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 life.’ Three eminent Frenchmen, De Thou, Bongars, a learned Calvinist, and De Fresne, also became his friends, and ‘made it their common object to secure him for France.’ It was mainly owing to the last-named that he moved from Geneva to Montpellier. But before this event took place he commenced a close friendship with a far greater man, Joseph Scaliger, then a professor at the university of Leyden. A young Englishman, Richard Thomson, had the honour of bringing these two great minds together. Travelling from Geneva to England, Thomson took Leyden on his way, charged with a message from the Genevan to the Leyden scholar. This message was followed by a letter from Casaubon to Scaliger, couched in the most humble and even abject terms. Scaliger, eighteen years the elder, showed some reserve in accepting the overtures of the humble suitor for his friendship; but, being much impressed with the merits of Casaubon's ‘Theophrastus,’ he at last replied favourably, though in a condescending tone: ‘Casaubon was not to suppose that his merits were now for the first time revealed to Scaliger. Scaliger's eye had been on him long, and his voice had never been wanting to proclaim them.’ Casaubon soon won Scaliger over to a closer relationship, and henceforth a constant correspondence was kept up between the two greatest scholars in Europe, which was only interrupted by death. 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. When, therefore, a proposal—not a very tempting one—came to him from Montpellier, he, after some delay, accepted it, although the Geneva Council offered to double his pay if he would stay among them. In 1596 he was settled at Montpellier with the titles of ‘conseiller du roi,’ and ‘professeur stipendié aux langues et bonnes lettres.’ His stipend was 100l. a year, and he calls God to witness that he is not influenced by avaricious motives in leaving Geneva. His entry into Montpellier was a sort of triumphal procession. In 1597 he began his ‘Ephemerides,’ a curious diary, in which he scrupulously records, not the events, but the studies of every day up to a few days before his death. The ‘Ephemerides’ are full of expressions of devotion, pious ejaculations, and earnest prayers, which remind one of the methodist diaries of the eighteenth century. They are the artless outpourings of an intensely religious soul. A specimen may be given:—‘To-day I got six hours for study. When shall I get my whole day? Whenever, O my Father, it shall be thy will!’ ‘This morning not to my books till 7 o'clock or after; alas me! and after that the whole morning lost—nay, the whole day. O God of my salvation, aid my studies, without which life is to me not life!’ ‘Deliver me, my heavenly Father, from these miseries which the absence of my wife and the management of my household create for me.’ At Montpellier he had only one sitting-room, where his work had to be done in the midst of his family. His stay in his new home scarcely lasted three years, his friends De Thou and Meric de Vic being mainly instrumental in transferring him to Paris. They introduced him to Henry IV, who had heard what Casaubon calls ‘exaggerated praise’ of him from Scaliger. De Vic was the adviser by whom all Casaubon's plans were now directed; and De Vic and Madame de Vic were Roman catholics. It was in the hope that Casaubon would be admitted into the true church that they and his other friends had schemed to bring him to Paris. To Paris he removed in 1600 after some delay at Lyons, where his ‘Athenæus’ was being printed; but he did not find more comfort in the metropolis than he had found at Montpellier. He was appointed ‘lectureur du roi,’ and had a pension assigned to him, while his friends hinted at an appointment in the university ‘under certain circumstances.’ Those circumstances were, of course, his conversion to Romanism, for no heretic was allowed to teach in the university. He was trapped into becoming one of the umpires in a dispute between Du Plessis-Mornay (one of Henry IV's most faithful friends in his Huguenot days) on the protestant side and the Cardinal du Perron on the Romanist. There was only one other protestant among the six commissioners or umpires, Casaubon's friend De Fresne, who was known to be seeking a decent pretext for coming over to the side in power. A conference was held at Fontainebleau, the subject being whether De Mornay had or had not quoted falsely in a book ‘De l'Eucharistie.’ Casaubon's critical acumen forced him to admit, with the other judges, that a false citation had been made, and it was thought that he would become a Romanist. His son Meric [q. v.] thinks that he wavered, but there does not seem to be any positive proof that he went even so far as that. At any rate, he was certainly not to be brought over. In vain