The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius | Page 5

mentioned his birth[8] fix it on the tenth of April 1583. The President Bouhier pretends they place it a year too late; and that he was born on the tenth of April 1582. To prevent the authority of such a learned man, which has already seduced several writers, from misleading others, we shall shew that by departing from the general opinion he has fallen into an error. Grotius writes to Vossius on Easter Sunday 1615[9], that on that day he reckoned thirty-two years: He dates another letter[10] to Vossius the twenty-fifth of March 1617; Easter-eve, "which, he observes, begins my thirty-fifth year." April 11, 1643, he says he had completed sixty years[11]. On Easter-day 1644 he reckons sixty-one years[12]. He acquaints us in his Poems[13], that he was fifteen when he went first to France: he went there in 1598; and speaking of Easter 1614 he informs us[14] he was then one-and-thirty. From all these different calculations it is manifest that Grotius was born in 1583.
It must be owned, however, that the proof on which the President Bouhier builds his opinion, would be decisive, if there were no error in the text of a[15] letter written by Grotius to his brother, April 14, 1640, in which he says, "I have completed my fifty-eighth year:" but the other passages of Grotius just cited demonstrate that the editors of this letter, instead of incepi, I have begun, read implevi, I have completed: which Grotius could not have written without contradicting himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Athen? Batav?, p. 205. Life of Grotius prefixed to his works. Le Clerc, Hist. de Hollande, l. 12. t. 2. See the critical Remarks on Bayle's Dict. ed. 1734.
[9] Ep. 55. p. 18.
[10] Ep. 95. p. 41.
[11] Ep. 648. p. 952.
[12] Ep. 697. p. 965.
[13] Page 213.
[14] Poemata, p. 217.
[15] Ep. 491. p. 896.
VI. It was therefore on the tenth of April in the year 1583, that Grotius was born, at Delft. It was Easter-Sunday that year: and he always observed the anniversary of that feast as his birth-day[16].
He came into the world with the most happy dispositions. Nature bestowed on him a profound genius, a solid judgment, and a wonderful memory. Several authors report[17] that being employed to review some regiments he retained the name of every soldier. He was but eight years old, when, in 1591, he wrote some elegiac verses, very pretty for that age: afterwards he thought them not good enough to publish. M. le Clerc informs us, that he had seen a copy of them in the possession of a very able man, who purposed to write the life of Grotius.
Nothing contributed more to his amazing progress, than the excellent education he received. He was so happy, as to find in his own father a pious and able governor, who formed his mind and his morals. He did not confine himself to making his son a man of learning, he purposed making him a good man. The young Grotius, like Horace, has celebrated his gratefulness for so good a father in some verses still extant. He often declared in the course of his life,[18] that he could never sufficiently acknowledge his obligation to his father and mother for the principles of piety they instilled into him. We learn from his letters[19], that his preceptor was one Lusson, whom he calls an excellent man; and seems to have been greatly affected with his death: which is all we know of him.
He was scarce past his childhood[20] when he was sent to the Hague; and boarded with Mr. Utengobard, a celebrated clergyman among the Arminians, with whom he kept up the most tender friendship till his death, in return for the care he had taken of his education. Before he was twelve, he was sent to the famous university of Leyden to perfect himself: and continued there three years with the learned Francis Junius, who was so kind to superintend his behaviour. Joseph Scaliger, the ornament of the university of Leyden, who enjoyed the most brilliant reputation among the learned, and whom his worshippers regarded as the Dictator of the republic of Letters, was so struck with the prodigious capacity of young Grotius, that he condescended to direct his studies. In 1597 he maintained public theses in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Law with the highest applause. Hence we may judge with what ardour he applied to study. He tells us himself that he spent a part of the night in it.[21] The device which he adopted[22] shews that he had reflected on the swiftness of time, and the necessity of employing it well.
The reputation of this learned youth spread every-where; and learned men spoke of him in their works as a prodigy. So early as the year 1597 Isaac Pontanus calls him a young man of the greatest hopes;