His illness did not hinder his studies:  in this last he was employed about the Phoenissae of Euripides.  A part of his translation of this Tragedy had been lost when he was a prisoner at the Hague:  he did it over again while confined by his dysentery, and put the last hand to the whole.  It was not published till 1630.  He dedicated it to the President de Meme.  The preface confirms that he did this work in prison; that after his serious studies it served him for amusement and even consolation, for he was of Timocles’s opinion, that Tragedies might serve to alleviate the idea of our misfortunes by carrying our reflexions to the vicissitude of human affairs; and begs some indulgence to a work done partly in prison and partly during illness.  The translation is in Latin verse such as the ancient tragic writers used.  In the preface Grotius enters into an examination of Euripides’s tragedy.  He shews that the time of twenty-four hours has been exactly kept to; that the unity of place is observed; that the manners are good; that it contains many useful maxims, and is upon the whole very well written.

FOOTNOTES: 

[146] Ep. 56. p. 770.  Ep. 57. p. 771.

VIII.  The Prince of Orange, Maurice de Nassau, falling ill in November, 1624, died after six months indisposition, at the age of fifty-eight, on the 23d of April, 1625.  This event raised the hopes of Grotius’s friends:  they flattered themselves that his return to his Country would no longer meet with any obstacle.  Prince Frederic Henry succeeded his brother as Stadtholder.  He had not entered into the malevolent projects formed by Maurice against the Arminians.  The Count D’Estrades has given us some anecdotes on this subject, which we shall relate on his authority.  He assures us that, being one day tete a tete with Prince Henry Frederic in his coach, he heard him say that he had much to do to keep well with his brother Maurice, who suspected him of secretly favouring Barnevelt and the Arminians.  “He told me (these are the Count D’Estrades words) that it was true he kept a correspondence with them to prevent their opposing his election in case his brother should die, but that as it imported him to be on good terms with his brother, and to efface the notion he had of his connection with the Arminians, he made use of Vandermyle, one of his particular friends and Barnevelt’s son-in-law, to let the cabal know that it was necessary for him to accommodate himself to his brother, that he might be better able to serve them:  which Barnevelt approved of.”

Hoogerbetz’s situation, who, as we have seen, was condemned with Grotius, received some alleviation by the change of the Stadtholder.  Four months after the death of Prince Maurice he was allowed to come out of Louvestein, and to reside at a country-house, upon condition of not leaving the country on pain of forfeiting twenty thousand florins, for which his friends and children were bound.  “It is asserted (says the author of the Mercure Francois) that this liberty was granted him without any acknowledgment of his fault, and without asking pardon.”  He did not enjoy it long, for he died three weeks after he was discharged.