and on Horace, Phaedrus, and Valerius Maximus, as well as recensions of Terence and Plautus, with a translation of the latter. His contemporary Nicolas Peiresc (1580-1637), who was educated by the Jesuits at Avignon, and distinguished himself in mathematics and in oriental languages at Padua, made the acquaintance of Camden and Saville on his visit to England in 1605. On returning to the South of France he began to form his extensive collection of marbles and medals. Among those whom he aided by his liberality were Grotius and Valesius, as well as Scaliger and Salmasius'. Salmasius Claude de Saumaise, better known as Salmasius (1588-1653), was a native of Saumur. His early promise was recognised by Casaubon, who, writing to Scaliger in 1607, calls him a juvenis ad miraculum doctus. In that year, at the age of 19, he had already discovered at Heidelberg the celebrated Ms of the Anthologia Palatina of Constantine Cephalas, and was receiving letters from the aged Scaliger, to whom he sent transcripts of many of the epigrams, and by whom he was strongly urged to edit the work. The edition was repeatedly promised, but was never produced; in 1623 the мs was carried off to Rome, where it remained until 1797; and it was not until 1813-4 that the text of the whole work was printed by Jacobs. At Heidelberg Salmasius was under the influence of Gruter, who contributed the notes to his early edition of Florus (1609). In his edition of the Historiae Augustae Scriptores (1620) he distinguished himself less as a sound textual critic than as an erudite commentator. It was said that what Salmasius did not know was beyond the bounds of knowledge', but his erudition had its limits, for, in a discussion on the different varieties of silk, his 'profound, diffuse, and obscure researches" show that he was 'ignorant of the most common trades of Dijon or Leyden". His most remarkable work is that entitled Plinianae Exercitationes, in which more than 900 pages are devoted to the elucidation of the portions of Pliny included in the geographical compendium of Solinus (1629). 1 Hallam, iii 238-240*. 3 Epp. 245-8, pp. 525-536. Hist. Aug. pp. 388-391. Epp. p. 284. Hallam, ii 2831; p. 286 n. 6 infra. The Chair of Scaliger, which had been left vacant at Leyden since 1609, was filled in 1632 by the call of Salmasius, who, like Scaliger, was expressly invited not to teach, but to 'shed on the university the honour of his name, illustrate it by his writings, and adorn it by his presence". At Leyden he produced his learned treatise De Usuris (1638), which includes a historical survey of the subject, and insists on the legitimacy of usury for clergy and laity alike. This was followed by an appendix De Modo Usurarum (1639). In his Funus linguae Hellenisticae (1643) he contends that the language of the Greek Scriptures is not a separate dialect but the ordinary Greek of the time. In 1649 the exiled king, Charles II, then living in the neighbourhood at the Hague, requested Salmasius to vindicate the memory of Charles I in a Latin treatise that should appeal to the whole of Europe. Accordingly, Salmasius, 'a man of enormous reading and no judgment', a pedant destitute of either literary or political tact, and utterly ignorant of public affairs, prepared his Defensio Regia Pro Carolo I (1649). The reply was entrusted to Milton, who, in his pamphlet entitled Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio (1651), began by attacking Salmasius for using persona of an individual, but, in the very same passage, unfortunately exposed himself to attack by using vapulandum instead of verberandum*. Milton's pamphlet teems with personalities, and the same is true of the rejoinder by Salmasius, which was his latest work". Neither of the controversialists gained any credit, or even any pecuniary reward. Milton paid the penalty of his efforts in the total loss of sight, while Salmasius, who had left Leyden in 1650, for the Swedish court of queen Christina, ended his days in gloom. He left behind him a vast reputation for learning. He is called by Gronovius the Varro and Eratosthenes of his age, and he is lauded by Grotius as 'optimus interpres veteris Salmasius aevi". 3 Pattison's Milton, 106. 1 Funeral Oration by Voorst, in Pattison's Casaubon, 2562. 2 Hallam, ii 276*. Milton's Prose Works, iv 6 Mitford; Johnson's Lives, i 102, ed. 1854. 1653, printed in 1660. Cp. Blount's Censura, 719f, ed. 1690. He is severely criticised by Baillet, n. 511. 