Like many other eminent men, George Grote owed much of his future intellectual greatness to his mother’s careful training. Having a strong desire to see her son excel in learning, she taught him reading and writing herself, and even grounded him in the elements of Latin before he was sent to the grammar school at Sevenoaks, in his sixth year (1800). The four years spent there gave an earnest of his whole future life. In the language of his biographer, who has lately attained the end of a life inseparably interwoven with his, “he evinced a decided aptitude for study, being rarely found behindhand with his tasks, and ranking habitually above boys of his age in the class to which he belonged.” In his tenth year he was removed to the Charter-house, the headmaster of which, Dr Raine, had the honour of training, along with George Grote, Connop Thirlwall, Dean Waddington and his brother Horace, Sir Cresswell Cresswell, Sir Henry Havelock, and other men of future distinction. Grote was not allowed to share the course of most of his schoolfellows at a university; but this great privation was turned into a pre-eminent distinction by the resolution with which his own strong will and untiring industry supplied the loss. The suppose! advantage of an early application to business led the father to take George into the bank at the age of sixteen. But his six years at the Charter-house had not only imbued him with a strong taste for classical learning, but had supplied him with that motive to high culture, which forms the most convincing argument in its favour, and to which he remained faithful through a half century of educational disputes and heresies. It was not as an alternative to a life of business, but as its proper complement, that he chose and advocated ancient learning. “Looking forward,” says his biographer, “to a commercial course of life, certain to prove uninteresting in itself, he resolved to provide for himself the higher resources of intellectual occupation.” Engaged in the bank throughout the day, he devoted his early mornings and evenings to a systematic course of reading, of which the chief subjects were the ancient classics, history, metaphysics, and political economy, to the last of which he was attracted by the writings of David Ricardo, whose personal acquaintance he formed in 1817. To these studies he added the learning of German by the aid of a Lutheran clergyman, which, together with his knowledge of French and Italian, placed the stores of Continental scholarship within his reach. His chief recreation waβ music, and he learned to play the violoncello, to accompany his mother, who was a fine musician. Arrived at the age of manhood (in the winter of 1814-1815), he formed the acquaintance of the young lady who afterwards became his wife, devoted to and worthy of him, the very complement of his life, intellectual as well as social, and finally his biographer in a spirit of loving but not indiscriminate admiration. This was Miss Harriet Lewin, the daughter of Mr Thomas Lewin, of Bexley, in Kent, a gentleman of old family and independent fortune. She was born at Southampton, July 1, 1792, and was consequently nearly two years older than Grote. From causes which need not be related here their intimacy was suspended for three years, during which Grote’s studies made steady progress. To this period belongs his earliest literary composition, an essay on his favourite Lucretius, which still exists in MS. His letters also record the careful study of Aristotle, his final estimate of whom formed his last unfinished work. But the most interesting light is thrown on the method and course of his studies in the diary which he kept for Miss Lewin’s information. This record bears witness, not only to the wide diversity of his studies in ancient and modern literature, philosophy, and political economy, but also to the fact that he read the authors themselves whom he wished to know,—read them as a whole, instead of merely reading what others had written about them.

An epoch, perhaps the most critical turning-point of Grote’s intellectual life, was formed by his introduction, through David Ricardo, to James Mill, who was then composing his metaphysical work entitled An Analysis of the Human Mind. Already attracted to this study, Grote became Mill’s admiring disciple in mental and political philosophy. From this time he adopted the fixed principles, from which he never receded, of experience as the source of all knowledge, and utility as the foundation of morals. The views derived from Mill were confirmed by the teaching of Jeremy Bentham, and by intercourse with a band of young disciples, over whom the two philosophers wielded an unbounded influence. Among these John Stuart Mill began now to make his appearance as a boy of twelve years old. It is important to note the influence which the study of metaphysics exercised upon the development of Grote’s intellectual character. To the general public he is chiefly known as an historian; but he was equally distinguished as a metaphysical philosopher. To the teaching of Jame3 Mill may also be traced his democratic principles and his zeal for freedom of thought, hardening into intolerance of all religious systems and their ministers. But, however they may have determined his course upon certain occasions, these antipathies never struck their root down into the real soil of his gentle and courteous nature.

