but for the plague of mischievous
beasts, which came out of the sailors' clothes on which
I lay. To me and all of us the night seemed incre-
dibly long, and I understood the force of the words
in the Acts, "they wished for the day." When at
last we reached the harbour we had a narrow escape
of being wrecked against it in entering it, the prow
of the vessel being heavily crushed. But we escaped
harm and were at last safely housed in our inn/
From Dover his first thought was to write home a
full account of the perils he had braved. He had
already written from Amiens to his son John, and his
nephew Isaac. He repeats his cautions, and puts
precise questions, to which he demands precise answers.
310 LONDON. 1610 1614.
23 ' As you love me and respect my commands, I charge
you to let me hear from you at London how my wife
is, and how she takes my absence. My books and
papers you will take especial care of. The king's
library, Isaac, is in your individual keeping. Do not
be too easy in admitting anyone into the room, and
never more than one person at a time. Explain to
monseigneur de Thou how it happened that that
volume I borrowed of him was not returned before
my departure, and let no one touch the book except
by his orders. Tell your mother that those English
coins which Madame Gentilis let me have, and which I
wrote to say I had left behind in my study, I found
in my chest, in a corner where I had stowed them
myself. .... Let me have an account how Gentllle,
Jeanne, and Anne behave ; as for Paul, I persuade
myself he is already grown quite a scholar. Tell me
also about Marie, whom I did riot embrace at parting,
and about the rest of the children ; about all the
Desbordes family. Has my wife been to Grigny ?
What has she done about that rascally bailiff? In
short, tell me everything, public or private, which I
ought to know/
At Canterbury he was detained some days by the
hospitality of his travelling companion, Benjamin
Carier. Carier was one of the prebendaries, and was
now proud to introduce Casaubon to the chapter, of
which it was intended that he should become one. It
is characteristic of Casaubon's irritability and placa-
bility, that he now commends the obliging entertain-
ment he met with from Carier, as warmly as he had
before grumbled at his selfishness during the journey;
Carier was one of the high church party, and boasts
23 Ep. 691.
LONDON. 16101614. 311
/asaubon 81 that he always says the morning and
evening prayer, as the law prescribes. He it was who
afterwards received Casaubon's dividend, as prebendary,
and accounted for it to him.
Carier's kindness may not have been altogether
disinterested. The deanery of Rochester becoming
vacant a year later, he sought to avail himself of
Casaubon's supposed interest at court to get it for
him. He pleaded that ' the deanery was a very poor
one, and that he, holding the living of Thornham in
the neighbourhood, had advantages for the exercise of
hospitality at Rochester.' Bancroft was not averse to
pluralities ; ' a doublet is necessary in cold weather,'
he is reported to have said. But the deanery was
given to Milbourne, and shortly afterwards Carier,
being abroad, caused great scandal, in high church
circles, by going over. He was a man of more than
common reading, and possessed some books, many of
which were new to Casaubon, who did not neglect the
opportunity of going through them. Among others
he mentions the Calvino-Tui cismus, in which Rainolds,
Hie roman catholic brother of the president of Corpus,
made out an ingenious parallel between the calvinists
and mahometans, 25 ' a book, on account of its style and
recondite learning, by no means to be despised/
Casaubon was delighted with Canterbury, both the
place and the people 26 , though the church services
seemed unnatural to him, and he felt odd to be keeping
a saint's day S. Luke's which happened during his
stay.
24 Burney MSS. 363. Carier to Caeaubon, 1611. 25 Eph. p. 779.
26 Ep. 1045 : ' Cum hospitis mei, turn aliorum prsestantissimomm
virorum cxiniiu huinanitate ita sum captus, et loci elegantia atque
amcenitate sic quotidie oblector . . .'
312 LONDON. 1610 1614.
On October 29, he set off for London, and was hos-
pitably received at the deanery of S. Paul's by Overall,
as had been arranged for him by Carier. No time was
lost in presenting him to the archbishop, to whom he
was taken the very day of his arrival. He was most
graciously received by the venerable prelate, who
detained him some time in conversation 27 . It was at
once intimated to him that if he could make up his
mind to stay in the country, it was the wish of the
king and the bishops, that he should do so. Two days
afterwards he paid a second visit to Lambeth, and this
was the last time he was to see Bancroft, who died a
few days after this interview, November 12. In him Cas-
aubon thought he had lost a special friend and patron 28 .
He did not promise himself the same friendliness from
the new archbishop. Abbot had had no share in inviting
Casaubon to England, and his 29< behaviour and carriage
toward the greatest nobility in the kingdom, was,' what
Laud thought, * very insolent and inexcusable.' In this
respect Casaubon was agreeably disappointed. Abbot
was uniformly friendly to him, sent for him often to
Lambeth or to Croydon, made him a present regularly
at Christmas, and consented to be godfather to a son,
James, the only child born to him in England.
The other bishops vied with each other in welcoming
him, and feting him, in the hospitable english way,
by entertaining him at dinner. Overall, not only took
in Isaac himself at the deanery, but also his wife arid
family when they arrived. Here he made his home
for the first twelve months, from October 1610 to
27 Eph. p. 781 : Tuit mihi cum eo multus sermo.'
28 Eph. p. 797 : ' Quantam jacturam fecerim in morte archiepiscopi
videor incipere intelligere.' 29 Clarendon, Life, i. 65.
L OX DON. 1 G 1 1614. 313
September 1611, though it seems probable 30 that, at
least during the dean's absence, who had a house out
of town at Islington 31 , Casaubon provided his own
household expenses. Nor did their civility wear out
with the novelty. We find him, up to the last, dining
with them both privately 32 , and on their grand oc-
casions 33 , and presents are sent by them at Christmas
to himself or to Madame Casaubon 34 .
The bishop of Ely was able to report to the king
that Casaubori's reputation was borne out by his con-
versation. James was impatient to make trial of the
new man, and ordered him to be brought out to him
to Theobald's. Casaubon, nervously solicitous about
the etiquette of the eriglish court, thought that no
one less than the archbishop could instruct him, and
went out to Lambeth to ask how he was to behave.
Bancroft, who must have been amused at his simplicity,
made him stay to dinner, and calmed his fears, gratify-
ing him at the same time by the marked attention he
showed him. On November 8, Casaubon was taken
out to Theobald's in lord Dunbar's carriage 35 . Casau-
met the gracious reception which he had been led
to expect, and had the honour of being the principal
figure in the circle which stood round the royal chair
at supper.
30 Eph. p. 827. 31 Burney MSS. 364.
32 Eph. p. 978. 33 Eph. p. 1049.
14 Burney MSS. 364. p. 337.
35 Sir George Home, cr. 1605, earl of Dunbar at this time, 1610,
Deeper of the privy purse, the king's declared favourite, of whom
Jume says, Hist, of Engl. that ' he was one of the wisest and most
irtuous, though the least powerful, of all those whom he honoured
with that distinction.' Dunbar's influence, however, overbore that of
he whole bench of bishops on one memorable occasion, when he got
bbot promoted to Canterbury instead of Andrewes.
*
314 LONDON. 16101614.
James' learned repasts have been often described,
among others, by Hacket 38 : ' The reading of some books
before him was very frequent, while he was at his
repast ; he collected knowledge by variety of questions
which he carved out to the capacity of different
persons. Methought his hunting humour was not
off, while the learned stood about him at his board ;
he was ever in chase after some disputable doubt,
which he would wind and turn about with the most
stabbing objections that ever I heard ; and was as
pleasant and fellow-like in all these discourses, as with
his huntsmen in the field. Those who were ripe and
weighty in their answers, were ever designed for some
place of credit or profit/ Seat and food were for
sacred majesty only. It is ill-talking between a full
man and a fasting, says the proverb ; scarcely less so
between one sitting and one standing. It happened
this first day, that the king was taken up with a new
french pamphlet against himself. The pamphlet was
anonymous, and he was attributing it to the one name
best known to him, that of cardinal Du Perron. Casau-
bon was able to undeceive him, to tell him the name
of the real author, as well as something about him.
James w T as well satisfied, and Casaubon was ordered
to attend again the next day.
Casaubon was rapidly established in the royal favour.
The king was insatiable of his conversation, was always
sending for him and keeping him talking for hours.
James talked well himself, liked a good hearer, but
was ready, which is not always the case with
talkers, to listen in return. In graver conversation he
was perhaps even superior to what he was in light
36 Life of AbP. Williams, pt. 2, p. 38; cf. Jessop, Life of Donne,
p. xxviii.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 315
He loved speculative discourse upon moral and
political subjects ; and his talent for conducting such
discussions is a frequent theme of admiration, not only
among his courtiers, but in the unsuborned writings
of the foreigners who visited him.' Casaubon on his
part was a ready talker 38 , and if his french was not
good, his matter was inexhaustible. His memory sup-
plied him with an endless store of diversified infor-
mation on the topics which James liked best. The
conversation was conducted in french, which James
spoke fluently 39 , though we may suppose with a scotch
accent. Casaubon, who never could accomplish englisfi,
and was compelled with the bishops to stumble on in
latin, found his tongue set free in the court circle.
Of these conversations, serious or gossiping, he has
only recorded one, and that very scantily 40 . It was one
of the first; in November 1610, on the day on which
the king commemorated by a solemn service his de-
livery at Gowrie house. The conversation was directed
by the king to general literature. Of Tacitus, James
said they were wrong, who thought him the one
historian, who was a master of political wisdom.
Casaubon was delighted to reply that in his late preface
to Polybius, he had passed a similar judgment; and
that the historical lesson to be learnt from Polybius
was far more instructive. The king blamed Plutarch
for his partiality against Caesar.
In Commines he noticed his flippancy, and his ha-
tred of the english. Casaubon, whose idea of a king's
37 Chambers, Life of James I, 2. 154.
8 Thorii ep. ' serin onis prompt issi mi/
59 Epp. p. 931: 'Hodie regis pietatem, doctrinam, et facultatem
utrius?que sermonis Gallici et Latini nobis mirari licuit.'
40 'Ep. 704.
316 LONDON. 16101614.
conversation was formed upon that of Henri iv, wise
and ruse, but who had at most read Amyot's french
Plutarch, was astounded by finding here a king who
could pronounce opinions original, and not unjust, on
classical authors, which he had read himself. M. Saint-
Beuve 41 suggests that James disliked Commines for his
constitutional opinions in favour of the rights of the
etats, and adds that there is no levity in the judgment
which Commines passed on english institutions. In
the king's remark on Tacitus we may probably trace a
reminiscence of Buchanan, and a revolt against the
notions of his master. Casaubon, when he wrote the
passage in his preface to Polybius, was thinking of
Lipsius, and meant that the history of the world on
an oecumenical scale was a nobler study than that of
a court, which exhibited only the triumph of vice
and personal despotism. So that the coincidence was
more seeming than real.
The king was now bent upon retaining Casaubon
permanently in England. He had come over pro-
fessedly on a short visit. But it had been understood
at the english embassy that Casaubon was gone pro-
specting. In October the ambassador had reported to
Winwood 43 : ' M. Casaubon is gone into England, in
the company of the lord Wotton, to make a tryall,
whether the condition that is offered him for the
settling him there shall be to his liking/ An official
application was now made to the french government,
and an indefinite permission of absence was accorded.
That it was a leave of absence and not a dismissal,
and that his french pension was to run on, were favours
secured for him by personal friends de Thou or
Villeroy. De Them's prudence desired to keep open
11 (/Miseries clu lundi, 14. 403. 2 Win wood's Mem. 3. 226.
LONDON. 1G10 1614. 317
or him a retreat into France, which circumstances might
any day render expedient, Casaubon, on his part, in
consenting to remain for a time, reserved his duty to
his own sovereign. ' I consider myself/ he writes to
Fronto le Due 43 , ' now and always, as long as breath
is in my body, the queen's servant/ He had in fact
been admitted, before quitting Paris, to an interview
with Marie de Medicis, who had strictly 'charged him
to return soon. He had pledged himself to do so,
whenever summoned. Stepmother as Paris had been
to him, it cost him a pang ** * to bid a long farewell to
my country and friends/ And he tells de Thou 45 ' that
he cannot shake off the painful sense of being an exile ;
though it is true that the singular kindness with which
he is treated by the king softens to him not a little the
want of home/
The king gave the best proof of the interest he took
in his new acquisition by providing for him, at once,
himself. Bancroft's plan was, as we have seen, that the
bishops should subscribe the difference between the
income of the Canterbury prebend, and the stipend of
the royal librarian. The king came forward at once
with a pension of 300 a year from his own purse, in
addition to the prebend of Canterbury, and a promise
of something more on the church establishment here-
after. A stall at Westminster was named *. This
promise was not fulfilled ; why I cannot explain, as on
Saravia's death, in January 1613, the opportunity was
afforded.
The patent conferring the pension runs thus 46 :
43 Ep. 725. 44 Eph. 796 : ' Durum est et asperum.'
45 Ep. 702. * See note A in Appendix.
16 Rymer, Feed. 16. 710, reprinted in Russell, p. 1122.
318 LONDON. 1610 1614.
4 James, by the grace of God, etc. to all men to whom
theis presents shall come, greeting.
4 As our progenitors have heretofore beene carefull to
call into their realme persons of eminent learning,
agreeing in profession of religion with the church of
England, and here to make use of them for the further-
ance of learning and religion among their people ; as
namelie of 47 Paulus Fagius, Martin Bucer, Peter Martin,
and others ; soe have wee, in regard of the singular
learning of Isaac Casaubon, and of his concurrancye
with us and the church of England in profession of
religion, invited him out of Fraunce into this our realme,
here to make his aboad ; and to be used by us as we
shall see cause for the service of the church ; and for
his better support and mayntenance, during the time
of his aboade here ; we are pleased to give unto him,
and of our especiall grace certayn knowledge and meer
motion have given and graunted and by theis presents,
for us our heires and successors, doe give and graunt
unto the saide Isaac Casaubon a certayn annuitye or
pension of three hundred poundes of good and lawfull
money of England by the yeare
Witness our self at Westminster the nynteenth daye of
Januarie 1611.'
In 1 6 10, James had already begun to feel the pres-
sure of poverty. Even Cecil could not make the
47 Paulus Fagius (Buchlein) and Martin Bucer (Putzer) came to
England together, on the invitation of AbP. Cranmer, in 1549. Zurich
Letters, 3. 535. They were entertained at Lambeth before they were
removed to Cambridge. Peter Martyr (Vermigli) had preceded them.
He came to England in 1547, in company with Bernardino Ochino. .
A bill of the expenses of their journey from Basel, amounting to
.126 75. 6d., as sent in to the privy council, is printed in the Archseo-
logia, 21. 471.
LONDON. 16101614. 319
come of the crown cover the expenditure. In 1612
the annual deficit had reached 160000, with a debt of
500000. The king was unable to pay even his brew-
er's bill. If in this situation of the exchequer we are
disposed to look at Casaubori's pension with the eyes
of the lord treasurer, we may observe how trifling is
its amount, in' comparison of the sums whicb the king
habitually lavished on the favourites, who brought
him nothing but public hatred and disgrace. James was
facile in giving away, rather than liberal. From weak-
ness of character, he yielded to the importunity of the
hungry suitors, by whom he was surrounded. In Cas-
aubon's case, what was given was unsolicited, and had
at least the colourable appearance of being patronage of
learning. James was purchasing some credit at a very
cheap rate. The 300 a year spent on Casaubon is some
set off against the thousands afterwards squandered on
unworthy favourites on Car, or Villiers.
Casaubon proceeded to take out letters of natural-
isation, and to look forward to a permanent settlement
in this country. But if, in coming over, he had in-
dulged any hope of being master of his own time, of
acquiring at last that * otium ' for which he had been
iall his life sighing the leisure, that is, to toil from
early dawn till deep into the night in the execution
)f some cherished literary scheme he was soon un-
deceived.
The first and great claimant of his time was the
king. Instead of tiring of him as the novelty wore off,
-he demand for him became more frequent. It grew
.0 be an eatablished custom that he was to present
imself every Sunday 48 . As James was little in
London, but always on the move from one hunting seat
18 Epli. p. 964 : ' Ad regem prout soleo Kaff cKao-rrjv KvpiciKi]v.
320 LONDON. 16101614.
to another, Casaubon. was dragged out to Theobald's,
Royston, Greenwich, Hampton Court, Holdenby, New-
market, wherever the court might be 49 . Sometimes,
not always, he had the convenience of a court carriage.
When the distance obliged him to spend the night, he
had to provide his own lodging, as the accommodation
at these royal residences was but scanty 50 . In writing
to James from Paris, in April, Casaubon had naively
proposed, as the one object of his visit to England, that
he ' might have a good talk with your majesty 51 .' He
was now taken at his word ; and before the end of the
year he had had enough of it. Not that he grew tired
of the king. He tells de Thou 52 * that he found him
greater than report, and thought him more so every time
he saw him/ In February 1613, he writes 53 , 'I enjoy
the favour of this excellent monarch, who is really more
49 Ep. 794 :' Ilia ipsa die juberet me rex se Londino proficiscentem
sequi.'
50 Voltaire says of the court of France in 1562, Essai sur les
mceurs, 3. 233 : 'On couchait trois ou quatre dans le meme lit, et on
alloit a la cour habiter une chambre ou il n'y avait que des coffres
pour meubles.'
51 Ep. 664 : ( Majestatis tuae sensus omnes propius cognoscere, et
qui mihi in mentem venibant posse eidem communicare.'
52 Ep. 692 : ' Majorem fama sua inveni, et quotidie magis magisque
invenio.'
53 Ep. 864. Casaubon's language about James to others is honourable
to the king, and, I think, with some exceptions (see Epp. ep. 249) not
overcharged. His language to James himself is adulatory. But it was
the style of the court, and meant nothing, or meant only ' wonderful
for a king/ Bacon, nay Selden, was equally lavish of the dialect of
flattery, the latter to an extent which raised in Dr. Aikin, Lives of
Selden, etc. p. 37, 'a painful sense of the degradation incurred by
literature when brought in collision with power, unless supported by a
proper sense of its own dignity.' The words of Selden to which Dr.
Aikin refers are in Selden, Opp. 3. 1400. See note B in Appendix.
LONDON. 16101614. 321
instructed than most people give him credit for. He is
a lover of learning to a degree beyond belief; his
judgment of books, old and new, is such as would
become a professed scholar, rather than a mighty
prince.' But it was the ruin of his leisure. Casaubon
was flattered by the attention, while he chafed under
the outlay of time it occasioned. Time spent in con-
versation, however agreeable, was to him time lost.
He begs Montagu 54 , Lake, the king himself, to permit
him to bury himself in his study, and to present any
observations he may have to make by their mediation.
' It is not fitting for one so lowly as I am to approach
so great a monarch, save through a third person *.'
One consequence to Casaubon of this establishment
in the circle that stood round the royal chair was, that
his thoughts were more and more turned from their
own direction. Learning ceased to occupy his mind,
and he was now engrossed by the ecclesiastical topic,
which was the paramount object of interest in this
society. He occasionally thinks, with a sigh of regret,
of his unfinished Polybius, But he never touches it.
The king, who had started on his career with the
axiom imbibed from Buchanan, 'that a king ought to
be the most learned clerk in his dominion,' now never
read anything but controversial divinity, and chiefly
the pamphlets of the day. * Nothing escapes him/
Casaubon writes to Fronto 55 . To cardinal Du Perron
he writes 56 , * Neither his private affairs nor public
business interest his majesty so deeply as do affairs of
religion, and his desire of bringing about concord
54 Ep. 696. * See note D in Appendix.
55 Cas. ep. ad Front, p. 37 : ' Nildl ilium fugit eorum quae a vestris
hominibus scriptitantur '
56 Cas. resp. ad card. Perr. p. 4.
Y
322 LONDON. 16101614.
among the divided members of the church/ This
temper of the english court was well understood on
the continent. Fra Paolo regrets 57 ' that the king of
England was become a doctor of divinity.' ' I come
from England,' Grotius writes in 1 6 1 3 5S , ' where there is
little commerce of letters ; theologians are there the
reigning authorities. Casaubon is the only exception ;
and he could have found no place in England as a man
of learning; he was compelled to assume the theo-
logian.' Heinsms sent Casaubon a copy of his edition
of the ( Poetics/ Casaubon took the book with him to
court to read himself 59 , but he does not speak of it to
the king, and only tells him that Heinsius has sided
against the arminians.
Casaubon at first lamented this growing ecclesi-
astical passion, which was swamping better tastes both
in court and church. In November, 1611, he writes 60
to Charles Labbe : * If you wish to know what I am
doing here, I can only report that all my old studies
have entirely ceased. The king, great and learned
as he is, is now scr entirely taken up with one sort
of book, that he keeps his own mind and the minds
of all about him occupied exclusively on the one
topic. Hardly a day passes on which some new
pamphlet is not brought him, mostly written by
Jesuits, on the martyrdom of Saint Garnett, the suf-
ferings of the english catholics, or matters of that
description. All these things I have to read and
give my opinion upon/ In March, 1613, things had
67 Paolo Sarpi, Lettere, 88.
68 Grotii Epp. p. 751 : ' Ne huic quidem locus fuisset in Anglia ut
literatori, theologum induere debuerit.'
59 Ep. 754- 60 Ep. 753.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 323
not altered. He writes to a friend 61 : ' As long as I
shall stay in England, I see that I must make up
my mind to forego classical letters. Our excellent
and most religious king is so fond of theology, that
he cares very little to attend to any literary subject/
Grotius recollected in 1 628 62 , that Casaubon had told
him ' that he had now laid aside all his interest in
the military affairs of ancient Home.' Henri iv,
greatest of monarchs and of captains, had put him
upon them. But, after his removal to Britain, he
had transferred his studies and his interests to other
matters, viz. religion and religious concord, for which
alone the king of England cared/
The call of the greatest scholar of the age to Eng-
land, and his endowment out of the revenue of the
english church, was a creditable act of government
in a country and a church whose history is not
illumined by any public spirited patronage of science
or learning. The incident figures in the histories of
the church in this capacity. It is disappointing, when
we come to look narrowly into the transaction, to
find that this solitary instance of disinterested patron-
age of learning is no instance at all. Then, greek
scholarship, however eminent, was not a commodity
for which king, bishops, or parliament of England
would have paid 300. The king was delighted to
find in Casaubon a new gossip, deferential, without
being obsequious, whose memory was an inex-
haustible store of book learning. The high church
bishops sought for their party the credit of a dis-
61 Ep. 872.
32 Grotii Epp. ep. 1 84. app. : ' . . . translation in Britanniam
| studia quoque se eo transtulisse, quo vergeret animus regis, cui non
I tarn anna quarn pax et religio cordi.'
Y 2
324 LONDON. 1610 1614.
tinguished convert from puritanism, and they in-
tended to employ his pen in behalf of their cause,
struggling in 1610 against unpopularity. The read-
ing public saw in Casaubon the vindicator of the
civil power against the spiritual tyranny of the bishop
of Rome, of the protestant faith against popery. All
these parts Casaubon had to submit to act with as
good a grace as might be.
When historians credit James with surrounding
himself with learned men, it should be added that
it was with learned divines only. There did not
exist in this country any distinct class of scholars,
or guild of learning, such as had been found in Italy
in the I5th century, or as is formed by the german
professorium of our day. When Eitterhusius wanted
to secure a copyright in England for an edition of the
' Novelise ' he w r as printing at Altorf, Casaubon assured
him that 63 ' the precaution was unnecessary ; the
English printers care nothing for that sort of book.
The only reading which flourishes here is theology ;
no books but theological books, and those of english
authors, are published here. The educated men in
this part of the v\orld contemn everything which
does not bear upon theology/
There was, indeed, a set of men in England to
whom the title of learned is eminently due, though
their reading was directed, not to the classics, but|
mainly to the antiquities of their own country.
Camden, Cotton, Spelman, above all, Selden, and those ,
who formed the society of antiquaries, were not onb
the best set of their time, but one which we shal
63 Ep 766 : '. . . typograplii Angli ejusmodi libros non curant.j
sola est, quse hie floreat, sacra Theologia ; soli fere libri theologici,
fere Anglorum, qui hie eduntur.'
LONDON. 1610 1G14.
325
hardly match in our later history. Bacon had been
tmong them before he sold himself for official ad-
vancement, and Andrewes had imbibed something of
their spirit. But this set of men was neglected, or
crowned upon, by the court. If James showed in
1610 some interest in Camden's ' Annals,' it was only
in respect of the political capital he reckoned to make
out of it, or with a view to the vindication of his
mother's character. Bacon had appealed to the king
in the 'Advancement of Learning/ and had satisfied
himself that there was no hope from that quarter,
for help for the 'Instauratio Magna 6 V In 1609,
Bacon doubts if he can still interest Andrewes in his
speculations, as he intimates in sending to the bishop
his ' Cogitata et Visa 6 V Instead of encouraging Bacon,
the bishops were scheming a college at Chelsea for
the production of more controversial divinity. The
king gave a patent, and licence of mortmain, and
actually nominated seventeen fellows and a provost 66 .
A Jesuit pamphleteer had taunted Andrewes with
having got a bishopric by reading Terence and
Plautus. This is an imputation on his character
from which Casaubon must defend him 67 ; 'In the last
thirty years he has rarely had Plautus in his hands ;
Terence never once. If in his writings any traces of
his classical reading are to be found, let the blame
rest on his retentive memory, and on the giver of
that mental endowment/ Aptly enough, though in
64 Spedding, Life of Bacon, 4. 23. 65 Ibid. p. 141.
66 Fuller, Ch. Hist. 10. 3, 19.
67 Cas. ep. ad Front, p. 159: 'Accusat praesulem quod Terentium
et Plautum legerit juvenis in academiis ; nam ex eo tempore, h. e. ab
annis 30, Plautum vix in maims aliquando meminit sumsisse ; Teren-
tium ne semel quidem attigit. Siqua igitur veteris lectionis vestigia
in scriptis senis venerandi apparent, accuset felicem illius memoriam.'
326 LONDON. 1610 1614.
jest, the earl of Suffolk advises sir J. Harington 58 ,
4 You are not young, you are not handsome, you are
not finely, and yet you will come to courte, and
think to be well-favoured ! why I say again " good
knight," that your learning may somewhat prove
worthy hereunto ; your latin and your greek, and
Italian, your Spanish tongues, your wit and discre-
tion, may be well looked unto for a while as strangers
at such a place, but these are not thinges men live
by now a days/
How entirely the soul of true learning, viz. the spirit
of investigation, was wanting in the circle which sur-
rounded James, and into which Casaubon was now
matriculated, is evinced by what happened to Selden
in 1618. He published in that year his 'History of
Tythes/ It is the work of a legal antiquary, and if
not in point of arrangement a model of historical
criticism, it follows the true path of critical inquiry.
Selden, with Scaliger's example before him, had raised
himself to the idea of an historical investigator; in-
quiring into facts, not drawing up a case. The ' History
of Tythes/ written in this spirit, was received with a
howl of rage by the learned divines of the court circle.
They could not conceive that a book could be written
on tithes, which was neither for, nor against, the church.
The high commission court was brought down on the
unfortunate author, who had committed the crime of
carrying historical criticism into the region of eccle-
siastical antiquity. This error Selden was compelled
to apologise for, and to retract by a court of which
Abbot, King, Buckeridge, and Andrewes, were mem-
bers.
But though the Jacobean divines do not constitute
68 Nichols' Progr. 2. 414.
LONDON. 16101614.
327
an epoch of learning, th'ey represent a stage on the
road towards it. Critical inquiry was not only un-
known, but was proscribed. Yet a zeal for reading,
and patristic research characterised them, which abated
the raw ignorance of the preceding century. They
were led into the region of learning. Barren as their
controversial pamphlets are, yet theology approached
the ground of scientific criticism more nearly than
amid the bandying of scriptural texts, which had been
the controversial form of the century of the reformation.
Anglicanism was purging itself of its fanaticism, and
leaving that element to the puritans. It is true that
all study was theological, and that the theology was
contentious, not scientific. But at any rate there was
study. A german visitor, young Calixtus, always
said 69 that * his tutors in Germany had not done as
much in spurring him on to the study of ecclesiastical
history as had the english bishops, and the well stored
libraries he had seen among them,' during his visit in
1612. The influence of Andrewes on Cambridge could
not but be beneficial. We find him 70 'making con-
tinual search and inquiry to know what hopeful young
men were in the university ; his chaplain and friends
receiving a charge from him to certify what hopeful
and towardly young wits they met with from time to
time/ The instructions issued by the crown to the
vice-chancellor of Oxford 71 , ' according to which young
students were to be incited to bestow their time in the
fathers and councils, schoolmen, histories and con-
troversies, and not to insist too long in compendiums
and abbreviations/ are in the same direction. ' You
69 Henke, Calixtus Leben, i. 149.
70 Isaacson, Life and Death of Andrewes, p. xvii.
71 Heylin, Life of Laud, p. 71.
328 LONDON. 16101614.
must not suppose/ Casaubon writes to Saumaise 72 , ' that
this people is a barbarous people ; nothing of the sort ;
it loves letters and cultivates them, sacred learning
especially. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, the soundest
part of the whole reformation is to be found here in
England, where the study of antiquity flourishes to-
gether with zeal for the truth.'
At fifty-one friends are but slowly made. Yet men
who have long been before the world in their books, do
not approach each other for the first time as strangers.
In this circle of divines Isaac Casaubon was soon at
home, but there were two with whom he became
specially intimate ; ' the only two native Englishmen/
he says 73 , ' with whom he lived on intimate terms in
London/ These were the bishop of Ely and the dean of
S. Paul's.
Lancelot Andrewes, just, September 1609, trans-
lated to Ely, was a prelate who united a sincere
piety with a genial wit, and who, if he had not been
a bishop, might have left an eminent name in eoglish
literature. For a man who had been long about court,
who had the preaching gift, and was in the way of
preferment, his reading was considerable, though it has
been much overrated. He had, in common with many
english divines his contemporaries, an extensive ac-
quaintance with what may be called the ' apparatus
theologicus.' He knew enough of the latin and greek
ecclesiastical writers to find out whether another man
knew them. He knew enough to appreciate Casaubon's
knowledge of them. He had been a prime mover in
bringing Casaubon to England. He had thus taken on
72 Ep. 837 : ' Hsec gens nihil minus est quam barbara, amat et
colit literas, prgesertim autem sacras. quod si me conjectura non fallit,
totius reformationis pars integerrima est in Anglia.'
73 Eph. 915 : ' Quos solos Anglorum familiares habeo.'
LONDON. 16101614.
329
himself the obligation to befriend him. But when he
came to make Casaubon's acquaintance, the character of
the man suited and attracted the bishop. Profound
piety and great reading, common to both, placed them
at first in sympathy. Of bishop Andrewes, it is
affirmed 7 * that 'he daily spent many hours in holy
prayers and abundant tears/ Casaubon's diary is one
prolonged litany. Andrewes was 75 indefatigable in
study from childhood to age. From the hour he rose,
his private devotions finished, to the time he was called
to dinner, which was not till twelve at noon at soonest,
he kept close to his book, and would not be interrupted
by any that came to speak with him. He would be so
displeased with scholars that attempted to speak with
him in a morning, that he would say, * he doubted they
were no true scholars that came to speak with him
before noon/ When, after his promotion to a bishopric,
his own studies were cut short, he was ready to encou-
rage those of others 76 . He sent Bedwell to Leyden to
study arabic, and promised to bear the charges of
printing his * Thesaurus Arabicus.' In tastes thus
alike, they had the further bond of community of
theological opinions. And the coincidence of opinion
had the charm of rencontre. Their opinions had
been arrived at by each independently. The two
had not been formed in one school, but had found out
primitive antiquity, each for himself in a different
country, and without communication. It was a source
of ever fresh delight and surprise to them to find how
independent reading had conducted them to identical
results.
74 Isaacson, Life and Death, etc., p. xiii. 75 Ibid. p. 25.
76 Cas. epp. 831 : ' Hie dignissimus prsesul non solum est doctissi-
mus, sed etiam egregie favet literis ; itaque Bedwello pecuniam polli-
citus est necessarian! ad Thesauri Arabici editionem.'
330 LONDON. 1610 1614.
With these conformities of character and opinion,
there was sufficient intellectual difference to lend the
interest of contrast to their intercourse. As when Ben
Jonson encountered Shakespeare, it is the collision of
learning with wit. Casaubon might admire the nimble
suggestion, the ready memory, the prompt repartee of
his new friend. Andre wes must have felt that he was
in the presence of one, who knew more than himself, of
the things of which he knew most ; one, the relation of
whose knowledge to his own, was that of the whole to
the part. They soon mutually delighted in each other's
society. Andre wes carried Casaubon to Ely with him,
kept him there as long as he could make him stay, and
pressed him to go down again in the following summer.
Casaubon writes of him to all his friends ; to de Thou
that 77 'he is a man whom if you knew you would take
to exceedingly. We spend whole days in talk of letters,
sacred especially, and no words can express what true
piety, what uprightness of judgment, I find in him.' To
Heinsius he says 78 , 'I am by way of seeing the bishop
daily. He is one of a few whose society enables me to
support being separated from de Thou. I am attracted
to the man by his profound learning, and charmed by a
graciousness of manner not common in one so highly
placed/ Again in 1613 he tells Heinsius 79 , ' If you
come over here you will receive the warmest welcome
from the bishop of Ely ; he longs to see you at Ely'
House.'
With all these endowments of nature and education,
Andrewes had not risen above his surroundings. His
piety had not softened his heart, his reading had not
enlarged his intellect. Nothing in his writings rises
above the level of theological polemic, or witty con-
77 E P . 741. 78 E P . 754- 79 E P .88i.
LONDON. 16101614. 331
undrum making. He warns Bellarmine what he may
expect if he should be caught in England 80 . He was
one of the knot of bishops who planned, and deliberately
carried through, the wanton execution of Legatt. He
sat on the commission in the Essex case and there
is a lower depth of infamy gave his voice for the
divorce.
The dean of S. Paul's had taken in Casaubon, and
entertained him as his guest for nearly twelve months.
Yet so much in his company, there is little reference to
him in Casaubon's remains. The kind attentions and
hospitality, both of the dean and of Mrs. Overall, are
warmly acknowledged in a letter 81 which is a record of
Casaubon's gratitude. A short note from the dean to
Casaubon S2 contains an invitation to him to go out of
town to visit him, in his country house at Islington.
Among the Adversaria of 1610 is a memorandum, that
the dean had suggested on Hebr. 10. 5, that o-w^a is a
corruption of cor/a with reduplication of the final 9 of
the preceding word; and that he proposed to read
i Cor. 6. 4 interrogatively. It may be noticed that
even in this rough note, for his own eye only intended,
Casaubon cannot name Overall without adding 'vir
longe doctissimus/ a testimonial, which is of vastly more
weight than A. Wood's 83 , ' one of the profoundest school
divines of our nation/ or than Camden's 84 , f a man
learned all round.'
Casaubon writes to Heinsius S5 that there were only
three men in England who deserved the name of theo-
logian ; the bishop of Ely, the dean of S. Paul's,
and the dean of Winchester. But at this date his
80 Tortura Torti, p. 47. 81 Ep. 739.
12 Burney MSS. 364. p. 337. 83 Athen. 2. 812.
84 Camden, Annales, p. 849. 85 Ep. 744.
332 LONDON. 16101614.
acquaintance with english churchmen was limited.
When he visited Oxford he became acquainted with
several, of whom two at least, Abbot (Robert) and
Prideaux (John) deserved the compliment equally with
the three he names. Prideaux was rising into dis-
tinction as tutor, and, 1612, rector, of Exeter. He
particularly affected foreigners. In his time, and by
his means, the resort of foreigners to Oxford, which the
reformation had broken off, seemed to be revived for a
short time, and on a small scale 86 . Some of these were
young matriculated students ; others, older men, who
only rented chambers in the house, ' to improve them-
selves by his company, his instruction, his direction/
His manners were irore polished than those of the
average academic, and Casaubon was attracted 87 to
him at once. As Prideaux was selected by the arch-
bishop to reply for Casaubon to Eudsemon- Joannes, the
preparation of the pamphlet led to much correspon-
dence between the two. Prideaux, who was a young
and rising man, was very anxious to be received into
the favoured circle of court divines, and saw his way to
this by the medium of the pamphlet. He was nervously
desirous that what he wrote should be satisfactory to
the king, and that it should have Casaubon's recommen-
dation in that quarter 88 . He succeeded in pleasing the
king and the archbishop by his pamphlet, and was re-
warded for it by the Eegius professorship of divinity.
But this was after Casaubon's death.
Of his principal Cambridge friend, Richard Thomson,
86 A. Wood, Ath. 3. 269.
87 Ep. 903 : ' Ita me nuper cepisti, cum istliic te primum vidi ;
multo magis quum te loquentem audivi.'
88 Ep. 915 : ' Non dubito quin ea res optimi regis animum tibi sit
conciliatura.'
LONDON. 1 610 1614.
333
something has been said before. Thomson was among
his earliest acquaintance. Travelling to Italy, as tutor
to some nobleman, Thomson had made some stay, as
most Englishmen did, at Geneva. It was he who had
introduced Henry Wotton to Casaubon, and, more than
this, who first mentioned Casaubon to Scaliger. Thom-
son may thus be said to have been the discoverer 89 of
Casaubon, as it was through Scaliger that Casaubon
became known to the parisian friends. Thomson was a
book and manuscript hunter, and had helped Casaubon
to some things of this kind, which he would fain have
had regarded as presents, but on this point Casaubon
was scrupulous. Nor was it only gratitude which bound
Casaubon to Thomson. Thomson's amiable qualities
attached Casaubon; he was a favourite with Madame
Casaubon, and he is the only correspondent to whom
the children send their remembrances. In his univer-
sity (he was M.A. of Clare) he was well considered as a
scholar, and was on the company of translators of king
James' bible, for Hebrew. But he had also coquetted
with many classics, greek and latin, helping any of his
friends in their editions. He had given suggestions to
Casaubon for Suetonius, for Polybius, for the Augustan
historians, and to Farnaby for Martial. He had talked
of editing himself the Epistles to Atticus, Zonaras'
Lexicon, but never did anything. He was drawn,
like his friend, into the theological vortex, and his
literary schemes ended in a polemical tract.
After his arrival in England, Casaubon occasionally
39 In Bacon's comm. solutus, Spedd. 4. 64, is a paper headed ' Q.
of learned men beyond the seas to be made, and hearkening who
they be that may be so inclined.' Mr. Spedding, 4. 145, explains
' made ' persuaded to take an interest in the ' Great instauration.'
It appears to me that 'made' is to be referred to Q.== c enquiry
to be made.'
334 LONDON. 16101614.
saw Thomson, and always with pleasure. Eichard
Thomson and the bishop of Ely are two men in whose
society time is not lost 90 . When he visited Cambridge
it is Thomson to whom Casaubon belongs, who, as
matter of right, shows him over the university. And
when, afterwards in 16 n, Thomson got into trouble,
it is to Casaubon he turns to befriend him with the
bishops 91 .
Outside the circle of court divines, or ' the theo-
logians/ Casaubon formed hardly any acquaintance
during his english residence. His relations with the
' antiquaries/ as we may call the non-theological men
of letters, were merely distant.
Bacon's name is the symbol of so much, that we may
be naturally desirous to find any traces of his inter-
course with Casaubon. In 1609, Casaubon had read
Bacon's ' De Sapientia Veterum/ and, struck by the
originality of the piece, had spoken of it in a letter to
sir George Carew. Sir George had told Bacon of
Casaubon's good opinion. Bacon, who was at that
time desirous 92 of making the acquaintance of f learned
men beyond the seas/ wrote the following letter to
Casaubon :
* Understanding from your letter to the lord Carew
that you approve my writings, I not only took it as a
matter for congratulation, but thought I would write
to tell you how much pleasure your favourable opinion
had given me. My earnest desire is, as you rightly
90 Eph. p. 876 : 'A prandio nihil prorsus ; neque taraen pcenitet, nam
totum tempus fui cum magno prsesule D. Episcopo et amicissimo
Tomsone.'
91 See below, p. 394.
}2 Spedding, Life, 4. 146. Birch appears to me to have rightly
fixed the date of Casaubon's letter (to which Bacon alludes) to some-
where between October, 1609, and March, 1610.
LONDON. 16101614. 335
livine, to draw the sciences out of their hiding-places
into the light. To write at one's ease that which others
are to read at their ease is of little consequence ; the
contemplations I have in view are those which may
bring about the better ordering of man's life and
business with all its turmoil. How great an enterprise
this is, and with what small helps I have attempted it,
you will perhaps learn hereafter. Meanwhile you
would do me in return a very great pleasure if you
would communicate to me your own plans and occu-
pations. For I ever think that this intercommunion
of pursuits conduces more to friendship than political
connections or mutual services. I think no man could
ever more truly say of himself than I can, " multuni
incola fuit anirna mea." Indeed, I seem to have my
conversation among the ancients rather than among
these with whom I live If in anything
my friendship can be of use or grace to you or your's,
assure yourself of my good and diligent service; and
so biddeth you farewell, Your friend, etc/
This letter is but a draft, and was never sent. It
may be conjectured that Casaubon's coming to England
about that time removed him from the category to
which Bacon's memorandum referred. While Bacon's
mind was occupied with the speculations of the ' Sapi-
entia Yeterum,' he might tell Casaubon that ' I seem to
have my conversation among the ancients more than
among those with whom I live/ This was a passing
phase. If he inquired about Casaubon, Bacon would
learn that he was too much engrossed with the episcopal
pamphlet warfare to be available for the purposes of
the ' De Augmentis Scientiarum.' We know 93 what
Bacon thought of church controversy. Had Bacon
93 Speckling, Life, 4. 137.
336 LONDON. 16101614.
frequented the bishop of Ely, he might then have
chanced on Casaubon. But we learn from his own
letter 95 that he now saw little or nothing of the bishop,
and that from this very cause, that ' your lordship hath
been so busy in the church and the palace, disputing
between kings and popes;' a sentence which hardly
disguises Bacon's contempt for the bishop's occupation.
With William Camden, the ' Pausanias of Britain/
as A. Wood calls him, Casaubon would naturally be
more in sympathy. In the early Genevan days, when
an exile from learned society, Casaubon had ventured,
among other feelers, a letter to Camden, desiring his
acquaintance on the ground of his admiration of the
1 Britannia.' In his remote corner, difficult as books
were to get, this small volume, published in London,
and relating to distant England, had not escaped
Casaubon' s watchful eye. The same letter intimated
to Camden respectfully, but unhesitatingly, that the
word 'Britain' was not derived from * Brith and
Tcwa 96 .' The head master of Westminster was not
accustomed to have his greek questioned. He did not
condescend to alter his derivation in the edition of
1607, and the acquaintance made slow progress. But
when Casaubon was settled in Paris, Camden now
become Clarencieux, and in regular correspondence
with the British embassy and with de Thou, heard
much of Casaubon. The books Casaubon was known
95 Spedding, Life, 4. 141.
96 Tam'a a narrow strip of land, like a loose riband or streamer.
See Weeseling on Diodorus, i. 36. Dio Chrysost. p. 83. But Camdeii
writes ravia, or, in all editions after the first, tania, and affirms that the
glossarists explain it as ' regio/ Casaubon remarks that the word is j
not greek. Perhaps Camden got his word from Stephanus, who says,
Thes. p. 1308 : 'At TCWO, pro plaga, regio, tractus terrarum nescio
unde afferatur.'
LONDON. 16101614. 337
to be writing, formed part of the public news with
which William Becher entertained Camden. And so,
through the embassy, Camden sent Casaubon a copy of
the new edition of his 'Britannia/ 1607. Casaubon
returned the compliment by sending Camden a copy of
his ' Polybius ; ' though he could hardly hope much
appreciation of his labour from one who identified
-tannia with ravia. When Casaubon came to England,
the acquaintance went no further. Camden lived now
at Chiselhurst. A journey thither w T as the business
of half a day. For some reason or other, perhaps
because of his close connection with Wotton and Savile,
Camden showed no desire to cultivate Casaubon.
We do not find that sir Robert Cotton appreciated
Casaubon much better than Camden did. We hear 97
of his spending one day with sir Eobert, or probably in
his library. He could have access to it, as he offers to
search it for the purposes of Charles Labbe 98 . And
Cotton had pointed out to Casaubon that ' nos ' was the
reading of the passage in Rishanger, where Parsons
chose to print " * vos/
It must not be forgotten, however, that one cause of
his not extending his acquaintance more widely must
have been, that his time was now closely occupied with
the work imposed upon him.
We have seen that Casaubon contemplated at first
only a short visit to this country. When he became
Overall's guest, he did not think that he should remain
at the deanery for a whole year. His stay in England
87 Eph. 1036. 98 Ep. 753.
99 Exercc. in Bar. ded. p. 1 2, and proleg., where he quotes Matthew
Paris, < Vita Abbatum/ from a MS. which sir K. Cotton had shown him
' in sua libraria.' The letter in which he asks for these references to
be given him on paper is in Birch's papers, Sloane MSS. 4164. p. 220.
Z
338 LONDON. 1610 1G1 4.
was prolonged * from interval to interval, but was still
considered by himself as provisional. He experienced
a sense of relief in getting away from Paris 2 . ' My
country, dear as it is to me on many accounts, is be-
come, by the murder of my prince, an object of loathing
and aversion/ He cannot bear to see those whose
doctrine instigated and authorised the deed lording it
in the scene of their crime. Then the reception he met
here, and the succession of occupations forced on him
by the king, detained him, but always subject to the
pleasure of the french government. ' The most Christian
king, whose subject and servant I am,' is his style.
There was difficulty in getting leave for Madame Cas-
aubon to come over ; greater still in getting his books.
He was more than a year in England without his
family and without any of his books. Madame Casaubon
joined him in October 1611. The queen regent flatly
refused permission for his library to be sent him 3 .
More than once he learns that he is to be immediately
recalled. James had to request as a personal favour to
himself the loan of Casaubon. His leave of absence is
indefinitely prolonged ; but he is not discharged. As
for his books and papers, he may have some of them,
just what he requires for the thing he is now writing 4 .
These are enough for his shorter pamphlets ; but when
he comes to write against Baronius he wants them all.
Madame Casaubon returns to Paris to plead the cause.
She waits upon the queen : ' You have done well to
come back/ was the answer of Marie de Medicis. ' I
1 Ep. 705 :' Cum paucos menses destinassem evenit longe aliter.'
2 Epp. 698, 699.
3 Eph. p. 843 : ' Regina negat se permissuram ut deferatur hue
bibliotheca.' June, 1 6 1 1 .
4 Ep. 749 : ' Nondum plenam missionem a regina impetravi.'
LONDON. 16101614. 339
have written to your husband to return at once, and it
is my pleasure that you do not go back to England to
him/ There had to be more negotiations, a contest
between the two courts for the possession of Casaubon 6 .
Casaubon is to stay a little longer ; Madame Casaubon
may return. The books, some of them, may go for
present use ; not all, a third part, and not the most
useful books ; e * we must retain some lien upon our
subject/ His french pension even is continued to him,
but from term to term. He does not consider himself
permanently settled ; when he has done with Baronius
there is nothing that need keep him in England another
hour 7 .
At first he had been a guest or a lodger of the dean
of S. Paul's ; then of Madame Killigrew. At Michael-
mas 1611, he took a house in S. Mary Axe. The house
was found for him by Abraham Aurelius (Auriol),
minister of the french congregation, who himself lived
in Bishopsgate ward 8 . S. Mary Axe ran from Leaden-
hall to Camomile Street, and is described by Stowe as 9
' a street graced with good buildings, and much in-
habited by eminent merchants/ At an earlier period
even country gentlemen had dwelt in S. Mary Axe,
as sir Edward Wotton had his town house there.
