LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIF RIVERSIDE t* : If DISTINGUISHED MEN MODERN TIMES. VOLUME 1. COMMITTEE. Ckdrman The Right Hon. LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., Mcmb. Nat. InsU of France. Vat Chairman JOHN WOOD, Eq. WILLIAM TOOKE, Eso,., F.R.S. W. Allen, Esq., F.R. & R.A.S. Capt. Beaufort, H.N.. F.K. * R.A.S., Hydrographer totlir Admiralty. G. Burrows, M.D. Peter Stafford Carcy,Kq.A.M. William Coulson. Eq. R. D. Craig, Esq. J. P. D Til, Esq., F.R.S. 11. T. De la Beetle, Epn., F.B.S. The Right Hon. Lord Denmnn. Samuel Duckworth, EM., M.I'. B. F. Duppa, EM. The Right Rev. the Bishop of Durham, D.D. Sir Henry EI1U, Frin. Lib. Brit. Mils. T.F. Ellis, Esq., A.M..F.R.A.S. John Elliotnon, M.D., F.R.S. George Evans, Esq., M.I'. Thomaj Falconer, EM. I. L. Goldimid, EM- F.R. and R.A.S. Francis Henry Goldsmid, EM). B. Gompertz, Esq., F.R. and R.A.S. G. B. Greenough, Esq., F.ll. ,!,.! I..S. M. D. Hill, EM. Rowland Hill, EM., F.H.A.S. Rijjht Hon. Sir J. C. Hobhouse, Bart, M.P. David Jardine, Esq., A.M. Henry B. Ker, KM). Tbonuu Hewitt Key, Eq., A.M. George C. Lewis, Esq., A.M. Thomas Henry Listet, Esq. James Loch, Esq., M.I'., F.G.S. Ocorge Long, Esq., M.A. J. W. Lubtock, Esq., M.A., F.R., R.A., and L.S.S. Sir Frederick Ma.Klrn, K.C.ll. 11. Malitcn, KM., A.M. A.T. Malkin,Kq., A.M. Jame Manning, EM. K. J.Murchison, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. The Right Hon. Lord Nugent. Wm. Smith O'Brien. Esq., M.H. The Right Hon. Sir Henry Pnrnell, Bt., M.P. Dr. Rogct, Sec. Ii.S,F.R.A.S. Edward Komillr, Esq., A.M. The Right Hon. Lord John HuMell, M.I'. Sir M. A. Shcr, P.H.A.. F.R.S. John Abel Smith. EM. .M.I'. The Right Hon. Earl Spencer. John Tavlor, EM., F.H.S. Dr. A. T". Thomson. F.L.S. . .1. Whiihnw, Esq., A.M., F.R.S. John Wtotteslcr, Esq., A.M., F.R.A.S. Thomaii Wyse, Esq., M.P. J. A. Yate, Esq., M.F. UXDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KN DISTINGUISHED iMEN MODERN TIMES. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. I. DANTE TO RALEIGH. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT & Co., LU DO ATE -STREET. Mjxccxxxvm. CT104 SG3 V.I LONDON : Printed by W. CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street. CONTENTS. PAGE DANTE ........ 1 Petrarch 15 Boccaccio . . . . . . . .28 Wiclif 43 Chaucer ...57 Lorenzo de Medici ...... fi'J Bramante ........80 Xjmeiies ........ 88 Liouardo da Vinci . . . . . . .102 Raphael 115 Ariosto 130 Correggio . . . . . . . . 146 Sir Thomas More 162 Krasimis . . . . . . . . 174 Copernicus . . . . . . . .184 Marc Antonio Raimondi . . . . . 197 Luther 205 Cortez 219 Cranmer 233 VI CONTENTS. PAOE Charles V 245 Melancthon 260 Calvin 272 Michael Angelo 282 Loyola 291 Knox 303 L'H6 1 )ital 317 Titian 330 Biu-h.ui in . . . . . . . .3-45 Palladia 3J7 Pure 365 Montaigne ... ... . .'577 Tasso 387 Drake 398 Spenser . . . . . . . .411 Elizabeth 422 Scaliger . . 434 Heury IV. of France 445 Cervantes ........ 458 Shakspeare . ....*. 470 DeThou 480 Raleigh 489 DISTINGUISHED MEN MODERN TIMES. WHILE the more northern nations of modern Europe began to cultivate a national and peculiar literature in their vernacular tongues, instead of using Latin as the only vehicle of written thought, it was some time be- fore the popular language of Italy received that atten- tion which might have been expected from the preva- lence of free institutions, and the constant intercourse between neighbouring states speaking in similar dia- lects. At last the example of other countries pre- vailed, and a native poetry sprung up in Italy. If it l)e allowable to compare the progress of the national mind to the stages of life, the Italian Muse may be said to have been born in Sicily with Ciullo d'Alcamo in 1 1 90 ; to have reached childhood in Lombardy with Guido Guinicelli, about 1220 ; and to have attained VOL. i. B 2 DANTE. youth in Tuscany with Guido Cavalcanti, about 1280. But she suddenly started into perfect maturity when Dante appeared, surpassing all his predecessors in lyrical composition, and astounding the world with that mighty monument of Christian poetry, which after five centuries of progressive civilization still stands sublime as one of the most magnificent pro- ductions of genius. Dante Alighieri, the true founder of Italian litera- ture, was born at Florence A. D. 1265, of a family of some note. The name of Dante, by which he is ge- nerally known, often mistaken for that of his family, is a mere contraction of his Christian name Durante. Yet an infant when his father died, that heavy loss was lightened by the judicious solicitude with which his mother superintended his education. She intrusted him to the care of Brunetto Latini, a man of great re- pute as a poet as well as a philosopher ; and he soon made so rapid a progress, both in science and litera- ture, as might justify the most sanguine hopes of his future eminence. Early as he developed the extraordinary powers of his understanding, he was not less precocious in evinc- ing that susceptibility to deep and tender impressions, to which he afterwards owed his sublimest inspirations. But his passion was of a very mysterious character. It arose in his boyhood, for a girl " still in her infancy," and it never ceased, or lost its intensity, though she died in the flower of her age, and he survived her more than thirty years. Whether he was enamoured of a human being, or of a creature of his own imagination, one of those phantoms of heavenly beauty and vir- tue so common to the dreams and reveries of youth, it is extremely difficult to ascertain. Some of his biographers are of opinion that the lady whom he has celebrated in his works under the name of Bice, or Beatrice, was the daughter of Folco Portinari, a noble DANTE. 3 Florentine ; while others contend that she is merely a personification of wisdom or moral philosophy. But Dante's own account of his love is given in terms often so enigmatical and apparently contradictory, that it is almost impossible to make them agree perfectly with either of these suppositions. Whatever its object, his affection seems to have been most chaste and spiritual in its nature. Instead of alienating him from literary pursuits, it increased his thirst after knowledge, and ennobled and purified his feelings. With the aid of this powerful incentive, he soon distinguished himself above the youth of his na- tive city, not only by his acquirements, but also by elegance of manners, and amenity of temper. Thus occupied by his studies, refined and exalted by his love, and cherished by his countrymen, the morn- ing of his life was sunned by the unclouded smiles of fortune, as if to render darker by the contrast the long and gloomy evening which awaited him. His pilgrimage on earth was cast in one of the most stormy periods recorded in history. The Church and the Empire had been long engaged in a scandalous contest, and had often involved a great part of Europe in their quarrels. Italy was especially distracted by two contending parties, the Guelfs, who adhered to the Pope, and the Ghibelines, who espoused the cause of the Emperor. In the year 1266, after a long al- ternation of ruinous reverses and ferocious triumphs, the Guelfs of Florence drove the Ghibelines out of their city, and at last permanently established them- selves in power. The family of Dante belonged to the victorious party; and while he remained in Flo- rence, it would have been dangerous, perhaps impos- sible, to avoid mingling in these civil broils. He ac- cerdingly went out against the Ghibelines of Arezzo in 1289; and in the following year against those of Pisa. In the former campaign he took part in the B2 4 DANTE. battle of Campaldino, in which, after a long and doubt- ful conflict, the Aretines were completely defeated. On that memorable day he fought valiantly in the front line of the Guelf cavalry, manifesting the same energy in warfare, which he had displayed in his studies. and iu his love. But soon after the tumults of the camp had inter- fered with the calm of his private and meditative life, his adored Beatrice, whether an earthly mistress, or an abstraction of his moral and literary studies, was torn from him. This loss, which in his writings he never ceases to lament, reduced him to extreme de- spondency. Nevertheless in 1291, but a few months after it, he married a lady of the noble family of the Donati, by whom he had a numerous offspring ; a cir- cumstance which would indicate a strange inconsist- ency of character, had his heart been really preoccu- pied by another love. This connexion with one of the first families of the republic may have smoothed his way to civic eminence ; but if Boccaccio, usually a slanderer of the fair sex, be credited, the lady's tem- per proved unfavourable to domestic comfort. He now entirely devoted himself to the business of government, and attained such reputation as a states- man, that hardly any transaction of importance took place without his advice. It has even been asserted that he was employed in no less than fourteen embas- sies to foreign courts. There may be some exaggera- tion in this statement; but it is certain that in 1300, at the early age of five and thirty, he was elected one of the Priors, or chief magistrates of the republic ; a mark of popular favour which ended in his total ruin. About this time, the Guelfs of Florence split into two new divisions called Bianchi and Neri (whites and blacks), from the denominations of two factions which had originated at Pistoja, in consequence of a DANTE. 5 dispute between two branches of the Cancellieri fa- mily. The Bianchi were chiefly citizens recently risen to importance, who, having received no personal injury from the Ghibelines, were disposed to treat them with moderation ; while the Neri consisted al- most entirely of ancient nobles, who, having formerly been the leaders of the Guelfs, still retained a furious animosity against the Ghibelines. All endeavours to bring them to a reconciliation proved useless : they soon passed from rancour to contumely, and from con- tumely to open violence. The city was now in the utmost confusion, and it was very near being turned into a scene of war and carnage, when the Priors, hardly knowing what course to pursue, invoked the advice of Dante. His situation was most perplexing and critical. The relations of his wife were at the head of the Neri ; while Guido Cavalcante, his dearest friend on earth, was one of the foremost leaders of the Bianchi. Nevertheless, silencing all the claims of private affection for the good of his country, he pro- posed to banish the principal agitators of both parties. By the adoption of this measure, public tranquillity was for a time restored. But Pope Boniface VIII. could not suffer independent citizens to govern the re- public. He sent Charles de Valois to Florence under colour of pacifying the contending parties, but in truth to re-establish in power the men most blindly devoted to his own interests. The French prince, after hav- ing made the most solemn promises to the Florentine government, that he would act with rigorous impar- tiality and adopt onlj conciliatory measures, obtained admission into the city, at the beginning of Novem- ber, 1301. Making no account of the engagements he had entered into, he now permitted the Neri to perpetrate the most atrocious outrages on the families of their opponents, and to close this scene of horror by pronouncing sentence of exile and confiscation upon 6 DANTE. six hundred of the most illustrious citizens. Dante was among the victims. He had made himself ob- noxious, both to the Neri, whom he had caused to be banished, and to Charles de Valois, whose intrusion in the internal affairs of the commonwealth he had firmly opposed in council. Accordingly, his house was pillaged and razed, his property confiscated, and his life saved only by his absence at Rome, whither he had been sent for the purpose of propitiating the Pope. Highly disgusted at the treacherous conduct of Boni- face, who had been deluding him all the while with vain hopes and honeyed words, he suddenly left Rome, and hastened to Siena. On his arrival he heard that he had been charged with embezzling the public mo- ney, and condemned to be burned, if he should fall into the hands of his enemies. His indignation now reached its height ; and, in despair of ever being re- stored to his native city except by arms, he repaired to Arezzo, and united his exertions to those of the other Bianchi, who, making common cause with the Ghibelines, formed themselves into an army with the object of entering Florence by force. But their hopes were disappointed ; and after four years of abortive attempts they dispersed, each in pursuit of his own fortune. The noble, opulent citizen, the statesman and mi- nister, the profound philosopher, accustomed in all and each of these characters to the respectful homage of his countrymen, was now, to use his own words, " driven about by the cold wind that springs out of sad poverty," and compelled "to taste how bitter is another's bread, how hard it is to mount and to descend another's stairs." But the change from affluence to want was not the worst evil that awaited the high- minded patriot in banishment. For this he found compensation in the consciousness of having done his duty to his country. But he suffered much more DANTE. 7 from being mixed, and sometimes even confounded, with other exiles, whose perverse actions tended to disgrace the cause for which he had sacrificed all his private affections and interests. His misery was car- ried to the utmost by a continual struggle between his nice sense of honour and the pressure of want ; by an excessive fear that his intentions might be misunder- stood, and a constant readiness to mistake those of others. This morbid feeling he has pathetically ex- pressed in several passages, which can scarce be read without profound emotion. In this mental torture he wandered throughout Italy, from town to town, and from the palace of one of his benefactors to that of another, without ever finding a resting place for his wounded spirit. He stooped in vain to address letters of supplication to the Florentines ; the rancour of his enemies was not to be softened by prayers. Meanwhile the hopes of the Ghibelines were again raised, when Henry VII., who had been elected Emperor in 1308, entered Italy to regain the rights of sovereignty which his predeces- sors had lost. Elated by the better prospects which appeared to open, Dante became a strenuous advocate of the imperial cause. He composed a treatise on monarchy, in which he asserted the rights of the em- pire against the encroachments of the Court of Rome : he wrote a circular both to the Kings and Princes of Italy, and to the Senators of Rome, admonishing them to give an honourable reception to their Sovereign ; and he sent a hortatory epistle to the Emperor himself, urging him to turn his arms against Florence, and to visit that refractory city with severe punishment. Henry did accordingly lay siege to Florence in Sep- tember, 1312, but without success; and the hopes of the Ghibelines were finally extinguished in the follow- ing August, by his death, under strong suspicion of poison. Thus Dante, in consequence of his recent 8 TUNTE. conduct, saw himself farther than ever from restoration to his beloved Florence. The unfortunate exile, now reduced to despair, resumed his wanderings, often re- turning to Verona, where the Scaligeri family always received him at their Court with peculiar kindness. It has been asserted that his thirst for knowledge led him to Paris and Oxford. His journey to England is still involved in doubt; but it appears certain that he vi- sited Paris, where he is said to have acquired great fame by holding public disputations on several ques- tions, of theology. On his return to Italy, he at length found a perma- nent refuge at Ravenna, at the Court of Guido da Po- lenta, the father of that ill-fated Francesca da Rimini, for whom the celebrated episode of Dante has engaged the sympathy of succeeding ages. The reception which he experienced from this Prince, who was a patron of learning and a poet, was marked by the re- verence due to his character, no less than by the kind- ness excited by his misfortunes. In order to employ his diplomatic talents, and give him the pleasing con- sciousness of being useful to his host, Guido sent him as ambassador, to negotiate a peace with Venice. Dante, happy at having an opportunity of evincing his gratitude to his benefactor, proceeded on his mission with sanguine expectation of success. But being un- able to obtain a public audience from the Venetians, he returned to Ravenna, so overwhelmed with fatigue and mortification, that he died shortly afterwards, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, A. D. 1321, receiving splendid obsequies from his disconsolate patron, who himself assumed the office of pronouncing a funeral oration on the dead body. The portrait of Dante has been handed down to posterity, both by history and the arts. He is repre- sented as a man of middle stature, with a pensive and melancholy expression of countenance. His face was DANTE. 9 long, his nose aquiline, his eyes rather prominent, but full of fire, his cheek bones large, and his under lip projecting beyond the upper one ; his complexion was dark, his hair and beard thick and curled. These features were so marked, that all his likenesses, whe- ther on medals, or marble, or canvass, bear a striking resemblance to each other. Boccaccio describes him as grave and sedate in his manners, courteous and civil in his address, and extremely temperate in his way of living; whilst Villani asserts, that he was harsh, reserved, and disdainful in his deportment. But the latter writer must have painted Dante such as he was in his exile, when the bitter cup of sorrow had changed the gravity of his temper into austerity. He spoke seldom, but displayed a remarkable subtleness in his answers. The consciousness of worth had in- spired him with a noble pride which spurned vice in all its aspects, and disdained condescending to any- thing like flattery or dissimulation. Earnest in study, and attached to solitude, he was at times liable to fits of absence. The testimony of his contemporaries, and the still better evidence of his own works, prove that his hours of seclusion were heedfully employed. He was intimately conversant with several languages, extensively read in classical literature, and deeply versed in the staple learning of the age, scholastic theology, and the Aristotelian philosophy. He had acquired a considerable knowledge of geography, as- tronomy, and mathematics; had made himself tho- roughly acquainted with mythology and history, both sacred and profane; nor bad he neglected to adorn his mind with the more elegant accomplishments of the fine arts. The mass of Dante's writings, considering the un- favourable circumstances under which he laboured, is almost as wonderful as the extent of his attainments. The treatise * De Monarchia,' which he composed on the 03 10 DANTE. arrival of Henry VII. in Italy, is one of the most in- genious productions that ever appeared, in refutation of the temporal pretensions of the Court of Rome. It was hailed with triumphant joy by the Ghibelines, and loaded with vituperation by the Guelfs. The suc- ceeding emperor, Lewis of Bavaria, laid great stress on its arguments as supporting his claims against John XXII. ; and, on that account, the Pope had it burnt publicly by the Cardinal du Pujet, his legate in Lombardy, who would even have disinterred and burnt Dante's body, and scattered his ashes to the wind, if some influential citizens had not interposed. Another Latin work, 'De Vulgari Eloquentia,' treats of the origin, history, and use of the genuine Italian tongue. It is full of interesting and curious research, and is still classed among the most judicious and philosophi- cal works that Italy possesses on the subject. He meant to have comprised it in four books, but unfor- tunately only lived to complete two. Of his Italian productions, the earliest was, perhaps, the ' Vita Nuova,' a mixture of mysterious poetry and prose, in which he gives a detailed account of his love for Beatrice. It is pervaded by a spirit of soft me- lancholy extremely touching ; and it contains several passages having all the distinctness and individuality of truth ; but, on the other hand, it is interspersed with visions and dreams, and metaphysical conceits, from which it receives all the appearance of an alle- gorical invention. He also composed about thirty sonnets, and nearly as many ' Canzoni,' or songs, both on love and morality. The sonnets, though not des- titute of grace and ingenuity, are not distinguished by any particular excellence. The songs display a vigour of style, a sublimity of thought, a depth of feeling, and a richness of imagery not known before : they be- token the poet and the philosopher. On fourteen of these, he attempted in his old age to write a minute DANTE. 11 commentary, to which he gave the title of ' Convito,' or Banquet, as being intended " to administer the food of wisdom to the ignorant ;" but he could only extend it to three. Thus he produced the first speci- men of severe Italian prose : and if he indulged ra- ther too much in fanciful allegories and scholastic subtleties, these blemishes are amply counterbalanced by a store of erudition, an elevation of sentiment, and a matchless eloquence, which it is difficult not to ad- mire. These works, omitting several others of inferior value, would have been more than sufficient to place Dante above all his contemporaries ; yet they stand at an immeasurable distance from the ' Divina Commedia, 3 the great poem by which he has recommended his name to the veneration of the remotest posterity. The Divine Comedy is the narrative of a mysterious jour- ney through hell, purgatory, and paradise, which he supposes himself to have performed in the year 1300, during the passion-week, having Virgil as his guide through the two regions of woe, and Beatrice through that of happiness. No creation of the human mind ever excelled this mighty vision in originality and vastness of design ; nor did any one ever choose a more appropriate subject for the expression of all his thoughts and feelings. The mechanical construction of his spiritual world allowed him room for developing his geographical and astronomical knowledge : the punishments and rewards allotted to the characters introduced, gave him an excellent opportunity for a display of his theological and philosophical learning : the continual succession of innumerable spirits of dif- ferent ages, nations, and conditions, enabled him to expatiate in the fields of ancient and modern history, and to expose thoroughly the degradation of Italian society in his own times ; while the whole afforded 12 DANTE. him ample scope for a full exertion of his poetical en- dowments, and for the illustration of the moral lesson, which, whatever his real meaning may have been, is ostensibly the object of his poem. Neither were his powers of execution inferior to those of conception. Rising from the deepest abyss of torture and despair, through every degree of suffering and hope, up to the sublimest beatitude, he imparts the most vivid and intense dramatic interest to a wonderful variety of scenes which he brings before the reader. Awful, vehement, and terrific in hell, in proportion as he ad- vances through purgatory and paradise, he contrives to modify his style in such a manner as to become more pleasing in his images, more easy in his expres- sions, more delicate in his sentiments, and more re- gular in his versification. His characters live and move ; the objects which he depicts are clear and palpable; his similes are generally new and just; his reflections evince throughout the highest tone of morality ; his energetic language makes a deep and vigorous impression both on the reason and the ima- gination ; and the graphic force with which, by a few bold strokes, he throws before the eye of his reader a perfect and living picture, is wholly unequalled. It is true, however, that his constant solicitude for conciseness and effect led him, sometimes, into a harsh and barbarous phraseology, and into the most unre- strained innovations ; but, considering the rudeness of his age, and the unformed state of his language, he seems hardly open to the censure of a candid critic on this account. On the other hand, it is impossible not to wonder how, in spite of such obstacles, he could so happily express all the wild conceptions of his fancy, the most abstract theories of philosophy, and the most profound mysteries of religion. The occa- sional obscurity and coldness of the Divine Comedy DANTE. 13 proceeds much less from defects of style, than from didactic disquisitions and historical allusions which become every day less intelligible and less interesting. To be understood and appreciated as a whole, and in its parts, it requires a store of antiquated knowledge which is now of little use. Even at the period of its publication, when its geography and astronomy were not yet exploded, its philosophy and theology still current, and many of its incidents and personages still fresh in the memory of thousands, it was considered rather as a treasure of moral wisdom, than as a book of amusement. The city of Florence, and several other towns of Italy, soon established professorships for the express purpose of explaining it to the public. Two sons of Dante wrote commentaries for its illus- tration : Boccaccio, Benvenuto da Imola, and many ethers, followed the example in rapid succession ; and even a few years since Foscolo and Rossetti excited fresh curiosity and interest by the novelty of their views. Notwithstanding the learning and ingenuity of all its expositors, the hidden meaning of the ' Divina Commedia ' is not yet perfectly made out, though Ros- setti, in his * Spirito Antipapale,' lately published, seems to have shown, that, under the exterior of moral precepts, it contains a most bitter satire against the Court of Rome. But whether time shall remove these obscurities, or thicken the mist which hangs around this extraordinary production, it will be ever memo- rable as the mighty work which gave being and form to the beautiful language of Italy, impressed a new character on the poetry of modern Europe, and in- spired the genius of Michael Angelo and of Milton. There is no life of Dante which can be recommended as decidedly superior to the rest. The earliest is that of Boccaccio ; but it evidently cannot be relied on for the facts of his life. There are others by Lionardo, 14 DANTE. Aretino, Fabroni, Pelli, Tiraboschi, &c. The Eng- lish reader will find a fuller account prefixed to Mr. Carey's translation of the ' Divina Commedia,' and in Mr. Stebbing's Lives of the Italian Poets. 15 FRANCESCO PETRARCA, whose real name is said to have been PETRACCO, was born at Arezzo, in Tus- cany, July 20, 1304. His father was a notary at Florence, who had been employed in the service of the state; but in the civil strife excited by Corso Donati, chief of the faction of the Neri, he, with the rest of the Bianchi, including Dante, whose friend he is recorded to have been, was banished from the Republic in 1302. When the death of the Emperor Henry VII. deprived the exiles of all hope of return, Petracco took his family to Avignon, at that period the seat of the Pontifical Court. The boy Francesco then saw for the first time scenes and objects, with which his destiny was irrevocably connected ; and he has left on record the impression which at ten years of age the fountain and wild solitude of Vaucluse had 16 PETRARCH. made upon his imagination. He was sent to study the canon law at the University of Montpellier, where he remained four years, devoting his time to Cicero, Virgil, and the Provencal writers, much more than to the doctors of jurisprudence. From Montpellier he went to Bologna ; and formed an acquaintance with the celebrated Cino da Pistoia, from whom, although distinguished no less as a jurist than as a poet, Petrarch learned more poetry than law. On his father's death, which occurred when he was about twenty years old, he returned to Avignon. His mo- ther died soon after; and the moderate patrimony which he inherited was so much diminished by the dishonesty of his guardians, that, at the age of twenty- two, he found himself Avithout fortune or profession, and with no resource, but that of entering the church. Avignon was then the chosen abode of fashion, luxury, and vice. Petrarch mingled in its gay society, without yielding to its corruptibns, or withdrawing himself from the philosophical studies which inte- rested him above all other pursuits. A great con- formity of tastes, and a common superiority to the low objects of ambition with which they were sur- rounded, made him the friend of Jacopo Colonna, afterwards Bishop of Lombez. This prelate intro- duced Petrarch to his brother, the Cardinal Colonna, who resided at Avignon ; and in whose palace, in 1331, the poet acquired the friendship of old Stefano Colonna, the illustrious head of that family, and drew from his discourse a stronger love of Italy, of freedom, and of glory. But his affectionate, enthu- siastic temper was not to be exhausted even by these objects : soon, without ever being entirely diverted from the interest of friendship or patriotism, he be- came the vassal of that long and illustrious passion to which he owes the immortality of his name. April 6, 1327, on Easter Monday, in the church of the PETRARCH. 17 Nuns of Santa Clara, Petrarch, being then twenty- three years of age, saw for the first time, and loved at sight, Laura de Noves, the bride of Hugo de Sade, a young patrician of Avignon. From this time his life was passed in wandering from place to place, sometimes at the several courts of I talian princes ; sometimes in solitary seclusion at Vaucluse ; often at Avignon itself, where, from the lofty rock on which stands the old Pontifical Palace, he could see Laura walking in the gardens below, which, with all the adjacent part of the town, belonged to the family of de Sade. Few subjects have been discussed more largely, with greater minuteness of examination, or with greater licence of conjecture, than the history of the love of Petrarch. Some have chosen to treat with ridicule the idea of a passion, subsisting through a long and eventful life, without gratification, and nearly without hope ; others have thought the diffi- culty obviated by supposing, in defiance of all appa- rent evidence, that Laura was not so insensible as the laws of morality required. A few have wished to rescue the character of the poet from the imputation of having loved a married woman, and have dragged certain ob- scure spinsters out of doubtful epitaphs and registers, to dispute the claim of Laura de Sade. A few more, and but a few, although the race is not extinct, have denied the existence of Laura altogether; either considering her as a mere poetical fancy, or still more boldly resolving her into some allegory, politi- cal or religious. But none of these theories, main- tained at various times, and with various degrees of ingenuity, almost from the age of Petrarch until the present day, have shaken the received opinion on the four main points of the question ; namely, that Laura was no creation of the poet's brain, but a woman ; that she was married ; that Hugo de Sade was her 18 PETRARCH. husband ; and that her virtue was proof against the passion of Petrarch. When all the circumstances of the case, including the peculiarities of sentiment which characterize the time, are fairly taken into con- sideration, there will appear no such miraculous im- probability as has been presumed in the duration of Petrarch's attachment. That it partook of the vehe- ment character of true passion, is evident from many passages in his epistles and philosophical works, where he may be supposed to speak with less dis- guise than in his Canzoniere ; but a natural vanity, the habit of refining his feelings into intellectual no- tions, and the then prevalent fashion of poetical con- stancy to a real object, may have contributed more than he could himself be aware to the durability of the sentiment. It is not to be forgotten, however, that at different periods of his life he had two natural children, a son and a daughter : still he maintained that, notwithstanding these irregularities, he never loved any one but Laura. The Sonnets and Can- zones, which, separately published, now together form the Canzoniere, soon elevated their author to the highest rank among living poets, and gave him iu the eyes of his admirers a place beside the " creator della lingua," the author of the Divina Commedia. Petrarch, however, whose mind was full of vene- ration for antiquity, and who was ardently desi- rous to recover all the monuments of classic litera- ture that still preserved a hazardous existence in convents and other receptacles of the little learning of an ignorant age, for a long time, if not to the end of life, prided himself more on his Latin compositions, than on being the founder of a school of poetry in his native language. At one time he had commenced a Latin history of Rome, from the foundation of the city to the reign of Titus. But he was diverted from this work, by conceiving the idea of an epic poem, PETRARCH. 19 entitled ' Africa,' founded on the events which marked the close of the second Punic war, of which Scipio was the hero. For a year he laboured on it with enthusiasm ; and it was received with admira- tion : but, like most works of imagination composed in languages not rendered familiar to the writer in all their delicacy by vernacular and hourly use, and on subjects not consecrated by any feelings of national and domestic interest, they have long since been for- gotten by all but the learned. On one and the same day, August 23, 1340, he received at Vaucluse a letter from the Roman Senate, inviting him to accept the honour of a public corona- tion in the Capitol, and one from the Chancellor of the University of Paris, offering the same distinction. It has been said, and there is at least negative evidence ia favour of the assertion, that this last invitation was unauthorized by any corporate decision of the univer- sity : if so, it probably resulted from the personal en- thusiasm of the chancellor, Roberto Bardi, who was a Florentine, and a private friend of the poet. Either from a knowledge of this, or from a natural preference of the Imperial City, Petrarch decided at once in favour of Rome ; and embarked for Naples, to de- mand a preliminary examination from Robert of Anjou, the reigning prince, himself devotedly attached to literature. The King and the Poet conferred on poetical and historical subjects: during three days questions were formally proposed, and triumphantly answered ; after which Robert pronounced solemnly that Petrarch was worthy of the honour offered to him, and taking off his own royal robe, entreated the poet to wear it at the ceremony of his coronation. On Easter-day, April 8, 1341, Petrarch ascended the stairs of the Capitol, surrounded by the most illustri- ous citizens of Rome, and preceded by twelve young men chosen from the highest families, who repeated 20 PETRARCH. at intervals various passages of his poetry. After a short oration, he received the crown from the hands of the senator, Orso, Count of Anguillara, and recited a sonnet on those heroes of the ancient city, whose tri- umphal honours, after a cessation of centuries, he first was come to share, and to renew. Then, amidst the acclamations of the multitude, he was conducted to the church of St. Peter's, where, taking from his head the laurel, he deposited it with religious care on the altar. After this ceremony he returned by land to Avignon, carrying with him letters patent of the King of Naples and of the senate and people of Rome, conferring on him by their joint authorities the full and free power of reading, discussing, and explaining all ancient books, composing new works (especially poems), and wearing on all occasions, as he might prefer, a crown of laurel, of ivy, or of myrtle. Shortly afterwards he was again at Naples, under very different circum- stances. Appointed by Clement VI. to urge the claims of the Holy See to the Regency of that state, during the minority of Joanna, the grand-daughter of Robert of Anjou, he was treated with no less distinc- tion and kindness than on the former visit ; but, un- successful in his mission, and scandalized by the de- bauchery and cruelty which prevailed in the dissolute Court, he soon quitted Naples and Italy for his beloved Vaucluse. There, however, at no great distance of time, a new excitement awaited him. In 1347, Rienzi, the famous demagogue, who began his career so nobly, and closed it with such circumstances of disgrace, obtained his brief and singular dominion. All the hopes of Italian independence, all the reverence for antiquity which had ever animated the spirit of Pe- trarch, now strongly impelled him to admire the restorer of those ancient names, which he trusted would realize his visions of ancient freedom and ma- jesty. Even the massacre of the Colonna family, PETRARCH. 21 which Petrarch heard at Genoa as he was hastening to join the tribune at Rome, did not destroy these feelings, although it materially weakened them. But the fabric of Rienzi's power was sapped by his own extravagances in less than a year ; and nearly at the same time a more severe affliction fell upon Petrarch even than the disappointment of his hopes for the restoration of Italian liberty. In April, 1348, Laura expired of the dreadful malady which then ravaged Europe, and which is described by Boccaccio in the introduction to the Decameron. The second half of the Canzoniere is the monument of his glorious sorrow ; which is how- ever more calmly, and, to the apprehensions of many, more convincingly expressed, in the pathetic note to his own MS. of Virgil, now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It would be unjust to him not to relate this event in his own words. " Laura, illustrious for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, was seen by me for the first time in my early manhood, in the year 1327, April 6, at 6 in the morning, in the church of S. Clara, at Avignon. In the same city, in the same month of April, on the same sixth day, and at the same hour, in 1348, this light was taken from the world, while I was at Verona, alas ! ignorant of my unhappy lot. The melancholy news reached me in a letter from my friend Louis : it found me at Parma the same year, May 19, in the morning. That body, so chaste, so fair, was laid in the church of the Minor Friars on the evening of the day of her death. Her soul, I doubt not, is returned, as Seneca says of Scipio Africanus, to heaven, whence it came. To preserve the grievous memory of this loss, I write this with a sort of pleasure mixed with bitterness ; and I write by choice upon this book, which often comes before my eyes, that hereafter there may be nothing for me to delight in in this life, and that, 22 PETRARCH. my strongest chain being broken, I may be reminded by the frequent sight of these words, and by the just appreciation of a fugitive life, that it is time to go forth from Babylon; which, by the help of God's grace, will become easy to me by vigorous and bold contemplation of the needless cares, the vain hopes, the unexpected events which have agitated me during the time I have spent on earth." The authenticity of this note has been contested ; to us it bears inter- nal evidence of being genuine, not merely in the unpretending pathos of the conclusion, but in the minuteness of the earlier details. It is the luxury of grief to connect the memory of the dead with our thoughts, and employments, and even abodes, at the moment of their death ; and the pen of the literary forger is not likely to trace so simple and unpretend- ing a statement. The jubilee of 1350 led Petrarch again to Rome. When he passed through Arezzo, the principal citi- zens of the town led him with pride to the house in which he was born ; declaring that nothing had been changed there, and that the municipal authorities had enforced this scrupulous respect for the great poet's birth-place by injunctions to the successive pro- prietors of the mansion. Not long afterwards, Boc- caccio, his friend and his compeer in the great lite- rary triumvirate of Italy, came to him at Padua, to announce in the name of the senate at Florence that he was restored to his rights of citizenship, and to offer him the superintendence of the recently esta- blished university. Petrarch did not accept the pro- posal. Twice in the course of his remaining life his name is found connected with great events. Admit- ted to the counsels of Gian Visconti, he accepted the mission of reconciling the republic of Genoa, which had yielded to that prince, with the state of Venice, elated by recent victories, But Petrarch was des- PETRARCH. 23 tined to be unsuccessful as a statesman. This em- bassy had no effect; nor were his subsequent efforts to infuse into the mind of Charles IV. the lessons of magnanimity, when that weak and avaricious emperor entered Italy, more 4 beneficial either to Charles or to his country. Once, however, when employed by Ga- Icazzo Visconti in a subsequent mission to the same prince, he was able to dissuade him from recrossing the Alps : unless we suppose that the distracted state of Germany had more to do with keeping the emperor at home, than the eloquence of the poet, or the skill of the politician. The second plague in 1362 de- prived the now aged poet of the few early friends who remained to him, Azo of Corregio, and the two who in his letters are usually denominated Lselius and Socrates, and had, like himself, been intimate with Jacopo Colonna. He was then resident in Venice ; where, in 1363, Boccacio came to visit him in com- pany with Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica, who had instructed the Florentine novelist in Greek. At a former period Petrarch had commenced the study of that language under a Grecian monk named Barlaam ; and, though now sixty years of age, he returned to the task with enthusiasm and with perseverance. He was hospitably and honourably received by the re- public, to which he presented his valuable collection of manuscripts. After some more adventures and wanderings the old man fixed his residence at Arqua, a village situ- ated on the Euganean hills, at four leagues distance from Padua. Here he led a life of abstinence and study, reposing from the toilsome vicissitudes to which he had been subjected, but not from his thirst for knowledge and desire of glory. His last years were solaced by his intimacy with Boccaccio, who seemed to supply the place of those numerous and valued early friends whom he had survived, and by the filial 24 PETRARCH. attentions of his daughter Francesca. The last im- portant act of his life was his appearance before the Senate of Venice, in behalf of Francesco of Carrara, who had been forced to conclude a humiliating peace with the republic in 1373. It is said that he was so much awed by the majesty of the assembly, that, on the first day on which he appeared before it, he was un- able to deliver his address. The next day he reco- vered his spirits, or more probably his strength, and his speech in behalf of Carrara was loudly applauded. He returned to his retirement in a failing state of health, and his complaints were aggravated by impru- dence, and disregard of medical advice. July 18, 1374, he was found dead in his library, his head resting on an open book. A stroke of apoplexy had thus suddenly terminated his life. All Padua assisted at his obsequies, and Francesco of Carrara led the funeral pomp. A marble tomb, which still exists, was raised to him before the door of the church of Arqua. Such was the death and such the life of Francesco Petrarca, than whom few men have exerted more influence over their own times; have contributed more to form and polish the language of their native land ; or have given a more decided tone to the litera- ture of succeeding generations. This is not the place to enter into a minute analysis of his merits as a poet. If he did not create the kind of poetry in which he excelled, at least he caried it to perfection : if he could not save his style from being disfigured by feeble imi- tators, at least he left it in itself a noble work : if he did not avoid the false conceits and strained illustra- tions, which at the rise of a new literature are almost always found to possess irresistible attractions, he re- deemed and even ennobled them by strains of simple passion, imagination, and melody, which will live as long as the language in which they are composed. PETRARCH. 25 His Latin writings, on which he wished his reputation to rest, are now much neglected. They are not indeed calculated for general reading ; but they are highly valuable as records of the time and of the man. His letters form the most interesting, because the most personal, portion of them. Few men have laid bare their hearts so completely as Petrarch. His vanity, his dependence on the sympathy of others, led him to commit to writing every incident of his life, an. [Tomb of Petrarch at Avqna] VOL. I. 26 PETRARCH. every turn in the troubled course of his feelings. But he gains rather than loses by his voluntary exposure. His Christian faith and Christian principles of philo- sophy, however swayed by occasional currents of pas- sion, stand out beautifully amidst the corruptions of that age. It is as impossible to rise from a perusal of Petrarch's poetry, and even more perhaps of his prose, without a feeling of love for the man, as of admiration for the author. In early life he was distinguished for beauty, of which he was himself not insensible ; for he left, in his ' Letter to Posterity,' a description of his own person, which we quote from Ugo Foscolo's trans- lation. " Without being uncommonly handsome, my person had something agreeable in it in my (youth. My complexion was a clear and lively brown ; my eyes were animated; my hair had grown grey before twenty-five, and I consoled myself for a defect which I shared in common with many of the great men of antiquity (for Caesar and Virgil were grey-headed in youth), and I had a venerable air, which I was by no means very proud of." He was then miserable, Foscolo continues, if a lock of his hair was out of order ; he was studious of ornamenting his person with the nicest clothes ; and to give a graceful form to his feet, he pinched them in shoes that put his nerves and sinews to the rack. These traits are taken from his own familiar letters. The life and writings of Petrarch have been re- peatedly illustrated at great length. The ' Petrarcha Redivivus ' of Tomasini ; the voluminous 'M^moires sur Petrarque' of the Abbe de Sade, who has taken up the subject as a matter of family history ; and the works of Tiraboschi and Baldelli, are- among the best authorities for our author's history. To the English, and indeed to every reader, we must recommend the ' Essays on Petrarch,' by Ugo Foscolo ; at the end PETRARCH. 27 of which there are some exquisite translations by Lady Dacre. The most complete edition of Petrarch's works is the folio published at Basle in 1581. Among the numerous editions of his Italian poems, we may particularize that of Biagioli, 1822, as containing the notes of Alfieri; and that of Marsard, printed at Padua, as distinguished alike for its correctness and beauty of execution. c2 28 THE family of this celebrated writer, who claims a distinguished place among the founders of Italian li- terature, came from the village of Certaldo, in the valley of the Elsa, about twenty miles south-west of Florence. His father, Boccaccio di Chellino,- was a Florentine merchant, who, in his visits to Paris, be- came acquainted with a Frenchwoman, of whom Giovanni Boccaccio, the subject of this memoir, was born, A. D. 1313. It is uncertain whether Paris or Florence was the place of his nativity. He com- menced his studies at Florence, under Giovanni da Strada, a celebrated grammarian ; but was appren- ticed by his father, when hardly ten years old, to another merchant, with whom he spent six years in Paris. Attached to literature, he felt a strong dis- taste to his mercantile life. He manifested the same temper after his return to Florence ; upon which his father sent him to Naples, partly upon business, partly because he thought that mingling in the plea- sures of that gay city might neutralize his son's dis- taste to the laborious profession in which he was BOCCACCIO^ 29 engaged. Robert of Anjou, the reigning king of Naples, encouraged learning, and his court was the most polished of the age : and, during an abode of eight years in that capital, Boccaccio became ac- quainted with most of the learned men of Italy, es- pecially Petrarch, with whom he contracted a friend- ship, broken only by death. There also he fell in love with a lady of rank, whose real name he has concealed under that of Fiametta. Three persons have been mentioned as the object of his passion : the celebrated Joanna of Naples, grand- daughter of Robert ; Mary, the sister of Joanna; and another Mary, the illegitimate daughter of Robert, who seems to have the best claim to this distinction. It was at Naples, that Boccaccio, inspired by a visit to Virgil's tomb, conceived his first longings after literary fame. He determined to give up commerce, and devote himself entirely to study; and his father consented to this change, but only on condition that he should apply himself to the canon law. This was a new source of annoyance. For several years he pored over " dry decisions and barren commentaries," as he expresses himself; until he obtained his doctor's degree, and was left at liberty to follow his own pursuits. After remaining some time at Florence he returned to Naples ; where he employed himself in writing prose and verse, the Decameron and the Teseide. His father died in 1349: and having turned his in- heritance into money, he travelled to Sicily, Venice, and other parts of Italy, collecting manuscripts, fre- quenting universities and libraries, studying Greek under Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica, astronomy under Andalonc del Negro, and Roman literature and antiquities. Manuscripts at this time were very costly ; and he soon exhausted his patrimony in these pursuits. He then applied himself to transcribing c 3 30 BOCCACCIO. works ; and, by dint of expense and labour, collected a considerable library, which he bequeathed to the Augustine friars of Santo Spirito, at Florence. But his means were inadequate to gratify his liberal tastes : and at times he found himself in very strait- ened circumstances. It is said that he sometimes availed himself of his skill as a copyist, to eke out his resources. In Petrarch he found a generous friend and a wise counsellor. Boccaccio enjoyed a high reputation among his countrymen for learning and ability; and he was several times employed by them on embassies and affairs of state. But of all his missions, the most pleasing was that of repairing to Padua, to commu- nicate to Petrarch the solemn revocation of the sen- tence of exile passed on his father during the factions of 1302 ; and to inform him that the Florentines, proud of such a countryman, had redeemed his pa- ternal property, and earnestly invited him to dwell in his own land, and confer honour on its then rising university. Though much aifected by this honourable reparation, Petrarch did not at the time comply with their request. About 1361, a singular circumstance wrought a total change in Boccaccio's feelings and mode of life. A Carthusian monk came to him one day, and stated that father Petroni of Sienna, a monk of the same order, who had died not long before in the odour of sanctity, had commissioned him to exhort Boccaccio to forsake his studies, reform his loose life, and pre- pare for death. To prove the truth of his mission, he revealed several secrets, known only to Boccaccio and Patrarch, to both of whom both the monks were totally unknown. Terrified at this mysterious com- munication, Boccaccio wrote to Petrarch, expressing his resolution to comply with the advice, and shut himself up in a Carthusian cloister. Petrarch's BOCCACCIO. 31 answer, which may be found among his Latin epistles, is full of sound sense. He tells his friend, that though this disclosure of secrets, supposed to be un- known to any living soul, appeared a mystery, yet " there is such a thing as artifice in imposture which may at times assume the language of supernatural inspiration ; that those who practise arts of this kind examine attentively the age, the aspect, the looks, the habits of the man they mean to delude, his theo- ries, his motions, his voice, his conversation, his feelings, and opinions : and from all these derive their oracles." He adds, that as to the prediction of approaching death, there was no occasion for a mes- sage from the next world to say, that a man past the middle age, and infirm of body, could not expect to have many years to live: and, in conclusion, advises his friend to tranquillize his imagination, and to avail himself of the warning towards leading a more re- gular life ; retaining at the same time his liberty, his house, and his library, and making a good use even of the heathen authors in the latter, as many holy men, and the fathers of the church themselves, had done before him. This letter restored Boccaccio to reason. He gave up his intention of retiring from the world, and contented himself with assuming the ecclesiastical dress ; and, being admitted to the first gradation of holy orders, he adopted a regular and studious course of life, and turned his attention to the study of the Scriptures. About the following year he again visited Naples, but he was disgusted by the neglect which he expe- rienced ; and, in 1363, he went to Venice, and abode three months with Petrarch. He was sent twice, in 1365 and 1367, to Pope Urban V. upon affairs of the republic. In 1373, the Florentines determined to appoint a lecturer to explain the Divina Commedia of Dante, much of wliich was even then obscure or un- 32 BOCCACCIO. intelligible without the aid of a comment. Boccaccio was chosen for this honourable office, with the annual stipend of one hundred florins. He had long and deeply studied, and knew by heart almost the whole of that sublime poem, which he had several times transcribed. He left his written comment on the Inferno, and also a life of Dante, both of which have been published among his works. But illness inter- rupted his lectures, and induced him to resort again to his favourite country residence at Certaldo. A dis- order of the stomach, aggravated by intense applica- tion, terminated his existence, Dec. 21, 1375, at the age of sixty-two. He was buried in the parish church of Certaldo, and the following modest inscription, which he had himself composed, was placed over his tomb: " Hac sub mole jacent cinerfis ac ossa Johannis. Mens sedet ante Deum, meritis ornata laborum Mortalis vitse. Genitor Bocchnccius illi, Patria Certaldum, studium fuit alma poesis." A monument was also raised to him in the same church, with an inscription by Coluccio Salutati, se- cretary to the republic, an intimate friend of the de- ceased. This monument was restored, in 1503, by Tedaldo, Podesta, or justice, of Certaldo, who placed another inscription under the bust of the deceased. The republic of Florence, in 1396, voted monuments to be raised in their capital to Boccaccio, Dante, and Petrarch, but this resolution was not carried into effect . By a will, which was dated the year preceding that of his death, and which is published among his Latin works, Boccaccio constituted his two nephews, the sons of his brother Jacopo, his heirs. His library he left to his confessor, Father Martin of Signa, an Augustin friar, whom he also appointed his executor, directing, that after the father's death it should revert to BOCCACCIO. 33 the convent of Santo Spirito at Florence, for the use of students. A fire which broke out in the convent, in the year 1471, destroyed this valuable collection, which had cost the proprietor so many years of labour and care, and in which he had expended the greater part of his patrimony. Boccaccio having, in his book De Genealogia Deorum, quoted several ancient authors whose works have not reached us, it is supposed that some of these must have been included in the catas- trophe that befel his library. He has been accused, however, of quoting fictitious authors in this treatise. Boccaccio's private character was stained by licen- tiousness. Besides his Fiametta, he had several mis- tresses whom he mentions in his Ameto. A natural daughter, whose name was Violante, he lost while she was an infant, and he mourns over her in his eclogues, under the name of Olympia. He had also an illegitimate son who survived him, but who is not mentioned in his testament. In the latter years of his life, Boccaccio was poor, though not in absolute want, and his friend Petrarch, who died little more than one year before him, left him by his will fifty golden florins, " to buy him a winter pelisse to protect him from cold while in his study at night," adding, that if he did no more for Boccaccio, it was not through want of inclination but want of means. Boccaccio, on his part, had given Petrarch several works copied by his own hand, among others, a Latin translation of Homer, Dante, and some works of St. Augustine. * His modest dwelling at Certaldo, in which he died, still remains. The Princes of the House of Medici protected' it by affixing their armorial ensigns on the outside, with an inscription. A Florentine lady, of the najne of Medici Lenzoni, purchased it in 1822, in order to preserve it from dilapidation as a relic of depajted genius. The appearance of the house is 34 BOCCACCIO. exactly similar to the sketch given by Manni a century since, in his life of Boccaccio. It is built of brick, according to the fashion of the fourteenth century, with a square turret on one side of it commanding a fine view of the surrounding' hills ; one of which is still called by the country people " the hill of Boc- caccio," from a tradition that this was his favourite place of resort for meditation and study in the summer heats. The grove which crowned its summit was cut down not long ago. A curious circumstance is said by Professor Rosellini to have happened some years be- fore the purchase of the house by the Signora Lenzoni. An old woman, who tenanted the premises, was busy weaving in a small room next to the sitting apartment, when the repeated shaking of her loom brought down part of the wall, and laid open a small recess hollowed in the thickness of it, from which a large bundle of written papers tumble^, down. The old woman, through ig- norance or superstition, or both, thought it a pious duty to consign the whole of the MSS. to the flames. Probably many interesting autographs of Boccaccio have thus been lost. Much has been said about Boccaccio's tomb being " torn up and desecrated by bigots;" and Lord Byron has made this the subject of his eloquent invective. The story seems, however, to have originated in mistake. Rosellini has given an authentic account of the whole transaction. It appears that many years since, after a law had been passed by the Grand Duke Leopold in 1783, forbidding the burial of the dead under church pavements, the tomb of Boccaccio, which lay in the centre of the church of St. James and St. Michael at Certaldo, covered by a stone bear- ing his family escutcheon, his effigy, and the four lines above quoted, was opened. Nothing was found, except a skull, and a tin tube containing several written parchments, which the persons present could BOCCACCIO. 