In 1820, at the age of twenty-four, he was married to Miss Harriet Lewin, They lived at first at the banking-house in Threadneedle Street. The confined situation soon told on Mrs Grote’s health, and the death of her only child, a week after its birth, was followed by a dangerous illness. It was at her bedside at Hampstead, during her slow recovery, that Grote composed the first work he published, an Essay on Parliamentary Reform, in reply to an article by Sir James Mackintosh in the Edinburgh Review, No. 61 (1821). The pamphlet is a vigorous assertion of the broadest principles of popular representation, in opposition to a scheme of class representation sketched by the reviewer. It proclaimed Grote’s adherence to those political views held by the party afterwards called the “philosophic radicals,” and it strongly pleaded for the vote by ballot, of which he afterwards became the parliamentary advocate. The most important parts of this pamphlet were embodied in his later essay on the Essentials of Parliamentary Reform (1831), reprinted in his Minor Wortes.

In April 1822 Grote sent a vigorous letter to the Morning Chronicle in reply to Canning’s speech against Lord John Russell’s motion for reform. In the same year he spent much time upon some MSS. of Jeremy Bentham, which the aged philosopher entrusted to his young disciple to put into a readable form. After carefully digesting and arranging them, he published them anonymously in a small 8vo volume, entitled Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind, by Philip Beauchamp. Meanwhile the quiet course of life went on in Threadneedle Street The scanty leisure of each day was devoted to the joint studies of husband and wife, for “Mrs George Grote was habitually studious, after her fashion, under the direction of her husband, who laid great stres3 upon her cultivating the ratiocinative vein of instruction—above all, logic, metaphysics, and politics; and she accordingly strove to master these subjects, out of deference to his wish, and in order to qualify herself to be associated with his intellectual tastes and labours as time wore on.” Their pleasures were likewise in common; the wife, who was an accomplished musician, learnt the violoncello to accompany her husband; but he dropped his music in 1830. A circle of congenial minds frequented the house in Threadneedle Street from 1822 to 1830. Within that choice society there was a narrower circle of students, who met there twice a week at half-past eight in the morning for an hour or two’s reading. Among others were John Stuart Mill, Charles Buller, and John Arthur Roebuck. They read the most recent works on metaphysics and kindred subjects in the light of their adored teachers, Bentham and James Mill, beyond whom they believed all to be in Cimmerian darkness.

The year 1823 marks the epoch of the first conception of Grote⅛ great work; and an extant letter shows the spirit in which he approached it. On January 14th he writes :—“I am at preseut engaged in the fabulous ages of Greece, which I find will be required to be illustrated by bringing together a large mass of analogical matter from other early histories, in order to show the entire uncertainty and worthlessness of tales to which early associations have so long familiarized all classical minds. I am quite amazed to discover the extraordinary greediness and facility with which men assert, believe, re-assert, and are believed. The weakness appears to be next to universal, and I really think that one ought to write on the walls of one’s dressing-room the caution of the poet Epicharmus :—

Nτjφε, και μεμνησ απιστεΐρ, άρθρα ταvτα τωr φρένων.

The subject ever present to his thoughts came up so often in the discussions with his friends as to suggest to his wife’s sympathy and ambition for his fame the definite work of his future life. One day she said to him—“You are always studying the ancient authors whenever you have a moment’s leisure, now here would be a fine subject for you to treat. Suppose you try your hand !” “The idea” (she adds) “proved acceptable to the young student, and, after reflecting for some time, he came to the resolution of entering upon the work.” Henceforth this definite aim prevailed amidst the still wide range of reading which threw new light from all quarters upon the central object, and the mass of notes and extracts still preserved attest the diligence with which he prepared for it. Happily for himself and for the world, he was diverted from the work till he could resume it, not only with that clearer mental perspective in which a long meditated object appears when we return to it afresh, but with the enlarged experience of nearly twenty years occupied in practical politics and converse with statesmen, abroad as well as at home. Meanwhile he gave the world an earnest of his work in an exhaustive review of Mitford’s History of Greece in the Westminster Review for April 1826,—one result of which was a letter from Niebuhr, clearly designating Grote as the historian of Greece, and inviting him to a visit which events never permitted him to pay.

From 1825 to 1827 Grote took part in the scheme of founding the “University of London” in Gower Street, with the management of which institution he became afterwards intimately connected. As the political crisis of 1830 approached, public and private events conspired to draw Grote into the vortex of politics. The failure of his father’s health gave him a new position in the bank; and in the spring of 1830 he was able to arrange for a visit to the Continent, which brought him into connexion with the liberal politicians of Paris on the eve of the revolution. An interesting record of the state of affairs and of the impressions of this visit are preserved in Mrs Grote’s Life of Ary Scheffer, published in 1860. The travellers were recalled in June by the illness of Grote’s father, who died before their arrival, at the age of 70.

