Men of the greatest learning publickly expressed their surprise to see a child of fifteen produce a work that would have done honour to the most celebrated Man of Letters.  Scaliger made a very high encomium on the young author in some fine verses which are much to Grotius’ honour.  The President de Thou was very well pleased with Capella. [32]Casaubon declared that whatever high idea he might have of Grotius’ labour, the success exceeded his hopes. [33]Vossius, in fine, after assuring Grotius that he had very happily restored Capella, compares the editor to Erasmus; and affirms that the whole world could not produce a man of greater learning than Grotius[34].

The more we consider this work, the greater difficulty we have to believe it to have been executed by a boy.  We would sometimes be inclined to think the great Scaliger had a hand in it; but this is only a conjecture:  that Grotius was assisted by his father is very certain; he tells us so himself.

Some perhaps will be glad to know how Grotius managed with the booksellers:  for even little details that relate to famous men yield a pleasure.  He never took money for the copy, though, he tells us, some people of good fortune were not so delicate:  but he asked a hundred books on large paper handsomely bound, to make presents to his friends; it being unjust, he said, that while he served the public and enriched the booksellers, he should injure his own fortune.

FOOTNOTES: 

[32] Ep.  Gr. 3. p. 1.

[33] Ep.  Caus. 1030.

[34] De Hist.  Lat. lib. 3

XI.  The same year, 1599, Grotius published another work which discovered as much knowledge of the abstract sciences in particular, as the edition of Martianus Capella did of his learning in general.

Stevin, Mathematician to Prince Maurice of Nassau, had by his orders composed a small treatise for the instruction of pilots in finding a ship’s place at sea.  He formed a table of the variations of the needle, according to the observations of Plancius, a famous geographer, and added directions how to use it.

Grotius translated into Latin this work, which he could not have understood without knowing the Mathematics, and particularly Mechanics; Statics, and the art of working a ship, and of finding her place at sea, being branches of that science.

This translation he dedicated to the Republic of Venice by a letter dated April 1, 1599; in which he says, that having been in France about a year before, with the Ambassadors of the States, he there saw Signior Contarini, Ambassador of Venice; that a comparison happening to be made in conversation between the Republics of Holland and Venice, he immediately resolved to dedicate to the Venetians the first work he published that might be agreeable, or worthy to be presented to them; that an opportunity now offer’d of fulfilling this resolution, and that he dedicated to them the translation of Stevin’s work because Prince Maurice had recommended it to the colleges of the Admiralty to be studied by all officers of the Navy; and as the Republic of Venice attentively cultivated Navigation, this book might be as useful to her as to Holland.