35 not understand. What became of these Is not known, perhaps they were destroyed like the MSS. found by the old woman. The tombstone was purchased by some one on the spot, and, having since been broken, one fragment alone remains, which the Signora Len- zoni has recovered and placed inside Boccaccio's house. All this is asserted in a notarial document drawn up at Certaldo in 1825, and certified by ocular witnesses then surviving, who were present at the opening of the vault. But, besides this gravestone, there was a monument placed high on one of the side-walls of the church, consisting of Boccaccio's bust, which is a good likeness, holding with both his arms against his breast a book, on which is written ' Decameron,' and under the bust are the two inscrip- tions by Salutati and Tedaldo, such as Manni trans- cribed them. To this monument, and not to the tomb, Byron's reproach partly applies, for it was of late years removed by some fanatics from its place, and thrown in a corner at the end of the church. But the authorities interfered and caused it to be restored in a more conspicuous position, facing the pulpit, where it is now to be seen. Boccaccio wrote both in Latin and in Italian, in prose and in verse. His Latin works are now mostly forgotten, although the author evidently thought more of them than of his Italian novels. Petrarch fell into the same mistake with regard to his own productions in both languages. The language of the country, especially in prose composition, was then esteemed below the dignity of learned men, and suited only to works of recreation and amusement. Boccaccio wrote a book on mythology (De Genealogia Deorum, lib. xv.) which he dedicated to Hugo, King of Cyprus and Je- rusalem, at whose request he had composed it. He acknowledges that he had derived much information mi the sxxbject from Pietro Perugino, librarian to King 36 BOCCACCIO. Robert of Naples, an assiduous inquirer after ancient and especially Greek lore, and who had availed him- self in his researches of his intimacy with the Monk Barlaam, a learned Greek emigrant, residing in Calabria. Boccaccio's other Latin works are ' De montium, sylvarum, lacuum, fluviorum, stagnorum, et marivim nominibus, liber,' a sort of gazetteer. * De casibus virorum et fseminarum illustrium, libri ix.' where he eloquently relates, in the last book, the tragic catastrophe of the unfortunate Templars who were executed at Paris in 1310-14; at which his father was present. ' De claris mulieribus opus,' and lastly, sixteen * Eclogse,' amounting to about three thousand lines, which have been published with those of Petrarch and others at Florence in 1504. Boccaccio left a key to the real personages of these eclogues in a long letter written to the already-men- tioned father Martin of Signa. Both he and Petrarch allude in these poems to the vices and corruptions of the Papal Court. Of Boccaccio's Italian works, the Decameron is that by which his memory has been immortalized. This book consists of a series of tales, one hundred in number, ten of which are told on each afternoon for ten successive days, by a society of seven young women and three young men, who, having fled from the dangers of the plague which afflicted Florence in 1348, assembled at a villa a short distance from the town. The stories turn chiefly on amorous intrigues and de- vices, disappointments and enjoyments, very broadly narrated; and can by no means be recommended for indiscriminate perusal. They are admirably told, and are full of wit and humour ; but the pleasantry is for the most part of a nature which modern manners can- not tolerate. There are, however, better things than mere loose tales in the Decameron: several of the stories are unexceptionable ; some highly pathetic. BOCCACCIO. Sife 37 [Scene from the I ntroductiou to the Uueaiueroii, after a ill-sign by Stotliard.] They have furnished many subjects for poetry, and especially for the drama; as, for instance, the tale of Ginevra, the ninth of the second day, and the affect- ing story of Griselda, the last of all. With regard to the merit of the invention, it is true that some of Boccaccio's tales are taken from the ' Cento Novelle Antiche,' one of the oldest books in the Italian lan- guage. But the greater number are original : and many refer to persons and events well known in Italy, especially in Tuscany at that time, aa is demonstrated voi,. i. D 38 BOCCACCIO. by Manni. The skill with which this multitude of tales is arranged and brought forward, constitutes one of the chief merits of the work. It has been remarked that out of a hundred introductions with whicli he prefaces them, no two are alike. His narrative is clear ; free from metaphors and repetition ; avoiding superfluity as well as monotony, and engaging with- out tiring the attention. His descriptions, though minute, are graceful and lively. Generally humorous, not to say broad, he can, at pleasure, be pathetic ; at pleasure, grave and dignified. Here our praise of this celebrated work must stop. Of its indecencies we have already spoken. The nar- rative, though clothed in decent words, frequently runs in such a strain as no company of women above the lowest grade of shame would now listen to, much less indulge in. Bad as this is, a still deeper stain is to be found in the utter absence of all moral principle, and callousness to all good feeling. Long planned seduction, breach of hospitality, betrayal of friend- ship, all these are painted as fortunate and spirited adventures, and as desirable objects of attainment. Unlucky husbands are sneered at ; jealousy of honour is censured as stupidity or tyranny. Some of the female characters are even worse than the male; and the world of the Decameron is one which no man of common decency or honour could bear to live in. Boccaccio saw the mischief he had done, and was sorry when it was too late. In a letter to Mainardo de' Cavalcanti, Marshal of Sicily, he entreated him not to suffer the females of his family to read the De- cameron ; because, " although education and honour would keep them above temptation, yet their minds could not but be tainted by such obscene stories." He is fond of introducing monks and friars engaged in licentious pursuits, and exposed to ludicrous and humiliating adventures. He also at times speaks of BOCCACCIO. 39 the rites of the church in a profane or sarcastic manner. From this it has heen inferred that he was a sceptic or heretic. The conclusion is erroneous. Like other wits of that ignorant, superstitious, and debauched age, Boccaccio sneered, reviled, and yet feared : and while he ridiculed the ministers and usages of the church, he was employed in collecting relics, and ended his loose tales with invocations of Heaven and the saints. Besides, the secular clergy themselves bore no love towards the monks and mendicant friars : they were jealous of the former, and they hated and despised the latter. From Dante down to Leo X. the dignitaries of the church spoke of friars in terms nearly as opprobrious as Boccaccio himself. Leo made public jest of them. Bembo, the secretary of Leo, and a cardinal himself, and Berni, the secre- tapy to several cardinals, give no more quarter to them than is given in the Decameron. No wonder then that laymen should take similar liberties, and that a friar should be regarded, as Ugo Foscolo ob- serves, as a sort of scape-goat for the sins of the whole clergy. These considerations may explain how the Decameron went through several editions, both at Venice and Florence, without attracting the censures of the Court of Rome. The earliest editions bear the dates of 1471-2, but these became extremely scarce, since the fanatic Savanarola had a heap of them burnt in the public square of Florence in 1497. Of the Valdarfer edition of 1471, only one copy is known to exist. This has long been an object of interest to book collectors ; and was purchased at the Roxburgh sale, by the Marquis of Blandford, for the enormous sum of 2260/. After the reformation in Germany, a more watchful censorship was established, and the Decameron was placed in the list of proscribed books. An expurgated edition however was allowed to appear, under the imprimatur of Pope Gregory XIII. in 1573, D 2 40 BOCCACCIO. in which many passages marked hy the Inquisition were expunged, and laymen were made to take the places of the clergy in the more indecorous adventures. The MS. from which this and most of the subsequent editions are taken, was written by Mannelli, the god- son, and friend of Boccaccio, in 1384, nine years after the author's death. It is now in the Laurentian library at Florence. Mannelli has copied scrupulously what he calls " the text," whether an autograph of Boccaccio, or an earlier copy, even to its errors and omissions, noting from time to time in the margin "sictextus," or " deficiebat," or " superfluurn." It may therefore be presumed that the author had not put the last finish to his work. Boccaccio began the Decameron soon after the plague of 1348, and seems to have circulated the days, or parts, among his friends as he completed them. He was a long time in completing the work, which he seems to have laid aside, and resumed at leisure ; and it is believed that he was eight years employed upon it, and that he wrote the latter tales about 1356. From that time he seems to hive taken no more notice of it. He never sent it to Petrarch, to whom he was in the habit of transmitting all his other compositions; and it was only by accident, many years after, that the poet saw a copy of it. This he mentions in one of his letters to Boccaccio, and says that he " supposes it to be one of his juvenile productions." Petrarch praised only the. description of the plague, and the story of Griselda. This he translated into Latin. Boccaccio's other Italian prose works are ' II Filo- copo,' a prose romance, written at the request of his Fiammetta. It is a dull composition, far inferior to the Decameron in style, and displaying an anomalous mixture bf Christian and Pagan images and senti- ments. ' L'Amorosa Fiammetta' is also a prose ro- mance, in which the lady relates her passion and grief BOCCACCIO. 41 for the absence of Pamfilo, by which name the author is supposed to have designated himself. ' II Corbaccio,' or the ' Labyrinth of Love,' in which he relates his adventures with a certain widow, the same probably as he has introduced in the seventh tale of the eighth day of the Decameron. ' Ameto,' a drama of mixed prose and verse. ' Origine, vita, e costumi di Dante Ali- ghieri,' the life of Dante already mentioned. Several letters remain, but the bulk of his correspondence is lost. A life of Petrarch by Boccaccio, written ori- ginally in Latin, has been recently discovered, and published in 1828 by Domenico Rossetti, of Trieste. Boccaccio wrote a quantity of Italian verse, of which he himself thought little, after seeing those of Petrarch ; and posterity has confirmed his judgment. His Te- seide, a heroic poem, in ottava rima, may be excepted. This metre, generally adopted by the Italian epic and romantic poets, he has the merit of having invented. Though imperfect, and little attractive as an epic poem, the Teseide is not destitute of minor beauties. Chaucer is indebted to it for his Knight's Tale, re- modelled by Dryden under the name of Palamon and Arcite. An edition of Boccaccio's Italian prose works was printed at Naples, with the date of Florence, in 1723-4, in 6 vols. 8vo. ; but a better edition has been lately published at Florence, corrected after the best approved MSS. in 13 vols. 8vo. 1827-32. The editions of the Decameron are. almost innume- rable. The best and most recent ones are those of Poggiali, 1789-90, in 5 vols. 8vo. ; that of Ferrario, Milan, 1803; that of Colombo, Parma, 1812; all with copious notes and comments ; a small one by Molini, Florence, 1 820 ; and the one by Pickering, London, to which the late Ugo Foscolo prefixed an elaborate and interesting historical dissertation. Do- menico Maria Manni wrote a ' History of the Deca- 42 BOCCACCIO. meron,' Florence, 1742, in which he has collected a store of curious information concerning that work and its author. The principal biographers of Boccaccio are Filippo Villani, who may he considered as a contemporary of our author ; Giannozzo Mannelli, Francesco Sanso- vino, Giuseppe Betussi, Count Mazzuchelli, and lastly, the Count G. Battista Baldelli, who published a new life of Boccaccio in 1806 at Florence. 43 THE village of Wiclif, distant about six miles from Rjchmond in Yorkshire, had long been the residence of a family of the same name, when it gave birth, about the year 1324, to its most distinguished native. The family possessed wealth and consequence ; and though the name of the Reformer is not to be found in the extant records of the household, it is probable that he belonged to it. Perhaps the spirit of the times, and zeal for the established hierarchy, may have led it to disclaim the only person who has saved its name from absolute obscurity. John Wicliff was first admitted at Queen's College, Oxford, but speedily removed to Merton, a society more ancient and distinguished, and adorned by names of great ecclesiastical eminence. Here he en- gaged in the prescribed studies with diligence and success. In scholastic learning he made such great proficiency as to extort admiration from some who loved him not ; and the direction in which his talents were turned is indicated by the honourable appella- tion, which he early acquired, of the Evangelic or Gospel Doctor. The terms " profound," " perspi- 44 WICL1F. cuous," " irrefragable," were applied to mark the respective peculiarities of Bradwardine, of Burley, and of Hales ; and so we may infer, that the peculiar bent of Wicklif s youthful exertions was towards the book on which his subsequent principles were founded, and that he applied the ambiguous fruits of a scholastic education, not to enlarge the resources of sophistry, but to illustrate the treasures of truth. And on the other hand, in the illustrations of those oracles, and in the accomplishment of his other holy purposes, it was of good and useful service to him that he had armed himself with the weapons of the age, and could contend with the most redoubtable adversaries on the only ground of argument which was at all accessible to them. In 1356 he put forth a tract on ' The Last Age of the Church,' which was the first of his publications, and is on other accounts worthy of mention. It would appear that his mind had been deeply affected by meditation on the various evils which at that period afflicted the world, especially the pestilence which had laid waste, a few years before, so large a portion of it. He was disposed to ascribe them to God's indignation at the sinfulness of man ; and he also believed them to be mysterious announcements of the approaching consummation of all things. Through too much study of the book of the Abbot Joachim, he was in- fected with the spirit of prophecy ; and, not contented to lament past and present visitations, he ventured to predict others which were yet to come. All however were to be included in the fourteenth century, which was to be the last of the world. That Wiclif should have been thus carried away by the prevalent infatu- ation, so as to contribute his portion to the mass of vain and visionary absurdity, was human and par- donable : but in his manner of treating even this sub- ject, we discover the spirit and the principles of the WICLIF. 45 Reformer. Among the causes of those fearful cala- mities, among the vices which had awakened to so much fierceness the wrath of the Almighty, he feared not to give the foremost place to the vices of the clergy, the rapacity which ate up the people as it were bread, the sensuality which infected the earth with its savour, and " smelt to heaven." Here was the leaven which perverted and corrupted the community ; here the impure source whence future visitations should pro- ceed. *' Both vengeance of sword, and mischiefs un- known before, by which men in those days shall be punished, shall befal them, because of the sins of their priests." Thus it was that in this singular work, of which the foundation may have been laid in superstition, Wiclif developed notwithstanding a free and unprejudiced mind, and one which dared to avow without compromise, what it felt with force and truth. The mendicant orders of friars were introduced into England in the year 1221 ; and they presently supplanted the antient establishments in the venera- tion of the people, and usurped many of the preroga- tives, honours, and profits of the sacerdotal office. As long as they retained their original character, and practised, to any great extent, the rigid morality and discipline which they professed, so long did their in- fluence continue without diminution, and the clamours of the monks and the priests assailed them in vain : but prosperity soon relaxed their zeal and soiled their purity, and within a century from the time of their institution, they became liable to charges as serious as those which had reduced the authority of their rivals. Accordingly, towards the middle of the following cen- tury, the contest was conducted with greater success on the part of the original orders ; and some of the leading prelates of the day took part in it against the Mendicants. Oxford was naturally the field for the closest struggle, and the rising talents of Wiclif were D 3 46 WICLIF. warmly engaged in it. About the year 1360 lie is generally believed to have first proclaimed his hos- tility "against the orders of friars;" and he per- sisted, to the end of life, in pursuing them with the keenest argument and the bitterest invective, de- nouncing them as the authors of " perturbation in Christiandome, and of all the evils of this worldc ; and these errors shallen never be amended till the friars be brought to freedom of the Gospel and clean religion of Jesu Christ." In the year 1365 Urban V. renewed the papal claim of sovereignty over the realm of England, which was founded on the submission rendered by John to Innocent III. The claim was resisted by Edward III., and the decision of his parliament confirmed, in the strongest language, the resolution of the monarch. A zealous advocate of papacy ventured to vindicate the pretensions of the Vatican, and challenged Wiclif to reply to his arguments. He did so ; and his reply has survived the work which gave it birth. It is not however remarkable for any power of composition, still less can it be praised for grace or accuracy of style ; but it stands as a rude monument of his prin- ciples, and proves that even then he was imbued with that anti-papal spirit which more splendidly distin- guished his later years. Still, he was not yet com- mitted as the adversary of Rome ; arid in a dispute, in which he was engaged with the Archbishop of Can- terbury at this very time, he appealed from the deci- sion of the Primate to the authority of the Pope. Seven years afterwards, at the age of forty-eight, Wiclif was raised to the Theological Chair at Oxford ; and from this period we may date the most memorable of his spiritual achievements. For it is a question whether, had he died before that time, his name would have come down to us distinguished by any peculiar characteristic from those of the other divines and doc- WICLIF. 47 tors of his age ; but when he turned this eminence into a vantage-ground for assailing the corruptions of his church, and thus recommended the expressions of truth and justice by the authority of academical dig- nity, his language acquired a commanding weight, and his person a peculiar distinction, which the former would never have possessed had he remained in an inferior station, nor the latter, had he not employed his station for the noblest purposes : purposes which, though they were closely connected with the welfare and stability of the Roman Catholic communion, were seldom advocated from the pulpits of her hierarchy, or the chairs of her professors. Had Wiclif been no more than an eminent and dignified theologian, he would have been admired, perhaps, and forgotten, like so many others. H ad he been only a humble pleader fof the reformation of the church, his voice might never have been heard, or it might have been extin- guished by the hand of persecution : but his rank re- moved him above the neglect of his contemporaries ; and his principles, thus acquiring immediate efficacy have secured for him the perpetual respect of a more enlightened and grateful posterity. At this time the various profitable devices, by which the Vatican turned into its own channels the wealth and patronage of the church, were come into full ope- ration. By its provisions and reservations, and other expedients, it had filled many valuable benefices with foreign ecclesiastics ; these, for the most part, were non-resident, and spent in other countries the rich revenues which they derived from England. This system had been vigorously opposed both by kings and people, but with little effectual success ; for the Pope commonly contrived to repair the losses which he had sustained in the tempest during the interval which succeeded it. In 1374 Edward III. despatched an embassy to Avignon, to remonstrate on these sub- 48 WICLIF. jccts with Gregory XL, and procure the relinquish- ment of his pretensions. The Bishop of Bangor was at the head of this commission, and the name of Wiclif stood second on the list. The negotiation was protracted, and ended in no important result; and the various arts of the Vatican triumphed over the zeal of the Reformer, and, as some believe, over the honesty of the Bishop. Howbeit, Wiclif obtained on that occasion a nearer insight into the pontifical machinery, and beheld with closer eyes the. secret springs which moved it. And if he carried along with him into the presence of the vicar of Christ no very obsequious regard for his person, or reverence for his authority, he returned from that mission armed with more decided principles, and inflamed with a more determined animosity. At the same time his sovereign rewarded his services at the Papal Court by the prebend of Aust, in the Collegiate Church of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester ; and soon afterwards by the rectory of Lutterworth, in Leices- tershire. After this period, his anti-papal opinions were more boldly declared, and he became more and more distinguished as an advocate for the Reformation of the Church. The suspicions of the hierarchy were aroused ; and whatever reasons the Prelates might have had for sometimes siding with their sovereign against the usurpations of the Pope, they were ill- disposed to listen to the generous remonstrances of a private Reformer. Accordingly, at a Convocation held Feb. 3, 1377, they summoned him to appear at St. Paul's, to clear himself from the fatal charge of holding erroneous doctrines. Had Wiclif trusted to no other support than the holiness of his cause had he thrown himself, like Huss and Jerome of Prague, only on the mercy and justice of his ecclesiastical judges it might have fared as ill with him as it did TVICLIP. 49 50 WICLIF. with his Bohemian disciples. But his principles, re- commended as it would seem by some private inter- course, had secured him the. patronage of the cele- brated John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, under whose protection he presented himself on the ap- pointed day before the assembled bishops. A tu- multuous scene ensued : and after an undignified and indecent dispute between the Duke and the Bishop of London, the meeting dispersed without arriving at any conclusion, or even entering into an inquiry respecting the matter concerning which it was convened. The process against Wiclif was how- ever suspended ; and this good result was at least obtained, though by means more in accordance with the violent habits of the age, than with the holiness of his cause. In the course of the same year, while the Pope was endeavouring to re-establish and perpetuate his do- minion in fiscal matters over the English, and the Parliament struggling to throw it off altogether, Wiclif was again called forth as the advocate of na- tional independence; and lie argued with great force and boldness against the legality of the papal ex- actions. In this Treatise, he entered more generally into the question, as to what were the real founda- tions, not only of papal but of spiritual pretensions ; he pressed the Gospel of Christ as the last appeal in all reasonings respecting the Church of Christ ; and he contrasted the worldliness and rapacity of his Vicar with the principles of the religion, and the character of its Divine founder. The name and ex- ample of Christ were never very pleasing objects of reflection to the hierarchy of that age ; and the argu- ment with which they loved to repel such ungrateful suggestions was, the personal oppression of those who ventured to advance them. Accordingly, the storm gathered ; and four Bulls were issued forthwith WICLIF. 51 against the doctrines and person of Wiclif. " His holiness had been informed that John Wiclif, rector of the church of Lutterworth, and Professor of the Sacred Page, had broken forth into a detestable in- sanity, and had dared to assert opinions utterly sub- versive of the Church, and savouring of the perversity and ignorance of Marsilius of Padua, and John of Ganduno, both of accursed memory." It was then ordained that he should be apprehended and impri- soned; and in an address to Edward III., the arm of the flesh was invoked to co-operate with the spiritual authorities for the suppression of this monstrous evil. One of these Bulls was addressed to the University of Oxford; and what may seem singular, it found there a spirit so far in advance of the bigotry of the age, that a question was raised whether it should be received, or indignantly rejected. After long hesita- tion, it was received ; but still no readiness was shown to comply with its requisitions, nor were any mea- sures taken to punish or degrade the Reformer. Howbeit, in the beginning of the year following, Wiclif presented himself at Lambeth, before the Tri- bunal of the Papal Commissioners, to meet the various charges of heretical pravity. We have no room to doubt the wishes and intentions of his judges. But on this occasion he was rescued from them, for the second time, by extraneous circumstances. The po- pulace of London, among whom his opinions may have made some progress, and by whom his name was certainly respected, interrupted the meeting with much clamour and violence, and showed a fierce de- termination to save him from oppression. And at the same time, while the delegates were confounded by this interference, a message was delivered to them from the Queen Mother, prohibiting any definitive sentence against Wiclif. Thus unexpectedly assailed, and from such different quarters, the Prelates imme- 52 WICLIF. diately softened their expressions, and abandoned their design ; and Wiclif returned once more in safety to the propagation of his former opinions, and to the expression of others which had not yet been broached by him. The sum of those opinions might be given with tolerable accuracy, though some of them were not perhaps propounded with perfect distinctness, and others have been made liable to consequences which were disclaimed by their author. In the first place, he rejected every sort of pretension, tenet, or authority, which did not rest on the foundation of Scripture : here he professed to fix the single basis of his whole system. Accordingly he denounced, with various de- grees of severity, many of the popular observances of his church. He rejected auricular confession ; and declared pardons and indulgences to be no better than antichristian devices for augmenting the power and wealth of the clergy, at the expense of the morality of the people. He paid no respect to excommunica- tions and interdicts ; he pronounced confirmation to be an unnecessary ceremony, invented for the aggran- dizement of the episcopal dignity ; he reprobated the celibacy of the clergy, and the imposition of monastic vows. And in his contempt for the outward ceremo- nies of the church, even to the use of Sacred music, he anticipated by more than two centuries the prin- ciples of the Puritans. In like manner, he main- tained that bishops and priests, being one and the same order according to their original institution, were improperly distinguished ; and that the property claimed by the clergy, being in its origin eleemosy- nary, was merely enjoyed by them in trust for the benefit of the people, and was disposable at the dis- cretion of the secular government. So long as Wiclif confined himself to the expres- sion of these opinions, though he ensured the hatred WICUF. 53 of the hierarchy, he might reckon on a powerful party both at the Court and among the people. The ob- jects for which he contended were at least manifest, and his arguments generally intelligible. But he was not content with this limited field. In his solicitude to assail all the holds of papacy, and denounce all its pernicious errors, he entered, in the year 1381, into a controversy respecting the nature of the Eucharist. His opinion on this mysterious question seems to have approached very nearly to that of Luther. He admitted a real presence ; but though he did not pre- sume to determine the manner, he rejected the doc- trine of Transubstantiation in the Roman Catholic sense. This was ground sufficient for a new clamour, louder and more dangerous than all that had preceded it : not that there was stronger argument on the side of his opponents, but because the subject, being more obscure, was more involved in prejudice ; it was more closely connected with the religious feelings and deep- est impressions of his hearers ; it affected, not their respect for a sensual and a various hierarchy, but their faith in what they had been taught to consider a vital doctrine essential to salvation. And thus it proved, not perhaps that his enemies became more violent, but that his friends began to waver in their support of him. The lower classes, who had listened with delight to his anti-sacerdotal declamations, trembled when he began to tread the consecrated ground of their belief. His noble patrons, if tbey were not thus sen- sibly shocked, perceived at least the impolicy of con- tending in that field ; and John of Lancaster espe- cially commanded him to retire from it. With the sincerity of a zealot he persisted, and in the course of May, 1382, a Synod was held by Court- ney, who had been just promoted to the primacy, and the heresies of Wiclif became, for the third time, the subject of ecclesiastical consultation. We have no 54 WICLIF. space to pursue the details of these proceedings. The result was, that he was summoned to answer, before the Convocation at Oxford, respecting certain erro- neous doctrines, the most prominent of which was that regarding the Eucharist. He prepared to defend them. And it was then that the Duke of Lancaster, who had been his faithful protector throughout all his previous troubles whether it was that he sincerely differed with Wiclif on that particular question, or whether he was unwilling to engage in a struggle with the whole hierarchy, supported by much popular pre- judice, for the sake of an abstract opinion, which might appear to him entirely void of any practical advantage withdrew his support, and abandoned the Reformer to his own resources. Yet not then was his resolution shaken. In two Confessions of Faith, which he then produced, he asserted his ad- herence to his expressed doctrines. And though one of them is so perplexed with scholastic sophistry, as to have led some to imagine that it was intended to convey a sort of retractation, yet it was not so inter- preted by his adversaries, six of whom immediately entered the lists against it. Neither did it persuade his judges of his innocence. He was condemned but not, as the annals of that age would have led us to expect, to death. And whether the praise of this moderation be due to the Prelates who forbore so far to press their enmity, or to the State, which might have refused to sanction the vengeance of the Pre- lates, Wiclif was merely condemned to banishment from the University of Oxford. He retired in peace to his rectory at Lutterworth, and there spent the two remaining years of his life in the pursuit of his theo- logical studies and the discharge of his pastoral duties. The greater part of the opinions by which he was distinguished were so entirely at variance with the WICLIF. 55 principles and prejudices of his age, that our wonder is not at their imperfect success, but at their escape from immediate extinction. Having thus escaped, however, and taken root in no inconsiderable portion of the community, they were such as to secure by their own strength and boldness their own progress and maturity. Neither was their author neglectful of the methods proper to ensure their dissemination. For in the first place, by his translation of the Sacred Book on which he supposed them to rest, he increased the means of ascertaining their truth, or at least the spuriousness of the system which they opposed. In the next, he sent forth numerous missionaries, whom he called his " Poor Priests," for the express pur- pose of propagating his doctrines ; and thus they acquired some footing even in his own generation. Iri succeeding years, the sect of Lollards, in a great measure composed of his disciples, professed and per- petuated his tenets; and by their undeviating hos- tility to the abuses of Rome, prepared the path for the Reformation. Nor were the fruits of his exertions confined to his native country. It is certain that his works found their way, at a very early period, into Bohemia, and kindled there the first sparks of resistance to the established despotism. The venerable Huss pro- claimed his adherence to the principles, and his re- verence for the person, of the English Reformer; and he was wont in his public discourses to pray, that " on his departure from this life, he might be received into those regions whither the soul of Wiclif had gone ; since he doubted not that he was a good and holy man, and worthy of a heavenly habitation." The memory of Huss is associated by another incident with that of his master. The same savage Council which consigned the former to the flames, offered to the other that empty insult, which we may receive as 56 WICLIF. an expression of malignant regret that he had been permitted to die in peace. It published an edict, " That the bones and body of Wiclif should be taken from the ground, and thrown far away from the burial of any church." After a long interval of hesitation, this edict was obeyed. Thirty years after his death his grave was violated, and his ashes contemptuously cast into a neighbouring brook. On this indignity Fuller makes the following memorable reflection : " The brook did convey his ashes into Avon ; Avon into Severn ; Severn into the narrow seas ; they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblems of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." The date of Wiclif 's death renders the authenticity of his portraits in some degree uncertain, and we are not able to trace the history of any which exist. But that some memorials were preserved in his features, in illuminations or otherwise, we may conclude from the general resemblance which is to be traced in two different pictures of him that from which our print is engraved, and that at King's College, Cambridge, engraved in ' Roll's Lives of the Reformers,' and Verheiden, ' Prsestantium Theologorum Effigies, &c.,' 1602. 57 THERE is considerable discrepance between the gene- rally received and the probable date of Geoffrey Chaucer's birth. In the life prefixed to the edition of his works by Speght, it is stated, that he " de- parted out of this world in the year of our Lord 1400, after he had lived about seventy years." The bio- grapher's authority for this is "Bale, out of Leland." Leland's accuracy on this, as on many other points, may be doubted, since he believed Oxfordshire or Berkshire to have been the poet's native county. But Chaucer himself, in his Testament of Love, mentions London as the " place of his kindly engendure." The received date of his birth is 1328: if that be correct, he was fifty-eight in 1386. But a record in the Ap- pendix to Mr. Godwin's Life shows that in that year he was a witness on oath, in a question between Sir Richard le Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor. The point at issue occasioned an inquiry to be made as to Chaucer's age, which he stated to be " forty years and 58 CHAUCER. upwards." Eighteen years upon forty is a large upwards on a sworn examination. Mr. Sharon Tur- ner, therefore, in his History of the Middle Ages, suggests, with every appearance of reason, that 1340, or thereabouts, is a date fairly corresponding with the witnesss's " forty years and upwards," and even necessary to vindicate his accuracy in a predicament requiring the most scrupulous adherence to truth. Chaucer might not be certain as to the precise year of his birth ; and, in that case, it was natural to fix on the nearest round number. The chronology of his Works must be deeply affected by this difference of twelve years : it will be to be seen whether the few authenticated facts of his life are to be reconciled with this presumptive later date. Chaucer is represented by Leland to have studied both at Cambridge and at Oxford. At the latter University, he is said to have diligently frequented the public schools and disputations, and to have affected the opinions of Wiclif in religion. " Here- upon," says Leland, " he became a witty logician, a sweet rhetorician, a pleasant poet, a grave philoso- pher, and a holy divine." But Mr. Tyrwhitt thinks that nothing is known as to his education, and doubts his having studied at either University. The evi- dence that he was of the Inner Temple seems to rest on a record of that house, seen some years afterwards by one Master Buckley, showing that Geoffrey Chau- cer was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street. Mr. Tyrwhitt complains of the want of date to this record. The sally is plainly a youthful one. and inclines him to believe that Chau- cer was of the Inner Temple before he went into the service of Edward III. That he could have been engaged in the practice of the law in after-life, as stated by Leland, is shown by Mr. Tyrwhitt to be utterly inconsistent with his employments under the CHAUCER. 59 crown. In the paucity of biographical anecdotes, Chaucer's personal career will be most satisfactorily ascertained by following the succession of his ap- pointments, as verified by the public documents in Mr. Godwin's valuable appendices. In 1367, Ed- ward III. granted him for his good services, an annuity of twenty marcs, payable out of the Exche- quer. In 1370, he was sent to the Continent on the king's business. Two years afterwards, he, with two others, was employed on an embassy to the Doge of Genoa. This negotiation probably regarded the hiring of ships for the king's navy. In those times, although the necessity for naval armaments was fre- quent, very few ships were built by the English. This deficiency was supplied by the free states either in Germany or Italy. The age of thirty and thirty- two squares well enough with such appointments. In 1374, the king granted to him a pitcher of wine daily, to be delivered by the Butler of England. At the same time, he made him Comptroller of the Customs of London, for wool, wool-fells, and hides, on condition of his executing the office in person, and keeping the accounts with his own hand. In the following year he obtained from the king the wardship of the lands and body of Sir Edmund Staplegate, a young Kentish heir. In 1377, the last year of King Edward, " Geof- frey Caucher" is mentioned by Froissart as one of those envoys employed abroad, as his protection ex- presses it, " on the king's secret service." The ob- ject of the mission is divulged by the French historian ; it was a treaty between the Kings of England and France, in which the marriage of Richard with the French Princess Mary was debated ; but neither the peace nor the marriage were brought about. Here end both the commissions and benefactions received by Chaucer from Edward III. Some time after 1370, and before 1381, accordi'iuc 60 CHAUCER. to Mr. Turner's calculation, but in 1360 according to others, Chaucer married a lady who, according to documents taken from Rymer, had been one of the " domicellse," damsels, or, in modern court phrase, maids of honour to Queen Philippa. Mr. Turner places the marriage within those limits, on the follow- ing grounds : Chaucer, in his " Treatise on the As- trolabe," dates an observation as made in 1391, and mentions his son Lewis as being then ten years old. A grant to the queen's damsel, on quitting her service, is dated 1370, and made to her by her maiden name. The Astrolabe and the grant together furnish con- clusive evidence in favour of Mr. Turner's limits ; but the current story of the Duke and Duchess of Lancas- ter having concocted the match, can only be reconciled with the earlier date, as the duchess died in 1369. It is unnecessary to enumerate those various grants made to Chaucer by Richard II., which bear on no other events of his life. An important document of the year 1398 states that the king had ordered Chaucer to expedite several urgent affairs for him, as well in his absence as in his presence, in various parts of England. As a security against alarms expressed by Chaucer respecting suits and other molestations, Richard granted him a protection from arrest, injury, violence, or impediment, for two years. Richard was deposed in August of the following year. In Octo- ber, Henry IV. confirmed Richard's donations, with an additional annuity of forty marcs. The last docu- ment as to Chaucer is an indenture of lease to him, dated 24th December, 1399, of a tenement in the Priory Garden of Westminster, for a term of fifty- three years. Chaucer, therefore, was active at the end of 1399, and seems, from the length of his lease, still to have thought himself a good life, as he well might, if his age were only sixty ; but his biogra- phers (probably because they traced him in no later CHAUCER. 61 documents, and thought seventy-two a good old age) in the absence of any other positive evidence, than the date on a monument erected in the sixteenth century, have fixed his death in 1400. We have thought it expedient not to mix up the facts proved by official documents, with the few others to be gleaned from passages in his works. Such as are attested by neither of these vouchers have no claim to implicit credit. In his Testament of Love, he speaks of having " endured penance in a dark prison." Again, " Although I had little in respect of other great and worthy, yet had I a fair parcel, as methought for the time ; I had riches sufficiently to wave need. I h-id dignity to be reverenced in wor- ship ; power methought that I had to keep from mine enemies, and me seemed to shine in glory of renown." With this picture of former prosperity, he contrasts his present state. " For riches now have I poverty ; instead of power, wretchedness I suffer ; and for glory of renown, I am now despised and foully hated." We cannot with certainty connect this reverse of personal fortune with any passage of general history. He alludes to it thus: In my youth I was drawn to be assenting, and in my might helping to certain conju- rations, and other great matters of ruling of citizens, so painted and coloured, that at first to me seemed then noble and glorious to all the people." He intimates that he had made some discoveries concerning certain transactions in the city. He was, consequently, ex- posed to calumny, and the charge of falsehood. To prove his veracity he offered an appeal to arms, and " had prepared his body for Mars's doing, if any con- traried his saws." He alludes to his escape out of the kingdom, when we are told by his biographers that he spent his time in Hainault, France, and Zealand, where he wrote many of his books. He himself says, that during his exile those whom he had served never VOL. I. E 62 CHAUCER. refreshed him with the value of the least coined plate ; those who owed him money would pay nothing, he- cause they thought his return impossible. Mr. God- win, like preceding biographers, refers these personal misfortunes to his support of John Comberton, gene- rally styled John of Northampton, who, in 1382, attempted reform in the city on Wiclif 's principles. This was highly resented by the clergy ; Comberton was taken into custody, and Chaucer is stated to have fled the kingdom. Mr. Turner thinks, that as the date assigned to these reverses is purely conjectural, they may be referred with more probability to a later period. He argues that, had Chaucer joined any party against the court, he would not have enjoyed Richard's continued favour. The protection from the king, in 1398, implies that he was intermeddling in hazardous concerns ; and in the Testament of Love, which may be considered as an autobiography composed of hints rather than facts, there is this remarkable passage. " Of the confederacies made by my sovereigns, I was but a servant ; and thereof ought nothing in evil to be laid to me wards, sithen as repentant I am turned." Mr. Turner infers, from the singular protection granted to Chaucer, in the very year when, after Gloucester's murder, Richard adopted his most illegal and tyrannical measures, that the poet was prose- cuted as an accomplice in those measures; that Henry might have thrown him into prison, as impli- cated in the deposed monarch's unlawful acts ; but on his professions of repentance, and in consideration of his connexion and alliance with his own father, might have pardoned him with others, at his coronation. In this difference of opinion, or rather of conjecture, between the biographers and the historian, we may, perhaps, be allowed to hazard the supposition, that those scattered allusions in the Testament may refer not to the same, but to different periods of evil for- CHAUCER. 63 tune ; indeed, the very expressions quoted seem hardly reconcileable with any one event. The " conjura- tions, noble and glorious to the people," seem to point at some measures distasteful to the higher pow- ers : and as both Chaucer and his patron the Duke of Lancaster had adopted many of Wiclif s tenets, it seems not improbable that the conspiracy alluded to may be identified with that of John of Northampton. Delicately as the circumstance is glossed over by the poet, he appears to have turned what in homely phrase is called king's evidence, the imputation of which he parries by a chivalrous appeal to " Mars's doing." This will account for his being received back into royal favour, and for his lending himself in after- time, no longer to the conjurations of the people, in plain English, the rebellion of the commons, but to the* confederacies of his sovereigns. If his allusion to his personal misfortunes, and his expressions of con- scientious remorse, may be referred to different pe- riods, and to events of opposite character; in that view of the case neither Mr. Godwin nor Mr. Turner may be in the wrong. Few particulars of Chaucer's private history are to be gathered from his poems. In his Dream, of which Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, is the subject, the poet describes himself as the victim to nervous me- lancholy from habitual want of sleep, accompanied with a dread of death. The translation of Boethius, and occasional quotations from Seneca and Juvenal, attest that he retained through life his juvenile ac- quaintance with the Latin classics. The chronology of his works must be rendered doubtful by the uncer- tainty respecting that of his life. Mr. Turner places the time of his death later than 1400, but before 1410. The poet is said to have had the unusual honour of being brother-in-law to a prince of the blood, by the marriage of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, with E2 64 CHAUCER. Catherine, widow of Sir Hugh Swinford, and sister to Chaucer's wife. He is said to have lived at Wood- stock at a late period of his life, and finally to have retired to Donnington Castle on the Duke of Lancas- ter's death. By his wife, Philippa, he had two sons, Thomas and Lewis. Thomas was Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Henry IV., ambas- sador to France and Burgundy, and discharged other public duties. Chaucer's principal biographers are Leland, Thomas Speght, Mr. Tyrwhitt, and Mr. Godwin. The work of the latter would have been more valuable had it been less voluminous, less dis- cursive, and less conjectural. Mr. Tyrwhitt's edi- tion of the Canterbury Tales is a model of criticism on an old English classic. His Introductory Dis- course on the Language and Versification of Chaucer will enable its readers to form just and clear ideas of the history of our ancient tongue, and Chaucer's peculiar use of it. Chaucer was held in high estimation by his most distinguished contemporaries. John the Chaplain, who translated Boethius into English verse, as Chau- cer had into prose, calls him the Flower of Rhetoric. Occleve laments him with personal affection as his father and master, and styles him the honour of Eng- lish tongue. Lydgate, the monk of Bury, mentions him has a chief poet of Britain ; the loadstar of our language; the notable rhetor. Dryden says, in the preface prefixed to his Fables, " As Chaucer is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil; he is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects ; as he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a conti- nence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace." CHAUCER. 65 Our account of his principal works must be brief. The Romaunt of the Rose is professedly a translation of the French Roman de la Rose. It is a long alle gory, representing the difficulties and dangers encoun- tered by a lover in the pursuit of his mistress, who is emblematically described as a Rose, and the plot, if so it may be called, ends with his putting her in a beautiful garden. Troilus and Creseide is for the most part a trans- lation of the Filostrato of Boccaccio, but with many variations and large additions. As a tale, it is barren of incident, although, according to Warton, as long as the ^Eneid ; but it contains passages of great beauty and pathos. The story of Queen Annelida and False Arcite is said, to have been originally told in Latin. Chaucer names the authors whom he professes to follow. " First fowle I Stace, and after him Corinne." The opening only is taken from Statius, so that Co- rinne must be supposed to have furnished the remain- der ; but who she was has never yet been discovered. False Arcite is a different person from the Arcite of the Knight's Tale. It is probable therefore that this poem was written before Chaucer had become acquain- ted with the Teseide of Boccaccio. The opening of the Assembly of Foules is built on the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero. The description of a garden and temple is almost entirely taken from the description of the Temple of Venus in the Fourth Book of the Teseide. Mr. Tyrwhitt suspects this poem to allude to the intended marriage between John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, which took place in 1359. Warton, in his History of English Poetry, inti- mates his belief that the House of Fame was origi- nally a Provenqal composition. But Mr. Tyrwhitt differs from him in opinion, and states that he " has E3 66 CHAUCER. not observed, in any of Chaucer's writings, a single phrase or word which has the least appearance of having been fetched by him from the South of the Loire." With respect to the matter and manner of his compositions, Mr. Tyrwhitt adds, that he " shall be slow to believe that in either he ever copied the poets of Provence," or that he had more than a very slender acquaintance with them. The poem is an alle- gorical vision ; a favourite theme with all the poets of Chaucer's time, both native and foreign. The Flower and the Leaf was printed for the first time in Speght's edition of 1597. Mr. Tyrwhitt sug- gests a doubt of its correct ascription to Chaucer ; but it seems to afford internal evidence of powers at all events congenial with those of Chaucer, in its descrip- tion of rural scenery and its general truth and feeling. Dryden has modernised it, without a suspicion of its authenticity. Chaucer's prose works are his Translation of Boethius, the Treatise on the Astrolabe, and the Testa- ment of Love. The Canterbury Tales were his latest work. The general plan of them is, that a company of Pilgrims, going to Canterbury, assemble at an inn in Southwark, and agree that each shall tell at least one tale in going and another on returning ; and that he who shall tell the best tales shall be treated by the rest with a supper at the inn, before they separate. The characters of the Pilgrims, as exhibited in their re- spective Prologues, are drawn from the various depart- ments of middle life. The occurrences on the journey, and the adventures of the company at Canterbury, were intended to be interwoven as Episodes, or con- nected by means of the prologues; but the work, like its prototype the Decameron, was undertaken when the author was past the meridian of life, and was left imperfect. Chaucer has, in many respects, improved on his model, especially in variety of character and its CHAUCER. 67 68 CHAUCER. nice discrimination : but the introductory machinery is not contrived with equal felicity. Boccaccio's nar- rators indulge in the ease and luxury of a palace ; a journey on horse-back is not the most convenient opportunity of telling long stories to a numerous com- pany. The works of Chaucer, notwithstanding the enco- miums of four successive centuries, emanating from poets and critics of the highest renown and first au- thority, are little read excepting by antiquaries and phi- lologers, unless in the polished versions of Dryden and Pope. This is principally to be attributed neither to any change of opinion respecting the merit of the poet, nor to the obsoleteness of the language : but to the progressive change of manners and feelings in society, to the accumulation of knowledge, and the improvement of morals. His command over the lan- guage of his day, his poetical power, and his exhibition of existing characters and amusing incidents, con- stitute his attractions ; but his prolixity is ill suited to our impatient rapidity of thought and action. Unlike the passionate and natural creations of Shakspeare, which will never grow obsolete, the sentiments of Chaucer are not congenial with our own : his love is fantastic gallantry ; he is the painter and panegyrist of exploded knight-errantry. Hence the preference of the Canterbury Tales above all his other works ; because the manners of the time are dramatized, in other ranks of life than that of chivalry ; his good sense, and capacity for keen observation are called forth, to the exclusion of conventional affectations. With respect to his prose, it is curious as that " strange English " and " ornate style," adopted by him as a scholar for the sake of distinction, rather than as a specimen of the language and mode of ex- pression characteristic of his age. 69 AMONG the genealogists who wasted their ingenuity to fabricate an imposing pedigree for Lorenzo de Medici, some pretended to derive his origin from the paladins of Charlemagne, and others to trace it to the eleventh century. But it is well ascertained that his ancestors only emerged from the inferior orders of the people of Florence in the course of the fourteenth century, when, by engaging in great commercial speculations, and by signalizing themselves as partisans of the po- pulace of that republic, they speedily acquired consi- derable wealth and political importance. Giovanni di Bicci, his great-grandfather, may be regarded as the first illustrious personage of the family, and as the author of that crafty system of policy, mainly founded on affability and liberality, by which his posterity sprung rapidly to overwhelming greatness. By an assiduous application to trade he made vast ad- ditions to his paternal inheritance ; by flattering the passions of the lowest classes he obtained the highest dignities in the state. He died in 1428, deeply re- 10 LORENZO DE MEDICI. gretted by his party, and leaving two sons, Cosmo and Lorenzo, from the latter of whom descended the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Cosmo was nearly forty when he succeeded to the riches and popularity of his father ; and he had not only conducted for several years a commercial esta- blishment which held counting-houses in all the principal cities of Europe and in the Levant, but had also participated in the weightier concerns of govern- ment. The form of the Florentine constitution was then democratical ; the nobility had been long ex- cluded from the administration of the republic ; and the citizens, though divided into twenty-one guilds, or corporations of arts and trades, from seven of which alone the magistracy were chosen, had, how- ever, an equal share in the nomination of the magis- trates, who were changed every two months. The lower corporations, owing principally to the ma- noeuvres of Salvestro de Medici, had risen in 1378 against the higher, demanding a still more complete equality, and had taken the direction of the common- wealth into their own hands ; but after having raised a carder of wool to the supreme power, and involved themselves in the evils of anarchy, convinced at last of their own incapacity, they had again submitted to the wiser guidance of that kind of burgher-aristocracy which they had subverted ; and that party, headed by the Albizzi and some other families of distinction, had, ever since 1382, governed the state with unex- ampled happiness and glory. The republic had been aggrandized by the important acquisition of Leghorn, Pisa, Arezzo, and other Tuscan cities ; its agricul- ture was in the most prosperous condition ; its com- merce had received a prodigious development ; its decided superiority in the cultivation of literature, the sciences, and the arts, had placed it foremost in the career of European civilization ; and its generous but LORENZO DE MEDICI. 11 wise external policy had constituted it as the guardian of the liberties of Italy. To this beneficent administration the aspiring Cosmo had long offered a troublesome opposition ; and he now succeeded in ensnaring it into a ruinous war with Lucca, by which he obtained the double object of destroying its popularity, and of employing con- siderable sums of money with unusual profit. But the reverses of the republic were attributed to a treasonable correspondence between him and the enemy, and in 1433 he was seized and condemned to ten years' banishment, having averted capital pu- nishment by a timely bribe. The absence of a citizen who spent more than a great king in acts of piety, benevolence, and liberality, was, however, severely felt in the small city of Florence, and the intelligence of the honours he received everywhere in his exile raised him still more in public estimation. The number of his friends increased, indeed, so rapidly, that at the September elections in the following year they completely defeated the ruling party, and chose a set of magistrates by whom he was immediately re- called. This event, erroneously considered as a vic- tory of the people over an aristocracy, was, properly speaking, a triumph of the populace over the more educated classes of the community, and it proved fatal to the republic. Placed by fame, wealth, and talent, at an immeasurable elevation above the obscure ma- terials of his faction, from the moment of his return to that of his death, August, 1464, Cosmo exercised such an influence in the state, that, though he seldom filled any ostensible office, he governed it with abso- lute authority by means of persons wholly subservient to his will. But, under the pretence of maintaining peace and tranquillity, he superseded its free insti- tutions by a junto invested with dictatorial power ; he caused an alarming number of the most respectable 12 LORENZO DE MEDICI. citizens to be banished, ruined by confiscation, or even put to death, on the slightest suspicion that by their wealth or connexions they might oppose his schemes of ambition ; and he laboured with inde- fatigable zeal to enslave his own confiding country- men, not only by spreading secret corruption at home, but also by changing the foreign policy of his predecessors, and helping his great friend, Francesco Sforza, and other usurpers, to crush the liberties of neighbouring states. Cosmo is nevertheless entitled to the grateful re- collections of posterity for the efficient patronage he afforded learning and the arts, though he evidently carried it to excess as a means of promoting his po- litical designs. He was profuse of favours and pen- sions to all who cultivated literature or philosophy with success ; he bought at enormous prices what- ever manuscripts or masterpieces of art his agents could collect in Europe or Asia; he ornamented Florence and its environs with splendid palaces, churches, convents, and public libraries. He died in the seventy-fifth year of his age, just after a decree of the senate had honoured him with the title of Father of his country, which was subsequently in- scribed on his tomb. Loren/o de Medici, the subject of the present me- moir, was born at Florence on the 1st of January, 1448. His father was Piero, the son and successor of Cosmo : his mother, Lucretia Tornabuoni, a lady of some repute, both as a patroness of learning and as a poetess. He had scarcely left the nursery when he acquired the first rudiments of knowledge under the care and tuition of Gentile d'Urbino, afterwards Bishop of Arezzo. Cristoforo Landino was next engaged to direct his education ; and Argyropylus taught him the Greek language and the Aristotelian philosophy, whilst Marsilio Ficino instilled into his LORENZO DE MEDICI. 