Hence we may judge with what ardour he applied to study.

He tells us himself that he spent a part of the night in it.[21] The device which he adopted[22] shews that he had reflected on the swiftness of time, and the necessity of employing it well.
The reputation of this learned youth spread every-where; and learned men spoke of him in their works as a prodigy.

So early as the year 1597 Isaac Pontanus calls him a young man of the greatest hopes; Meursius, in 1599, declared he had never seen his equal.

James Gilot, in a letter written from Paris to Meursius in 1601, affirmed the capacity of young Grotius bordered on prodigy; the famous Poet Barlaeus said the childhood of Grotius astonished all the old men.

Daniel Heinsius maintained that Grotius was a man from the instant of his birth, and never had discovered any signs of childhood.