III. The pains which he was obliged to take, and the trouble he
underwent at the beginning of his new settlement at Paris, did not
diminish his passion for literature. April 23, 1621, he informs Vossius
that the irksomeness of his solitary manner of life was relieved by his
daily conversations with men of the greatest abilities. He writes to
Andrew Schot from Paris, July 8, 1621, that, delivered from public
business which never leaves the mind at ease, and from that croud whose
conversation is contagious, he spent the greatest part of his time in
prayer, reading the Scriptures, and the ancient interpreters.

He enters into a detail of his studies in a letter to Vossius, September
29, 1621, "I persist, says he, in my respect for sacred antiquity: there
are many people here of the same taste. My six books in Dutch will
appear soon (this was his treatise on the Truth of the Christian
Religion, in Dutch verse) perhaps I shall also publish the Disquisition
On Pelagianism, with the precautions hinted to me by you and some other
learned men. In the mean time, I am preparing an edition of Stobæus; and
to render it more perfect I collate the Greek Manuscripts with the
printed copies." He sometimes attended the courts of Justice to hear the
Advocates plead, that he might judge of their talents and eloquence. To
be applauded for eloquence at that time, says the Abbé D'Olivet, an
Advocate was to say almost nothing of his cause; make continual
allusions to the least-known passages of antiquity, and have the art of
throwing a new kind of obscurity upon them, by, making his speech
consist of a string of metaphors. This fault shocked Grotius much. He
gives an account to his brother of the impression made upon him by the
studied harangues which were delivered at Martinmas term 1622, by M.
Servin and the First President: they were wholly taken from Greek and
Latin authors. "Such, says Grotius, is the eloquence in fashion: it is