It is not for such minds as that of Grotius that “stone walls can make a prison.” During nearly two years of close imprisonment, with no society but that of his wife, who constantly attended him, he employed himself in digesting and applying those stores of learning which he had previously acquired, and study became at once his business and his consolation. “The Muses,” says he, in a letter to Vossius during his confinement, “are a great alleviation of my misfortune. You know that when I was most oppressed by business, they furnished my most delightful recreation; how much more valuable are they to me now, when they constitute the only enjoyment which cannot be taken from me!” During his captivity he occupied much of his time in legal studies, of which other pursuits had for some years caused an intermission, and also in arranging and completing his improvements and additions to Stobæus, which were afterwards published; but his favourite employment appears to have been theology, and especially a laborious and critical examination of the Sermon on the Mount. He also at this time wrote a treatise in the Dutch language on the Truth of the Christian Religion, which a few years afterwards, while at Paris, he enlarged and translated into Latin. In its improved state it became more generally known and popular than any of his works, having been translated, during the seventeenth century, into the English, French, Flemish, German, Persian, Arabic, and Greek languages. This treatise was well worthy of the great attention which it excited: in point of force of argument and clearness of arrangement it will not suffer on a comparison with the works of Paley and other popular modern writers on the same subject; and in temper and candour it is superior to most of them. Grotius says, in the introduction, that he originally wrote it to furnish an occupation to his countrymen during the unemployed leisure of long voyages on commercial adventures; and in the hope that, by thus instructing them in the most intelligible and convincing arguments in favour of Christianity, they might become the means of diffusing its advantages among distant nations. In the first book, he maintains the existence, attributes, and providence of a Supreme Being; in the second, he enumerates the particular arguments in favour of the divine origin of the Christian religion; in which part of the subject his illustration of the internal evidence derived from the superior dignity and excellence of the moral precepts of Christianity is peculiarly admirable. The third division of the treatise contains a critical defence of the authenticity of the books of the New Testament; and the three remaining parts are devoted to a refutation of Paganism, Judaism, and Mahometanism. The perspicuity of the style, and the spirit of candour which pervades the whole treatise, well adapted it to the purpose for which it was intended; and though many modern authors have