But the Wottons had migrated further west before
5 Ep. 732 : ' Uxorem pene detinuit regina, vetuit redire in Angliam;
sed, mox, consilium de me revocando aut omissum est, aut inter-
missum.'
6 Ep. 733: 'Ne, semel nactus meam bibliothecam, patrise obli-
viscar.'
7 Ep. 810 : ' Hunc librum si dedicavero . . . nihil est quod me in
hoc regno velhoram imam teneat.'
8 Camden Society, vol. 82. p. 70.
9 Stowe, Survey of London, i. 420.
Z 2
340 LONDON. 16101014.
Casaubon came to settle in the street. In September
1613, he removed to one more commodious, and further
west, in the ' new rents/ Drury Lane. He is only here
provisionally; and though the discomforts of London are
great, the compensations are not a few. Indeed, the two
years, 1611, 1612, were, on the whole, peaceful, and not
unhappy, years. He enters in his diary, on his fifty-
third birthday, an expression of thankfulness, that he
has passed the year 10 without serious disaster, or cause
of complaint ; and this is the only entry of the kind in
the diary. The means of subsistence were provided for
him not altogether insufficiently ; he was honoured and
made much of at court ; above all, he was happy in the
free exercise of the rights of conscience. The anglican
ritual exactly met his aspirations after the decent sim-
plicity of primitive worship. Almost his first intro-
duction to the ceremonial of our church was on the
notable occasion of the consecration of the Scottish
bishops, October 21, 1610. He was highly pleased
with the order of that service ; with the ordinary cele-
bration of the communion in S. Paul's ; with the wash-
ing of the feet on Maundy Thursday ; though his
presbyterian sentiment was at first inclined to find a
little too much pomp and pride mingling in the solemn
scene of an episcopal ordination n . But on the whole
10 Eph. 918 : * Sine graviore noxa aut querella.'
11 The same impression had been made upon Sully, when he came
over in 1603. Barlow, Hampton Court conference, p. 38 : 'My lord
of London put his majesty in mind of the speeches which the french
embassador Mo sr . Rogne gave out . . . upon the view of our solemne
service and ceremonies, that " If the reformed churches in Fraunce had
kept the same orders among them which we have, he was assured that
there would have bene many thousands of protestants more there,
than now there are." '
LONDON. 16101614. 341
he preferred the angiican ceremonies to the bare and
naked usages of his own communion. His infant son
James was baptized, and Meric confirmed 12 , according
to the angiican ritual, not, as all their brothers and
sisters had been, by the calvinistic ministers. He
approves the lent fast, and the use of the cross in
baptism. On the points on which the high and the
low party within the church differ, at least on the real
presence and on confession, he inclines rather to the
sacerdotal side. But he did not forsake the french
congregation, of which he continued to be a member.
He attended the preaching from time to time, though
not seldom hearing doctrine from which he differed,
and philology which he knew to be rotten 13 ; and was
on terms of friendly intimacy with the ministers Cappel
and Auriol, who were assiduous ia attending him in his
dying moments.
In one main feature his London life exactly re-
sembled the routine of Paris. It was a life of in-
cessant toil, and a constant struggle to protect his
time against the encroachments of visits and visitors.
English men of letters at this time were few, and
those few did not draw to Casaubon. Casaubon had
been accustomed in Paris to the gossips crowding to
him 14 . It was not to be expected that english callers
would flock in shoals in London, to the house of a
man who could not speak their language, and who
was ignorant of what was going on. Nor was Lon-
don, like Paris, the resort of the learned foreigner,
to whom it offered no attraction either in books or
12 Eph. pp. 950. 1054. 823. 817. 818.
3 Eph. p. 854 : ' Pastorcm Mariuru audivi . . . qui ab interpretatione
veterum et doctrina longe abiit, nee minus a significations verborum
et TfXewdrjvai.' 14 Eph. p. 694.
342 LONDON. 1610 1614.
men. Here, too, Casaubori was free, both from the
pushing intrusion of the catholic proselytizer, and
from the sans ceremonie of the huguenot residents,
made gregarious by common misery. He was fur-
ther relieved from his duties at the library.
All this was favourable to work. But the claims
on his time, official and social, from which he was
relieved, were replaced by others no less trouble-
some. In Paris he was the king's servant, but he
did not belong to the court. In London, though of
one so humble it could not be said he was ' of
the court/ yet, according to the distinction drawn by
lord Clarendon 15 , he 'followed' it. He was with the
king, as we have seen, every Sunday, sometimes also
on week-days, and these were not audiences, but
attendances prolonged for hours. With the going
and the returning, the attendance never took less
than the whole day ; when the court was in the
country, two or more days. When from May 5 to
September 19 he has not seen the king, he thinks
this a long interval 16 . . James, who was on progress
in the southern counties, returned to Whitehall on
September 8, but did not stay 17 , and on September 19
Casaubon goes out to Theobald's, and is honoured
with a long and serious colloquy on various mat-
ters 18 . He must also occasionally visit prince Henry ;
after his death; prince Charles ; often the archbishop.
15 Clarendon, Life, I. 36 : 'Thomas Carew . . . followed the court,
which the modesty of that time disposed men to do, sometime before
they pretended to be of it.'
16 Eph. p. 1014.
17 Nicholls, Progr. of James i, 2. 677.
8 Eph. p. 1014: ' Gravia cum rege de rebus variis habui col-
loquia.'
LONDON. 1610 1G 14. 343
The archbishop is out at Croydon. This, we might
imagine, would consume the whole day, yet Casaubon
will find time after his return to write some part of
the genealogy of the Herods. He is invited to dine
by the bishops, by the french ambassador, by the
ambassador of the czar of Muscovy, by the prince of
Baden, by the lord mayor of London. Overall takes
him to the banquet of the Merchant Taylors, than
which 'he never saw anything more magnificent. 1 He
is often at Madame Killigrew's, sees much of the french
pastors, as of his compatriot, Theodore de May erne 19 ,
first physician to the king, and of Kaphael Thoris.
Abraham Scultetus, then residing in London, is much
with him, and welcome. Occasional visits from
foreigners, though more rare than at Paris, happened
now and then ; as when the due de Bouillon, attended
by his Sedan ministers, Justell, Cappel, Du Tiloir, came
over and had to be attended to. James, in his capa-
city of theologian, is professionally curious to have
explained to him the points of doctrine in which the
church of Sedan differs from the church of Paris.
Then a new libel of Scioppius appears, and has to
be read and elucidated to the king. 'Ite studia!
nihil vobiscum mihi ! ecce totum diem in aula egi ad
10 horam noctis,' is the entry on May 15. He may
say his friends are few, but they are too numerous
for continuous work. 'June 7, 1612. Housed out of
bed almost before break of day to attend upon some
friends, which took a long time.' 'June 18. Went
to spend the day with the excellent Bedwell, with
my wife ; ' and so on.
9 Theodore Turquet was born at Geneva, 1573, and may have
known Casaubon at Montpellier, where he took the degree of M.B.
1597-
344 LONDON. 16101614.
Of the foreign visitants who came to him in Lon-
don two deserve separate mention. The young Georg
Calixtus was in London, in the summer of 1612, in
the course of that four years' travel, by which he
sought to counteract in himself the narrowing in-
fluence of the Lutheran bigotry, by which he was
surrounded even in liberal Helmstadt 20 . Calixtus,
though only twenty-six, had already conceived the
idea of going back to the study of the fathers, in
order to retrieve religion from . the suspended ani-
mation in which it was held in the orthodox for-
mularies. At his age Calixtus must have been without
acquisitions, but he possessed vision and aims. The
young aspirant, who had raised himself above luther-
anism, was naturally anxious to approach the veteran
scholar, who was known to have himself emerged
from Calvinism. Casaubon granted him two inter-
views, which naturally left a deeper impression on
the younger, than on the older, man. Calixtus, whose
life labour was an 'Irenicon,' may have found him-
self strengthened by the sympathy which Casaubon
would accord to this direction of his youthful admirer.
Casaubon, who was in infrequent correspondence with
Caselius (Johann Chessel), Calixtus' teacher, would
be able to learn that even among the lutherans
there were some not so wholly lost to humanity as
Scaliger used to affirm 21 . But Casaubon was now
absorbed day and night in the push to finish the
1 Exercitationes,' and even so promising a visitor as
Calixtus counted only as one more thief of time.
On the day on which he saw Calixtus the second
20 Georg Calixtus, b. 1586, f 1656.
21 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 151 : ' Martinistes, il n'y a point de gens si
ignorans et barbares qu'eux en Alemagne.'
LONDON. 16101614. 345
time, Casaubon has only entered in the diary 'sacra
synaxis, amici, studia 22 .' Beyond the brief remark
that he had found him 23< learned and of no common
taste in letters,' there is no note of their intercourse.
With this recommendation he sent off Calixtus to de
Thou in Paris.
With his other visitor, a name of greater renown
than Calixtus, Casaubon, though at high pressure on
Baronius, spent, reluctant yet willing, many hours,
even days. Grotius 24> was in London in March and
April, 1613. He was already in correspondence, and
in ecclesiastical sympathy, establised through corre-
spondence, with Casaubon. Their point of view was
sufficiently like for them to be classed by the his-
torians 25 together among the waverers. Their aim,
the reunion of Christendom, was the same. They
sought it by different roads ; Grotius, by the states-
man's road of a political comprehension ; Casaubon,
sj)y>the theologian's, a merging of minor differences in
a common Christianity, on the basis of the primitive
centuries. Casaubon was introduced to Grotius at
the young prince of Baden's lodging. On this occa-
sion they had a long 26 conversation and met after-
wards as often as they could. Casaubon took him
to dine 27 at the dean's, the bishop of Ely's, and the
french embassy. On April 30, Grotius and the dean
were entertained at supper by Casaubon. Grotius
says 28 that 'they saw each other daily.' Common
sentiments brought them together, but Casaubon
22 Eph. p. 93 6.
23 Ep. 8 1 8 : ' Doctum et judicii in literis non vulgaris.'
24 Grotius, b. 1583, t 1645. 25 E. g. by Hallam, 2. 312.
26 Eph. p. 975 : 'Detentus din.' 27 Ep. 886.
28 Grotii Ep. ep. 184. app. : ' Cum quotidie simul essemus.'
346 LONDON. 1610 1614.
soon felt the personal fascination of Grotius' talk.
He cannot express 29 the happiness he enjoys in this
intercourse. ' I knew him before to be a wonderful
man ; but the superiority of that divine genius no
one can properly appreciate, without seeing his coun-
tenance, and hearing his conversation. Integrity is
stamped on his face ; in his talk is exhibited
the union of exquisite learning and genuine piety.
Nor is it I only who am so taken with our visitor,
all the learned and good who have been introduced
to him have fallen under the spell, and the king
more than any one.' Upon Grotius' mind the memory
of this intercourse, remained still fresh after five-and-
twenty years. In 1639 ne writes 30 to Gronovius
(J. F.), ' Of the pieces of good fortune which have be-
fallen me in the course of my life, I reckon it
among the chief that I had the regard and affection
of that great man, whose piety, honesty, and can-
dour, were not less remarkable than his vast all-em-
bracing erudition. I can look back, without sadness,
to those times, gloomy as they were, and those trying
occasions, in which I guided myself by his counsel, and
those of the party which he approved/
He contrived to make all these calls upon his time
compatible with unremitting industry at his desk. The
whole space of time lived in England was three years
and eight months, a period of broken health and ebbing
strength. In this time he wrote : i . Epistola ad Fron- 1
tonem, 171 pp. 4to. 2. Kesponsio ad epistolam Card.
Perronii, 8 1 pp. /j.to. 3. Exercitationes in Baronium,
830 pp. fol. 4. To these must be added the letters,
both of business and friendship, of which some 280, j
written in England, have been recovered and published. I
29 Ep. 88 1. 30 Grotii Epp. ep. 1168.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 347
These letters would form a thick 8vo volume, reckoning
the average length of a letter at two pages. But we
know, from the diary, that the published letters are but
a part of what he threw off, all from his own pen. There
is of course some repetition of the sense, thoughts, and
words to different correspondents. On the other hand,
many are elaborate compositions, some of considerable
length, and nearly all in latin. Letter writing was
a material part of every day's work ; when a foreign
courier was starting, the whole day was often thus
occupied. The letters, even if not on affairs of
consequence, are always worded with care and thought,
and the latin, though without the racy flavour of
Scaliger's latin style, is by no means commonplace.
5. The diary continued to be regularly kept, and the
english portion of this occupies 295 pages 8vo of print.
Over and above what he writes himself, he has to read
over, and advise upon, what others write. When he
arrived in England, October 1610, Andre wes had nearly
completed his ' Responsio' to card. Bellarmine's ' Apo-
logia/ Casaubon had the task of reading this over,
and making corrections, which corrections the author
adopted 31 . Then he had to begin the ' Epistola ad
Frontonem/ The writing, correcting, and printing
this took up the greater part of 1611. When this task
' was disposed of, he hopes to be able to get his time for
his own readings. He has immediately to begin another,
the ' Epistola ad Card. Perronium.' He composes this,
or rather writes it over, in a few days, for the matter is
supplied by the king 32 , and Casaubon has only to find
11 Eph. p. 7 9 2 : ' Meas notulas non neglexit, imo pluris fecit, quam
merebantur/
12 Ep. 839 : ' Le roy s'est servi de moi pour secretaire, mais la
piece est de sa majestd . . . il a exactement medit cette sienna
rdponse.'
348 LONDON. 16101614.
the latin. But the king and the coterie of bishops had
to revise and retouch. The court was at Royston, an$
it was the hunting season. It took time to get the
piece corrected, and written over, so that it was not sent
to the cardinal till Dec. 29, 1611. We may easily un-
derstand that it took more trouble and time to be
secretary to the epistle, than to have composed it. It
was sent to the cardinal in MS, but he printed it, with
his own, to which it was the answer, in Paris. Casaubon
was ordered by the king to print an authorised edition
in London, and to write a preface, which was to be
at the same time an answer to another libel of one
Pelletier a Jesuit. The preface was to be his own, and
yet he was to be told what he was to say in it. Before
the book was off his hands came a pamphlet of Vorstius,
which so absorbed James that for days he could talk
of nothing else 33 , and Casaubon must be there to
be talked to about it. James must reply to Vorstius.
But Casaubon is not to be used against the armin-
ian heretics. He is hardly sound himself there 34 , and
besides he is to be kept for the catholic controversy.
And he is no longer to be frittered away in this
skirmishing business. He is to attack the Annals of
Baronius 35 . This was a compromise ; Casaubon would
be contending for the cause, while at the same time he
would be treating matter which had more interest for
him than the pamphlets on which the last eighteen
months had been spent.
33 Ep. 799 : ' Serenissimum regem ita occupatam animi mentem
habuisse in recente quodam libro Vorstii, ut plures dies alia de re fere
nulla mecum ageret/-
34 Eph. p. 896 : ' Laudo regis zelum pro religione. scimus viros graves,
et apprime doctos de Bertio non ita sentire, Deque de Arminio/
35 Ep. 810 : ' Ut immimitatem aliarum angariarum milri pararem,
et maximo tamen regi satisfacerem. '
.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 349
It is impossible not to regret that Casaubon, who
could have done work which no one else could, should
have been kept to writing pamphlets, which scores of
others could have written quite as well. But it must
not be supposed that he shared this regret himself, or
that he w r as writing as a hired advocate for a cause in
which he was lukewarm. It is to him, not the cause of
the king and bishops in which he is fighting, it is the
cause of the church of God, the cause of civil society
against the common enemy, the bishop of Home, and
his emissaries. Coming from France, he knew, better
than the anglican bishops, what that ultramontane
yoke meant, against which the english church was
struggling. He tells Schott 36 that it was horror at the
assassination of his prince that had driven him to the
meditation of this subject of the roman claims. In
writing his ' Epistola ad Frontonem' in defence of
James, he was thinking of Henri iv. The act of
Ravaillac was well understood to be the legitimate,
however remote, result of the theories of the ultra-
montane school. He writes to Hoeschel 37 , 'If you want
to know the cause of the king's death, read the " Direc-
torium Inquisitionis." The murder of my great
Maecenas has so enraged me against the mystery of
iniquity, that I think it now a part of my religion to
make public profession of belief (in the royal supre-
macy/)
The anti-papal controversy of James 3 reign is as obsolete
for our generation as any other theological squabble,
and the books, in which it is consigned, are equally for-
gotten ; Casaubon's among the rest. But those who are
36 Ep. 777 : ' Ipse e/c&>j> aeVom ye 6vp(p ad tractationem ejusmodi
argument! animuni appuli. quis coegit 1 inquies. dicam tibi quod res
est. ilia atra et nefasta dies,' etc. s7 Ep. 827.
350 LONDON. 16101614.
acquainted with the situation of affairs at that period,
are aware that this was no brawl of rival divines.
The catholic historian 38 , following the catholic reporter
de la Boderie, draws a ludicrous picture of James,
withdrawing from affairs of state and the pleasures
of the chase, shutting himself up with his doctors,
and concocting an argument to prove the pope to be
anti-christ. Nothing that James did was done becom-
ingly. His pedantic vanity laid him open to the
sarcasms of the french ambassador. At a later period
he forfeited the confidence of his subjects by a catholic
policy; by the Spanish negotiation, the french match,
and the inadequate support of his son-in-law and the
protestants of Germany. But in 1611 he was heartily
contending against the still advancing tide of the
catholic reaction. The form in which this was threaten-
ing Europe was indeed that of military force, but it
was also an invasion of opinion. The Jesuits did not
draw the sword in Germany until they had gained
a footing in the minds of men. The books and
pamphlets they were now disseminating were what
made the thirty years' war possible. When the enemy
was successfully availing himself of the power of the
press, it was wise and necessary that he should be
met on the same ground. Nor was James fighting
for his own skin, nor even, as he phrased it, for the
rights of princes. The hopes of the ultramontane
party at this moment embraced no less than the re-
conquest of Christendom to the holy see ; the exter-
mination of heresy by fire and sword, as Scioppius
had boldly proclaimed in his Ecclesiasticus ( 1 6 1 1 ).
It was no mere paper warfare. The powder-plot,
38 Lingard, Hist, of Engl. 7. 78 ; cf. Churchill, Gotham, 6. 2 : ' And
pamphlets wrote when he should save the state.'
LONDON. 1 610 1614. 351
which we try to forget, or laugh at, was a recent
act; the murder of Henri iv. more recent still. The
S. Bartholomew, the Armada, and the cruelties of
Viva in Flanders, were not incidents of a legendary
fore-time, but the exploits in which a menacing and
aggressive party gloried, and which they hoped to
repeat or to outdo.
Casaubon's share in the interchange of pamphlets
Between England and Rome was not large, though it
was more than could be well spared out of a life which
closed at fifty-six.
It might have been expected that the powder-plot,
its atrocity, would have originated a reaction against
the party by which it was conceived. This was the
case in our own country. But not so on the con-
inent. The ultramontane pamphleteers had been able
;o excite considerable sympathy for the conspirators,
and especially for Garnett. He was represented by
them as a martyr to the inviolability of the secret of
confession. These representations were making so
deep an impression on the public, that, when they
reached England, authenticated in an elaborate state-
ment by cardinal Bellarmine, it was necessary to oppose
some official denial 39 . This was done by the king
tiimself in his own name. James published a ' Monitory
epistle to all Christian monarchs, free princes, and
states,' and prefixed it to a new edition (1609) of his
former pamphlet, 'Triplici nodo triplex cuneus/ In
this monitory epistle he asserted that Garnett had
acknowledged his being cognisant of the plot, other-
wise than in confession. At the same time a more
39 Bellarmine's book is ' Responsio Matthsei Torti ... ad librum
inscriptum, Triplici nodo triplex cuneus.' Col. Agripp. 1608.
352 LONDON. 16101614.
elaborate answer was prepared by Andre wes, then
bishop of Chichester, in which this thesis was main-
tained at greater length, and authenticated by citation
of Garnett's written confessions. This answer was
published, in 1 609, under the title of ' Tortura Torti,'
and has a historical value, because two of the papers
cited as written by Garnett are no longer extant among
the rest of the original papers relating to the plot.
But so strongly was the current of feeling running
in favour of the ultramontane party, and so superior
were the means of influencing opinion possessed by
the Jesuits to those which the protestants could employ,
that neither the king's affirmation, nor the bishop's
vouchers could stem the tide. The belief in Saint
Garnett, the martyr of the secret of confession, grew
amain, and soon blossomed into a miracle. The myth
of Garnett' s straw germinating in the fancy of a silly
enthusiast, grew in a short space into such proportions
that it became the theme of a diplomatic correspond-
ence. Received with entire faith in catholic countries,
the legend excited so much interest in Spain, that the
english ambassador was directed to make a represen-
tation to the Spanish authorities on the subject^. It
was thought that Casaubon's name might help to abate
the delusion, which was gaining for the catholic party
dangerous sympathies. English testimony was of light
weight in catholic countries ; it was thought that
the attestation of an independent foreigner, whose
character for veracity was unimpeachable, might be
40 Winwood's Mem. 2. 336. Cornwallis to Salisbury, August 29,
1607. The growth of the fable of ' Garnett's straw' is traced in detail
by Jardine, Gunpowder Plot, pp. 266 seq. In this instance, as in that
of La Salette, we have in our hands the means of following, step by
step, the genesis of a catholic legend.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 353
listened to. This is the origin of Casaubon's ' Epistola
ad Frontonem,' 1612, of which M. Jardine says that
' though new to this kind of writing, Casaubon ac-
quitted himself well in it/ His statement wants the
keen edge and point of Andrewes' dialectic, but it is also
free from the bishop's cavil and passion for verbal
victory. Having to deal with opponents whose case
was a tissue of unscrupulous misrepresentation, he
meets their perversity not with excited passion, but
with a grave statement of the simple facts. It is
characteristic that he is more angry when he has to
correct Baronius 5 chronological errors, or mistranslations
of greek, than over the most provoking distortion of
fact in the Jesuit account of the powder conspiracy.
He earned the praise of moderation, but beyond this he
neither obtained credit for his clients, nor reputation for
himself, by going into the quarrel. He became a mark
for the vulgar personalities which are the ordinary
missiles in party warfare. Hitherto he had lived for
science, in a region apart, where he reigned without
rivalry or contradiction. He had now descended into
the arena where, muscle for muscle, the arm of a
butcher might be more powerful than his.
There was, of course, an * answer' forthcoming to the
* Epistola ad Frontonem/ It was from a Jesuit pen,
and one only second in its clever smartness to that of
Scioppius 41 . The ' Eesponsio ' of Andreas Eudsemon-
Joannes, stripped of its flippant rhetoric, reduces itself
to a reassertion of what Bellarmine had before affirmed,
viz. that Garnett had been executed for not divulging
41 Eudsemon- Joannes' book is ' Responsio ad epistolam Isaac! Casau-
boni.' The only edition I have seen is Colon. Agripp. 1612, but it
may be a reprint. Abbot's book is 'Antilogia adversus apologiam
Andreae Eudsemon- Joannis.' Londini, 1613, 4.
A a
354 LONDON. 16101614.
the secret of confession. But it was quite successful.
Reassertion. was argument enough for the catholic
public. As Casaubon had failed to reach them, Abbot,
the regius professor of divinity, was put on the con-
troversy, and restated the case of the crown in greater
detail, and with more elaborate proof. In vain. Abbot
had no greater success than Andrewes or Casaubon.
Catholic literature had become a system of falsehood
and imposture. Catholic histories continued, -nd
continue still, to repeat that Garnett had suffered,
not for treason, but for religion.
Upon this vain effort to stem the reactionary flood,
our scholar had flung away precious months. It may
have been some perception of this waste of power
which determined the king's resolution that Casaubon
should do no more pamphlet work. He is to hava ro
more tasks set him. His whole time shall be devoted
to the work on church history.
We have seen how, in the earliest days, Casaubon
had desired to devote himself to sacred studies. Both
his literary ambition, and his love of learning, con-
curred in taking this colour from the deep religious
impressions of his youth. We have seen how he
became a classical student and editor in spite of him-
self. Strabo, Suetonius, Atheneeus, Polybius, and the
rest, were successively taken up as interimistic jobs,
mere exercises to keep his hand in, till he could get
freed from the entanglements of life, into the pure
empyrean of that happy leisure which formed his ideal,
when he would concentrate his matured powers upon
sacred criticism. This longed-for 42< otium' we have
42 Ep. 1023: 'Omnino otia quaerimus, si ita modo visum fuerit
D. 0. M. Ea enim molimur in literis, quse animi tranquillitatem
desiderant.'
LONDON. 16101614. 355
seen him pursue from Geneva to Montpellier, from
Montpellier to Paris, from Paris to London, as the
vision still fled before him. He is now, April, 1612, in
his fifty-fourth year. Though entered on the decline of
life, though a friendly physician can read the fatal sign
on his brow, he feels no intellectual decay ; he may
still have years before him enough for the production of
some capital work on the antiquities of the church. He
is removed above want, if not altogether above anxiety
on the score of provision for his family. He is to have
no more pamphlet work. He may select his own sub-
ject, or rather the subject he has already selected him-
self is the very one which will best please his patron.
The refutation of Baronius was an employment
which was not suggested to him first in England. We
have seen that he had long meditated it. In 1 605 he
only took up Poly bi us because the ultramontane policy
of Henri iv. dared not permit criticism on a book
which the see of Rome would not allow to be contra-
dicted 43 . Now that he is free, he recurs to his cherished
idea. He will satisfy himself by writing on church
history. He will satisfy his party by destroying the
credit of the catholic historian.
The early and constant bent of Casaubon's mind had
been towards theology. But what was commonly
known by this name, doctrinal or systematic, theology,
as taught in the schools, lay entirely outside his walk.
His reading had led him at once to the sources out of
which had been constructed that 44< web of subtlety and
spinosity,' the scholastic theology. He was in posses-
sion, as hardly any one else had been, of the key of
ecclesiastical antiquity. Having exhausted heathen
13 ' Quasi a Baronio dissentire sit nefas/ says Rigaltius, Contin.
Thuani, 6. 470. 44 Bacon, Advancement of Learning.
A a 2
356 LONDON. 1610 1614.
greek, he had gone on into Christian greek. At first
as greek only, but he had found it full of a new
interest. Casaubon never reads as a grammarian in
pursuit of words. He is thoroughly realistic. He is,
indeed, quite alive to the importance of seizing the
exact sense of words, but only for the sake of that
which is to be learnt from the words. The true ap-
proach to Christian antiquity is through pagan antiquity.
The continuity of history is complete. There is no
break. As the Christian empire is the pagan empire
under a new name, so Christian literature is the out-
come of the greek classical literature. It is not only
built up with the old materials, like the forts which
the Turks constructed with the sculptured blocks of
the greek temples, it issues from the greek sources of
thought. In earlier times, Casaubon had dreamed of
treating this period of literature in the spirit of learned
research. In 1596, at Geneva, in the plenitude of his
acquirement, he had proposed to Tbring out Athenasus
first, then to dispose in like manner of Polybius, after
which he would 45 'set an example to our side, that,
forsaking these gladiatorial combats so pernicious to the
Christian world, they should busy themselves rather in
illustrating the aifairs of the ancient church, and the
holy fathers/ Gradually he is drawn into the vortex
of controversy. Instead of approaching the history of
the church from the classical side, he will approach it
from the modern side, and the interests of his own day.
The conception which he had formed of Christian archae-
ology fades, and mixes itself with the idea of proving
15 Ep. 1008 : ' Majus opus movebimus et nostro exemplo prseibimus
hominibus partium nostrarum ut ad res veteris ecclesiae et sanctissimos
patres illustrandos novam operam conferre malirit, quam ad anclabaticas
istas pugnas, toti orbi christiano tarn perniciosas.'
LONDON. 1610 -1614. 357
liow far the church of Rome has strayed from primitive
faith and worship. His indignation at the blunders
of Baronius is as keen as ever, but he is no longer the
scholar indignant at a literary impostor ; he is the
theological polemic burning to turn these blunders to
account in the quarrel of his church with Rome. The
centre of his interests, which once was scientific, has
become denominational. He who in 1605 had written
to Du Perron 46 the proud boast that all his studious
hours had been given to the search of truth, not to
exhibitions in the arena of paper warfare, was catching
the infection from his environment, and on the way
to rejoice in fighting. He regularly reads the flying
sheets with which the press teems, which kind friends
send him sometimes in early copies, before publication,
and in which he now finds his own name recur with
increasing frequency. He knows what answers are in
preparation, and rejoices beforehand in their crushing
effect. 47 * As for Bellarmine's book,' he says on one
occasion, ' I can leave it alone, as he will soon see it
quashed by Barclay fils as dead as a mouse in a trap/
This being Casaubon's own disposition, we cannot
charge it upon the english king and bishops, that he
gave the rest of his life to antagonistic writing, and
that he threw his learning into the unfortunate shape
of a critique on Baronius.
Casaubon had never seen the ' Annales ' till the
summer of 1598. Geneva was too poor to buy books,
and the circulation of Baronius, large as it was, was
46 Ep. 417 : 'Ego vigilias ornnes meas amori veritatis in quocun-
que genere literarum semper impendi, non Aoyo^axiW npbs f-rridfigiv
comparatis/
47 Ep. ad Front, p. 38 : ' Qui suum ilium librum ... a Barclai
filio . . . videbit brevi soricina nsenia conibssiorem redditum.'
358 LONDON. 16101614.
wholly catholic. Protestant cities, such as Geneva and
Montpellier, had probably not seen a copy. During
his stay in de Vic's house at Lyons in 1598, Casaubon
first fell in with some of the earlier volumes 43 . At
de Vic's suggestion, he sent a letter to Baronius, ex-
pressing the sentiments of respect and admiration which
had been excited in him by the first reading. Baronius
returned, in 1599, a copy of his 8th volume, which was
just out, and a civil reply 49 , in which he persisted in
regarding Casaubon's compliment as a feeler. ' He
rejoiced to find him knocking at the gate of the
church, for no less could he understand by his com-
mending the work of an orthodox man/ In an Italian,
a cardinal, and a holy man, we might naturally view
this letter as preluding to a bargain. And Clement
viii. did, afterwards, send Casaubon an intimation that
he might have a pension of 1300 crowns if he chose
to go to Rome for it. But the suspicion would be
unjust to the simple-minded character of Baronius 50 .
His narrow education led him to regard the ark of
Peter as possessing the same supernatural attractions
for all, which it had for himself. Casaubon, an equally
candid soul, took the letter in this light, as a proffer
of amity. In 1603, he sent the return compliment,
in the shape of a copy, or promise to send one the
first opportunity, of his ' Historic Augustse Scriptores,'
48 Ep. 175 : 'Contigit mihi dum Lugduni otiosus agerem tuum
opus cum Baronii annalibus nondum mihi turn visis, posse contendere.'
49 Burney MSS. 363. ap. Russell, i. 32: * Cum tantopere orthodox!
hominis scripta commendas, plane pultare te ecclesise catholicse janu-
am satis intelligo.'
50 Dr. Donne, however, Letter to sir H. G. p. 33, writes: 'I have
known that Serarius the Jesuit was an instrument from cardinal
Baronius to draw him (Hugh Broughton) to Rome, to accept a stipend
only to serve the Christian churches in controversies with the jews.'
LONDON. 1610 1614. 359
with a civil allusion to the places in the notes in which
51 ' my calculations differ from yours/ Baronius replied,
not expressing any interest in the Augustan historians,
or in Casaubon's criticism on himself, but great concern
for his salvation. 52< He would be pleased to receive
the book, but much more so to hear that the announce-
ment, so often made, of his conversion, was true/ This
was a kind of correspondence which it did not pay
Casaubon to maintain, and he let it drop. He is now
in possession of a copy of the * Annales/ and his respect
for the compiler's learning is rapidly vanishing. He
is irritated by the vogue of a book so uncritical and
unscholarlike, and proposes to review it, philologically
only not otherwise. Even a philological review of a
roman book is impossible in France, in face of the
reaction, and Casaubon turns to Polybius since he could
do no better. When then, in 1612, he undertakes a
review of the * Annales/ he is but reviving an old pro-
ject, for which he had already got together materials.
Baronius meanwhile had profited by the correspondence
of 1603, for in his next edition he adopted every one
of the corrections Casaubon had made, but without
acknowledgment.
51 Ep. 338, also in Baronius, Epistolse, ep. 165.
62 Burney MSB. 363. ap. Russell, i. 115.
APPENDIX TO 5.
NOTE A. p. 317.
ALL the biographies of Casaubon endow him with a prebend of West-
minster. In doing this they have followed each other without en-
quiry. The first who mentions the Westminster prebend is Almelo-
veen, in his Casauboni vita, p. 54, prefixed to his edition of Casauboni
epistolse, Rot. 1709. And Almeloveen relied upon the Ephemerides,
in which Casaubon made the following entry, ' 18 kal. Jan. 1610:
Literas episcopi Bathoniensis ad me scriptas accepi, jussu regis
scriptas. Deus bone, quam Isetas ! quibus mihi rex suam singularem
benevolentiam patefacit et rebus meis consulit. Duas prsebendas
assignat, Cantuariae unam, alteram Westmonasterii, quse fortasse ad duo
millia librarum annui reditus accedunt/ The original letter of Montagu
is not preserved, but Casaubon appears to be quoting its words. All
that the words warrant is that two prebends were designed for him.
He was actually put in possession of the Canterbury stall, but never
of the stall at Westminster. And as there is no further mention of
Westminster, the intention must have been dropped. Almeloveen is
very careful, and, writing in Holland, may readily be excused for
having taken this distinct promise for sufficient proof of the fact. The
error was corrected by Beloe, Anecdotes of literature, 5. 126, but the
correction remained unheeded by all the biographers and church his-
torians since Almeloveen, except the painstaking and accurate Hallam,
Hist, of lit. 2. 274.
The dean of Westminster has had the books of the chapter ex-
amined for me, and no trace of Casaubon as prebendary is found in
them.
NOTE B. p. 420.
Casaubon's account of his intercourse with James I. is so favourable
to the king, that it may be thought overcharged by those who have
APPENDIX TO 5. 361
iccustomed themselves to think meanly of that prince. Those whose
.mpressions of character have been chiefly derived from modern
liistories will find, that, as they become better acquainted with the
3ontemporary memoirs, their estimate of James' abilities will be
raised. Casaubon's language to James is adulatory. But then such
was the style of the english court, and had been to Elisabeth, whose
vigorous understanding is not questioned. And even when the king
is spoken o/, there doubtless mingles in the panegyric something of the
feeling ' Wonderful for a king ! ' At any rate, what Casaubon has said
of James' parts and acquirements, does not go beyond what was said of
him by the two Englishmen most competent to judge, Bacon and Selden.
As illustrating Casaubon's high estimate, I quote a passage from Selden,
Opp. 3. 1400: 'He (the king) then also most graciously vouch-
safed to have speech with me, as the time permitted, of divers parts of
learning which either offered themselves out of the consideration of that
book, or obviously fell into his so searching a discourse, and this,
twice at Theobald's and once at "Whitehall; and at every of those
times, besides the exceeding sweetness of this nature, which I, being
convented before so great a majesty, largely tasted of, I saw, with
wonder, the characters of such a fraught of learning, of such a readiness
of memory, of such a piercing fancy joined with so absolute a judg-
ment in him, as if his greatness in all these abilities had been no less
than in his hereditary titles.'
6.
CASATTBON ON BABONIUS.
THE german reformation is imperfectly described,
when it is considered as an appeal to scripture versus
tradition. It was rather an appeal to history. The
discovery had been made that the church, as it existed,
was an institution which no longer corresponded to its
original, that it was a corrupted, degraded, perverted
institution. The appeal to scripture was not itself
the moving spring of the reformation, it was the con-
sequence of the sense of decay and degeneracy. As
the doctrine of the fall of man was the key of human,
so the doctrine of the corruption of the church was
the key of ecclesiastical, history. The reformation
appealed to the bible, because in this the earliest
record of the church, it had a measure of the deviation
from type which had been brought about. This cor-
ruption was not the mere rust of age which gathers
about all merely human institutions. The church was
the work of God, and time alone would not have
marred and scarred its divine lineaments. Its degra-
dation was the work of a special principle of evil, the
mystery of iniquity, the visible embodiment of which
was now enthroned on the seven hills.
This thesis was worked out by the 'Magdeburg
centuries/ In this protestant delineation, the church
BARONIUS. 363
N tarts in the apostolic age in perfect purity, and is
perverted by a process of slow canker, till it has
become changed into its opposite, and is now the
uhurch not of Christ, but of anti-christ, an instrument
not for saving men but for destroying them.
The ' Centuries ' had not any great success as a publi-
cation. The strictly lutheran public was not numerous,
and not rich. It was not a book buying public. But
though the thirteen folios of the Centuries, 1559-1574,
had no extensive circulation, the historical thesis of
which they were the laborious evidence made a deep
impression. At Rome, the centre of Europe, where,
almost alone, a general view of the current of public
opinion was attainable, it was felt that an answer, or
antidote, was urgently required. It was provided with
an eclat, and upon a scale, which extinguished the
centuriators.
S. Philip Neri, the founder of the oratory, cast his
eyes upon a young Neapolitan, who was burning with
the fervour, epidemic at the period (end of cent. 16),
of devotion to the cause of the church. From preaching
and hearing confessions, in which the ardent youth
was consuming his energy, the father took him to give
lessons on church history in the oratory of S. Jerome,
at Kome 1 . Beginning as sermons for the edification
of the congregation in that church, these deliveries
grew into lectures. The lectures arranged themselves
in a course, which in thirty years, the lecturer Cesare
Baronio (t 1607) repeated seven times. As he went on,
his studies in preparing his lectures became more and
more searching and extended. His director gradually
1 Baronius has given his own account of this origin of his work in
the c Annales' themselves, under A.D. 57, . 162. With characteristic
modesty, he does not name himself.
364 BARONIUS.
led him on, till he found himself insensibly engaged
in the production of his vast work, the 'Annales
eccleslastici.' The duration of Baronius' labour was
that of his life. He began his popular readings in
the oratory set. 21, he died set. 69, while engaged on
his thirteenth volume. He had waited till he was forty-
nine before he began to publish. Perhaps no modern
historian, not Gibbon, or Grote, ever devoted the whole
of a life so entirely to one historical work, or made
such a noviciate. The author must have succumbed
under the magnitude of an undertaking too vast for
a single workman, had he not had support from
without. As long as S. Philip Neri lived he kept his
disciple to his work, urging, stimulating, commanding,
as if he had to exact from him a day's taskwork 2 . The
virgin and the saints, especially SS. Peter and Paul,
gave him special aid, and the Almighty blessed him
with unbroken health to his dying day. Without
these helps he could not have supported the con-
tinued labour of reading and extracting. Baronius,
like Bellarmine, employed no amanuensis. His notes,
and extracts even, were all made by his own hand;
in this unlike the centuriators, who worked with a
subordinate staff of ten paid clerks.
In other respects, the unsuccoured and thankless
toil of the centuriators offers, to the cherished and
petted lot of Baronius, as great a contrast as the
bleak and sandy wastes of Mecklenburg to the sunny
shores of the Mediterranean. The archives of the
Vatican, and all the resources of the Italian libra-
ries were thrown open to him. The papal press
printed for him ; the wealth of the church defrayed
2 Alberici, Vita Baronii, p. 30 : ' Durus quodammodo diurni pensi
exactor/
BARON I US. 365
ids charges; its highest dignities rewarded his suc-
cess. Commenced as edifying homilies to an ignorant
.[Ionian congregation by a young priest little less
ignorant than themselves, the work, as it grew in
size, grew into a reputation for learning, little short
of supernatural. Its circulation, for its bulk, twelve
folios, one for each century, was unprecedented then,
and without example since. The libraries of all the
monasteries, of the cathedral chapters, of the Jesuit
colleges and houses, the princes and prelates, through-
out the catholic world, took off edition after edition.
Vol. i of the 'Annales' saw the light, ' Komse ex
t/prgraphii Vaticaria 1588,' and Clement enumer-
ates five complete editions before 1610. The volumes
were dedicated to none below popes, emperors, and
kings, the author condescending to bestow one at last
on Henri iv. after he had qualified himself to receive
this certificate of orthodoxy. The book was transla-
ted, commented, supplemented, continued till, not its
faults, but its very completeness, arrested its circula-
tion. In the great Lucca edition 1738-1787, it had
grown to thirty-eight vols. folio, and thus purchase
was made difficult, and perusal impossible. And it
was finally supplanted by the elegant compendium of
^leury, which gave its contents to the world 3 in the
universal language of literature.
At the opening of the seventeeth century the rela-
tive position of the two religious parties was reversed.
The catholic party had recovered, and more than re-
covered, their ascendancy in the west of Europe. It
was a moral ascendancy over opinion of which they
3 Fleury, Hist, eccles. liv. 75. I : 'Ici [1198] finissent les annales
du cardinal Baronius, que j'ai principalement eu pour guide dans cette
liistoire.'
366 BARONIUS.
now found themselves possessed, an ascendancy founded
on superiority of numbers and wealth, but intensi-
fied by religious zeal. They were fast making way
to intellectual preponderance. At this moment ap-
peared Baronius' ' Annals.' A work of such vast
compass, dealing with an important theme, would
have been, at any time, a consid rable phenomenon
in the literary world. Appearing at the moment it
did, it had the significance not of a mere literary
publication, but of a political event. The 'Centuries'
had shown the history of the church as the growth
of the spirit of evil waxing through successive ages,
till it was consummated in the reign of anti-christ.
Baronius exhibited the visible unity and impeccable
purity of the church founded upon Peter, and handed
down inviolate, such at this day as it had ever been.
The whole case of the romanists, and especially the
supremacy of the see of Eome, was here set out, under
the form of authentic annals 4 , with an imposing array
of pieces justificatifs, of original documents which were
inaccessible to the protestant centuriators, and ex-
tinguished their meagre citations from familiar and
printed books. The unsupported theory of the pro-
testant history is refuted by the mere weight of facts.
When we read as an event of A.D. 44 that in this
year Peter transferred his episcopal chair from An-
tioch, w^here he had been seven years bishop, to Eome,
where he continued for five-and- twenty years to ad-
minister the affairs of the church, we are reading a
4 Baronius states, Annal. eccles. prsef., his own purpose to be 'catho-
licse ecclesise visibilem mon archie m a Christo domino institutam,
super Petrum fundatam, ac per ejus legitimos verosque successores,
Romanes nimirum pontifices, inviolate conservatam . . . per singula
tempera demonstrare/
BARONIUS. 367
ire fact as well known at Eome as the transactions
>f the year 1544. The protestants saw their historical
Dleadings, not answered, but eclipsed. They had been
:he aggressive party ; they were now put out of court.
The ' Annals ' transferred to the catholic party the pre-
oonderance in the field of learning, which ever since
Erasmus had been on the side of the innovators. It
was the turn of the protestants to feel the urgent need
of an antidote to Baronius.
Exterminated in southern Europe, ground to the
dust in France, threatened with violence in Germany,
t was only in Holland or Britain that the protestant
3arty had strength or heart for any literary under-
:aking. But neither in Holland nor Britain were
there the resources for a history on the scale of
Baronius. And there was only one man who possessed
:he knowledge requisite ; he was some way past fifty,
and exhausted by a life of desk-work. Yet Casaubon
resolutely girded himself for the fray. The idea was
not new to him ; he had long contemplated the plan
of an answer to Baronius in the only shape in which
t was possible.
At his age a rival church history was not to be
thought of. Nor is it clear that if such a history had
)een written it would have commanded much attention,
much less that it would have driven the * Annals ' out
of the field. What had the protestants to set against
:he mysterious ' archives ' of the Vatican, whose records
lad been kept by seven notaries ever since the days of
S. Clement ? It is true the oldest documents were
not forthcoming ; they had, perhaps, been destroyed in
Diocletian's persecution. But no matter. All that was
important in them was well-known ; it was an office
tradition ; a fact whose notoriety dispensed with proof.
368 CASAUBON.
Besides, the success of Baronius had been due to his
having met a popular demand. There are periods
when destructive criticism is the vogue, and only he
who speaks against the established beliefs can obtain a
hearing. Such a period had been the first half of the
1 6th century. Another access of the same temper was
to occur again in the i8th century. But, about 1600,
what the religious public wanted was a conservative
reconstruction of the ecclesiastical legend. An uneasy
feeling had been diffused by the reformation, which
troubled pious souls, as if the hagiological tradition
contained a fabulous element. It was poison, this scep-
tical suspicion, for how could the fabulous have got in,
unless it had been wilfully put there ?
The history of the catholic church had long ceased to
be regarded as history. It was an edifying story, in
which the devotional effect, and not the matter-of-fact,
was the object of the narrator. The hagiographer had
no idea of imposture, of palming off as true, that which
he knew was not true. The plenitude of his faith in
the church supported anything which was, or could be,
told to the honour of the servants of Christ. It was
not mere scepticism, it was an entirely new view of the
church, when the protestant critic began to regard the
church as an institution in time and place, and to ask if
this or that alleged event was a real event had
actually happened.
This desire to believe, this pious wish to have the
legend authenticated, was what Baronius met and
satisfied. He gives the substance of historical evidence
to the supernatural chronicle of the early and middle
age church. The surprising vogue of his history was
due to its want of true historical criticism. His pages
embody, and sanction, with a vast apparatus of quota-
ON BARONIUS. 369
tion, all the romantic legends so dear to the faithful but
uneducated catholic. And while he preserved round
the church story that picturesque haze which faith
cherished and which historical science would dissipate,
he satisfied the requirements of the political churchman
by turning the annals of the church into one long proof
of the supremacy of the roman pontiff.
A protestant history, which had no saints, no mi-
racles, could have had no success. History cannot be
negative, it must have something to narrate. All that
was possible therefore for Casaubon was criticism.
There was one side on which Baronius was vulnerable,
and on that side Casaubon resolved on making his
attack.
The c Annals ' was a work of gigantic labour. In
the first flush of its early triumph, the imposing array
of authorities, the exhaustive compilation of all the
passages, had overwhelmed criticism, and it passed for
a work of learning, not only in catholic universities, and
in Italy, where the tests of learning had ceased to
exist, but generally. Casaubon himself, as we have seen,
had been impressed by his first sight of the earlier
volumes in 1598. But as time was given for exami-
nation of the details, it began to appear that the
champion of the church was not only wanting in his-
torical criticism, but destitute of the more elementary
acquirements necessary for extracting the sense of
ancient writers. Had the ' Annals ' been the work of a
scholar, it was impossible that in so enormous a mass of
facts there should not have been errors. A benedictine
monk is said but the authority 5 is not first-rate, for it
is that of the professional gladiator, Scioppius to have
found 2000 errors in Baronius. And Lucas Holstenius,
5 Ap. Colomids, Bibl. choisie, p. 153.
B b
370 CASAUBON
afterwards, professed to have swelled the number to
8000 6 . But mere mistakes are but errata and can be
corrected. Casaubon gradually discovered that Baro-
nius' errors were errors of scholarship. Rather he was
not in possession of the elements of learning. He
knew no hebrew, no greek 7 . He was totally destitute
of the critical skill which is implied in dealing with
ancient authors, so as to elicit their meaning. In fact
this vast historical edifice, with its grand front and
stately chambers, was a house of cards, which a breath
of criticism would demolish in a moment.
If Casaubon did not detect the imposture at once on
first looking into the book, it must be remembered that
he only had the reading of a volume casually, and
while he was engrossed with other subjects. At the
very first reading he had felt, and had expressed to
Scaliger 8 , his keen perception of the difference between
the real learning of the ' Thesaurus Temporum ' and the
' Annales.' Besides, Casaubon himself was in steady
growth, and in the ten years which followed 1598,
raised his standard of judging, and especially enlarged
his knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity.