Thus, in his 36th year, George Grote, now the head of the family, found himself master of his own affairs, and of about £40,000 personal property, besides the family estates in Lincolnshire and Oxfordshire. His business and studies alike led him to fix his residence in London; and the first use he made of his wealth was to subscribe £500 to the revolutionary committee of the Hôtel de Ville, with an offer to come himself to Paris if his presence would be of any use. The pressure of business as his father’s executor kept him, in spite of strong solicitations, out of any active part in the agitation for reform, but did not prevent the steady progress of the History, which Mrs Grote writes (February 1, 1831), “must be given to the public before he can embark in any active scheme of a political kind.” He refused an invitation to stand for the city in 1831; but he made an able contribution to the argument in a statement of the Essentials of Parliamentary Reform, published this year, to which reference has already been made. His reluctance to enter parliament was overcome after the passing of the Reform Act in 1832; and, being returned at the head of the poll, he appeared as one of the members for the city of London in the first reformed parliament, which met on February 4, 1833. Pie at once gave notice of a motion for the vote by ballot in parliamentary elections, which he brought before the house on the 25th of April following. His speech on that occasion was prepared with great care, and displayed that cogent reason and calm earnest eloquence which marked all his efforts in debate. The substance of the argument, and a notice of his principal speeches in parliament, will be found in Professor Bain’s sketch of his character and writings prefixed to his “minor works.” Earnest as were his political convictions, and faithfully as he discharged the duties which he had undertaken, Grote’s parliamentary career forms only an episode in his life, but an episode which contributed to refresh and qualify him for his main work. He sat in three successive parliaments, from 1833 to 1841, witnessing the gradual passage from the first triumphs of reform to the Conservative reaction under Sir Robert Peel, and the steady decay of his own sect of philosophic radicalism, which never had a root in popular opinion. He was returned the last time by a bare majority of six, and his party numbered just the same figure. Charles Buller said to him one evening: “1 see what we are coming to, Grote; in no very long time from this, you and I shall be left to ‘ tell ’ Molesworth.”

During the eight years and a half of his parliamentary life, Grote kept up his varied reading, and formed a growing desire for a knowledge of physical science. But the staff of his mental diet, and his refuge from all meaner objects of thought, was still the same. In the weary intervals of attendance on parliament a Tauchnitz copy of Plato was ready in his pocket, and when snowed up in the country during the vacation he writes—“A Greek book is the only refuge.” His hospitalities expanded with his social position; and among his new friendships the one he most valued was that formed in 1835 with Mr (afterwards Sir) George Cornewall Lewis, the letters exchanged with whom on various points in classics and philosophy enrich the narrative of his Life. Among the other objects of his literary interest at that time was Sir William Molesworth’s collected edition of the works of Hobbes, dedicated to Grote, whose review of the first two volumes in the Spectator (1839) is reprinted among the Minor Works.

During the whole period of Whig decay, and especially from the beginning of the present reign, Grote felt a declining interest in politics, and accordingly, on the dissolution in June 1841, he determined to retire from parliament. Thus at the age of forty-six he was set free to spend the remaining thirty years of his life in the work long prepared and contemplated. In half that period the History of Greece was finished; the remaining half was devoted to the two works on Plato and Aristotle, which made up the Hellenic “trilogy” of his life-long studies.

After a six . months’ holiday (1841-1842) for the long desired purpose of visiting Italy and studying the antiquities of Rome upon the spot, he returned to his business at the bank, and set vigorously to work on the new plan for the first two volumes of his History— reperusing the authorities, revising his notes, and rewriting the whole. The greater part of these two volumes was occupied with the first division of his subject, which was now for the first time severed from actual history, and placed in its proper mythical light, under the title of. “Legendary Greece.” The closing months of 1842 were employed in sending forth a sort of “pilot-vessel” in the form of a review of Niebuhr’s Griechische Heroen-Geschichte, which appeared in the Westminster Review (May 1843) under the title of “Grecian Legends and Early History,” and is reprinted in the Minor Works. His biographer states that, “this article, wherein the collected store of Grote’s long and assiduous studies on the subject found a vent, was written with uncommon zest, and he anticipated with lively curiosity the effect it would produce over the learned world.” It was received as a striking promise of the new light in which he was about to place the primeval ages of Grecian history. It is important to record an incidental remark, which shows that, amidst his uncompromising severance of legend from real history, Grote adhered to the great principle avowe 1 alike by Herodotus and by Bede: “An historian is bound to produce the materials upon which he builds, be they never so fantastic, absurd, or incredible.”

