Joseph Scaliger

“ Casaubon was the last of the great scholars of the sixteenth century. Joseph Scaliger, who, especially in his recorded conversation, was very sparing of praise, says expressly, “Casaubon is the most learned man now living.” It is not impossible that he meant to except himself; which would by no means be unjust, if we take in the whole range of erudition; but in the exactly critical knowledge of the Greek language, Casaubon had not even a rival in Scaliger. ”

“ Besides the direct influence of the Italian critics, another influence contributed its share to the sum of critical ideas which French classicism owes to the Italian Renaissance. This was the tradition of Scaliger, carried on by the Dutch scholars Heinsius and Vossius. Daniel Heinsius was the pupil of Joseph Scaliger, the illustrious son of the author of the Poetics; and through Heinsius the dramatic theories of the elder Scaliger influenced classical tragedy in France. ”

“ There he studied under Joseph Scaliger, and there he found Marnix de St Aldegonde, Janus Douza, Paulus Merula and others, and was soon taken into the society of these celebrated men as their equal. His proficiency in the classic languages won the praise of all the best scholars of Europe, and offers were made to him, but in vain, to accept honourable positions outside Holland. ”

“ A celebrity as a linguist equally distinguished, and even more unamiable, than Postel’s, is that of his countryman and contemporary, the younger of the two Scaligers.
Joseph Justus Scaliger was born at Agen in 1544, and made his school studies at Bordeaux, where he was only remarkable for his exceeding dulness, having spent three years in a fruitless, though painfully laborious, attempt to master the first rudiments of the Latin language. ”

“ Joseph Scaliger, who assisted the lord of Candale, bishop of Aire, to translate the Hermes, or Mercury Trismegistus, doubts not that the original was Egyptian. Add to these reasons that it is not very probable that a Greek would have addressed himself so often to Thaut. It is not natural for us to address ourselves to strangers with so much warm-heartedness; at least, we see no example of it in antiquity. ”

“ XXIII (1935) , pp. 23-4, 102-5, and Ausonius, Opuscula, ed. Rudolphus Peiper, Leipzig, 1886, p. 428. The younger Scaliger strongly condemns this epigram on the same grounds: Joseph Scaliger, Ausoniarum lectionum libri ii, 2.20, Heidelberg, 1688, p. 204.
[14] 3.66
[15] Epig. libri tres, ad D. Mariam Neville, 2.211. Epigrammata, Amsterdam, 1647, p. 47. Translated by Thomas Harvey, John Owen's Latin Epigrams, London, 1677, p. 36: "Sith th' Harps discording Strings concording be, / Is't not a shame [Pg 35] for men to disagree?" ”

“ After completing his early education at Leiden, he entered the university of that city, and in 1608 took the degree of master of arts. By the advice of Scaliger he studied Oriental languages whilst taking his course of theology. He afterwards travelled in England, France, Italy and Germany, forming connexions with learned men, and availing himself of the information which they communicated. During his stay at Paris he contracted a friendship with Casaubon, which lasted during his life, and also took lessons in Arabic from an Egyptian, Joseph Barbatus, otherwise called Abu-dakni. ”

“ Julius Cæsar Scaliger (1484-1558) , a man of the greatest eminence in the world of letters, and as a man of science, and a philosopher. He had a son, Joseph Justus Scaliger, not less eminent, who wrote the work referred to. l. 503, The Idyllist is Theocritus, the Sicilian poet. l. 513, Ælian: a Roman, in the reign of Adrian, surnamed the honey-tongued, from the sweetness of his style; he wrote seventeen treatises on animals. l. 948, Valerius Maximus, a Latin writer, who made a collection of historical anecdotes, and published his work in the reign of Tiberius. ”

“ Rubenius told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the learned:——That Egnatius, Sigonius, Bossius Ticinensis, Bayfius Budæus, Salmasius, Lipsius, Lazius, Isaac Casaubon, and Joseph Scaliger, all differed from each other,—and he from them: That some took it to be the button,—some the coat itself,—others only the colour of it;—That the great Bayfuis in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. ”

“ Whatever the case as to Julius, Joseph had undoubtedly believed himself a prince of Verona, and in his Epistola had put forth with the most perfect good faith, and without inquiry, all that he had heard from his father. He immediately wrote a reply to Scioppius, entitled Confutatio fabulae Burdonum. It is written, for Scaliger, with unusual moderation and good taste, but perhaps for that very reason had not the success which its author wished and even expected. In the opinion of the highest authority, Mark Pattison, “as a refutation of Scioppius it is most complete” ”

“ A determined attempt must be made, if not to answer his criticisms, or to disprove his statements, yet to attack him as a man, and to destroy his reputation. This was no easy task, for his moral character was absolutely spotless.
After several scurrilous attacks by the Jesuit party, in which coarseness and violence were more conspicuous than ability, in 1607 a new and more successful attempt was made. Scaliger’s weak point was his pride. In 1594, in an evil hour for his happiness and his reputation, he published his Epistola de vetustate et splendore gentis Scaligerae et J. C. Scaligeri vita. ”

“ Again, Scaliger, though he has no more right to arrogate Reason and Nature as on his side than the rest of his school, possesses, like all of the best of them, a certain sturdy prima facie common-sense. |His solid merits.| It is this which 79dictates his theory of dramatic verisimilitude; this which palliates some of his Homeric and other blasphemies. Though uncompromisingly moral, and by no means illogical (when you have once granted his bundle of postulates) , he is not in the least metaphysical. ”

“ His life was a series of literary quarrels; and in the whole annals of literary polemics, there are none with which, for acrimony, virulence, and ferocity of vituperation, these quarrels may not compete. And hence, although there is hardly a subject, literary, antiquarian, philological, or critical, on which he has not written, and (for his age) written well, there are few, nevertheless, who have exercised less influence upon contemporary opinion. Scaliger spoke thirteen languages, in the study of which Baillet [98] says he never used either a dictionary or a grammar. ”

“ Every piece of scandal which could be raked together respecting Scaliger or his family is to be found there. The author professes to point out five hundred lies in the Epistola de vetustate of Scaliger, but the main argument of the book is to show the falsity of his pretensions to be of the family of La Scala, and of the narrative of his father’s early life. ”

“ We may venture indeed to suspect that Scaliger “had more wit than to be here.” One may frequently differ with him; but he seldom runs mad on mere theory. It is he, for instance, who, while, as we have seen, he lays down uncompromisingly that the material of poetry is verse, instances the Æthiopica as a perfect epic. Instead of confusing poetry and learning, as some have done, he holds the much more sensible position that learning is useful to a poet. He takes the hard-and-fast ethical view of the ends both of tragedy and of all poetry, and he believes firmly in the type. ”

“ They are employed upon grammatical and settled languages, whose construction contributes so much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer passages unintelligible than Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more manuscripts than one; and they do not often conspire in the same mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confess to Salmasius how little satisfaction his emendations gave him: "Illudunt nobis conjecturæ nostræ, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in meliores codices incidimus." ”

“ Vieta, the first man of his time, who answered him, had such regard for his opponent as made him conceal Scaliger's name. Not that he is very respectful in his manner of proceeding: the following dry quiz on his opponent's logic must have been very cutting, being true. "In grammaticis, dare navibus Austros, et dare naves Austris, sunt æque significantia. Sed in Geometricis, aliud est adsumpsisse circulum BCD non esse majorem triginta sex segmentis BCDF, aliud circulo BCD non esse majora triginta sex segmenta BCDF. Illa adsumptiuncula vera est, hæc falsa." ”

“ But that the reproach of over-much credulity may not lie upon Cardan alone, Scaliger, who lay at catch with him to take him tripping wherever he could, cavils not with any thing in the whole narration but the bigness of wings and the littleness of the body ”

“ Thus may Aristotle be made out, when he affirmeth the right claw of Crabs and Lobsters is biggest, if we take the right for the most vigorous side, and not regard the relative situation: for the one is generally bigger then the other, yet not alwayes upon the same side. So may it be verified what is delivered by Scaliger in his Comment, that Palsies do oftnest happen upon the left side, if understood in this sense; the most vigorous part protecting it self, and protruding the matter upon the weaker and less resistive side. ”

