Méric Casaubon

Although biographical dictionaries (including the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition) commonly accentuate his name to Méric,[1] he himself did not do so.

[2] He was born in Geneva to a French father, scholar Isaac Casaubon; he was named for his godfather Meric de Vic.

[1] During the English Civil War he was deprived of his benefices and his prebendal stall at Canterbury Cathedral[6] and retired to Oxford[7] refusing to acknowledge the authority of Oliver Cromwell, who, notwithstanding, requested him to write an "impartial" history of the events of the period.

In spite of the tempting inducements held out, he declined, and also refused the post of inspector of the Swedish universities offered him by Queen Christina.

Meric Casaubon's reputation was overshadowed by that of his father; but his editions of numerous classical authors, especially of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius,[1] were especially valued, and reprinted several times (but by modern standards, his translation is difficult reading).

The background is of orthodox Anglicans wishing to discredit the sectarian Protestants of the period; but also to validate the existence of spirits to atheists.