with open arms in the dissolute coteries of the 18th century. Consummate profligate and charlatan as he was, he was loaded with honours by the Italian princes, and even
decorated by the Pope himself.After eighteen years absence from his native town, he endeavoured to reinstate himself in the esteem of the Venetians by a refutation of the work of Amelot de la Houssaye on the constitution of the republic ; and when at last serious matters took the place of his pleasures, he became, in 1782, librarian to a German prince without a library. This prince was Count Waldstein, whom he accompanied to his chateau at Dux in Bohemia, in which place he died in 1803, after having written his Memoirs, a work not unlike the Confessions of Rousseau, but far more depraved in tone. They are the frank avowal of a godless life, notwithstanding the frequent professions of Christianity in the preface. Much as they have been overrated, a certain literary merit cannot be denied to them. They are principally interesting for the faithful pictures they give us of the morals and manners of the times. The Memoires were published at Leipsic, 10 vols., in 1828-38, and at Paris, 4 vols., in 1843. He also wrote several works on history in Italian; Rpdt de ma, Captivite, 1788; a translation in verse of the Iliad, 1778 ; and a Narrative of Eighty Years spent among the Inhabitants of the Interior of the Globe, 1788-1800.
CASAS GRANDES (i.e., in Spanish, Great Houses), a town of Mexico, in the province of Chihuahua, situated on the Casas Grandes or San Miguel River, about 35 miles S. of Llanos and 150 miles N.W. of the city of Chihuahua. It 15 celebrated for the ruins of early Mexican buildings still extant, about half a mile from its present site. They are built of " sun-dried blocks of mud and gravel, about 22 inches thick, and of irregular length, generally about 3 feet, probably formed and dried in situ." The walls are in some places about 5 feet thick, and they seem to have been plastered both inside and outside. The principal edifice ex tends 800 feet from N. to S. and 200 E. to W.; its general outline is rectangular, and it appears to have consisted of three separate piles united by galleries or lines of lower buildings. The exact plan of the whole has not as yet been made out, but the apartments have evidently varied in size from mere closets to extensive courts. The walls still stand at many of the angles with a height of from 40 to 50 feet, and indicate an original elevation of several stories, perhaps six or seven. At a distance of about 450 feet from the main building are the substructions of a smaller edifice, consisting of a series of rooms ranged round a square court, so that there are seven to each side besides a larger apartment at each corner. The whole district of Casas Grandes is further studded with artificial mounds, from which are excavated from time to time large numbers of stone axes, metates or corn-grinders, and earthen vessels of various kinds. These last have a white or reddish ground, with ornamentation in blue, red, brown or black, and are of much better manufacture than the modern pottery of the country. Similar ruins to those of Casas Grandes exist near the Gila, the Salinas, and the Colorado, and it is probable that they are all the erections of one people. Squier is disposed to assign them to the Moquis.
See vol. iv. of The Native llaces of the Pacific States of North America, by Squier, whose principal authorities are the Noticias del Estado de Chihuahua of Escudero, who visited the ruins in 1819 ; an article in the first volume of the Album Mexicano, the author of which was at Casas Grandes in 1842; and the Personal Narrative of Mr Bartlett, who explored the locality in 1851.
CASAUBON, Isaac (1559-1614), was born at Geneva, 18th February 1559, of French refugee parents. On the publication of the edict of January 1561, the family returned to France and settled at Crest in Dauphine", where Arnold Casaubon, Isaac s father, became minister of a Huguenot congregation. Till he was nineteen, Isaac had no other instruction than what could be given him by his father amid the distractions of those troubled years. Arnold 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. Thus it was in a cave in the mountains of Dauphine" that Isaac received his first lesson in Greek, the text-book being Isocrates ad Demonicum.
At nineteen Isaac was sent to the Academy of Geneva, where he read Greek under Francis Portus, a native of Crete. Portus died in 1581, having recommended Casaubon, then only twenty-two, as his successor. At Geneva he remained as professor of Greek till 1596. Here he married twice, his second wife being Florence, daughter of the celebrated scholar-printer, Henri Estienne. Here, without the stimulus of example or encouragement, with few books and no assistance, in a city peopled with religious refugees, and struggling for life against the troops of the Catholic dukes of Savoy, Casaubon made himself the consummate Greek scholar, and master of ancient learning, which he became. He gave himself up to a study of the classical remains with a zeal and persistency which were fed only by an innate love of acquisition. His great wants were books and the sympathy of learned associates, both of which were wanting at Geneva. 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. Henri Estienne, Beza, and Lect were, indeed, men of superior learning. But Henri, in those last years of his life, was no longer the Estienne of the Thesaurus; was, besides, never at home, and would not suffer his son- in-law to enter his library. " He guards his books," writes Casaubon, " as the griffins in India do their gold ! " Beza was engrossed by the cares of administration, and retained, at most, an interest for theological reading. Lect, a lawyer, 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 coun tries. Geneva, as the metropolis of Calvinism, received a constant succession of visitors. The Continental tour of the young Englishman of birth was not complete without a visit to Geneva. It was there that Casaubon made the acquaintance of young Henry Wotton, who lodged in his house, and borrowed his money. Of more consequence to Isaac Casaubon was the acquaintance of Richard Thomson of Clare, for it was through Thomson that the attention of Scaliger, settled in 1593 at Leyden, was directed to Casaubon. 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. Influential French men of letters, the Protestant Bongars, the Catholic De Thou, and the Catholic convert Canaye de Fresne, aided him by presents of books and encouragement, and endeavoured to get him invited, in some capacity, to France.
accepted an invitation to the university of Montpellier, with the title of " conseiller du roi " and " professeur stipendie" aux langues et bonnes lettres." In Montpellier he never took root. He held the professorship there only three years, with several prolonged absences. He was not, at any time, insensible to the attractions of teaching, and his lectures at Montpellier were followed not only by the students, but by men of mature age and position. But
the love of knowledge was gradually growing upon him,