Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/186

174 had the most flattering reception from James I., who was perpetually sending for him, to have theological talk. The English bishops were equally delighted to find that the great French scholar was an Anglican ready made, and had arrived, by independent study of the fathers, at the very via media between Puritanism and Romanism, which was becoming the fashion in the English Church. Casaubon, though a layman, was collated to a prebendal stall in Canter bury, and had a pension of 300 a year assigned him from the exchequer. Nor were these merely paper figures. When Sir Julius Csesar made a difficulty about payment, James sent a note in his own hand : &quot; Chanceler of my excheker, I will have Mr Casaubon paid before me, my wife, and my barnes.&quot; He still retained his appointments in France, and his office as librarian. He had obtained leave of absence for a visit to England, and his permanent settle ment here was not contemplated. In order to retain their hold upon him, the Government of the queen regent refused to allow his library to be sent over. It required a special request from James himself to get leave for Madame Casaubon to bring him a part of his most necessary books. Casaubon continued to speak of himself as the servant of the regent, and to declare his readiness to return when summoned to do so. Meanwhile his situation in London gradually developed unforeseen sources of discomfort. Not that he had any reason to complain of his patrons, the king and the bishops. James continued to the last to delight in his company, and to be as liberal as the state of his finances allowed. Overal had received him and his whole family into the deanery of St Paul s, and entertained him there for a year. Overal and Andrewes, then bishop of Ely, were the most learned men of a generation in which extensive reading was more general among the higher clergy than it has ever been since. These two were attracted to Casaubon by congenial studies and opinions. With the witty and learned bishop of Ely, in particular, Casaubon was always happy to spend such hours as he had to spare from the labours of the study. Andrewes took him to Cambridge, where he met the most gratifying reception from the notabilities of the university. They went on together to Downham, where Casaubon spent six weeks of the summer of 1611. In 1613 he was taken to Oxford by Sir H. Savile, where, amid the homage and feasting of which he was the object, his principal interest is for the MSS. treasures of the Bodleian. The honorary degree which was offered him he declined. But these distinctions were far from compensating the serious inconveniences of his position. Having been taken up by the king and the bishops, he had to share in their rising unpopularity. The courtiers looked with a jealous eye on a pensioner who enjoyed frequent opportunities of taking James I. on his weak side his love of book talk, opportunities which they would have known how to use. Casaubon was especially mortified by Sir H. Wotton s persistent avoidance of him, so inconsistent with their former intimacy. His windows were broken by the roughs at night, his children pelted in the streets by day. On one occasion he himself appeared at Theobald s with a black eye, having received a blow from some ruffian s fist in the street. Mr Hallam thinks that he had &quot; become per sonally unpopular ; &quot; but these outrages from the vulgar seem to have arisen solely from the Cockney s antipathy to the Frenchman. Casaubon, though he could make shift to read an English book, could not speak English, any more than Mine. Casaubon. This deficiency not only exposed him to in suit and fraud, but restricted his social intercourse. It excluded him altogether from the circle of the &quot; wits ; &quot; either this or some other cause prevented him from being acceptable in the circle of the lay learned the &quot;antiquaries.&quot; Camden he saw but once or twice. Casaubon had been imprudent enough to correct Camden s Greek, and it is possible that the ex-headmaster of Westminster kept him self aloof in silent resentment of Casaubon s superior learning. With Cotton and Spelman he was slightly acquainted. Of Selden we find no mention. Though Sir Henry Savile ostensibly patronized him, yet Casaubon could not help suspecting that it was Savile who secretly prompted an attempt by Montagu to forestal Casaubon s book on Baronius. Besides the jealousy of the natives, Casaubon had now to suffer the open attacks of the Jesuit pamphleteers. They had spared him as long as there were hopes of getting him over. The prohibition was taken off, now that he was committed to Anglicanism. Not only Eudtemon-Joannes, Rosweyd, and Scioppius, but a respect able writer, friendly to Casaubon, Schott of Antwerp, gave currency to the insinuation that Casaubon had sold bis conscience for English gold. But the most serious cause of discomfort in his English residence was that his time was no longer his own. He was perpetually being summoned out of town to one or other of James s hunting residences that the king might enjoy his talk. He had come over from Paris in search of leisure, and found that a new claim on his time was established. The king and the bishops wanted to employ his pen in their literary warfare against Home. They compelled him to write first one, then a second, pamphlet on the subject of the day, the royal supremacy. At last, ashamed of thus misappropriating Casaubon s stores of learning, they set him upon a refutation of the Annals of Baronius, then in the full tide of its credit and success. Upon this task Casaubou spent his remaining strength and life. He died in great suffering, 1st July 1614. His complaint was an organic and congenital malformation of the bladder ; but his end was hastened by an unhealthy life of over-study, and latterly by his anxiety to acquit himself creditably in his criticism on Baronius. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The monument, by which his name is there commemorated, was erected many years later by his friend Thomas Morton, then (1632) become bishop of Durham. Besides the editions of ancient authors which have been mentioned, Casaubon published with commentaries Persius, Suetonius, the Scriptores Histories Augusta;. Polybius, on which he had spent vast labour, he left unfinished. His most ambitious work was his revision of the text of Athenseus, with commentary. The TLeophrastu -&amp;lt; perhaps exhibits his most characteristic excellencies as a com mentator. The Exercitatione s in Baronium, are but a fragment of the massive criticism which he contemplated, and failed in bringing before the reader the uncritical character of Baronius s history. His correspondence (in Latin) was finally collected by D Almeloveen (Rotterdam, 1709), who prefixed to the letters a careful life of Isaac Casaubon. But this learned Dutch editor was only acquainted with Casaubon s diary in extract. This diary Ephemerides, of which the MS. is preserved in the chapter library of Canterbury, was printed in 1850, by the Clarendon Press. It forms the most valuable record we possess of the daily life of a scholar, or man of letters, of the 16th century.

1em  CASBIN,, , a city of Persia, in the province of Irak, in 36 12 N. lat. and 49 53 E. long., and 108 miles W.N.W. of Teheran. It is built in a fertile plain, south of Mount Elburz, and is square in form, aud surrounded by a wall of brick, with towers. Its extent is 