Isaac Casaubon was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England, regarded by many of his time as the most learned man in Europe.
Background
He was born in Geneva to two French Huguenot refugees. The family returned to France after the Edict of Saint-Germain in 1562, and settled at Crest in Dauphiné, where Arnaud Casaubon, Isaac's father, became minister of a Huguenot congregation.
Education
He studied at the Academy of Geneva.
Casaubon was professor of Greek at Geneva from 1592 to 1596 and subsequently at Montpellier, but was called to the court of France and attended the colloquy of Fontainebleau in 1600.
Career
Arnaud was away from home whole years together in the Calvinist camp, or the family were flying to the hills to hide from the fanatical bands of armed Catholics who patrolled the country.
Portus died in 1581, having recommended Casaubon, then only twenty- two, as his successor.
His great wants at Geneva were books and the sympathy of learned associates.
He spent all he could save out of his small salary in buying books, and in having copies made of such classics as were not then in print.
But Henri, in those last years of his life, was no longer the Estienne of the Thesaurus', he was never at home, and would not suffer his son- in-law to enter his library.
Beza was engrossed by the cares of administration, and retained, at most, an interest for theological reading, while Lect, a lawyer and diplomatist, had left classics for the active business of the council.
The sympathy and help which Casaubon's native city could not afford him, he endeavoured to supply by cultivating the acquaintance of the learned of other countries.
Geneva, as the metropolis of Calvinism, received a constant succession of visitors.
The continental tour of the young Englishman of biith was not complete without a visit to Geneva.
Scaliger and Casaubon first exchanged letters in 1594.
Their intercourse, which was wholly by letter, for they never met, passes through the stages of civility, admiration, esteem, regard and culminates in a tone of the tenderest affection and mutual confidence.
In Montpellier he never took root.
He held the professorship there only three years, with several prolonged absences.
The hopes raised by his brilliant reception were disappointed; he was badly treated by the authorities, by whom his salary was only paid very irregularly, and, finally, not at all.
But the love of knowledge was gradually growing upon him, and he began to perceive that editing Greek books was an employment more congenial to his peculiar powers than teaching.
His debut as an editor had been a complete Strabo (1587), of which he was so ashamed afterwards that he apologized for its crudity to Scaliger, calling it " a miscarriage. "
This was followed by the text of Polyaenus, an editio princeps, 1389; a text of Aristotle, 1590; and a few notes contributed to Estienne's editions of Dionysius ol Halicarnassus and Pliny's Epistolae.
It is not till we come to his edition of Theophrastus's Characteres (1592), that we have a specimen of that peculiar style of illustrative commentary, at once apposite and profuse, which distinguishes Casaubon among annotators.
In the suite of De Vicq Casaubon made a flying visit to Paris, and was presented to Henry IV.
Full of hope he returned to Montpellier.
In January 1599, he received a summons to repair to Paris.
But the terms of the letter missive were so vague that, though it bore the sign manual, Casaubon hesitated to act upon it.
However, he resigned his chair at Montpellier, but instead of hastening to Paris, he lingered more than a year at Lyons, in De Vicq's house, where he hoped to meet the king, who was expected to visit the south.
Nothing more was heard about the professorship, but instead he was summoned by De Vicq, who was then in Paris, to come to him in all haste on an affair of importance.
The issue was so contrived that the Protestant party could not but be pronounced to be in the wrong.
No more was said about the university.
The recent reform of the university of Paris had closed its doors to all but Catholics; and though the chairs of the College de France were not governed by the statutes of the University, public opinion ran so violently against heresy, that Henry IV dared not appoint a Calvinist to a chair, even if he had desired to do so.
These ten years were the brightest period of his life.
He was placed above penury, though not in easy circumstances.
He had the best opportunities of seeing men of letters from foreign countries as they passed through Paris.
