WANDERING WOODS AGAIN 57
One of Grotius’ early poems is the Silva ad Cochlinum, written
when the addressee, the German preacher Johann Küchlein, became
dean in the Theological College founded by the States of Holland.^42
This is something of a Silva in the Politianic sense of the word, al-
though it is rather short (75 lines): as Poliziano in separate poems
introduced his courses and spoke of poetry in general, so, as a kind of
praelectio to Küchlein’s courses, Grotius describes and praises the
University with its wisdom in lofty tones, enumerates its eminent
teachers, above all, of course, Joseph Scaliger, and ends on the praise
of Küchlein’s didactic qualities. Grotius’ other Silva is far more ma-
ture, the Silva he addressed in 1621, after his escape to Paris, to Fran-
çois-Auguste de Thou in remembrance of his father, the famous histo-
rian Jacques-Auguste De Thou.^43 This poem is a worthy descendant of
Poliziano’s Silvae: it is a separate publication in hexameters, of
around 400 verses. It combines elements of consolation and praise of
the dead with catalogues of poets in poetical terminology in the same
vein as Poliziano, with almost allegorical depictions of human quali-
ties, with praise of God and of Grotius’ own wife who delivered him
from his prison. Variation is one of its characteristics. Here and there
Grotius imitated Statius’ Silvae: ... mens lubrica vitae / egressa (“the
mind which escaped the perils of life”, Grotius p. 4) // et caecae lu-
brica uitae / effugit (“He escapes the perils of blind life”, Statius
2.1.221–2). Libera sidereos attollet Gallia vultus (“Free France shall
raise her radiant countenance”, Grotius p. 14) // Exere semirutos
subito de puluere uultus, Parthenope (“Raise your half-buried counte-
nance from the sudden shower of dust, Parthenope”, Statius 5.3.104).
Grotius ends his poem by comparing himself to a small skiff sailing
next to the mighty merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company,
which represented De Thou and his likes.
Sic ubi Atlanteo vela explicuere profundo
Eoum Batavis referentes portubus annum
Armigerae naves, communes detinet Euros
Cymba brevis cernique in eisdem fluctibus audet42 Grotius Poetry I 2A 1, 49–57, cf. I 2B 1, 32–3.
43 Silva ad Franciscum Augustum Thuanum, Lutetiae [probably Leiden] 1621, cf.
ter Meulen and Diermanse 1950 number 137. On De Thou, see De Smet 2006, on
Grotius and De Thou 140–1, 186, on the Silva as Grotius’ introduction to the Parisian
Cabinet Dupuy Nellen 2007, 299–301.