, son of the preceding, and heir to his talents and temper, was born at Agen in 1540; and,
, son of the preceding, and
heir to his talents and temper, was born at Agen in 1540;
and, at eleven years of age, was sent with two of his brothers to the college of Bordeaux, where he was taught
Latin. Three years after, on the appearance of the plague,
he was obliged to return home to his father, who then
superintended his education. He required of him everyday a short exercise or theme upon some historical subject, and made him transcribe some poems, which he himself had composed. This last task is supposed to have inspired him with a taste for poetry, and so eager was he to
show his proficiency, that he wrote a tragedy upon the
story of Oedipus before he was seventeen. His father
dying in 1558, he went to Paris the year following to study
Greek, and attended the lectures of Turnebus for two
months. But finding the usual course too dilatory, he resolved to study it by himself, and with the assistance of
some knowledge of the conjugations, attempted to read
Homer with a translation, in which he succeeded very
soon, and at the same time formed to himself a kind of
grammar, with which he was enabled to proceed to the
other Greek poets, and next to the historians and orators,
and by persevering in this course, he gained in the space
of two years a perfect knowledge of the language. He
afterwards turned his thoughts to the Hebrew, which he
learned by himself in the same manner. All are agreed
indeed, that he had an extraordinary capacity for learning
languages, and is said to have been well skilled in no less
than thirteen. He made the same progress in the sciences,
and in every branch of literature; and he at length obtained
the reputation of being the most learned man of his age,
and his biographers have handed down to us little else than
the progress of his studies and the chronology of his publications. In 1503 he was invited to the university of Leyden, to be honorary professor of Belles Lettres, on which
occasion, if we may believe the “Menagiana,
” Henry IV,
of France treated him with great coldness and neglect.
Scaliger had determined to accept the offer; and, waiting
upon the king to acquaint him with his journey, and the
occasion of it, “Well, Mr. Scaliger,
” said his majesty,
“the Dutch want to have you with them, and to allow you.
a good stipend I am glad of it,
” adding some other remarks of a grosser kind. Henry was no patron of learning
or learned men: but some have supposed that he wished to
mortify Scaliger, who had already shewn too much of his
father’s vanity and arrogant spirit. He now went to Leyden, where he spent the remainder of his life; and died
there of a dropsy, Jan. 21, 1609, without having ever been
married. He was a man of perfect sobriety of manners,
and whose whole time was well spent in study. He had as
great parts as his father, and far greater learning, having
been trained to it from his infancy, which his father had
not. He had a profound veneration for his father, and unfortunately extended it to an imitation of his irritable temper, and disrespect for his learned contemporaries. But he
was often a discerner and encourager of merit. While at
Leyden he was so struck with the early appearance of talent in Grotius, that he undertook to direct his studies.
Grotius repaid his care by the utmost respect, and Scaliger' s counsels were commands to him. The elder Scaliger
lived and died in the church of Rome: but the son embraced the principles of Luther, and relates that his father
also had intentions of doing so.