Budaeus was the first to apply the historical method to the explanation of
the Civil Law: with the assistance of Jean Grolier he brought out a very
learned treatise on ancient weights and measures; and in publishing his
commentaries on the Greek language he was said to have raised himself to
'a pinnacle of philological glory.' One of the stories about his devotion
to books may have been told of others, but is certainly characteristic of
the man. A servant rushes in to say that the house is on fire; but the
scholar answers, 'Tell my wife: you know that I never interfere with the
household.' He was married twice over, he used to say, to the Muse of
philology as well as to a mortal wife; but he confessed that he would
never have got far with the first, if the second had not commanded in the
library, always ready to look out passages and to hand down the necessary
books.
When Charles VIII. seized the royal library at Naples, a few of the best
MSS. escaped his scrutiny, and these were sold by the dispossessed King
to the Cardinal D'Amboise. A new school of illuminators at Rouen provided
the Cardinal with a number of other splendid volumes. He lived till the
year 1510, and was able to collect a second library of printed books. He
divided the whole into two portions at his death, the French books
passing to a relation and afterwards to the family of La Rochefoucauld,
and the rest forming the foundation of a fine library long possessed by
the Archbishops of Rouen.
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