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Updated: June 17, 2025
Father Berthier gives afterwards Grotius's translation of several Epigrams; which makes it earnestly to be wished, that the learned Jesuit would publish the whole work: but the present prevailing taste for trifles gives us ground to apprehend, that the booksellers of France dare not undertake this work, which deserves so well to be transmitted to posterity.
Men could not help approving Grotius's intention; but even those, by whom he was held in the greatest esteem, had no confidence in the success of his project.
She circulated every where the account of his illness, and finally declared that it had confined him to his bed. In the mean time, the chest was accommodated to her purpose; and particularly, some holes were bored in it, to let in air. Her maid and the valet of Grotius were entrusted with the secret. The chest was conveyed to Grotius's apartment.
"Grotius's book, says the Abbé Houteville , is the first in which we find these great characteristics, just reasoning, accuracy, and strength; he is extremely concise, but even this brevity will please us when we find it comprehends so many things without confounding them, or lessening their evidence or force: it is no wonder the book should be translated into so many languages." Ep. 181. p. 808.
Some time after, he was better satisfied with him, and wrote to his brother William , Feb. 28, 1643, "I commend Peter highly for applying to the bar: it is the way to acquire much useful knowledge, to gain a character, and in time to lay up something, or to rise higher." This is all that Grotius's letters inform us about his son: the sequel of whose life is more interesting.
Many inquirers since Grotius's day have modified his principles, and many, of course, since the rise of the Critical Philosophy, have quite deserted them; but even those who have departed most widely from his fundamental assumptions have inherited much of his method of statement, of his train of thought, and of his mode of illustration; and these have little meaning and no point to the person ignorant of Roman jurisprudence.
Ruarus had predicted to Grotius himself, that he would reap no other fruit of his labours, than the hatred of both parties: but he was at the same time persuaded that no worldly interest entered into Grotius's views, more honest in this respect than the zealous protestant clergy, who were ready to adopt the most gross and groundless calumnies, provided they were levelled against Grotius.
Grotius's wife being informed of the indiscreet stories published by Salmasius against the memory of her husband, gave him to understand, that if he would not forbear, the only answer she should make to his invectives would be the publication of his former letters to Grotius, filled with elogiums.
Generally speaking, an imitation of what is defective, contains a larger share, than the original, of its distinctive defect. It should however be added, that Grotius's own style is short, sententious and broken; and possesses nothing of the meliflous ease of the ultramontane Latinists; or of our Milton or Buchanan.
Nobody knew him: his great weakness determined him to call a physician: his name was Stochman, who, on feeling Grotius's pulse, said his indisposition proceeded from weakness and fatigue; and that with rest and some restoratives he might recover: but next day he changed his tone; on seeing his weakness increase, with a cold sweat, and other symptoms of nature being spent, he judged that his end was near.
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