Note 12 — GROTIUS.

A discrepancy appears in the accounts of the different biographers of Grotius respecting the date of his birth; some fixing it in 1582, and others in 1583. The fact is only material with reference to the anecdotes of his early acquirements, and it is ascertained beyond a doubt, by a very simple circumstance. That Grotius was born on Easter Sunday, and on the 10th of April, appears in numerous passages of his letters and poems; and as Easter Sunday fell on the 10th of April in 1583, and did not fall on that day for many years before and afterwards, the date of his birth seems to be satisfactorily proved by that coincidence. See Nicolas’s Tables.