SCALIGER, Joseph Justus, one of the most learned critics and writers of his time. He was the son of the former, and was born at Agen, in France, in 1540. He studied in the college of Bordeaux; after which his father took him under his own care, and employed him in transcribing his poems. By this means he obtained such a taste for poetry, that before he was seventeen years old he wrote a tragedy upon the subject of Edipus, in which he introduced all the poetical ornaments of style and sentiment. His father having died in 1558, he went to Paris the year following, with a desire to apply himself to the Greek tongue. For this purpose he for two months attended the lectures of Turnebus; but finding that in the usual course he should be a long time in gaining his point, he shut himself up in his closet, and by constant application for two years gained a perfect knowledge of that language. After this he applied to the Hebrew, which he learned by himself with great facility. He made no less progress in the sciences; and his writings procured him the reputation of one of the greatest men of that or of any other age. He embraced the reformed religion at twenty-two years of age. In 1563, he attached himself to Louis Casteignier de la Roche Pozay, whom he attended in several journeys; and, in 1569, he was invited to accept of the place of honorary professor of the university of Leyden, which he complied with. He died of a dropsy in that city in 1609. He was a man of great temperance, was never married, and was so close a student that he often spent whole days in his study without eating; and though his circumstances were always very narrow, he
constantly refused the presents that were offered him. He published many works, the principal of which are, 1. Notes on Seneca's Tragedies, on Varro, Ausonius, Pompeius Festus, &c.; 2. His Latin Poems; 3. A treatise de Emendatione Temporum; 4. Eusebius's Chronicle, with Notes; 5. Canones Isagogici; and many other works. The collections entitled Scaligeriana were collected from his conversations by one of his friends; and being ranged into alphabetical order, were published by Isaac Vossius.