egarded as one of
the great luminaries of Europe for learning and genius. Of an ancient and
knightly race, his immediate ancestors had been as famous for literature,
science, and municipal abilities as their more distant progenitors for
deeds of arms in the feudal struggles of Holland in the middle ages.

His father and grandfather had alike been eminent for Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin scholarship, and both had occupied high positions in the University
of Leyden from its beginning. Hugo, born and nurtured under such
quickening influences, had been a scholar and poet almost from his
cradle. He wrote respectable Latin verses at the age of seven, he was
matriculated at Leyden at the age of eleven. That school, founded amid
the storms and darkness of terrible war, was not lightly to be entered.
It was already illustrated by a galaxy of shining lights in science and
letters, which radiated over Christendom. His professors were Joseph
Scaliger, Francis Junius, Paulus Merula, and a host of others. His
fellow-students were men like Scriverius, Vossius, Baudius, Daniel
Heinsius. The famous soldier and poet Douza, who had commanded the forces
of Leyden during the immortal siege, addressed him on his admission to
the university as "Magne peer magni dignissime cura parentis," in a copy
of eloquent verses.

When fourteen years old, he took his bachelor's degree, after a rigorous
examination not only in the classics but astronomy, mathematics,
jurisprudence, and theology, at an age when most youths would have been
accounted brilliant if able to enter that high school with credit.

On leaving the University he was attached to the embassy of Barneveld and
Justinus van Nassau to the court of Henry IV. Here he attracted the
attention of that monarch, who pointed him out to his courtiers as the
"miracle of Holland," presented him with a gold chain with his miniature
attached to it, and proposed to confer on him the dignity of knighthood,
which the boy from motives of family pride appears to have refused. While
in France he received from the University of Orleans, before the age of
fifteen, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in a very eulogistic
diploma. On his return to Holland he published an edition of the poet
Johannes Capella with valuable annotations, besides giving to the public
other learned and classical works and several tragedies of more or less
merit. At the age of seventeen he was already an advocate in full
practice before