One of the manuscript-dealers with whom Casaubon, as an impecunious collector, came into relations, was Darmarius, described as one of the last of the caligraphs, a class which in Italy and in the university towns of Germany survived for nearly half a century the invention of printing. Darmarius had access to the libraries of Venice and Florence and travelled about Europe to sell his copies. His manuscripts, says Pattison, were not works of art like the productions of the pen of a Vergecio or a Rhosus, made to adorn the collections of princes and cardinals. The books sold by Darmarius were hasty transcripts, written on poor paper, chiefly of certain unpublished works that he had found in the library of Cardinal Bessarion.[34] They did not make up for their want of beauty by the accuracy of their text, for the transcriber does not seem to have known even the grammar of classic Greek, but for these wretched copies he was able to secure from scholars hungry for books, great prices. For a _Polyæmus_, Casaubon paid, in 1578, “a great sum,” _magno ære_, and for a _Julius Africanus_ three hundred crowns, almost its weight in silver, but neither of these authors was as yet in print. The admission of Casaubon into the family of the great publisher, so far from adding to his opportunities for getting his writings before the public, did not even secure for him any additional facilities for their preparation. Reference has already been made in the sketch of Henry Estienne to the jealous selfishness with which, particularly in the later years of his life, he retained in his own hands his collections of books and of manuscripts. But few friends appear to have ever secured from him permission to utilise his literary stores, while of his learned son-in-law he was particularly jealous. Casaubon was one of the few scholars in Europe who was competent to edit, from the original, a Greek text, and although in certain respects Estienne’s scholarly ideals were high, he seems to have laid more stress upon his individual prestige than upon the advance of learning.