, SCALE:1ER, Josarit JUSTUS, the tenth son of J. C. Sealiger and Andietta de Roques Lobejac, and much his father's superior in learning, was born in 1540 at Ageu, whence, at the age of 11, he was sent, along with two of his brothers, to the college of Bordeaux, where for three years he studied Latin. A pestilence out in the town, he was recalled by his father, who supplemented the scanty knowledge which his son brought. home with him by making him write a Latin declamation every day upon any subject he chose. Under this training he soon attained great proficiency as a Latinist; and in his 19th year. on the death of his father. he went to Paris, where he studied Greek under the famous Turnebus. He was less indebted, however, to any master than to himself; and finding that his progress was slow under his great preceptor, he closeted himself alone 'with Homer, and in 21 days read him through, with the aid of a Latin translation, and committed him to memory. In less than four months he had mastered all the Greek poets. Next, Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, and the most of the modern European languages succumbed in rapid succession to his industry, while at the same time be was assiduous in his composition of verses both in Latin and Greek. About this time he boasted that lie could speak 13 ancient and modern; and such was his ardor in study, that he allowed himself only a few hours' steep at night, and would frequently pass wholo days without rising from his books even for meals. His proficiency in literature,• especially in the history, chronology, and antiquities of Greece and Rome, secured him, in 1583, en honorable engagement from Louis de la Roche Pozay, at that time French ambassador at the pontificarcourt. The year before, however, he had become a Protes tant, which rendered it difficult for him to retain an appointment in France. Except that he traveled a good deal, at the generous instance of his patron, and visited the chief universities of France and Germany, and even found his way to Scotland, we know little of his life between 1565 and 1593. He is conjectured to have traveled in Italy, and to have gone as far as Naples. Certain it is, however, that in the year last named he complied with an invitation of the Dutch government, and went to fill the chair of litera ture, vacated by Lipsius in Leyden university, where lie spent the residue of his days.
His labor now consisted chiefly in interpreting and illustrating the classical authors. Be died of dropsy on Jan. 21, 1609. and was never married. We have said that he fat excelled his father in learning; but it should be added that he was not a whit less irrita• ble, arrogant, or vain; that he fully shared the paternal pride of.pedigree, spurious as he probably knew his own to be; and that he endeavored to support his father's genea logical fictions in his well-known letter to Douse on the splendor of the Scaliger family. His writings abound with expressions of hatred and contempt toward his opponents, and he has enriched the vocabulary of learned abuse to an extent well-nigh proverbial. Ho was, however, a man of immense vigor of understanding, and must be credited with having been the first to lay down in Ins treatise De Emendatione Temporurn (Paris, 15S3) a complete system of chronology formed upon fixed principles. It was this most learned achievement, and his invention of the Julian period, that secured for him the title of the father of chronological science. It was subjected to much emendatory criticism by censors like Petavius, and also by himself, its errors having been partly corrected by him in his later work, the Thesaurus Ternporum, complectems Eusebii Pamphili Chronicon CUM Isagogicis Chronologhe Canonibus (Amst. 1658, 2 vols. fol.). Among the classical authors whom he criticised and annotated are Theocritus, Seneca (the tragedies): Varro, Ansonius, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Minibus, and Fcstus. His other works are De Tribus Sectis Jadceorum; Dissertations on Subjects of Antiquity; Poemata; Epistoke; a translation into Latin of two centuries of Arabian proverbs, etc. He numbered among his friends the most illustrious scholars of the time, such as Lipsius, Casaubon, Grotius, Heinsius, the DninlyS, San/Hake, Vossius, Velser, P. Pithou; and interesting notices of him are preserved in such works as the 'Indiana, and above all, in the two vols. of Scaligerana, which embody his conversations, and which were collected and published after his death.