CHAPTER X.

SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF GROTIUS.

1. His Edition of Stobaeus.

2. His Treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis.

3. His Treatise de Veritate Religionis Christianae.

4. His Treatise de Jure summarum potestatum circa
      sacra.

5. His Commentary on the Scriptures.

6. Some other Works of Grotius

[Sidenote:  CHAP.  X. 1621-1634]

That literature is an ornament in prosperity, and a comfort in adverse fortune, has been often said by the best and wisest men; but no one experienced the truth of this assertion in a higher degree than Grotius, during his imprisonment at Louvestein.  In that wreck of his fortune and overthrow of all his hopes, books came to his aid, soothed his sorrows, and beguiled the wearisome hours of his gloomy solitude.  His studies often stole him from himself, and from the sense of his misfortunes.  In the exercise of his mental energies, he was sensible of their powers; and it was impossible that he should contemplate, without pleasure, the extent, the worth, or the splendour of his labours; the services, which he rendered by them to learning and religion, and the admiration and gratitude of the scholar, which he then enjoyed, and which would attend his memory to the latest posterity.  He himself acknowledged that, in the ardour of his literary pursuits, he often forgot his calamities, and that the hours passed unheeded, if not in joy, at least without pain.

X 1.

His Edition of Stobaeus.

Being ourselves unacquainted with this work, we cannot do better than present our readers with the account given of it by Burigni.

“The year after the publication of his Apology, that is to say in 1623, Nicholas Huon printed at Paris, Grotius’s improvements and additions to Stobaeus.  This author, as is well known, extracted what he thought most important in the ancient Greek writers, and ranged it under different heads, comprehending the principal points of philosophy.  His work is the more valuable, as it has preserved several fragments of the Ancients, found no where else.  Grotius, when very young, purposed to extract from this author all the maxims of the poets; to translate them into Latin verse, and to print the original with the translation.  He began this, when a boy; he was employed in it at the time of his arrest; and continued it as an amusement, whilst he had the use of books, in his prison at the Hague.  He tells us that, when he was deprived of pen and ink, he was got to the forty-ninth title, which is an invective against tyranny, that had a great relation to what passed at that time in Holland.  On his removal to Louvestein, he resumed this work, and finished it at Paris.  He made several happy corrections in the text of Stobaeus; some, from his own conjectures or those of his friends; others, on the authority of manuscripts in the King’s library, which were politely lent him by the learned Nicholas Rigaut, librarian to his majesty.

    [Sidenote:  His edition of Stobaeus.]