He was at first disposed to attribute the citation of
so much apocryphal literature to bad faith on the part
of Baronius. He could not believe that any one who
was in the habit of handling the remains of the greek
and latin writers, should not know better. Here he
6 Guy Patin, Lettres, 25 fv. 1660, to Falconet.
7 This was well understood in protestant circles. See Cappelli Vin-
dicise pro Isaaco Casaubono, 1619: 'Deerat illi [Baronio] sane lin-
guarum orientalium cognitio, grsecam vix primoribus labris delibarat
disciplinis mathematicis imparatus erat.'
8 Ep. 175 : ' Ita demum didici . . . inter (fnXaXfideiav et gratise
aucupium interesse tantum.'
ON BARONIUS. 371
was undeceived by Fra Paolo, to whom he had commu-
nicated this suspicion. While speaking meanly of the
work, the father vindicated the character of the author.
* Those who know the man,' he writes 9 to Casaubon,
4 will not easily be persuaded to think him dishonest.
It is want of mind, of critical knowledge. I knew him
at Borne, before he put himself in the road to prefer-
ment, or had got the itch of writing, at - a time when
the cure of his soul was his only business. I never
knew a more simple being. He had no opinions of his
own ; he caught up the opinions of those he lived with,
and obstinately maintained them, till some new person
supplied him with a new one. He was without judg-
ment, if you please ; but " dolus malus," there was none
about the man. I cannot think that he is an antagonist
worthy of you ; and it has always been matter of
surprise to me that his work should have stood so high,
as it has, in public esteem/
Further study of the 'Annals' convinced Casaubon
of Baronius' good faith. But it was at the expense of
his understanding 10 . The prestige of the work had
imposed upon him at first. It had seemed impossible
that a history, which all the world was agreed to regard
as a learned work, should not have some title to be so
considered. He was irritated as a scholar by the vogue
of an uiischolarlike work. He lamented, as a citizen,
the triumph of the evil cause. He thought he could
not render a better service to the church than by
9 E P . 8n.
10 On one occasion Casaubon is compelled to admire the dexterity
of Baronius. It is where Yigilius, having become pope, has to be
whitewashed. Adversaria, 3. 103: 'Diligentiee plus semper tribui
Baronio, quam acuminis. at cum video qua dexteritate concinnet
metamorphosin Vigilii . . . non possum quin exclamem, si verum
non est, at est ingeniose inventum.'
B b 2
372 CASA UBON
exposing the spurious character of the literary idol of
Borne. It was not Baronius he was going to attack,
but Italian erudition, the sham learning which the old
impostor wa substituting for the sham miracles of the
dark ages.
This was the spirit in which he set about the ' Exer-
citationes/ and had been preparing the materials long
before he came to England. If we enquire what success
Casaubon had in his enterprise, we shall be compelled
to admit that it was not a decisive triumph.
The form in which he cast his matter was unfor-
tunate. The * Exercitations ' are a collection of de-
tached notes on the ' Annals/ They follow the order
of the ' Annals/ but have no other connection than the
chronological sequence. There is no common thread of
argument to give unity to- the composition. Such mis-
cellaneous common-place books, as Hallam 11 has said
of Turnebus' ' Adversaria/ ' can only be read in a
desultory manner, or consulted upon occasion/ But
when such notes are not merely desultory, but in a
strain of censure, sometimes descending to mere fault-
finding, the reading becomes not only distracting, but
distasteful. Casaubon has sufficient respect for him-
self and his adversary not to descend to the black-
guard scurrilities of the pamphleteers of the day, but
he is too often calling upon the reader to wonder at the
ignorance and fatuity of Baronius. His criticism wants
the repose of immeasurable superiority, such as charac-
terises the greatest critics, e. g. Lobeck's Aglaophamus 12 ,
in his treatment of Creuzer.
11 Lit. of Europe, i. 482.
12 Friedlander, Gedachtnissrede, p. 1 1 : ' Der Ton des Aglao-
phamus bewahrt im Ganzen die voile Ruhe unendlicher Ueberlegen-
heit.'
ON BARONIUS. 373
This great disadvantage in point of form, viz. that
the ' Exercitations ' are a critique of another book and
follow its arrangement, has obscured the credit which
would otherwise have followed the same material if
better arranged. As it is, the book has formed a mine
of references which have been very useful to the com-
pilers of ' notes ' on the New Testament for the last
2 50 years 13 . Nor is it all attack. There are incor-
porated in the book some dissertations in which Cas-
aubon comes forward to instruct the reader directly.
Such a portion are the chapters on the different names
by which the Eucharist was spoken of in the early
ages 14 ; a chapter which has furnished Waterland 15
with a great part of his references in chapter I. of his
' Review of the doctrine of the Eucharist/
A desultory critique, passage by passage, of another
man's book, prolonged through nearly 800 pages in
folio, does not constitute attractive reading. What
would the '* Exercitations' have been, if Casaubon had
lived to carry out his design ? He proposed to set over
against Baronius' twelve folios, volume for volume of
his animadversions 18 . Of this monster criticism the
volume which we have is only the first half of the first
volume a mere fragment !
Besides the fault of their original design, the 'Exerci-
tations ' have a fault of execution.
There were two points on which Baronius lay
entirely at Casaubon's mercy, i. His entire want of
greek, and of classical learning of any kind. 2. His
13 See Crenius, Animadvv. p. 123, for instances of unacknowledged
borrowing from Casaubou's ' Exercitationes.'
14 Exercitt. pp. 500-586. ed. Lond. 1614.
15 "Works, vol. 7. pp. 20-43.
16 Ep. 782 : ' Duodecim tomis totidein libros oppono.'
374 CASA UBON
employment of the apocryphal literature, and production
of the roman fabulous history, as if it were matter-of-
fact. Casaubon could have assured his victory, however
little worth it might have been, had he confined him-
self to exposing the blunders of one who thought that
the word ' missa ' (the mass) was the term in use at
Jerusalem in the time of S. James 17 , or the credulity
which relied on the false Decretals, which even Bellar-
mine had given up. But Casaubon has not confined
himself to matters of language or history. He has gone
in for theological controversy, thus forsaking the
vantage ground of learning, and letting himself down
on that of mere opinion. When he first planned the
work, he had intended, of such matters, only to touch
what bore on the regalian rights 18 . He was gradually
led on to other controverted points of theology. In-
deed, he did this sparingly 19 , and, as the english
bishops thought, too sparingly. Andrewes, who looked
over the sheets wished * he would not spend so much
time on mere questions of chronology/ Casaubon was
hampered by his position as protestant champion.
Both his public and his patron, expected to see the
doctrinal errors of Baronius refuted. They thought
that Casaubon's name would carry the weight of his
authority in the arena of religious dispute. His occa-
sional descent into the sectarian controversy has only
the effect of lowering the tone, and obscuring the cha-
racter, of the whole work. Even as a polemical success
the blow dealt at the papal historian would have told
more, if Casaubon had confined himself to his critical
17 Exercitt. p. 582.
18 Prolegomena in Exercitt. : ' Ilia solummodo attingere consilium
erat, quse ad jura principum pertinent.'
19 Ep. 795 : 'Mere theologies parce attingo,'
ON BARONIUS. 375
corrections, which were unanswerable, and not committed
himself to disputation on mere matters of opinion.
Hallam has expressed his opinion that 2 'in mere
theological learning, Casaubon was behind some eng-
lish scholars/ These general comparisons of degrees
fof learning admit neither of being proved nor refuted.
Of Englishmen living at the same time as Casaubon,
there are but two who could be brought into competi-
tion with him, Selden and Andrewes. But Selden was
only thirty years old at the date of Casaubon' s death,
and his researches had lain in a field not the same as
those of Casaubon. The comparison with Andrewes is
more possible. Casaubon himself said of Andrewes 21
' that he was deeply versed in the fathers/ and he was
certainly a man of much greater originality of mind
than Isaac Casaubon. Yet Andrewes could no more
have wiitten the ' Exercitations/ than Casaubon could
have composed one of Andrewes' witty sermons. From
the brilliant cut, thrust, and parry of Andrewes' pam-
phlet fencing, Casaubon' s dull matter-of-fact style is far
removed ; but from a single one of the ' Exercitations '
there is more to be learned than from the whole volume
of.the Tortura Torti/
The material facts of the primitive history of the
Christian church lie in small compass, and are in
Baronius and Casaubon alike. The difference here is
not in extent of reading, but in the power of using
the facts. Casaubon possesses them as knowledge, and
can reason upon them for chronological and philo-
logical purposes. Baronius amasses them as a com-
piler ; when he attempts to reason upon them, he
:0 Lit. of Europe, 2. 311.
21 Adversaria, 28. 4: ' Soleo 'observare singula dicta viri sapientis-
simi, et in patrum lectione exercitatissimi, D. episcopi Eliensis.'
376 CASA UBON
falls into ludicrous misconceptions, and yet miscon-
ceptions not of a nature which admit of being made
very palpable to the general reader. Where Casaubon
had the greatest opportunity, and where he has not
used it, is in the legendary character of Baronius' whole
construction. Baronius has swept into his repertory
everything that could be found, true or false, probable
or absurd. The anile fables, and apocryphal legends,
which had accumulated round the scanty nucleus of
the early Christian story, are consecrated in the 'Annals'
as serious portions of church history. He makes,
indeed, some faint effort to discriminate. Though he
inserts everything, yet he sometimes expresses a doubt
of his apocryphal narratives, e. g. 22 of the dialogue
between S. Paul and Dionysius the Areopagite at
Athens. He rejects the Constantine endowment, but
it is on the a priori ground that it would be un-
worthy of the church to have accepted, as a gift from
the emperor, what it already held 'jure divino.' This
modest beginning of criticism, like that of Bochary
who would reduce the 600000 traditions of Islam to
70000, was unacceptable to the high party. Baronius
is severely taken to task for his doubts by the Spanish
Jesuit, a Castro, and the dominican, John de la Puente.
Baronius is too sceptical for the Spanish taste. The
fact that Casaubon has not used his advantage in this
respect betrays his own limitation as a historical critic.
He constantly notices Baronius' recourse to apocryphal
authorities, but it was not in him to take his stand
on the broad principle of historical investigation, and
to require that church history should be subjected to
the same rigid scrutiny as all history. If he expresses
a doubt of 23 Hydaspes, Hermes, and the Sibylline
22 Annales eccles. 52. 10. 23 .Exercitt. i. 10.
ON BARON I US. 377
racles, it is not on critical grounds, but on the a priori
improbability that God would have allowed the Gen-
liles to have had fuller prevision of the gospel revela-
tion than was granted to the Jews. The genuineness
>f the epistles of Ignatius he is ready to establish 24 by
new arguments. He knows the late date of the
25< Areopagitica/ but then here he had Valla, Erasmus,
and Scaliger to enlighten him. Epiphanius 26f is far
:oo ready to give credence to trifling fables/ and the
? athers generally, both greek and latin, often blunder
in matters of history 27 . But these same fathers, in
matters of doctrine, become authorities ; they are
appealed to by Casaubon as judges in the last instance.
The appeal indeed is not to the individual father, but
to him as representing the belief of the church of his
time. As an argumentum ad hominem against Baro-
nius, who maintained that the church had never varied
in doctrine or belief, and had been throughout what
it now was, this appeal was admissible as a contro-
versial expedient. But Casaubon goes much beyond
ihis, and thinks that in ascertaining the opinions of a
ather he is not merely learning the opinion of a given
period of the church, but obtaining truth valid for all
ages. Baronius' 'Annals' was a lengthy pleading, a
Damphlet in twelve volumes folio, in support of the
authority of the existing church. Casaubon 5 s *Exer-
citations ' is among the earliest of the array of anglo-
catholic attempts to set up the authority of ' Antiquity/
as the canon of religious truth.
If the fathers are, to this extent, placed above the
24 Exercitt. 16. 150.
26 Ibid. 16. 43. p. 565. 26 Ibid. 15. 7.
27 Exercitt. 1.2: 'In historia, et in iis, quse fidei non suut, graviter
lallucinari.'
378 CASA UBON
application of historical interpretation, much more are
the canonical books. In his notes on the N. T. (1587)
Isaac Casaubon had shown a disposition to follow the
true path of philological interpretation. Taking given
words, what does the language require that they
should mean \ This principle of exegesis was not so
difficult of application while, as an annotator, he was
dealing with each passage singly. Now, when he
has to consider the collective effect of a number of
collated passages, he allows it to be overridden by
the theological principle, the so-called 'harmonia dic-
torum biblicorum/ Statements in the gospels musti
be reconciled 'per fas atque nefas.' Many pages e.g.
are wasted over the discrepancy as to the day on
which the Passover was eaten. Baronius defends the
common view which makes the fourth gospel conform
to the synoptics ; Casaubon the opposite, which squares
the synoptics by S. John. But Casaubon, equally with
Baronius, assumes that it would be ' blasphemous ' to
suppose discrepancy in point of fact 28 .
It is creditable to Casaubon that, in a period of
theological excitation, when religious passion was daily
translating itself into overt acts of violence, he treats
his opponent, if not with courtesy, at least with respect.
Yet his anger is occasionally roused by Baronius'
blundering misconstruction of everything he touches;
and when he has occasion to speak of the fry of
pamphleteers, he is not seldom savage 29 , and sinks into
the tone of the railing divine. But though he ob-
28 Exercitt. p. 466 : ' Mira res et vix credenda de hominibus qui
dici se christianos et haberi postularent ... (to say that) M atthseum,
Marcum, Lucam in teniporis circumstantia lapses, ab Johanne esse
correctos.'
29 See Exercitt. p. 513.
ON BARONIUS. 379
ves the forms of civility which the cardinal's public
)osition and private character imposed, it is clear that
Dasaubon's respect for his opponent diminished, instead
)f increased, as he subjected his work to closer exami-
lation. He came to recognise that the demolition of
Baronius was scarcely a work of criticism at all, and
that Fra Paolo had been right in telling him that
Baronius was not an antagonist worthy of him. In
March 1612, he writes to Grotius 30 , ' I begin to realise
the magnitude of the task I have undertaken, now
when it is impossible to back out of it. Not that
I have much trouble in confuting Baronius' sing-song,
mostly childish stuff, the man himself without learning,
letters, or theology. What costs me most effort is the
extra work I have imposed on myself, viz. to set out,
under each head of controversy, what was the belief
of antiquity/
The dissemination and permanence of books depends
on many various causes. Criticism goes for very little ;
' habent sua fata.' * Les classes influentes ne sont plus
celles qui lisent,' writes de Tocqueville 31 , ' un livre,
quelque soit son succes, n'ebranle done point 1' esprit
public/ It would be difficult to show that the reputa-
tion of Baronius was sensibly affected by Casaubon's
review. The * Annals' sank under their own defects,
and the change in public taste. The hagiological
temper in the reading parts of Europe, which had
enjoyed a forced reviviscence during the catholic reac-
tion, could not maintain itself. Baronius was enter-
taining reading. As such Scaliger had read the first
30 Ep. 779 : 'ISTeque in confutandis nseniis Baronianis magnus mihi
labor ; pueriles ssepe sunt ; ipse indoctus, apovo-os,
31 Corresp. 29 juillet, 1856.
380 CASA UBON
eight volumes in one summer 32 ; a feat, even of eye-
sight, for a man over sixty 33 , and occupied in his work-
ing hours with a laborious undertaking of his own. In
this respect the competition of the secular romance,
which came in in the ijth century, tended to throw
hagiography into the shade. But the decline of Baro-
nius' reputation for learning, which, we learn from Les-
toile 34 , began before Casaubon wrote, injured it more.
Because the ' Annals ' did not sink out of sight at
the touch of the enchanter's wand, the ' Exercitations '
were proclaimed a failure by exulting enemies and
disappointed friends. The Savile set were happy to
think that Casaubon could not do what he had pre-
vented them from doing 35 . Eichard Montagu laments 36
that the very learned Isaac Casaubon was not a theo-
logian ; that he followed Scaliger even in his paradoxes ;
that he made much of trifles critica titivillitia ; that
he spent all his labour on the volume of the gospel
history, and not on the later periods ; that he allows
himself in irrelevant digressions. These were things
that could be said at the time by the envious f friends.'
He did not please his immediate patrons, the bishops,
who wished now that Casaubon had handled Baronius
a little more roughly 37 . Like their successors in the
1 8th century, who regretted Butler's ' want of vigour 38 ,'
they had no means of knowing which was in the right,
32 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 24 : ' Tota sestate octo ejus volumina legi.'
33 Vol. 8 of the ' Annales ' came out in 1600.
34 Registre-journal, 16 Jan. 160*7 : l Baronius depuis un peu a perdu
beaucoup de sa reputation.' 35 See below, p. 422.
36 Apparatus ad Origines eccles. praef. 65 seq., and app. p. 136.
37 Colonies, Bibl. choisie, p. 151 : ' Les eveques auroient souhaite'
que Casaubon cut traite Baronius un peu plus rudement qu'il ne
faisoit, a quoi sa candeur et sa modestie ne puvent jamais consentir.'
38 Byrom's Journal, March, 1737.
ON BARON I US. 381
;ind thought want of passion a sign of weakness. The
puritan party wished to see Baronius well abused, and
charged with disaffection the man who would not stoop
:o do it 39 . To take up what Casaubon left unachieved,
has been a favourite project with the protestant party.
Richard Montagu went over the same ground again,
to show how Casaubon ought to have done it, but
could not, in his ' Analecta exercitationum ecclesiasti-
carum/ Gerard John Voss had written, and was
encouraged by Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells,
to publish something, which never appeared, of the
kind 40 . Nor is anything more known of the work of
Jacques Godefroy, which he offered to, and which
was approved by, the synod of Charenton in i63i 41 .
Blondel, Magendie, Flottemanville, published critical
remarks or corrections of Baronius 42 .
Such was the opinion of contemporaries. As for the
judgment of posterity, there is none worth mentioning
to record. The ' mot' on the catholic side, ' that Cas-
aubon had only knocked down a few battlements of
Baronius' building,' is worth as little as that which
Almeloveen 43 opposes to it, ' that if he did not kill
Baronius, he inflicted deep wounds/ The last professed
criticism is that of Leclerc written in the year 1 709 44 .
59 Montac. app. prsef. 75 : ' Ut contumeliis incesserem et opprobriis,
quod nostri vellent, et non factum accusantur (sic).'
40 Laud to Voss. ap. Colomie's, p. 153; and see Vossii Epistolse,
2. p. 66.
41 Quick, Synodicon, 2. 302.
42 A. Wood, Fasti, 1611 : 'James Martin, of Broadgates Hall, had
ended his work against Baronius, but what that was he tells us not,
neither in truth can I tell.' No wonder A. Wood could not tell.
Casaubon, writing to Martin, tells him that he (Casaubon) has nearly
ended his work on Baronius. This is the only foundation for
A. Wood's statement.
43 Vita Gas. p. 58. 44 Bibl. choisie, 19. 229.
382 CASAUBON
He savs that Casaubon, * in undertaking to refute
*/ *
Baronius, had undertaken a work above his strength.
i. He had not sufficiently meditated the first principles
of theology. 2. He had not sufficient knowledge of
chronology. 3. He was not sufficiently read in Christian
antiquity, but had only got it up for the purpose of
this book.' I only cite this criticism because it is that
which the biographies to this day continue to repro-
duce as a judicious summing up of the case. All that
it proves is, that famous reviewers in 1709 judged of
books without reading them, and that we copy their
judgments.
No one was less satisfied with his work than the
author himself. It was but a fragment of his vast
scheme. He designed, if he lived, a continuation of it,
but on a more constructive plan. He proposed 45 to
exhibit an impartial picture of the internal and external
form of the ancient church. This wish was never
fulfilled. Among the Adversaria 46 are some very short
notes on the later volumes of Baronius, some of which
are printed by Wolf 47 . The single volume of the
' Exercitationes ' is all that was ever realised of the
vast schemes of ecclesiastical history which had been
conceived early in the Genevan period, and which had
been postponed, but never given up. In 1596, set. 37,
rising fresh and confident, rather than exhausted, from
his long labour on Athenaeus, he announced to Borigars 48
that he should now proceed to Polybius ; * after which,
if I live, with God's aid I shall put my hand to a
greater undertaking. I desire to set an example to
men of our side, how that leaving these gladiatorial
fencing-matches, so mischievous to the Christian world,
48 Ep. 950. 46 Tom. 3. and torn. 14.
47 Casauboniana, pp. 123-180. , 48 Ep. 1008.
ON BARON1US. 383
hey should turn themselves to the illustration of the
ioly fathers, and the affairs of the primitive church.'
How sad must have appeared to himself the contrast
jetween the promise and the performance eighteen years
tater ! Writers are apt to flatter themselves that they
are not, like the men of action, the slaves of circum-
stance. They think they can write what and when
they choose. But it is not so. Whatever we may
think and scheme, as soon as we seek to produce our
thoughts or schemes to our fellow-men, we are involved
in the same necessities of compromise, the same grooves
of motion, the same liabilities to failure or half-measures,
as we are in life and action. Compared with the vast
designs we frame in youth, all production seems a petty
and abortive effort !
7.
LONDON; ELY; CAMBRIDGE.
l6lO 1614.
CASAUBON is apt to complain of the reluctance be
finds in himself to put pen to paper. When he did
do so, his hand moved with rapidity. ' Fervet opus/
he says of the review of Baronius 1 , and it is
strictly true. He began to. turn his attention to the
subject early in the year 1612, some time about the
middle of January. He was revolving the matter for
several weeks, and directing his reading towards
the period comprised in Baronius' first volume. But
in such a wide field reading was not yet become
search, and he has freedom enough of mind to be
enjoying S. Chrysostom, in Savile's magnificent edition,
which was then in progress 2 . On March 23 he is
ready to sketch a plan in outline of the work he is
to write 3 . On April 27 he begins to compose 4 . 'After
long deliberation, meditation, preparation, I set myself
seriously to work on my criticism of Baronius, may
God bless the undertaking! Thou, merciful Jesus,
knowest that it is not vanity, or desire of empty fame,
1 Ep. 923.
2 Eph. p. 926: 'In Chrysostoino fui et hodie, legique multa illiue,
prsesertim quse scripsit in cap. 6. Johannis.'
3 Eph. p. 923. 4 Eph. p. 928.
LONDON. 16101614. 385
which moves me to undertake a work of such magni-
tude, but the single purpose of defending truth ! '
At first he writes out detached criticisms. On
July 27 he records the commencement of the con-
tinuous text of his book 5 . His progress, rapid as it
seems to us, was not answerable to his own fervid im-
patience. On August 12, he writes 6 , 'I never quit
my work, and yet I do not get on as I- should like.'
He toiled on, ' sweating, more than enough ' (sudavi
plus satis per hos intensissimos calores) through the
hot months, refusing the bishop's invitation to go
with him into his diocese, and on the last day of
the year could congratulate himself on having reached
the 40oth page 7 . On April 20, 1613, he announced
to de Thou that he had arrived at the end of so
much as he meant to publish 8 as a first instalment,
of the whole, that is, of the book as it now stands.
On May 16 the rough draft has, by successive writ-
ing and rewriting of parts, been brought to a state
in which he can begin copying it out for press. He
now allows himself a little holiday, the first since he
began the work in the January of 1612. He visits
Oxford, though, in this visit, he has partly in view
to make extracts from books in the Bodleian, not
to be had in London. On his return, on June 9,
he begins to write out for press, and sends off the
5 Eph. p. 928 : 'Hodie observationes in Baronium serio sum
aggressus ; nam hactenus magis paravi subsidia ad scribendum quam
scrips! ; nunc, deo duce ... ad opus manum admovi.'
6 Ep. 830: 'Equidem nullum tempus intermitto; etsi quantum
promoveam me sane pceniteret.'
7 Eph. p. 958.
8 Ep. 883 : ' Perveni, dei beneficio, ad finem ejus partis quam nunc
sum editurus, quae etsi satis erit magna, ultra Domini vitam tamen
non pertinget.'
C C
386 LONDON. 1610 1614.
copy to the printer as fast as he gets it done. On
June 1 8 printing begins. The compositor is not
lacking in industry, but does not work up to the
author's impatience, and being king's printer, is taken
off occasionally 9 . Casaubon can keep ahead of the
press. In August, the production was at the rate of
a * folio ' = four pages in folio, per day, at which rate
Casaubon calculates it wiU require 150 days to finish 10 .
He hoped it would be out by the new year. Gradually
this date receded; 'You know what it is to get a
book through the press/ he writes to de Thou n . On
November 18, he has passed the 5ooth page, but
there are 220 pp. more to come, and the intro-
ductory epistle, etc. to write yet. On February 14 he
finishes the epistle to the reader, and at last, on
March 23, the volume is presented to the king. If
it had not been for the publisher, Bill, the volume,
it seems, would not have ended at page 773. The
author could, and would, have gone on indefinitely,
but the publisher insisted upon getting it out in
time for the Easter Frankfort fair, and Casaubon had
to leave out part of his long discussion on the Eu-
charist. After all, the copies which went to Frank-
fort, went without the prolegomena, which could not
be printed off in time 12 .
The whole work, from the first preparatory notes to
the day of publication, was achieved in two years
9 Ep. 931 : 'Operse, etsi illse quidem non cessant, segnius tamen
pergunt quam ut incitatse cupiditati mese faciant satis/ Eph. p. 991 :
' Operis inchoati editio cessat.'
10 Ep. 906 : ' Quotidie folium unum editur ; ita duratura est hsec
editio dies fpyao-ipovs centum et quinquaginta plus minus.'
11 Ep. 931 : 'Non te fugit quid sit libros edere.'
12 Ep. 941.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 387
ind two months. Casaubon shrank from no drudgery.
He had written over the whole, with his own hand,
two or three times ; parts of it even four times 13 ,
adding much at each revision, though also rejecting
much as unsatisfactory upon review 14 . The indexes
even he must make himself 15 , a fact which accounts
for their excellence.
The mere clerical labour undergone ' was severe
for one in broken health. In a book depending so
largely on textual authorities, the mere reference in-
volves great toil. Yet mere reference was the lightest
part of what had to be done. It is a comparatively
easy thing to accumulate citation. Exhaustive re-
search is a different process, a process, which, while
it has much fatiguing exertion of eye and memory,
derives its whole value from the intelligence which
directs it, and is engaged in sifting the material.
It was here a great disadvantage to him that he
was without his own copies of the necessary books,
copies in which he knew his way about, guided by
the finger-posts which he was in the habit of mark-
ing in the margin as aids to the memory, ' quos usu
contrivi.' Yet the citations actually made use of in
the 'Exercitations' were only a small part of the
whole he had accumulated 16 . ' I have surpassed the
most diligent in diligence,' he says 17 . * Erycius
Puteanus, who writes that I am abandoning myself
13 E P . 93 i.
14 Eph. 942 : < Qusedam hodie, sed quse mox displicuerunt.'
15 Eph. 1037 : 'Illiberales istse curae de iudicibus/
16 Ep. 931 : * Exhaurire adversaria mea si voluero, ante annos
aliquot non possim manum de tabula.'
7 Epp. 844. 923: l Qui putant me rpvfyqv in hac aula, et literis
anoTa^aadai ut scribit Puteanus, parum riorunt serumnas laboriosissimse
vitae raese ! '
C C 2
388 LONDON. 16101614.
to the sloth and luxury of a court, and have re-
nounced letters, can have little notion of the hard
and laborious life I lead!' Of this research there
could be no record. It is merged in the recurrent
formula of the diary, ' hodie studia ; or ra eyKVK\ia.
In such enquiries, how many volumes have to be
gone through from which nothing is reaped ! Weary-
ing as his task-reading must have been, his recrea-
tion was only reading again. In September 1612,
e. g. we find him spending his * leisure hours ' 18 on a
MS. rabbinical commentary. At another time he reads 19
a pamphlet sent him by the king, 'Trois tres excel-
lentes predications/ etc., ' not worth spending a moment
on, but for the passages in which the preachers unite
in lauding the doctrine of parricide/
It is only occasionally that the name of the book read
is entered in the diary. From the commencement of
the ' Exercitations' to the end, i. e. two years arid a
half, the following are all that are chronicled : Cyprian ;
Chrysostom ; ' many pieces of him / ( good books, espe-
cially Chrysostom / * homilies of Chrysostom / Chrono-
logy of Liveley in MS. ; Jael Moris, B.M. ; Dionysius
Areopagita ; ' Lutheran books ; ' Hospinian, Historia
sacra ; Kainolds, Liber Prselectionum ; (Ecolampadius,
Dialogue on the Eucharist, read with ' admiration of the
learning of the man, and his acquaintance with the
greek fathers ;' Sermons of S. Augustine ; Tostati ; and
June n, 1614, 'much in S. Augustine/ This is the last
book mentioned as read. Comparing this list with the
' Exercitations/ we see how far the diary is from being
any record of the reading done at the time. The ' Ex-
18 Ep. 832: ' Quicquid superest vacui temporis, ejus magnam
partem impendo lectioni commentarii Hebraic! in Pirke Avot.'
19 Adversaria, torn. 28.
LONDON. 16101614. 389
'^citations' quote nearly 300 different authors, reckoning
^ke Councils only as one, and taking no account of the
';exts of scripture quoted. Though the ' Adversaria' are
mostly without date, yet some of the extracts from
books can be identified as belonging to the last two
years, e.g. Tostati is only named on one day in the
diary 20 . But we find from a note in the Adversaria 21 ,
that he had gone through the voluminous commentary
on S. Matthew, which could hardly be done in a part of
a day.
We have seen how Casaubon groaned over the self-
imposed task of editing Athenaeus 22 and longed to
have done with it. The more serious labour of refuting
Baronius, on which others had engaged him, he held to
with unflagging zest. He only took one holiday in the
two years and two months, and that was for a short
visit to Oxford. During the whole of his english resi-
dence, he made in all four country excursions, his atten-
dances at court not included. In Feb. 1611 he went to
Dover to meet and escort Madame Casaubon. In April,
he paid a visit to sir Henry Savile at Eton. In August
he went with the bishop of Ely into his diocese, and
resided with him at Downham for two months.
It was Andrewes' custom to spend three months in the
summer in his diocese. The air of the fens did not agree
with him 23 , but, had it been otherwise, his many duties
required his presence in town the greater part of the
:0 Prid. kal. Aug. 1613: ' Reliquum diem in Tostato posui viro
magno, ut illis teraporibus, et pio.'
21 Advers. torn. 28 :' Tostati obiter quaedam observabamus cum ejus
vastum commentarium in Matthaeum percurreremus.'
22 See above, p. 123.
23 Isaacson, Life and Death, etc., p. xxix : < The air of that place
not agreeing with the constitution of his body.'
390 CAMBRIDGE; ELY. 1611.
year 24 . We have seen above 25 the force of the mutual
attraction which brought these two men together. On
November 5, 1610, in the very first days of Casaubon's
arrival in town, they had a conversation of some hours,
in which the knowledge and sense of Andrewes greatly
impressed Casaubon 26 . On November 24, the bishop,
who is hard at work, the king urging him, on his answer
to Bellarmine, reads part of it to Casaubon and the dean,
that he may have their corrections. From this time
Casaubon sees the bishop almost daily 27 . It seemed
almost matter of course that when Andrewes quitted
town for his diocese he should take Casaubon with him.
They started July 26, (1611), and stopt at Cam-
bridge, which it took them two days to reach. Here
they were lodged at Peterhouse, of which the bishop was
visitor. Ths master, Eichardson, was a man of some
reading; at least he had read in his youth, and in a line
of reading not very common he knew something of
the imperialist chroniclers. The dispute between the
emperor Henry iv. and the see of Rome was a subject
that interested Casaubon just now, and Eichardson
obliged him with the loan of books on the subject and
others 28 toDownham. Four years after Casaubon's visit,
1615, Richardson was promoted to the mastership of
Trinity. Casaubon * will excuse the notes which he had
scribbled many years ago on the margin of his Optatus
Milevitanus, and which were only intended as aids to
24 It would seem that the bishops of Ely were habitual non-residents.
Masters, Life of Baker, dedic., speaks of BP. York's ' unusual residence
in his diocese.' 25 See p. 328.
26 Eph. p. 783 : * Cum sapientissimo et doctissimo viro D. Episcopo
Eliensi aliquot horas posui.'
27 Ep. 754 : ' Mihi cum illo pnesule quotidiana consuetudo inter-
cedit.' 28 Burney MSS. 365. p. 350.
ELY. 1611. 391
memory.' The next morning Casaubon was shown
over the colleges by his old correspondent Richard
Thomson, who, though it was vacation, was to be found
in Clare Hall. After dining at Peterhouse, the bishop
and Casaubon went on to Downham, making a call
upon the dean at Ely, by the way.
In this summer retreat in the country, Casaubon
enjoyed forty-eight days of peace and leisure, without
the daily urgency of a literary task. These few weeks
were all of english country life he was destined to
see. The flat fen of Donnington is not a favourable
specimen of our rural scenery, but Casaubon thought
it beautiful 29 , coming from S. Mary Axe. Though he
had lived at Montpellier, he thought the apricots of
the isle of Ely rivalled those of France in flavour.
He was struck with the wealthy appearance of the
country. He saw something of provincial life, ac-
companying the bishop on a progress, or visitation,
which he made to Wisbech and the neighbourhood.
Here Casaubon, who was a keen observer of anything
new, made acquaintance with the bittern and the
bustard, with turf fires and stilts. He enquired into
the fattening of godwits for the London market ; into
the manufacture of rape seed ; the culture of hemp ;
the construction of the Ely ' lantern.' He was pleased
at being able to verify, in the isle of Ely, the descrip-
tion in the ' Panegyrici 30 ' of the trembling bog in
the Low countries. The current volume of the diary
was taken down to Downham, but on this progress
Casaubon allowed himself to be separated from it.
He made the notes of these six days on a separate
29 Eph. p. 865 : ' Ipse ager Dunnitoniensis et re et specie pulcher-
rimus est,'
30 Eumenius Paneg. Constant!!, c. 8.
392 ELY. 1611.
sheet of paper, which is still preserved among his
Adversaria, and on his return to Downham copied
them into the diary.
His greatest pleasure in this retreat was the conver-
sation of the bishop, from whom he was not willing to
be parted 33 . But they could not be together all day,
and Casaubon could not do without books. It should
seem that in bishop Cox's spacious palace, on which
Andre wes also 34 , during his ten years' occupancy, ex-
pended a considerable sum, there was no library. The
bishops had no official libraries. Andrewes had a very
choice collection of his own, but they were in London 35 .
During his three months' abode at Downham he de-
pended on supplies from Cambridge. The master of
Peterhouse undertook to supply Casaubon, but seems
to have ill-taken the measure of his voracious ap-
petite 36 . In these days in which he was reading, not
to write, but simply for reading sake, he read Baronius,
' Praescriptiones adversus hgereticos ; ' Camerarius, ' Vita
Melanchthonis;' Id. 'Epistolae;' Whitaker, 'Contra
Campianum ;' Eunapius; Optatus Milevitanus ; several
volumes of the writers on the dispute between the
emperor and the pope, published by G-oldast. These
last were new to him, being only just published. The
others he had read before, and had not asked for.
They were Richardson's selection for him. But Casau-
bon, famished as he was, was not nice in his choice,
33 Eph. 864 : ' Libenter facio ut a tanto viro ne divellar.'
34 2440 altogether on Ely House, Downham, and Wisbech Castle.
See Isaacson, Life and Death, p. xv.
35 See Andrewes, Works, vol. i. p. cxiv.
315 Burney MSS. 365. p. 350 : ' Credo te librorum tibi cupere aliorum
copiam fieri, cum priores superiore septimana missos longe ante hoc
temporis totos evolveris.'
ELY. 1611. 393
and was not sorry to go over old ground at leisure.
Of Camerarius' epistles he made copious notes. 37 ' Who-
ever desires to make proficiency in the art of living
piously should read them/ Hadrian Junius' 'Anim-
adversiones/ another offer of Richardson's 38 , 'though
often handled by me, yet, in the dearth of other books,
I was not sorry to read again, for the author was really
a learned man.' Even on the progress, he could not be
without a book, and took Eunapius and Whitaker,
with him for the purpose. At the house of a gentleman
in Wisbech he saw the Prophecies of Abbot Joachim
in latin and italian 39 . He writes from Downham to
de Thou that ^ ' I contrive to support myself by the
conversation of the bishop, and by reading such books
as I can get hold of here.'
But country life without books could not long charm
him. And reading for reading's sake was now no
longer possible to him. The furor of mere acquisition
had now come to be the ambition to reproduce, to
rebuild. He becomes more and more restless. He
worries himself because his time is lying idle; because
he is not grinding at the theological work of which he
is ever dreaming, and which never came to anything.
He loads the autumnal air of the pleasaunce at Downham
with sighs and groans because Madame Casaubon is away
in France, and because he does not hear from her by
every post, i. e. twice a week 41 . ' I am amazed at this
37 Eph. p. 862 : ' Legat eas epistolas qui vult in arte vitse hujus
pie degendee proficere.'
88 Advers. torn. 25. p. 121.
59 Advers. 25. p. 115.
10 Ep. 743 : 'SermonibuB cum ipso, et librorum, quos hie nancisci
possum, lectione, me sustento.'
11 Eph. p. 864 : ' Ad hoc silentium uxoris et meorum stupeo.
394 ELY. 1611.
continued silence of my wife and all my people ! What
can it mean 1 It is torture to me, torture ! ' He fixes
a day for his departure. The bishop will not hear of
it ; detains him ' with the golden chains of courtesy/
Thomson, who is at Bury S. Edmunds, implores him
to defer his departure till Friday 42 , when he is coming
over to Dowriham, that he may have the benefit of
Casaubon's powerful intercession with the bishop, * to
whom he entirely entrusts himself and his case/
There was a cabal, in his own college, Clare Hall,
to turn him out of some university office he held.
Some allegations could be brought against his morals.
Thomson, though of english parentage, was a native of
Holland, and had perhaps imbibed the taste of the
country. But, besides a weakness for strong waters, he
was suspected of a much more criminal weakness for
Arminianism. The archbishop had been made to con-
ceive a very bad opinion of him. ' How I am to recover
his favour,' writes Thomson 43 to Casauboii in 1611, 'I
have not yet been able to discover any channel/ As
for the charge of his enemies that he was not qualified
to preside over the exercises in the schools, he declares
it to be ridiculous. Things must have gone to a
great length, for in August, 1611, Thomson is informed
that the master of Clare is getting a memorial against
him signed in the university. M * What is most grievous
Deus bone quid est 2 quid dicam 1 quid suspicabor ? crucior, crucior
animi.'
42 Burney MSS. 366. p. 251 : 'Tu, nisi incommodum sit, in diem
Veneris profectionem tuam differ.'
43 Ibid. : * Hujus gratiam quomodo mihi conciliem viam nullam
invenire aut aperire hactenus possum.'
44 Ibid. : ' Quod praecipue mihi cordolio est etiam rev. episcopum
Eliensem convenire ausos super moribus ac vita mea, imo, quod ridi-
culum prorsus est, super insufficient iam regiminis.'
ELY. 1611. 395
to me is that they have gone the length of waiting on
the bishop of Ely to calumniate to him my walk and
character, nay, a thing which is ludicrous, to represent
that I am unfit for my office. As if I were such a fool
and so inexperienced as not to be qualified to preside
over the disputations in the schools.' This letter reached
Casaubon while he was staying with the bishop of Ely.
He seems to have thought that the best way to impress
Andrewes favourably was to let him see Thomson.
Accordingly, Thomson was invited to Downham, and
the three together passed an evening in that talk which
alone compensated Casaubon for being kept out of his
study. The further issue of Thomson's affair is not
known to me. This is the last occasion on which his
name occurs in conjunction with that of Casaubon.
Thomson endeavoured to propitiate the bishop of Ely
by writing a pamphlet in defence of his ' Tortura
Torti 45 .'
After many postponements, Casaubon's feverish im-
patience to get back to his books tore him away from
Downham, in spite of the bishop's manifest displeasure
at this disregard of his hospitality. He stopped again
at Cambridge on his way up, went over the rest of the
colleges, and being pressed by the master of Peterhouse,
stayed a second night in order to meet the professors at
supper at the vice-chancellor's 46 . The literary character
of the conversation pleased him, and he made the
acquaintance of Harrison, who was able to show him
two books which were new to him : Hugo, abbot of
S. Victor, On the Psalms ; ' and a volume of the
numerous works of Dionysius, called the ' Carthusian/
45 Elenchus refutationis Torturse Torti pro rev. episcopo Eliense
adversus Martinum Becanum, 8. Lond. 1611.
46 The diary, p. 887, has ' Cancellarium.'
396 LONDON. 16101614.
In 1612, Casaubon gave himself no holiday. The
bishop of Ely would gladly have taken him down into
his diocese again. And there was the more inducement
to Casaubon to go, as the heat of London in that August
was excessive. ' Plus sequo sudavi/ Casaubon writes to
de Thou. On the vigil of S. Bartholomew, August 23,
o. s. the bishop writes from Downham 48 :
' If you had been here you would have escaped heats
of all sorts, those of the dog-days inclusive. At Downham
we never know what heat is. It is true I have caught
a fever, but from cold, exposing myself too long to the
chill of the evening. In the city the radiation from so
many walls, against an atmosphere thickened with coal
smoke, and fog, makes what is with us a very small
puppy (of a dogstar) into a molossian hound. . . Come
to me, therefore, down here ; come, if you will, on the
day you left us last year, S. Augustine's day ; and may
the saint be more propitious to your return than he
was to your departure last autumn, when he expressed
his displeasure at your leaving us by a storm of rain.
Come and see a fair celebrated throughout England 49 ;
or if you have no taste in fairs, you shall have a hebrew
S. Matthew, which is in Corpus library.
' Do be persuaded to come. I shall get well at once
if I can only see you. If it is only a few days 7 re-
laxation it will do you good. You shall shoot a deer,
and rest after your three months' hard labour. We
will let you go away when you please. Be so good as
to remember that the hand which writes these lines
has the ague. God keep you long to be an ornament
to letters/
48 Burney MSS. 363, printed in Anclrewes' Works, Bliss, i. xliii.
49 On Stourbridge fair, see the exhaustive references of Mayor, ' Life
of Bonwicke,' pp. 153 seq.
8.
VISIT TO OXFORD.
IN May, 1613, having finished the volume of 'Exer-
citations/ at least in the rough draft, and Madame
Casaubon being departed into France, Casaubon takes
at last a holiday, and an excursion out of town.
He had long meditated a visit to Oxford. He had
announced this intention at court some time before.
The king took a great interest in the occasion. lf What,
not off to Oxford yet ! ' cried James in surprise at
seeing him again in April; 'you don't seem much in
earnest about going.' Thinking the delay might be
emptiness of pocket, he removed this difficulty by a
present. At last, on Thursday, May 17, having 2
locked up his library and taken the key with him,
he left London, and went to sir Henry Savile's at
Eton. Two years before Savile had engaged him 3 to
make the same tour, and Casaubon had promised to
meet him on August i at Oxford. The scheme had
1 Ep. 822 : ' Videris rem non multum curare.'
2 Burney MSS. 366.
3 Burney MSS. 366. p. 55 : ' De kal. Aug. Oxonii vide ne vadi-
monium deseras, nisi antea tibi commodum fuerit, hue venire, illudque
iter una conficere.'
398 LONDON. 16101614.
been more than once proposed 4 , but had not been
executed. Savile supposed the difficulty to be want
of the means of locomotion, and, surprised to hear
that Casaubon had been many months in London, and
yet not set up a horse, placed his own carriage at
his disposal, and offered to send it for him any day
that he would order 5 . Casaubon's delay was due partly
to his much occupied time, but partly also to his little
inclination for Savile personally. He would have pre-
ferred to have made his appearance at Oxford alone,
but it was impossible, when sir Henry made a point
of himself doing the honours of his university.
On Friday, May 18, Savile, who was at the same
time provost of Eton and warden of Merton, took
him in his coach 6 to Oxford, twenty-seven miles, as
Casaubon is careful to note. He must have found
them long ones, as the distance by the old road was
over thirty-seven, and as, notwithstanding Savile's
persistent attention to him, no cordiality ever existed
between the two men.
If common studies were sufficient to cement friend-
ships, Savile was the one man in England, in whose
society it might have been anticipated that Casaubon
would have found himself at home. Their correspon-
dence had begun by letter in 1596, when Casaubon,
at Thomson's instigation, had written at the same
time to Camden and Savile, as the two Englishmen
who interested themselves in greek learning. Casaubon
4 Burney MSS. 366. p. 56 : ' Toties spem fallenti.'
5 Ibid. p. 52 : ' Heus tu, post tot menses quibus hseres Londini, nee
nos invisis, scribis te 'nnropoTrjv non esse? hsec mihi, qui ad diem
quemvis a te prsestitutum currum tibi meum prsesto futurum receperim ?
. . . mone ad quern diem te Londini jubeas automedonta meum
cxpectare.' 6 Epli. 980 : ' In rheda ipsius.'
OXFORD VISIT. 399
had asked Savile for aid in his Poly bins ; Savile
had sought, and received, collations, or communica-
tion of MSS, for the Chrysostom. Nor was theological
diversity here a bar to intimacy, for Savile was even
more anti-puritan than Casaubon himself 7 . But there
was an innate antagonism of character which disso-
ciated them. Casaubon, insignificant in presence, the
most humble of men, but intensely real, knowing w^hat
he knew with fatal accuracy, and keeping his utter-
ance below his knowledge. Sir Henry, the munificent
patron of learning, and devoting his fortune to its
promotion, with a fine presence, polished manners,
and courtly speech, was not free from the swagger
and braggadocio affected by the courtiers of James
and Charles. He would enact the patron,, but he also
desired to be accepted by the experts as an expert,
because he patronised them. Aubrey had heard Hobbes
say 8 'that he (Savile) would faine have been thought
to have been as great a scholar as Joseph Scaliger.'
To be well with Savile, you must not only accept his
patronage, you must admit his greek scholarship. In
his acknowledgments to those who assisted him in the
Chrysostom, Isaac Casaubon is named 9 indeed among
a crowd of scholars, but Savile will owe his admis-
sion to the royal library, or rather the admission of
' our copyists ' (nostri librarii), to nothing less than to
the interposition of the ' ambassador of my sovereign/
He liked to have learned men about him, not that
he wanted to hear what they had to say, but that
he might show them. No one but he must exhibit
7 A. "Wood, Hist, et Antiq. i. 1590: ' (Savilius) vir a supervacaneis
hisce catharorum inventis alienissimus.'
8 Aubrey, Lives, 2. 524.
9 Chrysost. Opp. torn. i. lectori.
400 LONDON. 1610 1614.
the lion of the day to the university, and he now
had the glory of driving up High Street in full term,
bringing in his coach Isaac Casaubon, a little respected
as the first greek scholar living, much envied as a
prime favourite of the monarch.
Notwithstanding their long journey, Casaubon was
out immediately to take a survey of the colleges and
halls, a survey which he completed, with his usual
plodding thoroughness, on Saturday morning. The
splendour of the buildings filled him with admiration
of 10< the piety and magnificence of our ancestors/
Above all the then, as now, unfinished design of the
great cardinal struck him with wonder at the grandeur
of the conception. As evidence that the sources of
founders 7 munificence were not dried up, he noticed that
much building was going on at Merton, where Savile
was just finishing the fine frontage towards the mea-
dows. Besides this, there was the usual rebuilding
going on 11 , occasioned by the perishing of the oolitic
stone. A middle-age building, says Michelet, is no
sooner finished than it requires to be repaired.