Above all, he had ample facilities for using Greek books, both printed and in MS. , the want of which he had felt painfully at Geneva and Montpellier, and which no other place but Paris could at that period have supplied. , In spite of all these advantages we find Casaubon restless, and ever framing schemes for leaving Paris, and settling elsewhere.
It was known that he was open to offers, and offers came to him from various quarters, -from Nimes, from Heidelberg, from Sedan.
His friends Lect and Giovanni Diodati wished, rather than hoped, to get him back to Geneva.
The life of any Huguenot in Paris was hardly secure at that time, for it was doubtful if the police of the city was strong enough to protect them against any sudden uprising of the fanatical mob, always ready to re-enact the St Bartholomew. But Casaubon was exposed to persecution of another sort. Ever since the Fontainebleau Conference an impression prevailed that he was wavering. It was known that he rejected the outre anti-popery opinions current in the Reformed churches; that he read the fathers, and wished for a church after the pattern of the primitive ages. He was given to understand that he could have a professorship only by recantation. When it was found that he could not be bought, he was plied by controversy. Henry IV, who liked Casaubon personally, made a point of getting him to follow his own example. By the king's orders Duperron was untiring in his efforts to convert him. Casaubon's knowledge of the fathers was that of a scholar, Duperron's that of an adroit polemist; and thescholar was driven to admit that the polemist was often too hard for him. On the other hand, the Huguenot theologians, and especially Pierre du Moulin, chief pastor of the church of Paris, accused him of conceding too much, and of having departed already from the lines of strict Calvinistic orthodoxy. When the assassination of Henry IV gave full rein to the Ultramontane party at court, the obsessions of Duperron became more importunate, and even menacing. It was now that Casaubon began to listen to overtures which had been faintly made before, from the bishops and the . court of England. He had the most flattering reception from James I, who was perpetually sending for him to discuss theological matters. Casaubon, though a layman, was collated to a prebendal stall in Canterbury, and a pension of £300 a year was assigned him from the exchequer. Nor were these merely paper figures. He had obtained leave of absence for a visit to England, where his permanent settlement was not contemplated. 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. John Overall had received him and his whole family into the deanery of St Paul's, and entertained him there for a year. Overall and Lancelot 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. Andrewes took him to Cambridge, where he met with a 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 which year he became naturalized. In 1613 he was taken to Oxford by Sir Henry Savile, where, amid the homage and feasting of which he was the object, his principal interest was 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. On one occasion he himself appeared at Theobalds with a black eye, having received a blow from some ruffian's fist in the street. It excluded him altogether from the circle of the " wits either this or some other cause prevented him from being acceptable in the circle of the lay learned-the " antiquaries. " William Camden, the antiquary and historian, he saw but once or twice. Casaubon had been imprudent enough to correct Camden's Greek, and it is possible that the ex-head- master of Westminster kept himself aloof in silent resentment of Casaubon's superior learning. With Robert Cotton and Henry Spelman he'was slightly acquainted. Of John 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 Richard Montagu to forestall 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. 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. They compelled him to write first one, then a second, pamphlet on the subject of the day, the royal supremacy. Upon this task Casaubon spent his remaining strength and life.
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.
Religion
He had such facilities for religious worship as a Huguenot could have, though he had to go out of the city to Hablon, and afterwards to Charenton, for them.
He enjoyed the society of men of learning, or of men who took an interest in learned publications.
The English bishops were equally delighted to find that the great French scholar was an Anglican ready made, who 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.
Here the accuracy of patristic quotations in Duplessis-Mornay's treatise against the Mass was tested, and Reformed scholars blamed Casaubon for siding with the Catholic commissioners.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"He guards his books, " writes Casaubon, "as the griffins in India do their gold!"
By so doing he placed himself in a false position, as Scaliger said: " Non debebat Casaubon interesse colloquio Plessiaeano; erat asinus inter simias, doctus inter imperitos ".
Connections
He remained at Geneva as professor of Greek until 1596. There he married twice, his second wife being Florence Estienne, daughter of the scholar-printer Henri Estienne.