73 youthful mind the precepts and doctrines of Plato. The rapidity of his proficiency was equal to the ce- lebrity of his masters, and to the indications of talent that he had given in childhood. Piero, who was prevented by a precarious state of health from attend- ing regularly to business, rejoiced at the prospect of soon having in his own son a strenuous and trusty coadjutor ; and on the death of Cosmo, the domestic education of Lorenzo being completed, he sent him to visit the principal courts of Italy, in order to in- itiate him into political life, and to afford him an op- portunity of forming such personal connexions as might advance the interests of the family. Piero pretended to succeed to Cosmo's authority, as if it had been a part of his patrimony ; but the Florentine statesmen, who thought themselves superior to him in age, capacities, and public services, disdained to pay him the same deference they had shown the more eminent abilities of his father. Besides, Cosmo had taken especial care to conciliate the esteem and affec- tion of his countrymen. He had never refused gifts, loans, or credit to any of the citizens, and never raised his manners or his domestic establishment above the simplicity of common life. But Piero seemed to have no regard for the feelings of others : he ruined several merchants by attempting to with- draw considerable capital from commerce ; he allowe- liis subordinate agents to make a most profligate and corrupt monopoly of government; and he shocked the republican notions of his countrymen by seeking to marry Lorenzo into a princely family. These causes of discontent arrayed against him a formidable party, under the direction of Agnolo Acciajuoli, Nic- colo Soderini, and Luca Pitti, the founder of the magnificent palace, now the residence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. A parliament of the people re- jected Piero's proposition of re-appointing the dic- VOL. I. F 74 LORENZO DE MEDICI. tatorial junto, whose power expired in September, 1465. His cause was evidently lost, had his enemies continued firmly united ; but the defection of the un- principled Luca Pitti enabled him to recover his authority, which he soon secured by banishing his opponents, and by investing five of his dependants with the right of choosing the magistracy. Lorenzo is said on this occasion to have been of great assist- ance to his father; and a letter of Ferdinand, King of Naples, is still extant, in which that perfidious monarch congratulates him on the active part he had taken in the triumph, and in the consequent curtail- ment of popular rights. The populace of Florence were now entertained with splendid festivals, and with two tournaments, in which Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano bore away the prizes. These tournaments form an epoch in the history of literature ; the victory of Lorenzo having been commemorated by the verses of Luca Pulci, and that of Giuliano, by a poem of Politian, which restored Italian poetry to its former splendour. About this period, 1468, Lorenzo became enamoured, or rather fancied himself enamoured, of a lady whom he described as prodigiously endowed with all the charms of her sex, and he strove to immortalize his love in song. But, whether real or supposed, his passion did not prevent him from marrying Clarice Orsini, of the famous Roman family of that name. The nuptials were celebrated on the 4th of June, 1469, on a scale of royal magnificence. The death of Piero, which happened about the end of the same year, was not followed by any interrup- tion of public tranquillity. The republicans were now either old or in exile ; the rising generation grew up with principles of obedience to the Medici ; and Lorenzo was easily acknowledged as the chief of the state. An attempt at revolution [was made a few LORENZO DE MEDICI. 75 months afterwards at Prato, by Bernardo Nardi and some other Florentine exiles ; but the complete in- ertness of the inhabitants rendered it unsuccessful. Nardi and six of his accomplices were executed at Florence ; the remainder at Prato. Surrounded by a host of poets, philosophers, and artists, Lorenzo, however, left the republic under the misgovernment of its former rulers, whilst he gave himself up to the avocations of youth, and indulged an extraordinary taste for pompous shows and effeminate indulgence, which had a most pernicious influence on the morals of his fellow-citizens. The ostentatious visit which his infamous friend Galeazzo Sforza paid him in 1471, with a court sadly celebrated for its corruption and profligacy, is lamented by historians as one of the greatest disasters that befel the republic. Lorenzo went soon afterwards on a deputation to Rome, for the purpose of congratulating Sixtus IV. on his elevation to the papal chair. He met with the kindest reception ; was made treasurer of the Holy See, and honoured with other favours ; but he could not obtain a cardinal's hat for his brother Giuliano. Accustomed to have his wishes readily gratified, he could not brook the refusal, and he sought his revenge in constantly thwarting the Pope in his politics, whether they tended to the advancement of his ne- phews, or to the liberty and independence of Italy. A disagreement, which arose in 1472, between the city of Volterra and the republic of Florence, afforded another instance of the peremptoriness of his cha- racter. He, at first, made some endeavours to con- vince the inhabitants of Volterra of their imprudence ; but finding that the exasperated citizens rejected his advice, he prevailed on the Florentine government to repress them by force, though his uncle Tomaso So- derini and other statesmen of more experience strongly recommended conciliatory measures. An army was F 2 76 LORENZO DE MEDICI. accordingly sent under the command of the Count of Urbino, which, after obtaining admission into the unfortunate city by capitulation, despoiled and plun- dered its inhabitants for a whole day. Though, on his first succeeding to his father, Lo- renzo did not attempt to exercise the sovereign au- thority in person, he assumed it by degrees, in pro- portion as he advanced in manhood ; and he even became so jealous of all those from whom any rivalry might be feared, that he depressed them to the utmost of his power. His brother, less ambitious and less arrogant than himself, tried to stop him in his tyran- nical career ; but Giuliano was five years younger : his representations had no effect ; and these vexatious proceedings gave origin to the conspiracy of the Pazzi. The parties engaged in this famous attempt were se- veral members of the distinguished family of the Pazzi, whom Lorenzo had injured in their interests as well as in their feelings ; Girolamo Riario, a ne- phew of the Pope, whose hatred he had excited by continual opposition to his designs ; Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, whom he had prevented from taking possession of his see ; and several other indi- viduals of inferior note, who were either moved by private or public wrongs. After vain endeavours to seize the two brothers together, the conspirators re- solved to execute their enterprise in the cathedral of Florence, on the 26th of April, 1478, in the course of a religious ceremony at which they were both to be present. At the moment that the priest raised the Host, and all the congregation bowed down their heads, Giuliano fell under the dagger of Bernardo Bandini, whilst Lorenzo was so fortunate as to escape, and shut himself up in the sacristy until his friends came to his assistance. A simultaneous attack on the palace of government failed of success, and the Archbishop Salviati, who had directed it, was hung out of the LORENZO DE MEDICI. 17 palace windows in his prelatical robes. All those who were implicated in the conspiracy, or connected in any way with the conspirators, were immediately put to death. Lorenzo exerted all his influence to obtain those who had taken refuge abroad ; and his wrath was not appeased until the blood of two hundred ci- tizens was shed. The Pope pronounced a sentence of excommunication against him and the chief magis- trates for having hanged an archbishop ; and sent a crusade of almost all Italy against the republic, re- quiring that its leaders should be given up to suffer for their scandalous misdemeanor. The superior forces of the enemy ravaged the Florentine territory with impunity : the people began to murmur against a war in which they were involved for the sake of an individual ; and Lorenzo could not but see that his situation became every day more critical and alarming. But having been confidently apprised that Ferdinand was disposed to a reconciliation with him, he took the resolution of going to Naples, as ambassador of the republic, in the hope of detaching the King from the league, and of inducing him to negotiate a peace with the Pope. Through his eloquence and his gold, he was successful in his mission ; and after three months' absence, at the beginning of March, 1480, he re- turned to Florence, where he was received with the greatest applause and exultation by the populace, to whom the dangers incurred by him in his embassy had been artfully exaggerated. This ebullition of popular favour encouraged Lo- renzo to complete the consolidation of his power by fresh encroachments on the rights of his countrymen. In 1481 another plot was formed against him; but his watchful agents discovered it, and Battista Fres- cobaldi, with two of his accomplices, were hanged. Tranquil and secure at home, as well as peaceful and respected abroad, he now diverted his mind from 78 LORENZO DE MEDICI. public business to literary leisure, and spent his time in the society of men of talent, in philosophical stu- dies, and in poetical composition. But his rational enjoyments had a short duration. Early in 1492 he was attacked by a slow fever, which, combined with his hereditary complaints, warned him of his ap- proaching end. Having sent to request the attend- ance of the famous Savonarola, to whom he was de- sirous of making his confession, the austere Dominican readily complied with his wish, but declared he could not absolve him unless he restored to his fellow- citizens the rights of which he had despoiled them. To such a reparation Lorenzo would not consent; and he died without obtaining the absolution he had invoked. Piero, the eldest of his three sons, was de- prived of the sovereignty in consequence of the re- action that the eloquent sermons of Savonarola pro- duced in the morals of Florence. Giovanni, whom Innocent VIII., by a prostitution of ecclesiastical honours unprecedented in the annals of the church, had raised to the Cardinalship at the early age of thirteen, became Pope under the name of Leo X., and gave rise to the Reformation by his extreme pro- fligacy and extravagance; and Giuliano, who after- wards allied himself by marriage to the royal House of France, was elevated to the dignity of Duke of Nemours. Lorenzo de Medici has been extolled with immo- derate applause as a poet, a patron of learning, and a statesman. His voluminous poetical compositions, embracing subjects of love, rural life, philosophy, religious enthusiasm, and coarse licentiousness, ex- hibit an uncommon versatility of genius, a rich ima- gination, and a remarkable purity of language ; but in spite of the exaggerated eulogies lavished on them by his own flatterers and by those of his dependants, they never obtained any popularity, and are now LORENZO DE MEDICI. 79 nearly buried in oblivion. His efforts for the dif- fusion of knowledge and taste shine more conspicuous : in this laudable course he followed the traces of Cosmo and of his father. It is, however, impossible to con- ceive any strong reverence or respect for his memory without forgetting his political conduct, which is far from deserving any praise. 80 THE name of Bramante derives a marked distinction from its intimate connexion with the history of the famous church of St. Peter at Rome, and is farther interesting in its association with the names of Mi- chael Angelo, of Raphael, and of the pontiff Julius 1 1. Bramante is justly noted among the cinquecento ar- chitects, as a powerful co-operator in the great work of restoring, under certain modifications, the style of ancient Rome. The leader of this reformation is universally acknowledged to have heen Brunelleschi ; while Palladio is honoured as having effected its final and permanent establishment. Brunelleschi had evinced his daring and his taste in projecting the vast dome of Florence cathedral, the character of which, however, exhibited only a slight advance towards the regular architecture of antiquity; and it remained BRAMANTE. 81 for a successor to emulate at once the majestic eleva- tion of the Florentine cupola, and the more classic beauty of the Roman Pantheon. Brunelleschi died in 1444, a circumstance which we mention as giving additional interest to the fact, that, in 1444, Bramante was born. The family of the latter, his birth-place, and even his name, are matters of some obscurity; but there is reason to be- lieve that his parentage was humble, and that he was born in the territory of Urbino. Whether at Urbino, the capital of the Duchy, or at Castel Durante, at Fermignano, or at Monte Asdrubale, there are no means of deciding, unless we admit as evidence in favour of the latter place an existing medal in the Museo Mazzachelliano, whereon are inscribed the words " Bramantes Asdruvaldinus." He is variously called Bramante Lazzari, Lazzaro Bramante, and is spoken of as " Donato di Urbino, cognominato Bra- mante." He seems to have evinced, at an early age, a general feeling for poetry and art ; and is said to have first studied painting assisted by the works of Fra. Barto- lomeo Corradini. During a sojourn at Milan he ob- tained the friendship of the poet Gaspero Visconti, and in the capacity of a sonnetteer and improvisatore exhibited an unusual facility of composition. Of his abilities as a painter in distemper and fresco, examples are to be seen in that city, and at other places in the Milanese territory. On his subsequent removal to Rome, he was employed to execute some paintings (which no longer exist) in the church of S. Giovanni Later an o. Architecture, however, soon claimed Bramante as more particularly her own, and he manifested a zeal- ous ardour in the study of classic examples. It does not appear that he published any volumes on the subject, but we are credibly informed that he indus- F3 82 BRAMANTE. triously measured the ancient remains of Rome, and of Adrian's villa at Tivoli. The Cardinal Caraffa was among the first to form an estimate of his merits, and commissioned him to re- build the cloisters of the Monastery della Pace at Rome. He also superintended the execution of the Trastevere Fountain for Pope Alexander VI., and erected great part of the palace della Cancellaria. The church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, and the circular chapel in the cloister of S. Pietro in Montorio (where St. Peter is said to have been crucified) are also of Bramante's architecture ; nor should we omit to men- tion him as the designer of the palace in the Piazza di Scossacavalli, which for some time belonged to the English crown, and was presented by Henry VIII. to the Campeggi. Bramante's designs for other palaces and churches were numerous. Several buildings in Milan are attributed to him, as well as an imperial palace for the Duke of Urbino (never finished), and the church dell' Incoronata at Lodi. The established fame of Bramante now recom- mended him to Pope Julius II., who had formed the idea of uniting the old Vatican palace with the Belve- [Great .uiche of the Belvedere.] BRAMANTE. 83 dere by means of a magnificent court, an engraving of which, as it was first executed by Bramante, is to be seen in the public library erected by the Corsini princes. The division of the court by the Vatican library, subsequently erected by Sixtus V., and other additions and alterations, have utterly destroyed the effect of Bramante's design, though the principal ar- chitectural features still remain. Among these, in a lofty central pile of building, is a vast semicircular headed niche, the archivolt of which springs from the cornices of two lofty winged compartments, appearing, it must be confessed, more like the section of an in- terior, than an external elevation. It is as if the op- posite walls in the length of a cathedral choir were taken away, the grand altar recess being alone suffered to remain ; and it may be regarded as a very curious instance of a passion for the spherical vault, which thus prompted Bramante to turn it, as it were, inside out j and to take from the cellae of the temples of Peace and of Venus, at Rome, the idea of the gar- den alcove. Bramante was now high in favour with Julius II.; and, having invented an ingenious machine for stamp- ing the leaden seals attached to the papal bulls, was rewarded with the office " del Piombo." He attended the Pope to Bologna, when that city was united to the states pontifical in 1504, and served his Holiness in the capacity of military engineer. Our account of Bramante now resolves itself into the history of St. Peter's Church, the antecedent pro- gress of which may be thus briefly stated : St. Peter being buried within the site of Nero's Circus, Constantiue erected (A. D. 324) a magnificent church over the apostle's remains. During the lapse of eleven centuries, it fell into decay, and in the ponti- ficate of Nicholas V. (1450) a new building was commenced from designs by Alberti. On the death 84 BRAMANTE. of Nicholas, the works were discontinued till Paul II. caused them again to proceed : but it must be under- stood that the structure then in course of erection was in a great measure mixed up with Constantine's church, many remaining parts of which were to be incorporated in the new building. The ascent of Julius II. to the papal throne was at that period, when the revived taste for classical ar- chitecture suddenly pervaded Italy, and left him as- sured of general support in his boldly formed resolu- tion of demolishing the old building with all its sub- sequent amendments, and of erecting an entirely new structure, that should stand paramount in the modern world for vastness and splendour. It has been said, that the idea of the new church originated in a sug- gestion by San Gallo, that the gorgeous sepulchral monument which Julius, in honour of himself, had commissioned Michael Angelo to execute, should be placed in a church of corresponding grandeur, pur- posely built to receive it. Be this as it may, the new St. Peter's was resolved on : designs were sent in by various architects, and several were submitted by Bra- mante, who proved, as might be expected, the suc- cessful competitor. His ideas were as colossal as the ambition of his patron : " I will raise," said the ar- chitect, " the Pantheon on the Temple of Peace !" Bramante's plan was a Latin cross. The area of intersection was to be surrounded with massive piers, having columns between as in the Pantheon ; and the noble dome of the latter edifice, in the august no- velty of its exalted position, was to be freely imitated. A medal struck in honour of Bramante shows the facade of his design, having two campaniles, or towers, flanking a central compartment. In examining the practicability of his plans, he failed not to inspect the quarries of Tivoli, and was confirmed by the disco- very that they would yield him blocks of nine feet in BRAMANTE. 85 diameter. Into the pecuniary means of construction he did not however so closely examine. The contri- butions of a world would have been necessary to the full realization of his plans, which were considerably reduced by succeeding architects. The first stone of the new edifice was laid on the 18th of April, 1506; and the works proceeded with a rapidity more pleasing perhaps to the impatient spirit of Julius, than beneficial to the stability of so vast an edifice. Either to this haste on the part of the pontiff, or to a want of constructive care on his own part, must be attributed the failures which oc- curred to several of Bramante's buildings ; and it is said, that, in the fear of Michael Angelo's superior scrutiny, he industriously sought to compass the re- moval of that great artist from Rome. f His jealousy had been excited by the high admira- tion with which Julius regarded Michael Angelo's talent ; and he strove to arrest the progress of the intended monument, by stimulating in the pope a superstitious dread of constructing his own tomb. He was, perhaps, not more envious of Michael An- gelo as a rival, than of the art of sculpture as com- pared with his own ; and it may have been with the view of diverting the pope's mind from the engrossing subject of the tomb, that he suggested that Michael Angelo should be employed in painting the vault of the Sistine Chapel. Julius, adopting the suggestion, ordered Bramante to construct a scaffold for the painter's purpose ; but it was no sooner done than Michael Angelo rejected it as totally unfit, and in- vented one himself. If the opposition of these cele- brated men had been hitherto restrained within bounds, it now assumed a more decided character of hostility. Half the painting of the chapel being completed, Bramante was desirous that Raphael, then rising into eminence, should finish the half remain.- 86 BRAMANTE. ing ; expecting, no doubt, that the latter, being more exclusively a painter, would exhibit a superiority over one who had chiefly practised as a sculptor. At this, the indignation of Michael Angelo was naturally fired, and he arraigned at once, in the presence of the pope, not only the architectural defects of Bramante's buildings, but likewise the moral faults of his charac- ter. At a former period, however, he had paid full tribute to his rival's exalted taste, saying, in his letter to a friend, "It cannot [be denied that Bramante is superior in architecture to all others since the time of the ancients." Among the more pleasing passages of Bramante's life is that which relates to his friendship for the inimitable Raphael, who was his fellow-countryman, and, as it is reported, his relation. Certain it is that Raphael was his pupil in architecture, and that he entertained an affectionate regard for his master, whose portrait he introduced into his celebrated pic- ture of the " School of Athens," where Bramante is represented as describing with his compasses a geo- metrical figure to several youths who surround him. Bramante died in 1514, one year after his patron Julius II., and eight years after the commencement of the new St. Peter's. At this period the great arches over the central piers were turned, and the principal chapel opposite the entrance erected. Sub- sequent additions, however, to his portion of the building, and material deviations from his original design, have left us to regard the church in its com- plete state as deriving little else than its general idea from the genius of its first architect. His remains were deposited in it with great pomp, being attended by the papal court, and the leading professors of art. He is described as lively and agreeable in manner, and, notwithstanding his quarrels with Michael An- gelo, of a liberal and generous disposition. He seems BRAMANTE. 87 rather to have been distinguished by a bold and fer- tile fancy, than by any great attainments in the me- chanical department of his profession; and to form a just estimate of his designs, they should be considered with reference to the progressive state of architectural taste, and cautiously adopted as examples for imita- tion. The best authorities to be consulted on this subject are Vasari, Tiraboschi, Milizia, and Condivi. S8 GONZALES XIMENES DE CISNEROS, Primate and Re- gent of Spain, was born at Tordelaguna, in Castile, in 1437. He was descended of an ancient family, long settled at Cisneros, in the kingdom of Leon, and was baptized Gonzales after an ancestor, who was one of the most renowned knights of his day : the name of Francis, by which he is commonly known, he as- sumed in after-life, in honour of the saint whose mo- nastic rule he embraced. But though he was of honourable descent, neither rank nor wealth were stepping-stones to his preferment. His father sup- ported a large family upon the income of his humble office of collector of tenths, payable to the king by the clergy : but his own studious disposition, and the facilities then afforded by the universities to poor scholars, raised him out of the obscurity in which his lot appeared to be cast. At the schools of Alcala, and at the University of Salamanca, he studied phi- losophy, theology, canon and civil law ; and his pro- ficiency soon enabled him to support himself, by teaching others. Having completed his education, he undertook a journey to Rome, hoping there to find XIMKNES. 89 a readier field for the exercise of his talents than at home. Poor and friendless, he maintained himself by pleading in the Spanish causes which came before the Court of the Consistory ; and he was already rising into eminence, when, hearing of his father's death, and the distress of his family, he abandoned his flat- tering prospects and returned to Spain. It appears that he had taken holy orders during his abode at Rome, for before his departure Sixtus IV. bestowed on him a reversionary grant of the first benefice which should fall vacant. This proved to be Uceda; and he immediately produced his letters and took possession. The Archbishop of Toledo, who had already promised the living, was highly offended at this exercise of what in truth was a most objectionable prerogative of the Holy See. He not only dispossessed, but imprisoned for six years, Ximenes, who remained firm in the assertion of his rights. At the end of that time the prelate yielded. Ximenes soon exchanged Uceda for a chaplaincy in the cathedral of Siguenza. Here he applied himself to the pursuit of theology, and laid the foundation of that Hebrew and Chaldaic learning which bore such noble fruit in after-life. He gained the warm friend- ship of his bishop, the Cardinal Mendoza, who, in 1483, appointed him grand vicar of the diocese. In that office he distinguished himself by integrity and talents for business, as he had before by piety and learning. And the fairest prospect of advancement was open to him, when all at once he resolved to cpuit the world, and to devote himself wholly to religious meditation. He embraced the strictest rule of the Franciscan order, with a zeal to which the general example of his brethren gave no countenance. He retired to the secluded monasteries of Castagnar and Salceda, and in the forests which surrounded them, devoted him- 90 XIMENES. self wholly to prayer, the study of the Scriptures, and the mortification of the flesh. He thus gained the reputation of uncommon sanctity, and there seems to be no reason to think that his asceticism was defiled by any trace of hypocrisy. But his friend the Car- dinal saw that he was fitted for still better things, and regretting his departure from active life, expressed a belief that he would ultimately be raised to much higher dignity, to the great advantage of the Church. And, in truth, the Cardinal, who had been raised from the see of Siguenza to the primacy of Spain, the Archbishopric of Toledo, did much to fulfil his own prediction. He introduced Ximenes to the Queen Isabella, who was then in want of a confessor, and she readily listened to his recommendation, and ap- pointed Ximenes to the vacant office. He would fain have declined it, urging that he had been called to the cloister from active life to attend to his own salvation ; that what was demanded would withdraw him from his proper vocation ; and that a sovereign above all persons needed a religious guide, not only of good intentions, but of experience and wisdom. The Queen smiled as she assured him, that if he had formerly been directed to solitude, he was now summoned to court, and that if he would take charge of her con- science, she would be answerable for having chosen him to do so. And he consented, on condition that he should be required to attend her only when called by the duties of his office. This was in 1492. The austerity of his life and the wildness of his aspect caused him, when he appeared, to be compared by the gay frequenters of the court to an old Egyptian hermit come out from the desert. Moved by the hope of advancing the temporal in- terests of their order, his monastic brethren now ap- pointed him their provincial. They widely mistook his character. He accepted the proffered dignity, XIMENE3. 91 moved chiefly by the hope that it would furnish him with an excuse for more frequent absence from court ; and he employed his power in striving to reform the corruptions which abundant wealth had introduced among them. His own life was in strict adherence to the self-denial which he recommended to others. In his visitations he travelled on foot from convent to convent, accompanied by one brother, Francis Ruyz, whom he had selected for his constant companion, as uniting the qualifications of a lively temper and sound health, with learning, modesty, and trustworthiness. For their sustenance they depended upon alms, and in the trade of begging Ximenes was very unsuccess- ful. Ruyz used to remonstrate on the misapplication of his talents. " Your Reverence will let us die of hunger ; you were not meant for this profession. God gives each of us his talents : do you pray for me, and I will beg for you. Your Reverence may be made to give, but certainly not to ask." Visiting Gibraltar in one of these tours, he was strongly possessed by the desire of going to preach the gospel in Africa. On this subject he consulted a female devotee, who had the reputation of enjoying divine revelations in visions, and was dissuaded by her from prosecuting the scheme. The Primate Mendoza died at the end of 1494. In their last interview, he urged his sovereign not to en- trust the vast revenues of his see to any one connected with the highest nobility, esteeming its power to be even dangerous to the crown, when knit by family ties to great feudal influence. Isabella listened to his advice, and after much hesitation pitched on Ximenes to be his successor. Aware of his feelings, she kept her intentions secret until letters confirmatory of the appointment arrived from the Pope. These without preface she put into his hands. Reading the address, " To our Venerable brother Ximenes, Archbishop 92 XIMENES. elect of Toledo," " Madam," Tie said, " these letters are not for me ;" and he rose abruptly and quitted the royal presence. Six months elapsed before he was induced to accept the proffered dignity, in virtue of a direct injunction from the Pope. He was conse- crated October 11, 1495. Rank and wealth made no difference in the man- ners of the ascetic monk. He continued to live upon the coarsest fare, to wear the humble dress of his order, to sleep on the ground, or on a bed as hard, and to travel on an ass, or on foot. And Pope Alexander VI. thought it necessary to send a letter to him, with the very unusual exhortation to cultivate the pomps and vanities of the world a little more, for the sake of the church of which he was so exalted a member. Ximenes obeyed, and probably became convinced of the propriety of the counsel, as he became more en- gaged in civil government. He assumed even a more gorgeous state than his predecessors, but he still prac- tised his usual self-denial in private; he slept and fared as hardly as before, and wore a haircloth under his episcopal robes. He was exemplary in the dis- charge of his public duties ; liberal even to an ex- treme in relieving the daily necessities of the poor, and in contributing to charitable, useful, and religious undertakings ; diligent in promoting the welfare of the people to the full extent of his almost regal power, by repressing extortion and peculation, whether in courts of law, or the collection of the revenue, by providing for the due administration of justice, ecclesiastical and civil, and by exercising a strict superintendence over the conduct of the parochial clergy. To the cry of the wretched his ears were always open ; he hated oppression ; and if an injured vassal complained against the highest noble in the land, he was ready to grant justice, if the matter lay within his jurisdiction, or, if not, to carry the complaint before the Queen. XIMENES. 93 And his zeal and energy carried to a happy conclusion the arduous undertaking of reforming the Franciscan brotherhood, upon which he succeeded in enforcing a new system of regulations in 1499, after a most obsti- nate resistance. We may here mention with unmixed praise one of the Archbishop's charitable undertakings. It was an institution for the education of the daughters of indi- gent nobles, on such principles, according to the words of our authority, as should train them to the fit dis- charge of their duties towards their families and to- wards society. A fund, afterwards increased by the Spanish monarchs, was set apart to provide them with marriage portions. We may here trace the original of the celebrated establishment of St. Cyr. His principal work was the establishment of a uni- versity at Alcala, where he himself received his early education. The foundation-stone was laid by himself in 1498 ; the buildings were completed, and the first course of lectures given, in 1 508. For a model he took the university of Paris ; he endowed it richly, and collected men distinguished for their learning from all parts of Europe, to fill the professorial chairs. Here he undertook the great work of publishing the first Polyglot Bible, the Complutensian, as it is called, from the Latin name of Alcala, where it was printed, which will exist for ages as a noble specimen of the Archbishop's piety, munificence, and zeal for learning. The four first volumes contain the Old Testament in the Hebrew the Septuagint version, with a Latin translation the Vulgate, as corrected by St. Jerome and the Chaldee Paraphrase, with a Latin transla- tion. The fifth and sixth volumes contain the Greek Testament and the Vulgate. The printing of this great undertaking commenced in 1502, and was not completed till 1517, shortly before the death of Xi- menes, who, when the last volume was brought to 94 XIMENES. him, is reported by his earliest biographer, after an ejaculation of pious thanksgiving, to have addressed the bystanders in these words: "Many high and difficult undertakings I have carried on in the service of the State, yet, my friends, there is nothing for which I more deserve congratulation than for this edition of the Scriptures, which lays open, in a time of much need, the fountain-head of our holy religion, whence may be drawn a far purer strain of theology than from the streams which have been turned off from it." But owing to a hesitation at the Court of Rome, how far the criticism of the Scriptures should be encouraged, the Bible was not given to the world till 1522. Only about 600 copies were printed. The price fixed on it was six and a half ducats. The epistle dedicatory to Leo X. is by Ximenes himself; the preface, according to Dr. Dibdin, is by another hand. The most learned Hebrew and Greek scholars who could be procured were employed in the collation of manuscripts ; and it may be noted that for seven Hebrew MSS. the sum of 4000 golden crowns was paid. These with other treasures of learning, which were deposited with the University of Alcala, about the middle of the last century, were sold to a firework- maker as lumber. The whole cost of the work, which was defrayed by Ximenes, is said to have exceeded 50,000 gold crowns. In 1498 the Archbishop was summoned to Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, to deliberate on the means to be used for the conversion of the Moors. Inflamed by zeal, he had recourse to means which show the wisdom of the serpent more than the simplicity of the dove. He began with the priests and doctors of the law, and strove by kindness and attention, mixed with religious discussion, to dispose them to adopt the Christian faith. The priests led over the people in such flocks, that, in one day, the anniversary of which XIMENES. 95 was observed as a festival, December 18, 1499, up- wards of 3000 persons were baptized by aspersion in Granada. That the Archbishop should have believed in the sincerity of these wholesale conversions is not credible ; he probably thought that a hypocritical worship of the true God was a less evil than sincere idolatry. The inquisition was charged with the su- perintendence of the souls of these nominal Christians, and the relapse from that faith which they never em- braced was punished according to the mercy of that irresponsible tribunal. The dread and indignation produced by these measures led to a revolt, which was quelled, however, under the guidance of the Archbishop. The same desire of making Christians any how appears in the measures adopted on this occasion. The inhabitants of the quarter in which the tumult broke out were declared guilty of high treason, and offered their choice of death or conversion. They embraced the latter ; and the other Granadans, to the number of 150,000, followed their example. But these severities drove the most resolute spirits to that last insurrection, related with so much interest in Washington living's ' Chronicles of Granada ;' which terminated in the expatriation of the remnant who abided in their national creed. But however unapos- tolic the Archbishop's mode of conversion may have been, his zeal and ability in instructing and rendering truly Christian those who submitted to the outward forms of the religion is said to have been admirable. His conduct towards the imhappy natives of the West Indies was less exceptionable. He did his ut- most not only for their conversion, but to protect them from the cruel exactions of the Spanish settlers. The excellent Isabella of Castile died November 26, 1504. According to the tenor of his beloved mis- tress's will, Ximenes steadily maintained the claim of 96 XIMENES. Ferdinand, her husband, to the regency of the king- dom during the minority of Charles V. After the death of the Archduke Philip, September 25, 1 506, he renewed his exertions to determine the Castilians in favour of Ferdinand's claim to the regency, in pre- ference to the Emperor Maximilian, Charles V.'s pa- ternal grandfather ; being satisfied that, notwith- standing the ancient jealousy between Castile and Arragon, the former would be better governed by a prince intimately acquainted with its circumstances and interests than by a stranger. Ferdinand, who was then engaged at Naples, owed his success in this matter to Ximenes ; and showed his gratitude by procuring for him the rank of Cardinal, with the title of Cardinal of Spain, together with the office of Grand Inquisitor. In his zeal for spreading the true faith, Ximenes had conceived a scheme for the conquest of the Holy Land, and indeed had nearly succeeded in effecting a league for that purpose between Ferdinand, Manuel of Portugal, and Henry VII. of England. But this hope being defeated, he was still anxious to employ the power of Spain against Mahometanism, and used his best endeavours to persuade Ferdinand to invade the coast of Barbary. The king's parsimony was not to be overcome, until Ximenes offered a loan sufficient to equip the proposed armament, and defray its ex- penses for two months ; and the capture of the town of Marsarquiver, in the autumn of 1505, was the im- mediate result. Here the Spanish arms remained stationary till 1509, when the Cardinal obtained per- mission to attempt the siege of Oran at his own ex- pense, on the sole condition, that if he succeeded, either the patrimony of the church expended in this secular undertaking was to be repaid, or the domain conquered was to be annexed to the see of Toledo. He assumed himself the supreme direction of the ex- XIMENES. 97 pedition, entrusting the command of the army to Peter Navarre, an able, turbulent, and ambitious soldier. Everything was unfavourable to the Car- dinal. The king was jealous of him ; Navarre im- patient of the subjection of the sword to the crozier ; and other officers, corrupt or hostile, and encouraged by the example of their superiors, stirred the soldiers to mutiny. But the decision of Ximenes compelled obedience, and the wisdom of his measures ensured success ; so that the surrender of Orari was the almost immediate result of his descent upon Africa. He would willingly have remained there to pursue his successes. But finding the disobedience of his lieu- tenant to be secretly encouraged by Ferdinand, he determined to return while he could do so with honour, leaving Navarre in the command of the troops. For himself or his see he reserved no part of the spoil. That which was not bestowed upon the soldiers, or consumed in the service, he set apart for the crown. Yet a fresh disagreement arose when the Cardinal, according to the compact, demanded payment of the advances made by the see ; and when Ferdinand at last was compelled to acquiesce, it was in the most ungracious and unbecoming manner. Ferdinand died January 23, 1516. On his death- bed he appointed Ximenes Regent of Castile during the minority of Charles V., with expressions indicative of no personal regard, but bearing strong testimony to his unbending justice, disinterestedness, and zeal for the public welfare. The Cardinal's conduct in this exalted station was consistent with the tenor of his past life ; he was a just ruler, but his authority was feared and respected rather than loved. If he had one passion unmortified, it was ambition : he ruled with a single eye to his young sovereign's interests ; but he evaded that sovereign's attempts to circum- scribe his powers with as much success as lie bore VOL. I. G 98 XIMENES. down the opposition of those turbulent nobles, who hoped, in the weakness of a minority, to find a fit opportunity for prosecuting their own aggrandizement, and committing with impunity acts of illegal violence. For when Charles V. sent some of his confidential Flemish ministers to be associates in the commission of regency, the Cardinal received them with respect, and granted them the external distinctions of office ; for the rest they were mere puppets in his hands. Of his internal policy, the chief scope was to elevate the regal power, and to depress that of the nobles, even by throwing a greater weight into the hands of the unprivileged classes : the same policy as had been pursued by the wisest princes of the age, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII. of England, and Louis XI. of France. The crown had been reduced to great poverty by lavish grants, extorted, in disturbed times, by the necessity of conciliating powerful noblemen, rather than granted by free-will, or out of real grati- tude for services ; and it was one of Ximenes' first objects to remedy this evil, even by means which showed none of that regard to vested interests, which belongs to times in which the course of law is regular and supreme, and consequently the rights of property are rigidly respected. Such pensions as had been granted in Ferdinand's reign he cut off at once, on the plea that the grantor could only have bestowed them for his own life. The crown lands alienated during the same period were resumed : even the Car- dinal's boldness did not venture to carry the inquiry farther back, from the apprehension of driving the whole body of the nobility into revolt. These changes, and other important measures, were not carried into effect without great discontent and considerable open resistance. But the Cardinal was strong, in the resources of his own powerful mind, in the general reverence of the people for the sanctity of XIMENES. 99 his character, in his exalted rank as head of the Spa- nish church, and in the immense revenues of his see, which gave him a command of money not enjoyed by the crown, and enabled him to keep in his own pay a considerable body of troops. With these he maintained order, and repressed feuds, which the barons, trusting to the common weakness of a regency, hastened to decide by the sword ; and set at defiance the enmity of the nobility at a later period, when more decided encroachments on the privileges of the order had produced a general spirit of discontent. On one occasion a deputation of the chief grandees of Castile required to be informed, under what title he pre- sumed to exercise such high authority. The Cardinal showed the will of Ferdinand, and its confirmation by Charles V., and finding them still unsatisfied, led them to a window, from which he pointed out a strong military force under arms. "These," he said, "are the powers which I have received from the king. With these I govern Castile; and with these I will govern it, until the king, your master and mine, takes possession of his kingdom." One of his schemes for strengthening the crown was the erection of a species of militia, composed of burghers of cities ; but that class was not sufficiently advanced in knowledge to appreciate the immense ac- cession of importance which would accrue from this measure, which they regarded solely as a burden. It was therefore unpopular among them, as well as un- palatable to the barons; and was entirely dropped soon after the regent's death. His foreign policy was nearly confined to the conduct of two wars : the one to maintain Navarre, which had been usurped by Ferdinand, against the legitimate monarch John d'Albret; the other, an expedition against the pirate Barbarossa, King of 100 'XIMENES. Algiers, who inflicted a signal and entire discomfiture on the invading army. In the administration of the kingdom Ximenes dis- played the same inflexible love of justice, and the same economy, integrity, and order, as in the manage- ment of his own diocese of Toledo ; and he Drought the finances into so flourishing a state, that after dis- charging the crown debts, and placing the military establishment in a more than commonly efficient state, he was enabled to remit large sums of money to the young king in Flanders. And he had something of a title to Charles's more immediate and personal grati- tude, for having used with success his own over- powering influence to obtain the recognition of that prince as king of Castile during the lifetime of his insane mother, against the usage of the realm, al- though he had remonstrated with earnestness against pressing the indecorous and unfilial claim. All these services however were thrown into the shade by one thing. Ximenes hated the Flemish ministers whom Charles sent into Spain, and who disgraced their high station, and corrupted the country by open and aban- doned venality. He never ceased to remonstrate against these abuses, and to importune Charles to visit his Spanish dominions ; and the Flemish fa- vourites saw that their own ruin was certain if the regent once gained an ascendance over the king's mind. They retarded therefore the departure of the latter as much as possible, and succeeded in pre- judicing him against his most sincere and judicious friend and servant. Convinced at last of the necessity for his presence, Charles set out for Spain, and landed in the province of Asturias, September 13, 1517. The Cardinal hastened towards the coast to meet him, but was stopped at Bos Equillos by a severe illness, which, as was very usual in past times, was imputed XIMENES. 101 to poison. He wrote to the king, entreating him to dismiss the train of foreigners by whom he was at- tended, and earnestly soliciting a personal interview, which, from the pressure of illness, he was unable himself to seek. This favour was not granted, and he was vexed and harassed by a series of petty slights. At the point of death he received a letter of dismissal, couched in civil but cold terms, permitting him to return to his diocese, and repose from his labours. Whether the Cardinal retained his faculties so as to be aware of this final mark of ingratitude is doubtful ;, but his end was assuredly hastened by mortification at the evil return made for his faithful service. He died a few hours after receiving the dismissal in question, November 8, 1517. Though austere in temper, Ximenes was not cruel, and in civil matters had great reluctance to the shed- ding of blood. Yet in eleven years, as Grand Inqui- sitor, he burnt at the stake 2500 persons, for the glory of God and the good of the sufferers' souls. Such miserable self-delusion in so great and good a man ought to teach humility, as well as to inspire abhorrence. Our sketch has necessarily been personal rather than historical : a fuller account of the public life of Ximenes will be found in Robertson's ' Charles V.,' as well as in the biographies of Flechier, Marsollier, and others. Barrett's ' Life of Ximenes' appears to be a compressed translation from the Life of Flechier. We conclude with the short and comprehensive praise of Leibnitz, who said, that "If great men could be bought, Spain would have cheaply purchased such a minister by the sacrifice of one of her kingdoms.'' 102 LION.DAVINCf. Two centuries elapsed from Cimabue to Lionardo da Vinci. The most distinguished artists in this inter- val were Giotto, who immediately followed Cimabue, and Masaccio, who immediately preceded Lionardo ; but, although we can trace a gradual improvement from the infancy of Tuscan art to the surprising works of Masaccio, in the Chiesa del Carmine, at Florence, (works which afterwards Raffaelle himself did not disdain to imitate,) the appearance of Lio- nardo may be justly considered the commencement of a new sera. Vasari, who composed his lives of the painters when the most excellent specimens of the art had been recently produced, emphatically calls the style of Giorgione, Titian, Correggio, and RafFaelle, " the modern manner," as opposed to that LIONARDO DA VINCI. 103 of Mantegna, Signorelli, and others, and still more to that of Lippi, Giovanni da Fiesole, and the earlier masters. Of this " modern manner," Lionardo da Vinci was the inventor. His chiaro-scuro is to be traced in the magic and force of Correggio and Giorgione ; his delicate and accurate delineation of character, and his sweetness of expression, re- appear in Raffaelle ; while, in anatomical know- ledge and energetic design, he is the precursor of Michael Angelo ; but we should look in vain for the teacher from whom he derived these excellences. The original genius, of which this affords so striking a proof, was apparent in every thing to which he ap- plied his mind ; and not only every art, but almost every science that was studied in his time, seems to have engaged his attention. He was conversant in chemistry, geometry, anatomy, botany, mechanics, astronomy, and optics ; and there is scarcely a sub- ject which he touched in which he did not, in more or less important points, anticipate the discoveries of later philosophers. With these astonishing powers of mind, he possessed great personal beauty and a captivating eloquence; the first musician of his time, and an accomplished improvisatore, he excelled be- sides in all manly exercises, and was possessed of uncommon strength. This extraordinary man was born at Vinci, a small burgh, or castle, of Val d'Arno di Sotto, in the year 1452. He was the son of one Piero, a notary of the Signoria of Florence. His father, who had at first intended to educate him for a mercantile life, having noticed his wonderful capa- city and his particular fondness for drawing, placed him with Andrea Verocchio, originally a sculptor, but who, with the versatility of his age, was occasionally a designer and painter. Vasari relates, that Verocchio being occupied on a picture of the Baptism of Christ, Lionardo was per- 104 LIONARDO DA VINCI. mitted to paint an accessory figure of an angel in the same work. Verocchio, perceiving that his own per- formance was manifestly surpassed by that of his young scholar, abandoned the art in despair, and never touched a pencil again. Although Lionardo thus excelled his master while a boy, and soon en- larged the boundaries of the art, it is justly observed by Lanzi that he retained traces of the manner and even general tastes of Verocchio all his life. Like his master, he studied geometry with ardour ; he was fonder of design than painting : in his choice of form, whether of face or limb, he preferred the elegant to the full. From Verocchio too he derived his fondness for drawing horses and composing battles, and from him imbibed the wish to advance his art by doing a few things well, rather than to multiply his works. Verocchio was an excellent sculptor; in proof of which the S. Tommaso at Or San Michele, in Flo- rence, and the equestrian statue before S. Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice, may be adduced. Lionardo mo- delled the three statues, cast in bronze by II Rustici, for S. Giovanni at Florence, and the colossal eques- trian statue of the first Francesco Sforza, (destroyed by the French before it was cast,) at Milan. To his knowledge of sculpture must be also greatly attri- buted that roundness and relief which he infused into many of his pictures, and which had hitherto been wanting in the art. To this period of Lionardo's life belong the Medusa's head, now in the Florence gallery ; the cartoon of Adam and Eve ; a Madonna, once in the Borghese palace in Rome, known by the accompaniment of a crystal vase of flowers ; a tri- umph of Neptune ; and other works mentioned by Vasari. Some of the feebler pictures ascribed to him in Rome and Florence may also belong to this time. His genius for mechanics had already manifested itself: he invented machines for sinking wells, and LIONARDO DA VINCI. 105 lifting and drawing weights ; proposed methods for boring mountains, cleansing ports, and digging ca- nals. His architectural schemes too were numerous and daring : with the boldness of an Archimedes, he offered to lift the Baptistry, or church of S. Giovanni, in the air, and build under it the basement and steps which were wanting to complete the design. It does not appear that his fellow-citizens availed themselves of these powers in any memorable work ; but his plan for rendering the Arno navigable seems to have been adopted two centuries afterwards by Viviani. Lionardo remained at Florence till about the age of thirty, after which we find him at Milan, in the service of Lodovico Sforza, known by the name of Lodovico il Moro. The artist's residence at the court of this prince, from 1482 to 1499*, may be con- sidered the most active and the most glorious period of his life. Lodovico il Moro, whatever may have been his character as a potentate and as a man, cer- tainly gave great encouragement to literature and the arts, and the universal genius of Lionardo was in all respects calculated for the restless enterprise of the time. A letter is preserved, addressed by him to Lo- dovico Sforza, in answer to that prince's first invita- tion, (and it is sufficient to disprove Vasari's story, that the artist recommended himself by his perform- ance on the lute,) in which he gives a list of such of his qualifications as might be serviceable to the Duke. After an account of new inventions in mining operations and gunnery, with a description of bridges, scaling-ladders, and " infinite things for offence," in the tenth and last item, he professes competent knowledge of architecture and hydrostatics, confident that he " can give equal satisfaction in time of peace;" * The erroneous dates of Vasari have been corrected in this particular by Amoretti. 106 LIONARDO DA VINCI. and adds, " I will also execute works of sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay ; in painting too I will do what is possible to be done, as well as any other man, whoever he may be." All his powers were put in requisition by the Duke of Milan. The warlike ha- bits of the sovereigns of Italy at this time rendered the science and services of the engineer particularly useful, and Lionardo was constantly inventing arms and machinery for attack and defence. He was en- gaged in the architecture of the cathedral ; he super- intended all the pageants and masques, then so com- monly conducted with splendour and taste in the Italian courts, and in some of which his knowledge of mechanics produced almost magical effects ; he improved the neighbourhood of the Ticino by canals and irrigation, and attempted to render the Adda navigable between Brivio and Trezzo. The colossal equestrian statue before mentioned occupied him, at intervals, for many years ; want of means alone, it seems, prevented the Duke from commissioning him to cast it in bronze. The model existed till the invasion of Milan by Louis XII., in 1499, when it was broken to pieces by his Gascons. As the founder of the Milanese Academy, the first, in all probability, established in Italy, Lionardo com- posed his Treatise on Painting; which Annibale Carracci declared would have saved him twenty years of study had he known it in his youth. This work was first published in Paris, in 1651, by Raffaelle Dufresne, and was illustrated with engravings from drawings by N. Poussin, with some additions by Errard. The drawings of Poussin were in a MS. copy, which belonged to the Cavaliere del Pozzo. To this last object were directed the studies of Lio- nardo in optics, perspective, anatomy, libration, and proportion. In this active period of his life also were composed the numerous MS. books, explained by LIONARDO DA VINCI. 107 designs, -which appear to have comprised specimens of the whole range of his vast knowledge. Thirteen of these books became the property of the Melzi family of Milan, on the death of Lionardo. The his- tory and vicissitudes of these interesting works cannot now be accurately traced. The documents and ob- servations of Dufresne, Mariette, and others, have been collected by Rogers, in his " Imitations of Drawings by the Old Masters." Six or seven books, which cannot be accounted for after having been collected by one Pompeo Leoni, are supposed to have become the property of Philip II. of Spain. Some of the remaining volumes, augmented by less volu- minous MSS. of Lionardo, were presented to the Ambrosian Library by Galeazzo Arconato. The in- scription which records this donation, in 1637, states, that Arconato had been offered 3000 pistoles of gold by a king of England, (probably Charles I., and not James I., as Addison, Wright, and latterly Amoretti, suppose,) but which he, Arconato, " regio animo," had refused. Another volume was presented to the Ambrosian Library by its founder, the Cardinal Bor- romeo ; and Amoretti states, that another, containing drawings relating to hydrostatics, was sold " al Signer Smith, Inglese." The whole of the MSS. of Lio- nardo, preserved in the Ambrosian Library, were taken from Milan to Paris, in 1796. A large folio volume of Lionardo's Drawings, collected by the above-mentioned Pompeo Leoni, is in this country, in His Majesty's collection. On its cover is in- scribed, " Disegni di Liouardo da Vinci, restaurati da Pompeo Leoni :" it contains 779 drawings, va- rious in subject and execution; the most remarkable are, perhaps, some accurate anatomical drawings. The whole are illustrated, like the contents of his other books, by notes written with his left hand, which can only be read through a glass. This vo- 103 L10NARDO DA VINCI. lume was discovered at the bottom of a large chest, about sixty years ago, by Mr. Dalton, the librarian of George III.; and in the same chest were Holbein's drawings of the principal personages of the court of Henry VIII. It is supposed they were placed there for security by Charles I., who retained a sincere love for the arts even in his misfortunes. Leonardo's works in painting during his residence in Milan were by no means numerous, owing to the quantity and variety of his occupations. The portraits of Cecilia Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli, done in the earlier part of this period, received unbounded praises from the poets of the day. A picture of the Virgin and Child, St. John, and St. Michael, now in the pos- session of the Sanvitali family of Parma, is dated 1492. The portraits of Lodovico Sforza, his wife and family, were painted on the wall of the refectory in the Convent delle Grazie, where the Last Supper was afterwards painted. These portraits faded, owing to the damp of the wall, soon after they were done. Other works, in the same place, are mentioned by some writers as having been done on canvass, but they all perished from the same cause. A colossal Ma- donna, painted on a wall at the villa of Vaprio, be- longing to the Melzi family, still exists, but it was much injured during the last occupation of Milan by the French. The paintings on the walls of the castle of Milan were destroyed by invaders of the same nation in 1499. Various portraits, and a half figure of St. John, are preserved in the Ambrosian Library. In 1496, Lionardo began his greatest work, the Last Supper, in the refectory of the Convent delle Grazie : it was painted on the wall in oil, to which circumstance Lanzi, and others who have followed him, attribute its premature decay. But had it been in fresco, it would probably have suffered as much, since that part of Milan, where the convent stands, LIONARDO DA VINCI. 