"I am extremely solitary here (he writes to his brother August 3, 1633[183]:) even the men of learning keep up no correspondence with one another.

I might easily support this irksomeness if I had my books and papers: for I could employ myself in some work that would be useful to the public and no discredit to me: but at present without these I am a kind of prisoner." The disagreeableness of his situation and the uneasiness of his mind were increased by the death of his Landlord after fourteen days illness[184].

He was a Merchant of more knowledge and good sense than we commonly find in men of that profession.

He left some young children, in whose education Grotius interested himself.

Writing on this subject to Vossius, he tells him that his Landlord's two sons were at the Hague learning Grammar; that they were beginning to make Themes and Versions; that if what they had already learnt were not cultivated, they would soon forget it; and that the time which boys spent in their Studies at Hamburg was lost, the method of teaching being only fit to make blockheads.