After dinner he was taken to see the Saturday dis-
pivtation in the divinity school at which the regius
professor of theology moderated. The regius professor
at this time was Robert Abbot, master of Balliol.
Abbot was a man of some reading, and, though he had
a brother who was archbishop of Canterbury, and
though he had been able to prove the pope to be anti-
christ, was not unworthy of the position he held. Cas-
aubon was already acquainted with Abbot, who was
10 Eph. p. 980 : ' Nostrorum majorum pietatem et magnificen-
tiam.'
11 Ep. 899 : ' Qusedam collegia a funclamentis nova extruuntur/
OXFORD VISIT. 401
occasionally about the court. Now that he came to see
iim officiate he was highly satisfied both with the
ibility and the doctrine of the regius professor.
His conduct of the disputation was everything that
could be desired. On the critical question of ' faith
and works/ for which all ears were then highly sen-
sitive, he entirely satisfied Casaubon's judicial mind.
He took, as became his office, a moderate -position, not
repudiating the Calvinism of the old school, and making
sufficient concession to the arminianism of the new
school. It was well known that his own habits of
thought attached him to the calvinistic side, and that
he had no sympathy with the new anglo-catholic modes
of thinking, which were rising into consideration, and
were being pushed on by the younger zeal of Laud.
Abbot, too, was a rising man, and on his preferment,
and was accordingly contributing his pamphlet to the
grand battle which was raging. His * Antilogia ' was
in 12 the press at the time of Casaubon's visit. As he
was going over in it, in more detail, the same ground
which Casaubon had travelled in the * Epistola ad
Frontonem/ and had for the purpose the same collec-
tion of papers from the Tower records which had been
in Casaubon' s hands 13 , this formed at once a common
topic. Casaubon saw that he could not consult a more
judicious critic, and put \six sheets of his * Exercita-
tiones ' into his hands with the entreaty that heVould
revise them in good earnest 14 .
On Sunday, sir Henry exhibited his guest at both
sermons, taking him to dine between times at the
12 See above, section 6, note 41.
13 Calendar of State papers, domestic, Jas. I.
14 Eph. p. 983 : ' Meum opus D. Abotio communicavi, qui utinam
seriam censuram exerceat.'
D d
402 LONDON. 1610 1614.
deanery at Christ Church. Casaubon was furnished by
the archbishop with letters of introduction to the dean.
On Monday, Savile left to return to Eton, and the
dean insisted 18 on Casaubon transferring himself for
the remainder of his stay to the deanery. The dean
was William Goodwin, a man of no learning, but a
judicious ecclesiastic, who accumulated the duties of the
archdeaconry of Middlesex with those of his deanery
' vir probus et pius ' is all Casaubon can say of him
but who would not fail in the exercise of hospitality to
a man who came recommended by the archbishop. He
maintained his acquaintance with Casaubon and visited
him in London afterwards.
The usual honorary degree was, of course, offered,
nay, pressed on him 17 . But Casaubon's good sense
steadily declined a decoration which, from being
lavished on rank or political partisanship, is no proper
distinction of learning or letters.
He did not come with any special interest in the
working of the academical system. But some points in
Oxford life, those especially which contrasted strongly
with the usages of Paris, impressed themselves upon
his never inobservant eye. In Paris, as in the Jesuit
colleges, the scholars were as schoolboys, and as such
were looked after by the principals and the regents.
In Oxford, on the contrary, the students lived as young
gentlemen, in their separate chambers apart, only meet-
ing for the college exercises, and common meals. The
heads and fellows of colleges, though governing and
teaching the inmates of their respective houses, lived
16 Eph. p. 981 : ' Volentem, nolentem in suas cedes introduxit.'
17 Ep. 885 : ' Scio cogitare illos titulis magnificis me ornare.' Ep.
899 : ' Omnes TTfidavdyKat sunt ab iis adhibitse ut me summis honoribus :
insignirent.'
OXFORD VISIT. 403
for themselves and for learning ; or if not for learning,
at least with other than pedagogic objects; an arrange-
ment which approved itself to him highly 18 . The heads of
colleges, some of them, ' lived like noblemen, splendidly,
yea, magnificently, having an income of 10000 livres
annual/ Hence, the virtue of hospitality, which, what-
ever else has been wanting, has never failed in Oxford.
Casaubon's refusal of their honours did not damp the
hearty welcome which the colleges were ambitious to
offer him. ' It was one succession of banquets/ writes
Casaubon 19 , among which Magdalen was distinguished
by its sumptuosity 20 . Abbot, with all his occupation
on his book, was not behind the dean in hospitality,
but entertained the stranger on May 28, with princely
magnificence 21 , which * the recent annexation of a
canonry, and of Ewelme, to the professorship of divi-
nity by James, enabled him to show. Casaubon must
have mentally compared these scenes with the condi-
tion of the Paris school, its buildings ruined, and its
funds dilapidated by civil war. He never saw the
Sorbonne in all its glory, such as it became after a
generation of peace, when Quesnel 22 says, ' Une licence
de theologie de Paris est, dans le genre des exercices de
litterature, un de plus beaux spectacles qui se trouvait
au monde/ To this wealth of the colleges Casaubon 23
18 Ep. 899 : ' Quod valde probavi abest a collegiis Anglorum ilia,
quam vocant nostri, psedagogicam vitse rationem ... res studiosorum
et rationes separatee sunt ; quod valde probavi/ These words were not
understood by Hallam, who quotes the passage, Lit. of Europe, 2.
231.
19 Eph. 984 : 'In perpetuis conviviis versamur.'
20 Eph. 983 : 'Pransi in Coll. Magd. lautissimo apparatu.'
21 Eph. 983 : ' Regie apparatu suos convivas excepit/
12 Vie de M. Arnauld, quoted by Jourdain.
23 Ep. 831: 'Est insitum huic nationi, ut sua amet, alicna ne
D d 2
404 LONDON. 16101614.
once ascribed the self-conceit of Englishmen ; forgetting
that he had had to make the same complaint of the
Paris regents when he first came in contact with
them 2 *. The self-complacency of the parisian academic
certainly was not due to wealth.
The passive victim of all this feasting, Casaubon,
devoted many hours each clay of his stay to reading.
The focus of his interests, and one principal object of
his journey, was the Bodleian. Only opened in 1604,
this library, so rare then were public libraries, had
already begun to attract to Oxford men from foreign
parts and distant countries. The arrangements were
favourable to work. It was open for six hours a day,
three in the morning, and as many in the afternoon.
It was closed for two hours at eleven or twelve, then
the hours of dinner in the colleges 25 . As the public
exercises were resumed in the afternoon, and common-
rooms as yet were not in existence, dinner, however
sumptuous, could not last beyond one or two o'clock,
according to the season. This system of official punc-
tuality in the service of the library contrasted very
favourably with the usage of the king's library at Paris,
where the librarians had no hours 26 , and admission to
which was matter of special request and favour.
From what has been said of Casaubon's reading, it
admittat quidem ad aliquam comparationem. Florentissima enim et
ditissima sua collegia ipsis animos faciunt ut cranes non vereantur prse
se contemnere.'
24 See above, p. 188.
25 These early hours held their ground till the middle of the
eighteenth century. In 1753, Horace Walpole, Walp. to Bentley,
found ' that fashion has so far prevailed over custom, that they have
altered the hour of dinner from 12 to I /
26 Cas. Ep. ad Bibran. ed. Schultze, p. 7 : ' Die lunse bibliothecam
fortasse adibimus.'
OXFORD VISIT. 405
may appear that he is omnivorous, and that nothing
comes amiss to him. This is almost, but not quite, so.
His aim was to interpret the ancients; and as this
could only be by themselves, he desired to read all the
remains of the greek and latin writers. But the want
of assorted libraries, and of the catalogues to which
such libraries have given occasion, made it difficult
to know what texts had been printed since the be-
ginning of the art. Still more was the coming across
an inedited MS. an affair of chance. Casaubon is all his
life through straitened in the matter of books. ' It
has been one of the heaviest disadvantages of my
studies/ he says 27 , ' that I have hitherto lived among
men who did not care to have even the most necessary
books. I have therefore been obliged to supply myself
out of my own purse, with almost all the ancient
authors whom I have read. Some there are which I
have never been able to procure at any price ; such as
Palaephatus, of whom I once met with a MS. at Orange,
but have never seen since. Here at last (Paris), by
divine favour, I got one and read it greedily 28 / On
settling in Paris he came, for the first time in his life,
into comparative plenty. The removal to London was,
in this respect, a double deprivation. He had left all
his own books behind, and found nothing which could
replace to him the libraries of the king, and of de Thou.
27 Adversaria, torn. 7 : ' Non minima studiorum nostrorum infe-
licitas haec, quod hactenus inter homines viximus, qui libros ad ha^c
studia necessarios non multum curarunt. itaque quoscunque fere legi-
mus, veteres scriptores sere nostro nobis parare sumus coacti/
18 It would seem from this that the Aldine ^Esop, 1505, which
contains the greek text of Palsephatus, ' De incredibilibus ' etc.,
was even then a rare book, as it is now among the scarcest of the
Alduses.
406 LONDON. 1610 1614.
Indeed Bill, the king's stationer, had a general order
to supply him with the books he required for his work
on Baronius. But Bill was himself very poorly sup-
plied with books from abroad. Even a book published
in Oxford 29 was not procurable in the London shops,
so ill was the book-trade organized in England. If
this was the case with new books, it was still more
with old books. Thomas Savile mentions 30 that he
could not get a copy of the ' Notitia ' at the booksellers
either in Oxford or London. Casaubon had occasional
access to Cotton's library, a collection rich in 31 chron-
icles and antiquarian books, but not either classical or
patristic. He therefore entered the Bodleian, a man
with a vigorous appetite, who has been for some time
on short rations. He threw himself greedily upon the
stores thus opened to him, and in the twelve days over
which his visits to the library extended, he made the
best of his time.
His name was entered upon the register of readers
as of Christ Church 32 , though he had refused the degree
' O O
which would have entitled him to call for any book as
matter of right. He must have read as a stranger, in-
troduced by the dean of Christ Church. His particular
enquiry was for such books as were unattainable in
London. We must not think of the Bodleian then as
the magnificent collection which it has since become,
but as in its first infancy, before even the Selden was
aggregated to it. Of greek MSB. in which it is now
' 9 Ep. 964 : ' Nunc in urbe ejus exemplum non inveni apud libraries,
quia est editus Oxonii.'
30 Camdeni Epp. p. 9.
J1 Ep. 940 : ' Legi in bibliotheca Cottoniana ejusdem libros De vita
abbatura S. Albani.'
32 Registrum S de actis in domo congregations f. 440 b.
OXFORD VISIT. 407
rich, it possessed, at that time, very few. Yet few as
they were, the demand for them was less. Holstenius,
who was there in 1622, writes to Meursius 33 , that 'he
had busied himself in the Oxford libraries, turning
over greek and latin MSS, which no one in those parts
thinks of troubling/ After the wealth of greek to
which he had been accustomed in the united King's
and Medicean libraries at Paris, the Bodleian must
have seemed to Casaubon poverty indeed 34 . What
they had were produced for him. As he wanted to
read, riot to collate, new material was what he looked
out for, and he fastened on the Thesaurus of Nicetas
Choniates. This was not the valuable Choniates which
we now have, which was only brought from Constanti-
nople by sir Thomas Roe in 1628, but an abridgment
or series of extracts from the ' Thesaurus ' which had
been made for cardinal Pole. The magnificence of the
paper and the splendour of the calligraphy 35 , 'the
largest folio, the thickest paper he ever saw,' made it
the show book of the library. But Casaubon was not
content with looking at it, he sate down to read it, and
read it through. And he not only reads it through,
but makes twenty-three pages of extracts, in greek, for
future use. S. Basil, Commentary on Isaiah, then
inedited ; Leo a Castro, ditto ; Ephrem Syrus, in Gerard
Voss' translation ; Juan de la Puente, a book by him,
lately brought out of Spain, read, and seven pages of ex-
tracts made, mostly in Spanish. Euthymius Zigabenus,
53 Holstenii epp. p. i o : ' Delitui in Oxoniensium bibliothecis,
veteres codices grsecos latinosque sedulo excutiens, quibus nemo istic
locorum negotium facessit.'
14 Ep. 899 : ' Nihil ad regias opes.'
30 Adversaria, 28. 53: 'In maxima et crassissima papyro, quam
unquam videre memini.'
408 LONDON. 1610 1611.
whom he had read in Paris, but could not get in
London, he found in the Bodleian ; also Suisseth, ' a long
sought for book ' (diu optatum librum) . The two first
volumes of the new edition of the Concilia 38 > though
three or four years old, could not be seen in London,
as we may infer from the pains taken to extract the
council of Chalcedon, in fifteen pages of close writing.
A Euchologion 37 , Osiander, ' Harmonia quatuor evan-
geliorum ; ' Lipsius in Suetonii tres posteriores libros,
Offenbaci 1610; Wakefield, * Syntagma de Hebrseorum
codicum interpretatione ; ' Laurentius Syslyga, ' hastily
looked over/ but yielding nevertheless thirteen pages
of extract ; Joh. Ferus ' in Acta Apostolorum ;' another
anonymous commentary on the twelve first chapters
of the Acts; Boethius, 'De rebus Scotiee;' Alvianus
Pelagius, ' De planctu ecclesise ;' Espencseus, two works
of his; Rainolds, ' De ecclesise romanae idololatria ;' all
these are noticed or extracted in the Adversaria. But
there were doubtless other things of which no mention
is made either in the diary, or in the Oxford memoranda,
e. g. he says 3S that the tractate ' De ccena domini,'
which is included among the works of S. Cyprian,
is not Cyprian's, but the work of some middle-age
writer, ' as I read in a MS. of the library at Oxford 39 .'
After six hours' reading and writing at this pace in the
library, there must be recreation. This he takes, on
his return to the deanery, by more reading, but of a
lighter sort, such as Wake's 'Rex Platonicus/ or by
taking lessons in rabbinical hebrew from a young man
of that persuasion.
36 Romse, ex typographic Vaticana, torn. i. 1608, toni. 2. 1609.
37 Venet. 1602.
18 Exerc. in Baron, p. 515.
w ' Ut legi in MS. codice illustris bibliothecse Oxoniensis.'
T-f ia car
OXFORD VISIT. 409
It is sad, but not surprising, to read in the diary,
lhat in the second week of this regime, as he was
,scending the Bodleian stairs, he was seized with
sudden giddiness in the head.
What with the sermons, and the disputations, and
all this reading got through, there does not seem
to be much time left to be given to mere acquaint-
ance. It would seem that the working .academic of
that day was as much burdened with official en-
gagements as now. Abbot writes 40 that he is so
driven by the business of commemoration, that he
hardly has time to draw breath, much less to write
letters. What intercourse Casaubon had with the
leading men of the place had to be got during the
meals. Men of learning, who could venture to chal-
lenge him to discourse of books, were but few. Indeed,
it is an error to imagine that such have been, at any
time in our university annals, numerous. Casaubon
only found three men whom he distinguishes as in
this category : Abbot, Prideaux, and Kilbye. Of
Abbot we have already spoken. Prideaux (John)
was rector of Exeter, who afterwards (1616) suc-
ceeded Abbot as regius professor of divinity. He
had been a highly successful tutor, and had made
Exeter a resort of the few foreign students who still,
occasionally, found their way to Oxford. He, like
Abbot, inclined to the old puritan, or calvinistic,
party in the university, and was very obnoxious to
the young arminian set 41 . He had been engaged by
40 Burney MSS. 363. p. 23: ' Comitialium jam negotiorum sestu
laborans, ut vix respirandi tempus habeam.'
41 See Montagu's flippant letter, Cosin, Correspond. I. p. 22 :
< Prideaux hath threatened to write against me. Utinam. But I
think he distrusteth himself at his pen. For he saide to my lord of
410 LONDON. 16101614.
the bishops to answer the last libel of Eudaemon-
Joanries, in which Casaubon was personally attacked,
and some correspondence had already passed between
the two on this subject. The tendency of english
divines just at this time was to disuse latin in their
books, and to adopt english. Prideaux was one of
the few who adhered to the old-fashioned latin, and
owed his selection partly to this circumstance, as it
was necessary to answer the Jesuits in the language
in which they wrote.
Casaubon was enjoying in the fullest measure that
flattering homage which at either of the english uni-
versities is ever accorded to the eminent foreign scholar.
How was he shocked, when the rector of Exeter came
up to him, and enquired, with a serious air, ' If it
were true that his father had been hanged ? ' Prideaux,
in reading Eudaemon- Joannes' ' Answer to Casaubon,'
had been puzzled by finding repeated allusions to a
rope 42 . Casaubon had had as early as January some
sheets of this pamphlet sent him from Germany. He
had looked at them hastily, and thrown them aside 43
as frivolous. He had not even noticed, careful reader
as he was, the allusions of which Prideaux spoke 44 .
He could only conjecture what their meaning might
be. Afterwards, by the aid of an Antwerp corre-
Oxford, that though. I were a good scholer at my pen, and wrote well,
yet he doubted not but att an argument he could plunge me. The
man thincketh well of himself, yet if k. James please, I dare look
him in the face, in his owne scholes.'
12 Resp. ad epist. Is. Casauboni, p. 143 : ' Quodut tuo te fune stran-
gules ipsemet scribis.'
13 Eph. p. 966 : * Hodie vidi librum Andrese Eudsemonos Johannis
adversus me, futilem sane.'
44 Ep. 896 : ' Antequam te convenirem nihil ejus scivi.'
OXFORD VISIT. 411
s oondent, Sweertius, he traced to the Jesuit college
i i that city, the head of which was Scribanius, the
author of the ' Amphitheatrum/ a story that his father,
Arnold, had been hanged. The calumny was 'ben
trovato,' and wounded Isaac to the quick. No pos-
session was more treasured by him than his father's
good name, and the memory of his saintly life devoted
to the cause of the church, through the days of terror.
He was very solicitous that this lie should be replied
to, and after his return to London he furnished Pri-
deaux with that narrative of his father's last moments,
which has been before quoted 45 . But the incident
threw a cloud over the bright days of his reception
at Oxford, which was further dimmed by another ad-
venture of a different kind.
Of the three men whom we have named as having
specially cultivated Casaubon during his visit, Kilbye
(Eichard) is the least known. His intimacy with
Casaubon was probably founded on their common
hebrew tastes, as, besides being rector of Lincoln
(1590), he had also lately become regius professor of
Hebrew (i6io) 46 . Kilbye had been one of the trans-
lators of the bible Oxford company, the prophets
and had written, but not published, a commentary on
Exodus, 47< the chief part of which is excerpted from the
monuments of rabbins and Hebrew interpreters/ He
also continued Jean Mercier's commentaries on Genesis,
* and would have printed them, but was denied/ Cas-
aubon was intimately lie with Josias Mercier, the son
of the author of the book in which Kilbye took this
45 See above, p. 28 ; Prideaux, Castigatio cujusdam circulatoris,
p. 24.
16 He is said by A. Wood, Athen. Oxon. 2. 287, to have been pre-
bendary of the cathedral church of Lincoln.
47 A. Wood, ibid.
412 LONDON. 1610 1614.
interest 48 , and had himself a high value for his com-
mentary, which he had selected in 1599 for his
morning devotional reading 49 . Kilbye's MSS. are lost,
but from five letters of his to Casaubon, and from a
single printed sermon, we may gather thus much 50 ;
that he was a man of some reading beyond the
common. His citations are from books not read by
every one, and corrfe in aptly, as if supplied by memory,
not looked up for the occasion. The allusion to
Cyprian, even in a short letter 51 , has the same appear-
ance of naturalness. Further, that he was pious and
retiring ; that he still continued 52 he was fifty- three at
the time of Casaubon' s visit to occupy himself with
hebrew reading, to which occupation may, perhaps,
be ascribed the negligence, and even incorrectness, of
his latin. At his lodgings Casaubon saw an early
copy of Raphelengius' Lexicon Arabicum 53 , the only
other copy in England being the bishop of Ely's 54 .
Casaubon could not get one for himself in London.
Kilbye is a fair specimen of the academical professor of
48 Eph. 257 : ' Magni Merceri doctissimus films.'
49 Eph. 129: 'Cepi Merceri in Jobum scripta legere, facturus dein-
ceps hoc matutinum exordium studiorum, donee omnia illius magni
viri perlegero.'
60 The sermon is a funeral sermon on Dr. Holland, regius professor
of divinity, and rector of Exeter, preached at S. Mary's, March 26,
1612. A copy with MS. corrections in Kilbye' s own hand, is in the
Bodleian. The five letters are in the Burney collection ; MS. 364.
61 Burney MSS. 364. 323 : ' Deus namque provides non prsecipites
amat, ut scite Ciprianus.'
52 Burney MSS. 364. 322: ' Multum enim fateor me eorum (i.e.
Judaeorum) scientia delectari.'
53 Published 1613. This copy is now in the college library, to
which Kilbye left 108 volumes of books, hebrew and latin ; no greek.
54 Ep. 898 : 'Ego nullum adhuc exemplar illius lexici potui hie
nancisci. duo tantum hactenus vidi exemplaria, ununi in manibui
Eliensis, alterum Oxonii apud professorem bebrseuin. 1
OXFORD VISIT. 413
his time; with some reading, but without learning
joi even the conception of it as a whole ;- his know-
leilge and his ideas confined within the narrow circle
o
of ecclesiastical interests and ecclesiastical motive.
It was under the sanction of the professor that a
young Hebrew, who went by the name of Jacob Bar-
net, found occupation and a livelihood by giving in-
struction in Hebrew to the students. He was in
(favour with the authorities, for Casaubon met him
also at the rector of Exeter's. Getting into conver-
sation with him, Casaubon was not only struck by
Ihis natural capacity, but was surprised to find so young
la man not only a thorough master of the language,
[but deeply read in the books of his nation 55 . 'The
[vast mass of talmudic lore he possesses in a measure
par beyond what I have ever met with in any jew
[before ; and, rare thing in a jew, he knows latin.'
|The opportunity was too good to be lost, and Casaubon
Immediately took him on to read rabbinical hebrew
with him. Nor did he stop here. When on Monday,
^Tuiie 4, he bade farewell to the university, he carried
bff Jacob with him to London in his own hired coach,
,and installed him in his house. Here he kept him as
ihis inmate for a month. He found profit not only
in his lessons, but in his conversation. Casaubon' s
close work, however, upon the ' Exercitations ' pre-
vented his profiting by this domestication at any other
time than at meals 56 . Though the Jesuits afterwards
pretended that, as he had gotten his theological refer-
ences from cardinal Du Perron, so Casaubon had his
lebrew from Jacob the jew.
He soon found that he could not afford the burden of
65 Ep. 924 : ' Literis Judaicis et Thalmudicis supra fidem doctus.'
58 Meric, Pietas, p. 101 : ' Rarissime eos collocutos nisi inter
pulas.'
414 LONDON. 16101614.
an additional inmate 57 , and was obliged to return him
to Oxford. Jacob had for some time past evinced dis-
positions towards Christianity, and now added to the
interest excited by his rare learning, that of catechumen.
In this capacity Casaubon sent him back, fortified with
letters of recommendation to his university friends, and
especially to the regius professor of hebrew, whose
special protege he was- Casaubon wrote no less than nine
letters in one day on his behalf, and took the earliest
opportunity of speaking to the archbishop, and even
to the king about him. Abbot wrote himself from
Croydon to the vice-chancellor, and enjoined Kilbye to
undertake in person the instruction of the promising
convert 58 . The conversion became the topic of the day
in the university. All the details of the baptismal cere-
mony were arranged beforehand by the authorities with
the most scrupulous anxiety. The archbishop ordered
a sermon to be preached, the vice-chancellor named a-
preacher. Twisse of New college, the preacher, prepared
his sermon. The vice-chancellor was to administer the
rite. There being then no form of adult baptism in the
anglican ritual, and no precedent being known, Casau-
bon was consulted as to what should be done 59 , and the
archbishop aUowed an extempore, or, at least, an occa-
sional prayer to be used, another offence to the rising
ritualist party. A keen debate arose in the council of
doctors, heads, and proctors, as to the fittest time for the
ceremony. Some, thinking of the bird in hand, wished
67 Eph. 990 : ' Nostris semper conatibtis obstat res angusta clomi/
58 Burney MSS. 364. p. 323; Kilbye to Casaubon, July 13, 1613;
' Illustrissimus archiepiscopus hanc provinciam milii dec! it ut ilium
instruam in articulis fidei, et misteriis christianse religionist
59 Ibid. p. 326 : 'Si aliquem Judseum baptisatum videris, oro ut
cserimonias quas vel ipse videris, vel ab aliis intellexeris, literis tuis
denunties.'
OXFORD VISIT. 415
1 o have the public baptism as part of the entertainment
<f the ' Act' (July 8). Kilbye deprecated haste and de-
manded to have the long vacation for the decent
instruction of the neophyte. The convert himself was
impatient to make his confession, but Kilbye moderated
liis ardour. Kilbye's opinion finally prevailed, and
Michaelmas day was fixed for the edifying spectacle.
In September, Kilbye reported to Casaubon that all was
going on well, that his pupil promised excellently 60 , and
that ' he hoped he would turn out a second James, and
faithful disciple of Christ/
Michaelmas approached, and all was ready all ex-
cept the chief actor. The day before the ceremony was
30 come off, Jacob had decamped. The heads were
furious at having been duped ; the proctors' emissaries
were sent out, horse and foot, to scour the country.
They succeeded in capturing, without regard to the
limits of their jurisdiction, the fugitive on the road to
London. The vice-chancellor committed him to gaol,
for what offence is not clear as even Casaubon ven-
tured 61 to surmise that to decline baptism is not a
misdemeanour by the law of England. However, they
kept him locked up in Bocardo, a miserable hole, where
he was like to have died of filth and starvation 62 . The
rector of Lincoln, who was most compromised, was most
indignant. He played with his victim, as a cat with its
mouse, having him out of his hole every now and then
to remonstrate with him on the wickedness of his
Burney MSB. 364. p. 326 : ' Optime spero de Jacobo quod futurus
sit alter Jacobus Christ! discipulus fidelis.'
61 Ep. 924: 'Nam quod nolit fieri christianus, crimen legibus
puniendum, opinor, hoc nou est; sed tantum quod simulaverit/
Ibid. : ' Periculum esse, ne homo infelix fame et peedore pereat in
illo duro carcere.'
416 LONDON. 1610-1614.
conduct, but not paying any attention to his renewed
offers of abjuration 63 .
Casaubon was also deeply mortified at the part he
had been made to play in the comedy. It threw a
cloud upon what was otherwise a most gratifying visit.
He was naturally very indignant. But when he heard
of his suffering in his confinement, and that some of the
doctors were bent upon having him further punished,
he forgot the affront Q4> in his sympathy with learning,
and exerted himself both with the archbishop and the
king to procure his release. This was not effected till
December, but Jacob was banished the university
precincts. 65 ' It will be long/ writes Kilbye, * before
another jew of such attainments comes among us.
Had he but put on Christ, what an aid he might have
been to hebrew studies in this place ! It is quite
impossible for any one ever to understand the hebrew
doctors by his own unassisted efforts, unless he has
been first initiated by one of that nation.' The only
one who came well out of the affair was Twisse, the
preacher on Michaelmas day. Finding his prepared
discourse balked, he delivered one, at a few hours'
notice, on Jewish perfidy, which was highly relished,
at least by the calvinistic party, to which Twisse
belonged. Either for his sermons, or for his germari
descent 66 , he was nominated, in 1614, chaplain to the
princess Elisabeth, and went with her to Heidelberg.
63 Burney MSS. 364. 327 : ' Ssepe famulum meum mitto, ut ilium ad
me adducat, et postea reducat.'
64 Ep. 924 : ' Etsi detestor illius perfidiam, non possum tamen non
aliqua ejus tangi commiseratione propter excellentem ipsius doc-
trinam.'
65 Burney MSS. 364. 322.
615 A. W. Athen. Oxon. 3. 1*70 : 'Twisse was " natione Teutonicus,
fortuna Batavus, religione calvinista." '
OXFORD VISIT. 417
The glimpse we get of the interior of the university
of Oxford during Casaubon's visit, transient as it is,
is yet one of the most intimate which chance has
transmitted to us from that age, prior to the time of
Anthony Wood. It shows us, in clear relief, the old
and well-established features of the place, a character
which was imprinted on it before the reformation, and
which belongs to it still, in spite of many superficial
changes, as it did in the time of James i. We find
a school where much activity prevails in the routine
instruction, and where the time and force of the resi-
dent instructors is much consumed in the formalities
of official duty, and the management of their affairs.
Of any special interest in science, learning, or the
highest culture, there is no trace. The conception of
classical learning as Casaubon conceived, and attempted
to realize it, was unknown. What science there was
in England was in an attitude of hostility. Neither
Selden nor Bacon were ever fellows of a college. The
great marking fact of the university, within, was the
antagonism of the two church parties the puritan-
calvinistic party in present possession ; the arminian-
ritualistic rising by aggressive acts and words ; S. Mary's
pulpit the arena, the sermons the event of the week.
The ecclesiastical interest absorbs or overwhelms every
other. Outside, the whole institution is regarded by
the government as an instrument of party, to be sup-
ported, and to be used, against the two oppositions,
the catholic, and the puritan. The professors and
governors are all clerics, who look for their provision
and promotion in the church, from the government
and the bishops, and endeavour to qualify themselves
for it by writing pamphlets and preaching against
popery and puritanism. The university thus shows
E e
418 LONDON. 16101614.
itself as an intimate member and organ of the national
life ; taking its full share in all the party feeling,
passion, prejudice, religious sentiment which were
current in the English nation, but wholly destitute
of any power to vivify, to correct, to instruct, to
enlighten.
9.
LONDON.
1610 1614.
ON Monday, June 4 (May 24, o. s.), Casaubon,
taking Jacob with him, left Oxford, and staying the
night with sir Henry Savile at Eton, reached London
on Tuesday. He returned to the work over which he
was now killing himself, and to cares and vexations l ' to
which I am now no longer equal/ he writes in August
to Heinsius. The 2 * island of the blessed/ as it had
seemed to him at first, began to disclose features com-
mon to the rest of the world.
The first Cause of discomfort grew out of the work
on which he was engaged.
At the end of 1612, he had written out fair a speci-
men section of his ' Exercitationes,' and sent it to the
archbishop for revision or approval. Nor was the arch-
bishop the only person to whom he had shown portions.
One friend in particular, whom he will not name 3 , had
the sheets for correction. This friend, who was perhaps
1 Ep. 913.
2 Ep. 703 : ' De meo in hanc paxdpav vfjo-ov adventu, puto, audivisti,'
to Heinsius, January, 1611.
3 Eph. 968 : ' Chartas meas Baronianas dedi recensendas cuidam
amico, viro probo, optimo et longe doctissimo.'
E e 2
420 LONDON. 1610 1614.
the bishop of Ely, neither returned them, nor yet read
them. Casaubon repeatedly asked to have them back ;
sent Wedderburn to fetch them ; in vain. He suspected
that they had been lent by the person in question to
some one else, and could not be got back. This sus-
picion was founded upon a fact which had come to
light a little before, December 1612. Abraham Scul-
tetus, chaplain to the elector Palatine, who was now
residing in London, informed him that a MS. had been
received, by a London bookseller, of a critique on
Baronius by an english divine. It was going to be
published immediately. Scultetus was able to get the
sheets for Casaubon's inspection. His surprise may be
imagined when he recognised, as he believed, his own
plan. The arrangement of the Englishman's book,
which, like his own, was in latin, the order of topics,
were the same. The same errors of Baronius were
corrected, the same passages of authors were cited.
He afterwards discovered that the friend whom he had
trusted had not betrayed him. The detention of his
copy was due solely to delay in reading it over. The
friend had read it with care, and returned it with
remarks evincing much knowledge 4 . The copy had
never been out of his keeping. But other persons had
seen portions, and Casaubon had talked unreservedly of
the plan and topics of the book on which his whole
energy was now expended. Indeed, it was probable
that the plagiarist had profited by his talk, rather than
by any furtive copy. For on closer inspection, not-
withstanding many coincidences, the details of the
Englishman's book were found to differ widely from
those of Casaubon' s, though the plan was stolen. Cas-
4 Eph. 968: 'Optimi viri . . . integritatem cum summa
doctrina perspexi.'
LONDON. 1610 1614. 421
aubon tells de Thou 5 that the english author 4 is really
learned, but my own footing, as the older student, is
perhaps rather firmer/ A more modest self-appre-
ciation was never uttered. For it can scarce be
doubted, that we have in a book published in London
ten years afterwards, 1622, 'Analecta ecclesiasticarum
exercitationum/ the material of the book which Scul-
tetus detected, and brought to Casaubon. We have
therefore in our hands the means of comparison. Pro-
bably no one will ever care to institute it. Yet it is
not uninstructive. It gives us a clear notion of the
wide difference between a master of ancient learning,
and a clever university-bred scholar, who holds a brief,
and can accumulate passages of ancient authors in
support of ' a view. 3
Casaubon was not long in discovering that the writer
of the sheets was Richard Montagu, a young fellow of
Eton, who was now on his preferment, and was reading
the fathers accordingly. It was quite clear, then, by
what hand this stone had been launched. Montagu
was a protege of Savile, who had brought him to Eton
to assist him upon the Chrysostom. As Savile thought
himself a better man than Scaliger, Montagu was at
least a Casaubon. The set were indignant that the
foreigner should reap the credit that was to be got by
refuting Baronius. The native jealousy was piqued by
the expectation with which the public, at home and
abroad, were looking for Casaubon 's book 6 . They
would show that there were learned men in England.
5 Ep. 848 : 'Est illequidem vir doctus, sed nos annis graves fortius
pedem figimus.'
6 Burney MSS. 366. p. 164. In September, 1613, Scultetus writes
from Heidelberg, ' Equidem confirmo tibi a multis annis nullum opus
tanta cum aviditate expectatum fuisse, quanta hocce tuum.'
422 LONDON. 1610 1614.
This was the cause they alleged for the secrecy of their
manoeuvre ; the fear ' that those foreigners should steal
from the books of Englishmen V The archbishop, how-
ever, interfered. It would cause scandal to attempt to
forestal a book on which Casaubon had been publicly,
nay officially, engaged. He compelled Montagu to sup-
press his book. In 1622, when Abbot was in disgrace
and powerless, and Casaubon had long been dead,
Montagu published his materials. He may have be-
come ashamed of his sharp practice, as he asserts in his
preface 8 , 'that his collection had not been made with
any view to publication.' Montagu was a clever and
spirited writer, and was ready to answer anybody on
any subject. He undertook to * answer' Selden's
* History of Tithes.' He wrote so well that the high
church party, and Anthony Wood, thought 9 he had
demolished Selden, to whom he stood in the relation
in which Boyle did to Bentley. But if Montagu, in
1622, was ashamed of his baffled trick, he was not the
less bitter against* Casaubon. The ' Analecta ' affect to
defend Casaubon against his later critics, Rosweyd and
Bulenger. Under the cloak of deference to the * vir
doctissimus/ we find a running fire of carping correction
of Casaubon's ' Exercitationes ' maintained. The animus
of the Savilian circle is still there, though Casaubon has
been dead eight years. Indeed, Savile himself can
7 Ep. 848 : ' Ne isti peregrin! ex Anglorum scriptis proficiant, hsec
fuere verba magni cujusdam viri (i. e. Savile).'
8 Prgef. in Analecta : ' Non in ilium finem ut in vulgus aliquando et
liominum conspectum emanarent.'
9 A. W. Athense Oxon. 3. 370: 'He (Selden) was so effectually
answered by Tillesley of Oxon, Richard Montagu and Stephen Nettles
of Cambridge, that he never came off in any of his undertakings with
more loss of credit.'
LONDON. 16101614. 423
hardly speak of Casaubon with patience. In a letter to
sir Dudley Carleton 10 undated, but after Casaubon's
death, he writes, ' Among your advertisements from
Mr. Stade, for all reall defalts in the copyes, he may
supply them out of another copy there, and upon
knowledge had what they are, they shal be supplyed
from here (for a small tear in a leafe, hee is too nice).
The " Thesaurus " he mentions, Mr. Casaubon tooke
that worke out of my handes above two yeares before
his death. To whom, as best able to perforate it, both
for his learning and experience that way, and for his
ability of body, I yeelded, and so from him hee must
fetch it, I feare, yf hee will have it/ When the reader
comes presently to the physician's account of Casaubon's
wasted appearance for some years before his death, he
will be able to appreciate the cruel sarcasm of the
words ' for his ability of body/
Nor was the jealousy of the scholars whose repu-
tation was thrown into the shade by Casaubon's
presence in England, the only source of ill will. He
began, after a time, to meet with cold looks in the
social circle even from those whom he had best right
to think his friends. 'I cannot make out these
English ; ' he writes to de Thou in November 1612,
* those of them with whom I was acquainted before my
coming over, seem now not to know me. Not one
of them ever speaks to me, or even answers if I speak
to him. The reason of it is a mystery to me 11 .'
Hallam, commenting on this passage 12 , supposes Cas-
aubon 'to have become generally unpopular.' But
10 State paper office, Domestic, James I, vol. 92. no. 95.
11 Ep. 241 :' Nemo illorum me vel verbulo appellat, appellatus silet.
Hoc quid rei sit, non scio.'
12 Hist, of Lit. 2. 311, n.
424 LONDON. 1610 1614.
this was by no means the case. With the king he
continued to the last as much a favourite as at the
beginning. He was sent for as often, and detained
as long in talk, which sometimes became very con-
fidential. One of the most notable instances in the
diary occurs as late as June i, 1614, little more
than a fortnight before his death ; when he records :
' Whitsunday ; but had to go to the king, from whom
I heard things which surprised me much, which His
Majesty communicated to me in private 13 . I am re-
minded of Juvenal's "Ad generum Cereris," etc., and
the Sicilian vespers, but these things must be kept
a dead secret/ The explanation of the mystery is
to be found in Hoskyns' speech in the House of
Commons a few days before 14 , in which he said,
as reported by Chamberlain ; ' Hoskyns, forsooth,
must have his oar in the boat, and tell them that wise
princes put away strangers, as Canute, when he meant
to plant himself here, sent back his Danes, and the
Palsgrave had lately dismissed all the English that
were about the lady Elizabeth, and withal, to what
purpose he knew best, put them in mind of Ves-
perse Sicilians/ The bishops continued throughout
no less friendly. He was as much visited and invited
as he desired nay more than suited with his intense
passion for work. He is frequently receiving sub-
stantial presents from them, at other times besides
Christmas. In May 1612, the bishop of London, King,
sends Madame Casaubon ' a little remembrance,' with
an apology for not having called during his being in
London, and adding a hope that he will ' pay him a
13 Eph. p. 1063 : 'A quo mira didici quse mihi KCIT Idlav Hex seren-
issimus et optimus narravit. meminero versus illius,' etc.
14 Chamberlain to Carleton, ap. Birch, i. 321.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 425
visit at Fulham 15 , four miles beyond Westminster.'
In November of the same year, the king and the
archbishop were godfathers, by proxy, to his english
son, James. The bishops of Bath (Montagu), and
Lichfield (Overall), and lady Carew, were present.
Morton, dean of Winchester, sends him presents,
invites him to dine (April 1613), and in the words
of Morton's biographer 18 , 'this love thus begun
between Morton and Casaubon was never intermitted
in their lives, nor obliterated by death.'
In the very letter 17 in which Casaubon makes
this complaint of the English, he speaks of visiting
Camden ; of sir Robert Cotton ' the best of men, a
candid soul, a true nobleman' (vir optimus, candi-
dissimus, et vere nobilissimus), with whom he has
often talked of de Thou's ' History.' Yet we have
seen 18 that he did nob make friends among the
antiquarians, or the wits. He was less likely to
make them among the courtiers. If any class of
persons be meant in his words to de Thou, it must be
the place-hunters who infested James' court. He was
much thrown in their way, and they must have
envied his frequent closetings with James, opportuni-
ties which they would have known how to turn to
account. Unable to speak english, his intercourse
was necessarily confined to those who were willing
to communicate with him in french or latin ; french,
which the average Englishman speaks indifferently
and reluctantly ; latin, in which the painful effort to
follow Casaubon' s foreign pronunciation was naturally
15 Burney MSB. 364. p. 367.
16 Barwick, Life of Bp. Moreton, p. 72.
17 Ep. 841. 18 See above, p. 325.
426 LONDON. 1610 1614.
shirked. Disinclination to talk to the solemn calvinist,
whose dress and manners bore the obnoxious stamp
of Geneva, would be strongest among the fashionable
set, the waiters on providence, with which the court
of James I. was more than ordinarily beset. The pre-
ferment hunter" is always discontented, having no self-
respect, he has no appreciation. One of the most
conspicuous of this class was one whom Casaubon
might have with reason expected to befriend him.
And it is probable that though Casaubon makes his
complaint a general one, by the plural phrase 19 ' all
those I have known before/ he intends a single in-
dividual, whose behaviour particularly mortified him.
It will be remembered that sir Henry Wotton, when
at Geneva in 1 592, had lodged in Casaubon's house 20 , ' to
his very great contentment.' Their friendship, thus
begun, survived Wotton's remissness in his money
transactions, which had given Casaubon so much
trouble. Since then they had corresponded, and in
most affectionate terms, for some years. In 1601,
Wotton undertakes to write every week from Florence,
and in greek, for which Casaubon had inspired him
with an enthusiasm 21 . He would dedicate to Isaac
Casaubon one of the many books which he was always
going to write, and never did write. June 20, 1602,
he is back at Florence after a long absence in Ger-
many 22 . ' He recalls, and would fain ask heaven to give
19 Ep. 841 : 'Quoscunque habui notos.'
20 See above, p. 44.
21 Burney MSS. 366 : ' Te prgelucente versabor inter incorrupti sevi
auctores.'
22 Burney MSS. 367. p. 75: ' Ssepe repeto illos dies et reposco in
quibus, ut tuis verbis utar, solem una condebamus.' This letter is not
signed, and is ascribed in the catalogue of Burney MSS. though with a
LONDON. 1610 1614. 427
him again, those days in which they watched the
setting sun together.' His book, which he is going to
write, is ' On Fate/ and is to be in greek, and to be
dedicated to Casaubon. Nothing delays its publica-
tion, but the expectation, which has been raised by a
certain friend at Venice, of having a complete Hierocles
' On Fore-knowledge and Necessity/ He knows the
excerpts in Photius, but ' in a matter of such importance
he is not satisfied with extracts. 5 Casaubon 23 replies in
the same tender tone, ' Ah 1 what days those were !
when heedless of the lateness of the hour we passed
whole nights in lettered talk ! I hanging on your
stories of all you had seen of many men and many
lands ; you pleased to hear somewhat of my desultory
readings ! Oh ! that was life worth living ! pure
happiness ! I cannot recall those times without groaning
in spirit/
So wrote Casaubon in 1602. Wotton forgot his
promise of the weekly greek letter, and did not write
the book 24 . Before he left Italy a change had come
over his sentiments towards Casaubon. In 1610 he
writes to Hoeschel at Augsburg 25 , expressing himself
as disgusted with the courtly strain of compliment in
the preface to the Polybius 26 . In February, 1611,
?, to Campanella. It is in sir H. Wotton' s hand, and is his reply to
Cas. ep. 1 02 1. Casaubon's reply to Wotton, at Florence, is Gas. ep.
292, dat. Lutet. 12 kal. Sext. 1602.
!3 Ep. 292.
i4 Hannah, Poems of Wotton and Raleigh, p. xiv : ' Though he
sometimes amused himself with looking after printers, he seldom com-
mitted anything to press.'
25 Heumann, Pcecile, i. 582 : ' O quam multis displicet ilia nuncu-
patoria epistola ! quse profecto non critici est sed aulici.'
26 Chamberlain writes, March 3, 1614, Birch, i. 301: 'Touching the
Fabricians, it skills not what they say or write, for they stand but
428 LONDON. 16101614.
Wotton returned from Venice. Casaubon expected to
welcome a friend. But he was disappointed. Sir
Henry, a younger son, with no patrimony and expen-
sive tastes, had commenced the career of place-hunting,
and was now too fine a gentleman to be seen talking
with an old pedant. Signor Fabritio (Wotton's nick-
name) swaggered it about the king 27 ' with his pictures
and projects/ but was not at home to Casaubon, who
became shy of paying visits which were evidently un-
acceptable. At the request of de Thou, however,
Casaubon wrote to Wotton to ask for a memoir on the
Venetian quarrel which Fra Paolo had entrusted to
Wotton for de Thou's special use in his ' History/
Wotton vouchsafed no answer. After repeated appli-
cations, he at last said 28i that he was writing on the
subject himself, and should retain the memoir for his
own use/
Casaubon himself writes indeed in one place 29 , as if
the bishops of Ely and Lichfield, Andre wes and Overall,
were his * only english friends/ But this must be un-
derstood of close and constant intimacy. For it is
evident that Morton, Barclay, and others whose names
occur in our narrative, were attached to him. And
intimacy is of slow growth for a man of fifty, who is also
a close student. Of acquaintance less than intimate, he
had, as the diary testifies, more rather than less than
we should have expected from a man of his habits, who
could not speak the language of the country. It was
true that he had taken his side with a party, and he
aloof, and are of the most that know least ; and surely their employ-
ments go but slowly forward, and is more but an even wager whether
either of them for all their forwardness, shall enjoy the place they pre-
tend.' 27 Chamberlain to Carleton, Aug. n, 1612.
28 Camdeni Epp. p. 139. 29 Eph. p. 916.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 429
iad to take the consequences of his position. In this
:espect emigration had been a change for the worse.
hi Paris he had belonged to the downtrodden party of
the huguenots, whose lives were held on sufferance from
the street mob. But he had enjoyed the exceptional
encouragement and protection of the court. In coming
to England he attached himself to the dominant party.
But government, even in the time of James i, was
government by a party. Those who shared its favours
had to share also its unpopularity. Coming over to
this country at the invitation of the king and the
bishops, Casaubon might imagine at first that he was
the adopted guest of the nation. He found himself only
the favourite of the church party. The zeal of the
puritans saw in Casaubon, whose books they could not
read, only the champion of prelacy, the deserter from
the calvinistic camp. The wits of the Mermaid were
jealous of the foreign pensioner, and the 'prentices
thought it meritorious to ' eave ? alf a brick at the
Frenchman ! His windows were more than once broken
by stones. He appealed, not to the city authorities,
but to the archbishop, for protection. He had lived, he
said, twelve years in Paris, in the most bigoted quarter
of the city, close to the cordeliers, and other furious
enemies of his church, without molestation. Now the
streets were not safe to him 30 , he was pursued with
abuse, or with stones, his children were beaten. On one
occasion he appeared himself at Theobald's with a black
eye. Some ruffian had hit him a blow with his fist,
probably while the coach in which he was driving, was
progressing slowly through the narrow and crowded
streets of the city. The blow was so violent a shock
!0 Ep. 1056: ' Liberi ssepe pulsati ; probra seepe in nos conjecta ;
lapidibus quoticlie fere incessimur.'
430 LONDON. 16101614.
to his emaciated frame, that at first he thought he
had lost his right eye 81 .' The burglary committed in
his house on the night of March i, 1614, appeared to
Casaubon a part of the system of annoyance, but is
only an instance of the general insecurity, and want
of police in the London of that day.
