Hugo de Groot, when thus for life immured, after having already undergone
a preliminary imprisonment of nine months, was just thirty-six years of
age. Although comparatively so young, he had been long regarded 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.