With the beginning of 1843, exactly ten years after the interruption caused by his entrance into parliament, the composition of the first volume for the press was vigorously begun; and at midsummer he further cleared his path by retiring from the banking-house of Prescott, Grote, & Company. While still at work upon the History, he published in the Classical Museum (1843) an important essay on ancient weights and measures, reviewing Boeckh’s Metrologische Untersuchungen, which is reprinted among his Minor IFor/ts.

The first two volumes of the History were completed early in 1845, and published in March 1846. Their reception is well known; and the effect of their success upon Grote himself was thoroughly characteristic of the man :—“From all sides congratulation and eulogy flowed in upon the author, insomuch that he himself now began to feel something like confidence in the success of his long-cherished work. Thu3 I became” (writes Mrs Grote) “for once witness of a state of feeling on his part approaching to gratified self-love, which at times would pierce through that imperturbable veil of modesty habitually present with him.” The first volume and nearly half of the second are occupied with “Legendary Greece”; the latter half of the second volume begins “Historical Greece,” and consequently contains only a small portion of the real history. These volumes were reviewed with great praise by John Stuart Mill in the Edinburgh Review, and by Dean Milman in the Quarterly Review.

The success of the first two volumes incited Grote to prosecute the work with redoubled ardour; and such progress had been already made that the third and fourth volumes, bringing the narrative down to the battle of Marathon, and containing an account of Grecian poetry and. philosophy in its earlier stages, appeared in the following year (1847). Two more volumes, the fifth and sixth, coming down to the eleventh year of the Peloponnesian war, were published in 1849. These two volumes, together with the two preceding ones, were reviewed in the Edinburgh Review by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. The seventh and eighth volumes, which brought the Peloponnesian war to the end, and which contained the striking and...

Notwithstanding his successes in his profession, which seemed to open the most brilliant career to his ambition, he was in secret hankering after the pleasures of literature. In 1600 he edited the remains of Aratus, with the versions of Cicero, Germanicus, and Avienus. Of the Germanicus Scaliger says—“A better text than that which Grotius has given, it iβ impossible to give;” but it is probable that Scaliger had himself been the reviser. Grotius vied with the Latinists of his day in the composition of Latin verses. Some lines on the siege of Ostend were greatly admired, and-spread his fame beyond the circle of the learned. He wrote three dramas in Latin :— Christus Patiens ; Sophom-phaneas, on the story of Joseph and his brethren; and Adamus Exul, a production which is still remembered as having given hints to Milton. The Sορhomphaneas was translated into Dutch by Vondel, and into English by Francis Goldsmith (1652); the Christus Patiens into English by George Sandys (1640).

In 1603 the United Provinces, desiring to transmit to posterity some account of their struggle with Spain, determined to appoint a historiographer. Several candidates appeared, Dominicus Bandius of course among them. But the choice of the states fell upon Grotius, though only twenty years of age, and not having offered himself for the post.

There was some talk at this time in Paris of calling Grotius to be librarian of the royal library. But it was never meant seriously. It was a ruse of the Jesuit party, who wiβhed to persuade the public that the opposition to the appointment of Isaac Casaubon did not proceed from theological motives, since they were ready to appoint a Protestant in the person of Grotius.

His next preferment was that of advocate-general of the fisc for the provinces of Holland and Zeeland. This was followed by his marriage, in 1608, to Mary van Reigesberg, a lady of family in Zeeland, a woman of great capacity and noble disposition, who proved every way worthy to be the wife of Grotius.