Hallam suggests that these outrages proceeded from
' the popish party,' a suggestion still more unfortunate
than that lately mentioned 32 . The London street bullies
were not likely to have heard of his learned letters against
the Jesuits. Had the catholics ventured to assault
Casaubon, he would have been immediately taken under
the protection of the ' prentices, who were violent ' no-
popery' boys. Only a few years later, 1618, the sacred
person of the Spanish ambassador was hardly saved
from their violence 33 . If any religious party instigated
the assailants in Casaubon' s case, they were undoubtedly
the puritans. But there is no evidence of religious
antipathy against Casaubon, whose arminian leanings
were known only to a few. Nor are we to think, in
1614, of those terrors of the night, the Hectors, the
Muns, or the Tityre Tus, a later form of ruffianism. It
is probable that it was simply as a foreigner that he was
obnoxious. The worst attack was in June 1612, at the
moment when the animosity of the London mob against
the Scotch was at its height, so that the Scottishmen
were ' bodily afraid/ and 300 of them passed through
Ware, on their road northwards, within 10 days 34 .
From Elisabeth's reign onwards we hear of continual
31 Eph. 936 : ' Oculum dextrum pene amisimus, icti a nebulone quo-
dam pugno, cum in rheda veherernur . . . sine ulla plane causa.'
32 Above, note 12.
33 Chamberlain to Carleton, Aug. 15, 1618, ap. Birch.
34 Nicholls, Progr. 2. 449.
LONDON. 16101614. 431
3onspiracies of the Londoners against the French and
Flemings who, driven to emigrate by religious per-
secution, settled in London and ' ruined english trade 3 V
The british workman awkward, and indocile then as
now, could not compete with the superior intelligence
and thrift of the French. There were 10000 foreigners
in London alone in 1621. And trade rivalry apart, when
is the time that a Frenchman has not been fair game in
the streets of London 1 In 1584, Giordano Bruno 37
suffered at the hands of the London cockneys similar
insults, and says, ' They thought when they had called
you "foreigner," they had established your title to
receive any kind of ill usage/ Nor was the old bru-
tality subdued in the following century, when John
Bull still thought it becoming to express his contempt
for a Frenchman to his face 38 . Milton was doubtless
drawing from his own London experience, when he
described 39 ' The sons Of Belial, flown with insolence
and wine,' wandering forth at night-fall to riot, injury
and outrage.
Friends, and kind ones, were not wanting to com-
pensate him for these annoyances of London. His
house, indeed, was no longer the rendezvous of callers
or of gossips, as it had been in Paris ; but by this he
36 See Stowe's London, 2. 205, etc. Cooper, Lists of Foreign
protestants, p. iv.
57 Cena della cenere, vol. i. p. 146 : 'Una plebe irrispettevole,
incivile, rozza, rustica, selvatica, e male allevata . . . che conos-
cendoti forastiero, ti ghignano . . . ti chiamano cane, traditore,
staniero, e questo a presso loro & un titulo ingiuriosissimo, e che rende
il supposito capace a ricevere tutti i torti del mondo.'
38 E. g. the Thames' wherryman, who told Voltaire, CEuvres, 29.
393 : ' Qu'il aimoit mieux 6tre batelier sur la Tamise qu'archeveque
en France.'
39 P. L. i. 498.
432 LONDON. 16101614.
was the gainer. One source of expenditure of time
was thus cut off, by his ignorance of the language. In
other ways the want of english was felt by him as a
severe trial. He was cut off from knowledge of the
events of the day ; he was only half at home in the
english church. He had begun, in 1609, at Grigny,
to take lessons in english, chiefly that he might read
Rainolds' books, and those of other anglican writers 40 .
His progress, at first, had delighted him. But the
lessons were dropt from want of leisure. Of sermons,
he could gather their general drift, no more. An
english book he could make a shift to look over. But
when he has to use Garnett's confessions for his pam-
phlet 41 , he must have them translated into latin for
him 42 . But he could not understand what was said to
him, and as for speaking english himself, he thought
himself too old to begin to learn 43 . ' An old man at
his ABC is an object of just contempt/ What he
suffered in consequence from english servants and
London tradesmen may be imagined. Madame Casau-
bon had not even got as far as her husband. * Don't
be anxious about your wife/ Savile had written to him
in February, i6n 44 , 'she is a woman, and will learn
more english in three days than you will in as many
centuries.' But she did not try. She hated the country
40 Eph. 693 : 'Quod sciebam Rainoldum et alios summos theologos
in ea lingua multa exquisita scripsisse.'
41 See above, p. 401.
42 Eph. p. 845 : ' Ese, quum sint scriptse anglice, danda mihi opera
est, ut aliena opera adjutus, ipsas perlegam et intelligam.' His own
notes from these papers are in latin. Advers. 25. p. 65.
43 Ep. 704 : ' Turpis profecto res est senex elementarius.'
44 Burney MSS. 366. p. 52 : ' De uxore noli solicitus esse ; ipsa, ut
est ingeiiium mulierum, unico triduo plus discet in lingua nostra, quam
tu tribus seculis.'
LONDON. 16101614.
433
and abominated the climate. In the event of settling
in England they had relied upon Philippa, who had
acquired the language in attendance on lady Carew.
Madame Casaubon could not get on with english ser-
vants, yet upon her Isaac was entirely dependent for the
conduct of the household, and in her absence was liable
to be terribly imposed upon. When he had been three
years in the country he had not yet learnt to distin-
guish the names or value of the english coins. He once
gave 45 a jacobus by mistake to a needy compatriot who
was preying on his simplicity and had asked the loan
of an angel. When he had to keep the household
accounts, he was astonished at the amount of the out-
goings 46 . The cost of a new suit to appear at court in
seemed to him ruinous. The postage of letters 47 to a
man who receives so many, and to whom authors send
their books, is a heavy tax. His own books must be
presented to various great persons, as to the king, and
then they must be bound. Books published abroad
were very costly in London 48 . Books, too, must be had
for his own use, and must be paid for in cash, except
to Norton, the king's wealthy publisher, who would
give credit. In May, 1611, he was at the bottom of
his purse, and resolved, till his wife's return, to spend
no more on books, with a caveat, however, which a
book-buyer will appreciate, 49c unless I should meet
45 Eph. p. 1007.
6 Eph. p. 993 : 'Non solitus administrare pecuniam, cum video
impensas hujus domus obstupefio.' Epli. p. 996 : ' Kationes cum
jnultis composui, et miror impensas hujus domus.'
47 Ep. 757 : 'Immani pretio redimendus fuit ille mihi fasciculus.'
18 Eph. p. 812: ' Regi . . . dedi e meis libris quos hie potui
reperire etsi auro contra caros . . . omnes magnifice compactos.'
19 Eph. p. 838 : ' Excepto si quid occurrat rarius.'
P f
434 LONDON. 1610 1614.
with something very scarce/ By August, the account
at Bill's Norton's successor had grown to 300 livres,
a sum which he groaned over, but made shift to
pay. During Madame Casaubon's long absence in
1613, the administration was an interim. The house-
hold got on anyhow. 61< My affairs are in deplorable
confusion, but all will be set right when my wife
returns/
It is somewhat perplexing to find Casaubon, after
his settlement in England, as much hampered by
pecuniary cares as ever. At one time he says, 'that
in London he wanted everything but money, and of
that for the first time in his life he had no lack/ This
may have been a moment when he found his purse
full. For the general tone of the diary is that of
distress. 52< I am overwhelmed with cares, business,
expenses/ He seems to have been at last driven to
such straits, that it was requisite to make an appli-
cation to the king for relief 53 . Some vague promise
was made him 54 . But a little later, when it became
apparent that his health was failing, a renewed promise
of further help was sent him by the king 55 . This was
not till May 1614, a month before his final illness.
51 Eph. p. 998 : ' Omnia mea susque deque ; restituentur in suum
locum si uxor venerit.' Cf. epli. p. 988 : ' Vides, bone deus, dissipa-
tionem hujus donius/
62 Eph. p. 997 : ' Obruor sumtibus, negotiis, curis.'
53 Eph. 1046 : ' Ne meas ipse mihi spes praeciderim scribens ad
regem serenissimum, quern alioquin scio esse mei non mediocriter
amantem.'
64 Eph. p. 1051 : ' Ab episcopo Bathoniensi audivi quani nihil insit
solidi spei nuper excitatse.'
55 Eph. p. 1056 : 'Hodie venit ad me D. Bathoniensis jussu regis
ut de rebus meis nieliora in posterum polliceretur.'
LONDON. 16101614.
435
r e must suppose that the necessity was urgent before
he could bring himself to beg. He had long avoided
doing so. But he did not escape the sarcasms of the
Jesuit pamphleteers on this head. That Casaubon was
gone to England to make money out of the british
Croesus was too obvious an imputation to be neglected 56 .
When these gibes were mentioned to James he said
to Casaubon, ' Since your coming, you' never once
asked me for anything ; you know you would have
got it, if you had.' These insinuations of the Jesuits
were indeed but the echo of the gossip of the english
court. Carleton writes 57 :
' I was the other day with the bishop of Ely, and
among other talk lighted upon Casaubon, who, it
seems, is scant contented with his entertainment of
300 a year, being promised greater matters by the
late archbishop, who bestowed .a prebend upon him at
Canterbury, which he valued at six score pounds a
year, and falls out not worth the fourth part. But
his greatest emulation or envy is at Turquet's prefer-
ment, who hath 400 pension of the king, 400 of
the queen, with a house provided him, and many other
commodities, which he reckons at 1400 a year.'
This gossip may not be accurate as to the figures,
but, while it shows the ill-will of the courtiers towards
the pensioner, it points to what was certainly a fact,
that Casaubon' s money difficulties were the talk of the
court. As to the value of the stall at Canterbury,
we learn, from Carier's report to Casaubon 58 , that it
amounted, including the rent of the prebendal house,
56 See Eudsemon- Joannes, Responsio ad epist. pp. 160. 163, and
passim.
17 Birch, Court and Times of James i, i. 149.
18 Burney MSB. 363. ap. Russell, p. 1185.
P f 2
436 LONDON. 1610 1614.
to 100 for the first year. This, with the 300 a
year from the crown, and the french pension, which
continued to be paid to the last, was an income which,
we should think, ought to have raised Casaubon above
want, if not placed him in easy circumstances. But,
it would seem that with the increase of his means,
the drain upon them increased. His pervert son, who
remained behind in Paris, was dependent upon him.
His nephew, Isaac Chabanes, though he had been
taken into the service of the dutch ambassador 59 , had
to be occasionally assisted. He supported his sister
Anna, who took what he could give, and abused him
for not giving more. Meric was at Eton, and though
on the foundation, must have cost something. For
the younger children he had a tutor in the house,
James Wedderburn, a tutor who was modest enough to
confess that the salary which Casaubon gave him was
more than he ought to have, relatively either to his
own merits or to Casaubon' s means 60 . Besides these,
Madame Casaubon had her relations, whom she had
fetched from Geneva and Lyons to live either in the
house, or dependent upon it ; 61 ' As if/ he says, ' I was
a prince and could maintain whole families besides my
own/ These were outlets for money, which occasional
presents from king or bishops would go but little way
to meet. And there are repeated allusions to losses
he was sustaining in France, probably of his wife's
59 Bibl. nat. coll. Dupuy, 708. p. 86 ; cf. Cas. ep. 902, and Is.
Chabanes to Cas. Burney MSS. 367. p. 8.
60 Burney MSS. 366. ap. Russell : ' Salarium mihi a te constitutui
est, majus quidem illud, quam ut ei fortune tuse vel merita m(
respondeant/
Eph. p. 1000 : 'Quasi ego regulus essem aliquis, et possem
integras familias allenas alere.'
LONDON. 16101614. 437
property. The circumstances are not explained : but
it was to see after this business that Madame Casaubon
returned to France in 1613. She cannot have been
altogether unsuccessful, as we hear of a bill of exchange
for 2300 livres, coming over, with which, in her ab-
sence, Casaubon did not know how to deal. Thus,
though his income was more than doubled, pecuniary
anxiety weighed on his mind as heavily as it had done
in Paris. July 28, 1612, he enters, ' A day of sadness
and vexation. I had my time free for study, but I
made no way, my mind being distracted with divers
cares/ In 1613-14, while engaged on Baronius, it is
the same cry of distress. November 14, 1613, 'O
wretched house this ! not a single day passes without
heavy grief of both of us, my wife and myself, from
the cause which thou, God, knowest ! ' In several
places of the diary where this secret cause of grief is
touched upon, some later hand, probably Meric's, has
erased the material words 62 . It is only a conjecture
that this unexplained sorrow is the pressure of pecu-
niary want which in other places is spoken of without
disguise.
While thus suffering from straitened means, he had
to hear the taunts of the catholic party writers, that he
had sold his conscience for english gold.
Till his removal to England, Casaubon had enjoyed
almost entire immunity from the party pamphleteers.
This exemption, when every other less conspicuous
huguenot man of letters was being bespattered with
dirt, was due to the full expectation, which was all
62 See e. g. Eph. p. 1027 : ' Omnium quse hoc anno prseter animi
sententiam nobis acciderunt est longe maximum malum [an erasure]
tibi, Deus seterne, notum . . . durat enim, durat, et mine quam angit
me et uxorem meam tristissima ilia cura et dirissima sollicitudo.'
438 LONDON. 16101614.
along entertained, of his becoming one of theirs at last.
But when he took service under the king of England,
this hope was necessarily abandoned. The prohibition
was taken off, and Casaubon's troubles were aggravated
by a new one, till now unknown. And when he him-
self became a pamphleteer, and lowered himself to
answer Emmanuel Sa and the ' Amphitheatrum/ he
ought to have been prepared to take the inevitable
consequence. His ' Epistle to Fronto ' was published in
October 1 6 1 1 . It was not likely that such a challenge
should not be taken up. The most conspicuous pro-
testant writer of the day was here stating the case of
the most powerful of the only considerable pro-
testant sovereign. The sectarian interest was stimu-
lated by personal animosity in the recollection that
this champion of the king of England had come so
close to them, and yet had drawn off from them. The
* spretse injuria formse ' was all the more galling,
because the wooing had been long and passionate.
A concentrated fire was ordered to be directed upon
his position. The principal assailants were Eudaemon-
Joannes and Eosweyd, two Jesuits, the Louvain pro-
fessor Erycius Puteanus, Bulenger, and the notorious
Scioppius. The incisive pen of Scioppius made him
the most telling and feared libeller of the day. But no
party could trust him, and the authorised ( answerer ' of
the Jesuits was now Eudsemon- Joannes, or L'Heureux.
Of this voluminous pamphleteer I can find no authentic
account. Dr. Abbot, the regius professor of Oxford,
had been told that he was Fisher, the en glish Jesuit & .
But this was only a guess, and a wrong one. L'Heu-
reux's own account was that he was a native of Crete,
63 Aritilogia, ep. ad lectorem.
LONDON. 16101614. 439
educated in Italy, and that his family name was
Eudsemon-Joannes 64 . However this may be, his pam-
phlet against Casaubon 65 shows an acquaintance with
english affairs, and London gossip, which can only be
explained by the excellence of the secret intelligence
which the Jesuits knew how to secure. His style, not
so trenchant as Scioppius', is yet forcible, and his
management of his topics adroit. He has the great
advantage over his adversary, that, though he writes in
his own name, he is covered by the corporate interest
of the society of Jesus, and has the sympathy of the
great catholic party. In this point of view it is notice-
able that though Eudaamon- Joannes does not venture
openly to avow the gunpowder-plotters, he makes it
evident that the party secretly approved them. The-
gunpowder-treason wanted but success to have been
inscribed, like the S. Bartholomew, on the banners of
the catholic church.
Two points in the ' Responsio ad epistolam Is. Gas-
auboni,' may be selected for notice as illustrating this
life, and the history of letters.
i. The Jesuit assumes the tone of superior learning.
Eudsemon-Joannes, notwithstanding his Cretan birth,
knew hardly anything of greek 66 . He says himself 67 ,
that greek books were so scarce in Italy that ' we are
obliged to use latin translations/ He has nothing that
can be called learning, and no acquirements, as his
64 Confutatio Anticottoni, p. 106; Respons. ad ep. Is. Gas. p. 99 :
' Me a puero a preestantissimis viris Orlandino, Tursellino, Valtrino,
Bencio institutum.
55 See above, p. 410.
66 Gas. ep. ad Front, p. 150: ' Grsecse linguae esse imperitissimum,.
quse legi illius mihi dudum persuaserunt.'
67 Cappell. Vindicise, p. 30.
440 LONDON. 1610 1614.
numerous pamphlets testify, beyond those of a well-
trained academical man. Yet he can assume, towards
the most learned man then living, the airs of super-
cilious patronage. This fact is evidence of the high
reputation which the Jesuit training, both in their
colleges and in their professed houses, had by this time
attained. Because Casaubon has not gone through the
curriculum of their colleges, he can be spoken of as
imperfectly educated 68 / The first greek scholar of
the day can be told by a writer who can barely read
the letters, that he is ' not only not in the second, but
barely in the third class 69 / This prestige of their
training they transferred to controversy, and every
puny Jesuit adopted the language of contempt for his
opponent's learning. So Knott, in i634 70 , scorned
at the ignorance of the english clergy ; and Scioppius,
in i6i5 71 , said, that ' if James were richer than the
Pici who dwell on the golden mountains, he will not be
able to get together twenty learned men in England/
in allusion to the Chelsea college scheme.
In their assault upon Casaubon's credit, this arro-
gancy of the guild stood the Jesuits in good stead. It
was moreover combined with the ordinary professional
jealousy. The clerical writers affected to treat Cas-
aubon as a scholar who had presumed to encroach upon
a profession to which he was not bred. Because he
68 Respons. ad ep. Is. Cas. p. 51 : ' Hsec homo disciplinarum expers
non satis dijudicat.' Ibid. p. 7 : ' Imperitum grammaticum.' Ibid.
p. 14 : 'Rusticum dialecticse.' Ibid. p. 25 : ' Qui ultra Suetonium et
Lampridium psittaci more loquitur/
69 Respons. ad ep. p. 179 : ' Grsecae linguae, cujus te deum facis, viri
prsestantissimi in scriptis tuis ita exiguam cognitionem deprehenderunt,
ut te ne in secundis quidem, vix etiam in tertiis numerent.'
70 As quoted by Chillingworth, Relig. of Protest, Works, i. 46.
71 Holofernes Krigssederus, quoted by Nisard, Les Gladiateurs.
LONDON. 16101614. 441
had read the classics forsooth ! he thought himself
qualified to dabble in the high mysteries of theology !
The reciprocal jealousy of professions dates from the
existence of professions, and is not confined to the
clerical order. So the lawyers sneered at Saumaise
when he wrote on usury. But in the present instance,
in the i/th century controversy, a momentous fallacy
was involved in the assumption that philology was one
science, and theology another. Casaubon's reply to the
Jesuit taunt was that he had always, from his youth,
been a student of theology. He ought to have replied
in the memorable words of Scaliger 72 , ' Our theological
disputes all arise from ignorance of grammar/ It was
a question of interpretation and of the interpretation
of books, greek and latin, written at given dates. In
the controversy on the claims of the roman church,
the appeal was an appeal to antiquity ; and of the
meaning of antiquity, the scholars are the judges.
From the Jesuits the Savile party borrowed the taunt,
and Montagu is perpetually regretting that Casaubon
was not ( more of the divine/
2. The other point to be noticed in Eudaemon- Joan-
nes is the dexterity with which the Jesuit controver-
sialist intermingles his personalities. The object being
to destroy the effect of Casaubon's book, this object is
more effectually served by discrediting the writer, than
by answering his arguments. The general reader is
more attracted by personalities than by reasoning.
Every topic is produced which could lower Casaubon
in the eyes of the reader ; and the insinuations and
suggestions are not made at random, but are founded
on fact, and have the local colouring. The history
72 Scaligerana i a . p. 86 : 'Non aliunde dissidia in religione pendent,
quam ab ignoratione grammaticse.'
442 LONDON. 1610 1614.
of Casaubon's mind was well enough known to the
Jesuits, to know, that, in his ultimate decision against
the roman claims, he had been decided by the prepon-
derance of evidence as it presented itself to him. But
the circumstances of his life made the charge of venality
plausible, and they urge it unceasingly. He has sold
his conscience to the king of England. At his age, draw-
ing towards the close of a blameless life, he has parted
with his integrity to purchase the short-lived favour of
a fickle court, and to bear the indignant murmurs of
the home-born Englishmen at finding a foreign gram-
marian, a corrector from Stephens' press, preferred
before them 73 . The fleshpots of Egypt, the ' niclor
Anglicange culinse,' were surely hardly worth the price
Casaubon had paid for them !
Kind friends took care that Casaubon should see what
was thus being said of him. Lingelsheim sent him part
of the sheets from Heidelberg before the book was out.
Swert sent the book itself from Antwerp, and a third
copy was given him by 74 'a great man.' Casaubon was
neither curious nor sensitive about what was written
of himself, and on glancing over the sheets of Eudaemon-
Joannes' effusion, it seemed to him so trivial 75 that he
threw it aside, without reading it through. His glance
must have been very cursory, for quick and observant
reader as he was, he had not noticed the allusions,
three at least to the rope. Prideaux pointed these
out to him at Oxford 76 . Isaac, indifferent to abuse of
himself, could not bear a word breathed against the
memory of his father. He now became urgent that the
book should be answered 77 . It was decided by the
78 Scaligerana i a . p. 178. 74 Ep. 875.
5 Eph. 966 : * Librum futilein sane.'
76 See above, p. 410. 77 Ep. 871.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 443
king and the bishops that Casaubon should not waste
any more time on controversy. He should give himself,
without interruption, to the review of Baronius, and
the rector of Exeter should answer 'the Cretan 78 .' Pri-
deaux did this in a smart pamphlet, ' Castigatio cu-
jusdam circulatoris qui . . . Eudaemon-Johannem . . .
seipsum nuncupat, Oxon. 1614.' This rejoinder goes
through every topic, almost through every paragraph,
of the ' E/esponsio ad epistolam Is. Casauboni,' retorting
it on the respondent in the style of Andrewes, but
hardly with Andrewes' wit. The allusions to the ' rope'
were left to Casaubon himself to answer. This he did
in a long digression inserted in the ' Exercitationes Bar-
onianaB.' It is that narrative from which our knowledge
of Arnold Casaubon' s life and death, and of Isaac's child-
hood is derived. Prideaux also printed the interesting
paragraph at length at the end of his own pamphlet.
Few copies of Prideaux's pamphlet survive, a proof of
its small circulation at the time. But the incorporation
of the autobiographical fragment in the ' Exercitationes 7
made it widely known on the continent ; and its touch-
ing sincerity has naturally attracted the attention of all
those who have written of Isaac Casaubon.
L'Heureux, however, was decent and rational com-
pared to the next assailant. Encouraged by the success
of his libel on Scaliger, Scioppius now attacked Casau-
bon with the same weapon prodigious lying.
The pamphlet against Casaubon comes about midway
in the series of Scioppian libels, a series, which in its
extent, its savage licence, its ingenuity, and audacity of
fiction has not its equal in extant literature. Having
scarified the king of England sufficiently in the Ecclesias-
78 Ep. 857 : c Non vult serenissimus rex ut ego vel horulam unam
ponam in nseniis illis confutandis.'
444 LONDON. 1610 1614.
ticus, 1611, and the Alexipharmacum, 1612, Scioppius-
gave out that he was next going to fall upon the king of
England's dog. It was part of his tactic to designate his
victim, and thus enhance the sting by the torture of sus-
pense. The 'Holofernes Krigssederus . . responsio ad
epistolam Is. Cazobauni' was published at Ingoldstadt,
1615, but it was written at Madrid more than a year
before. Frensied by vanity, spite, and disappointed
ambition, Scioppius had gone to Madrid in search of
notoriety, and of the reward of his catholic zeal, which
was incessantly promised, and never received, at Home.
As Casaubon died in July, 1614, he would never have
seen the ( Holof ernes/ had not Digby, english ambassador
in Spain, transmitted to his court a MS. copy ' stolen'
said Scioppius, but, no doubt, by his own contrivance.
The allegations of this libel are equally atrocious, and
equally unfounded with the ' Scaliger hypobolimaeus,'
but they are not equally well aimed. As long as he is
rallying Casaubon on his situation as archpsedagogue
to the king of England, when he is portraying Isaac
Casaubon flaunting it in surplice and hood, playing at
prelacy, he is piquant, and at least within the bounds
of probability. But when he goes on to charge upon
Casaubon swindling, lechery, adultery and unnatural
crime, and in support of these accusations to tell
detailed stories which are pure inventions of Scioppius'
malignant imagination, the libel has overshot its mark,
and becomes flat stupidity.
The character of Casaubon was too well-established
and too widely known for any of this dirt to be
credited outside the convents and the Jesuit colleges.
Casaubon had not, like Scaliger, created by criticism
a host of enemies. Scioppius, indeed, used to boast
that he had killed Casaubon, as he had killed Sea-
LONDON. 16101614.
445
liger 79 . But we find from the diary that these
horrible calumnies did not affect him seriously. Even
the more plausible insinuations of Eudaem on- Joannes
gave him, except so far as his father was touched,
little concern 80 . The suggestion which came most
home to him was that he had been bought by the
king of England. This was a suggestion exactly cal-
culated for the english mind, and it took. The
* purse of the english king/ ' the scent of the an-
glican kitchen,' were the stock phrases. Still these
were political or religious opponents, or the native
party jealous of foreign pensioners, whether french or
scotch. It gave him deeper pain when he heard that
Schott had said of him that 'he had sold his con-
science for gold 81 /
Andreas Schottus deserves a niche in the history
of learning on more than one account. His name is
connected with the discovery of the ' monumentum
Ancyranum/ and he was the first editor of Diogen-
ianus, a task for which his knowledge of greek, how-
ever, was insufficient. His insufficiency is almost
excused by his modesty. His love of classical learn-
ing was genuine, and what Scaliger said of Marc
Welser might be applied to Schott, that 'it was
only his religion which prevented him from know-
ing a great deal 82 / Schott was a native of Ant-
werp, attracted, when young, into the society of Jesus,
79 Graevius, Prsefat. in Eremitam, De vita aulica ; Meric, Pietas,
p. 76.
80 Ep. 880 to Lingelsheim : ' Noli putare aliquid molestiae ex illo
fatuo libro me cepisse.'
81 Ep. 876.
82 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 204 : ' Velserum superstitio multa scire, et
plura quam scit, prsepedit.'
446 LONDON. 1610 1614.
by the hope of finding in it the means of satisfying
his love of reading. He was soon undeceived, and
had to spend the best years of his life regenting
classes in their various colleges in Spain and Italy.
Forty years of this mechanical routine destroyed his
mind, and broke his will, but he preserved his tastes.
In 1597 he returned to the college of the society
in Antwerp, and was settled there for the remainder
of his life. At seventy-seven, his age when he died
(1629), he was still teaching the rudiments, but he
had been released from the worst drudgery, and for
many years was chiefly engaged in translations, edi-
tions, or collections of classical and patristic remains.
Under the pressure of the infirmities of old age,
especially that of failing eyesight, neither his in-
terest nor his industry were abated. His love of
letters, and the fact that as a young man he had
been received into the Scaliger circle in Paris, led
to his correspondence with Casaubon as early as 1602.
It was not approved among spiritual martinets, that
a Jesuit should hold any intercourse with heretics.
Even father Schott, ' who often wrote to our people 8 V
in writing to Voss (G. J.) abstained from signing his
name at the end of his letter, and subscribes himself 84
* the darkling who translated Photius/ He sends Cas-
aubon his books ; his * Tullianao qusestiones ' in 1 6 1 o, his
* Adagia grseca ' in 161 1, with the request that he would
not spare criticism' upon them 85 . Casaubon responds.
83 Colomie's, Melange curieux, p. 833 : ' Ecrivoit sou vent a nos
gens/ Colomie's, in this memorandum, is in error in assigning 1636
as the date of Schott's death.
84 Ibid. : ' Tenebrio, qui Photium dedit latine.' Tenebrio may be an
allusion to his blindness, or to his retired life.
85 Pietas, p. 1 08: 'Quo plura obelo fodies . . . tanto me tibi
cariorem existimabo.'
LONDON. 1610 1614. 447
They are on the footing of ' mi Schotte/ and 'mi Cas-
aubone/ though they have never seen each other. There
was that in the gentle virtue of the Jesuit which
suited with Casaubon's own disposition 86 . * When as a
young man I first read your books, I conceived from
them an esteem for your character, which has been
confirmed by what others have since told me of you/
When, in 1611, Casaubon published his 'Letter to
Fronto/ he had occasion to speak of the 'Amphithe-
atrum/ and he did so with the reprobation with
which all good men spoke of it. Now Schott was
not only a Jesuit, but was a member of the very
house at Antwerp presided over by the author of
the ' Amphitheatrum,' Scribanius. Schott remonstrated
with Casaubon, reminding him that the 'Amphithea-
trum/ though mentioning his name 87 , had abstained
from offering him any affront 88 . 'The author, you
know, is my principal ; I am under him in this
house. He would gladly embrace you in the Lord,
as within the church, rather than see you where you
are. That you may think of him more favourably,
he sends you a volume he has lately published
" Controversiarum libri " you will like it as devotional
reading, and be better pleased with the style than
with that of the "Amphitheatrum/"
These being the friendly relations of Casaubon
with the Antwerp Jesuit, he was deeply pained to
receive, from another correspondent in Antwerp,
a copy of a letter or paper in which Schott had
written, alluding to Casaubon : ' The unholy thirst of
gold ought not to be more powerful than conscience/
The hand of a friend deals more deadly blows than
86 Ep. 364. 87 Epp. ad Cas. ep. 40.
88 The name of Casaubon occurs in the Amphith. p. 144.
448 LONDON. 1610 1614.
that of an enemy. When Erycius Puteanus, the Lou-
vain Jesuit, had made the same insinuation in his
' Stricture,' 1612, Casaubon had not heeded it. But
Schott's words wound him to the quick. He vents
his grief in expostulation " : ' Ah ! my ancient friend,
what words are these which have escaped the hedge
of thy teeth ! That I should prefer gold to piety !
That I lust at all after gold! It is not so, not so.
He who has persuaded you of this lies in a fashion
worse than Cretan, and measures my motives by his
own. Had I preferred gold to conscience, I should
not now be in England. The chancellor of France
knows this ; the illustrious cardinal (Du Perron)
knows this. It is known to the bishop of Paris, to
all those in whose society I lived in Paris, men of
your own confession, whose veracity is beyond sus-
picion. ... I pray you, illustrious sir, as you regard
truth, as you esteem innocence, recall your sarcasm,
and be on your guard against believing a greek of
Crete, a patron of regicide/ Schott did not respond
to this appeal, and their correspondence ended here.
Abraham Scultetus, the Heidelberg minister, on his
way home from London, called on Schott at Antwerp,
and wrote to Casaubon 90 , * If there be such a thing
as a good Jesuit, Schott is surely the best of the
good.' But the letter was not received in England,
indeed was not written, till Casaubon was no more.
Schott survived Isaac Casaubon fifteen years, and thus
lived to see Meric's 'Pietas,' in which Meric was naive
enough to print three letters of Schott to his father,
by way of evidence of Isaac's erudition. The letters
are only evidence of Schott's modesty and amiability.
In one wish which Schott expresses in a letter, dated
89 Ep. 876. 90 Burney MSS. 366.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 449
Antwerp, January 1612, every friend of Isaac Casau-
bon's memory must concur 91 : ' I have received yours,
most illustrious Casaubon, and was very sorry to find
you still lingering in Britain. The learned, and the
lovers of greek, -had much rather see you going on
with Polybius as you had begun, and finishing the
commentary you have promised, than going into a
quarrel in which you had no concern, -and in which
you can reap no credit, but will rather tarnish the
fame you have already earned by your writings . You
know how much the lustre of Joseph Scaliger's name
was dimmed in his old age, in consequence of his
assailing some members of our society, from whom he
had never received a single injurious word ; men ex-
celling in every branch of learning, such as Toleto,
Bellarmin, Possevin, Perier, and others 92 .'
Another catholic friend, Marc Welser, of Augsburg,
was offended, but not alienated, by Casaubon' s descent
into the fray. Welser was a layman, but a great friend
and patron of the Jesuits. On their account he had
broken with Scaliger 93 , and Casaubon was now told
by Hoeschel 94 that he must be prepared to forfeit
Welser' s friendship. But Welser, who perhaps
91 Epp. ad Gas. ep. 40.
92 The notices relating to the life of Andre* Schott have been col-
lected by Prof. Baguet, in a Memoir printed in torn. 23 of Me'moiresde
1'acade'mie royale de Belgique, pp. 1-49. The author has looked at the
volume of Casauboni epistolse, 1709, with so little care as to attribute
its publication to Meric Casaubon, who died 1671. Gaisford reprinted
the whole of Schott's notes on Diogenianus in Parsemiographi Graeci,
Oxon. 1836. Leutsch and Schneidewin, in Corpus Parsemiographorum,
1839, retained only a small part, ' resecta omni Schotti loquacitate in
rebus sexcenties ingestis.'
93 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 246 : 'II sera fasch de ce que j'ai escrit centre
lesj ^suites; il ne m'escrit plus.' 9 * Ep. 86 1.
G g
450 LONDON. 16101614.
repented that he had quarrelled with Scaliger, would
not give up Casaubon. 'What/ he writes to Casau-
bon, January 30, 1613, 'you imagine .that I am angry
with you because you have muttered something against
the Jesuits ? Not so, I vow by all that is sacred in our
friendship. I am not irritable by temperament, as
all my acquaintance will tell you. I confess that in
matters of religion I am not accustomed to hide my
feelings ; and if I did, you would not hold me worthy
of your love. But in the expression of my feeling, I
should never go beyond the bounds of moderation ;
being restrained by a native instinct, by reason, by
the usages of my country, and by the position in
which my fellow-citizens have been pleased to place
me/ This letter justifies the character which Scaliger
at another time 95 gave of Welser, * II est honnete homme,
et ne maintiendra pas les jesuites centre un homme
docte/
Welser, with de Thou and the liberal catholics, now
a small band remained still on friendly terms with
Casaubon. Du Perron wrote to him, in June, 1612,
in that tone of moderation and respect which the
cardinal's own high attainments imposed on him
towards a scholar 96 . He regretted the libels of which
Casaubon had been the object, and emphatically de-
clared that he himself had no part in them. But the
zealous party represented by the Jesuits, Schott, Fronto
le Due, Sirmond, silently withdrew from the corres-
pondence of one who had, as they thought gratuitously,
gone out of his way to constitute himself the champion
of a schismatical church and king. The whole politics
of western Europe at the time turned on ecclesiastical
considerations. It was impossible that the same feelings
95 Scalig a . 2 a . p. 247. 9G Burney MSS. 367.
LONDON. 16101614. 451
and interests should not dominate social life. One
neutral territory there was, that of learning, and this
Casaubon had himself voluntarily stept out of. He
had now to abide the consequences.
It was not only among the catholics, that he had
alienated friends. The calvinists of the continent were
aware that he had left them, that he neither shared
their doctrinal notions, nor sympathised with their
resistance to government. Cappel writes sarcastically
from Sedan 97 in 1611, imploring him in his conduct
of" the controversy to spare the puritans, and the gallic
churches, ' from which for so many years he had sucked
the milk of piety/ He insinuates that Casaubon' s
leanings toward transubstantiatioii were a relic of
Du Perron's influence, which he had hoped that
Casaubon might have got rid of in England ('si quid
fuliginis adhuc superest ex con vie tu cum Perronio ').
The light in which Casaubon was now regarded by
his own church is put in such strong relief by a letter
of Du Moulin, that it is necessary to give it at length.
It is addressed to Montagu, bishop of Bath and Wells,
and is written shortly after Casaubon had left Paris
for England in i6io 98 :
' 1 am very loth, my lord, to intrude upon your
much-occupied time by this writing, yet do I hold
myself bounden to communicate with you on a matter
which seems to me to touch the common welfare of
your, and of our, church. And there is none other
with whom I can better and more safely lodge what I
have to say, than with yourself, whom I know to be
moved with zeal for God, and also to have much
influence with his serene majesty.
97 Burney MSS. 363.
98 Colomesii Opera, p. 531.
G g 2
452 LONDON. 1610 1614.
' The occasion of this writing is Isaac Casaubon,
whose present departure from hence to you inspires
me with no little anxiety. He is assuredly a man
of pith, pious and of good principle, but liable to be
turned out of the way by his fears, and his irritable
temper. It is about three years since that he began
to think amiss in religion, and to incline to popery.
Some few heads remained which he could not digest,
e. g. the communion under one kind, papal supremacy,
public worship in an unknown tongue, worship of
images, works of supererogation ; these things, in
which he continues to think with us, restrained him
from openly leaving us. On the other heads of con-
troversy he does not conceal his hatred of our re-
ligion, which he abuses to the catholics, denouncing
it as a modern invention of Calvin. When I ad-
monished him on the subject, he would not take it
from me, though we are old and intimate friends.
The origin of all this mischief is a quarrel with the
Genevese, who, he says, as parties in a law suit,
have robbed him of his wife's portion. From that
day he began to inveigh against our ministers in
general, and to pour his venom -into the ear of any-
one who will listen. In this state of uncontrollable
passion cardinal Perron attacked him with liis argu-
ments, easily worked upon a character of no steadi-
ness, and in fine very nearly shipwrecked him. He
used to have secret meetings with the cardinal, who
set him upon reading the fathers. Whatever he met
with in them which seemed to go against us, he
greedily seized upon. For his learning in philology
and languages is truly great, but having cultivated
his memory rather than his judgment, he is deficient
in clearsightedness, and in apprehension of things,
LONDON. 16101614. 453
while his innate infirmity of purpose makes him
ready to yield to the opinions of those with whom
he is conversing. That a man of so much learning,
and one whom I highly esteem, should thus go to the
bad, has been a heavy affliction to me. I have en-
deavoured what I could to bring him back to sounder
views. But I have had no success, what with his
animosity against the city of Geneva, and the urgent
instances of the cardinal, who knew how to season
his arguments with promises.
1 The invitation of the king of England arriving at
this juncture, was therefore most opportune. I am
now not without hopes that by converse with your
lordship, and the other men of learning in your
country, he may be led back into the right way.
Time and removal may abate his passion. I pray
you, my lord, to help what you can towards this end.
I would venture to recommend as the safest course
to pursue with him, that he be engaged by some
decent preferment to write on ecclesiastical history,
and in refutation of Baronius. Towards this he has
already made large collections, and he is a mighty
opponent of the papal claims. Whatever he should
write on this head, would tend to edification. Any-
how I beg and entreat you to secure him for your-
selves, and to keep him over there ; for if he return
to us his defection is certain. Certainly he did pledge
himself to the queen, at his leave-taking, to come
back, and this he is bound to do. But if he can
obtain a settled position in England he will only
return for the purpose of bringing off his household
goods, and his library, which is very extensive. He
will be no small acquisition to England, being, as he
is, "facile princeps" in the republic of letters ; we shall
454 LONDON. 16101614.
be released from a perpetual state of alarm on his
account, and you will have the satisfaction of having
saved a soul on the verge of ruin.'
If this letter had been merely one of theological
denunciation, it would have deserved no more attention
than is given by men of sense to such officious delators
in general. But Peter Du Moulin was no ordinary
man, and his letter, with all its ill will towards him
who is the subject of it, shows a shrewd appreciation of
character and situation. Nor, indeed, was its object
that of damaging Casaubon. Du Moulin wanted, what
he says he wants, to get Casaubon out of Paris. But
for this wish which he avows he had private reasons of
his own, which he probably did not avow to himself.
Du Moulin was a man of distinguished ability, and
powerful eloquence. He was a successful disputant.
Casaubon, with all his learning, had cut a poor figure
in the Fontainebleau conference. Du Moulin, with no
reading worth speaking of, had come triumphant out
of many a set dispute with catholic doctors. When a
man of powerful intellect and no knowledge talks and
writes incessantly on matters of religion and morals,
there is but one resource for him, that is, to maintain
that religion and morals do not rest 'upon knowledge,
and can be treated without it. This is what Du Moulin
did. His favourite doctrine was, that scripture was
so plain that it needed no interpreter but each man's
common sense ". If he looked into the writings of the
fathers, it was not to use them, but to find expressions
which he could declaim against, as deviating from the
standard of genevan orthoxody. Knowing, as we do,
9 Eph. 824 : ' Et voce, et scripto et ex ambone declamare solitus,
me audiente, sacram scripturam nullo habere opus interprete, sed
omnia simpliciter, ut scripta sunt, esse accipienda.'
LONDON. 1610 1614. 455
Casaubon' s estimate of the grammatical, critical, and
collateral knowledge requisite for the interpretation of
any ancient author, we may imagine how he chafed at
sitting Sunday after Sunday to hear these opinions
inculcated with a]l the force of Du Moulin's eloquence
from the pulpit at Charenton, and how indignant he
was when he had to sit and hear Cyprian branded as
an ' anabaptist/ It was impossible to avoid a personal
application of these tirades to Isaac Oasaubon as he
sate there with his bowed form and pale face, bearing
the burden of all the learning belonging to the hugue-
not congregation. Du Moulin was aggravated by Cas-
aubon's silent disapproval ; but still more aggrieved
when he heard that Casaubon had been pointing out
to some friends the errors of some of Du Moulin's inter-
pretations of texts. Du Moulin too was a great author.
He had a ready pen, and writing in french, his books
were highly appreciated by his flock. One of them, his
1 Defense de la foi catholique,' had been annotated by
Casaubon in the way he did with all his books, and
many of its errors pointed out on the margin. This
book, published in 1610, had been a good deal talked
of in protest ant circles in, Paris, and Casaubon had not
concealed his opinion of its shallowness. Du Moulin's
ministerial prestige was endangered ; he went to Cas-
aubon and demanded the copy. Casaubon dared not
refuse, and gave it up, begging at the same time that
' he would take the remarks in good part V This was
in October, and it was smarting under this rebuke from
a member of his own congregation, that the letter to
Montagu was written. It was absolutely necessary
for Du Moulin's supremacy over his flock, and for his
1 Eph. p. 765 : 'Rogavitsibi dari librum Apologise, etc. quern edidit,
in quo ego multa notaveram ipsius peccata magna.'
456 LONDON. 1610 1614.
comfort in the pulpit, that Casaubon should be kept
away from Paris 2 . If Jean Hotman is to be believed,
Du Moulin had formerly, when in England, professed
very different sentiments, and had wished that the
doctrine and discipline of the church of England could
be transplanted to France. He was now restrained,
adds Hotman, from attacking Casaubon by the obli-
gations he was under to the king and his ambassadors 3 .
Casaubon never knew of the secret delation on the part
of Du Moulin, of which he had been the object. Mon-
tagu handed the letter to the archbishop, who discreetly
kept it to himself. But Casaubon did not conceal how
much he had disapproved of Du Moulin's preaching,
and opinions. He writes to Madame Casaubon 4 , ' I
have heard M. du Moulin maintain propositions which
I detest, and shall detest, living and dying. The
theology of the learned prelates in England is quite
opposed to his/
Thus losing, or alienating, those who should have
been his friends, he had to submit to the unwelcome
advances of others who would be friends with Isaac
Casaubon, because he was a friend of the king of
England. It is the fate of all men whose merits
2 Du Moulin's ' Defense de la foi catholique' . . . runs on to 576
pages. There seemed no reason why it should not have run to double
the number. But it breaks off suddenly at the place his nimble pen
had reached at 5 p.m. on the fatal I4th of May : ' La mort de nostre
roy semblable a un grand esclat de tonnerre nous engourdit la main
d'estonnement. '
3 Burney MSS. 367. p. 23 : ' Quand a nostre M. du M. (a later hand
has supplied the blank with ' Moulin ') il est imprudent, impudent, et
ingrat, tout ensemble. II a appris sa meilleure th^ologie en Angle-
terre et a receu trop de bien de sa Majestd et de ses Ambassadeurs
qu'il ose 1'attaquer en votre personne.'
4 Burney MSS. 367. ap. Kussell, 1147.
LONDON. 1610 1614. 457
ve* gained them the notice of the powerful, that
e preferment-hunters seek to use them for their pur-
Of course Dominicus Baudius was early in the
field. Having known Casaubon as a boy at Geneva,
and having occasionally written to him since, it was
necessary to announce to his old friend the fact of
his marriage (1613). It was also "evident that that
event made it necessary that he should be provided
for. Dominic is confident that his own 'merits must
sufficiently recommend him to the king of England,
and that he has only to show himself to be admitted
at once to his intimacy 5 . But he thinks ' his own
deserts and those of his forefathers' may be backed
by Casaubon' s recommendation. The good-natured
Casaubon speaks to several of the nobles about Bau-
dius ; among others to Sidney. It is not enough.
He must speak to the king. Casaubon does speak to
the king. 6< King has been heard more than once to
express himself in terms highly laudatory of Baudius.
But there is nothing to be had. It is not the custom
of the english to call from other countries men of
distinguished erudition. Dictum sapienti sat.' Even
this flat assertion might not have stopped Baudius
from coming to push his fortunes in England, had
not delirium tremens closed his importunity very shortly
after his receipt of this reply 7 .
Lydius writes from Holland 8 : would be glad of
5 Baudii Epp. p. 45 1 : ' Mea et majorum meorum virtute fretus
confido me futurum apud TOV Kparovvra inter intimse admissionis
amicos.'
6 Ep. 853 : ' Non est mos Anglorum, ut viros eruditione claros
aliunde accersant.'
7 Baudius, f Aug. 24, 1613. Chabanes to Casaubon, Burney MSS.
367. 8. - 8 Ep. 762.
458 LONDON. 16101614.
anything ; would like to be minister of the dutch
church in London. Lydius has to be put off by the
same assurance that ' church dignities in England are
never given but to native english, that the number
of theologians in England is very great, for all stu-
dents at the universities are theologians. And as for
the dutch church in London, the king of England has
no more to do with it than he has with any church in
Ley den, or the Hague/
Cameron writes from Bordeaux 9 : would like an
appointment in his native Scotland, in the church, of
which the king is, under God, the head. ' I cannot
doubt that you, who are so high in favour with him,
can easily get it done, if you will exert yourself ever
so little. I was known to the king when he was a
boy ; and only three years ago, when I passed through
England, on my way hither, I was graciously received
by him. The princess Elisabeth is not ill-disposed
towards me. And it will be very creditable to you,
a foreigner, to be recommending a countryman of the
king for his favours.'
Another 'countryman of the king's/ Alexander Hume,
wanted to have his latin grammar recommended to
James' notice. Casaubon does not toss the applica-
tion into his waste-basket, but answers it at length,
declining to say anything in favour of the grammar,
because it was founded on the Eamist system, which
he did not approve.
Theodore Canter, who had got himself into prison
in Holland, by his own fault, hoped Casaubon would
move the english ambassador to intercede in his behalf.
For a friend whose sons had been his pupils at Geneva,
9 Burney MSS. 363. ap. Kussell, p. 1179.
LONDON. 16101614. 459
and who had read through all the Greek writers 10 , who
was now in evil case, however much to blame, Cas-
aubon is ready to do what he could. But before he
could take up the case, he must be informed more
fully as to its merits.
Some sued in form of a dedication. Among the
many who now were anxious to inscribe their books
with the name of Isaac Casaubon may be mentioned
Gaspar Barthius. ' He is mentioned, not because in
his dedication of his ' Auctores Venatici, Hanovige, 1613,'
he is more fulsome in his panegyric than the rest, but
because he naively avows, in concluding, his hope that
he may u 'one day visit England, and enjoy the ad-
vantage of Casaubon' s recommendation in the court
of your serene prince, with whom we know that you
can do anything/
Nor was it foreigners only that he was to help to
something. We have seen 12 Carier wanting him to
get him the deanery of Eochester, and Eichard Thom-
son praying him to mollify the archbishop in his
favour. Casaubon was too easily fretted by many
things ; but all this importunity does not extort from
him one harsh word against the suitors. No man was
ever more indulgent to all the liberties which ac-
quaintance can take, except when they took from him
his time, the only possession which he would not part
with for any one.
