Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/263

Causabon and studied under Charles Parrocel. Although he devoted himself with industry to his work, he did not meet with the success his ambition required. In 1752, therefore, he left Paris for Dresden, where he worked for four years, giving special study to the works of painters of the Dutch and Flemish school. In 1757 he returned to Paris, and in a very short time gained himself a reputation as a battle painter of the first rank. In 1763 a battle-piece he exhibited was purchased for a large sum for the Louvre, and he was elected with acclamation a member of the Academy. In spite, however, of his great success, the high prices he obtained for his pictures, and the patronage of royalty and the nobility, his extravagant habits and luxurious mode of life, in addition to two unfortunate matrimonial adventures, kept him continually in debt and trouble. One of his own etchings, entitled ‘Le Dîner du Peintre Casanova,’ represents him as just alighted from his coach and bartering his pictures for food to an old woman selling sausages and similar food by the wayside. He received a commission from the Empress Catherine of Russia to paint the victories of the Russians over the Turks for the royal palace at St. Petersburg, but was compelled about the same time to quit Paris on account of his debts. He established himself at Vienna, and continued to paint there until his death, which occurred in the Brühl, near Vienna, in 1805. In 1767 he exhibited in London, at the Exhibition of the Free Society of Artists, a picture of ‘Hannibal crossing the Alps,’ in which his clever disposition of masses of people and ingenious contrasts of light and shade caused a sensation, which fully carried out the high estimation in which his pictures were held at Paris and elsewhere. Besides his numerous battle-pieces he executed several etchings, in addition to the one mentioned above. In the Print Room of the British Museum there is a spirited drawing by him representing horsemen crossing a ford. Among his pupils at Vienna was James Philip de Loutherbourg, R.A.

 CASAUBON, ISAAC (1559–1614), classical scholar, was born in 1559 at Geneva, whither his parents, Arnold and Jehanne Casaubon (born Rousseau), both of Gascon origin, were driven by religious persecution. In 1561 Arnold Casaubon accepted a call to be pastor of the Huguenot church at Crest, a small town in Dauphiné, and there Isaac's childhood was spent. He was to a great extent self-taught, for his father, who undertook his education, was frequently absent from home, and when at home almost entirely engrossed with his pastoral work. At the age of nineteen Isaac was sent to Geneva as a student; here he learned Greek under Francis Portus, a Cretan, who formed so high an opinion of his pupil, that he suggested him as his successor just before his death in 1581. After a year's delay, Casaubon was appointed ‘professor of Greek,’ a high-sounding title, but worth only 10l. a year, and rooms in college. In 1583 he married Mary Prolyot, a native of Geneva, who died in the second year of their married life, leaving one daughter, who died young. In 1586 he lost his father, and married a second wife, Florence Estienne, daughter of the famous printer, Henri Estienne (Henricus Stephanus II), by whom he had a large family. He was very poor, and unable to purchase the books which were absolutely necessary for his literary work, while the moroseness of his father-in-law prevented him from having access to the books of the great printer. In 1593 he made the acquaintance of Sir Henry Wotton, then a young man making the grand tour. Wotton lodged in Casaubon's house at Geneva, where he charmed his host, but unfortunately also involved him in fresh pecuniary difficulties. Another thing of which Casaubon complains was want of leisure. His lectures, and the preparation for them, necessarily occupied a considerable amount of time; visitors and family duties (though the latter were as much as possible taken off his hands by his faithful wife) took up more. All this left an ample margin for an ordinary student, but not for a student like Casaubon. But avaricious as he was of his time, there was one claim upon it which he never grudged. Casaubon was an intensely religious man, and the hours spent in private and public devotion were always sacred. He is now known simply, or chiefly, as a great classical scholar, but in reality he took at least as deep an interest in theological studies. At this early period he seems to have been quite content with the popular Calvinism of the Geneva school. Beza, the reformer, was his spiritual director. ‘From him,’ he says, ‘I learnt to think humbly of myself, and, if I have been able to do aught in letters, to ascribe all the glory to God.’ His brother professor, Jacques Lect, who was nearer his own age, was his dearest friend at Geneva. ‘Without you,’ he writes to Lect, ‘life to me is no