He had already passed from occupation with the classics to studies more immediately connected with his profession. In the winter of 1604 he composed a treatise entitled De jure proedoe. This treatise he did not publish, and the MS. of it remained unknown to all the biographers of Grotius till 1868, when it was brought to light, and printed at the Hague under the auspices of Professor Fruin, It discovers to us that the principles and the plan of the celebrated De jure belli, which was not composed till 1625, more than twenty years after, had already been conceived by a youth of twenty-one. It has always been a question among the biographers what it was that determined Grotius, when an exile in Paris in 1625, to that particular subject, and various explanations have been offered; among others we have been referred to a casual suggestion of Peiresc in a letter of early date. The discovery of the MS. of the De jure proedoe discloses to us the whole history of Grotius’s ideas, and shows us that from youth upwards he had steadily read and meditated in one direction, that, namely, of which the famous De jure belli was the mature product. In the De jure proedoe of 1604 we have much more than the germ of the later treatise De jure belli. Its main principles, and the whole system of thought implied in the later, are anticipated in the earlier work. The arrangement even is the same. The chief difference between the two treatises is one which twenty years’ experience in affairs could not but bring,—the substitution of more cautious and guarded language, less dogmatic affirmation, more allowance for exceptions and deviations. The Jus pacis was an addition introduced first in the later work, an insertion which is the cause of not a little of the confused arrangement which has been found fault with in the De jure belli.

We learn further from the De jure proedoe that Grotius was originally determined to this subject, not by any speculative intellectual interest, but by a special occasion presented by his professional engagements. He was retained by the Dutch East India Company as their advocate. The company had been formed for the peaceful purposes of commerce, but had found itself compelled by the aggressions of the Portuguese to repel force by force. One of their captains, Heemskirk, had captured a rich Portuguese galleon in the Straits of Malacca. The right of a private company to make prizes was hotly contested in Holland, and denied by the stricter religionists, especially the Mennonites, who considered all war unlawful. Grotius undertook to prove that Heemskirk’s prize had been lawfully captured. In doing this he was led to investigate the grounds of the lawfulness of war in general. Such was the casual origin of a book which long enjoyed such celebrity that it used to be said, with some exaggeration indeed, that it had founded a new science.

A short treatise which was printed in 1609, Grotius says without his permission, under the title of Mare Liberum, is nothing more than a chapter—the 12th—of the De jure proedoe. It was necessary to Grotius’s defence of Heemskirk that he should show that the Portuguese pretence that Eastern waters were their private property was untenable. Grotius maintains that the ocean is free to all, and cannot be appropriated by any one nation. The occasional character of this piece explains the fact that at the time of its appearance it made no sensation. It was not till many years afterwards that the jealousies between England and Holland gave importance to the novel doctrine broached in the tract by Grotius, a doctrine which Selden set himself to refute in his'3∕cπ , e clausum, 1632.

Equally due to the circumstances of the time was his small contribution to constitutional history entitled De antiquitate reipublicoe Batavoe (1610). In this he vindicates, on grounds of right, prescriptive and natural, the revolt of the United Provinces against the sovereignty of Spain.

On the death of Elias Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius, though only thirty, succeeded him as pensionary of the city of Rotterdam. Foreseeing the troubles impending from the growing theological fermentation, he made the stipulation that he should be irremovable by the municipal authorities —a stipulation certain not to be respected should it ever be wanted for his protection.

In 1613 he formed one of a deputation to the court of England, for the purpose of adjusting those differences which were already beginning to arise between the two young maritime powers, and which gave rise afterwards to a naval struggle disastrous to Holland. He was received by James with every mark of distinction due to his rising reputation. He also cultivated the acquaintance of the Anglican ecclesiastics Overal and Andrewes, and was much in the society of the celebrated scholar Isaac Casaubon, with whom he had been in correspondence by letter for many yeara. Though the mediating views in the great religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant, by which Grotius was afterwards known, had been arrived at by him by independent reflexion, yet it could not but be that he would be confirmed in them by finding in England a developed school of thought of the same character already in existence. How highly Casaubon esteemed Grotius appears from a letter of his to Daniel Heinsius, dated London, 13th April 1613. “I cannot say how happy I esteem myself in having seen so much of one so truly great as Grotius. A wonderful man! This I knew him to be before I had seen him; but the rare excellence of that divine genius no one can sufficiently feel who does not see his face, and hear him speak. Probity is stamped on his features; his conversation savours of true piety and profound learning. It is not only upon me that he has made this impression; all the pious and learned to whom he has been here introduced have felt the same towards him; the king especially so!”