109 has frequently been subject to inundations; and so late as 1 800, the floor, or rather ground, of the refec- tory, was several feet under water for a considerable time. The walls have thus been never free from damp : fifty years only after the picture was painted, Armenini describes it as half decayed. Vasari found it indistinct and faded. Later writers speak of it as a ruined work; and in 1632, the friars of the convent showed how worthless it was considered,, by cutting a door through the wall, and thus destroyed the lower extremities of some of the figures. In 1726, a painter, named Bellotti, was unfortunately commissioned to restore it, and it appears that he almost covered the work of Lionardo with his own. The dampness, however, soon reduced the whole to its former faded state; and the next restorer, one Mazza, in 1770, actually scraped the wall (from which the original colour was chipping) to have a smooth surface to paint on, and even passed a coat of colour over the figures before he began his operations. Three heads were saved from his re-touchings ; but it must be evi- dent that very little of the original work can be visible in any part. Bonaparte ordered that the place should not be put to military uses ; but his commands were not attended to in his absence, and the refectory was long used as a stable. The building, however, was finally repaired, and, as far as possible, secured from damp. Fortunately numerous copies were made from this painting soon after it was done, and one of the best, by Marco de Oggiono, or Uggione, a scholar of Lionardo, is in this country, in the Royal Academy, where is also preserved a cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, by Da Vinci himself. Uggione's copy, from which the print by Frey was taken, is nearly the size of the original ; it was, however, enlarged from a smaller copy, so that it cannot be considered very accurate. The head of the Christ is inferior even to VOL. I. H 110 LIONARDO DA VINCI. the ruins of Leonardo's work ; and it may here be observed, that when Vasari says this head was declared unfinished by the painter, the imperfection is to be understood in the same sense in which Virgil spoke of the incompleteness of the ^Eneid. Two series of original studies for the heads in this picture are in this country ; the greater part of one series is in the possession of Messrs. Woodburn. The print by Mor- ghen was done from drawings taken from the original painting. After the fall of Lodovico il Moro, in 1500, Lionardo returned to Florence, where he remained thirteen years, occasionally revisiting Milan. Among his first works done in Florence, at this time, Vasari names the above-mentioned cartoon of the Madonna and Child, St. Anne, and the Infant St. John, and a por- trait of Genevra Benci. At this period too he pro- duced the celebrated portrait of Mona, or Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. This was the labour of four years, and this too, Vasari says, was left at last imperfect. We may thus understand the meaning of the expression, as applied to the head of the Christ in the Last Supper. The portrait of Mona Lisa, now in the Louvre, is most highly wrought, although it by no means agrees with the absurd enco- miums of Vasari, who almost leads his reader to believe that the hair of the eyebrows arid pores of the skin are perceptible, whereas the execution resembles rather the broad softness of Correggio. His next work was the celebrated cartoon, of which the compo- sition known by the name of the Battle of the Standard was a part only. The subject was the. defeat of Nicolo Piccinino, the general of Filippo Maria Visconti, by the Florentines, near Anghiara, in Tus- cany, in the year 1440. This was to have been painted in the Council Hall, at Florence, in compe- tition with Michael Angelo, whose rival work was the LIONARDO DA VINCI. HI celebrated composition known by tbe name of the Cartoon of Pisa. Leonardo's attempt to paint in oil on the wall failed in this instance, even in the com] mencement, and the picture was never done. The large cartoon disappeared, but a drawing for a part of it was preserved, which was published in the Etruria Pittrice, and the same group was engraved by Ede- linck, from a copy, or rather free imitation, by Rubens. To this period belong also his own portrait in the Ducal Gallery, at Florence ; the half figure of a nun, in the Nicoliui Palace ; the Madonna, receiv- ing a lily from the infant Christ ; the Vertumnus and Pomona, miscalled Vanity and Modesty, in the Sciarra Palace at Rome; a Holy Family, now in Russia; the supposed portrait of Joan of Naples, in the Doria Palace ; and the Christ among the Doctors, formerly in the Aldobrandini Palace at Rome. His numerous imitators render, however, all decision as to the originality of some of these works doubtful ; and the last-mentioned picture, now in the National Gallery, has been thought, by more than one writer, to have been, at least in part, painted by his scholars. A portrait of the celebrated Captain Giangiacomo Triulzio, may have been painted in one of Leonardo's short visits to Milan. For a fuller list of his works, Amoretti, and the authors he quotes, may be re- ferred to. In 1514, after the defeat of the French at Novara, Lionardo, being then at Milan, left that city for Rome, passing through Florence. His stay in Rome was short. Pope Leo X. seems to have been prejudiced against him by the friends of Michael Angelo and Raphael, and was displeased at his dilatory, or rather desultory habits. From the notes of Lionardo himself, collected by Amoretti, it appears that, while in Rome, he improved the machinery for the coinage ; but the only certain painting of his done at this time is a LIONAEDO DA VINCI. 113 votive picture on the wall of a corridor in the Convent of S. Onofrio. Francis I., who succeeded Louis XII. in 1515, having reconquered the Milanese, Lionardo again re- paired to Milan, and once more superintended a pageant, in this instance intended to celebrate the triumph of the king after the victory of Marignano. Francis, having in vain attempted to remove the painting of the Last Supper from Milan to Paris, desired, at least, to have the painter near him. Lio- nardo accepted the invitation, and afterwards accom- panied his new patron to France. This being lit.tle more than two years before the death of Lionardo, and as he was occupied in planning canals in the department of the Cher et Loire, he painted nothing, although the king repeatedly invited him to execute his cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, which was after- wards painted by Luini. His usual residence in France was at Cloux, a royal villa near Amboise, in Touraine, where he died, May 2, 1519. The story of his having expired in the arms of Francis I., which, as Bossi observes, does more honour to the monarch than to the artist, appears to be without foundation. Francesco Melzi, who wrote an account of Leonardo's death from Amboise soon after it happened, not only does not mention the circumstance, but was the first, according to Lomazzo, to inform the king himself of the artist's decease; and Venturi has ascertained, that on the day of Lionardo's death the court was at St. Germain en Laye. He was buried in the church of St. Florent, at Amboise, but no memorial exists to mark the place ; and it is supposed that his monu- ment together with many others, was destroyed in the wars of the Hugonots. The accounts given of Lionardo da Vinci by Vasari, Lomazzo, and the older writers, were repeated by Dufresne, De Piles, Felibien, and others. The ] 14 LIONARDO DA VINCT. more recent and accurate researches of Amoretti, pre- fixed to Leonardo's Trattato della Pittura, in the thirty-third volume of the " Classici Italiani;" of Bossi, " Del Cenacolo di Lionardo da Vinci ;" and of Venturi, " Essai sur les Ouvrages Physico-Mathema- tiques de Leonard da Vinci, avec des Fragmens tires de ses manuscrits apportes de 1'Italie ;" may he con- sulted for further particulars respecting the life and works of this great man. 115 RAFFAELLO SANZIO, the greatest of painters, was born in 1483 at Urbino, where the house in which he passed the first years of his life is still preserved, con- secrated by a suitable inscription. His first teacher was his father, Giovanni Sanzio, a painter who, allowing for the technical imperfections of the time, was perhaps entitled to more praise than Vasari has awarded him : the evidence of the remaining works of this master has indeed led his recent biographer, Pungileoni, to conclude that he was in many essential points equal to the best of his contemporaries, and that his feeling for expression may have had no un- important influence on the genius he was destined to instruct. An interesting altar-piece by the elder Sanzio still exists at Urbino, in the church of S. Fran- cesco, representing the Madonna with St. Francis 116 RAPHAEL. and other saints : the members of the painter's family are introduced, and among them the infant Raphael kneels hy his mother's side. The silence of the historians of art as to the claims of Giovanni Sanzio is less surprising than their omit- ting to notice the importance of his city and province at the period in question. The duchy of Urbino, at the close of the fifteenth century, could boast, as Sis- mondi justly remarks, a population as warlike, and a court as lettered and polished as any in Italy. The hereditary dukes of the ancient family of Montefeltro ranked high among the captains of the age, and among the distinguished patrons of science. Federigo da Montefeltro, who died a few months before the birth of Raphael, had employed the talents of some of the best painters of Italy, and of other countries, to adorn his capital. Among the native artists, Fra Carnevale was one of the earliest who attempted perspective; and to him, or at least to his works, Bramante, as well as Raphael, may have been indebted for a know- ledge of the rudiments of architecture ; Pietro della Francesca, whose compositions on mathematics and geometry enriched the ducal library, was domiciliated with Giovanni Sanzio ; Lucian, a painter and archi- tect of Dalmatia, superintended for a time the building of the castle; but the most remarkable guest was Justus van Ghent, called by the Italians Giusto da Guanto ; a considerable work painted by him con- tained portraits of the Duke Federigo and his succes- sor Guid' Ubaldo, under whose auspices again the ta- lents of the celebrated Luca Signorelli were put in re- quisition. Pictures by most of these artists probably still exist at Urbino, and undoubtedly were seen and studied by Raphael in his early youth. Among the first reputed works of the great artist himself, which are preserved in his native city, may be mentioned a Madonna, originally painted on the wall in his father's RAPHAEL: 117 house, and a Holy Family on wood in the church of S. Andrea. It is difficult to fix with precision the time when Ra- phael first studied under Perugino ; but if, as Rumohr supposes, that painter only settled finally at Perugia about 1500, his distinguished scholar must have joined him at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and not some years earlier, as has been generally assumed. Even at this age it is sufficiently wonderful that the scholar should have been fitted to select the best qualities in his master's style, and indeed very soon to improve upon them. Besides the works which his native city contained, Raphael doubtless had had opportunities of seeing the productions of Andrea Luigi di Assisi, called Ingegno, of Niccolo di Fuligno, and other painters of the school of Umbria. Their robust style of colour, which was somewhat modified by Perugino and Pinturicchio, is occasionally to be traced in Raphael's early works. There was another quality which Perugino, in his best time, possessed in common with other painters of his province, and which may be said generally to charac- terize the school of Umbria. This was an intensity of expression in sacred subjects indicating a deep reli- gious feeling; and it is so striking in the best produc- tions of the artist last named, that it has been considered sufficient of itself to prove the orthodoxy of his creed, which Vasari had called in question. The impulse was probably derived from Assisi, where some of the earliest Italian masters had left specimens of their powers, and the source was the doctrine of St. Francis. The history and legends of this saint (who died in 1226), frequently exercised the pencil of the early Italians, even to the danger of causing Bible subjects to be neglected, from the time of Giotto to that of An- gelico da Fiesole ; but the chief influence on the school above mentioned is apparent rather in the treatment H3 118 RAPHAEL. than in the subject; it is to be recognised in a certain subdued earnestness of expression, allied to the severe tenets of the saint of Assisi, and exhibiting religion rather in its suffering than in its triumphant character. This tendency received an additional impulse from the works which Taddeo di Bartolo of Siena had left in Perugia and other parts of Umbria early in the fifteenth century. The painters most remarkable for the quality alluded to were Niccolo Alunno, called Niccolo di Fu- ligno, and Pietro Perugino ; but the same feeling had extended itself to Francia in Bologna. The taste of the Florentine painters on the other hand, with the single exception of Angelico daFiesole,had long taken another direction : their pictures of this time abound in portraits ; the saints and Madonnas of the school, those for instance of Domenico Ghirlandajo, seem to have been taken from common nature, and are seldom inspired with that sanctity of expression so frequent and so remarkable in the painters above named. In later times, the painters of the various Italian schools, who were supposed to copy nature with too little selec- tion, were called naturalisti, and, at the period alluded to, Florence may be considered comparatively the seat of this kind of imitation ; a tendency greatly owing, it appears, to the introduction of early Flemish pictures, in which portraits were frequent, and in which the back-ground and accessories were treated with an at- tention new to the Italian painters. Thus it cannot but be considered among the greatest of Raphael's advantages, that he had opportunities of studying in both the schools alluded to ; and in both, he of all men knew or felt what was fittest to be imi- tated. The depth and fervour of expression which he imbibed from the masters he first contemplated, and which he never relinquished, was improved and en- livened by the accurate study of the forms and varieties of nature to which the Florentines were devoted : again, RAPHAEL. 119 before Raphael arrived in Florence, Lionardo da Vinci had laid the foundation of that profound anatomical knowledge, the only true means of representing action, which was afterwards carried to its greatest results in the works of Michael Angelo. The celebrated Car- toons of both these great designers were the object of study and admiration in Florence at the time Raphael resided there, although they were not completed quite so soon as might be inferred from a passage in Vasari. The importance of considering and accounting for the earliest tendency of Raphael's feeling, will be apparent when we remember that it appeared in his later, and even in his latest works. The Dispute of the Sacra- ment, his altar-pieces, and even the Cartoons, are not Florentine in their taste, but are rather allied to the school from which he derived his first impressions. * From 1500, or perhaps a little earlier, to 1504-5, Raphael was employed at Perugia, or at Citta di Castello (a township midway between Perugia and Urbino) ; his works in the latter place must, how- ever, have been executed after he became a pupil of Perugino, as they clearly evince an imitation of that painter's manner. An altar-piece, originally in the church of S. Niccola diTolentino, at Citta di Castello, is now in the Vatican ; a Crucifixion from the church of S. Domenico, in the same place, is in the Fesch collection at Rome ; and the celebrated Marriage of the Virgin, from the church of S. Francesco, is at Milan. The last, which was copied almost without, alteration from a painting of Perugino, has the date 1504, and immediately precedes Raphael's first visit to Florence. The works done by Raphael in Perugia were much more numerous, to say nothing of his assistance in pictures which pass for Perugino's. Among his own may be mentioned an Assumption of the Virgin, now in the Vatican, as well as another picture of the same 120 RAPHAEL. subject begun by Raphael, but finished, not till after his death, by his scholars. The fresco, in the cloister of S. Severo, at Perugia, which resembles the upper part of the Disputa (to be hereafter mentioned), has the date 1505 ; the lower part was finished by Peru- gino when very old, after Raphael's death. The style of this fresco bespeaks an acquaintance with higher examples of art than Perugia contained; it was pro- bably done after a first visit to Florence. The inte- resting picture at Blenheim, mentioned by Vasari as having been painted for the chapel Degli Ansidei, in the church De' Servi at Perugia, has the date 1505 : it may be considered to be the last example of Ra- phael's imitation of Perugino, and to mark the transi- tion from that imitation to the Florentine manner. While Raphael was studying at Perugia, Pinturic- chio, a native of that place, and an assistant of Peru- gino, was employed to paint some subjects relating to the Life of Pius II., in the library, now the sacristy, of the Duomo at Siena. Vasari relates, not without contradicting himself in the separate lives of Raphael and Pinturicchio, that the latter availed himself of his young friend's skill in composition, in engaging him to design the whole series of subjects : he further adds, that Raphael accompanied Pinturicchio to Siena, but left him to proceed to Florence, in order to see the Cartoons of Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci. The works in the sacristy at Siena appear to have been done before the death of Pius III., in 1503 : at that time the Cartoons in question were not completed (M. Angelo's was not finished and publicly shown before 1506, Vinci's not much earlier) ; and as we have be- fore seen, Raphael was employed at Citta di Castello in 1504, probably before he had seen Florence at all. It is however certain that Raphael made some designs for Pinturicchio, since two small compositions, almost identical with the frescoes at Siena, and other separate RAPHAEL. 12L studies by his hand exist, although various reasons, too long to adduce here, render it extremely improba- ble that he was ever employed at Siena. The vast number of works which this great man executed in his very short life, make it sufficiently difficult to assign time enough for the production of those that are un- doubted. The amiable character, as well as the extraordinary talents of Raphael soon procured him the notice and admiration of the Florentine artists. Among his chief friends were Taddeo Gaddi (in return for whose hos- pitality he probably painted the Madonna del Gran Duca and the Madonna Tempi), Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and Fra Bartolommeo. It would be impossible here to give a list of the works which he executed during his residence in Florence from 1504-5 to 1508, when we find him in Rome. Some pictures were left un- finished at the time of his departure for that city, and were completed by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. A picture sent to Siena, by some supposed the Giardiniera, now at Paris, but more probably the Lanti Madonna, was among these, as well as the Madonna painted for the Dei family ; an accurate critic, Rumohr, even sup- poses that the celebrated entombment done for Peru- gia, which is now in the Borghese palace in Rome, was completed from Raphael's designs by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. The number of Madonnas, portraits, and altar-pieces produced in the three or four years of Raphael's residence in Florence, must of necessity lead to the conclusion that the repetitions of these works, which all pretend to originality, must have been done by his imitators. Again Vasari states, not without some probability, that Raphael visited his na- tive place, and painted several works there for the Duke Guid' Ubaldo, during the short time above mentioned : and Malvasia, in his account of the Bo- 122 RAPHAEL. lognese school, enumerates various works which were unknown even to Vasari. Meanwhile Raphael reaped all the improvement which the sight of the excellent works of art in Flo- rence was calculated to communicate. The inspection of the works of Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci enlarged his knowledge of form and his execution, while the inventions of the earlier Florentine masters were diligently examined and remembered ; yet it is here important to remark, that he never imitated even the highest examples alluded to, as he had imitated the first models from which he studied. This is naturally to be accounted for in some degree by the greater docility of earlier youth ; but as so much has been said of the inspiration which Raphael caught from Michael An- gelo, in Florence from a sight of the Cartoons, and in Rome from that of the ceiling of the Capella Sistina, it is necessary to remember that a direct imitation of Michael Angelo is no where to be traced in Raphael, and that he seemed desirous rather of exhibiting his own feeling as distinct from that of the great Florentine master, than of aiming at that master's style. From 1508 to 1520, the year of his death, Raphael resided in Rome. Vasari relates that Bramante, the architect of Julius II., being from the same city with Raphael and distantly related to him, had recom- mended him to the Pope, as qualified to paint in fresco certain rooms of the Vatican ; but it was more pro- bably Raphael's great reputation, now second to none, which was the real cause of the Pope's notice, although Bramante may have been the medium of communi- cation. To the honour of Julius it should be remem- bered, that he had discernment enough to fix in every instance on the best artists of his age, and he left no means unemployed, sometimes even to an indulgence RAPHAEL. 123 at variance with the haughtiness of his character, to secure their best efforts in his service. At no period of Raphael's laborious life were his exertions greater than during the reign of Julius II., that is, till 1513, the year of that pontiff 's death. The room called the Camera delta Segnatura, where the great artist began to work, was evidently planned by him as one design, and its four walls were appropriated to four comprehensive subjects, theology, philoso- phy, poetry, and jurisprudence. The ceiling is occu- pied with single figures and subjects forming part of the same scheme. The subject of Theology, commonly called the Disputa, was begun the first, and the right hand of the upper part was first painted. This is evident from a certain inexperience in the mechanical process of fresco painting, which is found to disappear even in the same work. Six of these vast subjects, besides other works, were executed between 1 508 and 1513, and the two last, the Miracle of Bolsena and the Heliodorus, are unsurpassed in colour, as well as in every other excellence fitted for the subject and dimensions. For richness and force of local colour these two works have often been compared to those of Titian ; it should be added that they are earlier in date than the finest oil pictures of Titian, and that they are decidedly superior in colour to the frescoes by that master in Padua. The supposition of Ru- mohr, that Giorgione may have seen and profited by these specimens, is, however, not to be reconciled with the date of that painter's death. The impatience of the character of Julius, who was bent on the speedy prosecution of this undertaking, makes it probable that some works attributed by Vasari to this period were executed later. The portrait of Julius, that of Bindo Altoviti, the musician in the Sciarra palace, the Madonna di Fuligno, the Madonna della Sedia, and the Vision of Ezekiel, belong however to this time. 124 RAPHAEL. ' the St. Cecilia, begun in 1513, was not sent to Bologna till some years afterwards. In the last, the assistance of subordinate hands is evident; and the variety of works in which Raphael was employed under Leo X. made this practice of intrusting the execution of his designs to others more and more necessary. Unfortu- nately, his grand works, the frescoes of the Vatican, with the exception of two excellent specimens, the Attila and the Liberation of Peter (painted immediately after the accession of Leo), were completed very much in this way by his scholars. Even the Incendio del Borgo, so remarkable for its invention and composi- tion, has but few traces of his own hand in the execu- tion. The frescoes of the Vatican have often been de- scribed as exhibiting one comprehensive plan as to their meaning, but it is well known that the subjects of the Attila and the Liberation of Peter were suggested by incidents in the life of Leo, and consequently that they could not have been thought of before the acces- sion of that pope. Of all these works the Attila is justly considered to be the most perfect example of fresco painting, and to exhibit the greatest command over the material ; though produced after the death of Julius, it may be regarded as the noblest result of that impulse which the pontiff's energy had communicated to Raphael. The character of Leo X., as a protector of art, has been perhaps sometimes too favourably re- presented. More educated than his predecessor, he loved the refinement which the arts and letters im- parted to his court ; but he had no deep interest, like Julius, in inciting such men as Raphael and Michael Angelo to do their utmost under his auspices. Whe- ther from the indifference of Leo, or from his neglect- ing, as Vasari hints, to discharge his pecuniary debts to Raphael, we soon find the painter employed in va- rious other works, and the remaining frescoes of the Vatican bear evidence of the frequent employment of RAPHAEL. 125 126 RAPHAEL. other hands. Many works of minor importance in the same palace were entirely executed by his as- sistants. The celebrated Cartoons were designs for tapes- tries, of which more than twenty of various sizes are preserved in the Vatican. The Cartoons, it may be inferred, were equally numerous, seven of which are now at Hampton Court. A portion of another was bequeathed by the late Prince Hoare to the Foundling Hospital, where it is now to be seen. These works owed their existence to the Pope's love of magnificence rather than to a true taste for art ; but although destined for a merely ornamental purpose, some of the designs are among the very finest of Ra- phael's inventions, and a few may have been, at least in part, executed by his hand. The Ananias, the Charge to Peter, the Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, and the Paul preaching at Athens, are generally con- sidered to have the greatest pretensions to this additional interest. The fine portrait of Leo with the Cardinals de' Medici and de' Rossi completes the list of larger works undertaken for the Pope, but the many designs by Raphael from classical or mythological subjects may be supposed to have been also made at the sug- gestion of the pontiff. In obedience to his wishes, Raphael undertook the inspection of the ancient Ro- man monuments, and superintended the improvements of St. Peter's. Among the numerous and extensive works done for other employers may be mentioned the Sybils in the Chiesa della Pace, the frescoes from Apuleius's story of Cupid and Psyche in the palace of Agostino Chigi, called the Farnesina, where the so- called Galatea was the beginning of another Cyclus from the same fable, the Madonna del Pesce, the Ma- donna di S. Sisto, and the Spasimo di Sicilia. Many a palace in the neighbourhood of Rome still exhibits remains of frescoes for which Raphael at least fur- RAPHAEL. 127 nished the designs ; and his own Casino, near the more modern Villa Borghese, mny retain traces of his hand, but it is now fast falling to decay. A long list of portraits might be added to the above works, toge- ther with many interesting designs in architecture, and even some productions in sculpture. In reviewing the amazing number of works attributed to Raphael, it must not however be forgotten that many are his only in the invention, and some pictures that bear his name may have been even designed as well as finished by his imitators. The Flemish copies of Raphael are frequent, and are to be detected, among other indica- tions, by their extreme smoothness ; the contemporary imitations, especially those of the earlier style of the master, by Domenico Alfani and Vincenzo di S. Gemi- niano, are much less easily distinguished. The ques- tion respecting the Urbino earthenware may be consi- dered to have been set at rest by Passeri (Storia delle pitture in Majolica di Pesaro e di altri luoghi della Provincia Metaurense). From this inquiry, it ap- pears, first, that the art of painting this ware had not arrived at perfection till twenty years after Raphael's death : and secondly, that about that time Quid' Ubaldo II. (della Rovere) collected engravings after Raphael, and even original designs by him, and had them copied in the Urbino manufactory. Battista Franco at one time superintended the execution, and one of the artists was called Raffaello del Colle ; his name may perhaps occasionally be inscribed on the Urbino ware, but the initials 0. F. (Orazio Fontano) are the most fre- quent. The Transfiguration was the last oil picture of im- portance on which Raphael was employed ; it was un- finished at his death, and was afterwards completed, together with various other works, by his scholars. The last and worst misstatement of Vasari cannot be passed over, for, unfortunately, none of the biographer's 128 RAPHAEL. mistakes have been oftener repeated than that which ascribes the death of this great man to the indulgence of his passion for the Fornarina. Cardinal Antonelli was in possession of an original document, first pub- lished by Cancellieri, which assigns a different, and a much more probable, cause for Raphael's death ; it thus concludes, " Life in him (Raphael) seemed to inform a most fragile bodily structure, for he was all mind ; and moreover, his physical forces were much impaired by the extraordinary exertions he had gone through, and which it is wonderful to think he could have made in so short a life. Being then in a very delicate state of health, he received orders one day while at the Farnesina to repair to the court ; not to lose time, he ran all the way to the Vatican, and arrived there heated and breathless ; there the sudden chill of the vast rooms, where he was obliged to stand long con- sulting on the alterations of St. Peter's, checked the perspiration, and he was presently seized with an in- disposition. On his return home he was attacked with a fever, which ended in his death." Raphael was born and died on Good Friday. Some of his biographers have hence, through an oversight, asserted that he lived exactly thirty-seven years. He was born March 28, 1483, and died April 6, 1520. He was buried in the Pantheon, now the church of Sta. Maria ad Martyres, in a niche or chapel which he had himself endowed. His remains have been lately found there. Quatremere de Quincy's ' Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Raphael, etc. Paris, 1824,' has been im- proved and superseded by the notes to the Italian translation of Longhena, Milan, 1829. Pungileoni, the author of the ' Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi, Urbino, 1822,' has been long employed in preparing a life of Raphael. The observations of Rumohr, in the third volume of his ' Italienische Forschungen, Berlin, 1831, 'are original and valuable. A few interesting RAPHAEL. 129 facts will be found in Fea's ' Notizie intorno Raffaele Sanzio, Rome, 1822.' The author, however, fails to prove the regularity of Leo's payments to Raphael, since the latest document concerning the frescoes in the Stanze has the date 1514. The engraving in the " Gallery of Portraits" is from a miniature after the portrait by Raphael himself, in his first manner, cut from the stucco of a wall at Urbino, which forms the chief attraction of the Camera di' ritratti at Florence. The head engraved by Morghen, and so generally known, represents the features of Bindo Altoviti, which do not even re- semble in a single point those of Raphael. The no- tion arose solely from a passage in Vasari's Lives : * E a Bindo Altoviti fees il ritratto suo ;' for Bindo Altoviti he did his portrait (not his own) : these words were distorted by the Editor Bottari in a marginal note ; but the error has been decisively ex- posed by Missirini and others, whose account is every where received in Italy. Nor does it appear that the Tuscans in general fell into the mistake, for the por- trait now given, and not, as Bottari asserts, the Alto- viti portrait, is engraved in the Museum Floren- tinum. 130 LUDOVICO ARIOSTO was born at Reggio, near Mo- dena, in September, 1474. From boyhood he showed a turn for versifying, and a distaste for the severer study of the law, to which he was destined. This repugnance triumphed over the wishes of his father, an officer in the Duke of Ferrara's service, and ob- tained license for him to pursue his own inclinations. His father died about the year 1500, leaving a small inheritance, and ten children, of whom Ludovico was the eldest. Thus, the care of the family, and the education and establishment of its younger branches, devolved upon him ; and this onerous and important duty he faithfully performed, while to his mother, who survived his other parent many years, he ever manifested a filial affection. In the midst of his domestic cares he still found time to cultivate literature, and he composed several lyric ARIOSTO. 131 pieces ; among others, a Latin epithalamium on the marriage of Alfonso d'Este, son of the reigning Duke of Ferrara, with the infamous Lucrezia Borgia, daugh- ter of Pope Alexander VI. Ariosto was then but a young man, and probably little acquainted with the political and [ domestic history of the Borgias; the praises therefore which he bestows on Lucre/ia, not merely for her beauty, but for her moral qualities, ought not to be too severely criticised ; the same ex- cuse, however, cannot be made for a repetition of the same eulogium in his subsequent great poem, when he must certainly have become acquainted with the contemporary chronicles. But all poets were in that age tainted with court flattery, and Ariosto's object was to gain the favour of his sovereigns and patrons, the princes of Este. Princely patronage was then absolutely necessary to a literary man who was not himself rich, as there was no reading public upon which to depend. Italy was divided into principali- ties, and distracted by foreign war and intestine dis- sensions, and the notice of the courts could alone bestow fame upon an author, and save him from neg lect and distress. These compositions attracted the favourable notice of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, Alfonso's younger bro- ther, a man of information and abilities. Upon per- sonal acquaintance, he was pleased with Ariosto's manners, and received him as one of the gentlemen of his retinue about the year 1503. Ippolito was a busy politician, and deeply concerned in all the intrigues of that most busy period of Italian politics. He soon perceived that Ariosto's talents might be turned to account, and employed him in various missions, to Florence, Urbino, and other Italian courts; in the course of which the poet became acquainted with many persons of rank and consequence, and especially with Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., 132 AR10STO. who took a particular liking to him, and admitted him to his familiar society. Ariosto was recommended by his first patron, Car- dinal Ippolito, to Alfonso d'Este, who succeeded to the ducal crown of Ferrara in 1 505 ; and from that time he enjoyed the confidence of both the brothers. In 1509, Alfonso joined in the league of Cambray with the Pope, the French, and the Emperor Maxi- milian, against the Venetians ; and Ippolito, who was a soldier as well as a statesman, took the command of his brother's troops. Ariosto accompanied his master to the field, and was present at the campaign of that year on the banks of the Po. He has described, in the thirty-sixth canto of his Furioso, the atrocities perpetrated by the Sclavonian mercenaries in the Venetian service. It is not our province to follow the operations of this war, farther than to state, that Ariosto was pre- sent in several battles, and employed in two political missions to Pope Julius II. The second time he was compelled to make a hasty retreat from Rome, as Julius had publicly threatened to have him thrown into the Tiber. In 1513 Leo X. succeeded to the papal throne. Ariosto soon after repaired to Rome to congratulate the new Pope. Leo received him as an old and intimate acquaintance. " He stooped gra- ciously from his holy chair towards me, took me by the hand, and saluted me on both the cheeks. From that moment my credulous hopes were raised to the unknown regions of heaven." In short, Ariosto now thought Ins fortune was made. But he had not suffi- cient patience ; he soon grew tired of waiting at Rome without receiving any more substantial proofs of Leo's benevolence, and, too independent to be importunate at levees and audiences, he turned his back upon all his prospects from that quarter. Having returned to Ferrara, he applied himself with renewed earnestness ; ARIOSTO. 13.3 to his favourite studies. He had long since formed the plan of a great poem on the subject of the wars of Charlemagne against the Saracens, a traditional theme derived from the fabulous chronicle of Turpin, in which some truth was intermixed with a mass of exaggerations, anachronisms, and wondrous tales of paladins, knights-errant, and giants, the offspring of older traditions of Welch or Armorican invention. (See Warton's " History of English Poetry," Ellis's " Specimens of early English Metrical Romances," etc.) Many French, Spanish, arid Italian ballad and romance writers had treated this fanciful theme, each adding something to the common stock of the mar- vellous from his own imagination. In Italy, three poets of considerable genius, Pulci, Boiardo, and Bello, had composed long poems on the subject, in which the celebrated Orlando or Roland, figured as the great champion of Christendom. Boiardo, de- parting from his predecessors, gave a new interest to his poem by making Orlando fall in love with Ange- lica, a Pagan or Saracen (the two are often taken as synonymous in all these romances) princess, of super- natural beauty, and possessed of magical powers, who had come from the farthest Asia to Charlemagne's camp for the express purpose of exciting the jealousy of the Christian leaders, and thus, by spreading dis- sension among them, rendering them unable to cope successfully with the infidels. Boiardo did not com- plete his poem, which he called " Orlando Innamo- rato ; '' and he left off the story of Angelica, where Charlemagne, weary of the discord which raged in his camp since Angelica's appearance, gives her in charge to Namo, one of his squires, until such time as he shall have decided upon the rival claims of Ri naldo and Orlando, his two bravest paladins, to her hand. It is from this point that Ariosto took up the thread of his story, and in consonance with the pro- vox., i. i 134 ARIOSTO. verb that from love to madness there is but one step, he determined to make Orlando run mad with jea- lousy, on discovering that Angelica had eloped with a young and handsome, but obscure squire, of the name ofMedoro, for whom she forgets all the objects of her journey to the west, and despises the sighs of Orlando and the other renowned paladins of Charle- magne's court. Ariosto styled his poem " Orlando Furioso," and he wrote it at first in forty cantos, which he afterwards increased to forty-six. Orlando's madness runs through the greater part of the poem, until he is restored to reason by his cousin Astolpho, who brings back his wits in a phial from the moon. Meantime the principal action of the poem, namely, the war between Charlemagne and the Saracens, continues throughout, and ends with the final expul- sion of the Moors from France, and the death of their great champion Rodomonte, whose death, like that of Turnus in the ^Eneid, closes the poem. But it would be idle to look for the unity and the consecu- tiveness of epic action, as some critics have done, in a poem which is not an epic. There are many ac- tions in the Furioso, all skilfully interwoven together, and making in the end an harmonious whole ; but during their progress, the reader finds himself often lost as in a labyrinth, and perplexed how to recover the thread of his recollections. And yet the beauties of description, the fine touches of character and feel- ing, are so many, that we wander on delighted, as pilgrims who have strayed into an enchanted world, and then gaze and wonder, and idle along, thought- less of the end or purport of their journey. Ariosto was employed for ten years about his poem, from his first beginning to the completion of it in forty cantos. It was printed at his own expense, at Fer- rara, in April, 1516, by Mazocco del Bondeno, in one volume quarto. He sold one hundred copies of this ARIOSTO. 135 first edition to the bookseller, Gigli, for twenty-eight scudi, being at the rate of about fifteen pence a copy, on condition that the bookseller should not sell the copies for more than twenty pence each. This edition is now extremely rare. Ariosto hastened to present a copy to Cardinal Ippolito, to whom there is an affectionate dedication in the third stanza of the first canto, besides several other passages throughout the work which are highly lauda- tory of him, of his brother Alfonso, and of the house of Este in general. The Cardinal, after perusing the poem, seems to have been puzzled about the meaning and purpose of it, and he is said to have asked the author " Where in the devil's name he had picked up so many absurdities ?" But whether this story be true or not, it is certain that Ippolito did not relish the ivork, and that Ariosto gained by it no additional favour with him. Cardinal Ippolito was a busy worldly man; his mind was anything but poetical, his tastes and pursuits were matter of fact ; his abi- lities and he had abilities were in a different line, and he told Ariosto that " he would have been better pleased, if, instead of praising him in idle verse, he had exerted himself more earnestly in his service." This remark we have from Ariosto himself, in his second satire. Much declamation has been wasted on the Cardinal for his want of taste, and for what has been called his ungenerous conduct towards the great poet. But a want of taste for poetry is no ground for moral censure ; and if the Cardinal thought no better of Ariosto for exerting a talent which he could not ap - preciate, at least it does not appear that he esteemed him the less. He retained him in his service as before, until the end of 1517, when being on the point of setting off for his diocese of Gran in Hungary, of which he was Archbishop, he requested Ariosto to follow him ; but Ariosto excused himself on the plea i2 136 AR10STO. of his delicate health and the rudeness of the Hun- garian climate. His brother Alessandro, however, accompanied the Cardinal. Ippolito was certainly displeased at Ariosto's refusal, but he did not stop his pension in consequence of it. It was not until a year or two after that the small pension of twenty-five scudi every four months, of which Ariosto speaks, was stopped, during the Cardinal's absence; and it is stated by Barotti, in his life of Ariosto, that this took place in consequence of the Duke's abolishing a local tax, on the produce of which Ariosto's pension was assigned. Besides this pension, Ariosto enjoyed one- third of the fees paid to the Notarial Chancery for every deed registered, which brought him about one hundred scudi per annum. This he did not lose after the Cardinal's departure. He seems to have enjoyed some other perquisites, which were, of course, the fruits of his connexion with the princes of Este. He was not rich, but, at the same time, he was not in distress. Although he sometimes indulges in out- breakings of poetical querulousness in his satires, which are the best authority for his biography, yet, in the very midst of these, we find expressions of sincere regard and grateful affection for both the Cardinal and the Duke, for Ariosto was a right-hearted man. After the Cardinal's death, which happened in 1520, Ariosto was taken by Duke Alfonso into his own service, as one of his gentlemen attendants. The duties of this office, we are told by the poet himself, were merely nominal, and left him ample leisure to pursue his favourite studies. Yet the Duke was very fond of his company, and willingly granted those favours which he requested for himself or his friends. (See Ariosto's Seventh Satire.) From the general character of Ariosto, however, we may conclude that he was not an indiscreet or importunate petitioner. In 1521, he published a second edition of his great poem, ARIOSTO. 137 with many corrections, but still in forty cantos only : this edition is as scarce as the first. As he expressed a wish to be more actively employed, Alfonso, in 1522, appointed him Governor of the province of Garfagnana, bordering on the Modenese territory, and situated on the western slope of the Apennines, on the side of Lucca. This country had just been restored to the house of Este, after having been for years occupied by the Florentines and the Pope. The people were divided into factions, which openly defied the law. Ariosto humorously describes in his fifth satire the difficulties of his new office. He remained about three years at Castelnuovo, the chief town of this mountain district, and seems to have succeeded by his firm, yet liberal and conciliatory conduct, in restoring order among that turbulent and rude population, who showed him marked proofs of esteem on several occasions. In 1523, the Duke's secretary, Pistofilo, wrote to offer him the appointment of ambassador to the new Pope, Clement VII.; but Ariosto declined the honour, saying, that he had already had enough of Rome and the Medici, alluding to his disappointment which he had experienced from Leo X. In 1524, he returned from his government to Ferrara, which he does not seem to have ever quitted afterwards. He had there long before formed an attachment to a lady, whose name he has carefully concealed; and this appears, from his own hints, to have been an additional reason, on several occasions above mentioned, for his not wishing to remove far from Ferrara. By this lady he had a son, Virginio, whom he legitimated by a regular act done before Cardinal Campeggio, in April, 1530. Virginio was then twenty-one years of age. The deed still exists in the archives of the house of Ariosti. In it the Christian name alone of Virginio's mother, Orsolina, is mentioned, and she is qualified as a spinster ; but her family name and rank are left out, i3 138 ARIOSTO. honestatis causa, as it is there stated. This Virginio took orders, and became afterwards a canon of the Cathedral of Ferrara. Ariosto had another natural son, Giovanbattista, who rose to the rank of captain in the Duke's service. After his return from Garfagnana, Ariosto recast some comedies which he had composed in youth, and wrote others, making in all five comedies in blank verse, which pleased the Duke so much upon perusal that he resolved on having them performed, and for this purpose had a theatre constructed in a wing of the ducal palace. No pains or expense were spared to add to the splendour of the representation, which the Duke and his court attended. These plays are modelled upon Plautus and Terence ; the unities are preserved, and the plot is made to turn upon the shifts and stratagems of dissipated and needy young men, aided by base domestics or panders, to deceive their parents, or the parents or guardians of their mistresses. And, like the contemporary comedies of Bibbiena and Machiavelli, (co-founders with Ariosto of Italian co- medy,) they are stained by frequent indecency of allusion and language. In the division of his father's scanty property, Lu- dovico had for his share the house at Ferrara, which stands, or stood till lately, in the street of Santa Maria di Bocche, and on the door of which was seen the marble escutcheon of the Ariosti. He purchased, in 1526, a small house of a person of the name of Pistoja, near the street Mirasole. He afterwards bought se- veral adjoining lots of ground, and built himself a commodious house, which he surrounded by a garden and trees. This is still seen in the street Mirasole, with an inscription to commemorate its former inmate. There he spent, in studious and pleasant retirement, the latter years of his life, continuing to enjoy the favour of Duke Alfonso, and of his son Prince Ercole AR10STO. 139 d'Este, afterwards Duke Hercules II., to whom he gave instruction in literature. In October, 1532, Ariosto, after sixteen years passed, since its first publication, in the continual and almost daily revision of his great poem, published a third edition in forty-six cantos, which, notwith- standing some misprints, has remained the legitimate text of the Orlando Furioso. This was the last edition which he published himself. The six additional cantos are the 33d, 37th, 39th, 42d, 44th, and 45th ; and in the others, stanzas are added or altered from time to time. Soon after Ariosto had thus completed his work, he fell ill of a painful internal complaint, which, after several months of lingering sufferings, terminated in death, June 6, 1533. He was then in his fifty-ninth year. He was buried privately in the church of San Benedetto, near his house, and his fu- neral was attended by the monks, who volunteered to pay this honour to his remains. Forty years later, the church having been rebuilt, a monument was raised to him on the right of the great altar by Agos- tino Mosti, of Ferrara, who in his youth had studied under Ariosto, to which the poet's bones were trans- ferred with great ceremony. In 1612, Ludovico Ariosto, the poet's grand-nephew, raised another mo- nument, more splendid than the first, and placed it in the chapel to the left of the great altar ; and thither Ariosto's remains underwent removal for the second time. They were then left in peace for nearly two centuries, until the French took possession of the country at the beginning of the present century, when they removed the monument (we believe the last of the two, though we cannot positively say) to the Ly- ceum or University ; where Ariosto's chair and his ink-stand are also preserved, as well as the autographs of the Furioso. In the convent of San Benedetto is a painting, representing paradise, by Garofalo, who hac( 140 ARIOSTO. known Ariosto personally, in which the poet is seen between St. Catherine and St. Sebastian. Virginio Ariosto left several curious memoranda of his father's habits, which are given by Barotti. He was tall, of a robust and naturally healthy frame, and a good pedestrian. One summer's morning he strayed out of Carpi, near Reggio, where he then resided, in his morning gown and slippers, to take a walk. Being absent in thought, he had gone more than half way to Ferrara before he recollected himself; and then con- tinued his route, and arrived at Ferrara in the evening, having walked a distance of at least forty miles. He was generally frugal, and not choice in his meals, though at times he ate much and hurriedly, because, his son says, he was not then thinking of what he was doing, being busy in his mind about his verses or about his plans for building. One day a visiter ap- peared just after he had dined* While they were conversing, the servant brought up dinner for the stranger ; and, as the latter was engaged in talking, Ariosto fell on the viands lafrd on the table, and ate all himself, the guest of course not presuming to in- terrupt him. After the visiter was gone, Ariosto's brother remonstrated with him on his inhospitable behaviour, when the poet, coming to himself, ex- claimed, " Well, it is his fault, after all ; why did he not begin to eat his dinner at once ?" The Italians have bestowed on Ariosto the epithet of " the Divine," and they also call him " the Homer of Ferrara." The character of Ariosto may be easily gathered from this brief sketch of his life. He was trustworthy, loyal, and sincere, free from envy or jealousy, and a warm friend ; he was fond of meditation and retire- ment, often absent and absorbed in thought, and yet he could be very pleasant and jovial in company. He was not a great reader," and he selected the Latin ARIOSTO.' 141 classics in preference to other authors. He studied men and nature more than books. Of Greek he ac- quired some knowledge late in life. He was very fond of architecture, and regretted that his means did not permit him to satisfy his passion for building. He also took pleasure in gardening, but he was too absent and impatient to prosper in that occupation. His character, by his own confession, was stained by licentious amours : and his works are tainted by im- pure passages, which render them unfit for indiscri- minate perusal. Still this is the fault of detached passages, not of the general spirit or object of his compositions ; and if judged in comparison with his contemporaries, he will not be severely censured as an immoral writer. Ariosto's great poem, the Orlando Furioso, is too generally known to require a long discussion of its merits. It is by universal consent the first of all poems of chivalry and romance. It is a wonderful creation of man's imaginative powers, extending far beyond the limits of the natural w r orld. But the poet in his wildest flights takes care not to fall into too palpable extravagance or absurdity. He has the art of endowing the creatures of his fancy with features and attributes apparently so appropriate to their sup- posed nature, as to remove from his readers the feeling of the improbability of their existence. There are also other merits in the poem besides those of imagi- nation and description. There is often a vein of moral allusion half concealed within Ariosto's fanciful strains, the evidence of a mind deeply acquainted with the mysteries of the human heart, fully alive to the beauty of virtue, and imbued with sound notions of moral philosophy. At other times he tries to cast off his pensive mood, and to appear careless and satirical, and he succeeds in exciting laughter at men's follies and even vices ; a laughter which we doubt whether 142 ARIOSTO. the writer felt in his own heart. In his satire, how- ever, although rather broad and licentious, he was not bitter or misanthropical. His is the humour of a good-tempered poco cur ante, who has no intention to break with mankind on account of its faults, and who wishes to make the best of the present world, such as it is. His touches of the pathetic, though not many, are exquisite of their kind : we will only mention, as instances, the story of Ginevra, that of Zerbino and Isabella, and the death of Brandimarte. His acquaint- ance with history, geography, and other sciences, was respectable, considering the time he lived in. His language is generally natural and flowing, and the justness and clearness of his expressions render the perusal of his poem of great use even to prose writers. Galileo used to say that he had formed his style chiefly by assiduous study of the Furioso. Ariosto has been accused of using trivial expressions, borrowed from popular use rather than from books. Many of these, however, have been since adopted by the best Italian writers. Several of his lines certainly are harsh and inharmonious, but it is not improbable that this was intentional, for the sake of expression, or to give va- riety to the sound of his verse, as it is well known that Ariosto was not a negligent writer ; he corrected and reconnected his poem with the greatest care, and his apparent facility is the result of much study and la- ,bour. It is said that he altered not less than twenty times the 142d stanza of the eighteenth canto, in which he describes the beginning of a storm at sea, before he fixed on the text as it now stands. After the three editions of the Furioso superintended by Ariosto himself, numerous editions appeared in various parts of Italy during the sixteenth century, all however more or less incorrect, and some of them for instance, the one of 1 556, by Ruscelli delibe- rately mutilated or interpolated, either by editorial ARIOSTO. 143 presumption, or through scruples of morality. The Aldine edition of 1545 is one of the best of that age ; it is also the first that contains five additional cantos, which are the beginning of a new chivalric poem, left in MS. by the author, and given by his son Virginio to Antonio Manuzio. The edition of 1584, by Fran- ceschi of Venice, is rich in comments and illustrations, but the text is often incorrect. The editions of the seventeenth century are all likewise imperfect. The edition of Orlandini, 2 vols. folio, Venice, 1731, con- tains all the works of Ariosto, with three biographies by Pigna, Fornari, and Garofalo, and several com- ments and illustrations. The learned Barotti of Fer- rara brought out an edition of all Ariosto's works, Venice, 6 vols. 12mo., 1766, in which he restored in many places the original reading, and added a life of Arjosto, which is still considered the best extant. The Birmingham edition of the Furioso, 4 vols. 4to., with plates, some of which are by Bartolozzi, is re- markably handsome, and one of the most correct But the best text of the Furioso is that of the edition of Pirotta, Milan, 1818, in 4to., in which the editor, Morali, has succeeded in faithfully restoring the ori- ginal text of Ariosto's last edition of 1532, which has been since adopted by Molini in his edition, Florence, 2 vols. 12mo., 1823, by the Padua edition of 1827, in 4to., and by other later Italian editors. Ciardetti has published all the works of Ariosto, Florence, 8 vols. large 8vo., 1823-4. The Orlando Furioso has been translated into most European languages. Of the English translations, Harrington's is spirited, but far from faithful ; it is in reality rather an imitation than a translation. That by T. H. Croker, 17^6, has the merit of being faithful and literal, stanza for stanza. The recent translation by Mr. S. Rose is considered the best. The Satires of Ariosto are seven in number ; they 144 ARIOSTO. are addressed to his brothers and other friends. As the author did not intend them for publication in his lifetime, he expressed himself freely in them, and related many curious particulars of his history. They were first published in 1534, and have been often re- printed, both separately and with the rest of his works. They have been twice translated into English, by Robert Toft in 1608, and by Croker in 1759. Ariosto is one of the best Italian satirists. He has followed the Horatian model; he corrects without too much bitterness or scurrility. He reprobates the vices of his age and country, and they were many and great. He speaks of popes, princes, and cardinals, of the learned and the unlearned, of clergymen and laymen, of nobles and plebeians, with great freedom, but with- out violence or exaggeration, and in language gene- rally, though not always, decorous. Ariosto's satires deserve to be more generally read than they are, both as a mirror of the times, and as a model of that spe- cies of composition which, from the pens of ill-tem- pered or vulgar men, has too often assumed a tone of malignancy and licentiousness equally remote from justice and truth. Besides the Orlando Furioso, his comedies, and his satires, Ariosto left some minor works, in Italian and in Latin verse, such as epigrams, canzoni, son- nets, capitoli in terza rima, and other lyrics; and a curious Latin eclogue, which long remained inedited, composed in 1506, on the occasion of a conspiracy against the life of Duke Alfonso by his two brothers, Ferrante and Giulio. He also wrote a dialogue in Italian prose, called " 1'Erboleto," on medicine and philosophy. We have no other works of his in prose, except one or two letters ;|his correspondence, which probably was extensive, has never been collected. The number of commentators, critics, and bio- graphers of Ariosto is very great : a complete collec- ARIOSTO. 