Grotius had always discovered great impatience when denied the tides of honour due to the Ambassadors of crowned heads. He imagined it to be the consequence of a plot of his enemies to depreciate him. William did not approve of his brother's great heat on this subject: and thought there was reason to presume that it was owing rather to inattention, than a premeditated design. Grotius, whose mildness of temper was greatly altered by his late disputes with the Reformed Ministers, as Henry de Villeneuve observes in a letter to the Abbe Barcellini, was much dissatisfied with his brother's manner of excusing those of whom he thought he had reason to complain; and wrote to him very sharply on this subject, December 12, 1643. "I imagine, says he, I see and hear you pleading at the Bar: you find reasons to excuse my enemies for things for which no body here excuses them: you blame me for things for which no body here blames me, nor will any others except your Dutchmen. It is fit that I should support my dignity: the thing is done on purpose; and the Swedes, whom it concerns, would be offended with me if I acted otherwise. I would therefore ask of you, for the future to address the letters you receive for me to my wife; and I shall afterwards see what is to be done." This small altercation did not interrupt the friendship of the two brothers, nor their correspondence by letters, which continued till Grotius's death. William, besides the book we have already mentioned, wrote another on the law of nature, entitled, _Willelmi Grotii de principiis Juris Naturalis Enchiridion_. This work is much inferior to the treatise _Of War and Peace_. However, it has its merit, and is particularly valuable for containing in a small compass all the principles of Natural Law clearly displayed. Grotius had still another brother, named Francis, who was the second son of John Grotius. He died young. Grotius wrote a Poem on his death, and a consolatory piece in Prose and Verse to his Father: they are both in the collection of his Poems. John Grotius had a daughter of fine accomplishments. Grotius acquaints us[773], that she wrote an useful book on Widowhood, which was very well done. The design of this work was not to condemn second marriages, but only to shew that it was more becoming a reasonable woman to content herself with having had one husband. After her death it was proposed to print it; and Grotius, to make it a more considerable book, translated into Dutch three treatises of Tertullian, one of St. Ambrose, two of St. Chrysostome, and three of St. Jerom, on the same subject. We have not learnt whether this Collection was ever published. The END of the SIXTH and LAST BOOK. FOOTNOTES: [735] See the Testimonia at the end of Le Clerc's edition of the treatise on the truth of the Christian religion, p. 344. & 351. [736] Ep. 195. p. 813. [737] Ep. 253. p. 832. [738] Ep. 368. p. 859. & 369. p 860. [739] Ep. 419. p. 875. [740] Ep. 421. p. 876.