'Non homini sed scientiae deest, quod nescivit Salmasius' (Balzac). Heraldus Vigerus Maussac Valesius Meanwhile, in the native land of Salmasius, Desiderius Heraldus (c. 1579-1649), professor of Greek at Sedan, and a member of the parliamentary bar in Paris, had published 'animadversions' on Martial (1600), besides writing a work on Greek and Roman law, which was published in the year after his death. Palmerius, or Jacques le Paulmier (1587-1670), who had studied law and Greek literature at Sedan, passed the last twenty years of his life at Caen, and, during that time, published at Leyden a volume of 'Exercitations' on the best Greek authors (1668). Pierre Séguier (1588-1672), President of the French Academy, was at the same time collecting those мss, which led to his name being assigned to the Lexica Segueriana in a single мs in the Paris Library'. The Jesuit François Vigier, or Vigerus, of Rouen (1591-1647), broke the ordinary Jesuit tradition of the predominant study of Latin by producing a work on the principal idioms of Greek (1627), which had the distinction of being successively edited anew by Hoogeveen, Zeune, and Hermann (1834). Harpocration had been edited in 1614 by Philippe Jacques de Maussac (1590—1650), president in Montpellier. That lexicographer was further expounded in 1682 by the disputatious pedant3, Henri de Valois, or Valesius (1603-1676), who had been educated by the Jesuits at Verdun and Paris, and is known as the editor of Ammianus Marcellinus (1636) and of the Excerpta (Peiresciana) from Polybius (1634). Greek was also studied by Charles Labbé (15821657), a parliamentary barrister of Paris, who published Glosses on Greek law (1607), and prepared an edition of the Glossaries of 'Cyril and Philoxenus', published after his death by Du Cange (1679). His namesake, the Jesuit Philippe Labbé of Bourges (1607-1667), edited several of the Byzantine historians, besides taking part in a great work on the Councils. Editions of the Byzantine historians, Cinnamus and 1 Vol. i 4061, 4162; portrait in Lacroix, Science and Literature in the... Renaissance, fig. 410 (p. 547 E.T.). C. Labbé P. Labbé Vigerus, De praecipuis graecae linguae idiotismis. Cp. Hallam, ii 275. He also published numerous works on Greek Grammar, Tirocinium linguae graecae, etc. Du Cange Zonaras, and of the Chronicon Paschale, were produced by the erudite scholar and historian, Charles du Fresne, sieur Du Cange (1610-1688), who was born at Amiens, and educated at the local Jesuit College. After studying law at Orleans, he was called to the parliamentary bar in Paris, but devoted himself mainly to historical studies at Amiens (1638-68) and in the capital. He is best known for his great Glossary of mediaeval Latin, originally published in three folio volumes (1678)', and a corresponding Glossary of mediaeval Greek in two (1688). The Jesuit, François Vavasseur (16051681), an elegant Latin scholar and the author of an Anti-barbarus, said of the lexicon of late Latin :-'Il y a soixante ans que je m'applique à ne me servir d'aucun des mots rassemblés si laborieusement par M. Du Cange'. The lexicographer of the latest Latinity was himself an accomplished writer, and the range of his learning not only included a variety of languages, but also extended over history and geography, law and heraldry, numismatics and epigraphy, and Greek and Latin palaeography. His lexicographical works were directly founded on the study of an infinite number of MSS. His work on Byzantine History was illustrated by a two-fold commentary, including an account of the families, as well as the coins and topography, of Constantinople (1680). He also edited Ville-Hardouin's History of the Latin conquest of that city, and wrote a History of its Latin emperors, besides editing Joinville's History of Louis IX. The edition of the Glossaries ascribed to 'Cyril and Philoxenus' etc. (1679) is closely connected with his own glossarial labours. He is one of the greatest lexicographers of France, and his work in this department still remains unsurpassed. He was a man of unaffected piety, and his sociable temperament won him many friends, among the most learned being Mabillon. He had a small but well-knit frame, and a fine figure. His statue in bronze, larger than life, still adorns the Place St Denis in his native city of Amiens'. 1 Ed. 4 in six vols. (1733-6); ed. Charpentier in ten (1766); in six (Halle, 1772-84); ed. Henschel in seven (1840–50); ed. Favre in ten (1883-7). 2 Cp. Pref. to his Amiens (1840); Hardouin's Essai (1849); Feugère in Journal de l'Instruction publique (mars, avril, 1852); Lettres Inédites, 1879; and other literature quoted in Nouv. Biogr. Gin. S. II. 19 |