WANDERING WOODS AGAIN 55
ever publishing, for which his friends dubbed him Lentulus, Laggard.
He collected editions of Statius and annotated them with zeal, some-
times gathering his notes into small books.^37 He suggested a number
of emendations to Gevartius for his 1616 edition, for which he is re-
peatedly quoted as “amicus noster Petrus Scriverius”, and was pre-
sented with a copy; others he apparently reserved for Gronovius, when
that scholar prepared his Diatribe in Statii Silvas of 1637. More than
once Scriverius offered him substantial collections of critical notes on
the Silvae. Gronovius’ condescending characterization of Scriverius’
work as “totally unsound” in a letter to Claude de Saumaise is far to
seek in the obsequious letter which he sent to accompany the printed
Diatribe, where Scriverius’ notes have become doctissimae.^38
37 On him see Tuynman 1977 and Langereis 2001, 105–54. Scriverius was also a
prolific composer of poetry. This and the (far more important) philological work of
this elusive scholar, whose motto was lare secreto, have been largely neglected.
Scriverius possessed the following books on Statius (see Bibliotheca Scriveriana ...
1663): “Opera commentata vetustissimae impressionis” (folio no 31), probably Sca-
liger’s Calderini edition, which was bought by Scriverius in the auction of Scaliger’s
books; the edition by Colinaeus, Parisiis 1530 (8o no 105); the second edition by Gry-
phius, Lyons 1559 (12o no 71); a “Statius cum not. Placidi Lactantii, typ. Plantin.
160 0” (an unknown edition, 4o no 53); “Notae et coniectanea in Sylvas, Fed. Morel
160 2” (12o no 70); the 1618 edition by Emericus Cruceus 1618 (4o no 51). Then he
possessed a manuscript of Io. Gevartius’ 1616 commentary on Statius: “Papinianae
lectiones” (Libri Appendiciarii, mss. no 24, probably Gevartius’ autograph). That is
not all, he possessed and annotated the following books: the Bernaert edition of 1595
(now Leiden University Library 757 F 17, auction catalogue 8o no 103 or 104, Scriv-
erius possessed two copies of this book); the edition Lindenbruch 1600 (now in Göt-
tingen University Library, as 8 AUCT LAT IV, 4033(?), annotated in 1606, descr.
F.A. Menkius, cf. Kohlmann Thebais BT 1884); the edition by Gevartius of 1616
(now Leiden University Library 757 F 22 (8o no 102, this is the copy Gevartius pre-
sented to Scriverius). Transcripts of Scriverius’ marginalia in this book were made by
Abr. or Joh. Gronovius the younger, both on loose papers and in the margin of the
1671 edition by Veenhusen, now Leiden University Library 757 F 27. His unpub-
lished notes are mentioned in Hand’s 1817 edition of the Silvae (I.1–3) pp. LXLVII–
LV as no 21. In his published Anecdota Philologica of 1737 there is exactly one
emendation of Statius (p. 31, on Th. 1.703).
38 Gronovius to Salmasius 24.III.1637 (Burmann 1727, II n° 294 (p. 536)) “A
Scriverio nuper iterum accepi libellum (non enim epistolam) emendationum ad Silvas.
Quid quaeris? Ὑγιὲς οὐδὲν, nosti caetera”, cf. ibid. 297, Gronovius to Salmasius,
11.V.1637 on Scriverius’ “pertinax inscitia”, Gronovius to Scriverius, undated (see
Dibon, Bots and Bots-Estourgie 1974, p. 471), in Matthaeus 1738 III pp. 716–7 “...
ipsa [Diatriba] ultro se accusatum ad te venit, vir maxime, aut supplicatum potius, ne
propter vilitatem operis spernas autorem ipsique ignoscas quod splendorem interdum
illustrissimi nominis tui quaesiverit ... nunc, rogo, si tamen ullam horam tam indigne
perdere poteris, ut haec legas ...”.