145 tion of them would form a considerable library. Some of the best have been mentioned in this sketch. We must add Baruffaldi, junior, who wrote a life of Ariosto, Ferrara, 1807, and Count Mazzuchelli, who has given a good biography of him in his " Scrittori d'ltalia." [House of Ariosto at Fernua.] VOL. I. 146 CORREGG10. THE beginning of the sixteenth century, a period re- markable for the general development of Italian ge- nius, was peculiarly distinguished by the appearance of four great painters, who attained a perfection, since unequalled, in different departments of their art. Form and sublimity of conception were the attributes of M. Angelo; expression and propriety of invention were among the prominent excellencies of Raffaelle ; colour was the strength of Titian; and harmony, founded on light and shade, chiefly characterized Correggio. Antonio Allegri was born in 1493, or 1494 ; the name of his birth-place superseded that of his family, and he has been celebrated under the CORREGG1O. 147 name of Antonio da Correggio. He was the son of Pellegrino Allegri, a merchant of some property, and his lineage, which was long doubtful, has been traced with sufficient accuracy by his latest biographer, Pungileoni. The family name was sometimes Latin- ized to Lfetus and de Allegris, and again Italianized to Lieto, which accounts for the various inscriptions on Correggio's pictures. Till the researches of the author above named, who supplied, as far as possible, what Mengs had left imperfect, the most contradic- tory accounts were repeated respecting the family, the fortunes, and even the precise time of the birth and death of Correggio. The story of his extreme po- verty, in particular, has been often copied without examination from Vasari ; but, as Fuseli observes, " considering the public works on which Correggio ws employed, the prices he was paid for them, com- pared with the metropolitan prices of Raffaelle him- self, it is probable that his circumstances kept pace with his fame, and that he was nearer to opulence than want." It is still doubtful under whom he studied ; but, as his uncle Lorenzo was a painter, it is probable that Antonio learned the rudiments of art from him ; and a single specimen extant of one An- tonio Bartolotto, a contemporary master, is so much in the style of Correggio, as to justify the conjecture that the example, at least, of the elder painter was not without its effect. The residence of Andrea Man- tegna at no greater distance than Mantua, has, per- haps, led some writers to rank Correggio among his scholars ; but his death, when Correggio was only thirteen years of age, renders the supposition improba- ble. That Correggio studied the works of Mantegna is most certain : his fondness for foreshortening was probably derived from that master ; nor should it be forgotten, that the school of Andrea was celebrated after his death, and was still continued by his sons K 2 148 CORREGGIO. Francesco and Lodovico. Vedriani mentions another master, Francesco Bianchi, of Modena, but with as little certainty as the rest. The peculiar impasto* which distinguishes the pictures of Correggio, a mode of execution which he carried to sudden perfection, and which has never since been surpassed, is less to be recognised, as Lanzi supposes, in the manner of Mantegna than in that of Lionardo da Vinci ; and even the chiaro-scuro of Correggio, however enlarged and improved, is manifestly derived from the same source. The art of foreshortening on ceilings, called by the Italians " il di sotto in su" was also practised in the Mantuan school before Correggio ; whether in imitation of the celebrated ceiling of Melozzo da Forli, the first known effort of the kind, painted in Rome in 1472, it is impossible to say. Among the earliest works of Correggio, Lanzi men- tions some frescoes at Mantua, supposed to have been done while the artist was in the school of the sons of Mantegna; but a very feeble tradition is the only ground for this supposition. The same author speaks of more than one Madonna in the Ducal Gallery at Modena, as belonging to this early period. A consi- derable picture, painted by Correggio when eighteen years of age, and the undoubted work of his hand, is preserved at Dresden ; it was originally done for the church of S. Niccola, at Carpi. It represents the Virgin seated on a throne, surrounded by various saints ; the inscription is, " Antonio de Allegris." The colouring of this picture, as Mengs observes, is in a style between that of Perugino and Lionardo da * Impatto is literally an impasting or thick application of the colour. The peculiarity of Correggio's method is, that this impasto is solid without roughness of surface, and blended without heaviness or opacity. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, " His (Correggio's) colour and mode of finishing approach nearer to perfection thaa those of any other painter." CORREGG10. 149 Vinci. The head of the Virgin, he adds, greatly re- sembles the manner of Lionardo; the folds of the drapery appear as if done by Mantegna, that is, in the mode of encircling the limbs, but they are less hard, and are in a larger style. Two pictures painted about the same time are mentioned, and somewhat differ- ently described, by Tiraboschi and Lanzi. One was an altar-piece for a church at Correggio, representing various saints ; it was blackened and injured by a var- nish, and removed from the altar as useless, a copy being substituted in its place. The original has been since cleaned, and according to Lanzi is recognised as an early work of the master. The other was an altar- piece, in three compartments, the centre subject of which was a repose of the Holy Family. The two wings, representing two saints, are lost ; but the Holy Family is probably the picture now in the Florence Gallery, attributed by Barry to Correggio, and only doubtful, in the opinion of some connoisseurs, from its dryness of manner, as compared with the later works of the master. A picture belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, and formerly in the Orleans Gallery, re- presenting a muleteer and other figures, is supposed by some to be an early work of Correggio, but it has none of the hardness of the Carpi altar-piece to warrant this conjecture. In the picture in the Florence Gallery of the Ma- donna adoring her Infant, and in the Noli me tangere of the Escurial, to which Lanzi adds a Marsyas, in the possession of the Marchese Litta of Milan, the artist already approached that excellent style, which has been designated by the epithet ' Correggiesque.' The Marsyas is mentioned in the catalogue of Charles I. The two small pictures of the Marriage of St. Cathe- rine, one in the gallery at St. Petersburg!!, the other in that of Naples, belong to the same period. In that preserved at St. Peteisburgh, the name of Allegri is 150 CORREGGIO. translated to Lieto ; the date is 1517. The larger, and probably later picture of this subject, with the ad- dition of the figure of St. Sebastian, is in the Louvre. The celebrated picture of S. Giorgio, now at Dresden, has been considered to belong to this period. It was painted for the confraternity of S. Pietro Martire, at Modena. This work, containing many figures, and among the rest some children, in the peculiarly grace- ful manner of Correggio, which were afterwards the admiration of Guido, has all the excellencies of the master, except that magic of chiaro-scuro for which he was subsequently so celebrated. It may be re- marked, that the sweetness of expression in Correg- gio's children and women was probably derived from Lionardo da Vinci, as certain peculiarities of resem- blance are to be traced between them. In 1519, Correggio married Girolama Merlini, from whom Pungileoni supposes the Madonna, called the Zingarella, to have been painted. She was a lady of birth and condition, and brought him a sufficient dowry ; and this is an additional proof of the correct- ness of the assertions of Vasari, respecting the extreme poverty of the painter. It must be remembered too, that from this time, when he was about twenty-five years of age, his employment constantly increased ; and from the nature of the works he was engaged in, it is quite evident that he was reckoned the best painter in Lombardy. About this period Correggio began his career in Parma, and his first paintings there were the admira- ble frescoes in the monastery of S. Paolo. A particu- lar and most satisfactory account of these has been published by Padre Affo. The reputation which this performance gained him induced the monks of S. Giovanni to employ him in the decoration of their church. The works executed by Correggio on this occasion are in his grandest manner: the Cupola CORREGGIO. 151 represents the ascension of Christ; the figures of the Apostles, of gigantic size, occupy the lower part. The subject in the Tribune was the Coronation of the Virgin. It was so esteemed, that when that part of the church was demolished to enlarge the choir, the design was repainted for the new Tribune by Cesare Aretusi, according to some, from a copy by Annibale Caracci. The principal group of the ori- ginal was fortunately saved, and is still to be seen in the Library at Parma ; its grandeur of invention and treatment classes it among the highest productions of the art. Round the central group were some figures and heads of angels. The fragments of these were dispersed when the Tribune was destroyed ; and the portions of frescoes by Correggio, which exist in va- rious collections, are probably a part of these ruins. ;., Those who contend that Correggio had visited Rome, suppose that he may have caught some inspiration from the works of M. Angelo ; and Ratti imagines that the Last Judgment was seen and imitated by him ; but this work was not begun till after the death of Correggio. Lanzi smiles at the mistake of the au- thor just mentioned ; but if Correggio visited Rome, which, on the whole, does not appear probable, he may have seen the ceiling of the Capella Sistina, painted in 1511 ; and this is more likely to have inspired him than the Last Judgment, even supposing that he could have seen both. There is, however, a remarkable dif- ference between the treatment of the cupolas of Cor- reggio and that of the ceiling of M. Angelo (even setting aside the well-known distinctions of their taste in design), and the execution in both the examples alluded to, is exactly analogous to the styles of the two painters. M. Angelo, though a master of foreshorten- ing, has not supposed his figures to be above the eye, but opposite to it, so that they are still intelligible when seen in any other situation, as, for instance, when 152 CORREGGIO. copied in an engraving. Correggio, on the other hand, always aimed at giving the perspective appear- ance of figures above the eye ; and the violent fore- shortening, which was the consequence, renders his figures unintelligible, because improbable, except in their original situation, where their effect, aided by his light and shade, must undoubtedly have been astonish- ing. Nevertheless, if the end and perfection of the art is to meet the impressions of nature by correspond- ing representation, and to embody the remembered appearances of things, it is quite evident that fore- shortening on ceilings, as it necessarily presents the human figure, and indeed all objects, in a mode abso- lutely foreign to our experience, must in the same de- gree depart from the legitimate end of imitation, and can only excite wonder at the artist's skill. The dif- ference of treatment alluded to belongs in other re- spects to two distinct views of the art. M. Angelo aimed at the real and permanent qualities of whatever he represented ; a taste derived from his knowledge of sculpture, and certainly, as producing a most intel- ligible style of art, more nearly allied to the principles of the Greeks. Correggio, on the contrary, loved all the attributes of appearance and illusion ; his skill in the management of aerial perspective, and the magic of his chiaro-scuro, by which he secured space, relief, and gradation, are qualities less allied to the reality and perspicuity which characterize the grandest style of the formative arts in general, (as opposed to the vagueness of poetical description,) than to the specific excellencies which distinguish painting from sculp- ture. Even his colour, true as it is, is still subordinate to his light and shade. It is with reference to the uniting and blending principle of light and shade, which presents differences of degree, but not of kind, that the term harmony has been so often em- ployed as describing the characteristic style of Cor- CORREGGIO. 153 reggio, and the expression^ is quite distinct from that harmony (the commoner acceptation) which is often applied to the balance and opposition of colours. In the same church of S. Giovanni were the pic- tures of the Deposition from the Cross, and the Mar- tyrdom of S. Placido and Sta. Flavia, which were taken to Paris ; and on the outside of a chapel are the remains of a grand figure of St. John, in fresco. The well-known Madonna della Scodella, and a fresco of a Virgin and Child, in the Capella della Scala, were per- haps painted about this time. The frescoes of S. Gio- vanni occupied Correggio from 1520 to 1523. The celebrated picture of the Nativity, generally called the Notte, now at Dresden, appears to have been begun in the interval, as the agreement respecting it bears the date of 1522 , but it was not placed in the church of S. Prospero at Reggio, for which it was destined, till 1530. The Notte is the picture most frequently re- ferred to as a specimen of that harmony, founded on the skilful management of light and shade, in which Correggio is unrivalled. The source of the picturesque in this work, the emanation of the light from the in- fant Christ, is at the same time sublime as an inven- tion. " The idea," as Opie observes, " has been seized with such avidity, and produced so many imita- tions, that no one is accused of plagiarism. The real author is forgotten, and the public, accustomed to con- sider this incident as naturally a part of the subject, have long ceased to inquire when, or by whom, it was invented." Even the angels in the upper part of the picture still receive light from the infant, and the at- tention is thus constantly directed to the principal subject. The same end is very happily answered by a shepherdess, shading her eyes with her hand, as if dazzled by the light ; this figure is particularly men- tioned by Vasari. It is remarkable that the same feeling for gradation, in the mutable effects of light 154 CORREGGIO. and shade, displays itself in this composition in the rapid perspective diminution of the figures. The shepherd in the foreground is quite gigantic, com- pared with the more distant figures; and the effect of proximity and distance, and the space of the pic- ture, is greatly aided by tins contrivance. The same principle is observable in Correggio's cupolas. The commission for the St. Jerome, placed in the church of S. Antonio Abbate, at Parma, in 1528, one of the artist's finest works, was given in 1523. There is a copy of this picture by Lodovico Caracci in the Bridgewater Gallery. The attitude and expression of the Magdalen are justly celebrated : she is repre- sented paying her homage to the infant Christ, by pressing his foot against her cheek. The St. Sebas- tian, now at Dresden, one of the most striking speci- mens of Correggio's magic chiaro-scuro, is supposed by Pungileoni to belong to this period. This pic- ture, like the Notte, is remarkable for an exquisite truth of tint in the passages from light to dark. The infinite gradations of chiaro-scuro are rendered still more mysterious from this truth of colour in the half- tints and shadows, and, as in nature, the spectator is soon unconscious of the presence of shade. These imperceptible transitions are confined to the treatment of light and shade, and contrast finely with the pronounced differences of local colour. In this re- spect the style of Correggio is very different from the system of blending, or, as it is called, breaking the colours : the contrast of hues is undoubtedly miti- gated by the negative nature of his shade ; but though fully alive to the value of general tone, of which the St. Sebastian is a powerful instance, he seems never to have lost sight of the principle, that the office of colour is to distinguish, and that of light and shade to unite the first being proper to each object, the second common to all objects. CORREGGIO. 155 The peculiar softness for which Correggio is dis- tinguished is also to be traced to his feeling for the richness and union produced by shade ; but he is by no means uniformly soft, like some of his imitators ; as, for example, Vandervverf, whose model seems _to have been the Magdalen at Dresden. The principal figures in Correggio's pictures, or their principal por- tions, are sometimes relieved in the most distinct manner ; as, for instance, the head of the Madonna in this very picture of St. Sebastian, remarkable above all his works for its general softness of outline. As in his light and shade the two extremes of bright and dark are united by every minutest degree between them, so in his forms, every gradation, from abso- lute hardness to undefined and almost imperceptible outline, is also to be observed. Variety in the inten- sities of shade evidently involves variety in the preci- sion of outlines ; but the distinctness of forms in Correggio's finest works is also regulated by their prominence, importance, or beauty. Lastly, charac- teristic imitation is greatly aided by his discrimina- tion in this particular. Vasari justly commends Cor- reggio's peculiarly soft manner in painting hair ; but this extreme softness, so true a quality of the object, is generally contrasted in his works with the character of some totally different substance. Thus, in the Reclining Magdalen Reading, the print of which is well known, the crystal vase, her usual attribute, placed near her head, is painted with the utmost sharpness, and thus heightens the beauty and truth of the hair, which is remarkable for its undulating softness. The fame which the frescoes of S. Giovanni pro- cured for their author, even in their commencement, led to his decorating the cathedral of Parma ; and the engagement respecting the works therein executed is dated 1522. The subject of the octagonal cupola of 156 CORREGGIO. the cathedral is the Assumption of the Virgin : a multitude of figures covered the vast surface, and, when the work was in its best state, are described as appearing to float in space. The foreshortenings in this cupola are such as to make the figures appear altogether distorted, except when seen from below, and Mengs himself was astonished at their apparent deformity when he inspected them near. The figures of the Apostles and angels, in various attitudes, oc- cupy the lower portion of the cupola; and in four lunettes underneath are represented the patron saints of the city, the whole being supposed to be lighted by the glory from above. It is evident that Correggio's feeling for gradation dictated the invention and treat- ment of his subject in many instances : the whole scale of light and shade cannot be more happily or naturally available, than when the light is supposed to emanate from a point, and gradually lose itself in the opposite extremes ; and it happens, that in every instance in which this painter employed the principle, as in the cupolas, the Notte, the St. Sebastian, the Christ in the Garden, &c., the subject itself gained in sublimity. The difference between the cupola of the cathedral, and that of S. Giovanni, affords an addi- tional proof of the tendency of Correggio's general taste as it became further developed. A grandeur more allied to simplicity is the comparative characteristic of the latter, while in the cathedral the multitude of figures, the variety and arrangement of attitude, and the richness and splendour of the light and shade, are calculated to affect the imagination as with a dazzling vision. It has been justly observed by Fuseli, that Correggio's treatment of this cupola is " less epic or dramatic than ornamental." It must, however, be remembered, that the surface he had to cover, the interior of a high cupola, could hardly have been occupied by subjects in which form or exprea- CORREGGIO. 157 sion, as predominant qualities, could have produced their effect when seen from below. The only mode which remained was assuredly altogether adapted to the genius of Correggio: space, gradation, chiaro- scuro, were not only the means most likely to be effective in such a situation, but they were precisely the excellencies in which he was pre-eminent. Ne- vertheless, the example was a seducing one, and was likely to be followed where local circumstances would not BO entirely warrant it ; and, as the author above quoted observes, " if the cupola of Correggio be, in its kind, unequalled by earlier or succeeding plans, if it leave far behind the effusions of Lanfranco and Pietro da Cortona, it was not the less their model ; the ornamental style of machinists dates not the less its origin from him." In order to give that true foreshortening which was calculated to produce illu- sion from below, Correggio was assisted by the sculp- tor Begarelli, who supplied him with small models in clay, from which he drew. According to Ratti, one of these was found on the cornice of the cupola by a Florentine painter towards the close of the last cen- tury. Some of the drawings by Correggio in the Law- rence collection are supposed to have been studies made from these models. It has been asserted that Correggio himself worked in marble ; some figures in a group, by Begarelli, in the church of Sta. Marghe- rita, are ascribed to him, but on very slight grounds. After all, it appears that he never entirely finished the work he had undertaken to do in the cathedral. The Tribune was not begun, and even a few figures in the lower part of the cupola are said to have been added by Bedoli. The cause of this suspension of Correggio's labours has been attributed, with some probability, to the absurd criticisms of his employers. It is said that they referred to Titian (who is sup? posed tq have visited Parma wjth the Emperor 158 CORREGGIO. Charles V.) to decide whether they should cancel the whole, and that the great Venetian rebuked their ignorance by pronouncing it to be the finest compo- sition he had ever seen. Correggio ceased tp work in the cathedral in 1530, about four years before his death. A great number of his oil pictures are assigned to this period, more indeed than he could have executed, and some of them must therefore belong to an earlier time. Be the precise order of their dates what it may, the quantity which Correggio did in his short life is quite as astonishing as the multitude of Raffaelle's productions, especially when we consider the number of assistants employed by the latter. Among his last works, Cor- reggio painted two pictures for Federigo, Duke of Mantua ; the subjects were Leda, and Venus, ac- cording to Vasari. The latter was probably the Mercury teaching Cupid to read, in which composition Venus is introduced ; or it may have been the Jupiter and Antiope, now in the Louvre. Both are mentioned in the catalogue of Charles I., as having come from Mantua ; and the Antiope is described as " a Sleeping Venus and Cupid, and a Satyr, &c., three entire figures, so big as the life." The original Leda, much mutilated, is now at Potsdam ; a repetition of the Danae is in the Borghese palace in Rome ; the lo, a picture of the same class, is supposed to have been destroyed, but repetitions of it exist in Vienna and in this country. The taste for such subjects, which, in Correggio's time, was encouraged by the example of the great, is now reprobated as it deserves, and it is to be hoped will never be revived ; but, in reference to the tendency of the painter's taste and powers in the choice and treatment of subjects, it must be evident that the effect of soft transitions of light and shade, as opposed to the lively distinctness of colour and forms, is of itself allied to the voluptuous. The prin- CORREGGIO. 159 ciple was applied by Correggio, as we have seen, in subjects of purity and sublimity ; these, united with the soothing spell of his chiaro-scuro, and with forms of grace and beauty, excite a calm and pleasing impres- sion by no means foreign to the end proposed ; but the application was unfortunately still more success- ful where he united beauty and mystery in subjects addressed to very different feelings. The Magdalen Reading, now at Dresden ; the Christ praying in the Garden, in the possession of the Duke of Wellington ; and the Ecce Homo ; are all celebrated pictures of the best time of Correggio. The Ecce Homo, and the Mercury teaching Cupid to read, have lately been secured for the National Gallery; the first came from the Colonna palace at Rome, the other was purchased out of the collection of Charles I. by the Duke of Alva, in whose family it remained till it became the property of Murat ; and a few years since it was restored to this country. The small picture of the Virgin and Child, in the National Gallery, is also a pleasing specimen of the master. Vasari, who is silent as to the time of Correggio's death, relates an absurd story of the manner in which it happened, now scarcely worth contradicting. Ac- cording to him, the painter received a payment of sixty crowns in copper, which he carried from Parma to Correggio, and caught a fever in consequence from over-fatigue, of which he died. The sum thus paid in copper is computed to exceed two hundred- weight 1 This incident, unobjectionable in a work of fiction, is introduced in an interesting drama called ' Correggio,' by the Danish poet Oehlenschlager. The researches of Pungileoni have proved that Correggio died in easy, if not affluent circumstances. The exclamations of Annibale Caracci, in some of his letters, respecting the unhappy fate of Correggio, amount only to regret that 160 CORREGGIO. [Virgin and Child.] CORREGGIO. 161 he was confined to a comparatively remote part of Italy, and that he was not known in Rome or Flo- rence, where his talents would undoubtedly have been still better rewarded. This great painter died almost suddenly, at his native place, of a malignant fever, March 6, 1534, in the forty-first year of his age. He was buried in the Franciscan convent of the Frati Minori at Correggio, where the record of his death was found. For a full account of Correggio and his works, the history of Pungileoni, above mentioned, may be con- sulted. It was published at Parma, in three octavo volumes, in 1817, 1818, and 1821. The best account in English is contained in an anonymous work, entitled, " Sketches of the Lives of Correggio and Parmegiano." 1823. * The original, from which our engraving is taken, is a face painted on the wall adjoining the Cathedral door at Parma, by Correggio himself, from which it was copied, with the necessary additions to suit it for an engraving, by J. B. Davis, Esq. 162 THIS great man was born in London, in the year 1480. His father was Sir John More, one of the Judges of the King's Bench, a gentleman of esta- blished reputation. He was early placed in the family of Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor of England. The sons of the gentry were at this time sent into the families of the first no- bility and leading statesmen, on an equivocal footing; partly for the finishing of their education, and partly in a menial capacity. The Cardinal said more than once to the nobility who were dining with him, " This boy waiting at table, whosoever lives to see it, will one day prove a marvellous man." His eminent patron was highly delighted with that vivacity and wit which appeared in his childhood, and did not desert him on the scaffold. Plays were performed in the archiepis- copal household at Christmas. On these occasions young More would play the improvisatore, and in- troduce an extempore part of his own, more amusing SIR THOMAS MORE. 163 to the spectators than all the rest of the performance. In due time Morton sent him to Oxford, where he heard the lectures of Linacer and Grocyn on the Greek and Latin languages. The epigrams and translations printed in his works evince his skill in both. After a regular course of rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, at Oxford, he removed to London, where he became a law student, first in New Inn, and afterwards in Lincoln's Inn. lie gained considerable reputation by reading public lectures on Saint Augustine, De Civitate Dei, at St. Lawrence's church in the Old Jewry. The most learned men in the city of London attended him ; among the rest Grocyn, his lecturer in Greek at Oxford, and a writer against the doctrines of Wicklif. The object of More's prolusions was not so much to discuss points in theology, as to explain the precepts of moral philosophy, and clear up diffi- culties in history. For more than three years after this he was Law-reader at Furnival's Inn. He next removed to the Charter-house, where he lived in de- votion and prayer ; and it is stated that from the age of twenty he wore a hair-shirt next his skin. He re- mained there about four years, without taking the vows, although he performed all the spiritual exercises of the society, and had a strong inclination to enter the priesthood. But his spiritual adviser, Dr. Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, recommended him to adopt a different course. On a visit to a gentleman of Essex, by name Colt, he was introduced to his three daugh- ters, and became attached to the second, who was the handsomest of the family. But he bethought him that it would be both a grief and a scandal to the eldest to see her younger sister married before her. He therefore reconsidered his passion, and from motives of pity prevailed with himself to be in love with the elder, or at all events to marry her. Erasmus says that she was young and uneducated, for which her 164 SIR THOMAS MORE. husband liked her the better, as being more capable of conforming to his own model of a wife. He had her instructed in literature, and especially in music. He continued his study of the law at Lincoln's Inn, but resided in Bucklersbury after his marriage. His first wife lived about seven years. By her he had three daughters and one son; and we are informed by his son-in-law, Roper, that he brought them up with the most sedulous attention to their intellectual and moral improvement. It was a quaint exhortation of his, that they should take virtue and learning for their meat, and pleasure for their sauce. In the latter part of King Henry the Seventh's time, and at a very early age, More distinguished himself in parliament. The King had demanded a subsidy for the marriage of his eldest daughter, who was to be the Scottish Queen. The demand was not complied with. On being told that his purpose had been frustrated by the opposition of a beardless boy, Henry was greatly incensed, and determined on re- venge. He knew that the actual offender, not pos- sessing anything, could not lose anything ; he there- fore devises a groundless charge against the father, and confined him to the Tower till he had extorted a fine of 100/. for his alleged offence. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, a privy councillor, insidiously undertook to reinstate young More in the King's favour : but the bishop's chaplain warned him not to listen to any such proposals; and gave a pithy reason for the advice, highly illustrative of Fox's real character. " To serve the King's purposes, my lord and master will not hesitate to consent to his own father's death." To avoid evil consequences, More determined to go abroad. With this view, he made himself master of the French language, and cultivated the liberal sciences, as astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music ; he also made himself thoroughly acquainted SIR THOMAS MORE. 165 with history : but in the mean time the King's death rendered it safe to remain in England, and he aban- doned all thoughts of foreign travel. Notwithstanding his practice at the bar, and his lectures, which were quoted by Lord Coke as undis- puted authority, he found leisure for the pursuits of philosophy and polite literature. In 1516 he wrote his Utopia, the only one of his works which has com- manded much of public attention in after times. In general they were chiefly of a polemic kind, in defence of a cause which even his abilities could not make good. But in this extraordinary work he allowed his powerful mind fair play, and considered both mankind and religion with the freedom of a true philosopher. He represents Utopia as one of those countries lately discovered in America, and the account of it is feigned to be given by a Portuguese, who sailed in company with the first discoverer of that part of the world. Under the character of this Portuguese he delivers his own opinions. His History of Richard III. was never finished, but it is inserted in Rennet's Complete History of England. Among his other eminent ac- quaintance, he was particularly attached to Erasmus. They had long corresponded before they were person- ally known to each other. Erasmus came to England for the purpose of seeing his friend ; and it was con- trived that they should meet at the Lord Mayor's table before they were introduced to each other. At dinner they engaged in argument. Erasmus felt the keenness of his antagonist's wit; and, when hard pressed, exclaimed, " You are More, or nobody ;'* the reply was, " You are Erasmus, or the Devil." Before More entered definitively into the service of Henry VIII. his learning, wisdom, and experience were held in such high estimation, that he was twice sent on important commercial embassies. His dis- cretion in those employments made the King desirous 166 SIR THOMAS MORE. of securing him for the service of the court ; and he commissioned Wolsey, then Lord Chancellor, to en- gage him. But so little inclined was he to involve himself in political intrigues, that the King's -wish was not at the time accomplished. Soon after, More was retained as counsel for the Pope, for the purpose of reclaiming the forfeiture of a ship. His argument was so learned, and his conduct in the cause so judi- cious and upright, that the ship was restored. The King upon this insisted on having him in his service ; and, as the first step to preferment, made him Master of the Requests, a Knight, and Privy Councillor. In 1520 he was made Treasurer of the Exchequer: he then bought a house by the river-side at Chelsea, where he had settled with his family. He had at that time buried his first wife and was married to a second. He continued in the King's service full twenty years, during which time his royal master conferred with him on various subjects, including astronomy, geo- metry, and divinity ; and frequently consulted him on his private concerns. More's pleasant temper and witty conversation made him such a favourite at the palace, as almost to estrange him from his own family ; and under these circumstances his peculiar humour manifested itself; for he so restrained the natural bias of his freedom and mirth as to render himself a less amusing companion, and at length to be seldom sent for but on occasions of business. A more important circumstance gave More much consequence with the King. The latter was pre- paring his answer to Luther, and Sir Thomas assisted him in the controversy. While this was going on, the King one day came to dine with him; and after dinner walked with him in the garden with his arm round his neck. After Henry's departure, Mr. Roper, Sir Thomas's son-in-law, remarked on the King's familiarity, as exceeding even that used towards SIR THOMAS MORE. 16*7 Cardinal Wolsey, with whom he had only once heen seen to walk arm in arm. The answer of Sir Thomas was shrewd and almost prophetic. " I find his Grace my very good lord indeed, and I believe he doth as singularly favour me as any subject within this realm. However, Son Roper, I may tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof ; for if my head would win him a castle in France it should not fail to go." In 1523 he was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, and displayed great intrepidity in the dis- charge of that office. Wolsey was afraid lest this parliament should refuse a great subsidy about to be demanded, and announced his intention of being present at the debate. He had previously expressed his indignation at the publicity given to the pro- ceedings of the house, which he had compared to the gossip of an ale-house. Sir Thomas More therefore persuaded the members to admit not only the Car- dinal, but all his pomp ; his maces, poll-axes, crosses, hat, and great seal. The reason he assigned was, that, should the like fault be imputed to them hereafter, they might be able to shift the blame on the shoulders of his Grace's attendants. The proposal of the sub- sidy was met with the negative of profound silence ; and the Speaker declared that, " except every member could put into his one head all their several wits, he alone in so weighty a matter was unmeet to make his Grace answer." After the parliament had broken up, Wolsey expressed his displeasure against the Speaker in his own gallery at Whitehall ; but More, with his usual quiet humour, parried the attack by a ready compliment to the taste and splendour of the room in which they were conversing. On the death of Sir Richard Wingfield, the king promoted Sir Thomas to the Chancellorship of the l)uchy of Lancaster. At this time the see of Rome became vacant, and Wolsey aspired to the Papacy ; 168 SIR THOMAS MORE. but Charles V. disappointed him, and procured the election of Cardinal Adrian. In revenge, Wolsey contrived to persuade Henry that Catharine was not his lawful wife, and endeavoured to turn his affections towards one of the French King's sisters. The case was referred to More, who was assisted by the most learned of the Privy Council ; and he managed, diffi- cult as it must have been to do so, to extricate both himself and his colleagues from the dilemma. His conduct as ambassador at Cambray, where a treaty of peace was negotiated between the Emperor, France, and England, so confirmed the favour of his master towards him, that on the fall of the Cardinal he was made Lord Chancellor. The great seal was delivered to him on the 25th of October, 1530. This favour was the more extraordinary, as he was the. first lay- man on whom it was bestowed : but it may reasonably be suspected that the private motive was to engage him in the approval of the meditated divorce. This he probably suspected, and entered on the office with a full knowledge of the danger to which it exposed him. He performed the duties of his function for nearly three years with exemplary diligence, great ability, and uncorrupted integrity. His resignation took place on the 16th May, 1533. His motive was supposed to be a regard to his own safety, as he was sensible that a confirmation of the divorce would be officially required from him, and he was too consci- entious to comply with the mandate of power, against his own moral and legal convictions. While Chancellor some of his injunctions were dis- approved by the common law judges. He therefore invited them to dine with him in the council chamber, and proved to them by professional arguments that their complaints were unfounded. He then proposed that they should themselves mitigate the rigour of the law by their own conscientious discretion ; in which SIR THOMAS MORE. 169 case, lie would grant no more injunctions. This they refused ; and the consequence was, that he continued that practice in equity which has come down to the present day. It was through the intervention of his friend the Duke of Norfolk that he procured his discharge from the laborious, and, under the circumstances of the time, the dangerous eminence of the chancellorship, which he quitted in honourable poverty. After the payment of his debts he had not the value of one hundred pounds in gold and silver, nor more than twenty marks a year in land. On this occasion his love of a jest did not desert him. While Chancellor, as soon as the church service was over, one of his train used to go to his lady's pew, and say, " Madam, my Lord is gone !" On the first holiday after his trajn had been dismissed, he performed that ceremony himself, and by saying at the end of the service, " Madam, my Lord is gone," gave his wife the first intimation that he had surrendered the great seal. He had resolved never again to engage in public business; but the divorce, and still more the subse- quent marriage with Anne Boleyn, which nothing could induce him to favour, with the King's alienation from the see of Rome, raised a storm over his head from which his voluntary seclusion at Chelsea, in study and devotion, could not shelter him. When tempting offers proved ineffectual to win him over to sanction Anne Boleyn's coronation by his high legal authority, threats and terrors were resorted to : his firmness was not to be shaken, but his ruin was deter- mined, and ultimately accomplished. In the next parliament he, and his friend Fisher, Bishop of Ro- chester, were attainted of treason and misprision of treason for listening to the ravings of Elizabeth Barton, considered by the vulgar as the Holy Maid of Kent, and countenancing her treasonable practices. His VOL. I. L 1*7( SIR THOMAS MORE. innocence was so clearly established, that his name was erased from the bill ; and it was supposed to have been introduced into it only for the purpose of shaking his resolution touching the divorce and marriage. But though he had escaped this snare, his firmness occasioned him to be devoted as a victim. Anne Boleyn took pains to exasperate the king against him, and when the Act of Supremacy was passed in 1534, the oath required by it was tendered to him. The refusal to take it, which his principles compelled him to give, was expressed in discreet and qualified terms ; he was nevertheless taken into the custody of the Abbot of Westminster, and, upon a second refusal four days after, was committed prisoner to the Tower of London. Our limits will not allow us to detail many parti- culars of his life while in confinement, marked as it was by firmness, resignation, and cheerfulness, result- ing from a conscience, however much mistaken, yet void of intentional offence. His reputation and credit were very great in the kingdom, and much was sup- posed to depend on his conduct at this critical junc- ture. Archbishop Cranmer, therefore, urged every argument that could be devised to persuade him to compliance, and promises were profusely made to him from the King ; but neither argument nor promises could prevail. We will give the last of these attempts to shake his determination, in the words of his son- in-law, Mr. Roper : " Mr. Rich, pretending friendly talk with him, among other things of a set course, said this unto him : ' Forasmuch as it is well known, Master More, that you are a man both wise and well learned, as well in the laws of the realm as otherwise, I pray you, therefore, sir, let me be so bold as of good-will to put unto you this case. Admit there were, sir, an act of parlia- ment that the realm should take me for king ; would SIR THOMAS MORE. 1*11 not you, Mr. More, take me for king ?* * Yes, sir,' quoth Sir Thomas More, ' that would I.' 'I put the case further,' quoth Mr. Rich, ' that there were an act of parliament that all the realm should take me for pope ; would not you then, Master More, take me for pope ?' ' For answer, sir,' quoth Sir Thomas More, ' to your first case, the parliament may well, Master Rich, meddle with the state of temporal princes ; but to make answer to your other case, I will put you this case. Suppose the parliament would make a law that God should not be God ; would you then, Master Rich, say that God were not God ?' ' No, sir,' quoth lie, ' that would I not ; sith no parliament may make any such law.' ' No more,' quoth Sir Thomas More, * could the parliament make the King supreme head of the Church.' Upon whose only report was Sir Thomas indicted of high treason on the statute to deny the King to be supreme head of the Church, into which indictment were put these heinous words, mali- ciously, traitorously, and diabolically." Sir Thomas More in his defence alleged many arguments to the discredit of Rich's evidence, and in proof of the clearness of his own conscience ; but all this was of no avail, and the jury found him guilty. When asked in the usual manner why judgment should not be passed against him, he argued against the indictment as grounded on an Act of Parliament repugnant to the laws of God and the Church, the government of which belonged to the see of Rome, and could not lawfully be assumed by any temporal prince. The Lord Chancellor, however, and the other Commissioners, gave judgment against him. He remained in the Tower a week after his sen- tence, and during that time he was uniformly firm and composed, and even his peculiar vein of cheerful- ness remained unimpaired. It accompanied him even to the scaffold, on going up to which, he said to the L2 172 SIR THOMAS MORE. Lieutenant of the Tower, " I pray you, Master Lieu- tenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." After his prayers were ended he turned to the executioner and said, with a cheerful countenance, " Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short, take heed, therefore, thou strike not awry for thine own credit's sake." Then, laying his head upon the block, he bid the executioner stay till he had removed his beard, saying, " My beard has never committed any treason;" and immediately the fatal blow was given. These witticisms have so repeatedly run the gauntlet through all the jest-books that it would hardly have been worth while to repeat them here, were it not for the purpose of introducing the comment of Mr. Ad- dison on Sir Thomas's behaviour on this solemn occasion. " What was only philosophy in this ex- traordinary man would be frenzy in one who does not resemble him as well in the cheerfulness of his temper as in the sanctity of his manners." He was executed on St. Thomas's eve, in the year 1535. The barbarous part of the sentence, so dis- graceful to the Statute-book, was remitted. Lest serious-minded persons should suppose that his con- duct on the scaffold was mere levity, it should be added that he addressed the people, desiring them to pray for him, and to bear witness that he was going to suffer death in and for the faith of the Holy Catholic Church. The Emperor Charles V. said, on hearing of his execution, " Had we been master of such a servant, we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions than such a worthy councillor." No one was more capable of appreciating the cha- racter of Sir Thomas More than Erasmus, who repre- sents him as more pure and white than the whitest snow, with such wit as England never had before, and was never likely to have again. He also says, SIR THOMAS MORE. 173 that in theological discussions the most eminent di- vines were not unfrequently worsted by him ; but he adds a wish that he had never meddled with the subject. Sir Thomas More was peculiarly happy in extempore speaking, the result of a well-stored and ready memory, suggesting without delay whatever the occasion re- quired. Thuanus also mentions him with much respect, as a man of strict integrity and profound learning. His life, has been written by his son-in-law, Roper, and is the principal source whence this narrative is taken. Erasmus has also been consulted, through whose epistolary works there is much information about his friend. There is also a life of him by Fer- dinando Warner, LL.D., with a translation of his Utopia, in an octavo volume, published in 1*758. [Sir Thomas More and Family. From Holbein.] 114 DESIDERIUS ERASMUS was born at Rotterdam on the 28th of October, 1467. The irregular lives of his parents are related by him in a letter to the secretary of Pope Julius II. It is sufficient to state here, that this great genius and restorer of letters was not born in wedlock. His unsophisticated name, as well as that of his father, was Gerard. This word in the Dutch language means amiable. According to the affectation of the period, he translated it into the Latin term, Desiderius, and superadded the Greek synonyme of Erasmus. Late in a life of vicissitude and tur- moil, he found leisure from greater evils to lament that he had been so neglectful of grammatical accuracy as to call himself Erasmus, and not Erasmius. In a passage of the life written by himself, he says that " in his early years he made but little progress in those unpleasant studies to which he was not born;" and this gave his countrymen a notion that as a boy he was slow of understanding. Hereon Bayle ob- serves that those unpleasant studies cannot mean ERASMUS. 1 75 learning in general, for which of all men he was born ; but that the expression might apply to music, as he was a chorister in the cathedral church of Utrecht. He was afterwards sent to one of the best schools in the Netherlands, where his talents at once shone forth, and were duly appreciated. His master was so well satisfied with his progress, and so tho- roughly convinced of his great abilities, as to have foretold what the event confirmed, that he would prove the envy and wonder of all Germany. At the age of fourteen Erasmus was removed from the school at Deventer in consequence of the plague, of which his mother died, and his father did not long survive her. With a view to possess themselves of his patrimony, his guardians sent him to three several convents in succession. At length, unable longer to sustain the conflict, he reluctantly entered among the regular canons at Stein, near Tergou, in 1486. Much condescension to his peculiar humour was shown in dispensing with established laws and customary cere- monies ; but he was principally led to make his pro- fession by the arts of his guardians and the dilapida- tion of his fortune. He describes monasteries, and his own in particular, as destitute of learning and sound religion. " They are places of impiety," he says in his piece ' De Contemptu Mundi,' " where everything is done to which a depraved inclination can lead, under the mask of religion ; it is hardly pos- sible for any one to keep himself pure and unspotted.'* Julius Scaliger and his other enemies assert that he himself was deeply tainted by these impurities; but both himself and his friends deny the charge. He escaped from the cloister in consequence of the accuracy with which he could speak and write Latin. This rare accomplishment introduced him to the Bishop of Cambray, with whom he lived till 1490. He then took pupils, among whom was the Lord 176 ERASMUS. Mountjoy, with several other noble Englishmen. He says of himself, that "he lived rather than studied" at Paris, where he had no books, and often wanted the common comforts of life. Bad lodgings and bad diet .permanently impaired his constitution, which had been a very strong one. The plague drove him from the capital before he could profit as he wished by the instructions of the university in theology. Some time after he left Paris, Erasmus came over to England, and resided in Oxford, where he con- tracted friendship with all of any note in literature. In a letter from London to a friend in Italy, he says, " What is it, you will say, which captivates you so much in England? It is that I have found a pleasant and salubrious air ; I have met with humanity, po- liteness, and learning ; learning not trite and super- ficial, but deep and accurate ; true old Greek and Latin learning ; and withal so much of it, that, but for mere curiosity, I have no occasion to visit Italy. When Colet discourses, I seem to hear Plato himself. In Grocyn, I admire an universal compass of learning. Linacre's acuteness, depth, and accuracy are not to be exceeded ; nor did nature ever form anything more elegant, exquisite, and accomplished than More." On leaving England, Erasmus had a fever at Or- leans, which recurred every Lent for five years to- gether. He tells us that St. Genevieve interceded for his recovery ; but not without the help of a good physician. At this time he was applying diligently to the study of Greek. He says, that if he could but get some money, he would first buy Greek books, and then clothes. His mode of acquiring the language was by making translations from Lucian, Plutarch, and other authors. Many of these translations appear in his works, and answered a double purpose; fur while they familiarized him with the language, the ERASMUS. 177 sentiments, and the philosophy of the originals, they also furnished him with happy trains of thought and expression, when he dedicated his editions of the Fathers, or his own treatises, to his patrons. We cannot follow him through his incessant jour- neys and change of places during the first years of the sixteenth century. His fame was spread over Europe, and his visits were solicited by popes, crowned heads, prelates, and nobles ; but much as the great coveted his society, they suffered him to remain extremely poor. We learn from his ' En- chiridion Militis Christiani,' published in 1503, that he had discovered many errors in the Roman church, long before Luther appeared. H is reception at Rome was most flattering : his company was courted both by the learned and by persons of the first rank and quality. After his visit to Italy, he returned to England, which he preferred to all other countries. On his arrival he took up his abode with his friend More, and within the space of a week wrote his * Encomium Moriae,' the Praise of Folly, for their mutual amusement. The general design is to show that there are fools in all stations ; and more parti- cularly to expose the court of Rome, with no great forbearance towards the Pope himself. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Chancellor of the University, and Head of Queen's College, invited him to Cam- bridge, where he lived in the Lodge, was made Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, and afterwards Greek Professor. But notwithstanding these acade- demical honours and offices, he was still so poor as to apply with importunity to Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, for fifteen angels as the price of a dedication. "Erasmus's Walk" in the grounds of Queen's Col- lege still attests the honour conferred on the univer- sity by the temporary residence of this great reviver of classical learning. 178 ERASMUS. On his return to the Low Countries, he was nomi- nated by Charles of Austria to a vacant bishopric in Sicily; but the right of presentation happened to belong to the Pope. Erasmus laughed heartily at the prospect of this incongruous preferment; and said that as the Sicilians were merry fellows, they might possibly have liked such a bishop. In the year 1516 he printed his edition, the first put forth in Greek, of the New Testament. We learn from his letters, that there was one college in Cambridge which would not suffer his work to be brought within its walls : but the public voice spoke a different language ; for it went through three edi- tions in less than twelve years. From 1516 to 1526 he was employed in publishing the works of St. Jerome. Luther blamed him for his partiality to this father. He says, " I prefer Augustine to Je- rome, as much as Erasmus prefers Jerome to Au- gustine." As far as this was a controversy of taste and criticism, the restorer of letters was likely to have the better of the argument against the apostle of the Reformation. The times were now become tempestuous. Erasmus was of a placid temper, and of a timid character. He endeavoured to reconcile the conflicting parties in the church ; but, with that infelicity commonly at- tendant on mediators, he drew on himself the anger of both. Churchmen complained that his censures of the monks, of their grimaces and superstitions, had paved the way for Luther. On the other hand, Erasmus offended the Lutherans, by protesting against identifying the cause of literature with that of the Reformation. He took every opportunity of declaring his adherence to the see of Rome. The monks, with whom he waged continual war, would have been better pleased had he openly gone over to the enemy : his caustic remarks would have galled them less pro- ERASMUS. 179 ceeding from a Lutheran than from a Catholic. But his motives for continuing in the communion of the established church are clearly indicated in the follow- ing passage : " Wherein could I have assisted Luther, if I had declared myself for him and shared his dan- ger? Instead of one man, two would have perished. I cannot conceive what he means by writing with such a spirit: one thing I know too well, that he has brought great odium on the lovers of literature. He has given many wholesome doctrines and good coun- sels : but I wish he had not defeated the effect of them by his intolerable faults. But even if he had written in the most unexceptionable manner, I had no inclination to die for the sake of truth. Every man has not the courage necessary to make a martyr : I am afraid that, if I were put to the trial, I should imi- tate St. Peter. In 1522 he published the works of St. Hilary. About the same time he published his Colloquies. In this work, among the strokes of satire, he laughed at indulgences, auricular confession, and eating fish on fast-days. The faculty of theology at Paris passed the following censure on the book: " The fasts and absti- nences of the church are slighted, the suffrages of the holy virgin and of the saints are derided, virginity is set below matrimony, Christians are discouraged from becoming monks, and grammatical is preferred to theological erudition." Pope Paul III. had little bet- ter to propose to the cardinals and prelates commis- sioned to consider about the reform of the church, than that young persons should not be permitted to read Erasmus's Colloquies. Colineus took a hint from this prohibition : he reprinted them in 1527, and sold off an impression of twenty-four thousand. In 1524 a rumour was spread abroad that Eras- mus was going to write against Luther, which pro- duced the following characteristic letter from the Great Reformer ; " Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus. I 180 ERASMUS. shall not complain of you for having behaved yourself as a man alienated from us, for the sake of keeping fair with the Papists ; nor was I much offended that in your printed books, to gain their favour or soften their fury, you censured us with too much acrimony. We saw that the Lord had not conferred on you the dis- cernment, courage, and resolution to join with us in freely and openly opposing these monsters ; therefore we did not expect from you what greatly surpasseth your strength and capacity. We have borne with your weakness, and honoured that portion of the gift of God which is in you .... I never wished that, de- serting your own province, you should come over to our camp. You might indeed have favoured us not a little by your wit and eloquence : but as you have not the courage requisite, it is safer for you to serve the Lord in your own way. Only we feared that our ad- versaries should entice you to write against us, in which case necessity would have constrained us to op- pose you to your face. I am concerned that the re- sentment of so many eminent persons of your party has been excited against you : this must have given you great uneasiness ; for virtue like yours, mere hu- man virtue, cannot raise a man above being affected by such trials. Our cause is in no peril, although even Erasmus should attack it with all his might : so far are we from dreading the keenest strokes of his wit. On the other hand, my dear Erasmus, if you duly re- flect on your own weakness, you will abstain from those sharp, spiteful figures of rhetoric, and treat of subjects better suited to your powers." Erasmus's answer is not found in the collection of his letters ; but he must have been touched to the quick. In 1527 he published two dialogues: the first, on 'The pronunciation of the Greek and Latin Lan- guages ;' full of learning and curious research : the second, entitled ' Ciceronianus.' In this lively piece he ridicules those Italian pedants who banished every ERASMUS. 181 word or phrase unauthorised by Cicero. His satire, however, is not directed against Cicero's style, but against the servility of mere imitation. In a subse- quent preface to a new edition of the Tusculan Ques- tions, he almost canonizes Cicero, both for his matter and expression. Julius Scaliger had launched more than one philippic against him for his treatment of the Ciceronians ; but he considered this preface as a kind of penance for former blasphemies, and admitted it as an atonement to the shade of the great Roman. Erasmus had at this time fixed his residence at Basle. He was advancing in years, and complained in his letters of poverty and sickness. Pope Paul III., not- withstanding his Colloquies, professed high regard for him, and his friends thought that he was likely to ob- tain high preferment. Of this matter Erasmus writes thus : " The Pope had resolved to add some learned men to the college of Cardinals, and I was named to be one. But to my promotion it was objected, that my state of health would unfit rne for that function, and that my income was not sufficient." In the summer of 1536 his state of exhaustion be- came alarming. His last letter is dated June 20, and subscribed thus : " Erasmus Rot. segra manu." He died July 12, in the 59th year of his age, and was buried in the cathedral of Basle. His friend Beatus Rhenanus describes his person and mariners. He was low of sta- ture, but not remarkably short, well-shaped, of a fair complexion, grey eyes, a cheerful countenance, a low voice, and an agreeable utterance. His memory was tenacious : he was a pleasant companion, a constant friend, generous and charitable. Erasmus had one peculiarity, humorously noticed by himself; namely, that he could not endure even the smell of fish. On this he observed, that though a good Catholic in other re- spects, he had a most heterodox and Lutheran stomach. With many great and good qualities, Erasmus had VOL. I. M 182 ERASMUS. obvious failings. Bayle has censured his irritability when attacked by adversaries ; his editor, Le Clerc, condemns his lukewarmness and timidity in the busi- ness of the Reformation. Jortin defends him with zeal, and extenuates what he cannot defend. " Eras- mus was fighting for his honour and his life; being accused of nothing less than heterodoxy, impiety, and blasphemy, by men whose forehead was a rock, and whose tongue was a razor. To be misrepresented as a pedant and a dunce is no great matter ; for time and truth put folly to flight : to be accused of heresy by bigots, priests, politicians, and infidels, is a serious affair; as they know too well who have had the mis- fortune to feel the effects of it." Dr. Jortin here speaks with bitter fellow-feeling for Erasmus, as he himself had been similarly attacked by the high church party of his day. He goes on to give his opinion, that even for his lukewarmness in promoting the Re- formation, much may be said, and with truth. " Eras- mus was not entirely free from the prejudices of edu- cation. He had some indistinct and confused notions about the authority of the Catholic Church, which made it not lawful to depart from her, corrupted as he believed her to be. He was also much shocked by the violent measures and personal quarrels of the Re- formers. Though, as Protestants, we are more ob- liged to Luther, Melancthon, and others, than to him, yet we and all the nations in Europe are infinitely in- debted to Erasmus for spending a long and laborious life in opposing ignorance and superstition, and in promoting literature and true piety." To us his cha- racter appears to be strongly illustrated by his own declaration, " Had Luther written truly every thing that he wrote, his seditious liberty would nevertheless have much displeased me. I would rather even err in some matters, than contend for the truth with the world in such a tumult." A zealous advocate of ERASMUS. 