XVI.  Grotius was at that time principally employed as an Advocate.  He tells us that to make himself master of the forms of law, he carefully studied the practical part, transcribing precedents of Petitions, Prosecutions, and Defences.  He pleaded his first cause when he was but seventeen, with universal applause, which he maintained whilst he continued at the Bar.  We learn the method he followed in his pleadings from a letter to his son Peter advising him to imitate it.  “That you may not, says he, be embarrassed by the little order observed by those against whom you speak, mind one thing, of which I have found the advantage.  Distribute all that can be said on both sides under certain heads, which imprint strongly in your memory; and whatever your adversary says, refer it to your own division, and not to his[50].”  Grotius’s great attention was to avoid prolixity and confusion in his pleadings[51].

The employment of an advocate, though he acquired infinite honour by it, did not however please him.  The reasons of his dislike we have in a letter to Daniel Heinsius, dated July 21, 1603.  “Besides that law-suits are improper for a peaceable man, what doth he derive from them?  They procure him hatred from those against whom he pleads, small acknowledgments from his clients, and not much honour with the Public.  Add to this, that the time spent in things so little agreeable, might be employed in acquiring others much more useful.  I should have been a better philosopher, more master of the Greek, better acquainted with the manners of the Ancients, with the Poets, and Philologists, if I had practiced less as an Advocate.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[50] Ep. 1134. p. 512.

[51] Ibid.

XVII.  His brilliant success at the Bar, which he treats as ungrateful, procured him, however, a very considerable promotion.  The place of Advocate-general of the Fisc for Holland and Zealand becoming vacant, it was unanimously conferred on Grotius.  This is an employment of great distinction and authority, the person invested with it being charged with the preservation of the public peace and the prosecution of offenders.  It was in 1607 he took possession of this important office, which he filled with so much reputation, the States augmented his salary, and promised him a seat in the Court of Holland.

XVIII.  John Grotius, on his son’s being made Advocate-general, began to think of a wife for him; and fixed upon Mary Reigersberg, of one of the first families in Zealand, whose father had been Burgomaster of Veer:  the marriage was solemnised in July, 1608.  The greatest encomium of the new-married lady is, that she was worthy such a husband as Grotius.  The most perfect harmony subsisted between them, and Grotius held her in the highest esteem[52].  This alliance gave occasion to a number of poems.  John Grotius wrote his son’s Epithalamium; Daniel Heinsius composed a Poem on that subject, which, in the opinion of Grotius, was the best of the kind that ever had been written.  Grotius himself celebrated his nuptials in some Latin verses, approved of by Scaliger, and translated them into Dutch:  he also wrote some in French on that occasion.