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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Isaac Casaubon Biography CASAUBON, Isaac (1559–1614). A distinguished French classicist and theologian. He, Joseph Scaliger (q.v.), and Justus Lipsius (q.v.) formed the famous triumvirate of sixteenth-century classical scholars. He was born in Geneva. In 1582 he was appointed professor of Greek in his native town; in 1596 he was called to a similar position in Montpellier. In 1599 he was summoned to Paris by Henry IV. The influence of the Catholic opponents of Casaubon was strong enough, however, to prevent his receiving a professorship; instead he was appointed royal librarian. After the murder of the King he felt his position insecure and in 1610 crossed to England, where James I received him with favor, appointing him prebendary of Canterbury and Westminster. Casaubon was sharply attacked by his opponents because of the favor the English King showed him, and he was charged with having bartered his opinions for position. He died in Westminster, and was buried in the great Abbey. He possessed great industry, excellent critical and grammatical sense, and skill in illustration and exposition. He was the first to treat in systematic manner an important field of literary history. This he did in his masterly work, De Satirica Grœca Poesi et Romanorum Satira (1605; last ed. by Rambach, Halle, 1774). Most of his labor was expended on editions and commentaries. The most important of these were on Strabo (1587); Suetonius (1595); Persius (1605; 4th ed., 1833, called by Scaliger "a divine book"); Polybius (1609); Polyænus, the editio princeps (1589), and especially Athenæus (1598); on this last-named commentary, his greatest work, he spent 10 years. He edited also Apuleius; Aristotle; Aristophanes; the Historiœ Augustœ Scriptores; Pliny the Younger, etc., and made important contributions to the criticism and interpretation of Dionysius of Halicarnassus; Diogenes Laërtius; Theocritus, etc. His theological interest gave rise to the works De Libertate Ecclesiastica (1607) and Exercitationes Contra Baronium (1614), in which he attacked the Annales Ecclesiastici of Cardinal Baronius (q.v.). These works appeal only to the scholar, but his characteristic diary, Ephemerides, may be relished by the general reader. It was edited by Russell (Oxford, 1850). Casaubon's Letters were published in Rotterdam, 1709. Consult Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, 2d ed. by Nettleship (Oxford, 1892), and Nazelle, Isaac Casaubon, sa vie et son temps (Paris, 1897). The scholar lived on in his son, Méric Casaubon (1599–1671), born in Geneva and educated at Sedan and Oxford, who edited the works of Marcus Aurelius, Terence, Epictetus, etc. Made successively prebendary of Canterbury, vicar of two charges, a rector, he suffered for devotion to Charles I. At the Restoration, however, he was again in favor. He wrote De Enthusiasmo; but perhaps his greatest work was the pious preservation of his father's manuscripts. He died at Oxford, where he had taught theology and, at the instance of Charles I, had received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 620. |