Prince of Conde. The learning and critical discernment displayed by him
in this publication excited astonishment, and obtained for him the
applause of all the literary world. Grotius himself gives the following
account of his work: "We have collated Capella with the several authors,
who have investigated the same subjects. In the two first books, we have
consulted those whose writings contain the sentiments of the antient
philosophers, as Apuleius, Albericus and others, too tedious to name; on
grammar, we have compared, Capella with the antient grammarians; in what
he has said on rhetoric, with Cicero and Aquila; on logic, with
Porphyry, Aristotle, Cassiodorus and Apuleius; on geography, with
Strabo, Mela, Solinus, and Ptolemy, but chiefly Pliny; on arithmetic,
with Euclid; on astronomy, with Hyginus, and others, who have treated on
that subject; on music, with Cleonides, Vitruvius and Boethius." In
Grotius's Annotations all these writers are mentioned in a manner, which
shews that he was thoroughly conversant with their works. Grotius's
edition is become, from its extreme scarcity, a typographical curiosity:
all the other editions are scarce. The writer of these pages found, with
great difficulty, a copy of it in the London market.[006] That of
Bonhomme, published at Lyons in 1539, he procured by loan. The
celebrated Leibniz began to prepare an edition of Capella _in usum
Delphini_; but his collections being purloined from him, he desisted
from his project: it must be owned that the general learning of Leibniz
qualified him admirably for such a task.[009]

[Sidenote: The early Publications of Grotius.]

While yet in his fourteenth year, Grotius published a translation of a
work, published by Simon Steven in 1586, upon Navigation, and shewed by
it a profound knowledge of mathematics:[010] he dedicated it to the
republic of Venice.

[Sidenote: CHAP. III. 1597-1610.]

In the following year, Grotius published _the Phenomena of Aratus_, a
poetical treatise of that author upon astronomy, with Cicero's
translation of it, so far as it has reached us. Grotius supplied the
vacancies. It is universally admitted that the parts supplied by him,
are not inferior to those of Cicero. The abbe d'Olivet, the editor of
Cicero's works, and an enthusiastic admirer of his style, declares that
"the Muse of Cicero[011] did not throw the Muse of Grotius into the
shade:" he therefore inserted the supplementary verses of Grotius in his
edit