183 peace at all times, it is'but just to believe that he sin- cerely dreaded the contests sure to rise from open schism in the church. And it was no unpardonable frailty, if this feeling were nourished by a tempera- ment, which confessedly was not desirous of the palm of martyrdom. It is impossible to give the contents of works occu- pying ten volumes in folio. They have been printed under the inspection of the learned Mr. Le Clerc. The biography of Erasmus is to be found at large in Bayle's Dictionary, and the copious lives of Knight and Jortin. From the bronze statue of Erasmus at Rotterdam. M 2 184 COPERNICUS THE illustrious discoverer of the true planetary mo- tions, lived during the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the first half of the following one. Notwithstanding the success and celebrity of the theory which still hears his name, the materials are very scanty for personal details regarding his life and character. This ignorance is not the result of recent neglect. A century had scarcely elapsed from the time of his death, when Gassendi, who, at the request of the poet Chapelain, undertook to compile an account of him, was forced to preface it by a similar declaration. Whilst Europe rang from one end to the other with the fierce dispute to which the new views of the rela- tion and motions of the heavenly bodies gave rise, the character, the situation and manner of life, almost the COPERNICUS. 185 country, of the great author of the controversy, re- mained unknown to the greater number of his ad- mirers and opponents. Even the name of the dis- coverer of the Copernican system now appears strange, except in the Latinised form of Copernicus, in which alone it occurs in his own writings and in those of his commentators. Nicolas CGpernik*, to use his genuine appellation, was a native of Thorn, a city of Polish Prussia, situ- ated on the river Weichsel or Vistula. He was born in the year 1473. Little is known of his parents, except that his father, whose name also was Nicolas, was a surgeon, and, as it is believed, of German ex- traction. The elder Copernik was undoubtedly a stranger at Thorn, where he was naturalized in 1462 : he married Barbara, of the noble Polish family of Watzelrode. Luke, one of her brothers, attained the high dignity of Bishop of Ermeland, and the pros- pects of advancement which this connexion held out to young Cbpernik probably induced his father to destine him to the ecclesiastical profession. He acquired at home the first elements of a liberal edu- cation, and afterwards graduated at CracoAv, where he remained till he received the diploma of Doctor in Arts and Medicine from that university. He is said to have made considerable proficiency in the latter branch of study; and possessed, even in more ad- vanced life, so high a reputation for skill and know- ledge, as to produce an erroneous belief that he had once followed medicine. He also exhibited at an early age a very decided taste for mathematical studies, especially for astro- nomy; and attended the lectures, both public and private, of Albert Brudzewski, then mathematical * The authority for this manner of spelling the name iu Hartknoeh, Alt and Neues Preussen. 186 COPERNICUS. professor at Cracow. Under his tuition, Copernicus, as we shall hereafter call him, became acquainted with the works of the astronomer, John Muller, (now more commonly known by his assumed appellation of Regiomontanus,) and the reputation of this celebrated man is said to have exercised a marked influence in deciding the bent of his future studies. Muller died at Rome a few years after the birth of Copernicus, and when the latter had reached an age capable of appreciating excellence and nourishing emulation, he found Miiller's works disseminated through every civilized country of Europe, his genius and acquire- ments the subject of universal admiration, and his premature death still regretted as a public calamity. The feelings to which the contemplation of Miiller's success gave rise, were still more excited by a journey into Italy, which Copernicus undertook about the year 1495. One of his brothers and his maternal uncle were already settled in Rome, which was there- fore the point to which his steps eventually tended. He quitted home in his twenty-third year ; when his diligence in cultivating the practical part of astronomy had already procured for him some reputation as a skilful observer. It seems to have been in contem- plation of this journey that he began to study paint- ing, in which he afterwards became a tolerable pro- ficient. Bologna was the first place at which he made any stay, being drawn thither by the reputation of the astronomical professor, Dominic Maria Novarra. Copernicus was not more delighted with this able instructor than Novarra with his intelligent pupil. He soon became an assistant and companion of No- varra in his observations, and in this capacity acquired considerable distinction, so that on his departure from Bologna and arrival at Rome, he found that his repu- tation had preceded him. He was appointed to a COPERNICUS. 187 professorship in that city, where he continued to teach mathematics for some years with considerable success. It does not appear at what time Copernicus entered into holy orders : probably it may have been during his residence at Rome ; for on his return home he was named to the superintendence of the principal church in his native city Thorn. Not long after- wards his uncle Luke, who, in 1489, succeeded Nicolas von Thungen in the bishopric of Ermeland, enrolled him as one of the canons of his chapter. The cathedral church of the diocese of Ermeland is situated at Frauenburg, a small town built near one of the mouths of the Vistula, on the shore of the lake called Frische Haff, separated only by a narrow strip of land from the Gulf of Dantzig. In this situation, rendered xinfavourable to astronomical observations by the frequent marshy exhalations rising from the river and lake, Copernicus took up his future abode, and made it the principal place of his residence du- ring the remainder of his life. Here those astrono- mical speculations were renewed and perfected, the results of which have for ever consigned to oblivion the subtle contrivances invented by his predecessors to account for the anomalies of their own complicated theories. But we should form a very erroneous opinion of the life and character of Copernicus, if we considered him, as it is probable that by most he is considered, the quiet inhabitant of a cloister, immersed solely in speculative inquiries. His disposition did not unfit him for taking an active share in the stirring events which were occurring around him, and it was not left entirely to his choice whether he would remain a mere spectator of them. The chapter of Ermeland, at the time when he became a member of it, was the centre of a violent political struggle, in the decision of which Copernicus 188 COPERNICUS. himself was called on to act a considerable part. In the latter half of the fifteenth century, a bitter war was carried on between the King of Poland and a military religious fraternity, called the Teutonic or German Knights of St. Mary of Jerusalem, who were incorporated towards the end of the twelfth century. Having been called into Prussia, they established themselves permanently in the country, built Thorn and several other cities, and gradually acquired a considerable share of independent power. On the death of Paul von Segendorf, bishop of Ermeland, Casirnir, King of Poland, in pursuance of a design which he was then prosecuting, to get into his own hands the nomination to all the bishoprics in his dominions, appointed his secretary, Stanislas Oppo- rowski, to the vacant see. The chapter of Ermeland proceeded notwithstanding to a separate nomination, and elected Nicolas von Thungen. Opporowski, backed by Casimir, entered Ermeland at the head of a powerful army. From this period, the new Bishop of Ermeland necessarily made common cause with the German Knights ; they renounced their allegiance to the crown of Poland, and threw themselves on the protection of Matthias King of Hungary. At length, Casimir finding himself unable to master the confe- deracy, separated Nicolas von Thungen from it, by agreeing to recognise him as Prince-Bishop of Erme- land, on the usual condition of homage. Nicolas thus became confirmed in his dignity, but his unhappy subjects did not fare better on that account, the country being now exposed to the fury of the German Knights, as it had suffered before from the violence of the Po- lish soldiery. These disturbances were continued during the "life of Luke Watzelrode, and the city of Frauenburg, as well as its neighbour Braunsburg, frequently became the theatre of warlike operations. The management of the see was often committed to COPERNICUS. 189 the care of Copernicus during the absence of his uncle, who on political grounds resided for the most part at the Court ; and his activity in maintaining the rights of the chapter rendered him especially obnoxious to the Teutonic Order. In one of the short intervals of tranquillity, they took occasion to cite him before the meeting of the States at Posen, on account of some of his reports to his uncle concerning their encroach- ments. Gassendi, who mentions this circumstance, merely adds that at length his own and his uncle's merit secured the latter in the possession of his dig- nity. In 1512 Watzelrode died, and Copernicus was chosen as administrator of the see until the appoint- ment of the new bishop, Fabian von Losingen. In 1518 the knights, under their grand master Albert of Brandenburg, took possession of Frauenburg, and burnt it to the ground. During the following year hostilities continued in the immediate neighbourhood of Frauenburg, but in the course of that summer, negotiations for peace be- tween the Teutonic Order and the King of Poland were begun, through the mediation of the bishop. At last a truce was agreed upon for four years, during which Fabian von Losingen died, and Copernicus was again chosen administrator of the bishopric. In 1525 peace was concluded with the Teutonic Knights, Albert having consented to receive Prussia as a tem- poral fief from the King of Poland, It was probably on this occasion that Copernicus was selected to re- present the chapter of Ermeland at the Diet at Graudenz, where the terms of peace were finally settled ; and by his firmness the chapter recovered great part of the possessions which had been endan- gered during the war. This service to his chapter was followed by another of more widely-extended importance. During the struggle, which had conti- nued with little interruption for more than half 4 M3 190 COPERNI CUS. century, the currency had become greatly debased and depreciated ; and one of the most important sub- jects of deliberation at the meeting at Graudenz re- lated to the best method of restoring it. There was a great difference of opinion whether the intended new coinage should be struck according to the old value of the currency, or according to that to which it had fallen in consequence of its adulteration. To assist in the settlement of this important question, Copernicus drew up a table of the relative value of the coins, then in circulation throughout the country. He presented this to the States, accompanied by a memoir on the same subject, an extract from which may be seen in Hartknoch's History of Prussia. Throughout the troublesome period of which we have just given an outline, Copernicus seems to have dis- played much political courage and talent. When tranquillity was at length restored, he resumed the astronomical studies which had been thus interrupted by more active duties. There appears to be little doubt that the philosopher began to meditate on the ideas which led him to the true knowledge of the constitution of the solar system, at least as early as 1507. Every one, who has heard the name of Copernicus mentioned, is aware that before him the general belief was, that the earth occupies the centre of the universe ; that the changes of day and night are produced by the rapid revolution of the heavens, such as our senses erroneously lead us to believe, until more accurate and complicated observation teaches us to the contrary ; that the change of seasons and apparent motions of the pla- netary bodies are caused by the revolution of the sun and planets from west to east round the earth, in orbits of various complexity, subject to the common daily motion of all from east to west. Instead of the daily motion of the heavens from COPERNICUS. 191 east to west, Copernicus substituted the revolution of the earth itself from west to east. He explained the other phenomena of the planetary motions by sup- posing the sun to be fixed, and the earth and other planets to revolve about him ; not, however, in simple circular orbits, according to the popular view of the Copernican theory. It was absolutely necessary to retain much of the old machinery of deferent and epi- cycle so long as the prejudice existed, from which Copernicus himself was not free, that nothing but circular motion is to be found in the heavens. Another step was made by the following generation, and astro- nomers were taught by Kepler to believe that the cir- cular motion which they were so anxious to preserve in their theories, has no real existence in the planetary orbits. The advantage of the new system above the old was, that by not denying to the earth the motion which it really possesses, the author had to invent epicycles to explain only the real irregularities of the motions of the other planets, and not those apparent ones which arise out of the motion of the orb from which they are viewed. It is commonly said that besides the two motions already mentioned, Copernicus attributed to the earth a third annual revolution on its axis. This was ne- cessary from the idea which he had formed of its mo- tion in its orbit. He conceived the earth to be carried round as if resting on a lever centred in the sun, which would cause the poles of the daily motion to point successively to different parts of the heavens ; the third motion was added to restore these poles to their true position in every part of the orbit. It was afterwards seen that these two annual motions might be considered as resulting from one of a different kind, and in this simpler form they are now always consi- dered by astronomical writers. It would be an interesting inquiry to follow Coper- 192 'COPERNICUS. nicus through the train of reasoning which induced him to venture upon these changes ; but it is impossi- ble, to attempt this, or to explain his system, within the limits to which this sketch is necessarily confined. In one point of view, his peculiar merit appears not to be in general sufficiently insisted upon. If he had merely suggested the principles of his new theory, he would doubtless have acquired, as now, the glory of lighting upon the true order of the solar system, and of found- ing thereupon a new school of astronomy : but his peculiar and characteristic merit, that by which he really earned his reputation, and which entitles him to take rank by the side of Newton in the history of astronomy, was the result of his conviction, that if his principles were indeed true, they would be verified by the examination of details, and the persevering reso- lution with which he thereupon set himself to rebuild an astronomical theory from the foundation. This was the reason, at least as much as the fear of incur- ring censure, why he delayed the publication of his system for thirty-six years. During the greater part of that time he was employed in collecting, by careful observation, the materials of which it is constructed : the opinions on which it is based, comprising the whole of what was afterwards declared to be heretical and impious, were widely known to be entertained by him long before the work itself appeared. He de- layed to announce them formally, until he was able at the same time to show that they were not random guesses, taken up from a mere affectation of novelty ; but that with their assistance he had compiled tables of the planetary motions, which were immediately acknowledged even by those whose minds revolted most against the means by which they were obtained, to be far more correct than any which till then had appeared. Copernicus' s book seems to have been nearly con> COPERNICUS. 193 pleted in 1 536, which is the date of a letter addressed to him by Cardinal Schonberg, prefixed to the work. So far at this time was the Church of Rome from having decided on the line of stubborn opposition to the new opinions, which, in the following century, so much to her own disgrace, she adopted, that Copernicus was chiefly moved to complete and publish his work by the solicitations of this cardinal, and of Tindemann Giese, the bishop of Culm : and the book itself was dedicated to Pope Paul III. It is entitled, ' De Revolutionibus Orbium Crelestium, Libri VI.' The dedication is written in a very different strain from that to which his followers were soon afterwards restricted. He there boldly avows his expectation that his theory would be attacked as contrary to the Scriptures, and his contempt of such ill-considered judgment. A more timid preface, in which the new theory is spoken of as a mere mathematical hypothesis, was added to this dedication by Osiander, to whom Copernicus had in- trusted the care of preparing the book for publication. It has been said that the author was far from approv- ing this, and if his death had not followed closely upon its publication, it is not improbable that he would have suppressed it. The revolution of opinion that has followed the publication of this memorable work was not imme- diately perceptible: even to the end of the sixteenth century, as Montucla observes, the number of converts to its doctrines might be easily reckoned. The ma- jority contented themselves with a disdainful sneer at the folly of introducing such ridiculous notions among the grave doctrines of astronomy : but although impertinent, it was yet considered harmless ; and all those who were at the pains to examine the reasoning on which the new theory was grounded, were allowed, unmolested, to own themselves convinced by it. It was not until the spirit of philosophical inquiry wa? 194 COPERNICUS. fully awakened, that the Church of Rome became sen- sible how much danger lurked in the new doctrines ; and when the struggle began in earnest between the partisans of truth and falsehood, the censures pro- nounced upon the advocates of the earth's motion were in fact aimed through them at all who presumed, even in natural phenomena, to see with other eyes than those of their spiritual advisers. Copernicus did not live to witness any part of the effect produced by his book. A sudden attack of dy- sentery and paralysis put an end to his life, within a few hours after the first printed copy had been shown to him, in his seventy-second year, on the 24th May, 1 543, one century before the birth of Newton. The house at Thorn, in which he is said to have been born, is still shown, as well as that at Frauenburg, in which he passed the greater part of his life. An hydraulic machine, of which only the remains now exist, for supplying the houses of the canons with water, and another of similar construction at Graudenz, which is still in use, are said to have been constructed by him. An account of them may be seen in Nanke's Travels. From the little that is known of Copernicus's private character, his morals appear to have been unexcep- tionable ; his temper good, his disposition kind, but inclining to seriousness. He was so highly esteemed in his own neighbourhood, that the attempt of a dra- matic author to satirise him, by introducing his doc- trine of the earth's motion upon the stage at Elbing, was received by the audience with the greatest indigna- tion. He was buried in the cemetery of the chapter of Ermeland, and only a plain marble slab, inscribed with his name, marked the place of his interment. Until this was re-discovered in the latter half of the last century, an opinion prevailed that his remains had been transported to Thorn, and buried in the church of St. John, where the portrait of him is pre- COPERNICUS. 195 served, from which most of the prints in circulation have been taken. It is engraved in Hartknoch's Prussia, and, according to that author, copies of it were frequently made. The portrait prefixed to Gas- sendi's life is a copy of that given in Boissard, with the addition of a furred robe. There is a good en- graving of the same likeness, by Falck, a Polish artist, who lived about a century later than Copernicus. In the year 1584, Tycho Brahe commissioned Elia Olai to visit Frauenburg, for the purpose of more accurately determining the latitude of Copernicus's observatory, and, on that occasion, received as a pre- sent from the chapter the Ptolemaic scales, made by the astronomer himself, which he used in his observa- tory, and also a portrait of him, said to have been painted by his own hand. Tycho placed these me- morials, with great honour, in his own observatory, but it is not known what became of them after his death, and the dispersion of his instruments. The portrait, from which the engraving given in the " Gal- lery of Portraits" was taken, belongs to the Royal So- ciety, to which it was sent by Dr. Wolff, from Dantzig, in 1776. It was copied by Lormann, a Prussian artist, from one which had been long preserved and recog- nised as an original in the collection of the Dukes of Saxe Gotha. In 1735, Prince Grabowski, bishop of Ermeland, exchanged for it the portrait of an ancestor of the reigning duke, who had been formerly bishop of that see. Grabowski left it to his chamberlain, M. Hus- sarzewski, in whose possession it remained when the copy was made. Dr. Wolff, in the letter accompa- nying his present, (inserted in the Phil. Trans, vol. Ixvii.) declares that this original had been compared with the Thorn portrait, and that the resemblance of the two is perfect. It does not appear very striking in the engravings. A colossal statue of Copernicus, executed by Thorwaldsen, was erected at Warsaw in 196 COPERNICUS. 1830, with all the demonstrations of honour due to the memory of a man who holds so distinguished a place in the history of human discoveries. 197 THE invention of the art of taking impressions on paper from an engraved plate is, on the authority of Vasari, usually ascribed to Tommaso Finiguerra, a celebrated enameller and chaser, of Florence, who, having occasion to make a sulphur cast from a piece of plate in 1460, observed that the charcoal dust and dirt which had collected in the engraved lines of the metal were brought off upon the sulphur, so as to present a counterpart of his work. Struck by the appearance, he tried to produce a similar effect by passing moistened paper over the plate, under pres- sure from a roller ; and the experiment succeeded. This is a natural and a probable account; from the earliest antiquity the graver has been employed in embellishing armour, vessels of the precious metals, and other valuable articles of use and orna- ment ; and it is certain that the earliest Italian en- gravers were, by profession, workers in gold and 198 MARC ANTONIO. silver. It is strange indeed that so obvious an exten- sion of the uses of engraving should not have been observed sooner ; but all experience teaches us that a very important discovery may long lie very near the surface, before it meets with an observer sufficiently clear-sighted or fortunate to bring it to light. The Germans, however, contest priority of invention in this art with the Italians. The matter is of no great importance, even to the national fame of the two lands. Those prints which date before Albert Durer in the one, and before Marc Antonio in the other, possess little value either for their design or their execution, however precious they may be to collectors for their rarity, or to antiquaries and artists as histo- rical records of the art. Marc Antonio Raimondi was born at Bologna, about the year 1488 : the dates of his birth and death are not mentioned by Vasari, who is the sole original authority for the private history of this artist. He learnt the art of design from Francesco Francia, or Raibo- lini, after whom he has sometimes been denominated Marc Antonio di Francia : his first instructor in the use of the graver is said to have been a goldsmith. And as Hogarth set out on his career of art by orna- menting tankards and shop-bills, so Marc Antonio at first gained his livelihood as a jeweller's workman. The first of his copper-plates which bears a date represents the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and was engraved in 1505*; but he is said to have executed others before it, among which we find one only, the Four Horsemen, mentioned by name. Induced by the desire of improvement in his art, he took a journey to Venice. Here, for the first time, he saw Albert Durer's engravings on wood ; which he * Heineken says 1502 by mistake. The print of Apollo and Hyacinth bears also the date of 1505. MARC ANTONIO. 199 admired so highly, both for correctness of outline and accuracy of workmanship, that he bought the series of thirty-six pieces, representing the passion of our Saviour, at a price which very nearly exhausted his slender purse. These wood-cuts he copied upon cop- per, with so much success that they were mistaken for the originals ; and Vasari says that Albert Durer com- plained in great anger to the Venetian senate of the injury thus done to him, and obtained no other redress than an order that Antonio should abstain from imi- tating his signature. The Baron Heineken, on the contrary, asserts that the existing copies of these prints do not bear the German artist's mark, and that no one has seen copies which do bear it ; and he believes the story, if founded on fact, to refer to a series of prints representing the life of the Virgin Mary, in seventeen prints, which are exactly copied from Durer, even to his cipher. From Venice Marc Antonio went to Rome, where, to his inestimable benefit, he became acquainted with Raphael, who perceived and assisted his talents, certainly by advice, and, some say, even by manual help. The outlines of Antonio's plates after Raphael have been said to be executed by the painter himself: but this is solely conjecture ; and it appears improbable that, in an art depending so much upon manual dexte- rity, the more unpractised hand should be the superior in precision and delicacy. But that Raphael was very much pleased with the justice which Antonio rendered to his designs is certain. He sent to Albert Durer copies of the Bolognese engraver's works ; and Durer, however jealous he might be, and however justly displeased at past occurrences, could not deny his rival's merit, and acknowledge the courtesy by sending impressions of his own works in return. The honour of Raphael's patronage, the admirable choice 200 MARC ANTONIO. of subjects afforded by his pictures, and the real be- nefit which any lover and cultivator of art must have derived from his society, all combined to raise Anto- nio's fame ; and many pupils came to study under him, among whom Marco di Ravenna, Agostino di Musis, and Giulio Bonasoni, whose plates are highly valued by collectors, may be named as most eminent. After the death of Raphael, Antonio was largely employed by Raphael's distinguished pupil, Giulio Romano, and executed, among other things, the de- signs which accompanied Aretin's notorious sonnets. These engravings attracted the just indignation of Pope Clement VII., who cast the artist into prison. His release was procured by the interference and interest of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici and Baccio Bandinelli ; and as a testimony of gratitude to the latter, Antonio executed the engraving from his pic- ture of the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. This print is twenty-one inches by sixteen in dimensions, and is the largest and one of the finest of the artist's works. It procured for him the entire forgiveness and favour of the offended pontiff. The plates to Aretin were so carefully suppressed, that not a single specimen of them is now certainly known to exist. When Rome was plundered by the Spaniards, in 1520, Marc Antonio lost all his property. He re- turned to Bologna after this misfortune, and was still leading a retired life there in 1539: the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithse bears date in that year, and is the last certain memorial of him. The combat of Hector and Achilles, dated in 1546, though attri- buted to Marc Antonio, is considered by the Baron Heineken to be at least doubtful. Malvasia relates that a Roman nobleman, for whom Antonio had en- graved a print of the Massacre of Innocents, with an undertaking never to repeat the subject, caused the MARC ANTONIO. 201 artist to be assassinated for re-engraving it. But it cast a doubt on the truth of this story, that it is not even alluded to by Vasari. Marc Antonio's plates passed through the hands of Tommaso Barlacchi, Antonio Salamanca, Antonio Lafreri, Nicholas Van Aelst, and Rossi, or De Rubeis, of Rome. Of these publishers, the impressions which bear Salamanca's name are most esteemed ; but the best are those which have no publisher's name at all. The Baron Heineken, in his elaborate ' Dictionnaire des Artistes dont nous avons des Estampes,' (from which this memoir is little more than a free trans- lation,) has given a minute catalogue of the works attributable to Marc Antonio. He divides them into four classes : prints really engraved by the master, and bearing his marks, in number, 120 ; prints engraved by him, but without mark, 126 ; prints doubtful, 66 ; and prints which belong to his era, and to his school, but are by unknown hands. In this reckoning, series like the Passion of Christ, which consist of many plates, are counted only as single works. Strutt, in his Dictionary of Engravers, and Bryan, in his Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, give lists of the more remarkable of Antonio's pro- ductions ; Bryan is the fuller, but neither of them pretend to compete in extent and detail with the catalogue of Heineken ; whom Strutt has closely followed in his biographical notice of this artist. He has given fac-similes of this engraver's marks, seven in number, in plate 9, vol. ii. We quote the follow- ing passages in illustration of Marc Antonio's merits and peculiar characteristics, from the Essay on the History of Engraving, which is prefixed to Strutt's work. '* His engravings are often defective in point of harmony, and the skilful management of the light and shadow, which gives them an unfinished and 202 MARC ANTONIO. sometimes disgustful appearance to the common eye. On the other hand, a graceful flow of outline, joined with purity and correctness of drawing in its greatest latitude, are found in the best works of this master ; but these beauties rarely attract the general notice without the assistance of neatness, or what is more properly called ^high finishing, especially in the present day (1786). The eye, long accustomed to neatness and delicacy of finishing, especially where the judgment is not capable of distinguishing the greater essentials of the art, will necessarily consider that neatness to be the criterion of excellency. Hence it is that the works of the old masters are fallen into such general disrepute : their beauties are overlooked, and their faults are viewed through a magnifying medium. And it is perhaps because Marc Antonio stands the first among the old masters, that he has received a greater share of censure than the rest. " The excellency of this master consists in the cor- rectness of his drawing, the character of his heads, and the pure idea his works convey of the simplicity and elegance of the originals they are [taken from : and they may be considered as admirable drawings, not highly finished indeed, but sufficiently so to preserve the design and spirit of the masters from whom he worked. " That persons possessed of little judgment in the arts should not discover the merits of this engraver, cannot surprise us ; but that artists themselves, and experienced collectors, should join in the common censure, is much more extraordinary. In these instances, we may conclude, he has been too hastily, as he has certainly been unjustly, condemned, without a proper examination of his works in their native state. Such as generally appear at sales, and too many of those in the hands of collectors, are either MARC ANTONIO. worn-out impressions, r or what is still worse, re-touched ones. In these the primitive beauty is entirely lost. Let any one, for instance, examine the common im- pressions of that admirable engraving of this master, representing the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, from Baccio Bandinelli, which is the largest of all his prints, and he will find the outlines darkened with black strokes upon the lights, and the demi-tints upon the flesh increased, so as nearly to equal the deep shadows ; by which means all the breadths of light are destroyed, and cut into a variety of disagree- able divisions, which produce a disgustful and inhar- monious effect. But in a fine impression of the same plate, there are none of these disagreeable crudities to be found ; the shadows are judiciously softened and blended into the lights, and harmo- nised with each other; the outlines are neat and [Poesy, from a print by Marc Antonio. 204 MARC ANTONIO. correct ; and the characters of the heads admirably well expressed. In short, he would scarcely believe it possible that the same plate should furnish im- pressions, so beautiful in one state, and so truly exe- crable in the other. But the wonder ceases, if he be told that the plate, passing through a variety of hands, has been frequently re-touched, and that by careless and unskilful men. We may further add, that as the name of Marc Antonio stands high among the curious collectors, the ignorant are too frequently imposed upon by bad copies, or spurious produc- tions." A very excellent and extensive collection of the engravings of Marc Antonio, and of his pupils, exists in the British Museum, which, with the exception of a few of the extremely rare prints, presents a better assemblage than most public or private cabinets can boast of, whether as to number, beauty of impres- sion, or condition. 205 MARTIN LUTHER was born at Eisleben in Saxony in the year 1483, on the 10th of November ; and if in the histories of great men it is xisual to note with ac- curacy the day of their nativity, that of Luther has a peculiar claim on the biographer, since it has been the especial object of horoscopical calculations, and has even occasioned some serious differences among very profound astrologers. Luther has been the sub- ject of unqualified admiration and eulogy : he has been assailed by the most virulent calumnies ; and, if any thing more were wanted to prove the personal consideration in which he was held by his contem- poraries, it would be sufficient to add, that he has also been made a mask for their follies. He was of humble origin. At an early age he entered with zeal into the Order of Augustinian Her- mits, who were Monks and Mendicants. In the schools of the Nominalists he pursued with acuteness and success the science of sophistry. And he was presently raised to the theological chair at Wittem- berg : so that his first prejudices were enlisted in the service of the worst portion of the Roman Catholic VOL. I. N 206 LUTHER. Church; his opening reason was subjected to the most dangerous perversion ; and a sure and early path was opened to his professional ambition. Such was not the discipline which could prepare the mind for any independent exertion ; such were not the cir- cumstances from which an ordinary mind could have emerged into the clear atmosphere of truth. In dig- nity a Professor, in theology an Augustinian, in phi- losophy a Nominalist, by education a Mendicant Monk, Luther seemed destined to be a pillar of the Roman Catholic Church, and a patron of all its corruptions. But he possessed a genius naturally vast and pene- trating, a memory quick and tenacious, patience in- exhaustible, and a fund of learning very considerable for that age : above all, he had an erect and daring spirit, fraught with magnanimity and grandeur, and loving nothing so well as truth ; so that his under- standing was ever prepared to expand with the occa- sion, and his principles to change or rise, according to the increase and elevation of his knowledge. Nature had endued him with an ardent soul, a powerful and capacious understanding ; education had chilled the one and contracted the other ; and when he came forth into the fields of controversy, he had many of those trammels still hanging about him, which patience, and a succession of exertions, and the excitement of dispute, at length enabled him for the most part to cast away. In the year 1517, John Tetzel, a Dominican Monk, was preaching in Germany the indulgences of Pope Leo X. ; that is, he was publicly selling to all pur- chasers remission of all sins, past, present, or future, however great their number, however enormous their nature. The expressions with which Tetzel recom- mended his treasure appear to have been marked with peculiar impudence and indecency. But the act had in itself nothing novel or uncommon : the sale of in- LUTHER. 207 diligences had long been recognised as the practice of the Roman Catholic Church, and even sometimes cen- sured by its more pious, or more prudent members. But the crisis was at length arrived in which the ini- quity could no longer be repeated with impunity. The cup was at length full ; and the hand of Luther was destined to dash it to the ground. In the schools of Wittemberg the Professor publicly censured, in ninety-five propositions, not only the extortion of the Indulgence-mongers, but the co-operation of the Pope in seducing the people from the true faith, and calling them away from the only road to salvation. This first act of Luther's evangelical life has been hastily ascribed by at least three eminent writers of very different descriptions, (Bossuet, Hume, and Vol- taire,) to the narrowest monastic motive, the jealousy of a rival order. It is asserted that the Augustinian Friars had usually been invested in Saxony with the profitable commission, and that it only became offen- sive to Luther when it was transferred to a Dominican. There is no ground for that assertion. The Domini- cans had been for nearly three centuries the peculiar favourites of the Holy See, and objects of all its par- tialities ; and it is particularly remarkable, that, after the middle of the fifteenth century, during a period scandalously fruitful in the abuse in question, we very rarely meet with the name of any Augustinian as em- ployed in that service. Moreover, it is almost equally important to add, that none of the contemporary ad- versaries of Luther ever advanced the charge against him, even at the moment in which the controversy was carried on with the most unscrupulous rancour. The matter in dispute between Luther and Tetzel went in the first instance no farther than this whe- ther the Pope had authority to remit the divine chas- tisements denounced against offenders in the present and in a future state or whether his power only ex- N 2 208 LUTHER. tended to such human punishments, as form a part of ecclesiastical discipline for the latter prerogative was not yet contested by Luther. Nevertheless, his office and his talents drew very general attention to the con- troversy ; the German people, harassed hy the exac- tions, and disgusted with the insolence of the papal emissaries, declared themselves warmly in favour of the Reformer ; while on the other hand, the supporters of the abuse were so violent and clamorous, that the sound of the altercation speedily disturbed the" festivi- ties of the Vatican. Leo X., a luxurious, indolent, and secular, though literary pontiff, would have disregarded the broil, and left it, like so many others, to subside of itself, had not the Emperor Maximilian assured him of the dangerous impression it had already made on the German people. Accordingly, he commanded Luther to appear at the approaching diet of Augsburg, and justify himself before the papal legate. At the same time he appointed the Cardinal Caietan, a Domi- nican and a professed enemy of Luther, to be arbiter of the dispute. They met in October, 1518; the le- gate was imperious ; Luther was not submissive. He solicited reasons ; he was answered only with autho- rity. He left the city in haste, and appealed " to the Pope better informed," yet it was still to the Pope that he appealed, he still recognised his sovereign su- premacy. But in the following month Leo published an edict, in which he claimed the power of delivering sinners from all punishments due to every sort of transgression ; and thereupon Luther, despairing of any reasonable accommodation with the pontiff, pub- lished an appeal from the Pope to a General Council. The Pope then saw the expediency of conciliatory measures, and accordingly despatched a layman, named Miltitz, as his legate, with a commission to compose the difference by private negotiations with LUTHER. 209 Luther. Miltitz united great dexterity and penetra- tion with a temper naturally moderate, and not inflamed by ecclesiastical prejudices. Luther was still in the outset of his career. His opinions had not yet made any great progress towards maturity ; he had not fully ascertained the foundations on which his principles were built ; he had not proved by any experience the firmness of his own character. He yielded at least so far as to express his perfect submission to the com- mands of the Pope, to exhort his followers to persist in the same obedience, and to promise silence on the subject of indulgences, provided it were also imposed upon his adversaries. It is far too much to say (as some have said) that had Luther's concession been carried into effect, the Reformation would have been stifled in its birth. The principles of the Reformation were too firmly seated in reason and in truth, and too deeply ingrafted in the hearts of the German people, to remain long suppressed through the infirmity of any individual advocate. But its progress might have been some- what retarded, had not the violence of its enemies afforded it seasonable aid. A doctor named Eckius, a zealous satellite of papacy, invited Luther to a pub- lic disputation in the castle of Pleissenburg. The subject on which they argued was the supremacy of the Roman pontiff; and it was a substantial triumph for the Reformer, and no trifling insult to papal des- potism, that the appointed arbiters left the question undecided. Eckius repaired to Rome, and appealed in person to the offended authority of the Vatican. His re- monstrances were reiterated and inflamed by the furious zeal of the Dominicans, with Caietan at their head. And thus Pope Leo, whose calmer and more indifferent judgment would probably have led him to accept the submission of Luther, and thus put the N3 210 LUTHER. question for the moment at rest, was urged into mea- sures of at least unseasonable rigour. He published a bull on the 15th of June, 1520, in which he so- lemnly condemned forty-one heresies extracted from the writings of the Reformer, and condemned these to be publicly burnt. At the same time he sum- moned the author, on pain of excommunication, to confess and retract his pretended errors within the space of sixty days, and to throw himself upon the mercy of the Vatican. Open to the influence of mildness and persuasion, the breast of Luther only swelled more boldly when he was assailed by menace and insult. He refused the act of humiliation required of him ; more than that, he determined to anticipate the anathema sus- pended over him, by at once withdrawing himself from the communion of the church ; and again, hav- ing come to that resolution, he fixed upon the manner best suited to give it efficacy and publicity. With this view, he caused a pile of wood to be erected without the walls of Wittemberg, and there, in the presence of a vast multitude of all ranks and orders, he committed the bull to the flames ; and with it, the Decree, the Decretals, the Clementines, the Extrava- gants, the entire code of Romish jurisprudence. It is necessary to observe, that he had prefaced this mea- sure by a renewal of his former appeal to a General Council ; so that the extent of his resistance may be accurately defined: he continued a faithful mem- ber of the Catholic Church, but he rejected the despotism of the Pope, he refused obedience to an unlimited and usurped authority. The bull of ex- communication immediately followed (January 6, 1521), but it fell without force ; and any dangerous effect, which it might otherwise have produced, was obviated by the provident boldness of Luther. Here was the origin of the Reformation. This was LUTHER. 211 the irreparable breach, which gradually widened to absolute, disruption. The Reformer was now com- promised, by his conduct, by his principles, perhaps even by his passions. He had crossed the bounds which divided insubordination from rebellion, and his banners were openly unfurled, and his legions pressed forward on the march to Rome. Hencefor- ward the champion of the Gospel entered with more than his former courage on the pursuit of truth ; and having shaken off one of the greatest and earliest of the prejudices in which he had been educated, he pro- ceeded with fearless independence to examine and dissipate the rest. Charles V. succeeded Maximilian in the empire in the year 1519; and since Frederic of Saxony per- sisted in protecting the person of the Reformer, Leo X. became the more anxious to arouse the imperial in- dignation in defence of the injured majesty of the Church. In 1521 a diet was assembled at Worms, and Luther was summoned to plead his cause before it. A safe conduct was granted him by the Em- peror ; and on the 17th of April he presented himself before the august aristocracy of Germany. This audience gave occasion to the most splendid scene in his history. His friends were yet few, and of no great influence ; his enemies were numerous, and powerful, and eager for his destruction : the cause of truth, the hopes of religious regeneration, appeared to be placed at that moment in the discretion and constancy of one man. The faithful trembled. But Luther had then cast off the incumbrances of early fears and prepossessions, and was prepared to give a free course to his earnest and unyielding character. His manner and expressions abounded with respect and humility ; but in the matter of his public apology he declined in no one particular from the fulness of his conviction. Of the numerous opinions which he 212 LUTHER. had by this time adopted at variance with the injunc- tions of Rome, there was not one which in the hour of danger he consented to compromise. The most violent exertions were made by the papal party to effect his immediate ruin ; and there were some who were not ashamed to counsel a direct violation of the imperial safe-conduct: it was designed to re-enact the crimes of Constance, after the interval of a cen- tury, on another theatre. But the infamous proposal was soon rejected ; and it was on this occasion that Charles is recorded to have replied with princely indignation, that if honour were banished from every other residence, it ought to find refuge in the breasts of kings. Luther was permitted to retire from the diet ; but he had not proceeded far on his return when he was surprised by a number of armed men, and carried away into captivity. It was an act of friendly vio- lence. A temporary concealment was thought neces- sary for his present security, and he was hastily con- veyed to the solitary Castle of Wartenburg. In the mean time the assembly issued the declaration known in history as the " Edict of Worms," in which the Reformer was denounced as an excommunicated schismatic and heretic ; and all his friends and ad- herents, all who protected or conversed with him, were pursued by censures and penalties. The cause of papacy obtained a momentary, perhaps only a seeming triumph, for it was not followed by any sub- stantial consequences; and while the anathematised Reformer lay in safety in his secret Patmos, as he used to call it, the Emperor withdrew to other parts of Europe to prosecute schemes and interests which then seemed far more important than the religious tenets of a German Monk. While Luther was in retirement, his disciples at Wittemberg, under the guidance of Carlostadt, a man LUTHER. 213 of learning and piety, proceeded to put into force some of the first principles of the Reformation. They would have restrained by compulsion the superstition of private masses, and torn away from the churches the proscribed images. Luther disapproved of the violence of these measures ; or it may also be, as some impartial writers have insinuated, that he grudged to any other than himself the glory of achieving them. Accordingly, after an exile of ten months, he suddenly came forth from his place of refuge, and appeared at Wittemberg. Had he then confined his influence to the introduction of a more moderate policy among the Reformers, many plausible arguments might have been urged in his favour. But he also appears, unhappily, to have been ani- mated by a personal animosity against Carlostadt, which was displayed both then and afterwards in some acts not very far removed from persecution. The marriage of Luther, and his marriage to a nun, was the event of his life which gave most triumph to his enemies, and perplexity to his friends. It was in perfect conformity with his masculine and daring mind, that having satisfied himself of the nullity of his monastic vows, he should take the boldest method of displaying to the world how utterly he rejected them. Others might have acted differently, and abstained, either from conscientious scruples, or, being satisfied in their own minds, from fear to give offence to their weaker brethren ; and it would be presumptuous to condemn either course of action. It is proper to mention that this marriage did not take place till the year 1525, after Luther had long for- mally rejected many of the observances of the Roman Catholic Church ; and that the nun whom he espoused had quitted her convent, and renounced her profession some time before. The war of the peasants, and the fanaticism of 214 LUTHER. Minister and his followers, presently afterwards de- solated Germany ; and the papal party did not lose that occasion to vilify the principles of the Reformers, and identify the revolt from a spiritual despotism with general insurrection and massacre. It is therefore necessary here to observe, that the false enthusiasm of Munster was perhaps first detected and denounced by Luther ; and that the pen of the latter was inces- santly employed in deprecating every act of civil insubordination. He was the loudest in his condem- nation of some acts of spoliation by laymen, who appropriated the monastic revenues ; and at a subse- quent period so far did he carry his principles, so averse was he, not only from the use of offensive vio- lence, but even from the employment of force in the defence of his cause, that on some later occasions he exhorted the Elector of Saxony by no means to oppose the imperial edicts by arms, but rather to consign the persons and principles of the Reformers to the protec- tion of Providence. For he was inspired with a holy confidence that Christ would not desert his faithful followers ; but rather find means to accomplish his work without the agitation of civil disorders, or the intervention of the sword. That confidence evinced the perfect earnestness of his professions, and his entire devotion to the truth of his principles. It also proved that he had given himself up to the cause in which he had engaged, and that he was elevated above the consideration of personal safety. This was no effeminate enthusiasm, no passionate aspiration after the glory of martyrdom ! It was the working of the Spirit of God upon an ardent nature, impressed with the divine character of the mission with which it was intrusted, and assured, against all obstacles, of final and perfect success. As this is not a history of the Reformation, but only a sketch of the life of an individual reformer, we LUTHER. 215 shall at once proceed to an affair strongly, though not very favourably, illustrating his character. The sub- ject of the Eucharist commanded, among the various doctrinal differences, perhaps the greatest attention ; and in this matter Luther receded but a short space, and with unusual timidity, from the faith in which he had been educated. He admitted the real corporeal presence in the elements, and differed from the church only as to the manner of that presence. He rejected the actual and perfect change of substance, but sup- posed the flesh to subsist in, or with the bread, as fire subsists in red-hot iron. Consequently, he renounced the term transubstantiatiou, and substituted consub- stantiation in its place. In the mean time, Zuinglius, the reformer of Zuric, had examined the same question with greater independence, and had reached the bolder conclusion, that the bread and wine are no more than external signs, intended to revive our recollections and animate our piety. This opinion was adopted by Carlostadt, (Ecolampadius, and other fathers of the Reformation, and followed by the Swiss Protestants, and generally by the free cities of the Empire. Those who held it were called Sacramentarians. The opi- nion of Luther prevailed in Saxony, and in the more northern provinces of Germany. The difference was important. It was felt to be so by the Reformers themselves ; and the Lutheran party expressed that sentiment with too little moderation. The Papists, or Papalins (Papalini), were alert in perceiving the division, in exciting the dissension, and in inflaming it, if possible, into absolute schism ; and in this matter it must be admitted, that Luther him- self was too much disposed by his intemperate vehe- mence to further their design. These discords were becoming dangerous ; and in 1529, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, the most ardent among the protectors of the Reformation, assembled the leading doctors of either 216 LUTHER. party to a public disputation at Marpurg. The par ticulars of this conference are singularly interesting to the theological reader ; but it is here sufficient to mention, without entering into the doctrinal merits of the controversy, that whatever was imperious in as- sertion and overbearing in 'authority, and unyielding and unsparing in polemical altercation, proceeded from the mouth and party of Luther ; that every ap- proach to humility, and self-distrust, and mutual toleration, and common friendship, came from the side of Zuinglius and the Sacramentarians. And we are bound to add, that the same uncompromising spirit, which precluded Luther from all co-operation or fellowship with those whom he thought in error (it was the predominant spirit of the church which he had deserted) continued on future occasions to inter- rupt and even endanger the work of his own hands. But that very spirit was the vice of a character, which endured no moderation or concession in any matter wherein Christian truth was concerned, but which too hastily assumed its own infallibility in ascertaining that truth. Luther would have excommunicated the Sacramentarians ; and he did not perceive how pre- cisely his principle was the same with that of the church which had excommunicated himself. Luther was not present at the celebrated Diet of Augsburg, held under the superintendence of Charles V. in 1530 ; but he was in constant correspondence with Melancthon during that fearful period, and in the reproofs which he cast on the temporising, though perhaps necessary, negotiations of the latter, he at least exhibited his own uprightness and impetuosity. The * Confession' of the Protestants, there published, was constructed on the basis of seventeen articles pre- viously drawn up by Luther ; and it was not without his counsels that the faith, permanently adopted by the church which bears his name, was finally digested LUTHER. VOL. I. 218 LUTHER. and matured. Fiom that crisis the history of the Reformation took more of a political, less of a religious character, and the name of Luther is therefore less prominent than in the earlier proceedings. But lie still continued for sixteen years longer to exert his energies in the cause which \vas peculiarly his own, and to influence by his advice and authority the new ecclesiastical system. He died in the year 1546, the same, as it singularly happened, in which the Council of Trent assembled, for the self-reformation and re-union of the Roman Catholic Church. But that attempt, even had it been made with judgment and sincerity, was then too late. During the twenty-nine years which composed the public life of Luther, the principles of the Gospel, having fallen upon hearts already prepared for their reception, were rooted beyond the possibility of extir- pation ; and when the great Reformer closed his eyes upon the scene of his earthly toils and glory, he might depart in the peaceful confidence that the objects of his mission were virtually accomplished, and the work of the Lord placed in security by the same heaven- directed hand which had raised it from the dust. 219 PERHAPS no great revolution has ever been effected by means apparently so inadequate to the end proposed, as in the first establishment of the. Spanish monarchy on the continent of America. The immense import- ance of that revolution, and its intimate connexion with the history of geographical discovery, warrant us in assigning a place in our Gallery to a representative of the rude and daring men by whom the mighty con- quest was effected. Of thc^e, Fernando Cortez claims the first place. It is proper to mention, in explanation of what might seem a capital omission in our work, that no authentic likeness is known to exist of Co- lumbus : a man raised above those who followed him across the Atlantic, no less by the purity of his motives, than by the originality of his daring career. Columbus, however, did not colonize the American continent : his settlement was in Hispaniola. But o2 220 CORTEZ. the Spaniards soon took possession of other islands in the group of the Antilles. In 1511 Diego Velasquez annexed the most important of them, Cuba, to the Spanish crown, and was rewarded with the appoint- ment of Governor. Eager to gain fresh wealth and honour, he equipped a squadron of discovery, in 1518, which tracked the southern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and brought home so inviting a report, that he determined to attempt the conquest of the country. But he was greatly embarrassed in the choice of a commanding officer. To conduct the enterprise him- self was no part of his scheme : at the same time he was very desirous to appropriate to himself the advan- tages likely to accrue from its successful issue. It was no easy matter to find a person qualified by talent and courage to assume the command of such an enter- prise ; yet so humble in rank, or so devoid of ambition, as to give no umbrage to the governor's jealousy. After much hesitation, he invested Cortez with the chief command as his lieutenant. The early history and character of this remarkable man are clearly and concisely told by Dr. Robertson. " He was born at Medelin, a small town in Estre- madura, in the year 1485, and descended from a fa- mily of noble blood, but of very moderate fortune. Being originally destined by his parents to the study of the law, as the most likely method of bettering his condition, he was sent early to the university of Sala- manca, where he imbibed some tincture of learning. But he was soon disgusted with an academic life, which did not suit his ardent and restless genius, and retired to Medelin, where he gave himself up entirely to active sports and martial exercises. At this period of life he was so impetuous, so overbearing, and so dissipated, that his father was glad to comply with his inclination, and send him abroad as an adventurer in arms. There were in that age two conspicuous theatres CORTEZ. 