. 168.

[702] L. 1. S. 23.

XXV. If Grotius's merit stirred up envy, and if his projects of
reconciliation procured him hatred, the more irreconcilable as it was
founded on a religious pretext, he had also a great number of friends
and judicious persons for him, who did justice to his virtue and his
talents. We shall not enter into a detail of all the testimonies in his
favour, they would fill a large volume: we shall confine ourselves to
the Elogiums of those whose suffrages deserve most attention. We have
already seen, that even when a boy he was highly extolled by the
greatest men of his age. Isaac Pontanus, Meursius, James Gillot,
Barlaeus, John Dousa, M. de Thou, the great Scaliger, Casaubon, Vossius,
Lipsius, Baudius, celebrated his childhood. He justified the great hopes
that were so early conceived of him, and the praises he received were an
additional motive to merit the public esteem. Baudius compared him to
Scaliger[703], who, he said, was his favourite author. This he wrote on
the third of March, 1606, when Grotius was yet much under age. In a
scazon, written in his praise, he calls him [704]a great, an admirable,
and an original man. "If any, says he in a letter dated October 8,
1607[705], can form a just notion of Grotius's merit, which exceeds all
that can be said of it, I am one; and I think him equal to any office.
Ignorant people, who judge of virtue by years and a long beard, may
object to him his youth; but in my opinion that makes for him, since in
his earliest youth he possesses the prudence and ripeness of
understanding of the most aged."

The celebrated Peyresc having made a journey into Holland in 1606, would
not leave the Hague[706] till he had made acquaintance with Grotius,
already famous for universal learning. "Though he was but very young,
says Gassendi[707], when Peyresc heard of his arrival at Paris, he said,
that France, by gaining Grotius, had a sufficient reparation for the
loss of Scaliger; and that if some others had been the ornament of the
age, he was the wonder of it; and it is with reason (adds M. Mesnage,
after relating this story of Peyresc) that we still consider Grotius as
a prodigy of learning, since he has made a greater proficiency in most
of the sciences, than many of those who have wholly applied to one of
them in particular."

In the funeral Elogium of Peyresc, delivered at Rome December 2, 1637,
mention is made of the learned men with whom he was connected. Jame