reading the royal privilege that the present title of the book is
different from what it was to have had. To these extracts from the Greek
Poets translated into Latin verse, Grotius annexed two pieces, one of
Plutarch, the other of St. Basil, on the use of the Poets; giving the
Greek text with a Latin translation. Fabricius informs us, that in the
Library of the College of Leyden there is a copy of the Geneva edition
of Stobæus, in the year 1609, with several notes in Grotius's own hand.
Three years after the publication of his Stobæus, Grotius printed a work
which may be looked upon as a continuation of it; being an extract of
the Comedies and Tragedies of the Greeks: the text is translated into
Latin verse. In this work he inserted only such maxims as he thought
best worth preserving. He began it, as we have observed, when a prisoner
at Louvestein. The learned Fabricius very judiciously remarks, that it
is to be regretted he did not mention the places of the Ancients from
whence he took these extracts.


VII. After having lived a year in the noise of Paris he was desirous of
enjoying for some time the quiet of the country. The President de Meme
offered him one of his seats, Balagni near Senlis. Grotius accepted it,
and passed there the spring and summer of the year 1623. In this castle
he began his great work[146] which singly would be sufficient to render
its author's name immortal; I mean the treatise _Of the rights of war
and peace_, of which we shall speak more fully elsewhere. He had with
him his family and four friends; and was visited by the most
distinguished men of learning, among others Salmasius and Rigaut. He had
all the books he could desire: Francis de Thou the President's son, who
succeeded to his father's library, one of the best in Europe, gave him
the free use of it. Grotius, who knew the President de Meme to be a most
zealous Roman Catholic, was careful to regulate his conduct in such a