221 on which such of the Spanish youth as courted military glory might display their valour : one in Italy, under the command of the Great Captain ; the other in the New World. Cortez preferred the former, but was prevented by indisposition from embarking with a re- inforcement of troops sent to Naples. Upon this dis- appointment he turned his views towards America, whither he was allured by the prospect of the advan- tages which he might derive from the patronage of Ovando, the Governor of Hispaniola, who was his kinsman. When he landed at St. Domingo, in 1 504, his reception was such as equalled his most sanguine hopes, and he was employed by the Governor in several honourable and lucrative stations. These, however, did not satisfy his ambition ; and in the year 1511 he obtained permission to accompany Diego Velasquez in his expedition to Cuba. In this service he distin- guished himself so much, that, notwithstanding some violent contests with Velasquez, occasioned by some trivial events, unworthy of remembrance, he was at length taken into favour, and received an ample con- cession of lands and of Indians, the recompense usually bestowed upon adventurers in the New World. "Though Cortez had not hitherto acted in high command, he had displayed such qualities in several scenes of difficulty and danger, as raised universal ex- pectation, and turned the eyes of his countrymen towards him, as one capable of performing great things. The turbulence of youth, as soon as he found objects and occupations suited to the ardour of his mind, gradually subsided, and settled into a habit of regular indefatigable activity. The impetuosity of his temper, when he came to act with his equals, insen- sibly abated, by being kept under restraint, and mellowed into a cordial soldierly frankness. These qualities were accompanied with calm prudence in concerting his schemes, with persevering vigour in ex- 222 CORTEZ. ecuting them, and with what is peculiar to superior genius, the art of gaining the confidence and governing the minds of men. To all which were added the in- ferior accomplishments that strike the vulgar, and command their respect; a graceful person, a winning aspect, extraordinary address in martial exercises, and a constitution of such vigour as to be capable of en- during any fatigue. " As soon as Cortez was mentioned to Velasquez by his confidants, he flattered himself that he had at length found what he had hitherto sought in vain, a man with talents for command, but not an object for jealousy. Neither the rank, nor the fortune of Cortez, as he ima- gined, were such that he could aspire at independence. He had reason to believe that by his own readiness to bury ancient animosities in oblivion, as well as his liberality in conferring several recent favours, he had already gained the good-will of Cortez ; and hoped, by this new and unexpected mark of confidence, that he might attach him for ever to his interest." It is remarkable that Velasquez, actuated by these views, should have selected for his deputy such a man as is here described. He soon repented of his confi- dence, and sought to revoke the commission which he had bestowed. But Cortez, in addition to the funds provided by the governor, had spent the whole of his own available means in raising troops, and making pre- parations for the enterprise ; he was already embarked at the head of a body of impatient adventurers ; and he despised a mandate which there were no means of enforcing. And one of his first steps after lauding on the Main was to throw ofi' formally all subordina- tion to Velasquez, and to assume the title of Chief Justice arid Captain General of the intended colony, by virtue of a new commission, drawn iu the king's name, and purporting to continue in force until the royal pleasure should be known. CORTEZ. 223 The expedition sailed from Cuba, February 10, 1519, and following the track of the preceding one, coasted the western side of the peninsula of Yucatan. At St. Juan de Ulloa some natives came on board, and replied to the questions put to them through the medium of interpreters, that their country formed part of a great empire called Mexico, governed by a powerful Monarch, Montezuma. Several interviews, followed, in which Cortez, professing to come as am- bassador from his own sovereign, perseveringly de- manded to be led into the presence of Montezuma. This was peremptorily refused ; but the denial, as if to make amends, was accompanied by presents rich enough to inflame, had that been necessary, the cu- pidity of the strangers. Instead of departing, they laid the foundations of a settlement, named Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. Meanwhile, Montezuma acted in- decisively and-weakly : he neither admitted his for- midable visitors to the friendly intercourse which they insidiously demanded, nor summoned the strength of his empire to crush them at once ; but let them for- tify themselves while he was making vain requisitions for their immediate departure, and gave time and op- portunity to those who were discontented under his own heavy yoke, to rally round the standard of the invader. And it was not long before the Spaniards obtained that native assistance, without which their mere physical strength must have sunk under the vastness of their enterprise. The Cacique of Zempoalla, prompted by hatred of Montezuma, was the first to assist in the ruin of his native land. Supported by a small body of that chief- tain's troops, and attended by 200 Indians of an inferior class, who in that country, where the art of breaking animals to the use of man was unknown, performed the humiliating services of beasts of burden, Cortez marched from Zempoalla towards the heart of the 224 CORTEZ. country, August 16, with only 500 Europeans, and six cannon. Aware that on the first reverse of for- tune his men might grow disgusted with an enterprise of such formidable appearance, or from mere incon- stancy might be eager to return to their homes in Cuba, a temper which had been already manifested by some, he resolved, before quitting the coast, to destroy the shipping ; and it is a remarkable instance of his ascendancy over his followers' minds, that he pro- cured a general consent to this decisive, not to say desperate measure, which left small hope of safety but in success. His route lay through the country of the Tlascalans, a warlike people, who spurned his professions of friendship, and attacked the invaders in a series of battles. The imperfection of their weapons rendered their efforts fruitless ; and having been severely taught the strength of their enemies, they sued for peace, and became faithful and active allies. The Spaniards, accompanied by a body of 6000 Tlascalans, then ad- vanced without resistance to Mexico itself; after punishing an attempt to lead them into an ambuscade at Cholula by an indiscriminate massacre, in which 6000 persons are reported to have perished. Monte- zuma received them with the semblance of profound respect. He told them of an ancient tradition, that the ancestors of the Mexicans came originally from a remote region, and conquered the land : after which their leader went back to his own country, promising that at some future period his descendants should re- turn to reform their constitution, and assume the go- vernment; and Montezuma expressed his belief that the Spaniards were the persons whom his countrymen were thus taught to expect. Another tradition, which helped to produce that weak and wavering conduct which gave the Spaniards such advantage, foretold that some great misfortune should accrue to the na- CORTEZ. 225 tive inhabitants from a race of invaders from the regions of the rising sum. It is remarkable that, according to the earliest and best Spanish historians, this belief was very prevalent in the New World. The Spaniards, with their Indian allies, were quar- tered in the ample precincts of a royal palace. But Cortez was uneasy, notwithstanding these fair appear- ances. He had advanced with a handful of men into a populous city, where he might at any time be sur- rounded and attacked by multitudes. He was warned by the Tlascalans of Montezuma's faithlessness ; and the hostile spirit of the Mexicans was made plain, by intelligence that several Spaniards had been slain in repelling an attack on the garrison of Vera Cruz. Cortez felt that Montezuma's forbearance proceeded only from timidity, and that his own best security lay m working upon that passion. He conceived the daring resolution to make the king a prisoner in his own capital; judging that, while Montezuma lived, the Mexicans would not throw off their allegiance, nor disobey his mandates, though issued under foreign control. He went, therefore, as usual, to the palace, attended only by a few picked men ; and being ad- mitted without suspicion to the emperor's presence, he complained angrily of the attack on the garrison of Vera Cruz, and required Montezuma, as a pledge of his good faith, to take up his residence in the Spanish quarters. Betrayed by his own easiness into the power of a few strangers, Montezuma complied, under the imminent fear of personal violence. Cortez next required that the officer who commanded in the at- tack complained of should be given up. This was done ; and he, his son, and five others, were publicly burnt on a pile of Mexican weapons, taken from the public armoury. While this atrocious act of cruelty and revenge was proceeding, the emperor, apparently to render it the more impressive, was placed in fetters. o3 226 CORTEZ. Haughty and tyrannical, but unstable and timid, the spirit of Montezuma was entirely broken by his misfortunes. He remained passively during six months in his captivity ; and formally acknowledged himself a vassal to the crown of Castile. Religion was the only point on which he was firm. Cortez urged him with the blind zeal of a crusader to re- nounce his false gods, and embrace Christianity ; and not content with these importunate solicitations, he attempted forcibly to remove the idols from the grand temple. The resolute interference of priests and people compelled him to desist from the rash project ; but not until it had aroused a spirit of implacable hostility. Meanwhile Velasquez's anger at Cortez's faithless- ness was increased by the brilliant accounts of his success ; and having obtained from the court of Castile a patent constituting himself governor of New Spain, he prepared to remove or punish his disobe- dient officer by force of arms. He sent 900 men, commanded by Narvaez, a brave and experienced officer, who immediately opened a correspondence with Montezuma. This raised the hopes of the Mexicans, by showing that their invaders were not exempt from internal discord. Cortez perceived and met the dangers of his position with his usual ability and courage. Having tried in vain to arrange mat- ters with Narvaez by negotiation, he left a garrison of 150 men in Mexico, and marched with only 250 against an enemy who nearly quadrupled him in number. His skill, the patience of his soldiers, inured to the inclemency of a tropical climate, and the too great security of his adversary, won for him an almost bloodless victory; and the troops sent out for his destruction enlisted almost to a man under his standard. Placed against all expectation at the head of near a thousand men, he hastened back to CORTEZ. 227 Mexico, where by that time his presence was ur- gently required. He found the Spanish garrison hemmed in, and reduced to extremities, by a people who, stimulated by superstition and maddened by a fresh and atro- cious outrage, seemed suddenly to have exchanged timidity for desperation. The return of Cortez with his formidable reinforcement did not abate their fero- city. Even the person of Montezuma, who was ex- posed on the Spanish rampart, ceased to command respect, and he received three wounds from stones and arrows, from the effects of which, aggravated by rage and a deep sense of his degradation, he expired. The Mexicans now sought to blockade their enemies and reduce them by hunger ; and, as Cortez had not the command of the lake, he found it necessary im- mediately to evacuate the city. But he was taken at disadvantage in traversing by night (July 1, 1520) one of the long causeways which connect the city with the shores of the lake in which it stands ; and on mustering those who reached the mainland, he found his small battalion of Europeans reduced by one-half, with the loss of all the horses, baggage, artillery, and most of the treasure which had been amassed by individual soldiers. The anniversary of this calamity was long, and may be still, distinguished in New Spain by the appellation of Noche Triste, the sad night. By a circuitous route, and not without cutting their way through an immense army assembled to inter- cept them, the Spaniards returned to the friendly Indians of Tlascala, among whom Cortez meant to recruit his exhausted companions, and to wait until fresh supplies of men and stores could be obtained from the West India islands. Some vessels which put into the harbour of Vera Cruz afforded an unex- pected reinforcement of 180 men ; and on the 28th of 228 CORTEZ. December Cortez began to retrace his march towards Mexico. At Tezeuco, the second city of the empire, situated on the banks of the lake, about twenty miles from the capital, he established his head-quarters for four months, during which the timbers of twelve small vessels, cut out in the mountains of Tlascala, were put together. This force ensured the command of the lake, for the Mexicans had nothing larger than canoes ; and just before their completion, a reinforce- ment of 200 men, with arms and stores, arrived from Hispaniola. At the beginning of May, 1521, with about 800 Europeans, Cortez commenced the siege of Mexico itself. Guatimozin, a nephew of Montezuma, who had succeeded to the throne, made a resolute defence ; and Cortez, aware of the danger of entangling his troops in the streets, yet anxious to preserve the buildings as a trophy of his victory, urged the siege with unusual caution. Each day he pushed his way as far as pos- sible into the city ; but he returned to his quarters at night, during which the barricades of the causeways were repaired, and on the morrow a fresh battle was to be fought on the same ground. Thus matters went until the 3rd of July, when Cortez, impatient of so pro- tracted a resistance, made a desperate attempt to carry every thing before him in one great assault. Expe- rience improved the Mexicans in the art of war. When the Spaniards, by the energy of their attack, had forced a way into the heart of the city, Guati- mozin led them still onwards by a show of slackened resistance, while he detached troops, by land and water, to beset the breaches in the causeway by which it was necessary for the enemy to retire. At a given signal, the great drum of the god of war was struck, and the Mexicans returned to the attack, their hatred of the invaders stimulated by the ferocity of their superstition. The Spaniards were compelled to give CORTEZ. 229 way, and disorder was converted into absolute rout by the promiscuous onset of the natives, when they ar- rived at the breach. Above sixty Europeans perished, for those who were taken prisoners were offered as sacrifices on the Mexican altars. After this reverse Cortez took a surer way to success, and as fast as his troops made a lodgment, he caused the houses to be levelled with the ground. When three quarters of the city were thus destroyed, and those who defended the remainder were exhausted by famine and disease, Guatimozin yielded to the persuasion of those who urged him to preserve himself, to renew the war in the remote provinces of the empire. But he was in- tercepted and captured, with his family, as he sought to escape across the lake ; and on the loss of their sovereign, the Mexicans ceased to resist. The siege thus ended August 13, 1521. The victors were greatly disappointed in the amount of the precious metals which fell into their hands. What remained of the royal treasures Guatimozin had ordered to be thrown into the lake. Much spoil was carried off by the Indian auxiliaries, and much pro- bably was lost or destroyed in the ruins of the city. The whole treasure collected was inferior in amount to that which the Spaniards had formerly received as a present from Montezuma; and the adventurers cla- morously expressed their dissatisfaction. Pressed by this spirit of discontent, Cortez gave way to a passion, as alien to that undefined feeling which we call the spirit of chivalry, as to the natural laws of charity and justice ; and tried, in vain, to extract by torture from the royal prisoner and one of his favourite followers a discovery of the treasures which were supposed to be hidden. Overcome by pain, the latter cast a look on his master, which seemed to ask permission to reveal what he knew. Guatimozin indignantly replied to the implied intreaty " Am I reposing on a bed of 230 CORTEZ. flowers ?" and the faithful subject kept silence, paid died. The emperor, with his two principal officers, was afterwards hanged, on a groundless charge of having excited insurrection. The provinces were readily overrun after the fall of the capital, and made subject to Spain ; though into- lerable oppression often produced insurrections, which were put down with unrelenting severity. Having conquered an empire without commission from the monarch in whose name he made war, Cortez narrowly escaped having to answer as a criminal for the irregu- larity of his proceedings. But in 1522 he succeeded in procuring a royal commission, which constituted him captain-general and governor of New Spain. Still his actions were watched with an ungenerous though natural jealousy ; and his situation became so critical, that he resolved, in 1528, to return to Castile, and answer, before no inferior tribunal, such charges as might be urged against him. He appeared with the splendour which became one who had unlocked the treasures of the New World ; and his own ample fortune, contrasted with the smallness of the sum divided among his comrades, gave birth to a belief that he had not dealt fairly in the partition of the spoil. As his return to Spain put an end to all fears of his ambition, he was received with the favour which such brilliant services merited. He was in- vested with the order of St. Jago, the highest rank of Spanish knighthood ; and the valley of Guaxaca, with an extensive domain, was erected into a marquisate in his behalf. But he could not obtain what he most desired, the supreme direction of affairs in Mexico. He returned thither in 1 530 at the head of the military department, and with authority to prosecute new dis- coveries ; but the direction of civil affairs was vested in a board, entitled the Audience of New Spain. Henceforward we may regard Cortez as a disappointed CORTEZ. 231 and unhappy man. Thwarted at home by the double authority established, he sought to reap new glory by exploring the Pacific Ocean; and in 1536 he dis- covered the peninsula of California and surveyed part of the gulf which separates it from the American continent. But from that country neither profit nor honour, Unless as a geographical discoverer, could be gained ; and the result of the expedition neither satis- fied the expectations of others, nor repaid the adven- turers for the hardships which they underwent. In 1540, wearied and disgusted, Cortez returned to Spain, and found his services forgotten, or at least his person slighted. He served as a volunteer in 1541, in Charles V.'s expedition against Algiers, and had a horse killed under him. This was his last military action. After wearying his proud spirit in fruitless ^attempts to gain attention from Charles or his minis- ters to his real or supposed grievances, he retired into seclusion, and died at Seville, December 2, 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. We have passed rapidly over the shocking cruelties which marked the progress of the Spanish arms. Some portion of the horror, with which we naturally regard the actors in such events, may be neutralized by the consideration, that men's notions in all things, and perhaps most especially in matters of interna- tional justice, are greatly dependent on the spirit of the time in which they live ; and that it is hardly fair to judge actions, which won the admiration of contem- poraries, according to the standard of a subsequent age. But even in that age there were not wanting many to raise an indignant voice against the cruelties practised on an unoffending people ; and after every just allowance has been made, it is not to be doubted that the treatment of the American aborigines forms a foul stain on the history of Spain, and loads all who were concerned in it with an awful responsibility ; 232 CORTEZ. and we willingly acknowledge it to have been a just retribution, that of the original settlers few reaped prosperity, repose, or wealth, as the harvest of their arms. With their leaders it was eminently otherwise. Scarce one of those who led the conquerors of Peru escaped a violent death in civil strife ; while Cortez (with whom no one divides the fame of conquering Mexico) lived to experience the proverbial ingratitude of courts, and died in that forced obscurity which is most galling to an ambitious mind. The noble inscription, composed by Southey for the birth-place of Cortez's early companion in arms and rival in fame, needs but the change of name to render it equally applicable to Cortez himself. " Pizarro here was born a greater name The list of Glory boasts not. Toil and Pain, Famine, and hostile Elements, and Hosts Embattled, failed to check him in his course, Not to be wearied, not to be deterred, Not to be overcome. A mighty realm He overran, and with relentless arm Slew or enslaved its unoffending sons, And wealth, and power, and fame were his rewards. There is another world beyond the grave, According to their deeds where men are judged. O reader ! if thy daily bread be earned By daily labour, yea, however low, However wretched be thy lot assigned, Thank thou, with deepest gratitude, the God Who made thee, that thou art not such as he." 233 THOMAS CRANMER was born July 2, 1489, at As- lacton, in Nottinghamshire. He was descended from an ancient family, which had long been resident in that county. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge ; where he obtained a fel- lowship, which he soon vacated by marriage with a young woman who is said to have been of humble condition. Within a year after his marriage he be- came a widower, and was immediately, by unusual favour, restored to his fellowship. In 1523, he was admitted to the degree of doctor of divinity, and ap- pointed one of the public examiners in that faculty. Here he fount! an opportunity of showing the fruits of that liberal course of study which he had been for some time pursuing. As soon as his teachers left him at liberty, he had wandered from the works of the schoolmen to the ancient classics and the Bible ; and, thus prepared for the office of examiner, he alarmed the candidates for degrees in theology by the novelty of requiring from them some knowledge of the Scriptures. It was from this useful employment that he was 234 CRANMKR. called to take part in the memorable proceedings of Henry the Eighth, in the 'matter of his divorce from Catherine. Henry had been counselled to lay his case before the universities, both at home and abroad. Cranmer, to whom the subject had been mentioned by Gardiner and Fox, went a step farther, and suggested that he should receive their decision as sufficient without reference to the Pope. This suggestion was commu- nicated to the King, who, observing, with his usual elegance of expression, that the man had got the sow by the right ear, summoned. Cranmer to his presence, and immediately received him into his favour and confidence. In 1531, Cranmer accompanied the unsuccessful embassy to Rome, and in the following year was ap- pointed ambassador to the Emperor. In August, 1532, the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant by the death of Warham, and it Was Henry's pleasure to raise Cranmer to the primacy. The latter seems to have been truly unwilling to accept his promotion ; and when he found that no reluctance on his part could shake the king's resolution, he suggested a difficulty which there was no very obvious means of removing. The Archbishop must receive his investi- ture from the Pope, and at his consecration take an oath of fidelity to his Holiness, altogether inconsistent with another oath, taken at the -same time, of allegi- ance to the king. All this had been done without scruple by other bishops ; but Cranmer was already convinced that the Papal authority in England was a mere usurpation, and plainly told Henry that he would receive the % archbishopric from him alone. Henry was not a man to be stopped by scruples of conscience of his own or others ; so he consulted cer- tain casuists, who settled the matter by suggesting that Cranmer should take the obnoxious oath, with a CRANMER. 235 protest that he meant nothing by it. He yielded to the command of his sovereign and the judgment of the casuists. His protest was read by himself three times in the most public manner, and solemnly re- corded. It is expedient to notice that the transaction was public, because some historians, to make a bad matter worse, still talk of a private protest. In 1533, he pronounced sentence of divorce against the unhappy Catherine, and confirmed the marriage of the king with Anne Boleyn. He was now at lei- sure to contemplate all the difficulties of his situation. It is commonly said that Cranmer himself had, at this time, made but small progress in Protestantism. It is true that he yet adhered to many of the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church ; but he had reached, and firmly occupied, a position which placed him by many degrees nearer to the reformed faith than to that in which he had been educated. By recognising the Scriptures alone as the standard of the Christian faith, he had embraced the very principle out of which Protestantism flows. It had already led him to the Protestant doctrine respecting the pardon of sin, which necessarily swept away all respect for a large portion of the machinery of Romanism. As a religious reformer, Cranmer could look for no cordial and honest support from the king. Every one knows that Henry, when he left the Pope, had no mind to estrange himself more than was necessary from the Papal Church, and that the cause of religious refor- mation owes no more gratitude to him, than the cause of political liberty owes to those tyrants who, for their own security, and often by very foul means, have la- boured to crush the power of equally tyrannical nobles. From Gardiner, who, witli his party, had been most active and unscrupulous in helping the king to his divorce and destroying papal supremacy, Cranmer had nothing to expect but open or secret 236 CRANMER. hostility, embittered by personal jealousy. Cromwell, indeed, was ready to go with him any lengths in re- form consistent with his own safety ; but a sincere reformer must have been occasionally hampered by an alliance with a worldly and unconscientious politician. The country at large was in a state of unusual excite- ment ; but the rupture with Rome was regarded with at least as much alarm as satisfaction ; and it was notorious that many, who were esteemed for their wisdom and piety, considered the position of the church to be monstrous and unnatural. The Lol- lards, who had been driven into concealment, but not extinguished, by centuries of persecution, and the Lutherans, wished well to Cranmer's measures of re- form : but he was not equally friendly to them. They had outstripped him in the search of truth ; and he was unhappily induced to sanction at least a miserable persecution of those men with whom he was after- wards to be numbered and to suffer. His first and most pressing care was by all means to reconcile the minds of men to the assertion of the king's ecclesiastical supremacy, because all further changes must necessarily proceed from the royal authority. He then addressed himself to what seem to have been the three great objects of his official exertions, the reformation of the clerical body, so as to make their ministerial services more useful ; the removal of the worst part of the prevailing supersti- tious observances, which were a great bar to the intro- duction of a more spiritual worship ; and above all, the free circulation of the Scriptures among the people in their own language. In this last object he was opportunely assisted by the printing of what is called Matthews's Bible, by Grafton and Whitchurch. He procured, through the intervention of Cromwell, the king's license for the publication, and an injunction that a copy of it should be placed in every parish CRANMER. 237 church. He hailed this event with unbounded joy ; and to Cromwell, for the active part he took in the matter, he says, in a letter, " This deed you shall hear of at the great day, when all things shall be opened and made manifest." He had hardly witnessed the partial success of the cause of Reformation, when his influence over the king, and with it the cause which he had at heart, began to decline. He had no friendly feeling for those monastic institutions which the rapacity of Henry had marked for destruction ; but he knew that their revenues might, as national property, be applied advantageously to the advancement of learning and religion, and he opposed their indiscriminate transfer to the greedy hands of the sycophants of the court. This opposition gave to the more unscrupulous of the Romanists an opportunity to recover their lost grotmd with the king, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. They were strong enough at least to obtain from Parliament, in 1539 (of course through the good will of their despotic master,) the act of the Six Articles, not improperly called the '* Bloody Ar- ticles," in spite of the determined opposition of Cran- mer: an opposition which he refused to withdraw even at the express command of the king. Latimer and Shaxton immediately resigned their bishoprics. One of the clauses of this act, relating to the marriage of priests, inflicted a severe blow even on the domestic happiness of Cranmer. In his last visit to the con- tinent, he had taken, for his second wife, a niece of the celebrated divine Osiarider. By continuing to cohabit with her, he would now, by the law of the land, be guilty of felony ; she was therefore sent back to her friends in Germany. From this time till the death of Henry, in 1546, Cranmer could do little more than strive against a stream which not only thwarted his plans of further 238 CRANMER. reformation, but endangered his personal safety ; and he had to strive alone, for Latimer and other friends among the clergy had retired from the battle, and Cromwell had been removed from it by the hands of the executioner. He was continually assailed by open accusation and secret conspiracy. On one occasion his enemies seemed to have compassed his ruin, when Henry himself interposed and rescued him from their malice. His continued personal regard for Cranmer, after he had in a measure rejected him from his con- fidence, is a remarkable anomaly in the life of this extraordinary king ; of whom, on a review of his whole character, we are obliged to acknowledge, that in his best days he was a heartless voluptuary, and that he had become, long before his death, a remorseless and sanguinary tyrant. It is idle to talk of the com- plaisance of the servant to his master, as a complete solution of the difficulty. That he was, indeed, on some occasions subservient beyond the strict line of integrity, even his friends must confess ; and for the part which he condescended to act in the iniquitous divorce of Anne of Cleves, no excuse can be found but the poor one of the general servility of the times : that infamous transaction had left an indelible stain of dis- grace on the Archbishop, the Parliament, and the Convocation. But Cranmer could oppose as well as comply : his conduct in the case of the Six Articles, and his noble interference in favour of Cromwell, be- tween the tiger and his prey, would seem to have been sufficient to ruin the most accommodating courtier. Perhaps Henry had discovered that Cranmer had more real attachment to his person than any of his unscrupulous agents, and he may have felt pride in protecting one who, from his unsuspicious disposition and habitual mildness, was obviously unfit, in such perilous times, to protect himself. His mildness in- deed was such, that it was commonly said, " Do my CRANMER. 239 Lord of Canterbury a shrewd turn, and you make him your friend for life." On the accession of Edward new commissions were issued, at the suggestion of Cranmer, to himself and the other bishops, by which they were empowered to receive again their bishoprics, as though they had ceased with the demise of the crown, and to hold them during the royal pleasure. His object of course was to settle at once the question of the new king's supremacy, and the proceeding was in conformity with an opinion which at one time he undoubtedly enter- tained, that there are no distinct orders of bishops and priests, and that the office of bishop, so far as it is distinguished from that of priests, is simply of civil origin. The government was now directed by the friends of Reformation, Cranmer himself being one of the Council of Regency ; but still his course was by no means a smooth one. The unpopularity, which the conduct of the late king had brought on the cause was even aggravated by the proceedings of its avowed friends during the short reign of his son. The ex- ample of the Protector Somerset was followed by a herd of courtiers, and not a few ecclesiastics, in making reform a plea for the most shameless rapa- city, rendered doubly hateful by the hypocritical pre- tence of religious zeal. The remonstrances of Cran- mer were of course disregarded ; but his powerful friends were content that, whilst they were filling their pockets, he should complete, if he could, the establishment of the reformed ^church. Henry had left much for the Reformers to do. Some, indeed, of the peculiar doctrines of Romanism had been modi- fied, and some of its superstitious observances abo- lished. The great step gained was the general per- mission to read the Scriptures ; and, though even that had been partially recalled, it was impossible to recall the scriptural knowledge and the spirit of in- 240 CRANMER. quiry to which it had given birth. With the assist- ance of some able divines, particularly of his friend and chaplain Ridley, afterwards Bishop of London, Cranmer was able to bring the services and discipline of the church, as well as the articles of faith, nearly to the state in which we now see them. In doing this he had to contend at once with the determined hos- tility of the Romanists, with dissensions in his own party, and conscientious opposition from sincere friends of the cause. In these difficult circumstances his conduct was marked generally by moderation, good judgment, and temper. But it must be acknowledged that he concurred in proceedings against some of the Romanists, especially against Gardiner, which were unfair and oppressive. In the composition of the New Service Book, as it was then generally called, and of the Articles, we know not what parts were, the immediate work of Cranmer ; but we have good evi- dence that he was the author of three of the Homilies, those of Salvation, of Faith, and of Good Works. It should be observed, that Cranmer, though he early set out from a principle which might be ex- pected eventually to lead him to the full extent of doctrinal reformation, made his way slowly, and by careful study of the Scriptures, of which he left be- hind sufficient proof, to that point at which we find him in the reign of Edward. It is certain that during the greater part, if not the whole, of Henry's reign, he agreed with the Romanists in the doctrine of the corporal presence and transubstantiation. The death of Edward ushered in the storms which troubled the remainder of his days. All the members of the council affixed their signatures to the will of the young king, altering the order of succession in favour of Lady Jane Grey. Cranmer's accession to this illegal measure, the suggestion of the profligate Northumberland, cannot be justified, nor did he CRANMER. 241 himself attempt to justify it. He appears weakly and with great reluctance, to have yielded up his bet- ter judgment to the will of his colleagues, and the opinion of the judges. Mary had not been long on the throne before Cranmer was committed to the Tower, attainted of high treason, brought forth in what seems to have been little better than a mockery of disputation, and then sent to Oxford, where, with Latimer and Ridley, he was confined in a common prison. The charge of high treason, which might undoubtedly have been maintained, was not followed up, and it was not, perhaps, the intention of the government at any time to act upon it : it was their wish that he should fall as a heretic. At Oxford he was repeatedly brought before commissioners delegated by the Convocation, and, in what were called examinations and disputa- tions, was subjected to the most unworthy treatment. On the 20th of April, 1554, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were publicly required to recant, and on their refusal were condemned as heretics. The com- mission, however, having been illegally made out, it was thought expedient to stay the execution till a new one had been obtained; which, in the case of Cranmer, was issued by the Pope. He was conse- quently dragged through the forms of another trial and examination ; summoned, whilst still a close pri- soner, to appear within eighty days at Rome ; and then, by a sort of legal fiction, not more absurd per- haps than some which still find favour in our own courts, declared contumacious for failing to appear. Finally, he was degraded, and delivered over to the secular power. That no insult might be spared him, Bonner was placed on the commission for his degra- dation, in which employment he seems to have sur- passed even his usual brutality. Cranmer had been a prisoner for more than two VOL. i. p 242 CRANMER. years, during the whole of which his conduct appears to have been worthy of the high office which he had held, and the situation in which he was placed. Whilst he expressed contrition for his political of- fence, and was earnest to vindicate his loyalty, he maintained with temper and firmness those religious opinions which had placed him in such fearful peril. Of the change which has thrown a cloud over his memory, we hardly know any thing with certainty but the fact of his recantation. Little reliance can be placed on the detailed accounts of the circum- stances which accompanied it. He was taken from his miserable cell in the prison to comfortable lodgings in Christchurch, where he is said to have been assailed with promises of pardon, and allured, by a treacherous show of kindness, into repeated acts of apostacy. In the mean while the government had decreed his death. On the 21st of March, 1556, he was taken from his prison to St. Mary's Church, and exhibited to a crowded audience, on an elevated plat- form, in front of the pulpit. After a sermon from Dr. Cole, the Provost of Eton, he uttered a short and affecting prayer on his knees ; then rising, addressed an exhortation to those around him; and, finally, made a full and distinct avowal of his penitence and remorse for, his apostacy, declaring, that the unworthy hand which had signed his recantation should be the first member that perished. Amidst the reproaches of his disappointed persecutors he was hurried from the church to the stake, where he fulfilled his promise by holding forth his hand to the flames. We have un- doubted testimony that he bore his sufferings with inflexible constancy. A spectator of the Romanist party says, " If it had been either for the glory of God, the wealth of his country, or the testimony of the truth, as it was for a pernicious error, and sub- version of true religion, I could worthily have com- CRANMER. 243 mended the example, and matched it with the fame of any Father of ancient time." He perished in his sixty-seventh year. All that has been left of his writings will be found in an edition of " The Remains of Archbishop Cran- mer," lately published at Oxford, in four volumes 8vo. They give proof that he was deeply imbued with the spirit of Protestantism, and that his opinions were the result of reflection and study ; though the effect of early impressions occasionally appears, as in the manner of his appeals to the Apocryphal books, and a submission to the judgment of the early fathers, in a degree barely consistent with his avowed principles. See his First Letter to Queen Mary. This brief memoir does not pretend to supply the reader with materials for examining that difficult question, the character of the Archbishop. It is hardly necessary to refer him to such well-known books as Strype's Life of Cranmer, and the recent works of Mr. Todd and Mr. Le Bas. The time, it seems, has not arrived for producing a strictly impartial life of this celebrated man. Yet there is doubtless a much nearer agreement among candid inquirers, whether members of the Church of England or Roman Catholics, than the language of those who have told their thoughts to the public might lead us to expect. Those who are cool enough to understand that the credit and truth of their respective creeds are no way interested in the matter, will pro- bably allow, that the course of reform which Cranmer directed was justified to himself by his private con- victions ; and that his motive was a desire to establish what he really believed to be the truth. Beyond this they will acknowledge that there is room for difference of opinion. Some will see, in the errors of his life, only human frailty, not irreconcileable with a general singleness of purpose ; occasional deviations from the p2 244 CRANMER. habitual courage of a confirmed Christian. Others may honestly, and not uncharitably, suspect, that the habits of a court, and constant engagement in official business, may have somewhat marred the simplicity of his character, weakened the practical influence of religious belief, and caused him, whilst labouring for the improvement of others, to neglect his own ; and hence they may account for his unsteadfastness iu times of trial. In addition to the works already mentioned, we may name as easily accessible, among Protestant authori- ties, Burnet's History of the Reformation ; among Ro- man Catholic, Lingard's History of England. Col- lier, in his Ecclesiastical History, stands, perhaps, more nearly on neutral ground, but can hardly be cited as an impartial historian. Though a Pro- testant, in his hatred and dread of all innovators, and especially of the Puritans, he seems ready to take refuge even with Popery; and examines always with jealousy, sometimes with malignity, the motives and conduct of Reformers, from his first notice of Wiclif to the close of his history. 245 CHARLES V. was born at Ghent, February 24, 1500. His parents were the Archduke Philip, sou of the Emperor Maximilian, and Joanna, daughter of Fer- dinand of Arragon and Isabella of Castile. To those united kingdoms Charles succeeded on the death of his grandfather Ferdinand, in 1516. The early part of his reign was stormy : a Flemish regency and Flemish ministers became hateful to the Spaniards ; and their discontent broke out into civil war. The Castilian rebels assumed the name of The Holy League, and seemed animated by a spirit not unlike that of the English Commons under the Stuarts. Spain was harassed by these internal contests until 1522, when they were calmed by the presence of Charles, whose prudence, and we may hope his hu- manity, put an end to the rebellion. He made some examples ; but soon held his hand, with the declara- P3 246 CHARLES V. tion, that " too much blood had been spilt." An amnesty was more effectual than severities, and the royal authority was strengthened, as it will seldom fail to be, by clemency. Some of his courtiers in- formed him of the place where one of the ringleaders was concealed. His answer is worthy of everlasting remembrance, " You ought to warn him that I am here, rather than acquaint me where he is.'' Spain, the Two Sicilies, the Low Countries, and Franche Comte, belonged to Charles V. by inherit- ance; and by his grandfather Maximilian's inter- vention, he was elected King of the Romans : nor had he to wait long before that prince's death, in 1519, cleared his path to the empire. But Francis I. of France was also a candidate for the imperial crown, with the advantage of being six years senior to Charles, and of having already given proof of military talent. The Germans, however, were jealous of their liberties ; and not unreasonably dreading the power of each competitor, rejected both. Their choice fell on Frederic, Elector of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, celebrated as the protector of Luther ; but that prince declined the splendid boon, and recommended Charles, on the plea that a powerful emperor was required to stop the rapid progress of the Turkish arms. It was, however, surmised, that two thousand marks of gold, judiciously distributed by the Spanish ambassador, had some little influence in fixing the votes. On his election, Charles was required to sign a capitulation for the maintenance of the liberties and rights of the Germanic body, with a proviso against converting the empire into an heir-loom in his family. From the time of Otho IV. it had been customary for new em- perors to send an embassy to Rome, giving notice of their election, and promising obedience to the papal court ; but Charles V. thought this more honoured in the breach than the observance ; nor have the pre- CHARLES V. 247 tensions of the Holy See been since strong enough to recover that long-established claim. So true it is, that practices resting on no better foundation than absurd or pernicious precedents, require only a suc- cessful example of resistance, to ensure their abolition. The political jealousy, embittered by personal emulation, which existed between the Emperor and the King of France, broke out into war in 1521. France, Navarre, and the Low Countries, were at times the seat of the long contest which ensued ; but chiefly Italy. The duchy of Milan had been con- quered by Francis in 1515. It was again wrested from the French by the Emperor in 1522. In 1523, a strong confederacy was formed against France, by the Pope, the Emperor, the King of England, the Archduke Ferdinand, to whom his brother Charles had ceded the German dominions of the House of Austria ; the states of Milan, Venice, and Genoa ; all united against a single power. And in addition, the celebrated Constable of Bourbon became a traitor to France, to gratify his revenge ; brought his brilliant military talents to the Emperor's service ; and was invested with the command of the Imperial troops in Italy. To this formidable enemy Francis opposed his weak and presumptuous favourite, the Admiral Bonnivet, who was driven out of Italy in 1524, the year in which the gallant Bayard lost his life, in striving to redeem his commander's errors. The confidence of Francis seemed to increase with his dangers, and his faults with his confidence. He again entered the Milanese, in 1525, and retook the capital. But Bonnivet was his only counsellor ; and, under such guidance, the siege of Pavia was prose- cuted with inconceivable rashness, and the battle of Pavia fought without a chance of gaining it. Francis was taken prisoner, and wrote thus to his mother, the Duchess of Angoul6me ; " Everything is lost, 248 CHARLES V. except our honour." This Spartan spirit has been much admired ; but whether justly, may be a ques- tion. From a Bayard, nothing could have been better : but the honour of a king is not confined to fighting a battle ; and this specimen, like the con- duct of Francis in general, proves him to have been the mirror of knighthood, rather than of royalty. Charles, notwithstanding his victory at Pavia, did not invade France, but, as the price of freedom, he prescribed the harshest conditions to the captive king. At first they were rejected; but his haughty spirit and conscience were at length both reconciled to the ca- suistry, that the fulfilment of forced promises may be eluded. Francis therefore consented to the treaty of Madrid, made in 1 526, by which it was stipulated that he should give up his claims in Italy and the Low Countries ; surrender the Duchy of Burgundy to Spain ; and return into captivity, if these condi- tions were not fulfilled in six weeks. When once at large, instead of executing the treaty, he formed a league with the Pope, the King of England, and the Venetians, to maintain the liberty of Italy. The Pope absolved him from his oaths, and he refused to return into Spain. This deliberate infraction of an oath savoured neither of the mirror of knighthood, nor royalty. Nor did the Emperor appear to advan- tage in this transaction : his want of generosity was conspicuous in his extravagant demands, and his failure in the higher tone of princely feeling was not compensated to himself by the success of his politics. In 1527, Bourbon laid siege to Rome, and was slain in the assault ; but the Imperialists took and plundered the city, and are said in derision to have proclaimed Martin Luther Pope. The Emperor's conduct on this occasion was not less farcical, than his hypocrisy was disgusting. On receiving news of the captivity of the head of the church, instead of CHARLES V. 249 setting him at liberty, he commanded processions for his deliverance, and ultimately exacted from him a heavy ransom. Meanwhile the treaty of Madrid was not fulfilled ; and this was the cause of another war between Spain and France, supported by Eng- land. The passions of the rival monarchs were now much excited, and challenges and the lie were ex- changed between them. No duel was fought, nor probably intended ; but the notoriety of the challenge went far to establish a false point of punctilio, we will not call it honour, among gentlemen, and single combats became more frequent than in the ages of barbarism. In 1529, the course of these calamities was sus- pended by the treaty of Cambray, negotiated in person by two women. The Duchess of Angouleme, and Margaret of Austria, governess of the Low Countries, met in that city, and settled the terms of pacification between the rival monarchs. For Charles's honourable conduct on Luther's ap- pearance before the diet of Worms, the reader may refer to the life of the Reformer in the present volume. The cause of Lutheranism gained ground at the diet of Nuremberg ; and if Charles had declared in favour of the Lutherans, all Germany would probably have changed its religion. As it was, the Reformation made progress during the war between the Emperor and Clement VII. All that Charles acquired from the diet of Spire in 1526, was to wait patiently for a general council, without encouraging novelties. In 1530, he assisted in person at the diet of Augsburg, when the Protestants (a name bestowed on the Re- formers in consequence of the protest entered by the Elector of Saxony and others at the second diet of Spire) presented their confession, drawn up by Me- lancthon, the most moderate of Luther's disciples. About this time Charles procured the election of his 250 CHARLES V. brother Ferdinand as king of the Romans, on the plea that, in his absence, the empire required a powerful chief to make head against the Turks. This might be only a pretence for family aggrandisement : but the Emperor became seriously apprehensive lest the Lutherans, if provoked, should abandon the caxise of Christendom : and policy therefore conceded what zeal would have refused. By a treaty concluded with the Protestants at Nuremberg, and ratified at Ratisbon in 1531, Charles granted them liberty of conscience, till a council should be held, and annulled all sen- tences passed against them by the Imperial chamber : on this they engaged to give him powerful assistance against the Turks. In 1535, Muley Hassan, the exiled king of Tunis, implored Charles's aid against the pirate Barbarossa, who had usurped his throne. The Emperor eagerly seized the opportunity of acquiring fame, by the de- struction of that pest of Spain and Italy. He carried a large army into Africa, defeated Barbarossa, and marched to Tunis. The city surrendered, being in no condition to resist : and while the conqueror was deliberating what terms to grant, the soldiery sacked it, committed the most atrocious violence, and are said to have massacred more than thirty thousand persons. This outrage tarnished the glory of the expedition, which was entirely successful. Muley Hassan was restored to his throne. In 1536 a fresh dispute for the possession of the Milanese broke out between the King of France and the Emperor. It began with a negotiation, artfully protracted by Charles, who promised the investiture, sometimes to the second, sometimes to the youngest son of his formerly impetuous rival, whom he thus amused, while he took measures to crush him by the weight of his arms. But if misfortune had made the King of France too cautious, prosperity had inspired CHARLES V. 251 Charles with a haughty presumption, which gave the semblance of stability to every chimerical vision of pride. In 1536 he attempted the conquest of France by invading Provence ; but his designs were frustrated by a conduct so opposite to the national genius of the French, that it induced them to murmur against their general. Charles however felt by experience the pru- dence of those measures, which sacrificed individual interests to the general good, by making a desert of the whole country. Francis marked his impotent hatred by summoning the Emperor before parliament by the simple name of Charles of Austria, as his vassal for the countries of Artois and Flanders. The charge was the infraction of the treaty of Cambray, the offence was laid as felony, to abide the judgment of the court of peers : on the expiration of the legal term, two fiefs were decreed to be confiscated. A fresh source of hostility broke out on the death of the young Dauphin of France, who was said to have been poisoned, and the king accused Charles V. of the crime. But there is neither proof nor probability to support the charge : and the accused could have no interest to commit the act imputed to him, since there were two surviving sons still left to Francis. But the resources even of Charles were exhausted by his great exertions : arrears were due to his troops, who mutinied everywhere, from his inability to pay them. He therefore assembled the Cortes, or states- general, of Castile, at Toledo, in 1539, stated his wants, and demanded subsidies. The clergy and no- bility pleaded their own exemption, and refused to impose new taxes on the other orders. Charles in anger dissolved the Cortes, and declared the nobles and prelates for ever excluded from that body, on the ground that men who pay no taxes have no right to a voice in the national assemblies. Toledo at that time witnessed a singular instance of power and haughti- 252 CHARLES V. ness in the Spanish grandees. The Emperor with his court was returning from a tournament, when one of the officers making way before him struck the Duke d'Infantado's horse : the proud nobleman drew his sword, and wounded the offender. 