His many anxieties, superadded to the pull of his
daily task on Baronius, and sinking health, made him
more and more dependent on Florence Casaubon. The
10 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 42.
11 Ep. Nuncupatoria : ' Tu commendatione in aula serenissimi mo-
narchse tui, apud quern nihil non posse te scimus/
12 See above, pp. 311. 394.
460 LONDON. 16101614.
bond of affection which had united husband and wife
from the first, has been drawn closer by time, and com-
mon sorrows. In the closing years of Isaac's life, to
devotion was added dependence. Next to God, whose
presence is constant, and to whom his soul is daily
poured in pious effusion, his wife is the thought of most
frequent occurrence in the pages of the diary. Younger
and stronger in his native land, he had watched over,
nursed and protected her. Weak, prematurely aged, cast
away in a barbarous country, weighed down by the daily
grind of learned research, the parts are reversed ; he is
become dependent on her. Her long absences in France
are severe trials to him. He sinks under the weight
of the cares which then crowd on him 13 . How bitter
is the parting ! How torturing her delay to return !
He is querulous, then angry with her for being away,
though he sent her himself, and on urgent business l4 .
He writes her a letter full of reproaches. 'How can she
stay away from him so long, so much longer than there
was any necessity for !' Then he tears it up, and dis-
tresses himself that he was so inconsiderate. The dis-
orders in the household, unruly children, untrustworthy
servants, increase upon his hands ; 15 ' and you, my wife,
who ought to be governing this family, are away from me/
Then comes the hot July of 1613, and he is equally
alarmed lest she should have set off on the journey.
Then he hears that, so far from coming back, she was luxu-
riating in the country at Grigny. ' What can she be
13 Eph. p. 987 : ' Deus bone, deficio sub onere curarum, et ino-
lestiarum, quas affert mihi uxoris absentia.'
14 Eph. p. 97 7 : ' Urgebant negotia, quse omnino postulabant ut
istud iter uxor susciperet.'
16 Eph. p. 996 : ' Tu abes, niea uxor, quae domum regere de-
buisti.'
LONDON. 16101614. 461
doing at Grigriy when her presence is so much needed
at home 16 . 3 Great part of many days is lost out of pure
fret and heartache, because she doesn't come or doesn't
write 17 . He sends his sons' tutor, Wedderburn, to
escort her over. He cannot endure the suspense, he is
fretting himself to death 18 . Then he hears she is
coming by another route. Wedderburn will miss her.
He must go himself. But the ' Exercitationes' are in
the press, and the daily tale must be delivered to the
printer. August 31, he sends a servant to Dover, for
Florence has not learnt a word of English. She had
already left Dover, and September i, while he is deep
in his writing he looks up, and she is standing by his
side. Oh happy day. Little does she know how short
a time she is to have him ! She has just returned in
time to save little James, the english son, who was
being starved by the wet nurse with whom he had been
placed in the country. They are separated no more,
till all too soon the day of final parting takes him away
before his time.
Casaubon had come over to this country in October,
1610. Florence did not join him till February, 1611.
She returned to France April 29, and was absent
nearly six months. His instructions on this occasion are
characteristic, containing not a word relating to his
pecuniary affairs, on account of which Madame Casaubon
was going; his anxieties are all for his children, his
books, and especially his papers 19 . ' Je vous recom-
mande nos enfants que en tout douceur les instruisez a
16 Eph. p. i oo i.
17 Eph. p. 1002 : 'Abstulit magnam partem diei mcestitia et soli-
citude tristis de uxore tamdiu absents.'
18 Eph. p. 1009 : ' Desiderio pio pise uxoris dudum tabesco.'
19 Burney MSS. 367. ap. Russell, 1147.
462 LONDON. 16101614. .
la piet6, et aux bonnes moeurs, et si ne venez tost,
m'envoyer quelcun.
'Je vous recommande mes livres, que personne du
monde ne les manie, ni touche, que vous et mon
nepueu. Faictes que au plustost je les aye par voye
seure, et le tout par le conseil de nos amis, sur-
tout de M. le President de Thou, et de M. Tambas-
sadeur 4'Angleterre. Vous scavez que puisque il nous
fault icy demeurer quelque terns, il m'est impossible
de me passer d'eux, et surtout de mon coffre ou
soiit mes papiers.
' Si nos amis vous conseillent de haster vostre retour,
il faudra faire venir mes livres avec vos hardes par
navire expres. Mais quant a Isaac, je desire qu'il
vienne avec mon coffre/
During this absence, he writes to John, the catholic
son, entreating, commanding, him 20 to find his mother
out, and if she is at Grigny to take out his letters
to her himself. ' I have heard nothing from her these
two months, and am in tortures of suspense ; my life
is hardly bearable!'
Florence's second visit to France was from May 3
to September i, 1613. The return to her charge of
her who, through the trials of eight-and-twenty years,
had grown to be the guardian angel of the house,
protected Isaac from many vexations, but could not
save him from the doom which was now rapidly
approaching.
20 Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 23101.
10.
LAST ILLNESS; DEATH; CHARACTERISTIC.
1614.
WE have observed that of Isaac Casaubon's mental
character more is known to us than of most men who
lived so long ago. It happens also, that of his bodily
organisation we have a memoir, remarkable for its
diagnostic skill, from the pen of Raphael Thoris 1 , his
physician, of whom Casaubon justly thought most
highly. The language of this memorandum may be
the language of an imperfect physiology ; but for all
purposes of elucidation of character, and mental history,
it is as complete as if it had been written by a modern
pathologist.
Isaac Casaubon was the martyr of learning. While
it is not probable that he would have survived to a
great age, it is clear that his premature death, in his
fifty-sixth year, was brought upon him by his habits
of life, unintermitted study and late vigils. Varanda,
1 Raphaelis Thorii, Historia vesicse monstrosse magni Casauboni,
and Epistola de Isaac! Casauboni morbi mortisque causa. A Leyden
printer published the first piece in 1619. Both are found in Gro-
novius' collection, from which Van Almeloveen reprinted them in
1709, adding an engraved representation of the diseased part.
464 LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
the medical professor at Montpellier, had told him, in
1597, playfully but with meaning, that 2 'his career
would be like that of Achilles, glorious but brief.'
Scaliger, who had never seen him, knew of him as
3 'tout courbe d'etude/ Baudius had conjured him 4
to have some thought of his health. But friends are
so apt to think that any one, who studies at all,
studies too much, that remonstrances on this head go
for nothing. When seriously urged to intermit his
application, and allow himself a holiday, Casaubon 5
used to say ' that he had tried that remedy, and. it
had always done him harm ; that he was never worse
than when he was doing nothing, and so compelled to
think of his ailments.'
This, his own account, is probably the true account
of the case. The mind was destroying the organism,
yet the mental excitement or occupation was, at the
same time, what kept the frame going so long. He
could not rest. The agitation of the spirits was
necessary to life. As positive disease established itself,
and his general bodily condition gradually sank, he
would have become hypochondriac, had he turned his
thoughts towards himself and his ailments. Instead
of anxiously guarding his own organic sensations, this
man, who was dying daily, was utterly careless of
himself. He not only never complained, but never
nursed himself, till actually driven from his books by
fainting or by fever 6 . The ever-growing derangement
2 Ep. 132. 3 Scaligerana 2 a . p. 45.
4 Baudii epp. p. 116.
5 Thorii ep. : ' Mihi antehac imperatum otium, a me qusesitum, sed
conatu irrito, imo pernicioso.'
6 Ibid. : ' Homini sui negligent!, in studiis attento, ne conquerendi
quidem otium erat.'
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614. 4G5
)f the functions, and degradation of tissue, made itself
felt in a growing mental depression, which however
turned outward rather than inward. This depression
had taken, from the first, the direction of devotional
abandonment. The lowered nervous force in the sen-
sibilities, combined with calvinistic theory in the under-
standing, submerge the hopes and affections ; tend to
withdraw them from life, and fix them upon the unseen.
The active energies, being insufficiently called upon,
become enfeebled. He became, every year, less able
to cope with the worry of life. A gloom seemed to
be settling on all external things. He complains 7 that
wherever he looked, nothing but melancholy objects
met his view. He writes to Heinsius 8 in 1612, 'The
deaths of so many of my friends, remind me to think
of my own, which I do constantly. Whenever my
hour comes, I shall be well-pleased to leave a world in
which iniquity abounds. Turn your eyes to what
quarter of Europe you will, you will see what must
needs fill you with anxiety. And nowhere is there any
prospect of better things, all grows worse and worse/
The least thing, a thunder storm coming on while he
is in the cathedral, throws him into a state of nervous
anxiety 9 . Walter Scott had the first warning of his
own break-down in similar symptoms. He enters in
his diary, March 13, i826 10 : 'I am not free from a
sort of gloomy fits, with a fluttering of the heart and
depression of spirits, just as if I knew not what was
going to befall me. I can sometimes resist this success-
fully, but it is better to evade it.' In Isaac Casaubon,
7 Eph. p. 954 : * Nihil video prseter tristia.' 8 Ep. 846.
9 Eph. p. 846 : ' Cum essem in ecclesia Paulina, tempestas repente
exorta me anxium habuit.'
10 Lockhart, Life of Scott.
H h
4t>u LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
the same cause, an overdriven brain, was now producing
the same inevitable results.
Nature had given him a puny and infirm frame.
Though not so little as some other celebrated men of
learning, as, e. g. Pietro Pomponazzo, as Melanchthon or
Lobeck, Casaubon was a man of 11 small stature, l cor-
pusculum tanto ingenio impar/ says Thoris. The same
observant physician, when introduced to him in 1610,
was astonished to see that 12 ' such exalted wisdom could
be lodged in such a wretched tenement/ It did not
need Thoris' s experienced eye to read the sentence of
death in the emaciated frame, the sunken chest, the
stooping shoulders, the wasted features, the prominent
cheek bone, the dark ring round the eye, the hectic
flush, the accumulation of phlegm in the air-passages,
the hacking cough. ' I foresaw 13 that his new calling
in the service of his majesty, and his own greediness of
work, would precipitate the catastrophe/ Isaac became
Thoris's patient, and the worse symptoms then disclosed
to him, verified the diagnostic of his eye, the fevered
pulse, the labouring heart, the sleepless unrefreshing
nights, the long-standing of his cough.
It must have been obvious to everyone that he was
dying. James must have seen it, when he was urging,
like a taskmaster, the progress of the * Exercitationes/
11 Clarendon, Life, by himself, i. 55 : ' Mr. Chillingworth was of a
stature little superior to Mr. Hales, and it was an age in which there
were many great and wonderful men of that size/ For noticing so
' trivial ' a circumstance, the historian is taken to task by Isaac
Disraeli, Curiosities of Literature, p. 282.
12 Thorii ep. : * In tarn humili hospitio tarn excelsam sapientiam
habitare.'
13 Ibid. : ' Veritus, ne, ut accidit, odio quietis, laboris dulcedine, in
novo studiorum campo, in tanti regis oculis, homo impiger exsangue
corpusculum cursu concitato ad seternam quietem prsecipitaret.'
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614. 467
The worst however was not, and could not, be known
till the 'post mortem.' Some twelve months before
the end, there appeared symptoms which entirely
baffled the medical attendants, Mayerne and Thoris.
The symptoms indicated calculus ; yet, on examination,
the existence of calculus could not be established.
During the whole of the time that he was working
on Baronius, he was suffering tortures from a difficulty
in the urinary passages. An incessant desire to void
urine was accompanied with the impossibility of doing
so. A protuberant swelling of the left side made its
appearance. The doctors, not knowing what to order,
prescribed the usual remedies for renal disease, riding,
and the Spa waters. He proposed to drink the waters
on the spot, but could not endure the thought of being
again in a catholic country, and therefore consults Gro-
tius if there 14 be not some town of the states near Spa,
where he can reside, and have the waters brought him.
This was in 1612. Even in November 1613, his
mental vigour deluding him as to his physical powers,
Casaubon was projecting a visit to Heinsius at Ley den 15 .
And in June, 1614, when the end was imminent, he
is contemplating a second part of the ' Exercitations 16 , '
1 in which I design great things, viz. the assertion of
genuine antiquity/
In this condition, on June 24, 1614, his friends,
thinking to benefit him by a drive into the country,
took him to Greenwich. The party consisted of Isaac,
4 Bui-maun, Syll. 2. 433 ; Grotius to Heinsius: ' Casaubonum jam
saepe ut ad nos transcurrat, invito, et facturum puto, eo magis quia
Spadanas aquas adire jubetur a medicis.' Cf. Cas. ep. 933.
15 % 925.
6 Ep. 927 : 'Si dabit Christus vitam, magna moliemur in proxima
parte, et veram antiquitatem summa fide et diligentia asseremus.'
H h 2
468 LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
the physician Thoris, Barclay, and their three wives.
They went in a coach 17 . The jolting over the uneven
pavement of the city, shook the poor sufferer cruelly.
He constrained himself, however, to sit through the
meal, and himself proposed a walk through the park
after it, during which he was cheerful and instructive
in talk as ever. When he got home, he thought he
felt better. But he passed the night in cruel torture,
voiding calculi, blood, and purulent urine. When
Thoris came to see him in the morning, Isaac said,
' I am like Theophrastus, dying of a holiday ; when
Theophrastus had passed his hundredth year, he went
to his nephew's wedding, and gave up a day's study
to do it. But he never studied more, he died of
it/ Thoris and May erne were in constant attend-
ance. Thoris wished to attend him as a friend, and
refused his tendered fee 18 . When Casaubon insisted
lie took it, saying that ' he could not stand in the way
of a patient's wish to exercise the virtue of gratitude/
Nothing could be done, but to mitigate his sufferings
by the hot bath and bleeding. He sustained the
combat with death amid dreadful torments, borne with
that entire resignation to the divine will, which might
have been expected from one whose life had been one
prolonged devotion. His one regret was, that he must
leave his work on church history unfinished. His words
latterly became, inaudible, but it could be perceived
that he was holding converse with that God, whom he
had never forgotten for a single hour of his life. He
lingered thus for more than a fortnight. On Friday,
17 Thorii ep. : ' Vectus rheda per duras pavimenti Londinensis
salebras, qua civitas longissime pertenditur.'
18 Burney MSS. 367. p. 137: ' Ne videar velle tibi pulcerrimse
virtutis (i. e. gratitude) ansam prseripere, accipio auTrjpiov libenter.'
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614.
469
July 12 (July i, o. s.), he received the eucharist at
the hands of the bishop of Ely. After the ceremony,
he signified his wish to have the ' Nuiic dimittis ' read
aloud, and he accompanied the reader with failing
voice. He had his children brought to his bedside,
gave them his blessing, one by one, and straitly charged
them not to follow the example of their elder brother,
but to continue in the religion in which they had been
brought up 19 . At 5 p.m. he ceased to breathe 20 .
After death was discovered, what no diagnosis could
have detected, a monstrous malformation of the vesica.
The bladder itself was of natural size and healthy.
But an opening in its left side admitted into a second,
or supplementary bladder. This sack was at least six
times as large as the natural bladder, and was full of
mucous calculous matter. The malformation was con-
genital, but had been aggravated by sedentary habits,
and inattention to the calls of nature, while the mind
of the student was absorbed in study and meditation.
Much sympathy was shown him during his illness.
The king sent 21 him an assurance that his pension
should be continued to Madame Casaubon for her life,
and that he would provide for the future of one of his
sons. This part of the promise received a speedy
performance. A royal missive had already, April 13,
1614, been sent to the dean and chapter of Christ
Church, Oxford, requiring them 23< to admitt a sonne
19 Meric, Pietas, p. 91.
20 Besides Thoris's letter, an account of Isaac Casaubon's last mo-
ments was written by Andrewes to Heinsius. A copy of the bishop's
letter is in Advers. torn. 9, from which it was printed by Bliss in his
edition of Andrewes' Works, n. xlv.
21 Birch, Court and Times of James i, i. 332.
22 State paper, James i, docquet.
470 LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
of Isaak Casaubon into the rome of a scholler of the
foundation of that house, that should first become voide.'
Accordingly, on August 5, Meric was admitted to a
studentship, which he held for thirteen years 23 .
As Isaac had designed to send his son to Leyden,
we may perhaps infer that he was not altogether
satisfied with what he had seen at Oxford and
Cambridge. But he had acquiesced in the king's de-
cision, and it had been arranged that Meric was to
spend some time at Christ Church, before he travelled
abroad to continental universities 24 .
Isaac Casaubou was buried in the abbey ; 25 ' six
bishops, two deans, and almost the whole clergy of
the metropolis/ followed the body. The funeral
sermon 26 was preached by the bishop of Lichfield,
Overall. The grave where his body was laid was at
the entrance of S. Benedict's chapel. For many years
there was no monument to commemorate him, till one
was supplied by the pious remembrance of a private
friend, Thomas Morton, then become (1632) bishop of
Durham 27 .
The assertion of the latin inscription, that Casaubon's
books will outlive the marble monument, is scarcely
likely to be true. The inscription, doubtless composed
23 Dean's entrance book : ' Admd. Aug. 5. Meric Casaubon, Gallus,
Gen. F. 18.' Meric was born May 4, 1599, N. s., and was therefore
just fifteen,,
24 Ep. 955 : ' Filii mei missionem ad vos regis serenissimi voluntas
retardavit, cui placuit ut in academia Oxoniensi aliquamdiu maneret,
priusquam transmarinas academias adiret,'
25 Andrewes to Heinsius, ubi sup.
26 I cannot find that the sermon has been preserved.
2r It was by Stone, and cost 60. The receipt for the amount is
Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS,
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614. 471
by Morton himself, is in better taste than many of
that period, and the bishop is not answerable for
the vulgar x T o, as his x~p~o is still visible beneath,
as Mr. Scrivener 28 has pointed out. Fuller observes
that 'his tomb is not in the east, or poetical, side,
where Chaucer, Spenser, Drayton, are interred, but on
the west, or historical, side of the aisle.' ' Casaubon's
tomb was thus,' says dean Stanley 29 , * the first in a
new and long succession. Isaac Walton, forty years
afterwards, wandering through the south transept,
scratched his well-known monogram on the marble,
with the date 1658, earliest of those inscriptions of
names of visitors, which have since defaced so many
a sacred space in the abbey. O si sic omnia ! We
forgive the greek soldiers who recorded their journey
on the foot of the statue at Ipsambul; the Platonist
who has left his name on the tomb of Rameses at
Thebes ; the roman emperor who has carved his attes-
tation of Memnon's music on the colossal knees of
Amenophis. Let us in like- manner forgive the angler
for this mark of himself in Poets' corner/
A few days before his death Casaubon had made a
will*. He leaves, ' of the goods which the Lord hath
lent me,' to his wife, to choose between taking the half,
or betaking herself to her contract of marriage. To
each of his daughters he gives 200 crowns, the residue
of his estate being divided equally among all his chil-
dren, John excepted, who was provided for by a con-
vert's pension. But that this exclusion might not be
construed as a penalty, he leaves John a cup, value
28 Codex Bezse, prsef. p. 43.
29 Memorials of Westminster, p. 317.
* See it in Appendix, note A.
472 LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
thirty crowns. M r . Scaliger's cup is left to ' that son
who, walking in the fear of God, shah 1 be fittest to
sustain my family.' Florence is sole executrix.
Florence Casaubon, as soon as she had settled her
affairs, returned to France. James acted most liberally
towards her 31 , and, notwithstanding her antipathy to
the country and to our tongue, she returned to end
her days in London. In spite of the many at-
tempts of the doctors to kill her with the lancet 33 ,
she survived her husband oiie-and-twenty years. She
was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey,
March j i, i635 33 .
The catholic party had continued to believe that he
was at heart a catholic, and that the death-bed would
extort from him the confession which self-interest had
suppressed during life. The french ambassador sent
a nobleman to him to put the question directly, ' In
what religion he professed to die 34 ? ' ' Then you
think, my lord,' was the answer, ' that I have been all
along a dissembler in a matter of the greatest mo-
ment,' expressing at the same time his horror of such
deceit.
The ministers of the french church in London were
in constant attendance. If Casaubon received the
eucharist on the last day from the hands of an eriglish
bishop, he could do this without giving umbrage to
the french ministers, on the score of the intimate
31 Comm. in Polyb. (1617), prsef. p. 10: ' Majestatis tuse humani-
tate sustentata.'
32 See Eph. pp. 444. 516.
8:5 Register of Westminster Abbey ; ' burials in church and chapels.'
34 Meric, Pietas, p. 91 : ' Deinde rem.ipsam vehementer detestatufl
et aborainatus est.' The words 'rem ipsam' are to be understood only
of an act of dissimulation.
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614. 473
Headship which subsisted between himself and
A.ndrewes. And before the rise of the Laudian
school, the english church and the reformed churches
of the continent mutually recognised each other as
sisters 35 .
Scioppius boasted that he had killed Casaubon by
his f Holofernes.' The wonder is that with such an
organisation he should have survived his fifty-fifth
birthday. Thoris, as has been said, believed that the
mind sustained the frame. What the muscular fibre
was unequal to, the flow of energy from the brain
supplied 36 . He was carried on by the ardour
and passion of the work which was consuming his
strength.
It would be more plausible to say that Casaubon
killed himself over the ' Exercitations on Baronius. 5
Mere intellectual labour, not pushed beyond fatigue,
would not appear to be destructive of vital energy.
What depresses the powers of life is prolonged labour
when combined with anxiety. And anxiety is insepa-
rable from the effort of composition. Whether the
instrument of composition be a pen or a brush, whether
the materials be facts, figures, harmonies, the effort to
combine the whole on a given point exercises an ex-
hausting influence, which the mere accumulation of the
15 During Elisabeth's reign the English embassy in Paris had no
chaplain, and the ambassador attended the reformed preche at Cha-
renton. See conversation of lord Leicester with Laud, in Blencowe,
Sydney papers, p. 261.
39 It is possible that this biological theory was popularised in medi-
cine, when medicine was classical, by its being the traditional account
of Aristotle's case. See Censorinus, Dies nat. 14: 'Naturalem sto-
mach iinfirmitatem, crebrasque morbidi corporis offensiones, adeo virtute
animi diu sustentasse (Aristotelem) ut magis mirum sit ad annos sexa-
ginta tres vitam protulisse, quam ultra non pertulisse.'
474 LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
data as they occur, does not. The composition of the
' Exercitations ' made this demand on Casaubon's shat-
tered strength. There was incessant effort to combine
all the extant textual data upon the point in hand ; the
imperative necessity pressing on his mind, that his
criticism, if it were to be worth anything, should ex-
haust the authorities. Casaubon early noticed his own
disinclination to write 37 . While reading afforded him
the keenest pleasure of which he was susceptible, he
took pen in hand reluctantly. As Burnet 38 says of
bishop Lloyd, ' He did not lay out his learning with the
same diligence that he laid it in.' The cerebral energy,
exhausted by prolonged attention, was seldom exu-
berant enough for the higher effort of combination.
When he had written, he was dissatisfied with the
result 39 . His dissatisfaction was not with the manner
or the style, but with the incompleteness of his work.
If he had had more time, he could have made more
research 4 **. ' I have the goodwill, what I have always
lacked is leisure, and freedom from anxiety, defects of
which my writings bear too manifest trace.' Almost a
formula for the beginning of his letters is 4 etsi negotiis
obruor, et nutat valetudo.' One might think he had
the business of a bank, or a public office, on his shoul-
ders. Yet it was not so. He had probably as large a
37 Epp. 266 : ' Quotidie adolescit in nobis OKVOS scribendi, et otii
desiderium ad studia sapientise et philologies.' Ep. 1 1 1 1 : ' Nos in-
finita et aKpar^s quaedam aliquid semper indies addiscendi libido facit
in scribendo ssepe omissiores. segre impetramus a nobis, ut scribendis
iis, quse semel observavimus, operam et tempus impendamus.'
38 Own Times, i. 345.
39 Eph. p. 942 : 'Qusedam hodie, sed quae mox displicuerunt.'
40 Suetonius, Tib. 65. comment.: 'Animus non deest ; voluntas j
etiam superest ; otium K<U TO a^pip.vov hactenus semper defuerunt, quod
nstra scripta produut nimis.'
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614. 475
diare of leisure as can be secured by any man who
loes not withdraw into a solitary cell. But when the
orain is preoccupied by other currents, and the energy
is drawn off into books, calls for efforts of external
attention, alarm and distress.
For Casaubon's aims no leisure would have sufficed.
Other effort has a limit, but in research the horizon
recedes as we advance, and is no nearer at sixty
than it was at twenty. As the power of endurance
weakens with age, the urgency of the pursuit grows
more intense. It is in vain that moralists warn anti-
quaries 41 to remember the shortness of life. It is
better to write nothing than to produce incomplete
work. And research is always incomplete.
Casaubon killed himself over the ' Exercitations.'
With his mal-organisation, his life could not have been
long, but excessive labour, joined with mental anxiety,
hastened the end. * Beginning,' says Thoris 42 , ' in the
evening of life, and with shattered constitution, an
undertaking vast, arduous, and " de longue haleine," he
pursued it with an energy and an assiduity of toil
which younger men ought not to venture to imitate.
He possessed every mental endowment required for the
performance ; he had abundant material accumulated.
What he wanted was time. He had begun, as
Crassus said to Deiotarus, "to build at the eleventh
hour." But a man whose thoughts were on eternity,
who lived only in mental energy, Casaubon reckoned
not the number of his years, felt not the encroachment
of age, or the sap of health, or the decay of his body.'
41 Hearne, in the Rambler, no. 7 1 : 'It is the business of a good
antiquary, as of a good man, to have mortality always before him.'
42 Thorii ep. : ' Magnum opus, et longioris animse, aggressus in vitse
crepusculo, et deliquio valetudinis . . .'
476 LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
All men of real science have probably felt something
of what Newton has expressed, the painful contrast of
the infinity of nature, and the insignificance of any one
man's knowledge of it. But the same is true of lite-
rature. Wyttenbach has described 43 the mirage, from
the illusion of which, no experience of others can save
the incepting scholar. ' From the vantage ground of
my youth, I looked down over the outspread stretch
of life on which I was entering, as upon a limitless
plain. The task I had set myself (an edition of Plu-
tarch) seemed to lie close before me, and within my
grasp. But as age advanced, things assumed a different
aspect. The horizon of my span of life drew nearer,
that of my task receded. Ten years passed away ; the
end of my labour was not even in sight. Five years
more ; what remained to do was still more than what
was completed.'
Thus it has been the fate of many men of learning
to be crushed under the burden of their own accumu-
lations. Like Leonardo da Vinci, who was surprised
by death set. 67, before he had time to reduce his piles
of MS. notes to order, Casaubon must be reckoned among
those who hoarded more than they could ever use.
But it was not avarice, it was the irresistible instinct
of acquisition. For what he gave to the press was
massive ; and yet it was, as he often told Meric M , ' a
very small instalment of his multitudinous schemes.'
He left nothing prepared for press beyond a small
part of his intended commentary on Polybius. This
was printed, in Paris 1617, by Madame Casaubon, and
amounts to no more than 21 2 pages in 1 2mo. Florence
43 Plutarchi Opp. torn. i. prsef. p. viii.
44 Meric, Pietas, p. 110: ' Non esse multesimam partem suarum
vigiliarum.'
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614. 477
eligiously preserved all her husband's papers 45 , and
carried them with her when she returned to Paris
ifter Isaac's death 46 . The king and Andre wes selected
a few papers of a theological character to retain, for
any others they probably cared nothing. The rest,
along with the seven volumes of the ' Ephemerides/
remained in Paris, at first in Madame Casaubon's
keeping, but afterwards came into the hands of John
Casaubon, the eldest son. During this time they were
lent freely, and were given to any persons who mani-
fested curiosity -to see them. In this way the fourth
fasciculus of the ' Ephemerides ' was lost irrecoverably.
It contained the three years 1604, 5, 6, and part of
1607, and as it must have contained many particulars
relating to persons still living, was likely to be an
object of great curiosity to the Parisians of Casaubon's
set. About 1619-20, John Casaubon entered the order
of the capuchins, and his father's papers came again
into the hands of Florence, and of the third son, Paul,
who was living in Paris. They agreed to send them
over to England to Meric. Besides those wkich were
sent at first, Meric diligently collected any stray leaves
which he could hear of in the hands of friends of his
father. As late as 1638, he recovered in this way a
volume of memoranda, which had turned up, and been
sent over by Paul 47 . Meric had all these papers sorted,
45 Meric, Pietas, p. 1 1 1 : ' Semper cavit sedulo, ne de iis parum
sollicita videretur, quse ad mariti memoriam famanupe pertinerent.'
48 The history of Isaac Casaubon's papers is given with great
minuteness in a letter from Meric to Philibert de la Mare, dated Can-
terbury, 1641. It is printed below, Appendix, note B, from bibl.
nat. MSS. fonds Moreau, 846.
47 Adversaria, torn. 22. p. 7 : ' Missa a fratre Paulo Casaubono
novembri mense anni 1638.'
478 LAST ILLNESS, DEATH,
and extracts made of everything which appeared of an
original character ; critical remarks, opinions on books
or authors, etc. While he lived at Canterbury, Meric's
house being on the high road to London, was much
resorted to by foreign scholars, to whom he was always
ready to show these documents. At Meric's death, he
left the six volumes of the ' Ephemerides,' as we have
said, to 48 the cathedral in which he had held a pre-
bendal stall more than forty years. The rest of the
papers he deposited in the Bodleian.
Here both the originals, and the excerpts which
had been made by Meric's direction, remained for
many years untouched by, most likely unknown to,
any of the 300 or 400 resident recipients of the
endowments of the colleges. In 1709, a german phi-
lologian from Wittenberg, studying in the Bodleian,
unearthed them, and was allowed by Hudson, the then
librarian, to take a copy 49 . Adding to Meric's excerpts
other extracts made by himself, and much extraneous
matter, J. C. Wolf published, on his return to Germany,
a small volume under the title, f te Casauboniana,' Ham-
burg 1710. It was then the heyday of Ana, before the
abuse of the title, for trading purposes, had brought
the species into such dispute, that the abbe d'Olivet,
writing in 1743, could speak of them as 'the disgrace
of our age 50 .' Wolfs publication was not calculated to
raise the credit, either of the class of Ana, or of Cas-
48 Bibl. nat. ut sup. : ' Omnem librariam supellectilem libere promsi,
non ut auferrent quicquam, sed ut viderent quod vellent.'
9 Wolf, Casauboniana, prsef. p. 48 : 'Ad Casauboni imprimis
schedas, ut ad alia omnia, V. C. Jo. Hudsoui prolixo in me favore,
aditus mihi patuit/
60 Hist, de 1'acaddmie fran9. 2. 197 : 'Ces satires anonymes, ces
Ana, ces gazettes littdraires, dont le nombre se multiplie impunement
tous les jours a la honte de notre sie'cle.'
aubon. I
AND CHARACTERISTIC. 1614. 479
itibon. Hitherto the termination had been understood
to denote reported conversation the table-talk of the
learned, the wise, or the witty. Such were the
Scaligerana i a , 1669; Scaligerana 2 a , 1666; Perro-
niana, 1666; Thuana, 1669; Menagiana, 1693; Sor-
beriana, 1691 ; Chevrseana, 1697. In en titling his book
Casauboniana,Wolf incurs the charge of having, though
innocently, allured purchasers by a false description of
his wares 61 . Janson Van Almeloveen had just pub-
lished, at Eotterdain 1 709, his splendid collection of the
Letters and Dissertations of the two Casaubons, father
and son. Public attention was thus called again, nearly
a century after Isaac's death, upon the name. Those
who, as must have been the case with many, found the
epistles an undecipherable hieroglyphic, would gladly
seize on a book which promised a short cut to what a
giant in learning had to tell. Their disappointment
must have been great when they found nothing con-
versational in the volume.
Even if Casaubon had found a Boswell, it may be
doubted if his talk could have been effectively reported.
We have no account of his style of conversation, but
we are sure it had not the pith and epigram, which
constitute table-talk such as can be carried away, and
reproduced. Two mots indeed of Isaac Casaubon are
handed down. On his first coming to Paris, and being
shown over the Sorbonne 52 the old hall before it was
61 In the course of a few years the termination ana received this
extension, and from denoting reported conversation, came to signify
memoranda of reading. A collection of such memoranda, which in
1716 had borne tli e title of ' Me*moires litteYaires/ in a 2^. ed. in 1740,
came out as Mathanasiana.
>2 Menagiana, 2. 387 : 'La premiere fois que Casaubon vinten Sor-
bonne elle n'avoit pas encore 6t6 rebatie on lui dit ; Voila une sale
ou il y a quatre cens ans qu'on dispute : il dit, Qu'a-t-on de'cide' 1 '
480 LAST ILLNESS, DEA Til,
pulled down his guide said, ' Voila une sale ou il y a
quatre certs ans qu'on dispute/ 'Qu'a-t-on decide V was
the retort of the huguenot. The scene of the other
saying was also the Sorbonne 53 , where he had sate
through a long disputation in the barbarous language
of the schools, which was still cherished in the con-
servative university of Paris. Casaubon remarked, on
coming out, that * he had never heard so much latin
spoken without understanding it.' These repartees,
collected in the salons of Paris by Menage, who was a
year old at Casaubon's death, are the exceptions which
prove the rule. Casaubon was an abundant, but not
an epigrammatic, talker. He drew from his memory,
and not from his mother-wit. His a propos was that of
facts and instances, not of images. Whatever comes
up, he can pour out an inexhaustible stock, of suggested
parallels. In the preface to * Polybius,' to take one
example, he has to speak of the usefulness of history to
men of action 51 . There immediately rushes upon his
memory a crowd of instances in point, from Hannibal
down to the Turkish sultans of late times. And this
muster-roll flows from his pen so easily, that we see it
is not the laboured compilation of the desk, paraded to
make a show of learning, but the lavish expenditure of
a boundless wealth. When Menage says 55 that Cas-
aubon ' ecrivoit de source,' he does not mean that he
drew upon his own genius or invention in opposition
to books. He means that he was not an index man.
He did not compile his quotations ; they suggested
themselves by their relevancy. He thought of the
53 Menagiana, 3. 34.
64 See above, p. 221.
55 Menagiana, 2. 153 : * Je ne fais que de themes, Casaubon Ecrivoit
de source.'
CHARACTERISTIC.
481
object through- the words of the ancients. The amass-
ing of references did not become itself his object.
kThis habit of his mind is reflected in his ' Adversaria/
hen Wolf gave to the world his selection from Cas-
bon's papers, under the title of ' Casauboniana/ great
was the expectation of the learned, and great their dis-
appointment. The literary public unanimously pro-
nounced the collection devoid of anything which could
be expected from the great reputation of Isaac Casau-
bon 56 . The gossips found in it no scandal, the curious
no autobiography, the learned no original criticism. The
explanation is to be found in Casaubon's peculiar system
of work. He read pen in hand, with a sheet of paper
by his side, on which he noted much, but wrote out
nothing. What he jots down is not a remark of his
own on what he reads, nor is it even the words he
has read ; it is a mark, a key, a catchword, by which
the point of what he has read may be recovered in
memory. The notes are not notes on the book, but
memoranda of it for his own use. When he had accu-
mulated a number of sheets, he tied them up in a
packet, or stitched them up in a book, and called it ' in-
digesta vXy ' materials. 'Casaubon's way,' Grotius
tells 57 Camerarius, ' was not to write out what he de-
signed to publish, but to trust to his memory, with at
least a few jottings, partly on the margin of his books,
partly on loose sheets true sibylline leaves/ The name
56 D'Artigny, Nouveaux me'moires, i. 296: 'II n'y a presque rien
clans ce recueil qui rponde a I'ide'e qu'on doit se former d'Isaac Cas-
aubon, 1'un des plus S9avans et des plus honnetes homines de son
fede.'
57 Grotii Epp. app. ep. 184 : 'Is erat Casaubonus qui nihil parati
penes se liaberet, nisi in memoria, et si forte in oris librorum, aut
brevibus scbedis, Sibyllse foliis.'
I i
482 CHARACTERISTIC.
6 Adversaria' was given to these memoranda by Isaac
himself. But they are of a very different type from
the Adversaria of Turnebus, or Barthius, which, like
the papers of Dobree published by his friends after his
death, contain notes on classical writers. Casaubon's
notes are bare references, and references not to places
in books, but to the thing or word to which he intended
to recur. To this vast mass of material his own memory
was the only key. The demand thus made upon the
memory was prodigious, and the faculty seemed to
respond to it. He told 58 de Thou that the mass of
citation in the * Exercitations' was in great part drawn
from his memory, which supplied him with what he
read ten, twenty, nay, thirty years before. Without it
he could not have produced what he did.
The printed books which belonged to him were used
by him in the same way, scored under, and marked any-
how, to catch the eye in turning over the leaves. The
blank pages, the title page, or any page, serve to
hold a reference. Hence, while the scholar reckons
among his choicest treasures a greek volume with mar-
ginal corrections in Scaliger's hand, a volume which has
belonged to Casaubon is merely defaced by the owner's
marks and memoranda. He valued his books more
than anything else that belonged to him. But he valued
them only as the tools he was to work with. What
cripples him when he is at work on Baronius in London
is the not having his own books. Not only that many
he wanted were not to be got in London, but that the
copies with which Young supplied him could not replace
to him his own, in which he could find anything ( quos
18 Ep. 931 : ' Veniunt in memoriam quotidie quae legi ante decem,
viginti, aut etiam triginta annos.'
CHA RA CTERISTIC. 483
usu contrivi/ His advice to students is 59 : c Eemember
ihat it is no use to have read a thing, unless you retain
it in your memory. Make notes therefore of everything
you read, as aids to memory.' ' Practical wisdom/ he
says again 60 , 'is only the recollection of many things/
The ' Adversaria,' then, are, for the most part, mere
hints for his own use, and which cannot be put to use,
even when they can be deciphered, by another 61 . Some
aid indeed may be derived from them by the biographer.
Casaubon occasionally marks upon a sheet of such
scratchings the time and place of reading. At least we
can get from them an insight into his method of read-
ing, and the sources of his knowledge. They serve, in
these respects, to supplement the diary. In the ' Cas-
auboniana' all these personal indications are wanting.
Wolfs object not being biographical, he retrenched all
that was individual and local, and reduced each note to
its literary content. For these reasons the ' Casauboni-
ana' cannot rank with their fellows, and will not be read
by those readers, if any there be now, who .take -''delight
in the Ana of the i/th century. The scholar, however,
who may take the pains to examine these disjointed frag-
ments, lying there massive and helpless, like the boulders
of some abraded stratification, will at least recognise the
remains of a stupendous learning. What Goethe said 62
59 Adversaria, torn. 16 : ' Quicquid legis in excerptorurn libros
referre memineris. haec unica ratio labanti memoriae succurrendi.
scitum enim illud est, Tantum quisque scit, quantum memoria tenet.'
60 Prsef. in Polyb.
61 Wolf, Casaubouiana, p. 273 : ' In curis Polybianis ampla seges ob-
servationum exstat . . . sed ita plerumque congestarum, ut nullus fere
observetur ordo, nonnulla subindicentur potius quam edisserantur!
62 Goethe to Zelter. Goethe's observation is so appropriate to the
case of Casaubon, that I give the whole passage below. See Appendix,
note D.
I i 2
484 CHARACTERISTIC.
of Niebuhr, is here true of Casaubon, ' It is not what he
tells me, but how he tells me it, that I care for. It is
the deep insight, and thorough manner of the man
that edifies/
Coleridge's title pages would fill a large volume ; and
'if Herder's powers had been commensurate with his
will, all other authors must have been put down 63 / Of
the innumerable treatises, which Casaubon announces as
in preparation, few traces are to be found in his papers.
When some subject of classical antiquity comes up, and
he says he is going to publish a book on it, and that he
has the materials by him, how much exists in his memory,
how much in his scattered notes, he does not himself
know. To accumulate the passages, to understand them
in their mutual light, to arrange them in some sort of
order, all this chiefly in his memory and then from them
to write his diatribe this is his literary method. His
schemes of this kind, unaccomplished, are here enume-
rated, but the list is, probably, far from exhaustive :
1. A second volume of Exercitations on Baronius.
2. As part of the foregoing, or as independent treatises :
(i) A disputation on transubstantiation. (2) On sacrifice in
the Christian church. See Exercitt. pp. 503. 554.
3. Of his commentary on Polybius he habitually spoke as
if it were complete. But, beyond the small fragment printed
at Paris, 1617, only very trifling notes towards it are found
among his papers, from which Meric drew what he contributed
to Gronovius' Polybius, 1670. Cf. Exercitt. p. 564, 'in laborio-
sissimis nostris (ad Polybium) commentariis accurate earn dic-
tionem interpretamur.'
4. On the shows of the amphitheatre, and the games of the
circus.
5. De magistratibus romanis. Of this project Adversaria
29 preserves a fragment.
63 De Quincey, Works, 6. 117.
CHARACTERISTIC. 485
6. Liber de re critica. To this project, frequently referred
3 by Casaubon, belong a few notes hardly to be deciphered
n Adversaria 23.
7. Commentarius de re vestiaria. This was planned at
jeneva when he wanted to lecture on the De Pallio. He
illudes to it repeatedly as finished ; see Animadvv. in Ath.
13. 3, ' qusesivimus diligentissime de poetse mente in nostris De
e vestiaria commentariis ; eo, te, lector, rejicere fas et jus esto
nobis.' But all that remains of it is some ' collectanea ' in
Advers. 8 and 29. Nor is there reason to think that any
more was ever written out, as Meric says he had only a
rudis indigestaque moles ' of this and of the De coloribus.
8. De coloribus. See Animadvv. in Ath. i. 47.
9. Peripateticse discussiones. See Strab. vit. 'quod brevi,
faciente D. O. M., edemus,' and also Diog. Laert. not. 5. 2.
.TO. Liber de proverbiis, eph. p. 751, July 1610: C I resolved
o-day to publish shortly a book on proverbs, together with a
century of proverbs.'
11. On the method of reading history. He intended a
reatise on this ; he discoursed on the topic as preliminary to his
ecture on Herodotus in 1601, and notes of this lecture,
aken down at the time, are in Bibl. nat. anciens fonds, 6252,
and cf. Advers. 24.
12. Observationum liber. In February 1583, he obtained
a licence from the petit conseil to print a book under this title.
Geneva MSS. registre du pet. cons. fo. 25. It never appeared,
[n 1598 he is resolving, eph. p. 112, ' seriously to begin to cast
what I have observed on various authors into a book of " commen-
larii observationum variarum." ' Notwithstanding this resolve
duly recorded in the diary, the book was never written.
13. An edition of the LXX. See ep. 186.
14. A commentary on Homer. See Strabo, comm. 13. i, he
will be brief in his notes on these two books of Strabo, because
le is preparing shortly to publish his notes on Homer. Nothing
of the kind is found, nor is there reason to think anything was
ever written.
15. An edition of yElianus Tacticus. See Polyb. prsef. p. 61 :
^Elianum emendatum et observationibus nostris illustratum,
deo propitio, vulgabimus/
486 OH A RA CT ERISTIC.
16. A fuller edition of ^Eneas Tacticus. ^En. Tact. pref. the
present hasty edition is but ' pignus navandae operse.'
17. An edition of Josephus ; but this time with the proviso,
' if I were younger.' Ep. 848. He had begun, at Geneva, a
translation of the Hebrew Josephus into latin, not knowing, at
the time, that it had been already done by Munster, and pub-
lished at Basel 1541. He had got into the 2nd book before dis-
covering this. Gronovius, though living in a land of books, it
appears, from Burmann, Syll. 2. p. 571, had never heard of the
Hebrew Josephus.
1 8. An edition of Stephanus of Byzantium. See Ep. 4 and
Colomies Bibl. choisie, p. 66.
19. Notes on the tragoedians. See Ep. 4: c Habeo in alios
scriptores grsecos, prsesertim tragicos, parata non pauca.'
20. An edition of Juvenal. See Ep. 523 : ' Eum poetam gra-
vissimum, si superi annuerint, accurate recensebimus/
2 1 . An edition of Celsus. See Ep. 533 : * Concinnanda editio,
cujus neminem jure pceniteat.'
22. Notes on Cicero, Epistolae ad Atticum. See Ep. 184:
' Audebimus et nos nostras divinationes publicare.'
23. An Arabic lexicon. See Eph. p. 510, epp. 511. 548.
24. Thesaurus. State Paper, Domestic, Jas. i. vol. 92. no. 95.
Savile to Carleton, The Thesaurus hee mentions, Mr. Casaubon
took that worke out of my handes above two yeares before his
death.' I find no other allusion to any such project by Casaubon.
Can it have been a lexicon to Chrysostomi Opera for which
Adversaria 28 contains a few notes?
Of all these schemes, and of others not a few, hardly
airy traces remain among the papers, because hardly
anything was ever put on paper. He deceived himself
into thinking that he had made progress in writing,
when the material was heaped up only in his memory.
He got at last the habit of putting by any topic as
it came up, with the remark, 64 'this we have discussed
64 See Greg. Nyss. p. 8 1 : ' De quibus alibi adfatim.' Scriptt. hist,
aug. prsef. p. 32. Notse in Diog. La. 5. 2 : 'De his nos alias.'
CHAR A CTERISTIC, 487
at length elsewhere/ The distinction between what
he had read, what he had noted down, and what he
had printed, became obliterated in his mind.
Next to the designed, but not performed, stands the
imperfectly executed. The list of -Isaac Casaubon's
finished works contains twenty-five distinct publica-
tions, not including prefaces to the books of others,
or second editions of his own books. Of these twenty-
five, however, not many are productions ' by which he
would have chosen to be judged. Some were mere
'juvenilia,' others imperfect attempts, which he was
unwilling to acknowledge. Of the first class were the
* Notes on Diogenes Laertius,' the ' Lectiones Theo-
criticse,' even in their enlarged form in Commelin's
edition of 1596. Of the Strabo of 1587 he says he
65 ' was ashamed to own the parentage/ For Aristotle
he did little more than correct the press, for the
printers. It is not till we reach the Theophrastus,
1592, that we meet with Casaubons characteristic
merit that we have an interpreter speaking from the
fulness of knowledge.
Well done, or ill done, or half done, however, Isaac
Casaubon's books are now consigned to one common
oblivion. They are written in latin, and scholar's
latin of the renaissance is a peculiar language, ac-
cessible to a very circumscribed public. But this is
not all. Even for this circumscribed public of scholars
Casaubon's books have but a secondary value. Phi-
lology is a science, not a fine art ; and it is the fate of
science that the books, in which it is consigned, are
in a constant state of supersession. A work of liter-
ature may be surpassed, but not superseded. The
15 Ep. 1 1 : ' Illud opus non ut partus legitimus ingenioli nostri sed
ut (Krp<op.a eg<ifj.rjvov liaberi debet.' Cf. ep. 580.
488 CHARACTERISTIC.
interpreter of the classics works for his own age only.
