When Grotius undertook his edition of Capella, he was only twelve years of age:  he published it in his fourteenth year, and dedicated it to the Prince of Conde.  The learning and critical discernment displayed by him in this publication excited astonishment, and obtained for him the applause of all the literary world.  Grotius himself gives the following account of his work:  “We have collated Capella with the several authors, who have investigated the same subjects.  In the two first books, we have consulted those whose writings contain the sentiments of the antient philosophers, as Apuleius, Albericus and others, too tedious to name; on grammar, we have compared, Capella with the antient grammarians; in what he has said on rhetoric, with Cicero and Aquila; on logic, with Porphyry, Aristotle, Cassiodorus and Apuleius; on geography, with Strabo, Mela, Solinus, and Ptolemy, but chiefly Pliny; on arithmetic, with Euclid; on astronomy, with Hyginus, and others, who have treated on that subject; on music, with Cleonides, Vitruvius and Boethius.”  In Grotius’s Annotations all these writers are mentioned in a manner, which shews that he was thoroughly conversant with their works.  Grotius’s edition is become, from its extreme scarcity, a typographical curiosity:  all the other editions are scarce.  The writer of these pages found, with great difficulty, a copy of it in the London market.[006] That of Bonhomme, published at Lyons in 1539, he procured by loan.  The celebrated Leibniz began to prepare an edition of Capella in usum Delphini; but his collections being purloined from him, he desisted from his project:  it must be owned that the general learning of Leibniz qualified him admirably for such a task.[009]

[Sidenote:  The early Publications of Grotius.]

While yet in his fourteenth year, Grotius published a translation of a work, published by Simon Steven in 1586, upon Navigation, and shewed by it a profound knowledge of mathematics:[010] he dedicated it to the republic of Venice.

[Sidenote:  CHAP.  III. 1597-1610.]

In the following year, Grotius published the Phenomena of Aratus, a poetical treatise of that author upon astronomy, with Cicero’s translation of it, so far as it has reached us.  Grotius supplied the vacancies.  It is universally admitted that the parts supplied by him, are not inferior to those of Cicero.  The abbe d’Olivet, the editor of Cicero’s works, and an enthusiastic admirer of his style, declares that “the Muse of Cicero[011] did not throw the Muse of Grotius into the shade:”  he therefore inserted the supplementary verses of Grotius in his edition.  Grotius dedicated his work to the States of Holland and West Friseland; and promised them in his dedication something more considerable.  He was complimented upon it by several of the greatest men of the age.

The following simile, taken from Cicero’s translation of Aratus, and
Voltaire’s version of it, are greatly admired: