Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/612

 Just before the arrival of Aleander, Paris had begun to take part in the work of publishing Greek books, a field of labour in which its scholarly printers were afterwards to win so much distinction. The first Greek press at Paris was that of Gourmont, who in 1507 issued the Grammar of Chrysoloras, Hesiod's Works and Days, the pseudo-Homeric Frogs and Mice, Theocritus, and Musaeus. Portions of Plutarch's Mar alia followed in 1509, under the editorship of Aleander. After an interval, the length of which perhaps indicates that the demand for Greek classics was still very limited, a text of Aristophanes came from Gourmont's press in 1528. A Sophocles was published by Simon Colinaeus in 1529. Robert Estienne (1503-59), scholar and printer, brought out in 1532 his Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, which was much enlarged in the succeeding editions (1536 and 1543). Among his Greek editiones principes were those of Eusebius (1544-6), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1547), Dio Cassius (1548), and Appian (1551). His son, Henri Estienne (1528-98), who had the distinction of first printing the Agamemnon in its entirety, is especially remembered by his great work, the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (1572). Before the middle of the century the stream of classical publications had fairly set in at Paris, and thenceforth continued to be abundant. Meanwhile a French scholar had arisen who reflected lustre on his country throughout Europe. Budaeus (Guillaume Bude, 1467-1540), after producing in 1514 an able treatise on Roman money (De Asse), gained a commanding reputation by his Commentarii Linguae Graecae, published at Paris in 1529. That work proved a mine to lexicographers, and was more particularly useful to students of the Greek orators, owing to the care which the author had bestowed on explaining the technical terms of Greek law. Budaeus was, beyond question, the best Greek scholar of his day in Europe, being superior in that respect to Erasmus, though no rival to him in literary genius. But special knowledge is superseded, while the salt of style lasts for ever; and Erasmus lives, while Budaeus is wellnigh forgotten. The relations between these two distinguished men became somewhat strained, through the fault, as it would seem, of Erasmus, whose sly strictures on the Frenchman are certainly suggestive of a covert jealousy; and French scholars made the quarrel a national one. Another French Hellenist of great eminence at this period is Turnebus (Adrien Turnebe, 1512-65), who belonged to the generation following that of Budaeus. The Royal College had been founded at Paris by Francis I, in 1531, with the special object of encouraging Greek, Latin, and Hebrew learning. Turnebus was appointed, in 1547, to the chair of Greek at that College. He also held the office of King's printer. One of his chief works was an edition of Sophocles, published at Paris in 1553, which did much to determine the text followed by later editors of that poet before Brunck. Henri Estienne, who had been a pupil of Turnebus, has recorded his veneration