Classical and critical. ‘Essai sur l’Etude de la Littérature’; ‘Nomina Gentesque Antiquæ Italiæ’ (1763 and 1764); ‘Remarques sur les Ouvrages et sur le Caractère de Salluste, Jules César, Cornèle Nepos, Tite Live, &c.’; ‘Critical Observations on the Design of the 6th Book of the Æneid’ (1770); ‘Vindication of the History of the Decline and Fall.’
Miscellaneous. ‘Mémoire Justicatif;’ ‘Principes des Poids, des Monnoies, et des Mesures des Anciens’ (1759); and ‘Dissertation sur les anciennes Mesures du Bas Empire’; ‘Selections from the Extraits raisonnés de mes Lectures, and from the Recueil de mes Observations’ (from 1754 to 1764); ‘Remarks on Blackstone’s Commentaries’ (1770). These, and many more than these, were the subjects to which he applied his extensive erudition—with more or less success, but never without throwing some light on whatever he undertook to treat.
SCALIGER.
In the sixteenth and the latter part of the fifteenth century, a man of learning filled a very prominent and distinguished place in the world’s esteem. Public attention was not then distracted by the multitude of claimants; for scarcely any country but Italy possessed a national literature; and few branches of knowledge were much prized, except the faculties of divinity, law, and physic, and the newly-opened stores of Greek and Roman antiquity. As Latin was still the universal language of Europe, that which was done in one country soon and readily became known to the learned men of all; and if the general standard of information was low, those who possessed it abundantly towered the higher above their fellows. Though there were then fewer helps to learning, it was a time of great discoveries and much excitement. A modern scholar of far inferior calibre may have a more accurate knowledge of antiquity, and a deeper insight into the minutiæ of the ancient languages, than the greatest men of the age of which we speak; but as far as regards the mass of information gained by their individual labour, few indeed could venture to compete with such men as Casaubon, Lipsius, Grævius, the Scaligers, and others. And the honour paid them was proportionate to their merits. Princes and States courted them, Universities competed for their residence, Europe at large took an interest in their quarrels and controversies; and as humility and charity were not the graces in which they most abounded, the interest in these subjects was in no danger of perishing for want of agitation. Of this remarkable class of men, none were more admired by their contemporaries than the two Scaligers.
Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff.
JOSEPH SCALIGER.
From a Print engraved by Edelinch.
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight & Co. Ludgate Street.
Julius Cæsar Scaliger, the elder, was as singular a mixture of great talent, learning, vanity, and presumption, as the world has often seen. He was born, probably at Verona, in 1484, being the son, according to the best authorities, of a miniature painter, named Benedict Bordoni, was baptized by the name of Julius, studied at the University of Padua, adopted the medical profession, and having attracted the favourable notice of Antoine de la Rovere, Bishop of Agen in Gascony, accompanied him thither, in 1525, in the quality of domestic physician. We are not informed of the exact time at which he thought fit to make addition to his real name, but in 1528 he obtained letters of naturalization under the sounding appellation of Julius Cæsar de Lescalle de Bordoms, or Bordonis; and in 1529 he married a girl of sixteen, by whom he had a very numerous family. This is his real history, as far as it is known; but the truth was far too commonplace to satisfy his passion for notoriety, and he invented a new version of his history, to the following effect:—
He called himself the son of Benedict de la Scala, one of the bravest captains of the fifteenth century (of whom it is observed that his name unfortunately occurs in no contemporary historian), and through him descended from the ancient family of Princes of Verona. He was born near the Lago di Guarda; and having narrowly escaped, in infancy, the jealous search of the Venetians, who were anxious to cut off every scion of his house, was brought up as a page in the service of the Emperor Maximilian. He served with distinction in the Italian wars. But the desire of recovering Verona, the inheritance of his family, from Venice, ever haunted him; and seeing no chance any other way, he became a monk, in hope of rising to the Holy Chair, and rendering the resources of the papacy subservient to the gratification of this ruling passion. The frivolous and wearisome observances of the cloister soon disgusted him, and he (broke his vows, we presume, and) returned to his old trade as a soldier, and again distinguished himself in the wars of Piedmont, while at the same time he studied the ancient languages, philosophy, and medicine. At the solicitation of the Bishop of Agen he closed his adventurous course, as is above related. This extravagant story, entirely without foundation in any of its parts, and garnished with abundance of gasconade, was stoutly upheld by the elder Scaliger, and generally believed by his contemporaries: the younger Scaliger wrote a book to maintain it, with equal stoutness, but without equal success.
After Scaliger took up his abode at Agen, his chief employment was the cultivation of learning; his chief passion, the acquisition of fame. In this he succeeded to the extent of his wishes; and we need seek no stronger proof of the ascendancy which he gained over his contemporaries, than the general acceptation of the wonderful story which we have just told. De Thou said of him, that the age did not furnish his equal, nor antiquity his superior; and Lipsius classed him with Homer, Hippocrates, and Aristotle, and named him ‘the miracle and glory of his age.’ Unquestionably he possessed a vast fund of knowledge, was an excellent Latin scholar, and wrote extremely well in Latin prose. Of Greek his knowledge probably was much less; he did little for Greek literature, and appears not to have taught his son Joseph so much as the rudiments of the language. His many fine qualities were sadly obscured by a temper arrogant and overbearing in the last degree: on this subject it is enough to refer to the abuse which he lavishes on a better man than himself, the excellent Erasmus, in their controversy concerning Ciceronianism. Unfortunately, he bequeathed the same overweening vanity and propensity to scurrilous language to his still more distinguished son, the original of our portrait.