me; Cramoisi, the richest Bookseller in this country, will undertake it.”  He was kept in hopes of its appearing in Holland; but the printing of it was put off from time to time:  he wrote to several of his friends about it; however no progress was made.  Isaac Vossius, son of the famous Gerard, who inherited his father’s sentiments for Grotius, making an offer of his service for his literary commissions, Grotius thanked him most affectionately, in a letter of the 12th of November, 1644[468], in which he says a great deal about his Anthologia.  “I cannot sufficiently thank you for the kind offer of your good services in relation to the printing of my works.  No body can be of more use to me than you:  for who has more friendship for me, or better understands those matters?  I would have the Anthologia printed directly; and have desired my brother to shew you my Prolegomena, and inform you in what manner I would have the Indexes made.  I shall repeat it, for fear that I have not sufficiently explained myself in what I wrote to my brother.  I would first have an Index of the Poets, expressing exactly from what places the Epigrams are taken.  There must also be another Index of the persons who are the subject of the Epigrams, and of those to whom they are addressed:  there should be a third, which may be called Chorographical, containing the mountains, rivers, towns, baths, bridges, and other public works mentioned in the Epigrams.  There must be an Historical one for the great actions which have happened in war or peace.  To the two last Indexes I would have the names of the authors added, who have mentioned such of those actions as are least known; as Strabo, Pausanias, Procopius, and others.  After these Indexes there must be another, comprehending the natural history, morality, and other particulars omitted in the preceding ones.  This work may be useful; but I would not, however, charge any one with it, who could employ his time better.  If, without losing too much time, you could do it yourself, it would give me the highest satisfaction, not only on my own account, but on the reader’s, to whom these Indexes would render the edition much more useful:  for it is proper to observe, that these Epigrams contain what is most important in history, from the time of Plato to that of Justinian, and even later.”

This was the subject of the Preface, or Prolegomena, that was to be prefixed to the work, and which, with his usual modesty, he says will not be wholly useless[469].

The Anthologia appears to have been put to press in Jan. 1645, under the inspection of Isaac Vossius:  for, on the 21st of that month, Grotius writes thus to him.  “I have seen a proof of the Anthologia, and like the type very well.  I would absolutely have it printed in quarto, like Stobaeus, and the Extracts from the Tragic and Comic Poets:  but if it will make too large a volume, it may be divided into two, and the Greek and Latin printed to face one another.”