After Grotius’s return from England the exasperation of theological parties in Holland gradually rose to such a pitch that it became clear that an appeal to force would sooner or later be made. This Grotius must have foreseen, but he could hardly have anticipated that he himself would be one of the first and principal victims. Grotius was not sufficient of a philosopher to rise above the level of a mere theological wrangle. But from a natural moderation of temper he sought to find some mean term in which the two hostile parties of Remonstrants and Anti-remonstrants, or as they were subsequently called Arminians and Gomarists (see Remonstrants), might agree. A form of edict drawn by Grotius was published by the states, recommending mutual toleration, and forbidding ministers in the pulpit from handling the disputed dogmas. To the orthodox Calvinists the word toleration was insupportable. They had the populace on their side. This fact determined the stadtholder, Maurice of Nassau, to support the orthodox party— a party to which he inclined the more readily that Oldenbarnevelt, the grand pensionary, the man whose uprightness p,nd abilities he most dreaded, sided with the Remonstrants.

In 1618 Prince Maurice set out on a sort of pacific campaign, disbanding the civic guards in the various cities of Guelders, Holland, and Zeeland, and occupying the places with troops on whom he could rely. The states of Holland sent a commission, of which Grotius was chairman, to Utrecht, with the view of strengthening the hands of their friends, the Remonstrant party, in that city. Feeble plans were formed, but not carried into effect, for shutting the gates upon the stadtholder, who entered the city with troops on the night of 26th July 1618. There were conferences in which Grotius met Prince Maurice face to face, and taught him that Oldenbarnevelt was not the only man of capacity in the ranks of the Remonstrants whom he had to fear. On the early morning of 31st July the prince’s coup d'etat against the liberties of Utrecht and of Holland was carried out; the civic guard was disarmed,—Grotius and his colleagues saving themselves by a precipitate flight. But it was only a reprieve. The grand pensionary, Oldenbarnevelt, the leader of the Remonstrant party, Grotius, and Hoogeoberz were arrested by order of the stadtholder, brought to trial, and condemned,—Oldenbarnevelt to death, and Grotius to imprisonment for life and confiscation of his property. In June 1619 he was immured in the fortress of Lovestein near Gorcum. His confinement was rigorous, but after a time his wife obtained permission to share his captivity, on the condition that if she came out, she should not be suffered to return

Grotius had now before him, at thirty-six, no prospect but that of a lifelong captivity. He did not abandon himself to despair, but sought refuge in returning to the classical pursuits of his youth. Several of his translations (into Latin) from the Greek tragedians and other writers, made at this time, have been printed. They are without any philological value, and only prove his taste and facility in the classical languages. “The Muses,” he writes to Voss, “were now his consolation, and appeared more amiable than ever.”

The address and ingenuity of Madame Grotius at length devised a mode of escape. It had grown into a custom to send, at stated intervals, the books which he had done with. in a chest, along with his linen to be washed at Gorcum. For many months the warders of the fortress were very exact in searching the chest. But never finding anything but books and linen they grew careless, and began to let the chest pass without opening it. Madame Grotius, perceiving this, prevailed on her husband to allow himself to be shut up in it at the usual time. The two soldiers who carried the chest out complained that it was so heavy “there must be an Arminian in it.” “There are indeed,” said Madame Grotius, “Arminian books in it.” The chest was carried by canal to Gorcum. When it came there they wanted to put it on a sledge; but the maid telling the boatmen there were some brittle things in it, it was put on a horse, and so carried to the house of a friend, where it was opened, and Grotius released. He was then dressed up like a mason with hod and trowel, and so conveyed in disguise over the frontier. His first place of refuge was Antwerp, from which he proceeded to Paris, where he arrived in April 1621. In October he was joined by his wife. There he was presented to the king, Louis XIII., and a pension of 3000 livres conferred upon him. French pensions were easily granted, all the more so as they were never paid. Grotius was now reduced to great straits. •He had not the means of procuring the bare necessaries of life. His family was a growing one, and it was with difficulty that he procured them clothes. His relations in Holland sent him occasionally small remittances in money, clothes, or Dutch butter. He looked about for any opening through which he might earn a living. There was talk of something in Denmark; or he would settle in Spire, and practise in the court there. Some little relief he got through the intervention of D’Aligre, the new chancellor, who procured a royal mandate which enabled Grotius to draw, not all, but a large part of his pension. In 1623 the president Henri de Même lent him his chateau of Balagni near Senlis (dep. Oise), and there Grotius passed the spring and summer of that year. De Thou gave him facilities to borrow books from the superb library formed by his father.

