Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/156

 i 4 4 LEIBNITZ AS A LIBRARIAN. Frederick, and explained his difficult circum- stances. The duke replied offering him the post of councillor at his court, with leave to reside elsewhere as long as he liked. The roving spirit was still upon Leibnitz, and availing himself of the permission granted him, he left France, revisited England, and crossed to Holland. From thence he passed on to Hanover, where the duke resided, to take up his official duties. Besides being councillor, an office that was mainly a sinecure, he was appointed librarian to the duke and historiographer to the ducal house. He now applied himself with energy to his new duties. One of his purchases was the classified library of the physician and scholar, Martin Vogel, or Fogelius. For this collection he paid 2,000 thalers, and thus saved it from dispersion. He also acquired the libraries of Count von Westenholz. Quite early in his service under the duke we hear of his being drawn into state affairs in the dispute between electoral and non-eleftoral princes of the Empire as to the right of sending two ministers each (one as an ambassador) to the Con- ference of Nimcguen (1677). His master was among the non-elecloral princes, and in support of his claims he wrote his c De jure suprematus ac lega- tionis principum Germaniae,' under the pseudonym Caesarinus Fuerstenerius published in the same year, 1 677. This work, which advocated the recognition by European states of the Pope as spiritual head and the Emperor as supreme temporal authority, was frankly Ultramontane in tendency, and was a strange production to come from a Protestant !