rance: 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] Athenae Batavae, 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