Early  Precocity. — At  the  early  age  of  nine  he  was  an  accom-
plished versifier  of  Latin  elegiacs,  and  at  twelve  he  had  entered
the  University  of  Leyden,  where  he  became  the  pupil  of  the
celebrated  scholar  Joseph  Scaliger,  having  already  had  his  praises
sung  by  Douza,  who  was  said  to  be  one  of  the  princes  of  the
republic  of  letters,  and  who  announced  that  "  Grotius  would  soon
excel  all  his  contemporaries  and  bear  a  comparison  with  the
most  learned  of  the  ancients."  Two  years  later  the  youthful
prodigy  produced  an  annotated  edition  of  the  abstruse  work  of
Martianus  Mineus  Felix  Capella  on  The  Marriage  of  Mercury
and  Philology,  or  of  Speech  and  Learning,  in  which  he  displayed
such  learning  and  critical  acumen  as  to  astonish  the  literary  world
of  his  day. His  own  account  of  the  preparation  required  for  the
production  of  this  work  shows  the  extent  and  varied  character
of  his  reading. "  We  have  collated,"  he  says,  "  CapeUa  with  the
several  authors  who  have  investigated  the  same  subjects. In
the  two  first  books,  we  have  consulted  those  whose  writings  con-
tain the  sentiments  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  as  Apuleius,
Albericus,  and  others  too  tedious  to  name  ;  on  grammar,  we  have
compared  Capella  with  the  ancient  grammarians ;  hi  what  he
has  said  on  rhetoric,  with  Cicero  and  Aquila ;  on  logic,  with
Porphyry,  Aristotle,  Cassiodorus,  and  Apuleius  ;  on  geography,
with  Strabo,  Mela,  Solinus,  and  Ptolemy,  but  chiefly  Pliny  ;
on  arithmetic,  with  Euclid ;  on  astronomy,  with  Hyginus,  and
others  who  have  treated  on  this  subject ;  on  music,  with  Cleonides,
Vitruvius,  and  Boethius."  Nor  is  this  a  mere  vain  or  boastful
enumeration  by  a  boy  of  fourteen  of  the  authorities  he  professed
to  have  consulted,  for  his  notes  contain  internal  evidence  of  his
close  acquaintance  with  these  ancient  writers. In  the  same  year


HUGO  GROTIUS  171

he  published  a  translation  of  a  work  upon  navigation  by  Simon
Steven  in  1586,  in  which  he  displayed  a  vast  knowledge  of
mathematics  ;  and  in  the  following  year  he  completed  the  trans-
lation of  the  PJienomena  of  Aratus,  a  poetical  treatise  upon
astronomy,  which  Cicero  had  previously  translated,  but  which
had  come  down  to  modern  times  in  an  incomplete  form. 