The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1619-23 | Page 9

affectionate but not exaggerated eulogy, and for whom the
Republic of the Netherlands could now find no better use than to shut
him up in the grim fortress of Loevestein for the remainder of his days.
A commonwealth must have deemed itself rich in men which, after
cutting off the head of Barneveld, could afford to bury alive Hugo
Grotius.
His deportment in prison was a magnificent moral lesson. Shut up in a
kind of cage consisting of a bedroom and a study, he was debarred
from physical exercise, so necessary for his mental and bodily health.
Not choosing for the gratification of Lieutenant Deventer to indulge in
weak complaints, he procured a huge top, which he employed himself
in whipping several hours a day; while for intellectual employment he
plunged once more into those classical, juridical, and theological
studies which had always employed his leisure hours from childhood
upwards.
It had been forbidden by the States-General to sell his likeness in the
shops. The copper plates on which they had been engraved had as far as
possible been destroyed.
The wish of the government, especially of his judges, was that his name
and memory should die at once and for ever. They were not destined to
be successful, for it would be equally difficult to-day to find an
educated man in Christendom ignorant of the name of Hugo Grotius, or
acquainted with that of a single one of his judges.
And his friends had not forgotten him as he lay there living in his tomb.
Especially the learned Scriverius, Vossius, and other professors, were
permitted to correspond with him at intervals on literary subjects, the
letters being subjected to preliminary inspection. Scriverius sent him
many books from his well-stocked library, de Groot's own books and
papers having been confiscated by the government. At a somewhat later
period the celebrated Orientalist Erpenius sent him from time to time a
large chest of books, the precious freight being occasionally renewed
and the chest passing to and from Loevestein by way of Gorcum. At
this town lived a sister of Erpenius, married to one Daatselaer, a

considerable dealer in thread and ribbons, which he exported to
England. The house of Daatselaer became a place of constant resort for
Madame de Groot as well as the wife of Hoogerbeets, both dames
going every few days from the castle across the Waal to Gorcum, to
make their various purchases for the use of their forlorn little
households in the prison. Madame Daatselaer therefore received and
forwarded into Loevestein or into Holland many parcels and boxes,
besides attending to the periodical transmission of the mighty chest of
books.
Professor Vossius was then publishing a new edition of the tragedies of
Seneca, and at his request Grotius enriched that work, from his prison,
with valuable notes. He employed himself also in translating the moral
sentences extracted by Stobaeus from the Greek tragedies; drawing
consolation from the ethics and philosophy of the ancient dramatists,
whom he had always admired, especially the tragedies of Euripides; he
formed a complete moral anthology from that poet and from the works
of Sophocles, Menander, and others, which he translated into fluent
Dutch verse. Becoming more and more interested in the subject, he
executed a masterly rhymed translation of the 'Theban Brothers' of
Euripides, thus seeking distraction from his own tragic doom in the
portraiture of antique, distant, and heroic sorrow.
Turning again to legal science, he completed an Introduction to the
Jurisprudence of Holland, a work which as soon as published became
thenceforward a text-book and an oracle in the law courts and the high
schools of the country. Not forgetting theology, he composed for the
use of the humbler classes, especially for sailors, in whose lot, so
exposed to danger and temptation, be ever took deep interest, a work on
the proofs of Christianity in easy and familiar rhyme--a book of gold,
as it was called at once, which became rapidly popular with those for
whom it was designed.
At a somewhat later period Professor Erpenius, publishing a new
edition of the New Testament in Greek, with translations in Arabic,
Syriac, and Ethiopian, solicited his friend's help both in translations and
in the Latin commentaries and expositions with which he proposed to
accompany the work. The prisoner began with a modest disclaimer,
saying that after the labours of Erasmus and Beza, Maldonatus and
Jasenius, there was little for him to glean. Becoming more enthusiastic

as he went on, he completed a masterly commentary on the Four
Evangelists, a work for which the learned and religious world has ever
recognized a kind of debt of gratitude to the castle of Loevestein, and
hailed in him the founder of a school of manly Biblical criticism.
And thus nearly two years wore away. Spinning his