Casaubon, ISAAC,

Casaubon, ISAAC, one of the most famous of the great classical commentators, was born at Geneva on February 18, 1559. His family belonged to Dauphiné. His life was one of incessant study, and he was often hampered in his labours by broken health and narrow means. In his twenty-fourth year he was appointed professor of Greek at Geneva, and in 1586 he married the daughter of the great French scholar, Henri Stephens. He was made Greek professor at Montpellier in 1596, and royal librarian at Paris in 1598. After the death of Henry IV. his position in Paris became insecure on account of his adherence to Protestantism. He accordingly removed in 1610 to London, where he wrote a reply to the Annals of Cardinal Baronius, and thereby incurred the charge of having sold his conscience, and become the hired advocate of James I. The accusation was unjust, as he had for many years been unconsciously drawing near to the school of Anglo-Catholic theology. He was made prebendary of Canterbury in 1810; and he died in London on 12th July 1614. He was a candid and tolerant nature, not gifted with great original powers, but indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge. He is one of the chief representatives of a school of 16th-century humanists who succeeded to the school of Ciceronians, and with whom wide research took the place of exclusive devotion to style. His works include the treatises De Satirica Græcorum Poësi et Romanorum Satira (1605), and De Libertate Ecclesiastica (1607), the Exercitationes contra Baronium (1614), and editions of Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, Theophrastus, Polybius, Strabo, Theocritus, Athenæus, Persius, Suetonius, &c. 'A very moderate amount of scholarship,' says Pattison, 'is enough to enable us to discern that there are limits to Casaubon's power over Greek.' But he amassed a wonderfully varied store of learning, and was the first to popularise a connected knowledge of ancient life and manners. His merits as a commentator are best shown in his edition of Athenæus (1600), on which he was engaged for ten years. See Isaac Casaubon, by Mark Pattison (1875).—MERIC CASAUBON, son of the above, was born at Geneva, August 14, 1599. He accompanied his father to England and studied at Christ Church College, Oxford. He was made prebendary of Canterbury, and vicar of Monckton in Thanet, was deprived of his appointments in 1644, but restored in 1660; and he was ultimately rector of Ickham. He edited the works of Tercence, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, &c., and vindicated his father in two Latin works. He died at Oxford, July 14, 1671.