“ Such, too, was the Christian Anacreon of Patrignanus, another Jesuit, who preposterously transferred to a most sacred subject all that the Graecian poet had dedicated to festivity and love.
His metre has frequently been adopted by the modern Latin poets; and Scaliger, Taubman, Barthius, and others, have shown that it is by no means uncongenial with that language. The Anacreontics of Scaliger, however, scarcely deserve the name; as they glitter all over with conceits, and, though often elegant, are always labored. ”

“ Scaliger learned to appreciate Casaubon better, and called him ‘the most learned man in Europe,’ and owned that he was a better Greek scholar than himself.
Casaubon yearned to leave Geneva; his salary was miserable, the cost of living was high, he had little access to books, and his precious time was intruded upon by injudicious friends. He was French by descent, and always regarded himself as a Frenchman until he became a naturalised Englishman. ”

“ Scaliger’s most important and most original work is that ‘De Emendatione Temporum, 1583,’ which merits especial praise, as being the first attempt to produce a system of chronology. It contains a vast quantity of learning, in the collection of which the author was greatly assisted by his knowledge of the Oriental languages, as well as of Greek and Latin. That he is often in error is, in this instance, hardly a blemish upon his merited fame: in so vast 37an untrodden field it was impossible to avoid mistakes. ”

“ That Scaliger was profoundly learned and of immense acquirement, will not be denied; that it is impossible to push things farther than he has, will not now be asserted, “because,” says Niceron, “it has been done by many.” Unfortunately, this extravagant admiration contributed, no doubt, by feeding his vanity, to exacerbate that intolerably scurrilous and malignant humour, the worst part of his character, which he inherited, with his great talents, from his remarkable father. ”

“ Pattison the type of the real greatness of the scholar, a greatness not the less real that the world could hardly understand it. He certainly leaves Scaliger before us, with his strange ways of working, his hold of the ancient languages as if they were mother tongues, his pride and slashing sarcasm, and his absurd claim of princely descent, with lineaments not soon forgotten; but it is amusing to meet once more, in all seriousness, Mr. ”

“ This he printed in 1606 in his Thesaurus temporum, in which he collected, restored and arranged every chronological relic extant in Greek or Latin. When in 1590 Lipsius retired from Leiden, the university and its protectors, the states-general of Holland and the prince of Orange, resolved to obtain Scaliger as his successor. He declined their offer. He hated lecturing, and there were those among his friends who erroneously believed that with the success of Henry IV. learning would flourish, and Protestantism be no bar to advancement. ”

“ He died at Sorb on the 10th of September 1639. Meursius was the author of classical editions and treatises, many of which are printed in J. F. Gronovius’s Thesaurus antiquitatum graecarum. Their lack of arrangement detracts from their value, but they are a storehouse of information, and Meursius does not deserve the epithets of “pedant” and “ignoramus” which Scaliger applied to him. Meursius also wrote on the troubles in the Netherlands and the history of Denmark. ”

“ SCALIGER, Julius Cæsar, was one of the ablest of those energetic but unsettled spirits, who during the fifteenth century were at once the effect and the cause of the revival of letters in Italy. The story of his life has been told in two different ways. By his own and his son's account, he was descended from the Scaligeri, the ancient princes of Verona, and was born in 1484, in the castle di Riva, on the banks of the lake di Garda. ”

“ This is that epoch, called that of Maharat, or Mercy, which Scaliger and Ludolf have called the æra of grace. Scaliger says, he has toiled much before he found out what it was; and I doubt his toil has not been blessed with all the success we could wish. That it is not the æra of redemption, is plain upon a hundred trials, nor of the conversion, nor of Dioclesian. What it alludes to we know not, but it is first quoted in the Abyssinian history in this reign, and answers to the year 1348 of Christ ”

“ One of the important teachers at this time in France was Julius Caesar Scaliger, born in Italy, particularly famous for the part that he took in the controversy over Ciceronianism, and who defended Cicero from the attacks of Erasmus, maintaining that the Latin orator was absolutely perfect. Scaliger is notorious for having introduced the bitterest kind of personalities into classical controversy. Unfortunately, his example was widely followed. His son is the better known Scaliger, but was only ten years old at the time our century closes. ”