He is the medium through which we read an ancient
book, and the medium must be in the language and
mode of our own day. It must possess all the latest
improvements. The books of the scholars of the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries have, therefore, for
us little more than an historical interest. They
will be visited only by those curious enquirers, who
may wish to acquaint themselves with the history
of learning. The biographical data will be of more
interest than the philological matter. Yet as history
makes itself from age to age, the oldest names must
tend to recede from view. We cannot afford to know
all about everybody. How many years will elapse
before another reader will go through, as the present
writer has done, the bulky folio of Isaac Casaubon's
printed epistles, or the seven volumes of unprinted
answers of his correspondents in the Burney collection 1
The present imperfect memorial is the first that has
ever been attempted in the language of the country
which adopted and endowed him. Till an abler hand
shall erect an enduring monument in a modern tongue,
may this essay be at least 'professione pietatis ex-
cusatus ! '
But Casaubon's books, whatever their worth, were
not the man. The scholar is greater than his books.
The result of his labours is not so many thousand
pages in folio, but himself. The * Paradise Lost' is
a grand poem, but how much grander was the living
soul that spoke it ! Yet poetry is much more of the
essence of the soul, is more nearly a transcript of the
poet's mind, than a volume of 'notes' can be of the
scholar's mind. it has been often said of philosophy
that it is not a doctrine but a method. No philo-
CHARACTERISTIC. 489
;;ophical systems, as put upon paper, embody philosophy.
Philosophy perishes in the moment you would teach it.
Knowledge is not the thing known, but the mental
labit which knows. So it is with Learning.
Learning is a peculiar compound of memory, imagi-
nation, scientific habit, accurate observation, all con-
centrated, through a prolonged period, on the analysis
of the remains of literature. The result of this sus-
tained mental endeavour is not a book, but a man.
It cannot be embodied in print, it consists in the living
word. Such was Scaliger, as drawn to us by Cas-
aubon 66 : 'A man who, by the indefatigable devotion
of a stupendous genius to the acquisition of knowledge,
had garnered up vast stores of uncommon lore. And
his memory had such a happy readiness, that whenever
the occasion called for it, whether it were in conversa-
tion, or whether he were consulted by letter, he was
ready to bestow with lavish hand what had been
gathered by him in the sweat of his brow.' True
learning does not consist in the possession of a stock
of facts the merit of a dictionary but in the dis-
cerning spirit, a power of appreciation, 'judicium' as
it was called in the sixteenth century which is the
result of the possession of a stock of facts. Rare as
genius is, it may be doubted if consummate learning
be not rarer. A few such men there have been
Wyttenbach, Ruhnken, Bentley, in the last century,
83 Casauboni praef. in Opuscula Scaligeri, Paris, 1610: 'Is erat
Scaliger, qui stupenda felicitate ingenii, et assidua intentione studii,
quum esset assecutus ut ingentes rarse doctrinse opes in exprornpta sua
memoria, velut in sanctiore quodarn serario, haberet reconditas ; ut
quseque sese occasio subito offerebat, sive in communibus colloquiis,
sive ad qusesita per literas amicis responderet, liberali manu quicquid
magno sudore qusesiverat, promeret.'
490 . CHARACTERISTIC.
Lobeck in the present. Such a man was Isaac Cas-
aubon. It is a treasure which we can only possess in
* earthen vessels/ There came the death summons, and
at fifty-six all those stores which had been painfully
gathered by the daily toil of forty years were swept
away, and nothing left but some lifeless books, which
can do little more than a gravestone can do, perpet-
uate the name ' tot congestos noctes diesque labores
hauserit una dies/
But, besides his memory, the great scholar has left
us his example. There are books, and very useful
books, but of which the author is no more to us, than
a portion of the machinery which put them into type.
The many thousand pages which Isaac Casaubon
wrote may be all merged in the undistinguished mass
of classical commentary, and yet there would remain to
us as a cherished inheritance, the record of a life devoted
to learning.
In what does his example consist '? It is the one
lesson summed up in the epigram that ' genius is
patience/ What is often called ' genius ' was wanting
in Casaubon. His want of genius saved him from
falling, as Scaliger has sometimes done, into the tempta-
tion of pursuing the striking rather than the true.
What Lobeck has said of himself may be said of Casau-
bon, that 67 ' he has never aimed at brilliant results, but
at an exposition, as nearly complete as he could make
it, of the scattered material/ Industry was Casauboii's
genius. Not the industry of the pen, but the industry
of the brain.
It is well that we should be alive to the price at
which knowledge must be purchased. Day by day,
night by night, from the age of twenty upwards, Cas-
67 Friedlander, Mittheilungen, p. 23.
CHA RACTERISTIC. 49 1
aubon is at his books. He realised Boeckh's ideal who
has told us that in classical learning ' dies diem docet,
ut perdideris quam sine linea transmiseris.' When he
is not at his books, his mind is in them. Reading is
not an amusement, filling the languid pauses between
the hours of action ; it is the one pursuit engrossing all
the hours and the whole mind. The day, with part of
the night added, is not long enough.
His life, regarded from the exterior, seems adapted to
deter, rather than to invite imitation. A life of hard-
ship, in circumstances humble, almost sordid, short of
want, but pinched by poverty ; Casaubon renounced
action, pleasure, ease, society, health, life itself killing
himself at fifty-six. Shall we say that he did this for
the sake of fame ? Fame there was, but it reached him
in but faint echoes. Even what there was, was all
dashed by the loud slander of the dominant ecclesias-
tical party, and the whispered suspicion of the van-
quished. At best, the limits of such fame must always
be circumscribed. To the great, the fashionable, the
gay, and the busy, the grammarian is a poor pedant,
and no famous man 68 . The approbation of our fellows
may be a powerful motive of conduct. It is powerful
to generate devotion to their service. It is not power-
ful enough to sustain a life of research. No other ex-
trinsic motive is so. The one only motive which can
support the daily energy called for in the solitary
student's life, is the desire to know. Every intel-
ligence, as such, contains a germ of curiosity. In
68 Cf. the Greville Memoirs, 2. 8 : ' At one there was to be a council
to swear in privy councillors and lords lieutenant, and receive Oxford
and Cambridge addresses ... I never saw so full a Court, so
much nobility with academical tagrag and bobtail.'
492 CHARACTERISTIC.
some few this appetence is developed into a yearning,
an eagerness, a passion, an exigency, an ' inquietude
poussante,' to use an expression of Leibnitz, which
dominates all others, arid becomes the rule of life 70 .
The public of a busy age and an industrial com-
munity has quite other notions of a literary life. It is
conceived to be a life of ease ; it is the resource of the
indolent, who would escape from the penalty of labour.
An arm chair and slippers before a good fire, and
nothing to do but to read books. This is the epicurean
existence, the ' nova Atlantis of mediocrity a 1'engrais,'
which we call academic life. Of the self-denial, the
unremitting effort, the incessant mental tension, the
strain to touch the ever-receding horizon of knowledge,
the fortitude which
' Through enduring pain,
Links month to month, with long-drawn chain
Of knitted purport,'
of the devotion of a life, the modern world of letters
knows nothing. Our literature is the expression of the
life from which it emanates. It bears the stamp of
half knowledge. It is the dogmatism of the smatterer.
It has no groundwork in science. Its employment is
to enforce the chance opinion of the day by epigram
and sarcasm. It hates and ridicules science. It dis-
believes in it. As Saint-Beuve says 71 of De Tocque-
ville, ' II a commence a penser avant d' avoir rien appris,
70 Compare Milton's account of the origin of 'Paradise Lost,'
' Reason of church, gov.' bk. 2; introd : ' I began to assent to ...
divers of my friends, and not less to an inward prompting which now
grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to
be my portion in this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature,
I might perhaps leave something so written to after times as they
should not willingly let it die.'
71 Causeries, 15. 105, note.
CHARACTERISTIC. 493
ce qui fait qu'il a quelquefois pense* creux/ Why is it
that the modern man of science stands on a higher
level, moral and intellectual, than the modern man of
letters ? It is not owing to any superior value in the
>bject of knowledge, but because the physicist is pene-
ited by the spirit of thorough research, from which
our literature is entirely divorced.
Schiller says 72 , ' However much may be gained for
the world as a whole by the specialisation of study, it
cannot be denied that the individuals whom it befals
are cursed for the benefit of the world/ Was not this
Casaubon s case 1 The diary is a complaint, a groan,
a record of unhappiness. But more closely looked into,
it will be found that all this misery is derived not from
the scholar's life, but from the impediments to leading-
it which external circumstances create. If he could
only get rid of cares, expel intruders, shut the door of
his study, and get his time to himself! time, 'cujus
penuria laboro ! ' That fatal want of time ; the short-
ness of each day ! the shortness of life ! This is the
true scientific spirit, and was the temper which tradition
handed down as the temper of the greek philosophy 73 .
We find no complaint in the diary of the weariness of
study, but much of those unkind friends who broke
in upon study. It is not the search for truth which
exhausts him, it is the being called off from it. The
worry and irritation of which the diary is the sad
record arises not from the pursuit itself, but from the
impeded energy. He chafes under the inflictions of
visitors, and the distractions of business. This resist-
ance of the invasion of his workshop was not shyness,
72 ^Esthetische Briefe, Br. 6.
73 Cf. Zeno's saying, Diog. Laert. 7. 23, that 'what men most want
is time.'
494 CHARACTERISTIC.
or defective sociability. Of course it was ascribed to
these weaknesses. We read in the life of Wyttenbach 74
that he was charged with misanthropy by ' society ' in
Leyden. On hearing of this accusation, Creuzer wrote
to him ; ' I know well what this indictment means. It
means that you allow yourself only with the learned,
and do not give up your time to the gossips. A man
cannot live with these and with the muses too/
When Casaubon is in his studies, and has made his
orisons, shut up alone with God and with his books,
then he is in fruition. He tells Lingelsheim 75 , ' All my
joys and delights are in my pursuits of literature, such
as they are. With them I sweeten the bitter of life/
Writing is an effort, mixed with pain. Teaching
he did not, like Scaliger, abhor it was no pleasure.
But of reading he was insatiable. The compiler's task
fatigues Casaubon, as it does others. Of imbibing
knowledge he never tires. The enjoyment is, in part,
the intellectual gratification of mere acquisition; the
sense of the widening horizon, of the mastery of a
given field, of the entering into complete possession.
He writes 76 , set. 37, * Long ago, inflamed with the ardour
of learning, I eagerly procured for myself the scholia
on all the poets, on the epigrammata, on Oppian/ De
Maistre contemptuously describes his man of science 77 ,
as pale with watching, blotched with ink, his arms
74 Mahne, p. 206 : ' Quod nonmilli mussitant subinde " paucorum te
esse hominum," illud earn vim habet, doctiorum te esse, non otioso-
rum, non male feriatorum, non vulgi. quorum qui esse velit, is non
potest musarum esse.'
75 Ep. 408 : ' In literulis nostris omnes nobis posits sunt voluptates
atque amrenitates quibus serumnosse liujus vitse ra iriKpa edulcamus.'
76 Lectiones Theocriticse, p. 63. The passage is one of the large
additions to the 2 d . ed. of 1596.
77 Soire'es de Sainct Pe'tersbourg, i. 95.
CHAR A CTERISTIC. 495
led with books and instruments, dragging himself
;ilong the highway of truth. De Maistre belonged to a
generation, or a class, to whom the sweetness that is
::bund in learning was unknown. Casaubon had tasted
It ; but what was peculiar to him was that he carried
on into middle life the appetite of youth, the passionate
desire to exhaust knowledge.
But his gratification has also another source. What
he reads delights him. Prosaic as Isaac Casaubon' s
own style is, he is not wholly without a sense of
poetry. The twenty-seventh poem of the Theocritean
collection draws from him the confession ' mellitissimum
carmen/ He derives pleasure from Nonnus. But his
preference is for the practical sense of such authors as
Strabo and Polybius. Greek speculation was wholly
closed to him. His idea of philosophy is that political
philosophy may be learned from history, and ethical
from biography 78 . He appreciates maxims of common
life such as were to be met with in the stoic school.
He believes, with his age, or rather with the 3rd
century, that Greek philosophy was the relic of a
primaBval revelation 79 . Athenseus, on which he spent
so much time, he found tiresome owing to the absence
of ethical motive in the book. Casaubon' s want of
classical feeling limited his pleasure in the pure classical
writers. The higher accents of Greek poetry and specula-
tion he could not catch. What stirs his soul is Christian
greek, e. g. S. Chrysostom, whose * Epistola ad Stagi-
rium ' excites him to rapture 80 . Of the canonical books,
the hebrew psalter is a constant companion, and never
70
Hist. Aug. Scriptores, praef.
Exercitt. in Bar. p. 507 : * Si philosophi quidem, ex primsevse
lucis reliquiis, balbutire de istis aliquid fortasse potuerunt.'
80 Eph. 1055 : ' divinos libros 1 o pectus del plenum ! '
496 CHARA CT ERISTIC.
fails to move him. It was the only book he had 81
brought with him to England, having thrown it casually
into his travelling-bag. He carried it with him every-
where, and he records that at Downham, in the thicket,
he had read over the upth psalm with effusion. He is
carried away by the enthusiasm of S. Paul. Reading
2 Cor. 4. 17, ' Our light affliction/ etc. he exclaims 82 ,
* Divine words ! Paul of all writers I could think
wrote not with fingers, pen and ink, but with pure
emotion, heart, bowels! Take any epistle of Paul,
e. g. that to the Philippians, and dwell upon it ; what
glorious passages, what glowing vehemence of lan-
guage !' With what attention he had read S. Chryso-
stom, voluminous as his writings are, may be instanced
in his saying 83 , ' Unless my memory deceives me,
Chrysostom, in his genuine works, never refers the
expression " daily bread," in the Lord's prayer, to the
eucharist.' It is almost a paradox that this most
successful and most thorough interpreter of the
classics, should have been a man who was totally
destitute of sympathy for their human and naturalistic
element.
The habitual attitude of Casaubon's soul was aban-
donment ; not merely resignation, but prostration
before the Unseen. He moved, thought, and felt, as
in the presence of God. His family and friends lay
near to his heart, but nearer than all is God. In all
his thoughts the thought of God is subsumed. He
81 Advers. 25. p. 125: ' Unicum fuit psalterium, quod in peram
projicerem, futurum mihi assiduum comitem/
82 Advers. ap. "Wolf, p. 135: 'Ille solus ex omnibus scriptoribus
non mihi videtur digitis, calamo, et atramento scripsisse, verum ipso
corde, ipso affectu, et denudatis visceribus.'
83 Exercitt. in Bar. p. 531.
CHARACTERISTIC. 497
hardly puts pen to paper without marking the sheet
ffvv flew 84 . A calvinistic creed, and a shattered organ-
ism, combined to foster this dejection, and to main-
tain him in a state of habitual despondency. Yet for
Casaubon, as for the huguenot of that time of re-
buke and defeat, out of weakness came strength.
The confidence, inspired by the sense that he was
the special care of almighty providence, balanced
the self-abasement of the individual. The phy-
sician Thoris 85 remarked that the mind had sus-
tained the body. The sustaining force was in part
intellectual energy, but in part, also, the courage of
Christian faith and hope, which relies on a power
above its own.
In such a temperament superstitious beliefs were
sure to lodge. Yet Isaac Casaubon was not more,
but rather less, superstitious than his age. He
swallows the alchemical fiction of 'potable gold 86 ,'
though his countryman Palissy had long before 87 ex-
posed it. All belief is with him a question of autho-
rity, and books. If a great author has said a thing,
it is so. He believes 88 that earth brought from Pales-
o
tine cured diseases, and availed against evil spirits,
because S. Augustine said so. That women were
sometimes turned into men he reads 89 in Hippocrates
84 Greg. Nyssen. p. 60, he notes : ' Mos ille piorum fuit laude clig-
nissimus, ut epistolis suis domini nomen prseponerent.'
85 See above, p. 474.
86 Eph. p. 978.
87 Palissy, Le moyen de devenir riche, p. 186. ed. 1636.
88 Exercitt. in Bar. p. 660: 'Hoc, quia tantse pietatis vir, non ut
ex incertis rumoribus acceptum, sed ut certo sibi compertum, narrat,
verum esse equidem nullus dubito.'
89 Advers. torn. 4.
K k
498 CHAR A CT ERISTIC.
and Plinius, and has heard of instances in our times 90 .
But stories equally well vouched by Gregory of Tours,
or by Beda, he rejects. The authority is insufficient.
Robert Constantine wrote in a friend's album that he
had then passed his hundredth year. Casaubon 91 will
not believe it ; he is * taking the old man's licence with
his age/ He hesitates to give his assent to the efficacy
of the royal touch 92 . It is vouched by grave witnesses,
but not by any ancient author. A prodigy well authen-
ticated is related to him *, as having happened at Cam-
bridge ; he replies, very cautiously, ' that if it were so,
it would be very marvellous/ He scorns 93 the fable of
pigmies, though their existence was vouched by an
eyewitness. But then here he relied upon Strabo,
who had in excellent greek pronounced pigmies to be
poetic fictions.
We have represented Casaubon as destitute of ima-
gination. He was without what is commonly called so
the inventive imagination of the poet, that dangerous
faculty which enlivens fact, but too often also super-
sedes it. But his realistic habit of mind took from
objects a vivid image; he was a close and keen ob-
server, always trying to form an exact picture. He was
particularly attracted by the marvellous in nature
monstrosities, deformities, oddities. He had collected
out of the ancients all the wonders he had met with
90 Bishop Burnet, Letters, etc. p. 246, believed that the same
transformation had happened to two nuns at Home.
91 Advers. torn. 4. f. 23.
92 Eph. p. 790: 'Res est visa dignissima, et cujus effectum viri
graves et pii prsedicant.'
* See Appendix, note C.
93 Comm. in Strabon, p. 189 : ' Legi Bergsei cujusdam Galli scripta,
qui se vidisse diceret. at non ego credulus illi ; illi, inquam, omnium
bipedum mendacissimo.'
CHARACTERISTIC. 499
in the course of his reading. Spontaneous combustion,
flying, levitation, conjuring tricks, enter into this cata-
logue. It is quite in the spirit of Ulysse Aldrovandi,
whose works, although many of them were already
in print, were unknown to Casaubon ; and the scholar
is of less easy credulity than the naturalist by pro-
fession. Casaubon had read with care and extracted 94
Fernelius ' De abditis rerum causis/ His copy of
Bodin's ' Theatrum' 95 bears throughout marks of the
attention with which he had read it. Among the
matters noted in it are (p. 391) the birth of a child
after eighteen months' pregnancy ; (p. 429) the breast
of an old woman which yielded milk upon being per-
se veringly sucked. The court and ecclesiastical circles
occupied themselves much with wonders such as would
now be abandoned to the speculation of the unedu-
cated. Morton writes to him that a comet has risen in
France, portending evil to the protestants 96 . Andre wes
tells him 97 a story of a man in Lombard Street who, in
the year 1563, had died of the plague, came to life
again sufficiently to order and eat a veal cutlet, and then
died for good. Another marvel, repeated by Andrewes,
had been told him by Still, late bishop of Bath and
Wells, how that after a thunderstorm at Wells, the
persons present in the cathedral, including the bishop
and his wife, had found themselves marked in various
parts of the body with crosses 98 . Casaubon suspends
his belief; he does not, like Laud, look timidly round
for omens, but these things interest him. He who
94 Adversaria, torn. 1 1 .
95 Now in King's library, Brit. Mus.
86 Burney MSS. 367. p. 87.
97 Advers. torn. 25. p. 115. 98 Ibid. torn. 28. p. 125.
K k 2
500 CHA RA CTEEISTIC.
pares down his memoranda to the briefest possible
jottings, spares the time to write out these narratives
of prodigies at full length.
Apart from the marvellous, he would inquire into and
investigate any striking natural facts. The curiosity
he exhibited in this direction is further evidence of his
craving appetite for information, without reference to
any use it might be turned to. He examined a Polish
envoy 1 , whom he met at Theobald's, on the natural
history of Poland, how a strong north wind had once
covered the country with flights of the pelican. He
makes a descriptive note of the ounce 2 which the
Savoy envoy brought from Algiers. He had spoken
with the horned man from the Cevennes, who was
brought to Paris in Henri iv/s time, and learned his
history from his own mouth. Thus he knew 3 that
horned men were possible, but men with hoofs (Satyrs)
were the creation of the poets. He goes, of course,
to see Banks' horse. Banks was in Paris with his
horse in 1601. From his name, Morocco, one would
conjecture that the horse was Arab, though Melleray 4
calls him * a bay english gelding/ Casaubon went to
the Rue de la barre du bee to see him, and took much
pains to investigate the phaenomenoii. He cannot
doubt that 'brutes are sometimes inhabited by evil
1 Advers. torn. 28. p. 124. The word used by Casaubon Js <ono-
crotalus.' He means, I suppose, the common pelican, Pelecanus ono-
crotalus, Linn., a species which, though pretty widely distributed over
eastern Europe, hardly occurs so far north as the Baltic.
2 ' Cattopardus ' Casaubon calls it; I suppose Tigris uncia of
Linnaeus.
3 De Satyrica poesi, i. c. 2. p. 148.
4 Apuleius, p. 250: 'Le cheval est de moyenne taille, guilledin
d'Angleterre.'
CHARACTERISTIC. 501
spirits 5 / yet in this instance he elicited the secret
of the horse from the showman's own confession.
The readiness with which the scotch jockey vir
honestissimus parted with his secret to Casaubon
may have been occasioned by his fear of being con-
demned for a wizard if he affected supernatural
powers. And the natural docility of the animal was
quite as wonderful as a miracle 6 . He is always
pleased when he can illustrate his author with some
fact which he has observed himself. So in Athenasus,
Hiero's tesselated pavement 7 with scenes from the
Iliad, reminds him of the gallery at Fontainebleau which
Francis I. had painted with scenes from the Odyssey.
Such illustrations, of which traces still appear in his
commentaries, had originally served to enliven an oral
lecture. Apropos of a passage 8 in Theophrastus, he re-
members that -the same fashion of pouring the wine
into the water, and not the water upon the wine, still
prevails in Languedoc. He illustrates the ' lapidosa
cheragra' of Persius 9 by mention of a case, probably
5 Adversaria, ap. Wolf, p. 55, cf. ' Letter to Martin,' London, 1615.
6 Eph. p. 325 : ' Quod potuimus praestitimus (i. e. in study) sed ita
ut horam daremus spectaculo illius equi Scotici mirabilis.' It is the
'dancing-horse' of 'Love's Labour's Lost/ act i. sc. 2. Cf. Hall,
Satires, 4. 2 : 'Who vies his pence to view some trick Of strange
Morocco's dumb arithmetic.' Whitelock's Zootomia, p. 143; Webster,
Works, 3. 207. Other passages are collected by Douce, Illustrations
of Shakespeare, p. 131.
7 Animadverss. in Athen. 5. 10, and i. 14. Fifty-eight paintings of
the adventures of Ulysses, designed by Primaticcio, were executed in
fresco by Nicolo del' Abate, right and left, on the walls of ' la grande
galerie.' This gallery, built and thus adorned by Francis i, was
pulled down by Louis xv, who could destroy what he could not replace.
See d'Argenville, Vie des peintres, 2. 16 (1782).
8 Animadverss. in Ath. n. 4. 9 Comm. in Pers. p. 392.
502 CHA RACTERISTIC.
familiar to the medical students, of a gouty patient
in the neighbourhood, who had discharged from his
joints more than his own weight in chalk stones.
The use of dogs to carry despatches through the
enemy's lines ; the checked plaids of the swiss pea-
santry ; the Spanish almonds he had seen at Lyons ;
the practice of fixing the antlers of the deer over the
gates of the chateau these are a few among many
examples, which might be culled from his various
notes, of his general remark 10 that every day life is
constantly reproducing its old incident.
When credulity is allowed scope, intolerance is not
far off. Isaac Casaubon, who differed from the re-
ligion of his contemporaries, could not endure that a
smaller minority should deviate from his own creed.
He takes credit with Du Perron 11 for James' inter-
position in the matter of Vorstius. He thioks the Eaco-
viari catechism so detestable that he would annihilate
it 12 . He would have had Stapleton's body dug up and
burnt 13 , for some extravagant expressions about the
power of the church. Worst of all, the burning of
Legatt, the feeble imitation by the english church of
the great crime of Calvin, had would that it had
*not Casaubon' s approval 14 .
Nothing is more common in his later years than
10 ^En. Tact. c. 15 : 'Vita quotidiana nova subinde suggerit, iis
quse olim acciderunt plane gemina. vidimus et nos Allobrogico bello,'
etc.
11 Resp. ad card. Perron, p. 5. 12 Eph. p. 963.
13 Advers. ap. Wolf, p. 49.
14 Exercitt. in Bar. ded. : ' Arriaimm in sua perfidia obstinatissi-
mum, qui in viuculis diu detentus, revocari ad sanam mentem nulla
ratione potuerat, flammis ultricibus tua majestas, impatiens injuries
factee domino nustro Jesu Cliristo, Deo a/mW<w, jussit tradi.'
CHARACTERISTIC. 503
the epithets e wicked/ ' impious,' ' blasphemous,' be-
stowed not on conduct, but on opinions. As the
ecclesiastical spirit gains on him, it invades his judicial
function as an interpreter. Once or twice he shows a
disposition to twist the sense of a passage in a father
to make it orthodox. The theory of verbal inspiration
comes across his path on the same ground. The hebrew
and greek of the canonical books, both words and
matter, are inspired by the Holy Spirit, who suggested
to the writers what they should say, and in what
words 15 . The word ^arroXoydv, though not the actual
word employed by our Lord, who spoke syriac, is yet
the exact equivalent supplied by the Holy Spirit 16 . At
this point the critic merges in the religionist, and he
refuses to apply the knowledge which he possesses to
the purpose of interpretation.
Casaubon's attitude towards the religious parties of
his time has been touched upon already, more than
once, in the course of this memoir. What has been
said may be summarised as follows.
Up to the middle of his Paris period, he had re-
mained, what he had been brought up, a pure
Genevan calvinist. This old huguenot party, thorough
believers in their own creed as exclusively true,
were for no compromise with the papal anti-christ.
About 1605 and thenceforward, his exclusiveness
began to give way. Commerce w 7 ith the world of
a capital, conflict with rational catholics, and an as-
siduous study of antiquity, could not fail to enlarge
his ideas, and necessitate a change of position. It is
highly probable that while this change of front was
being effected, he ' wavered/ and thought of trans-
ferring himself to the catholic church, of becoming,
15 Exercitt. in Bar. 13. 18. 1G Ibid, 14. 8.
504 CHARACTERISTIC.
simply and purely, a convert. But after a short
period of irresolution, during which he was feeling
his way, mentally and morally, he settled down in
the attitude which we may call fusionist. This was
the position of many of the best and most well-in-
formed protestants of that period, Grotius, Calixtus,
Jean Hotman, Bongars. Unable to acquiesce in the
narrow dogmatism of the calvinists, or to surrender
the world to the domination of the clergy, these
men proposed a middle term, a reunion of Christen-
dom on the basis of a comprehension. They re-
garded the Reformation, not as a new religion, but
as a return to primitive Christianity. They desired
to promote, not protestantism, but a religious revival,
in which all Christians should participate without
quitting the communion of the church universal. The
politicians, like Hotman and Bongars, aimed at bring-
ing this about by diplomatic means. They wanted
a general council. The more learned, like Casaubon,
sought the same end by popularising a knowledge of
antiquity. All parties understood that the edict of
Nantes was no settlement, that it was but a truce, which
was being worked for the benefit of the stronger party,
by the system of gradual encroachment.
Such seem to be the special characteristics of Isaac
Casaubon. Something remains to be said to indicate
his position in relation to the general course of ancient
learning in modern Europe.
De Quincey 17 has endorsed the complaint that 'the
great scholars were poor as thinkers/ De Quincey
wrote at a time when 'original thinking' was much
17 Works, 3. 1 68.
CHARACTERISTIC. 505
i repute, and was indeed himself one of the genial
ace to whom al] is revealed in a moment, in visions
f the night. To break entirely with the past, to
>we nothing to it, was then the ambition of all.
\. freshness and vigour characterise the english and
german literature of the fifty years 1780-1830,
which are due to this effort to discard the lumber of
unenlightened' ages. The * scholars' of the sixteenth
century were engaged in an employment the very
opposite of that of the ' genialities/ The scholars were
not ' poor as thinkers,' because thinking was not their
profession. They were busy interpreting the past.
The fifteenth century had rediscovered antiquity, the
sixteenth was slowly deciphering it. For this task,
memory, not invention, was the faculty in demand.
These two are 18 faculties which are usually found in
nverse energy in an age as in an individual. It is
no more appropriate to require of the interpreters
;hat they should have been thinkers, than to require
of the ' illuminati' that they should have been learned,
to a De Quincey the scholar is a ' poor thinker,' to
a Wyttenbach 19 the 'thinker' wears the appearance of
one who * would disguise, his ignorance of facts under
the polished surface of philosophical phraseology.' Nor
was it only in the age of genius that it was supposed
18 Cf. what Priestley says of himself, Autobiography, p. 76: 'My
defect in point of recollection, which may be owing to a want of suf-
icient coherence in the association of ideas formerly impressed, may
arise from a sort of constitution more favourable to new associations ;
so that what I have lost with respect to memory, may have been com-
>ensated by what is called invention, or new and original combinations
of ideas. This is a subject that deserves attention.'
19 Wyttenbach, Philomathia, 2. 145: ' Nunc sunt qui in historia
scribenda nil nisi disserant ac ratiocinentur, et rerum gestarum igno-
rantiam philosophando dissimulent?
506 CHAR A CT ERISTIC.
desirable to be without knowledge of what has been
said by those who have gone before us. M. Taine 20
has a remarkable chapter in which french hatred of
1 pedantry' is erected into a system. Victor Cousin
is rallied for his taste for original documents, and it
is made a serious blemish in his fame, that he pre-
ferred to write biography from textual sources, instead
of superseding the facts by a statement of his own
subjective consciousness.
Though it is out of place to complain of Casaubon
for being ' a poor thinker,' it is proper to ask how far
he was an efficient interpreter.
' The modest industry of Casaubon/ says Bernhardy 31 ,
' was the complement of the genius of Scaliger. Cas-
aubon was the first to popularise a connected know-
ledge of the life and manners of the ancients.' This
was all ; but fully to apprehend Bernhardy's words
demands some acquaintance with the previous history
of classical study.
The Eenaissance had dealt with antiquity, not in
the spirit of learned research, but in the spirit of free
creative imitation. In the fifteenth century was re-
vealed to a world, which had hitherto been trained
to logical analysis, the beauty of literary form. The
conception of style or finished expression had died
out with the pagan schools of rhetoric. It was not
the despotic act of Justinian, in closing the schools of
Athens, which had suppressed it. The sense of art
in language decayed from the same general causes
20 Philosophes fran5ois, ch. 8. It is said of Mezeray, who wrote
the history of France from Pharamond, that he once boasted, and that
in the presence of Du Gauge, that ' he never read any of the monkish
chronicles.'
n Grundriss d. romischen Lit. p. 120.
CHA RA CT ERISTIC. 507
had been fatal to all artistic perception.
Banished from the roman empire in the sixth
3entury, or earlier, the classical conception of beauty
of form re-entered the circle of ideas again in the
fifteenth century, after nearly a thousand years of
oblivion and abeyance. Cicero and Vergil, Livius
and Ovid, had been there all along, but the idea of
composite harmony, on which their works were con-
structed, was wanting. The restored conception, as
if to recoup itself for its long suppression, took entire
possession of the mind of educated Europe. The first
period of the renaissance passed in adoration of the
awakened beauty, and in efforts to copy and mul-
tiply it.
But in the fifteenth century, ' educated Europe ' is
but a synonym for Italy. What literature there was
outside the Alps was a derivative from, or dependent of,
the italian movement. The fact that the movement
originated in the latin peninsula, was decisive of the
character of the first age of classical learning (1400-
1550). It was a revival of latin, as opposed to greek,
literature. It is now well understood that the fall of
Constantinople, though an influential incident of the
movement, ranks for nothing among the causes of the re-
naissance. What was revived in Italy of the fifteenth
century was the taste of the schools of the early empire
of the second and third century. There were, no
doubt, differing characteristics, for nothing in history ever
exactly repeats itself. But in one decisive feature the
literary sentiment of the fifteenth century was a repro-
duction of that of the empire. It was rhetorical, not
scientific. Latin literature as a whole is rhetorical.
There are exceptional books, such as the ' Natural
history ' of Plinius, but, on the whole, the idea of science
508 CHARACTERISTIC.
was greek, and is alien to latin. To turn phrases, and
polish sentences, was the one aim of the litterateur of
the empire. This phraseological character of literary
effort is clearly marked in the preface which Aulus
Gellius (circ. A.D. 150) prefixed to his ' Attic evenings 2 V
In this he apologises to the reader for the seemingly
recondite nature of some of his chapters. ' This
profundity/ he says, 'is only such in appearance. I
have avoided pushing my investigations too deeply,
and present the reader only with the elements of the
liberal arts, with such matters only as it is a disgrace
to an educated man not to know.' This divorce of the
literature of knowledge, and the -literature of form,
which characterised the epoch of decay under the early
empire, characterised equally the epoch of revival in
the Italy of the popes. The refinements of literary
composition in verse and prose, and a tact of emenda-
tion founded on this refined sense, this was the ideal of
the scholar of the italian renaissance.
The decay and extinction of the artistic enthusiasm
of the Italians was gradual, but may be said to have
been consummated soon after the middle of the sixteenth
century. ' Petrus Victorias/ (who died 1584, set. 90,)
says de Thou 23 , ' longseva aatate id consecutus est, ut
literas in Italia nascentes, et pene extinctas, viderit.'
Out of the decaying sense of form arose, however, a
new perception, of which the remains of antiquity were
equally the object. Composition is at best an amuse-
ment of the faculties, and could offer no satisfaction to
22 Noctes Atticee, prsef. : ' Non fecimus altos minis et obscures in
his rebus qusestionum sinus; sed primitias quasdam et quasi liba-
menta ingenuarum artium dedimus, quse virum civiliter eruditum
neque audisse unquam, neque attigisse, si non inutile, at certe inde-
corum est.' 23 Thuani Hist. 4. 319.
CHA RA CTERISTIC. 509
he awakened intellect of Europe. As the eye, cap-
,ivated at first by charms of person, learns in time to
see the graces of the soul that underly and shape
:hem, so the classics, which had attracted by their
3eauty, gradually revealed to the modern world the
rich wisdom which that beauty enshrined. The first
scholars of the renaissance enjoyed, without labour, the
larmonies of language, the perfection of finish, which
}he great masters of latin style had known how to give
)o their work. Just when imitation had degenerated
into feebleness, mannerism, and affectation, the discovery
was made that these exterior beauties covered a world
of valuable knowledge, even in the latin writers. And
underlying the latin literature, it was perceived, was
one more valuable still, the greek. The interest of the
educated world was transferred from the form to the
matter of ancient literature. Masses of useful know-
edge, natural or political, the social experience of many
generations, were found to have lain unnoticed in
30oks which had been all the while in everyone's hands.
The knowledge and wisdom thus buried in the greek
writers presented a striking contrast to the barren
sophistic, which formed the curriculum of the schools.
It became the task of the scholars of the second
period of the classical revival to disinter this know-
ledge. The classics, which had been the object of taste,
became the object of science. Philology had meant
composition, and verbal emendation ; it now meant the
apprehension of the ideas and usages of the ancient
world. Scholars had exerted themselves to write;
they now bent all their effort to know. The period of
youthful enjoyment was at an end ; the time of man-
hood, and of drudgery, was entered upon. There came
now into existence, what has ever since been known as
510 CHARACTERISTIC.
' learning' in the special sense of the term. The first
period of humanism in which the words of the ancient
authors had been studied, was thus the preparatory
school for the humanism of the second period, in which
the matter was the object of attention.
As Italy had been the home of classical taste in the
first period, France became the home of classical learn-
ing in the second. Though single names can be men-
tioned such as Victorius or Sigonius in Italy, Meur-
ssius or Vulcanius in the Low Countries, who were
distinguished representatives of ' learning ' yet France,
in BudsBus, Turnebus, Lambinus, Joseph Scaliger, Isaac
Casaubon, and Saumaise, produced a constellation of
humanists, whose fame justly eclipsed that of all their
contemporaries. The first period in the history of
classical learning may be styled the italian. The
second period coincides with the french school. If we
ask why Italy did not continue to be the centre of the
humanist movement, which she had so brilliantly in-
augurated, the answer is that the intelligence was
crushed by the reviviscence of ecclesiastical ideas.
Learning is research ; research must be free, and cannot
coexist with the claim of the catholic clergy to be
superior to enquiry. The french school, it will be ob-
served, is wholly in fact, or in intention, protestant.
As soon as it was decided, as it was before 1600, that
France was to be a catholic country, and the university
of Paris a catholic university, learning was extinguished
in France. France, ' noverca ingeniorum,' saw her
unrivalled scholars expatriate themselves without re-
gret, and without repentance. With Scaliger and
Saumaise the seat of learning was transferred from
France to Holland. The third period of classical
learning thus coincides with the dutch school. From
CHA RACTERISTIC. 5 1 1
[593, the date of Scaliger's removal to Leyden, the
mpremacy in the republic of learning was possessed by
:he Dutch. In the course of the i8th century the
iutch school was gradually supplanted by the north
german, which, from that time forward, has taken, and
still possesses, the lead in philological science.
Of the six names which we have put forward as the
coryphaei of the second, or french, school of learning
Budseus, Turnebus, Lambinus, Scaliger, Casaubon, and
Saumaise each has his own individual character and
privileged faculty.
We are concerned at present only with Casaubon.
And it so happens, that it is precisely Casaubon who
forms the best and most perfect type of the school in
which he must be classed. He owes this representative
character to his deficiency in individual genius, which
made him receptive of the secular influences. While
the poetical principle, the creative impulse, had been v
the moving power of the renaissance, the faculty which
was called for, in the period which succeeded the
renaissance, was the receptive and the retentive faculty.
The spirit of discovery languished. It had been found,
that there was extant a vast body of knowledge, and
that to read ancient books was the road to it. The
self-moved mind, ' Das Selbstbewegen aus sich,' was no
longer the instrument ; the intellectual object was a
given object, as it had been in the isth century, so
again in the i6th. As, in the isth century, this object
had been the church dogmatic tradition, now it was
the classical tradition, which had been broken in the
6th century.
To put together this tradition, to revive the pic-
ture of the ancient world, patient industry, an
industry adequate to a complete survey of the ex-
5 1 2 CIIA RACTERISTIC.
tant remains of the lost world, was the one quality
required. This was Casaubon's aim, and inspiring
ideal. He is not a great grammarian. His sense of
language is not equal to that which has been pos-
sessed by the great critics from Scaliger down to
Cobet. Hence his metrical skill is small, and he is
rarely happy in an emendation where metrical or
grammatical tact come into play. Yet it is not incon-
sistent with this fact that Scaliger could say of
Casaubon, that he knew more greek than himself 24 ;
and that Euhnken 25 , more than a century and a half
later, could say, that, even then, he had been sur-
passed by no one but by Hemsterhusius. A very
moderate amount of scholarship is enough to enable
us to discern that there are limitations to Casaubon's
power over Greek. His own metrical composition
is abject. He is not very successful in greek prose 26 .
Yet he had so familiarised himself with greek idiom,
that greek phrases are continually emerging in his
latin sentences, as the. natural expression of his
thought. The explanation of this seeming incon-
24 Scalig a . 2 a . p. 45: ' C'est les plus grand homme que nous avons
en grec; je lui ce'de.' Cf. Seal. Epp. p. 221 : 'Et memoria avorum
et nostri sseculi grsece doctissimum.'
25 Elogium Hemsterhusii, p. xvi : ' Complectar brevi et non ex-
aggerandae rei causa, sed simpliciter ac vere hoc dico, Hemsterhusium
graecarurn scientia literarum omnino orrmes qui inde a renatis literis
excellenter in iis versati sint, ipsum etiam Isaacum Casaubonum, cui
doctorum hominum consensus primas deferre solet, longo post se inter-
vallo reliquisse.'
26 In the printed volume of Casaubon's epistles, Rot. 1709, there
are five addressed to Andrew Downes, in greek. The answers of
Downes are preserved, Brit. Mus. Burney MSS. vol. 363. As far as I am
able to judge in such a matter, the Cambridge professor has the ad-
vantage in point of style and rhythm, while Casaubon has a larger
vocabulary, and more command of idiom.
CHARACTERISTIC. 513
sistency is, that he thought in greek words and
phrases, but not in greek sentences. His memory
supplied him with a full vocabulary, but he had not
cultivated, either the logic or the rhythm, of the
greek sentence.
M. Germain, in a memoir on Casaubon at Mont-
pellier 27 , tells us that Casaubon 'had an astonish-
ing aptitude in collating the various MSS. of an
ancient author and eliciting the original reading/
Whatever other merits Casaubon' s editions may have
had in their day, that of a text regularly formed by
collation was not one. A survey of the existing
written tradition, as is now required of any text
editor, was an idea unknown to his age. But Cas-
aubon was even behind his age in this respect. He
never attempted collation. He did not even construct
a text out of the materials in his hands. His
proceeding was the rude proceeding which the ita-
lian humanists of a century before had employed.
This was, in difficult passages, to look into his MSS,
and select that reading which seemed to suit the
sense best. Though he had at his command the
treasures of the royal and medicean libraries, he
never used them for the establishment of a text.
But he made ample use of them for that which
was his true vocation extensive reading.
His available resources for emendation being feeble
and casual, he must have recourse to conjecture.
Conjectural emendation is a practice in which the
scholar may revel as exercise, but which the diplo-
matist, who is constructing a text, ever regards with
27 Acad. d. sciences et d. lettres de Montpellier, 5. 208 : ' Une
etoimante aptitude a conferer entre eux les MSS. des anciens auteurs
pour en retrouver la Ie9on originale/
Ll
514 CHARACTERISTIC.
suspicion. Of the merits of Casaubon's conjectures
I am not competent to judge. Their character ap-
pears to be the suggestions of realist knowledge,
rather than of tact of language. They are numerous,
but he is helpful, rather in correcting the minor
blunders of the copyist in a tolerably ascertained
context, than in those desperate and deeply seated
ulcers, which are apt to gather round an old wound.
The rights of rational conjecture, and the necessity
of sometimes overruling both the antiquity, and the
consent, of MSS, are as peremptorily asserted by Cas-
aubon as by Cobet*. But in practice, in the exer-
cise of this right which he claims, he is very
conservative 29 . ' Haec lectio non placet, placeret Juni-
ana, si esset ex libris 30 / ' Torrentius' conjecture is
very clever; but I cannot adopt it in the teeth of
all the MSS, from which I can never depart, except
when it is absolutely necessary ; and in this rule I
am sure a man so learned as Torrentius will agree
with me/ And in the short notes on Dionysius of
Halicarnassus he says 31 , 'What need here, I ask, of
conjecture 1 No sound scholar will ever hesitate to
reject a conjecture, however plausible, when it is
against MS. authority/ Eitschl 32 almost repeats this
dictum of Casaubon, when he says, ' There is hardly
any codex, of any classical author, so bad, that it will
not, occasionally, offer a good reading, which will
deserve more credit than a conjecture, even a likely
one/
* See note E in Appendix. 29 Advers. torn. 60.
30 Sueton. Claud. 24.
31 Comm. in Dionys. Hal. p. 182 : ' Conjecturis obsecro quid hie
opus est ? quas nemo satis qui sit sanus, non spernet, prse veteribus
codicibus quantumvis blandiantur.' 32 Opuscula, i. 539.
CHARACTERISTIC. 515
The language was to Casaubon not an end, but a
means. He never speaks with unscholarlike super-
ciliousness of the minutiae of grammatical technic ; but
he never dwells on these minutiae with pedantic self-
complacency. He would not dispense with an accurate
knowledge of the language. But he sought through
it to penetrate to a knowledge of the thoughts con-
veyed by the language. Here, where the caU is upon
the memory of an attentive and observant reader, is
his forte. He can bring to bear upon any one passage
the whole of the classics, ever present in his memory.
He views the individual, to use Bacon's phrase, ' ad
naturam universi.' As a commentator he does not
overlay the difficulty with a crushing load of collateral
illustration, but elucidates it with the one apposite
citation. A large class of stumblingblocks in the
classics can only be cleared by finding some one other
passage, which supplies the key to the allusion. This
is a gradual process, which is being perfected from age
to age*. The school commentary of our day contains
the result of four centuries of research. What
one has overlooked another supplies. In the whole
long history of interpretation, can anyone be named,
who from his single hand has contributed to the com-
mon fund so much as Isaac Casaubon 1
Casaubon 5 s editions must not be compared with
those which issued from t he great dutch manufac-
tory of the Burmanns and the Gronoviuses. The
Variorum 7 editors were collectors of what others had
suggested. Casaubon draws at first hand from his
own original comparison of texts. The system of those
editors was to form a * Catena/ or running commentary
en a text, by breaking up the existing commentaries into
* See note F in Appendix.
L 1 2
516 CHARACTERISTIC.
short portions, preserving the words, and appending the
name of each annotator. It was thus that Casaubon's
notes, all of which were written before 1610, were passed
.on, intact, to the middle of the i8th century, and formed
indeed the substantial part of all that the ' Variorum'
editors had to offer on many authors. The dutch
editors shunned greek, to which they were unequal, or
they only attempted it to give evidence that greek was
a lost science. The Appian-us of Tollius, 1670, the Apol-
lonius of Hoelzlin, 1641, 'hominum, qui sunt, fuerunt,
et erunt futilissimus' says Ruhnken 34 , the Lucianus of
Grgevius, 1687, should be examined if we wish to know
how low greek had sunk in the schools of Holland and
what was the standard of editing in the bookmarket
of Europe. If Maasvicius was able to make a better
figure with his Polysenus, 1690, it is because he
judiciously retires himself out of sight, and blazons on
his title page, ' Isaaci Casauboni notas adjecit/ The
trade demand for the editions of the greek classics, was
met by reproducing the notes of the scholars of the
1 6th century. Even a new latin version of a greek text
was a task to which they were unequal. So Maasvicius
reproduces the latin Polyasnus of Vulteius, 1549, without
alteration, and even without, as he honestly confesses 35 ,
comparing it with his greek text throughout, with
which it by no means corresponds. The dutch school,
till Hemsterhusius, was a school of latinists. Yet,
even in a latin prose author, such as Suetonius, it would
not have been safe for the workmen of the Burmann
manufactory to have revised Casaubon's notes, and they
were accordingly reproduced in extenso down to 1736.
After this they sank out of sight, the german school of
34 Ep. ad Valcken. p. 18.
35 Polysenus, 1588, lectori : ' Cum graecis ubique non comparavi.'
CHARACTERISTIC.
517
Ernesti and Wolf having power enough of its own to
remodel annotation on Suetonius. Even in 1801, the
german Sch weigh seuser, who ventured upon Athenaeus,
found that he could not do better than give the whole
of Casaubon's notes. And, to this hour, no one has
attempted (1874) such a commentary on Athenaeus, as
shall merge Casaubon in the way in which his notes
on Persius have been absorbed in the Clarendon Persius
of Conington and Nettleship. As lately as 1833, Cas-
aubon's notes on Persius were reprinted in Germany
entire, in compliance with a suggestion of Passow 36 .
His commentary on Strabo, of which he was himself
ashamed, has not been superseded, and was reprinted
in 1818, in the Variorum ed. of Tzschucke 37 . The com-
mentaries on Athenaeus and Theophrastus must still
be in the hands of every student of greek literature.
No other scholar of the sixteenth century can be
named, whose commentary on any ancient writer has
remained so long as the standard commentary. All
have contributed something to the common stock of
explanation; no other than Casaubon has left one
which stands in its entirety unsurpassed. When we
consider that, in the elucidation of an ancient text,
time is more than genius, and a new MS. more than
the keenest faculty of divination, we shall appreciate
Casaubon's superiority over his successors, in his com-
mand of the means and materials of interpretation.
