ks of the summer of 1611, in which year he became naturalized. In
1613 he was taken to Oxford by Sir Henry Savile, where, amid the homage
and feasting of which he was the object, his principal interest was for
the MSS. treasures of the Bodleian. The honorary degree which was
offered him he declined.

But these distinctions were far from compensating the serious
inconveniences of his position. Having been taken up by the king and the
bishops, he had to share in their rising unpopularity. The courtiers
looked with a jealous eye on a pensioner who enjoyed frequent
opportunities of taking James I. on his weak side--his love of book
talk--opportunities which they would have known how to use. Casaubon was
especially mortified by Sir Henry Wotton's persistent avoidance of him,
so inconsistent with their former intimacy. His windows were broken by
the roughs at night, his children pelted in the streets by day. On one
occasion he himself appeared at Theobalds with a black eye, having
received a blow from some ruffian's fist in the street. The historian
Hallam thinks that he had "become personally unpopular"; but these
outrages from the vulgar seem to have arisen solely from the cockney's
antipathy to the Frenchman. Casaubon, though he could make shift to read
an English book, could not speak English, any more than Mme Casaubon.
This deficiency not only exposed him to insult and fraud, but restricted
his social intercourse. It excluded him altogether from the circle of
the "wits"; either this or some other cause prevented him from being
acceptable in the circle of the lay learned--the "antiquaries." William
Camden, the antiquary and historian, he saw but once or twice. Casaubon
had been imprudent enough to correct Camden's Greek, and it is possible
that the ex-head-master of Westminster kept himself aloof in silent
resentment of Casaubon's superior learning. With Robert Cotton and Henry
Spelman he was slightly acquainted. Of John Selden we find no mention.
Though Sir Henry Savile ostensibly patronized him, yet Casaubon could
not help suspecting that it was Savile who secretly prompted an attempt
by Richard Montagu to forestall Casaubon's book on Baronius. Besides the
jealousy of the natives, Casaubon had now to suffer the open attacks of
the Jesuit pamphleteers. They had spared him as long as there were hopes
of getting him over. The prohibition was taken off, now that he was
committed to Anglicanism. Not only Joannes Eudaemon, He