Impecunious as Casaubon was during by far the greater portion of his life, he appears to have been always ready to give orders or commissions for the purchase of books or manuscripts. In some cases he was able to arrange to pay for these by services in one direction or another; in 1592, for instance, Henricus Petri of Basel sends him two copies of his second edition of _Homer_, one for the King of France and one for himself, the gift being accompanied with the request that Casaubon would secure for the book a (copyright) privilege for France.[35] In 1608, Biondi of Venice has a standing commission to send books to Casaubon.[36] Many presents of manuscripts were made to Casaubon, and in other instances manuscripts and books were loaned to him which were never returned. Pattison speaks of this part of Casaubon’s collection as becoming his by “process of adhesion.” In 1595, Casaubon writes to Commelin, a publisher of Heidelberg, as follows: “If I ask you to send me direct all that issues from your press, it is not, believe me, dearest Commelin, because I am unwilling to buy these, but because I am unable. Our booksellers here in Geneva are a blind sort, who are unwilling to bring back from Frankfort any books that may not pay. I except Favre, who is not so stupid as the rest. You will have to write to De Tournes [a printer of Geneva] directing him to deliver to me the _Chrysostom_, as he refuses to do so without your express commands.” Casaubon’s complaint about the lack of enterprise on the part of the booksellers of Geneva has, of course, been frequently enough repeated by scholars of later date, who are not always able to understand that the bookseller who takes unwise risks in accumulating stock that may not sell, will very soon cease to be a bookseller at all. His annoyance at De Tournes for declining to hand over property of Commelin’s without authority from the owner is equally naïve. Casaubon tells us that Geneva in his day had a public library, but that the collection, although valuable, was very small. The _Commentaries_ published by Casaubon in 1592, on Perseus, Theophrastus, Suetonius, and Diogenes Laertius, were based upon the lectures given by him in the Geneva Academy. The volumes were printed in Geneva, but I can find no record of the arrangement made by him of their publication. The references that he makes to the several sources of his very small income include no mention of receipts from the sale of his books, and it seems probable that these brought to their author no returns other than the occasional expression of recognition or honorarium on the part of scholarly patrons. If Henry Estienne had been willing to give to these _Commentaries_ the service of the imprint of his Paris House, the commercial results would probably have been much more satisfactory, but, whatever the difficulty, it was the case that no writings of Casaubon were issued by his father-in-law.