It was not only by industrious compilation, and
the relevant application of a complete classical reading,
that Casaubon's commentary is thus distinguished. He
36 Persius, ed. F. Duebner, lectori : ' Ante hos viginti tres annos
celeb. Passovius significaverat . . . Casaubonum edendum esse
integrum, reliquos excerpendos esse omnes.'
37 The publication of the edition was broken off at the third book.
518 CHARACTERISTIC.
has also the enviable gift of presenting the object as
it is (Veranschanlichung). This was due not to the
possession of a poetic imagination, but to its absence.
He lights the object with no subjective radiance, and
decorates it with no ornament. His style as an an-
notator, flat and prosaic as it is, is direct. He grasps
at the real difficulties, and tries to clear them in the
shortest way. He had the inestimable advantage,
denied to us, of not acquiring his first conception at
second hand. We read so much about the ancients,
in books written about them by moderns, that our
notion of antiquity is inevitably coloured by this
modern medium.
We have learnt to prefer to have our ancient history
drugged with modern politics, by Droysen, or Grote,
or Mommsen, as the vitiated taste prefers sherry to
the pure juice of the grape. Casaubon owed this ad-
vantage in part to his self-education, of which he was
always complaining as a blight upon his development 38 .
He lost something by this, in point of language, he
gained much by it, in point of precision of representa-
tion. He went in his nineteenth year straight to the
greek and latin authors, and read them through, thus
forming his first impressions of the ancients directly
from what they have said of themselves. It cost him
more trouble to learn, but then he had nothing to un-
learn. As Goethe somewhere says, ' The difficulty lies
not in learning but in unlearning/ a sentiment which
Casaubon himself had quoted 39 from an older author
than Goethe. Menage 40 gave as a reason for not
38 Ep. 995 * ' o^rifJiaQfts KOI oXi'you 5eo> flireiv
39 Exercitt. in Baron, p. 485: 'TO /zeraStSaovcew' x a ^ 7r ^ TaTOV
alicubi Chrysostomus.' 40 Menagiana, i. 84.
CHARACTERISTIC. 519
reading Moreri's Dictionary, that it contained errors,
and if he got them into his head, he should not be
able to get them out again.
This habit of direct intuition he owed to his self-
education ; his love of truth he owed to his protestant
education. Love of truth is the foundation of all re-
search and all learning, and is indeed only the desire
of knowledge under another name. This mental habit
is, it may be thought, universally diffused among
mankind. Upon it are founded all the ordinary trans-
actions of every day life, no less than the judicial
procedure of the law courts, and the experiments of
the laboratory. Why should it be singled out as a
merit in Casaubon, when it is only shared by him in
common with every humbler student who has ever
attempted philological research ? Those only who are
intimately conversant with the period of which we
write, will know that of that period this assumption
would not be true. It was by the cultivation of this
intellectual virtue that the protestant scholars of France
were distinguished, and to which they owe their im-
measurable superiority over the catholic school of
french Hellenists.
The attitude of the orthodox party towards classical
studies in the first half of the sixteenth century in
the time of Erasmus was one of pure antipathy.
This phase of hostility to the 'new learning/ under
pretence of reverence for the old, has been handed
down to us by the broad and exaggerated satire of the
' Epistola3 obscurorum virorum.' We have seen the
traces of this disposition lingering into the seventeenth
century in Eudsem on- Joannes' sneers at Casaubon for
not having had a regular education, for being a ' gram-
marian/ and more conversant with Suetonius than with
520 CHARACTERISTIC.
logic. But notwithstanding occasional sallies of this
kind, the attitude of the church party towards classical
learning had been entirely changed before 1600. The
practised eye of the Jesuits, surveying, from the centre
of politics, all walks of human endeavour, saw that
more capital could be made for Rome by espousing
classics, than by prohibiting them. Jesuit education
was formed upon a classical basis, in opposition to
the scholastic basis of the university. Grammar and
rhetoric became leading subjects in their schools, in-
cluding a large share of greek. More than this,
Jesuits who had a turn for reading were allowed to
devote themselves to study, and encouraged and
assisted in the publication of learned works. 'Learned'
they are entitled to be called by courtesy, for the
works of Schott, Sirmond, and Petavius, have all the
attributes of learning but one, one, to want which
leaves all learning but a tinkling cymbal that is,
the love of truth. The Jesuit scholars introduced into
philological research the temper of unveracity which
had been from of old the literary habit of their church.
An interested motive lurks beneath each word ; the
motive of church patriotism. The same spirit which
produced the false decretals in the seventh century 41 ,
reappears in the Jesuit literature of the sixteenth cen-
tury. ' Can we doubt/ exclaims Casaubon 42 , ' that the
disease of our age is a hatred of truth \ ' An earnest
love of truth, on the other hand, is the characteristic
41 Du Perron repeatedly told Casaubon that 'Gratianus was unjustly
suspected, there being at most two places doubtful.' Adversaria, ap.
"Wolf. p. 177 : 'Audivi Perronum ssepe mihi affirmantem falso sus-
pectam esse fidem Gratiani,' etc.
42 Burmann, Syll. i. 359: ' Dubitamus adhuc /^to-aX^eta laborare
hoc seculum.'
CHA RA CT ERISTIC,
521
D the philological effort of the protestant scholars.
Errors they make, and plenty. The books of the
generation which followed Casaubon are largely sea-
soned with corrections of his errata 43 . It may often
happen that Scaliger is wrong, and Petavius right.
But single-eyed devotion to truth is an intellectual
quality, the absence of which is fatal to the value of any
investigation. Jesuit learning is a sham learning got
up with great ingenuity in imitation of 'the genuine,
in the service of the church. It is related of the
Chinese that when they first, in the war of 1841, saw
the effect of our steam vessels, they set up a funnel
and made a smoke with straw on the deck of one of
their junks in imitation, while the paddles were turned
by men below. Such a mimicry of the philology of
Scaliger and Casaubon was the philology of the Jesuit.
It was vitiated by its arriere-pensee. The search of
truth was falsified by its interested motive, the interest
not of an individual, but of a party. It was that
caricature of the good and great and true, which the
good and great and true invariably calls into being 44 ;
a phantom which sidles up against the reality, mouths
its favourite words as a third-rate actor does a great
part, undermimics its wisdom, overacts its folly, is by
half the world taken for it, goes some way to suppress
it in its own time, and lives for it in history.
That Casaubon's conception of the antique world was
43 E.g. Crenius, Animadv. phil. et hist. p. 88. Casaubon had affirmed,
N. T. Matth. 23. 15, that Judas Iscariot is called, iu another place,
vlos o\0pov. The phrase is never used in the N. T. ; it occurs in
Nonnus' paraphrase of John 17. 12. Henri Valois, both in the
'Excerpta ex collectaneis,' 1634, and in the ' Emendationum libri,'
1740, abounds in such corrections.
44 Friends in Council, I. 67.
522 CHARACTERISTIC.
either pure or adequate, is not hereby meant. It was
very far from being either. With all his honesty of
purpose, and directness of aim, he was not strong
enough to be uninfluenced by the ecclesiastical temper
of his age. We see this in so slight a matter as the
interpretation of the Triopian inscription, discovered
in 1607 45 , which, in his anxiety to get a confirmation
of gospel history, he applied to the Jewish Herod,
instead of to Herodes Atticus.
His limitations were many and inevitable. As an
interpreter of ancient life he could only render so
much as he apprehended. No one can apprehend of a
past age more than he can apprehend of his own. 46 ' The
past is reflected to us by the present.' Casaubon knew
of his own age so much as the average of educated
men know. The private antiquities of Greece and
45 See his 'Inscriptio vetus grseca,' etc. fol. s. 1. et a. Velser, a
catholic, at once detected Casaubon' s error, and informed Hoeschel of
it. Burney MSS. 364. p. 288. Hoeschel passed on the correction to
Casaubon, who instantly acknowledged it, and promised to correct it,
if he should have the opportunity of a second edition. Ep. 607. What
Casaubon did not do, Saumaise did, in his 'Inscriptio Herodis.'
Crenius, 'Museum philologicum,' Lugd. Bat. 1699, reprinted both
commentaries, thus reproducing error which had been abandoned by
its author. See Thesaurus epistolicus La Crozianus, 3. 40. On the
other hand, Casaubon was not deceived, as many Italians were, by the
inscriptions in Poliphilo. See Hist. Aug. Scriptores.
46 Arnold, Lectures, p. 109 : 'This is the reason why scholars and
antiquarians have written so uninstructively of the ancient world.
They could do no otherwise, for they did not understand the world
around them. How can he comprehend the parties of other days, who
has no clear notion of those of his own ? What sense can he have of
the progress of the great contest of human affairs in its earlier stages,
when it rages around him at this actual moment unnoticed, or felt to
be no more than a mere indistinct hubbub of sounds, and confusion of
weapons ? What cause is in the issue he knows not.'
CHARACTERISTIC. 523
rlome are, for this reason, open to all men, for every
man ' must have a full conception of the coat he
wears, and the house he lives in/ In public affairs,
Casaubon apprehends the general machinery of political
action, as it shows itself on the surface of events, and
takes an average view of the springs of human action.
The man, with whom Henri iv. could hold long con-
versations on the position of religious parties in France,
cannot have been an uninformed looker on at the great
struggles of the time. The greater political problems
he does not approach. Polybius' philosophy of history
is Casaubon' s philosophy. Though he had edited
Aristotle, and read many of the Aristotelian books
with care 47 , he has written nothing which throws any
light on the course of greek thought. He was not
master of the contents of greek philosophical specula-
tion, nor even aware of its importance as a factor of
history, or of the place it holds in greek literature.
Here, again, the limitation was not in the man, but
in the age. It needed two centuries more of specu-
lative effort in Europe, before philologians could go
back to greek philosophy with the key of it in their
hands. It is only indeed within the present century
that learning has grown strong enough to cope with
the exposition of Aristotle, and an edition of the
Aristotelic encyclopaedia is still a vision of the future*.
And as to Casaubon's want of political instruction, it
should be remembered that we go to greek history with
three centuries of additional experience. In 1614, de
47 Adversaria, torn. 16, contains collections out of Aristotle and his
greek commentators. In Brit. Mus. is an analysis of the * Analytics,'
in Casaubon's hand, such as might be made by a person reading the
book for the first time.
* See note G in Appendix.
524 CHARACTERISTIC.
Thou's History was the last word of political wisdom,
and de Thou's life had been spent in one uniform
struggle resistance to the clerical reaction. This
situation produced a simplicity, and at the same time
a narrowness, in the political ideas of the age. All the
energies of the statesman, all the wisdom of the poli-
tician, were absorbed in the effort to stem the rising
tide of ecclesiastical invasion. We cannot wonder that
Casaubon too should not have seen beyond the emer-
gency. But as he became gradually engaged with the
details of the controversy, he became less able as an
interpreter of the document. His greatest failure was
in handling church antiquity, because he was searching
it as an armoury of consecrated precedent, not with the
analysis of the critical historian. His love of truth,
though it did not forsake him, was obscured by the
zeal of the partisan. The cause may have been a
righteous one ; the war of resistance to clerical aggres-
sion may have been a just and necessary war. The
publicist, the legist, the statesman who, at the opening
of the 1 7th century, contended against the church re-
vival of their day, have a title to be enrolled in the
list of worthies or benefactors. But for all this, it
remains true, that in the intellectual sphere grasp and
mastery are incompatible with the exigencies of a
struggle. When, in the very conception of the problem,
the intellectual activity is engaged in the service of a
religious interest, a scientific solution cannot be looked
for 48 . To search antiquity with a polemical object is
48 Zeller, Gesch. d. griech. Philos. 4. 17 : ' "Wenn schon durch die
Fassung der Aufgabe die wissenschaftliche Thatigkeit in den Dienst
des religiosen Interesses gezogen war, so musste es sich im weiteren
Verlaufe vollends heraustellen, dass eine wissenschaftliche Lbsung
desselben unter den gegebenen Voraussetzungen unmoglich sei/
iestructb
CHARACTERISTIC.
525
,3tructive of that equilibrium of the reason, the imagi-
.ation, and the taste, that "even temper of philosophical
jalm, that singleness of purpose, which are required in
}rder that a past time may mirror itself on the mind in
true outline and proportions.
APPENDIX TO 10.
NOTE A. p. 471.
Casaubon's Will, dated June 21, 1614.
TRANSLATED OUT OF FRENCHE.
THERE being nothinge more certaine to man then death and
nothinge more incertaine then then the houre thereof and desyringe
to provide that death surprise mee not before I make my latter Will
havinge as yet by the mercie of God the use of all my senses and of
my reason understandinge and judgement I have thought it necessary
shortly to declare myne estate and latter Will as it folio wes I doe
confesse and protest that I Hue and dye in that true and liuely fayth
whereby the just man Hues which is taught us in Holy Scripture
And that I belieue ye remission of all my sinnes by the sheddinge of
the moste pretious bloode of myne onely Savior Mediate 11 and Advocate
Jesus Christ in whose hands I doe giue over and comend myself
beseechinge him that he would sanctifie me throughlie and keepe my
whole spirit soule and bodie w*hout blemish vnto his last cominge
I leaue my body to be buried in the ground in a Christian manner
wthout all vnnecessarie pompe or shewe to be made partaker of the
blessed resurrection at the latter daye w ch I doe expect and belieue
w th a stedfast fayth As for my goods w ch the Lorde hath lent me
w ch I shall leaue the day of my decease my will is that my debtes which
shalbe founde lawfull shalbee payd Therefter I give to the French
Church assembled in London five and twenty French Crownes And
to the poors of this parish where I dwell five French Crownes To the
Library of the French Church in London fowre of my greatest books
amonge the fathers And my Gregory Nyssen Manuscript To my
Nephewe M r Chabane one of my Hippocrates As concerninge all my
goodes whatsoever present or to come moueable or vnmoueable I doe
appointe that my wyfe have it in her choyce either to take herself to
her contract of marriage wherein is to be fownde whatsoever I haue
received before, and since the death of her father Henry Steuen of
happie memory or to take herself to the just halfe of all my goodes
APPENDIX TO 10.
527
shall remaine behinde that beinge exempted whereof mention
is made before As for the other halfe w cl1 shall remaine I willaiot
it my sonne John Cassaubon haue any parte thereof but onlye one
ip of the value of Thirty Crownes the reasons of this my Will are
imowne unto him Item I will and ordayne that each one of my
daughters haue two hundred crownes w ch being done my meaninge is
that the whole remnant bee equally divided amonge my sonnes and
daughters except that to that sonne who walkinge in the feare of God
shalbe fittest to sustayne my family I doe giue the Cup of M r Scaliger
of moste happie memory aboue and besides that portion which shall
fall to him of the foresayd half or remnant of my goodes the Cup of
thirtie Crownes for my sonne John and the two hundred crownes for
each one of my daughters beinge first abated Neverthelesse if any of
my children sonne or daughter presume to fynde fault w th or call in
question this my last Will or be disobeydient to my wife their mother
I leaue to my wife all power and authority to depriue such a one of
soe muche of their porcion as she shall thinke good being therevnto
well counselled and approved by the Overseers of this my Testament
that slialbe there where she for the tyme shall remaine More-
over if it please God to call to himselfe one or more of my children
before they be married or come to age I will that their portion be
divided amonge the rest that doe surviue by equall portions my sonne
John excepted And to the intent that this my Testament may be put
in execution I leaue and ordayne my wife the onely Executrix thereof
intreatinge my trusty freinds M r Theodore Turquet de Maierne
Raphaell Torris and Phillippe Bourlamarqui to ayde her as Curators
in those things which be on this side of the Sea And my trusty
frends M r Josias Mercere Sq r des Bordes Desier Herauet Advocate and
M r Arbant Doctor of Phisick for those affaires that be beyond Seas
In witnesse whereof and of that w ch is before set downe I haue
subsigned w th my hand and sealed w th my scale this my latter Will
in presence of them that be after named this Tewsday the one and
twentieth of June the yeare of o r Lorde one thousand sixe hundred
and fowerteene Isaack Cassaubon Signed sealed and delivered in
the presence of us Aron Cappell David Codelongue William Jane
et me Thomam Elam Scrivener.
PKOBATUM fuit Testamentum suprascriptum apud London coram
Magro Edmundo Pope legum Doctore Surrogate Venerabilis viri Dnj
Johnis Benet milits legum etiam Doctors Curie Prerogative Cant
528 APPENDIX TO 10.
Magrj Custodis slve Commissarij Itime constitut Tricesimo die Mensis
Julij Ano Dominj Millesimo sexcentesimo Decimo quarto Juramento
Florentiae Cassaubon relae dictj defunct! et executrics in eodem
testamento nominat Cuj comissa fuit administraco omniu et singulor
bonore jurium et creditorum dictj defunctj De bene et fideliter
administrand eadem Ad sancta Dej Evangelia in debita juris forma
jurat.
NOTE B. p. 477.
The History of Isaac Casaubon's Papers.
For the transcript of the following letter, and remarks upon it, I
am indebted to M. Charles Thurot, through the mediation of Mr.
Thursfield, of Jesus College.
Bibl. Nat. fonds Moreau, t. 846. fo. 56.
Clariss. doctissimoque viro, Dno Philiberto De la mare, Mericus
Casaubonus, Is. F. S. P. D. Quod quaeris, vir clarissime, an Jacobi
Gruhonj, rerum apud JEduos capitalium quaesitoris, aliquid seu prosa,
seu versu scriptum, inter cimelia b. m. parentis repertum servem, in
promptu responsio, simplex, aperta, brevis, quae veritati conveniat,
quae conscientiae meae, cuius praecipua apud me semper erit ratio,
abunde satisfaciat ; Non habeo. Sed quia dum tenorem tuarum
literarum attentius considero, vix spero me tarn accuratae scrip tioni
nisi accuratd responsione satisfacturum, dabo hoc communibus studiis
(quae si non semper, alia professus, excolui, nunquam tamen non sancte
colui :) tuoque de literis bene merendi studio, qubd pluribus, ut de
propria non tantum conscientid, sed et tua opinione sollicitus, respon-
deam. Narro igitur tibi, vir doctissime, patre in Anglia defuncto,
omnia eius Adversaria, et ms ta . cuiuscunque generis, (paucis quibusdam
Theologicis exceptis, quae Kegis Seren. iussu, Lanceloto Andreae,
summo viro, Episcopo turn Eliensi, sunt in manus tradita :) Lutetian
translata esse, ubi cum per aliquot annos in custodia piae matris, aut
quibus mater coinmiteret, (ou commiseret,) fuissent, tandem in manus
fratris natu maioris (qui postea Capuchinum professus obiit) perve-
nisse. Ilium pro arbitrio de quibusdam disposuisse, et non uni grati-
ficatum esse, certb scio. Quinto demum vel sexto post obitum patris
anno, cum ille meus charissimus frater mundo curisque saecularibus
renuntiasset, et ego ad aliquam maturitatem pervenissem (ut qui
annum turn agerem nonum supra decimum) quod erat reliquorum
APPENDIX TO 10. 529
libri edit, paucissimi supererant) matre ita statuente,
it fratre non nolente, mihi cessit. Quare an pater olim aliquid tale,
|uale conjicis et requiris, habuerit, meum non est pronuntiare. Sed
}ub magis tibi liqueat, me certe tale nihil aut habere aut habuisse,
implius te moneo, quicquid erat Patris in isto genere, postquam ope
imicorum adiutus et quanta" maxima potui sedulitate usus conquisi-
vissem, mihique comparassem, id omne in accuratissimum syllabum
redegi, qui quid quisque liber contineret, (ne sparsis et solutis quidem
chartulis omissis) indicaret. Eum postea syllabum haud paucis pro re
nata, communicavi, nee defuere qui exempla eius a me postularent, et
obtinerent. Praeterea, quicunque me (quod non pauci fecerunt,)
viri docti seu Galli, seu Belgae, aliive in transcursu Cantuariam prae-
tereuntes inviserunt, eis ego omnem librarian! suppellectilem liberfc
prompsi, non ut auferrent quicquam, sed ut viderent quod vellent, et
praesentes, pro sui quisque otii et negotii ratione, legerent. Omnium
istorum, ubicunque sunt, fidem appello, an quicquam Jacobi Guiioni,
vel in syllabo, vel inter ipsa cimelia repererint. At, inquis, Guiionio
arctissima cum parente meo consuetudo intercedebat. Pace tua dixe-
rim, vir clarissime, hoc tibi gratis credam necesse est. Epistolarum
patris ad diversos magnum volumen nuper prodiit Amstelodami ; inter
illas, nulla ad Jac. Guiionium comparet. Praeter editas, habeo alias
non paucas ; sed nee inter illas, ulla. Praeterea, cum doctorum ex omni,
quam late patet eruditio, Europa, ad patrem Epistolas plurimas ha-
beam, ne inter illas quidem ulla Guiionii ad patrem; quare etiam atque
etiam te rogo ut huius familiaritatis argumenta quae tibi sint amplius
expendas. Quod si ita res habet, neque falsus es ; mihi tamen, quaeso,
ne imputa, si expectatione tua frustratus es. Haec si tibi satisfaciunt,
valde gaudeo, sin aliter, superest ut in propriae conscientiae testimonio,
et in officij non neglecti (responsionem intelligo quam potui accuratiss.)
conscientia acquiescam. Vale, vir clarissime, et meliores literas opera
tua et eruditione promovere perge. Cantuariae, postrid. Non. Decemb.
(stylo Anglic, seu veteri.) cio 10 CXLI.
L'adresse de la lettre, qui porte encore le cachet en cire rouge 1 ,
est ainsi conue :
Clariss. doctissimoque viro, Philiberto De la Mare, in
supremo Burgundiae senatu, comitiario.
Divione.
1 Ce cachet reprdsente un lion avec une barre en abime chargee de trois
etoiles. Le fond n'est pas indiqud.
M m
530 APPENDIX TO 10.
J'ai reproduit exactement 1'orthographe et la ponctuation. L'^criture
est tres bonne. II y a des ine'galite's, ainsi il n'y a pas de point sur
le second i de Guiionius d'abord ; ensuite il est mis. J'ai reproduit
cette ine'galite'.
Un mot seul me laisse des doutes. Voici le passage exactement
reproduit
aut quibus Mater commiseret
cum a 6t6 d'abord e'crit, puis barrd et remplac par com (ainsi que
c'est indiqu^ ici). Dans ce qui suit aucune lettre ne peut faire de
doute except^ celle qui est entre Ve et Vi, ni Vs ni le t, ni font faits
de cette fa9on dans le reste de la lettre. D'ailleurs commiteret est une
faute d'orthographe, et commiseret n'a pas de sens. Peut-etre a-t-il
vouler crire commiserit. Du reste, Ten tete de la lettre, 1'adresse, la
date, et les corrections faites dans le corps meme de la lettre sont d'une
autre main, probablement de la main de Casaubon lui menie qui aura
fait crire la lettre par un copiste.
NOTE C. p. 483.
Goethe to Zelter, Briefwechsel, 6. 616 : 'Eigentlich ist es nicht mein
Bestreben, in den diistern Regionen der Geschiclite bis auf einen
gewissen Grad deutlicher zu selin ; aber um des Mamies willen, nach
dem ich sein Verfahren, seine Absichten, seine Studien erkannte,wurden
seine Interessen aucli die meinigen. Niebuhr war es eigentlich, und
nicht die romische Geschichte, was mich beschaftigte. So eines Mannes
tiefer Sinn und enisige Weise ist eige tlich das was uns auferbaut. Die
sammtlichen Ackergesetze gehn mich eigentlich gar nichts an, aber
die Art, wie er sie aufklart, wie er mir die complicirten Verhaltnisse
deutlich macht, das ist's was mich fordert, was mir die Pflicht auferlegt,
in den Geschaften, die ich iibernehme, auf gleiche gewissenhafte Weise
zu verfahren.'
NOTE D. p. 498.
The Cambridge miracle was reported to Casaubon by James Martin,
whose letter has not been preserved. But the substance of it is
repeated by Martin, in a letter to Camden, without date, but probably
1615. It is printed in Camdeni Epistolse, 1691. I give an extract :
'All the particulars of my letter to him (Casaubon) I cannot
APPENDIX TO 10. 531
ecount. The sum is this. In Cambridgeshire, about twelve years
ince, there bapning a great fire in Gambinga, a little child being left
n the cradle, was uery strangely conveyed out of the house being all
n a flame, into the middle of the street ; the linnen-apron being all
Dowdered with crosses ; an unknown boy telling the maid, that wept
md thought the child was burnt, to this .effect, viz. I have thought
on the child, and have delivered it, but go and look for it. Now
about a year or two before this accident, there was seen over the house
n the night a shining cross in the air, and since that time for these
twelve or thirteen years together, there have at divers times fallen
divers crosses upon the linnen of the mother and sisters of this child,
now deceased, which sometimes vanish of themselves, and sometimes
are washed away. Some of these myself have seen; they are of a
)rownish colour, and of this form >J . . . This being the principal
though other accessaries there are, which partly of my own knowledge,
and partly on the relation of others ... I related to Mr. Casaubone,
! make bold to impart to yourself, wishing, if it might be, that we
might come to some certain resolution whence the crosses are, and
whether they would.'
As Casaubon is selected to have this tale, not then recent, written
;o him by one who was a stranger to him, we may infer that his
curiosity for marvels was matter of notoriety. His reply is cautious :
' I received lately two letters from you. The first transformed me
wholly into wonder: without doubt the thing you write of is mi-
raculous ; but whence, I cannot affirme. They may best conjecture
:hat were eye witnesses, or of their neerest acquaintance, and they that
lave the spirit of discerning. In which regard I leave the discussing
hereof to the most excellent divines of your illustrious university,'
i. e. Oxford.)
NOTE E. p. 514.
Casaubon's principles of emendation are fully stated in his Prsef. in
Athenaeum : ' Cum emendandi veteres auctores duplex sit via, e libris,
et ex ingenio, utramque nos viam in corrigendo Athenseo institimus. . . .
^riore ilia opera vulgatas editiones e veteribus libris auximus et
emendavimus ; posteriore hac et vulgatorum et manu etiam scriptorum
codicum lectionem ad rectse rationis obrussam exegimus. Nam in
criptis exemplaribus vel antiquissimse manus TroXXa p,ev c<rff\a ?roXXa 8e
Itaque in illis tractandis judicio magno opus, magna eruditione,
M m 2
532 APPENDIX TO 10.
nee mediocri usu.' He then refers those who think that antiquity,
and consent of MSS, alone must determine the reading, to the well-
known passage of Galen. If at other times Casaubon expresses him-
self as fearful to alter without MS. authority, it is from a dread of that
reckless spirit of alteration, which leads the rash and inexperienced
to tamper with every passage which presents difficulty, e. g. Cas.
Advers. torn. 60 : ' Hsec lectio non placet, placeret Juniana si esset ex
libris.' Ibid. : * Sequentia sine libris non ausim attingere/ This
caution is no less in the spirit of Cobet, cf. Varise Lectt. p. xii :
' Tertium est vitii genus, in quod ssepe juniores implicari video, qui
locum vitiosum nacti, levibus et temerariis correctiunculis vexare
malunt, quam intactum relinquere, et saepe vitiosis vitiosiora sub-
stituunt/
The passage of Ritschl's Opuscula referred to in the text, p. 514, is
as follows, i. 539 : ' Propemodum nullus liber est ullius scriptoris,
e quo non aliquando, quanquam rarissimis plerumque exemplis, bona
scriptura peti possit, non majorem fidem quam probabilis conjecturse
habens/
NOTE F. p. 515.
On the slow process by which the full sense of an ancient classic is
reached, and a commentary is perfected, Reiske says, Theocritus,
Viennse 1765, prsef. p. 37 : ' Stupet animus meus et psene cohorrescit,
cum cogitat post tantam, tot hominum, navorum hercle atque doc-
torum, contentionem, post tot annorum decursum, in hoc uno tarn
parum voluminoso, tarn levi, qui videatur quibusdam, nugacique poeta
(i. e. Theocritus) multum tamen nos adhucduin a perfectione abesse,
quse ei impertiri possit. Sed hoc iter naturae est. Sensim et pede-
tentim, per gradus minutos, ad culmen arcis ascenditur.'
NOTE G. p. 523.
The magnitude of what he undertakes, who aims to be a classical
scholar, was understood at least as early as Erasmus. Vita Orig.
Erasmi Opp. 8. 426: 'Si quis dicat grammatices professionem nihil
habere memorabile, cum hodie scholasticorum collegia pueris abundent
grammaticani profitentibus, sciat olim senile et arduum fuisse nego-
tium. Nee enim a doctore expectabatur declinationum, conjugationum
APPENDIX TO 10.
533
;t constructionum ratio ; sed prseter sermonis elegantiam, prseter
durimorum auctorum lectionem, prseter antiquitatis, et omnium
'.listoriarum notitiam requirebatur poetices, rhetorices, dialectices,
arithmetices et cosmographise musicesque cognitio. Minore negotio
tres Juris doctores absolveris quam unum grammaticum, qualis fuit
Aristarclms apud Grsecos, apud Latinos Servius et Donatus.'
NOTE.
Some explanation may be called for of the mode of writing proper
names adopted in these pages. It may be objected to the author that
he ought to have adhered to one or the other nomenclature, i. e. either
the latinised or the vernacular form. Upon trial, however, this was
found to be impossible. Some names being of more frequent occurrence
than others, have so established themselves in the latinised form, that
it is now impossible to depart from it. We must write Scaliger
Beza, Grotius, Lipsius, Vulcanius, Scriverius, Canisius, and cannot
without affectation substitute de L'escale, de Bbze, van Groot, Lips,
Smidt, Schryver, de Hondt. On the other hand, wherever usage
seemed sufficient to warrant me, I have chosen the vernacular name.
I have said Estienne, and not Stephanus (except when speaking of the
' Thesaurus '), Saumaise, and not Salmasius, de Thou, and not Thuanus,
Labbe', and not Labbseus.
Though I have said Fra Paolo, and not Father Paul, I have written
Bellarmine and not Bellarmino. This practice is quite indefensible on
any ground of principle. The only object of this note is to show that
these anomalies are not errors of carelessness.
11.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OP WORKS BY
ISAAC CASAUBON.
1583-
ISAACI HORTIBONI Notse ad Diogenis Laertii libros dc vitis
dictis et decretis principum philosophorum. Morgiis, venun-
dantur in officina typographica Joannis le Preux, Illust. D.
Bern. Typog. 1583,
1584.
Vetustissimorum authorum Georgica, Bucolica, et Gnomica
poemata quse supersunt, accessit huic edition! Is. Hortiboni
Theocriticarum lectionum libellus . . . irapa E. Oviyv&vi aty'irS.
I2mo.
Casaubon had no hand in this book beyond contributing the
' lectiones Theocriticse,' pp. 361-410.
1587.
1. Strabonis rerum geographicarum Libri xvii, Isaacus Cas-
aubonus recensuit, summoque studio et diligentia, ope etiam
veterum codicum emendavit, ac commentariis illustravit ....
(s. 1.), excudebat Eustathius Vignon, Atrebat. 1587, fol.
2. Novi Testament! Libri omnes recens nunc editi cum notis
Isaaci Casauboni. Adjectse sunt varise lectiones omnes ; cum
diligent! similium locorum collatione . . (s.L), apud Eustathium
Vignon, 1587, I2mo.
With ded. by I. Casaubon to Canaye de Fresne.
1588.
Isaaci Casauboni animadversiones in Dionysii Haliqarnassei
antiquitatum romanarum libros. (s.a. et 1.), fol.
Is. Casaubon 'to reader' is dated ' nonis augusti, 1588.'
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. 535
1589.
1. nOATATNOT 2TPATHFHMATHN BIBAOI OKTO. Po-
lyaeni stratagematum libri octo. Is. Casaubonus grsece nunc
primum edidit, emendavit, et notis illustravit, adjecta est etiam
Justi Vulteii latina versio, cnm indicibus necessariis, 1589, apud
Jean. Tornaesium, Typ. Reg. Lugdunensem, I2mo.
2. In Dicaearchi eclogen notse Isaac! Casauboni. (7 pages, not
numbered, following p. 128 of) Dicaearchi Geographica qusedam
. . . cum lat. interpretatione atque annot. Henri Stephani,
excudebat Henr. Stephanus, 1589, ismo.
1590.
Operum Aristotelis Stagiritse philosophorum omnium longe
principis nova editio, graece et latine, graecus contextus quam
emendatissime prater omnes omnium editionum est editus; ad-
scriptis ad oram libri et interpretum veterum recentiorumque
et aliorum doctorum virorurn emendationibus : in quibus plu-
rimse nunc primum in lucem prodeunt, ex bibliotheca Isaaci
Casauboni . . . (oliva Stephani), Lugduni, apud Guillelmum
Lsemarium, 1590, fol., 2 voll.
C. Plinii Csec. Sec. Epist. Lib. ix. ejusdem et Trajani epist.
amcebsese. ejusdem PI. et Pacati, Mamertini, Nazarii Panegyrici,
item Claudiani Panegyrici, praeter multos locos in hac posteriori
editione emendatos, adjuncts sunt Isaaci Casauboni notaa in
epistolas, excud. Henr. Steph., anno 1591.
With this book, which is a reprint of Henri Estienne's Plinius
of 1581, Casaubon had nothing to do, beyond supplying a few
corrections and explanations. These are printed at the end of
the volume, occupying 15 leaves, unpaged.
1592.
Theophrastus, Characteres ethici, sive descriptiones morum
graece. Is. Casaubonus recensuit, in latinum sermonem vertit,
et libro commentario illustravit, Lugduni/ apud Franciscum Le
Preux, 1592, 8vo.
536 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS
Diogenes Laertius, De vitis dogm. et apophth. clarorum
philosophorum libri x. Hesychii ill. de iisdem philos. et de
aliis scriptoribus liber. Pythagor. philosophorum fragmenta,
omnia grace et lat. ex editione ii. Is. Casauboni notse ad lib.
Diogenis multo auetiores et emendationes, excud. Henr. Steph.,
anno I593 (oliva Stephani), (other copies, 1594,) I3mo.
1595-
Suetonius, De xii Caesaribus Libri viii. Is. Casaubonus re-
censuit et animadv. libros adjecit . . . ap. Ja. Chouet, 1595, 4-to.
1596.
Theocritus, Idyllia et epigrammata, cum mss. Palat. collata
. . . Is. Casauboni Theocriticarum lectionum libellus, editio
altera uberior et melior, ex typographeo Hier. Commelini,
1596,
1597.
Deipnosophistarum libri xv. cura et studio Isaaci
Casauboni, bibliothecse Palatinse, Vaticana3, aliarumque ope aueti-
ores emendatioresque editi . . . apud Hieronymum Comme-
linum, anno 1597, fol.
1600.
Athenaeus, Isaaci Casauboni animadversionum in Athenaei
Deipnosophistas Libri xv. . . . Lugduni, ap. Ant. de Harsy,
1600, fol.
1601.
Coppie d'une lettre de M. Isaac Casaubon au synode a Ger-
geau_, avec la reponse du diet synode, Gen. 1601, I2mo.
See p. 187 and note.
1603.
Historia3 Augustas scriptores vi. . . . Is. Casaubonus ex
veter. libr. recensuit idemque librum adjecit emendationum ac
notarum, Paris, Drouart, 1603, 4to.
BY ISAAC CASAUBON. 537
1604.
Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes Ixxx. . . . Fed. Morelli,
Prof, regii opera, cum Is. Casauboni Diatriba et ejusdem Morelli
fccholiis, Lutet. 1604, fol.
With this ed. Casaubon had nothing to do beyond contributing
the Diatriba, which occupies pp. 1-106, separately paged, at end.
JBurmann, Sylloge, 1.359, ' rogatu Morelli nostri Diatribam in
D. C. edimus opus avroo-^biov nee magnse rei/
1605.
1. Persius, Satirarum liber. Is. Casaubonus recensuit et com-
mentario libro illustravit, Paris, Drouart, 1605, ismo.
2. De satyrica Grsecorum poesi et Romanorum satira libri
duo, Paris, Drouart, 1605, ismo.
1605.
Notse in Gregorii Thaumaturgi orationem. Meric, Pietas,
p. 101, did not know where these notes were to be found. They
occupy pp. 497-506 of
Origenes contra Celsum Libri viii, a D. Hoeschelio, Aug.
Vindel. 1605, 4to.
Of these Casaubon says, ' Paucas hodie impendi horas lectioni
chartarum quas ante triduum abs te accepi ; . . . . quse
percurrenti mihi orationes in mentem venerunt paucis accipe et
boni consule.'
1606.
Gregorius Nyssen, Ad Eustathiam Ambrosiam et Basilissam
epistola. Is. Casaubonus nunc primum publicavit, latine vertit
et illustravit notis (oliva Stephani), Lutetise, ex typographia
Roberti Stephani, 1606, i2mo.
1607.
i . De libertate ecclesiastica liber singularis.
Printed at Paris in this year, but suppressed, by order of the go-
vernment, before publication. First published in Melchior Goldasti,
Monarchia S. Komani imperii, Hanov. 1612, vol. T.pp. 674-716.
It was translated into English by Hilkiah Bedford, a transla-
tion which was inserted in Hickes' ' Two Treatises of the
Christian priesthood, &c., Lond. 1711,' pp. cxv-ccxciii.
538 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS
2. Inscriptio vetus Grseca, nuper ad urbem in via Appia effossa :
dedicationem fundi continens ab Herode rege factam. Isaacus
Casaubonus recensuit et notis illustravit, fol. pp. 10, s. 1. et a.
This sheet of TO pp. is undated. Casaubon says the copy of
the inscription had been sent ' nuper' by Christophe Dupuy to
Jacques Gillot, and he quotes Scaliger's Eusebius as published
' nuper.' The Eusebius came out in August, 1606. A copy of
the * Inscriptio' by Casaubon had been sent to Hoesehel before
September, 1607. See Ep. 568.
1609.
Polybius, Historiarum libri qui supersunt. Is. Casaubonus ex
antiquis libris emendavit latine vertit et commentariis illus-
travit. ^Enea3 vetustissimi Tactici commentarius de toleranda
obsidione. Is. Casaubonus primus vulgavit latinam interpreta-
tionem et notas adjecit . . . Paris, Drouart, 1609, fol.
Other copies have ' apud Claudium Marnium et ha3redes
Johannis Aubrii/ A certain number of copies were taken by the
Frankfort publisher on condition of being allowed to issue them
with his own title page. The book was printed in Paris, on
French paper.
1610.
1. Jos. Justi Scaligeri Julii Csesaris a Burden filii opuscula
varia antehac non edita, Paris, Beys, 1610, 4to.
Ed. by Casaubon with preface, 13 leaves, unpaged.
2. Suetonius . I . Editio altera, ab auctore emendata et locis
quamplurimis aucta . . . Paris, apud Hadrianum Beys, 1610, fol.
1611.
Is. Casauboni ad Frontonem Ducseum S. J. Theologum epis-
tola, Londini, Norton, 1611, 4to.
1612.
i. Is. Casauboni ad epistolam illustr. et reverendiss. Cardinalis
Perronii responsio, Londini, Norton, 1612, 4to.
The date at the end of this 'Reply' is 5 eid. novemb. 1612.
But, as observed by Bliss, Andrewes' Works, u. 6, note, this
must be an error for 1611. See eph. 897, 898. The king had the
' BY ISAAC CASAU30N. 539
is. and kept it for some months ; see ep. 760. It was finally put
nto the printer's hands in April, 1612. See eph. 924.
2. Athenaeus.
In this year the text and latin version of Athenseus were re-
printed at Lyons ; Lugduni, apud viduam Antonii de Harsy, ad
insigne scuti Coloniensis, 1612, fol.
In this pref. the ' typographus' tells the reader that Isaac
Casaubon ' nobis notarum loco lectiones quasdam varias et con-
jecturas suppeditavit.'
I have not examined this edition. But I suspect that Casau-
bon had nothing to do with it, and that the ' various readings'
and ' conjectures' were taken by Madame de Harsy^s editor from
the volume of ' Animadversiones' published by Casaubon in 1600.
1614.
De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes xvi ad Baronii
annales, Londini, 1614, fol.
1615.
A letter of M r . Casaubon, with a memorial of M ris . Elizabeth
Martin, late deceased. . . . 8vo., London, printed by Nicholas
Okes, for George Norton, 1615.
The title page is separate, but the letter forms an appendix to
' The King's Way to Heaven/ by James Martin, Master of Arts,
1615, 8vo.
1617.
Isaaci Casauboni ad Polybii historiarum librurn primum com-
mentarii, ad Jacobum i, Magnse Britannise regem serenissimum 5
(oliva Stephani), Parisiis, apud Antonium Stephanum, typogra-
phum regium, 1617, 8vo.
1621.
Is. Casauboni Animadversionum in Athensei deipnosophistas
libri xv. . . . secunda editio postrema authoris cura diligenter
recognita, et ubique doctissimis additionibus aucta . . . Lug-
duni, ap. viduam Ant. de Harsy et Petrum Ravaud, in vico
Mercuriali, ad insigne S. Petri, 1621, fol.
The ' diligenter recognita ' of this title page is certainly frau-
dulent. As to the 'additions/ Meric, or Florence, Casaubon
540 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS
may have communicated some of Isaac's ' secundse curee,' but I
have not collated the edition, with a view to ascertain this.
1637.
Isaaci Casauboni epistolse quotquot reperiri potuerunt mine
primum junctim editse, Hagse Comitis, ex officina Theodori
Maire, 1637, 4to.
1656.
Isaaci Casauboni Epistolse editio secunda Ixxxii epistolis
auctior et juxta seriem tempomm digesta, curante Johanne
Georgio Grsevio, Magdeburgi et Helmstadi, sumptibus Christiani
Gerlachi et Simonis Beckensteini, Brunsvigse, excudit Andreas
Dunckerus, 1656, 4to.
1684.
M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistolarum Libri xvi ad T. Pomponium
Atticum ex recensione Joannis Georgii Grsevii cum ejusdem
animadversionibus, et notis integris Petri Victorii, Paulli
Manutii, Leonardi Malhespinse, D. Lambing Fulvii Ursini, Sim.
Bosii, Fr. Junii, Aus. Popmse, nee non selectis Sebast. Corradi,
Is. Casauboni, Joan. Fred. Gronovii et aliorum, Amstelodami,
sumptibus Blaviorum, et Henrici Wetstenii, 1684, 3 vols. 8vo.
Casaubon's notes extend over the first seventeen epistles of
Book i. only. The papers from which they were printed were
supplied to James Gronovius by Meric shortly before his
death in 1671. They represented one of Isaac's courses of
lectures at Geneva. See Cas. ep. 986.
From these papers Grsevius selected 'quse cseterorum inter-
pretum studium et sollertiam fugerant.'
1709.
Isaaci Casauboni Epistolse insertis ad easdem responsionibus
.... accedunt huic tertise editioni prseter trecentas ineditas
epistolas, Isaaci Casauboni vita ; ejusdem dedicationes, prsefa-
tiones, prolegomena, poemata, fragmentum de libertate eccle-
siastica, item Merici Casauboni I. F. epistolse, dedicationes,
prsefationes, prolegomena, et tractatus quidarn rariores, curante
BY ISAAC CASAUBON. 541
Theodore Janson ab Almeloveen, Roterodami, typis Casparis
Fritsch et Michaelis Bohm, 1709, fol.
1710.
Casauboniana, sive Isaac! Casauboni varia de scriptoribus
librisque judicia ... ex varii (sic) Casauboni MSS. in bibliotheca
bodleiana reconditis nunc primum erutse a Jo. Christophoro
Wolfio, prof. publ. philosoph. extraordinario in academ. Witte-
berg. . . . Hamburg!, sumptibus Christian! Libezeit, typis
Philippi Ludovici Stromeri, anno 1710, I2mo.
1710.
In Kuster's Aristophanes, published in this year at Amster-
dam, 2 vols. fol., were printed ' Isaaci Casauboni Notse in
Equites.' They are in torn. 2. pp. 76103. Kuster says of
them, prsef. ad lectorem, 'Notae Casauboni licet non seque
elaborate sint ac alia, quse habemus, eruditissimi illius viri
opera, prajlectiones enim potius fuisse videntur, in tironum
usum conscriptae, plurima tamen in illis occurrunt ex in-
terioribus literis deprompta, subtiliterque et ingeniose ex-
cogitata, neque auctoris sui nomine indigna.'
The MS. from which Kuster had them copied is now in the
Bibl. nat. These notes on the * Equites ' are not the same
as the 'in Aristophanem observata,' contained in Advers. torn.
23, in the Bodleian, which are very slight memoranda jotted
down when reading through the whole of Aristophanes, at
Strassburg, in January, 1593.
1827.
Epistolse virorum doctorum ineditse quas e codice autographo
bibliothecae academicse Lignicensis transscripsit Dr. Fridericus
Schultze academise equestris professor et bibliothecse prsefectus,
Lignitii, 1827, 4to.
Contains 16 letters of Is. Casaubon to Abraham de Bibran.
542 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS
PSEUDEPIGRAPHA.
1. Is. Casauboni corona regia id est Panegyric! cujusdam vere
aurei quern Jacobo I magnse Britannise etc., regi fidei defensori
delinearat fragmenta ab Euphormione inter schedas TOV /xa/c-
apirov inventa, collecta et in lucem edita 1615 pro officina
regia Jo. Bill, Londini, I2mo. pp. 128.
A mock panegyric of James i, fathered upon Casaubon by
its author, Scioppius, to give effect to the satire. A reward
was offered for the discovery of the author, which was claimed,
as late as 1639, by Jean de Perriet, a Brussels bookseller. See
Calendar of Clar. State Papers, i. 195.
2. Misoponeri Satyricon, cum notis aliquot ad obscuriora prosa3
loca et grsecorum interpretatione, Lugduni Batavorum, apud Se-
bastianum Wolzium, 1617, I2mo. pp. 143.
This is attributed by Placcius to Isaac Casaubon, and Placcius
was copied by Querard. The error has not been corrected in
the new edition of Querard by M. Gustave Brunet.
3. The originall of idolatries : or The birth of heresies : a true,
sincere, and exact description of all such sacred signes, sacrifices,
and sacraments as have been instituted and ordained of God
since Adam, with the true source and lively anatomy of the
sacrifice of the masse. First faithfully gathered out of sundry
greeke and latine authors, as also out of divers learned fathers ;
by that famous and learned ISAAC CASAUBON, and by
him published in French, for the good of God's church : and
now translated into English for the benefit of this monarchy ; by
Abraham Darcy, London, printed by authoritie for Nathaniel
Butter, anno dom. 1624, 4to. pp. 108.
4. Phrynicus, Epitome dictionum atticarum libri iii . . . Aug.
Vindel. typis Michaelis Mangeri, 1601, 4to.
At the end of the volume, in some copies, and following ' Index
auctorum/ are ' ad Phrynicum et ejus interpretem viri illustris
BY ISAAC CASAUBON. 543
notse, a Davide Hoeschelio Augustano editse . . . Aug. Vindel.
4 to.
Of these brief notes. Menage, Antibaillet, i. 161, says, * I have
leard M. Mentel say that Casaubon was the author.' No one,
however, can doubt that they are by Scaliger, and, as Scaliger's,
they were reprinted by de Pauw, and by Lobeck, the latter
adding, ' nam Scaligeri quidem nullam unam literam perire fas
duco/ See Bernays, ' J. J. Scaliger,' p. 183.
691014
1-1
PA 85 .C3 P3 1875 SMC
Pattison, Mark,
Isaac Casaubon, 1559-1614