Under these circumstances the De jure belli et pacis was composed. The biographers are naturally astonished by the fact that a work of such immense reading, consisting in great part of quotation, could have been written in little more than a year. The achievement would have been, not wonderful, but impossible, but for the fact above mentioned that Grotius bad with him the first draft of the work made in 1604. He had also got his brother William, when he was reading his classics, to mark down all the passages which touched upon law, public or private. In March 1625 the printing of the De jure belli, which had taken four months, was completed, and the edition despatched to the fair at Frankfort. His own honorarium as author consisted of 200 copies, of which, however, he had to give away many to friends, to the king, the principal courtiers, the papal nuncio, &c. What remained he sold for his own profit, at the price of a crown each, but the sale did not recoup him his outlay. But though his book brought him no profit it brought him reputation, so widely spread, and of such long endurance, as no other legal treatise has ever enjoyed.

Grotius naturally hoped that his fame would soften the hostility of his foes, and that his country would recall him to her service. In this he was disappointed. Theological rancour prevailed over all other sentiments. After some fruitless attempts to re-establish himself in Holland, Grotius was fain to accept service under the crown of Sweden, in the capacity of ambassador to the court of France. He was not very successful in negotiating the treaty on behalf of the Protestant interest in Germany, Richelieu having a special dislike to him. He never enjoyed the confidence of the court to which he was accredited, and frittered away his influence in disputes about precedence, which seem little worthy of his reputation.

In 1645 he demanded and obtained his recall. He was received at Stockholm with all the honours due to him. But neither the climate nor the tone of the court suited him, and he demanded permission to leave. He was driven by a storm on the coast near Dantzic. He got as far as Rostock, where he found himself very ill. Stockman, a Scotch physician who was sent for, thought it was only weakness, and that rest would restore the patient. But Grotius sank rapidly, and died on 29th August 1645.

Grotius was a man of varied interests and accomplishments, combining a wide circle of general knowledge with a profound study of one branch of law, History, theology, jurisprudence, politics, classics, poetry,—all these fields he cultivated, and has left numerous works in each kind.

His commentaries on the Scriptures were the first application on an extensive scale of the principle affirmed by Scaliger, that, namely, of interpretation by the rules of grammar without dogmatic assumptions. Grotius’s philological skill, however, was not sufficient to enable him to work up to this ideal.

As in many other points Grotius inevitably recalls to us Erasmus, so he does in his attitude towards the great schism. Grotius was indeed a man of profound religious sentiment, which Erasmus was not; but he had an indifference to dogma equal to that of Erasmus, although his disregard sprang from another source. Erasmus felt the contempt of a man of lettera for the barbarous dissonance of the monkish wrangle. Grotius was animated by an ardent desire for peace and concord. He thought that a basis for reconciliation of Protestant and Catholic might be found in a common piety, combined with reticence upon discrepancies of doctrinal statement. His De veritate religionis Christianae (1627), a presentment of the evidences, is so written as to form a code of common Christianity, irrespective of sect. The little treatise diffused itself rapidly over Christendom, gaining rather than losing popularity in the 18th century. It became the classical manual of apologetics in Protestant colleges, and was translated for missionary purposes into Arabic (by Pococke, 1660), Persian, Chinese, <fcc. His Via et votum ad pacem ecclesiasticam (1642) was a detailed proposal of a scheme of accommodation. Of course, like all men of moderate and mediating views, he was charged by both sides with vacillation. An Amsterdam minister, James Laurent, published his Grotius papizans (1642), and it was continually being announced from Paris that Grotius had “gone over.” Hallam, who has collected all the passages from Grotius’s letters in which the prejudices and narrow tenets of the Reformed clergy are condemned, thought he had a “bias towards popery” (Z⅛. of Europe, ii. 312). The true interpretation of Grotius’s mind appears to be an indifference to dogmatic propositions, produced by a profound sentiment of piety. He rose above the separatist bigotry of the vulgar theologian, but did not ascend into that philosophical region in which dogma is transcended and dissolved. He approached parties as a statesman approaches them, as facts which have to be dealt with, and governed, not suppressed in the interests of some one of their number.

His editions and translations of the classics were either juvenile exercises prescribed by Scaliger, or “lusus poetici,” the amusement of vacant hours. Grotius read the classics as a humanist, for the sake of their contents, not as a professional scholar.

His Annals of the Low Countries was begun as an official duty while he held the appointment of historiographer, and was being continued and retouched by him to the last....