Scaliger made a very high encomium on the
young author in some fine verses which are much to Grotius' honour. The
President de Thou was very well pleased with _Capella_. [32]Casaubon
declared that whatever high idea he might have of Grotius' labour, the
success exceeded his hopes. [33]Vossius, in fine, after assuring Grotius
that he had very happily restored _Capella_, compares the editor to
Erasmus; and affirms that the whole world could not produce a man of
greater learning than Grotius[34].

The more we consider this work, the greater difficulty we have to
believe it to have been executed by a boy. We would sometimes be
inclined to think the great Scaliger had a hand in it; but this is only
a conjecture: that Grotius was assisted by his father is very certain;
he tells us so himself.

Some perhaps will be glad to know how Grotius managed with the
booksellers: for even little details that relate to famous men yield a
pleasure. He never took money for the copy, though, he tells us, some
people of good fortune were not so delicate: but he asked a hundred
books on large paper handsomely bound, to make presents to his friends;
it being unjust, he said, that while he served the public and enriched
the booksellers, he should injure his own fortune.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Ep. Gr. 3. p. 1.

[33] Ep. Caus. 1030.

[34] De Hist. Lat. lib. 3

XI. The same year, 1599, Grotius published another work which discovered
as much knowledge of the abstract sciences in particular, as the edition
of _Martianus Capella_ did of his learning in general.

Stevin, Mathematician to Prince Maurice of Nassau, had by his orders
composed a small treatise for the instruction of pilots in finding a
ship's place at sea. He formed a table of the variations of the needle,
according to the observations of Plancius, a famous geographer, and
added directions how to use it.

Grotius translated into Latin this work, which he could not have
understood without knowing the Mathematics, and particularly Mechanics;
Statics, and the art of working a ship, and of finding her place at sea,
being branches of that science.

This translation he dedicated to the Republic of Venice by a letter
dated April 1, 1599; in which he says, that having been in France about
a year before, with the Ambassadors of the States, he there saw Signior
Contarini, Ambassador of Venice; that a comparison happening to be made
in conversation between the Republics of Holland and Veni