United States or Colombia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Latinity of Phaedrus is not exempt from an alloy of the silver age; but his manner is concise, terse, and sententious; the Thracian slave discreetly breathes the spirit of a freeman; and when the text is found, the style is perspicuous. But his fables, after a long oblivion, were first published by Peter Pithou, from a corrupt manuscript.
The earlier possessors are classified according to the dates of their purchases. Of those who obtained specimens soon after the old Treasurer's death we may notice especially Paul Pétau the antiquarian, De Thou the historian, and Pithou the statesman and jurist.
His library became a valuable museum which was praised by all the writers of that age, except indeed by François Pithou, who called De Mesmes a literary grave-digger, and mourned over the burial of so many good books in those cold and gloomy sepulchres.
The list of Commissioners included the respectable names of Alexandre Pétau and Pierre Pithou; yet we are assured that the auction resembled a massacre, and that hardly any obstacle was placed in the way of the most impudent thefts.
The sum total of the quotations found fault with was fixed at sixty. A conference was summoned to look into them, and six commissioners, three Catholic and three Protestant, were appointed to give judgment; De Thou and Pithou amongst the former, Dufresne la Canaye and Casaubon amongst the latter. Erudition was worthily represented there, and there was every probability of justice.
In all matters connected with literature De Thou was helped by his friend 'Pithoeus, of whom it was said that no one knew any particular author as well as Pierre Pithou knew all the classics. By talent and hard work combined Pithou had 'distilled the quintessence of wisdom' out of the garnered stores of antiquity.
A Minister called D'Or, turning Roman Catholic , Grotius discovered little concern at it, and speaks of it with great calmness in a letter to his brother. "What D'Or has just done, says he, the learned Pithou did before him: Casaubon was resolved to do the same had he remained longer in France, as he assured several persons, and among others Descordes.
Word Of The Day