practiced less as an Advocate."

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Ep. 1134. p. 512.

[51] Ibid.


XVII. His brilliant success at the Bar, which he treats as ungrateful,
procured him, however, a very considerable promotion. The place of
Advocate-general of the Fisc for Holland and Zealand becoming vacant, it
was unanimously conferred on Grotius. This is an employment of great
distinction and authority, the person invested with it being charged
with the preservation of the public peace and the prosecution of
offenders. It was in 1607 he took possession of this important office,
which he filled with so much reputation, the States augmented his
salary, and promised him a seat in the Court of Holland.


XVIII. John Grotius, on his son's being made Advocate-general, began to
think of a wife for him; and fixed upon Mary Reigersberg, of one of the
first families in Zealand, whose father had been Burgomaster of Veer:
the marriage was solemnised in July, 1608. The greatest encomium of the
new-married lady is, that she was worthy such a husband as Grotius. The
most perfect harmony subsisted between them, and Grotius held her in the
highest esteem[52]. This alliance gave occasion to a number of poems.
John Grotius wrote his son's Epithalamium; Daniel Heinsius composed a
Poem on that subject, which, in the opinion of Grotius, was the best of
the kind that ever had been written. Grotius himself celebrated his