1 Charles ordered the grand provost to arrest the duke ; but the Consta- ble of Castile compelled the provost to retire, claimed his exclusive right to judge a grandee, and took the duke, whom the other nobles rallied round, to his own house. Only one cardinal remained with the king, who had the good sense to pocket the affront. He offered to punish the officer ; but Infantado considered the proposal as sufficient reparation, and the grandees returned to court. But the people of Ghent made a more serious resistance to authority, on account of a tax which infringed their privileges. They offered to transfer their allegiance to Francis, who did not avail himself of the proposal, not from either conscientious or chivalrous scruples, but because -his views were all centred in Milan : he therefore betrayed his Flemish clients to the Emperor, in hopes of obtaining the in- vestiture of the Italian duchy. By holding out the expectation of this boon, Charles obtained a safe-con- duct for his passage through France into Flanders, whither he was anxious to repair without loss of time. His presence soon reduced the insurgents. The in- habitants of Ghent opened their gates to him on his fortieth birth-day, in 1540 ; and he entered his native city, in his own words, " as their sovereign and their judge, with the sceptre and the sword." He pu- nished twenty-nine of the principal citizens with death, the town with the forfeiture of its privileges, and the people by a heavy fine for the building of a citadel to coerce them. He broke his word with Francis by bestowing the Milanese on his own son, afterwards Philip II. If his duplicity be hateful, the credulity of Francis is contemptible. CHARLES V. 253 Our limits will not allow of our detailing the cir- cumstances of the Emperor's calamitous expedition against Algiers ; but his courage, constancy, and hu- manity in distress and danger, claim a sympathy for his misfortunes, which is withheld from the selfish and wily career of his prosperity. Francis devised new grounds for war, and allied himself with Sweden, Denmark, and the Sultan Soli- man. This is the first instance of a confederacy with the North. But he had alienated the Protestants of Germany by his severe measures against the Luther- ans, and Henry VIII. by crossing the marriage of his son Edward with Mary of Scotland, yet in her cradle. Henry therefore leagued with the Emperor, who found it convenient to bury the injuries of Catherine of Arragon in her grave. The war was continued during the two following years with various success : the most remarkable events were the capture of Bou- logne by the English, and the great victory won by the French over the Imperialists at Cerisolles, in Piedmont, in 1 544. In the autumn of that year a treaty was concluded at Crespi, between Charles and Francis, involving the ordinary conditions of mar- riage and mutual renunciations, with the curious clause that both should make joint war against the Turks. In the same year the embarrassments created by the war, and the imminent danger of Hungary, increased the boldness of the German Protestants belonging to the league of Smalkald, and the Emperor, while pre siding at the diet of Spire, won them over by consent- ing to the free exercise of their religion. The Catholics had always demanded a council, which was convened at Trent in 1545. The Protest- ants refused to acknowledge its authority, and the Em- peror no longer affected fairness towards them. In 1546 he joined Pope Paul III. in a league against them, by a treaty in terms contradictory to his own VOL. i. Q 254 CHARLES V. public protestations. Paul himself was so imprudent as to reveal the secret, and it enabled the Protestants to raise a formidable army in defence of their religion and liberties. But the Electors of Cologne and Bran- denburgh, and the Elector Palatine, resolved to re- main neuter. Notwithstanding this secession, the war might have been ended at once, had the confeder- ates attacked Charles while he lay at Ratisbon with very few troops, instead of wasting time by writing a manifesto, which he answered by putting the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse under the ban of the empire. He foresaw those divisions which soon came to pass, by Maurice of Saxony's seizure of his cousin's electorate. Delivered by the death of Francis in 1547, in which year Henry VIII. also died, from the watchful super- vision of a jealous and powerful rival, and relieved from the fear of the Turks by a five years' truce, Charles was at liberty to bend his whole strength against the revolted princes of Germany. He marched against the Elector Frederic of Saxony, who was de- feated at Mulhausen, taken prisoner, and condemned to death by a court-martial composed of Italians and Spaniards, in contempt of the laws of the empire. The sentence was communicated to the prisoner while playing at chess : his firmness was not shaken, and he tranquilly said, " I shall die without reluctance, if my death will save the honour of my family and the inheritance of my children." He then finished his game. But his wife and family could not look at his death so calmly : at their entreaty he surrendered his electorate into the Emperor's hands. The other chief of the Protestant league, the Landgrave of Hesse, was also forced to submit, and detained in captivity, contrary to the pledged word of the Em- peror ; who, fearless of any further resistance to his supreme authority, convoked a diet at Augsburg in CHARLES V. 255 1548. At that assembly Maurice was invested with Saxony : and the Emperor, in the vain hope of en- forcing a uniformity of religious practice, published by his own authority a body of doctrine called the " Interim," to be in force till a general council should be assembled. The divines by whom that " Interim" was composed had inserted the fundamentals of Ca- tholic doctrine, and preserved the ancient form of worship ; but they allowed the communion in both kinds, and permitted married priests to perform sacer- dotal functions. This necessarily was unsatisfactory to both parties ; but its observance was enforced by a master, with whom terror was the engine of obe- dience. These measures, however, did not preserve tran- quillity long in Germany. Maurice of Saxony and the Elector of Brandenburg urged the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, as having made themselves sureties against violence to his person. Charles an- swered by absolving them from their pledges. The Protestants of course charged him as arrogating the same spiritual authority with the popes. And Mau- rice, offended at the slight put upon him, directed his artful policy to the humiliation of Charles. He had compelled his subjects to conform to the Interim by the help of the timid Melancthon, who was no longer supported by the firmness of Luther. On the other hand, he had silenced the clamours of the more sturdy by a public avowal of his zeal for the Reformation. In the mean time, the diet of Augsburg, completely at the Emperor's devotion, had named him general of the war against Magdeburg, which had been placed under the ban of the empire for opposition to the Interim. He took that Lutheran city, but by private assurances regained the goodwill of the inhabitants. He also engaged in a league with France, but still wore the mask, He even deceived the able Granville, Bishop Q 2 256 CHARLES V. of Arras, afterwards cardinal, who boasted that " a drunken German could never impose on him;" yet was he of all others most imposed on. At last, in 1552, Maurice declared himself, and Henry II. published a manifesto, assuming the title of " Protector of the liberties of Germany and its captive princes." He began with the conquest of the three bishoprics of Toul, Baden, and Metz. In conjunction with Mau- rice he had lain a plan for surprising Charles at Inspruck, and getting possession of his person; and the daring attempt had almost succeeded. Charles was forced to escape by night during a storm, in a paroxysm of gout, and was carried across the Alps in a litter. In the subsequent conferences at Passau, the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, the abolition of the Interim, and the assembling of a diet within six months, to end all religious differences, were the con- ditions imposed upon the Emperor. In the mean time, liberty of conscience was to be enjoyed in the fullest manner, and Protestants were made admissible into the imperial chamber. The examination of grievances affecting the liberties of the empire was to be referred to the approaching diet ; and if the ecclesiastical dis- putes were not then adjusted, the treaty now con- cluded was to remain in perpetual force. These dis- putes were adjusted, in 1555, at the diet of Augsburg, by the solemn grant of entire freedom of worship to the Protestants. The King of France was abandoned by his allies, and scarcely named in the treaty. Dr. Robertson's remark on this is worth quoting : " Henry experienced the same treatment which every prince who lends his aid to the authors of a civil war may expect. As soon as the rage of faction began to sub- side and any prospect of accommodation to open, his services were forgotten, and his associates made a merit with their sovereign of the ingratitude with which they abandoned their protector." Henry re- CHARLES V. 25*7 solved to defend his acquisition of the three bishoprics, and Charles to employ his whole force for their re- covery. The Duke of Guise made adequate prepara- tions for the defence of Metz, the siege of which the Emperor was compelled to raise, after sixty-five days spent in fruitless efforts, with the loss of 30,000 men by skirmishes and battles, and by diseases incident to the severity of the season. " I perceive," said he, " that Fortune, like other females, forsakes old men, to lavish her favours on the young." This sentiment probably sunk deeper into his reflections, than might be inferred from the sarcastic terms in which it was clothed: for in the year 1556, after various events of war, alternately calamitous to the subjects of both na- tions, he astonished Europe by his abdication in favour of his son. In an assembly of the states at Brussels, he addressed Philip in a speech which melted the audience into tears. The concluding passage, as given by Robertson, is worth transcribing, to show how much easier it is to utter the suggestions of wisdom and virtue than to act up to them, and how much an ex- perienced observer of human character may be misled to gratuitous assumptions by parental affection. " Pre- serve an inviolable regard for religion ; maintain the Catholic faith in its purity ; let the laws of your coun- try be sacred in your eyes ; encroach not on the rights and privileges of your people ; and if the time should ever come when you shall wish to enjoy the tranquillity of private life, may you have a son^endowed with such qualities that you can resign your sceptre to him with as much satisfaction as I give up mine to you !" Charles retired into a monastery, where he died, after more than two years passed in deep melancholy, and in practices of devotion inconsistent with sound intel- lect, when only between fifty-eight and fifty-nine years of age. His activity and talents had been the theme of universal admiration : the ardour of his am- 258 CHARLES V. [Charles V., from a picture by Vandyke.! CHARLES V. 259 bitious policy had been extreme, and his knowledge of mankind profound : but he should have followed up the objects of his high aspiring by a straighter road. His glory would have been truly enviable had he de- voted his efforts to the happiness of his subjects, in- stead of harassing their minds by dissensions, and mowing down their lives by hundreds of thousands in war. To the statesman or the politician the history of this period is an inexhaustible fund of instruction and in- terest, and to the general reader it is rendered more than usually attractive by the almost dramatic con- trast of character among the principal actors in the scene. Francis seems to have been the representative of the expiring school of chivalry ; Charles was not the representative, but the founder of the modern sys- tem of state policy : Henry was the representative of ostentation, violence, and selfishness, to be found in all ages. We are absolved from the necessity of dilating on the state of the fine arts at this era of their glory, by referring the reader to the lives of the artists of the time scattered throughout our volumes. The life of Titian affords the most ample evidence of Charles's personal taste, and feeling of painting ; and his warm and generous friendship for that great artist is at once a proof of his discernment, and perhaps the most at- tractive feature in his character. It is scarcely necessary to name Robertson as the modern historian of Charles, and his work is the best direction to original authorities. Sismondi may also be consulted. 260 MELANCTHON. __ L k ... PHILIP was the son of a respectable engineer named Schwartzerde, that is, Black-earth, a name which he Grecised at a very early age, as soon as his literary tastes and talents began to display themselves, assuming, in compliance with the suggestion of his distinguished kinsman Reuchlin or Capnio, and ac- cording to the fashion of the age, the classical syno- nyme of Melancthon. He was born at Bretten, a place near Wittenberg, February 16, ]497. He commenced his studies at Heidelberg in 1509; and after three years was removed to Tubingen, where he remained till 1518. These circumstances are in this instance not undeserving of notice, because Melanc- thon gave from his very boyhood abundant proofs of an active and brilliant genius, and acquired some juvenile distinctions which have been recorded by grave historians, and have acquired him a place among the ' Enfans Celebres' of Baillet. During his residence at Tubingen he gave public lectures on Virgil, Terence, Cicero, and Livy, while he was pur- suing with equal ardour his biblical studies ; and he had leisure besides to furnish assistance to Reuchlin in his dangerous contests with the monks, and to MELANCTHON. 261 direct the operations of a printing-press. The course of learning and genius, when neither darkened by early prejudice nor perverted by personal interests, ever points to liberality and virtue. In the case of Melancthon this tendency was doubtless confirmed by the near spectacle of monastic oppression and bigotry ; and thus we cannot question that he had imbibed, even before his departure from Tubingen, the principles which enlightened his subsequent ca- reer, and which throw the brightest glory upon his memory. In 1518 (at the, age of twenty-one) he was raised to the Professorship of Greek in the University of Wittemberg. The moment was critical. Luther, who occupied the theological chair in the same Uni- versity, had just published his ' Ninety-five Proposi- tions against the Abuse of Indulgences,' and was entering step by step into a contest with the Vatican. He was in possession of great personal authority ; he was older by fourteen years, and was endowed with a far more commanding spirit, than his brother pro- fessor ; and thus, in that intimacy with local circum- stances and similarity of sentiments immediately cemented between these two eminent persons, the ascendancy was naturally assumed by Luther, and maintained to the end of his life. Melancthon was scarcely established at Wittemberg when he addressed to the Reformer some very flattering expressions of admiration, couched in indifferent Greek iambics ; and in the year following he attended him to the pub- lic disputations which he hfcld with Eckius on the supremacy of the Pope. Here he first beheld the strife into which he was destined presently to enter, and learned the distasteful rudiments of theological controversy. Two years afterwards, when certain of the opinions of Luther were violently attacked by the Faculty of Q3 262 MELANCTHON. Paris, Melancthon interposed to defend their author, to repel some vain charges which were brought against him, and to ridicule the pride and ignorance of the doctors of the Sor bonne. About the same time he engaged in the more delicate question respecting the celibacy of the clergy, and opposed the Popish prac- tice with much zeal and learning. This was a sub- ject which he had always nearest his heart, and, in the discussions to which it led, he surpassed even Luther in the earnestness of his argument ; and he at least had no personal interest in the decision, as he never took orders. In 1528 it was determined to impose a uniform rule of doctrine and discipline upon the ministers of the Reformed churches ; and the office of composing it was assigned to Melancthon. He published, in eighteen chapters, an ' Instruction to the Pastors of the Electorate of Saxony,' in which he made the. first formal exposition of the doctrinal system of the Reformers. The work was promulgated with the approbation of Luther ; and the article concerning the bodily presence in the Eucharist conveyed the opinion of the master rather than that of the disciple. Yet were there other points so moderately treated and set forth in so mild and compromising a temper, as sufficiently to mark Melancthon as the author of the document ; and so strong was the impression pro- duced upon the Roman Catholics themselves by its character and spirit, that many considered it the com- position of a disguised friend ; and Faber even ven- tured to make personal overtures to the composer, and to hold forth the advantages that he might hope to attain by a seasonable return to the bosom of the Apostolic Church. The Diet of Augsburg was summoned soon after- wards, and it assembled in 1530, for the reconcilia- tion of all differences. This being at least the pro- MELANCTHON. 263 fessecl object of both parties, it was desirable that the conferences should be conducted by men of modera- tion, disposed to soften the subjects of dissension, and to mitigate by temper and manner the bitterness of con- troversy. For this delicate office Luther was entirely disqualified, whereas the reputation of Melancthon presented precisely the qualities that seemed to be re- quired ; the management of the negotiations was ac- cordingly confided to him. But not without the near superintendence of Luther. The latter was resident close at hand, he was in perpetual communication with his disciple, and influenced most of his proceedings ; and, at least during the earlier period of the confe- rences, he not only suggested the matter, but even authorised the form, of the official documents. It was thus that the * Confession of Augsburg' was composed ; and we observe on its very surface thus much of the spirit of conciliation, that of its twenty-eight chapters twenty-one were devoted to the exposition of the opinions of the Reformers, while seven only were directed against the tenets of their adversaries. In the tedious and perplexing negotia- tions that followed, some concessions were privately proposed by Melancthon, which could scarcely have been sanctioned by Luther, as they were inconsistent with the principles of the Reformation and the inde- pendence of the Reformers. In some letters written towards the conclusion of the Diet, he acknowledged in the strongest terms the authority of the Roman Church and all its hierarchy ; he asserted that there was positively no doctrinal difference between the parties ; that the whole dispute turned on matters of discipline and practice ; and that, if the Pope would grant only a provisional toleration on the two points of the double communion and the marriage of the clergy, it would not be difficult to remove all other differences, not excepting that respecting the mass. 264 MELANCTHON. " Concede," he says to the Pope's legate, " or pre- tend to concede those two points, and we will submi to the bishops ; and if some slight differences shall 'still remain between the two parties, they will not occasion any breach of union, because there is no difference on any point of faith, and they will be governed by the same, bishops ; and these bishops, having once reco- vered their authority, will be able in process of time to correct defects which must now of necessity be tolerated." On this occasion Melancthon took coun- sel of Erasmus rather than of Luther. It was his object at any rate to prevent the war with which the Protestants were threatened, and from which he may have expected their destruction. But the perfect and almost unconditional submission to the Roman hier- archy, which he proposed as the only alternative, would have accomplished the same purpose much more certainly ; and Protestant writers have ob- served, that the bitterest enemy of the Reformation could have suggested no more effectual or insidious method of subverting it, than that which was so warmly pressed upon the Roman Catholics by Me- lancthon himself. Luther was indignant when he heard of these proceedings ; he strongly urged Me- lancthon to break off the negotiations, and to abide by the Confession. Indeed, it appears that these de- grading concessions to avowed enemies produced, as is ever the case, no other effect than to increase their pride and exalt their expectations, and so lead them to demand still more unworthy conditions, and a still more abject humiliation. Howbeit, the reputation of Melancthon was raised by the address which he displayed during these deli- berations ; and the variety of his talents and the extent of his erudition became more generally known and more candidly acknowledged. The modesty of his character, the moderation of his temper, the ur- MELANCTHON. 265 banity of his manners, his flexible and accommo- dating mind, recommended him to the regard of all, and especially to the patronage of the great. He was considered as the peace-maker of the age. All who had any hopes of composing the existing dissen- sions and preventing the necessity of absolute schism, placed their trust in the mildness of his expedients. The service which he had endeavoured to render to the Emperor was sought by the two other powerful monarchs of that time. Francis I. invited him to France in 1535, to reconcile the growing differences of his subjects ; and even Henry VIII. expressed a desire for his presence and his counsels ; but the Elector could not be persuaded to consent to his departure from Saxony. In 1541 he held a public disputation with Eckius at Worms, which lasted three days. The conference was subsequently removed to Ratisbon, and continued, with pacific professions and polemic arguments, dur- ing the same year, with no other result than an ex- pressed understanding that both parties should refer their claims to a general council, and abide by its decision. In the mean time, as the Popes showed great reluc- tance to summon any such Council, unless it should assemble in Italy and deliberate under their immediate superintendence, and as the Reformers constantly re- fused to submit to so manifest a compromise of their claims, it seemed likely that some time might elapse before the disputants should have any opportunity of making their appeal. Wherefore the emperor,' not brooking this delay, and willing by some provisional measure to introduce immediate harmony between the parties, published in 1548 a formulary of temporary concord, under the name of the Interim. It proclaimed the conditions of peace, which were to be binding only till the decision of the general council. The conditions 266 MELANCTHON. were extremely advantageous, as might well have been expected, to the Roman Catholic claims. Never- theless, they gave complete satisfaction to neither party, and only animated to farther arrogance the spirit of those whom they favoured. The Interim was promulgated at the Diet held at Augsburg, and it was followed by a long succession of conferences, which were carried on at Leipzig and in other places, under the Protestant auspices of Maurice of Saxony. Here was an excellent field for the talents and character of Melancthon. All the public documents m the Protestants were composed by him. All the acuteness of his reason, all the graces of his style, all the resources of his learning were brought into light and action ; and much that he wrote in censure of the Interim was written with force and truth. But here, as on former occasions, the effects of his genius were marred by the very modera- tion of his principles, and the practical resxilt of his labours was not beneficial to the cause which he in- tended to serve. For in this instance he not only did not conciliate the enemies to whom he made too large concessions, but he excited distrust and offence among his friends; and these feelings were presently exas- perated into absolute schism. On the death of Luther, two years before these con- ferences, the foremost place among the reformers had unquestionably devolved upon Melancthon. He had deserved that eminence by his various endowments, and his uninterrupted exertions : yet was he not the character most fitted to occupy it at that crisis. His incurable thirst for universal esteem and regard ; his perpetual anxiety to soothe his enemies and soften the bigotry of the hierarchy, frequently seduced him into unworthy compromises, which lowered his own cause, without obtaining either advantage or respect from his adversaries. It is not thus that the ferocity of MELANCTHON. 267 intolerance can be disarmed. The lust of religious domination cannot be satisfied by soothing words, or appeased by any exercise of religious charity. It is too blind to imagine any motive for the moderation of an enemy, except the consciousness of weakness. It is too greedy to accept any partial concession, except as a pledge of still farther humiliation, to end in abso- lute submission. It can be successfully opposed only by the same unbending resolution which itself dis- plays, tempered by a calmer judgment and animated by a more righteous purpose. The general principle by which the controversial writings of Melancthon at this time were guided was this that there were certain essentials which ad- mitted of no compromise ; but that the Interim might be received as a rule, in respect to things which were indifferent. Hence arose the necessary inquiry, what could properly be termed indifferent. It was the object of Melancthon to extend their number, so as to include as many as possible of the points in dispute, and narrow the field of contention with the Roman Catholics. In the pursuance of this charitable design he did not foresee first, that he would not advance thereby a single step towards the conciliation of their animosity next, that he would sow amongst the Re- formers themselves the seeds of intestine discord : but so, unhappily, it proved; and the feeble expedient which was intended to repel the danger from without, multiplied that danger by introducing schism and disorder within. Indeed, we can scarcely wonder that it was so : for we find that among the matters to be accounted in- different, and under that name conceded, Melancthon ventured to place the doctrine of justification by faith alone ; the necessity of good works to eternal salva- tion ; the number of the sacraments ; the jurisdiction claimed by the pope and the bishops ; extreme unc- 268 MELANCTHON. tion ; and the observance of certain religious festivals, and several superstitious rites and ceremonies. It was not possible that the more intimate associates of Luther the men who had struggled by his side, who were devoted to his person and his memory, who inherited his opinions and his principles, and who were animated by some portion of his zeal should stand by in silence, and permit some of the dearest objects of their own struggles and the vigils of their master to be offered up to the foe by the irresolute hand of Melancthon. Accordingly, a numerous party rose, who disclaimed his principles and rejected his authority. At their head was Illyricus Flacius, a fierce polemic, who possessed the intemperance without the genius of Luther. The contest commonly known as the Adiaphoristic Controversy broke out with great fury; it presently extended its character so as to embrace various collateral points; and the Roman Catholics were once more edified by the welcome spectacle of Protestant dissension. Melancthon held his last fruitless conference with the Roman Catholics at Worms in the year 1557; and he died three years afterwards, at the age of 63, the same age that had been attained by Luther. His ashes were deposited at Wittemberg, in the same church with those of his master ; a circumstance which is thus simply commemorated in his epitaph : Hie invicte tuus Collega, Luthere, Melancthou Non procul a tumulo conditur ipse tuo. Ut pia doctrinse concordia junxerat ambus, Sic sacer amborum juugit hie ossa locus. Some days before his death, while it was manifest that his end was fast approaching, Melancthon wrote on a scrap of paper some of the reasons which recon- ciled him to the prospect of his departure. Among them were these that he should see God and the Son MELANCTHON. 269 of God ; that he should comprehend some mysteries which he was unable to penetrate on earth, such as these : why it is that we are created such as we are ? what was the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ? that he should sin no more ; that he should no longer be exposed to vexations ; and that he should escape from the rage of the theologians. We need no better proof than this how his peaceable spirit had been tor- tured during the decline of life by those interminable quarrels, which were entirely repugnant to his temper, and yet were perpetually forced upon him, and which even his own lenity had seemingly tended to augment. And it is even probable that the theologians from whose rage it was his especial hope to be delivered were those who had risen up last against him, and with whom his differences were as nothing compared to the points on which they were agreed, his brother reformers. For being in this respect unfortunate, that his endeavours to conciliate the affections of all parties had been requited by the contempt and insults of all, he was yet more peculiarly unhappy, that the blackest contumely and the bitterest insults proceeded from the dissentients of his own. Thus situated, after forty years of incessant exertions to reform, and at the same time to unite, the Christian world, when he be- held discord multiplied, and its fruits ripening in the very bflBom of the Reformation ; when he compared his own principles and his own conscience with the taunts which were cast against him ; when he disco- vered how vain had been his mission of conciliation, and how ungrateful a task it was to throw oil upon the waters of theological controversy ; when he reflected how much time and forbearance he had wasted in this hopeless attempt, he could scarcely avoid the un- welcome suspicion that his life had been, in some degree, spent in vain, and that in one of the dearest 270 MKLANCTIION. objects of his continual endeavours he had altogether failed. The reason was, that the extreme mildness of his own disposition hlinded him to the very nature of religious contests, and inspired him with amiable hopes which could not possibly be realized. He may have been a better man than Luther; he may even have been a wiser ; he had as great acuteness ; he had more learning and a purer and more perspicuous style ; he had a more charitable temper ; he had a more candid mind ; and his love for justice and truth forbade him to reject without due consideration even the argument of an adversary. He was qualified to preside as a judge in the forum of theological litiga- tion ; yet was he not well fitted for that which he was called upon to discharge, the office of an advocate. He saw too much, for he saw both sides of the question ; his very knowledge, acting upon his natural modesty, made him diffident. He balanced, he re- flected, he doubted; and he became, through that very virtue, a tame sectarian and a feeble partizan. But his literary talents were of the highest order, and were directed with great success to almost all the departments of learning. He composed abridgments of all the branches of philosophy, which continued long in use among the students of Germany, and purified the liberal arts from the dross which was mixed up with them. And it was thus that he would have purified religion ; and as he had introduced the one reformation without violence, so he thought to accomplish the other without schism. But he compre- hended not the character of the Roman Catholic priesthood, nor could he conceive the tenacity and the passion with which men, in other respects reasonable and respectable, will cling to the interests, the preju- dices, the abuses, the very vices, which are associated MELANCTHON. 211 with their profession. It was an easy matter to him to confound the superstitious rites and tenets of Rome by his profound learning and eloquent arguments; but it was another and a far different task to deal with the offended feelings of an implacable hierarchy. And thus it is, that while we admire his various ac- quirements and eminent literary talents, and praise the moderation of his charitable temper, we remark the wisdom of that Providence which intrusted the arduous commencement of the work of reformation to firmer and ruder hands than his. Melancthon's printed works are very numerous. The most complete edition of them is that of Wittem- berg, 1680 3, in four volumes folio. 212 JOHN CAUVIN (afterwards called Calvin) was born of humble parents, his father following the trade of a cooper, at Noyon in Picardy, July 10, 1509. He was intended in the first instance for the profession of the church, and two benefices were already set apart for him, when, at a very early age, from what motive is not exactly known, his destination was suddenly changed, and he was sent, first to Orleans and then to Bourges, to learn under distinguished teachers the science of jurisprudence. He is said to have made great proficiency in that study ; but nevertheless, he found leisure to cultivate other talents, and made him- self acquainted with Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, during his residence at Bourges. His natural incli- nation seems ever to have bent him towards those pursuits to which his earliest attention was directed ; and though he never attended the schools of theology, nor had at any time any public master in that science, yet his thoughts were never far away from it ; and the time which he could spare from his professional labours was employed on subjects bearing more or less directly upon religion. CALVIN. 273 Thus it was. that he failed not to take part in the discussions, which arose in France during his early years, respecting the principles of the Reformation ; and it may be, that his happy escape from theological tuition made him more disposed to embrace them. It is certain that his opposition to the Church of Rome became very soon notorious, and made him, young as he was, an object of jealousy to some of its powerful adherents. Even the moderate Erasmus viewed his aspiring talents and determined character with some undefined apprehension ; and he is related (after a conversation with Calvin at Strasbourg) to have remarked to Bucer, who had presented him, " I see in that young man the seeds of a dangerous pest, which will some day throw great disorder into the Church." The weak and wavering character of Erasmus renders it difficult for us to understand what sort of disorder it was that he anticipated, or what exactly was the Church on which the apprehended mischief was to fall. In 1535 Calvin published his great work, the ' Christian Institute,' which was in- tended as a sort of confession of faith of the French reformers, in answer to the calumnies which con- founded them with the frantic Anabaptists of Ger- many. In 1536, finding that his person was no longer secure in France, Calvin determined to retire into Germany, and was compelled by accident to pass through Geneva. lie found this city in a state of extreme confusion. The civil government was po- pular, and in those days tumultuous: the ecclesi- astical had been entirely dissolved by the departure of the bishops and clergy on the triumph of the Re- formation, and only such laws existed as the indivi- dual influence of the pastors was able to impose upon their several flocks. It was a tempting field for spiritual ambition, and Calvin was readily persuaded 274 CALVIN. to enter into it. He decided to remain at Geneva, and forthwith opened a theological school. In the very year following his arrival, he formed the design of introducing into his adopted country a regular system of ecclesiastical polity. He assembled the people ; and, not without much opposition, pre- vailed on them at length to bind themselves by oath ; first, that they would not again, on any consideration, ever submit to the dominion of Rome ; secondly, that they would render obedience to a certain code of ecclesiastical laws, which he and his colleagues had drawn up for them. Some writers do not expressly mention that this second proposition was accepted by the people if accepted, it was immediately vio- lated ; and as Calvin and his clerical coadjutors (who were only two in number) refused with firmness to administer the holy communion to such as rejected the condition, the people, not yet prepared to endure that bondage, banished the spiritual legislators from the city, in April, 1538. Calvin retired to Strasbourg, where he renewed his intimacy with Bucer, and became more and more distinguished for his talents and learning. He was present at the Conferences of Worms and Ratisbon, where he gained additional reputation. He founded a French reformed church at Strasbourg, and ob- tained a theological chair in that city ; at the same time, he continued in communication with Geneva, and in expressions of unabated affection for his former adherents. Meanwhile, the disorders which had pre- vailed in that city were in no manner alleviated by his exile, and a strong reaction gradually took place in his favour; insomuch, that, in the year 1541, there being a vacancy in the ministry, the senate and the assembly of the people proclaimed with equal vehemence their wish for the return of Calvin. " We will have Calvin, that good and learned man, Christ's CALVIN. 275 minister." "This," says Calvin, Epist. 24, "when I understood, I could not choose but praise God ; nor was I able to judge otherwise, than that this was the Lord's doing ; and that it was marvellous in our eyes ; and that the stone which the builders refused was now made the head of the corner." It was on September 13th that he returned from his exile in the pride of spiritual triumph ; and he began, without any loss of time, while the feelings of all classes were yet warm in his favour, to establish that rigid form of ecclesiastical discipline which he may formerly have meditated, but which he did not fully propound till now. He proposed to institute a standing court (the Consistory), consisting of all the ministers of religion, who were to be perpetual mem- bers, and also of twice the same number of laymen to be chosen annually. To these he committed the charge of public morality, with power to determine all kinds of ecclesiastical causes ; with authority to convene, control, and punish, even with excommuni- cation, whomsoever they might think deserving. It was in vain that many advanced objections to this scheme ; that they urged the despotic character of this court ; the certainty too, that the perpetual judges, though fewer in number, would in fact predominate over a majority annually elected ; and that Calvin, through his power over the clergy, would be master of the decisions of the whole tribunal. He persisted inflexibly ; and since there now remained with the people of Geneva only the choice of receiving his laws or sending him once more into exile, they acqui- esced reluctantly in the former determination. On the 20th of November, in the same year (1541), the Presbytery was established at Geneva. Maimbourg, in his ' History of Calvinism,' has remarked that, from this time forward, Calvin be- came, not pontiff only, but also caliph, of Geneva ; 276 CALVIN. since the unbounded influence which he possessed in the Consistory extended to the council, and no im- portant state-affair was transacted without his advice or approbation. At the same time, he enlarged the limits of his spiritual power, and made it felt in every quarter of Europe. In France most especially he was regarded personally as the head of the Reformed Church; he composed a liturgy for its use; and, secured from persecution by his residence and dig- nity, he gave laws, by his writings and his emissaries, to the scattered congregations of Reformers. The fruits of his unwearied industry were everywhere in their hands. His Institute, and his learned Exposi- tions of Scripture, were substantial foundations of spiritual authority; and he became to his Church what the " Master of the Sentences,'' almost what Augustin himself had been to the Church of Rome. And lie did the Reformed Church an essential service by procuring the establishment of the academy, or university of Geneva ; which was long the principal nursery of Presbyterian ministers, and which was the chief instrument of communicating to the citizens of its little state that general mental culture and love of literature for which they have been remarkable. The peculiarities of his religious opinions are known to all our readers; nor indeed, at any rate, have we space, in this brief outline of the Life of the Reformer, so to detail its tenets as to avoid the chance of misconception, either by his followers or his ad- versaries. We shall, therefore, proceed to another subject, respecting which there will be little difference, either as to the facts themselves, or the judgment to be formed of them we mean that darkest act of his life, which being, as far as we learn, unatoned and unrepented, throws so deep a shadow over all the rest, as almost to make us question his sincerity in any good principle, or his capability of any righteous purpose. CALVIN. 217 A Spaniard, named Servetus, born at Villa Nueva, in Aragon, in the same year with Calvin, had been long engaged in a correspondence with the latter, which had finally degenerated into angry and abusive controversy. He had been educated as a physician, and had acquired great credit in his profession ; when, in an evil hour, he entered the field of theological controversy, and professed without fear, and defended without modification, the Unitarian doctrine; adding to it some obscure and fanciful notions, peculiar, we believe, to his own imagination. He published very early in life ' Seven Books concerning the Errors of the Trinity,' and he continued in the same principles until the year 1553, when he put forth (at Vienne, in Dauphine*) a work entitled ' The Restoration of Christianity, &c.,' in further confirmation of his views. Now it is very true, that the propagation of these opinions by a professed Reformer was at that crisis a matter of great scandal, and perhaps even of some danger to the cause of the Reformation. It was felt as such by some of the leading Reformers. Zuin- glins and (Ecolampadius eagerly disclaimed the error of Servetus. " Our Church will be very ill spoken of," said the latter in a letter to Bucer, '' unless our divines make it their business to cry him down." And had they been contented to proclaim their dis- sent from his doctrine, or to assail it by reasonable argument, they would have done no more than their duty to their own communion absolutely demanded of them. But Calvin was not a man who would argue where he could command, or persuade where he could over- throw. Full of vehemence and bitterness, inflexible and relentless, he was prepared to adopt and to justify extreme measures, wheresoever they answered his purpose best. He was animated by the pride, intoler- VOL. I. R 278 CALVIN, ance, and cruelty of the Church of Rome, and he planted and nourished those evil passions in his little Consistory at Geneva. Servetus, having escaped from confinement at Vienne, and flying for refuge to Naples, was driven by evil destiny, or his own infatuation, to Geneva. Here he strove to conceal himself, till he should be enabled to proceed on his journey ; but he was quickly discovered by Calvin, and immediately cast into prison. This was in the summer of 1553. Presently followed the formality of his trial ; and when we read the nu- merous articles of impeachment, and observe the lan- guage in which they are couched ; when we peruse the humble petitions which he addressed to the " Syndics and Council," praying only that an advo- cate might be granted him, which prayer was haughtily refused ; when we perceive the misrepresentations of his doctrine, and the offensive terms of his condemna- tion, we appear to be carried back again to the Halls of Constance, and to be witnessing the fall of Huss and Jerome beneath their Roman Catholic oppressors. So true it is (as Grotius had sufficient reason to say), " that the Spirit of Antichrist did appear at Geneva as well as at Rome." But the magistrates of this Republic did not venture completely to execute the will of Calvin, without first consulting the other Protestant cities of Switzerland ; namely, Zurich, Berne, Basle, and Schaffhausen. The answers returned by these all indicated very great anxiety for the extinction of the heresy, without however expressly demanding the blood of the heretic. The people of Zurich were the most violent : the answer of their " Pastors, Readers, and Ministers," which is praised and preserved by Calvin, is worthy of the communion from which they had so lately seceded. As soon as these communica- tions reached Geneva, Servetus was immediately con- CALVIN. 219 demned to death (on the 26th of October, 1553), and was executed on the day following. There is extant a letter written by Calvin to his friend and brother-minister, William Farel (dated the 26th), which announces that the fatal sentence had been passed, and would be executed on the morrow. It is only remarkable for the cold conciseness and heartless indifference of its expressions. Not a single word indicates any feeling of compassion or repug- nance. And as the work of persecution waa carried on without mercy, and completed without pity, so likewise was it recollected without remorse ; and the Protestant Republican Minister of Christ continued for some years afterwards to insult with abusive epi- thets the memory of his victim. Soon after the death of Servetus, Calvin published a vindication of his proceedings, in which he defended, without any compromise, the principle on which he had acted. It is entitled, " A Faithful Exposition and short Refutation of the Errors of Servetus, wherein it is shown that heretics should be restrained by the power of the sword." His friend and biographer Beza also put forth a work " On the Propriety of pu- nishing Heretics by the Civil Authority." Thus Calvin not only indulged his own malevolent humour, but also sought to establish among the avowed prin- ciples of his own Church the duty of exterminating all who might happen to differ from it. He lived eleven years longer ; and expired at Ge- neva on the 27th of May, 1564; having maintained his authority to the end of his life, without acquiring any of the affection of those about him. Neither of these circumstances need surprise us, for it was his character to awe, to command, and to repel. Fear- less, inflexible, morose, and imperious; he neither courted any one, nor yielded to any one, nor conci- liated any one. Yet he was sensible of, and seem- R2 280 CALVIN. ingly contrite for, his defects of temper ; for he writes to Bucer : " I have not had harder contests witli my vices, which are great and many, than with my im- patience. I have not yet been able to subdue that savage brute." His talents were extremely powerful, both for literature and for business. His profound and various learning acquired for him the general respect which it deserved. He was active and inde- fatigable ; he slept little, and was remarkable for his abstemious habits. With a heart inflated and em- bittered with spiritual pride, he affected a perfect simplicity of manner ; and professed, and may indeed have felt, a consummate contempt for the ordinary objects of human ambition. Besides this, he was far removed from the besetting vice of common minds, by which even noble qualities are so frequently de- graded avarice. He neither loved money for itself, nor grasped at it for its uses ; and at his death, the whole amount of his property, including his library, did not exceed, at the lowest statement, one hundred and twenty-five crowns, at the highest, three hundred. We may thus readily understand how it was that Calvin acquired, through the mere force of personal character thrown into favourable circum- stances, power almost uncontrolled over a state of which he was not so much as a native, and consider- able influence besides over the spiritual condition of Europe power and influence, of which deep traces still exist both in the country which adopted him, and in others where he was only known by his writings and his doctrines. His doctrines still divide the Christian world; but that ecclesiastical prin- ciple, which called in the authority of the sword for their defence, has been long and indignantly dis- claimed by all his followers. The best clue to the real character of Calvin will be found in his letters. Many accounts of his life, CALVIN. 281 as well as of his doctrines and writings, exist ; but they are mostly influenced by party feeling. The earliest is that of his friend Beza ; it is said however not to be strictly accurate even as to the facts of Cal- vin's life before 1549, when the author became ac- quainted with him, and it is of course a panegyric. 282 MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTI was born at the castle of Caprese in Tuscany, on March 6, 1474-5. He was descended from a noble, though not a wealthy family ; and his father endeavoured to check the fondness for drawing which he showed at an early age, lest he should disgrace his parentage by following what was then deemed little better than a mechanical employ- ment. Fortunately for the arts, the bent of the son's genius was too decided to be foiled by the parent's pride; and in April, 1488, young Buonaroti was placed under the tuition of Ghirlandaio, then the most eminent painter in Italy. He soon distinguished himself above his fellow pu- pils, and was fortunate in attracting the notice of Lo- renzo de Medici ; but the early death of his patron, and MICHAEL ANGELO. 283 the troubles which ensued in Florence, clouded the bril- liant prospects which seemed open to him. He first visited Rome when about twenty-two years old, at the invitation of Cardinal St. Giorgio ; and resided in that city for a year, without being employed to exe- cute anything for his pretended patron. He obtained three commissions, however, from other quarters ; one for a Cupid, a second for a statue of Bacchus, a third for a Virgin and dead Christ, which forms the altar- piece of a chapel in St. Peter's. The latter work was the most important, and established his character as one of the first sculptors of the day. Returning to Florence soon after the appointment of Sodarini to be perpetual Gonfaloniere, or standard- bearer, an office equivalent to that of president of the republic, he found ample room for the development of his talents in the favour of the chief magistrate ; for whom he executed the celebrated statue of David, in marble, placed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio ; and another statue of David, and a group of David and Goliath, both in bronze. To this period we are also to refer an oil picture of a Holy Family, painted for Angelo Doni, and now in the Florence Gallery ; the only oil painting which can be authenticated as pro- ceeding from his hand. The accounts of Michael Angelo's early life relate so exclusively to his skill and practice as a sculptor, that some wonder may be felt as to the means by which he acquired the technical science and dex- terity necessary to the painter. But it was in com- position, and as a draughtsman that he excelled, not as a colourist ; and the same intimate knowledge of the human figure, and freedom and boldness of hand, which guided his chisel, often, it is said, without a model, will account for the anatomical excellence and energy of his drawings. Nevertheless it is surprising to find him at this early age rivalling, and indeed by 284 MICHAEL ANGELO. general suffrage excelling in his own art Leonardo da Vinci, not only the first painter of his generation, but one of the most accomplished persons of his age. The work to which we allude, the celebrated Cartoon of Pisa, painted as a companion to a battle-piece of Leonardo, has long disappeared ; and is generally supposed to have been destroyed clandestinely by Baccio Bandinelli, a rival artist, of whose envious and cowardly temper some amusing anecdotes are re- lated in Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography. It re- presented a party of Florentine soldiers, disturbed, while bathing in the Arno, by a sudden call to arms. Only one copy of it is said to exist, which is preserved n Mr. Coke's collection at Holkham. When Julius II. ascended the papal chair, he in- ited Michael Angelo to Rome, and commissioned him to erect a splendid tomb. The original design, a sketch of which may be seen in Bottar's edition of Vasari, was for an insulated building, thirty-four feet six inches by twenty-three feet, ornamented with forty statues, many of colossal size, and a vast number of bronze and marble columns, basso relievos, and every species of architectural decoration of the richest sort. This commission, upon the due execution of which Mi- chael Angelo set his heart, as a worthy opportunity of immortalizing his name, was destined to involve him in a long train of vexations. During the life of Julius, the attention which he wished to concentrate on this one great work was distracted by a variety of other employments forced on him by his patron. Upon his death, it was resolved to finish it on a smaller scale : but its progress was then more seriously inter- rupted by the eagerness of successive Popes to employ the great artist on works which should immortalize their own names as liberal patrons of the arts. Ul- timately, after much dissatisfaction and dispute on the. part of Pope Julius's heirs, the form of the monu- MICHAEL ANGELO. 285 mcnt was altered; and it now stands in the church of St. Pietro in Vinculis : it consists only of a facade, or- namented by seven statues, three of which are from the hand of Michael Angelo, the others are hy inferior artists. The central figure is the celebrated Moses, by many considered the finest modern work of sculp- ture ; and this is the only part of the original compo- sition. During the samepontificate, Michael Angelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. The employment was not to his taste ; but it was forced upon him by Pope Julius. He had never tried his powers in fresco painting ; and that branch of the art, as is well known, involves many difficulties, which, though merely mechanical, it requires some practice and ex- perience to surmount. Having 'first completed the design in a series of cartoons, he sent to Florence to engage the ablest assistants to be found : but their labours were unsatisfactory, and dismissing them, he set to work himself, and executed the whole vault with his own hands, in the short space of twenty months. Julius II. died in 15T3. The next nine years, comprehending the pontificate of Leo. X., are an en- tire blank in Michael Angelo's life, so far as regards the practice of his art. He was employed the whole time, by the Pope's express order, in superintending some new marble quarries in the mountains of Tus- cany. During the pontificate of Adrian VI. he resided at Florence, where Giuliano de Medici, afterwards Cle- ment VII., employed him to build a new library and sacristy to the church of St. Lorenzo, and a sepulchral chapel, to serve as a mausoleum for the ducal family. He was also employed to execute two monuments in honour of Giuliano, the brother, and Lorenzo de Me- dici, the nephew, of Leo X. The princes are repre- MICHAEL ANGELO. sented seated, in the Roman military habit, above two sarcophagi. Below are two recumbent figures to each monument, one pair representing Morning and Evening; the other, Day and Night. The reason for this singular choice of personages is not explained. [From the Monument of Giuliano de Medici.] We cannot enter upon the maze of Italian politics, which led to the siege of Florence by the imperial troops in 1529-30. Michael Angelo's well-known MICHAKL ANGELO. 287 and varied talent led to his being appointed chief en- gineer and master of the ordnance to the city ; in which capacity he gained new honour by his skill, resolution, and patriotism. During this turbulent time he began a picture of Leda, which was sent to France, and fell into the possession of Francis I. It had long been lost ; the original cartoon is in the col- lection of the Royal Academy. Michael Angelo's second work in fresco, the Last Judgment, occupying the east end of the Sistine chapel, seems to have been begun in 1533 or 1534. It was not finished till 1541. His last and only other works of this kind were two large pictures in the Pauline chapel, representing the Martyrdom of St. Peter, and the Conversion of St. Paul. These were not completed till he had reached the advanced age of seventy-five. In 1546 died Antonio da San Gallo, the third architect employed in the ("rebuilding of St. Peter's. The project of renewing the metropolitan church of Rome was first suggested to the ambitious mind of Pope Julius II. by the impossibility of finding any place in the then existing cathedral, worthy of the splendid monument which he had ordered Michael Angelo to execute. Bramante, Raphael, and San Gallo, were successively appointed to conduct the mighty undertaking, and removed by death. San Gallo had deviated materially from the design of Bramante. Michael Angelo disapproved of his alterations ; but was deterred from returning to the original plan by its vast extent, and the necessity of contracting the extent of the work so as to meet the impoverished state of the papal treasury, produced by the spreading of the Reformation in Germany and England. He accordingly gave in the design from which the present building was erected, which, gigantic as it is, falls short of the dimensions of that which Julius pro- 288 MICHAEL ANGELO. posed to raise. Having now reached the advanced age of seventy-one, it was with reluctance that he undertook so heavy a charge. It was, indeed, only by the absolute command of the Pope that he was in- duced to do so ; and on the unusual condition that he should receive no salary, as he accepted the office purely from devotional feelings. He also made it a condition that he should be absolutely empowered to discharge any persons employed in the works, and to supply their places at his pleasure. To the independent and upright feelings which led him to insist on this latter clause, the factious opposi- tion, which harassed the remainder of his life, is partly to be ascribed. Disinterested himself, he suffered no peculation under his administration ; and he was repaid by the hatred of a powerful party connected with those whose vanity his appointment wounded, or whose interests his honesty crossed. Repeated at- tempts were made to procure his removal, to which he would willingly have yielded, but for a due sense of the greatness of the work which he had undertaken, and reluctance to quit it, until too far advanced to be altered and spoiled by some inferior hand. This praiseworthy solicitude was not disappointed. During the life of Paul, and through four succeeding pontifi- cates, he held the situation of chief architect ; and before his death, in February, 1563-4 the cupola was raised, and the principal features of the building un- alterably determined. His earlier architectural works are to be seen at Florence. They consist of the facade and sacristy of the church of St. Lorenzo, left unfinished by Brunel- leschi, the mausoleum of the Medici family, and the Laurentian library. During the latter part of his life he amused his leisure hours by working on a group representing a dead Christ, supported by the Virgin and Nicodemus, which he intended for an altar-piece MICHAEL ANGELO. 289 to the chapel in which he should himself be interred. It was never finished, however, and is now in the ca- thedral of Florence. But, from the time of his as- suming the charge of St. Peter's, his attention was almost entirely devoted to architecture. His chief works were the completion of the Farnese palace, begun by San Gallo ; the palace of the Senator of Rome, the picture galleries, and flight of steps leading up to the convent of Araceli, all situated on the Capi- toline hill ; and the conversion of the baths of Diocle- tian into the church of S. Maria degli Angeli. Michael Angelo, though he painted few pictures himself, frequently gave designs to be executed by his favourite pupils, especially Sebastiano del Piombo. Such was the origin of the magnificent Raising of Lazarus, in the National Gallery. Like many artists of that age, he aspired to be a poet. His works consist chiefly of sonnets, modelled on the style of Petrarch. Religion and Love are the prevailing subjects. The Life of Michael Angelo, by Mr. Duppa, will gratify the curiosity of the English reader, who wishes to pursue the subject beyond this mere list of the artist's principal works. To the Italian reader we may recommend the lives of Condivi and Vasari, as containing the original information from which subse- quent writers have drawn their accounts. To do justice to the versatile, yet profound genius of this great man, is a task which we must leave to such writers as Reynolds and Fuseli, in whose lectures the reader will find ample evidence of the profound admi- ration with which they regarded him. Nor can we conclude better than with the short but energetic cha- racter given by the latter, of his favourite artist's style of genius, and of his principal works : " Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are the elements of Michael VOL. i. s 290 MICHAEL ANGELO. Angelo's style. By these principles he selected or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculp- tor, as architect, he attempted, and above any other man, succeeded, to unite magnificence of plan, and endless variety of subordinate parts, with the utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand : character and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient to grandeur. To give the appearance of perfect ease to the most perplexing dilli- culty, was the exclusive power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of epic painting, in that sublime circle of the Sistine chapel which exhibits the origin, the progress, and the final dispensations of theocracy. He has personified motion in the groups of the Car- toon of Pisa ; embodied sentiment on the monuments of S. Lorenzo ; unravelled the features of meditation in the Prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine chapel ; and in the Last Judgment, with every attitude that varies the human body, traced the master-trait of every pas- sion that sways the human heart. Though, as sculp- tor, he expressed the character of flesh more perfectly than all who came before or went after him, yet he never submitted to copy an individual, Julius II. only excepted; and in him he represented the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting he has contented himself with a negative colour, and as the painter of mankind, rejected all meretricious orna- ment. The fabric of St. Peter's scattered into infinity of jarring parts by Bramante and his successors, he concentrated ; suspended the cupola, and to the most complex gave the air of the most simple of edifices. Such, take him for all in all, was M. Angelo, the salt of art : sometimes he no doubt had his moments of dereliction, deviated into manner, or perplexed the grandeur of his forms with futile and ostentatious anatomy : both met with armies of copyists ; and it has been his fate to be censured for their folly." (Lecture II.) 291 THE fiimily-name of the founder of the Order of Je- suits, commonly called IGNATIUS LOYOLA, is stated by Ranke, Romischcn Papstc, vol. I, on the authority of judicial records, to have been Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde. He was born in 1491, at the Castle of Loyola, in the province of Guipuscoa, in Spanish Biscay ; and being destined to the profession of arms, was sent, at an early age, to learn the rudiments of war and gallantry, at the court of Ferdinand and Isa- bella. He made great proficiency in both. Endowed with a lively imagination, and an ardent temperament, he became distinguished in arms, and first applied his talents, which were destined to such different pur- poses, to the composition of poetry. Thus he spent his youth ; and he had already reached his thirtieth year, when he was called to the defence of Pampluna against the attack of the French. On this occasion he displayed his wonted valour, and while standing in the breach of the castle, he was struck by a cannon s2 292 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. shot, which fractured his leg. A tedious confinement followed ; in part occasioned, as some assert, by his great anxiety to preserve the symmetry of his limb, which led him to undergo a second operation, to re- move a deformity which had been occasioned by an ill-set bone. To relieve his weariness he called for some books of chivalry, but in their place he was sup- plied with the Lives of Saints, and other devotional works. He read them with extraordinary eagerness. He admired the zeal of those holy men ; he sympa- thized in their sufferings ; he envied their glory ; and he aspired at their eternal recompense. His thoughts and wishes were thus turned into a new channel, and he entered on the path of spiritual warfare, with his natural ardour stimulated and inflamed by religious devotion. Accordingly, he rose from his bed of sickness, re- solved to renounce the pursuits and pleasures of this world, and to dedicate himself to the service of God. Still it was not without a desperate struggle that he could accomplish this resolution. He had a passion for military fame; he had a mistress whom it was necessary to abandon ; and his earthly ties were as strong, as his temperament was violent. But the new sprung influence of religion overcame all obsta- cles. March 24, 1522, he passed the night in prayer and fasting in the church of the Holy Virgin at Mont* serrat ; and having hung up his arms on the altar, he consecrated himself, according to all the forms of chi- valry, to her service. At the same time he made a vow to perform a pilgrimage barefoot to Jerusalem ; and he carried his imlnediate penance to such ex- tremes of austerity, as to enervate his frame, and to endanger his life. As the histories which had most deeply affected his imagination were those of St. Francis and St. Do- minic, so the service which he vowed to the Virgin IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 293 was one of privation and errantry. Accordingly he set out privately on his pilgrimage ; and after tarry- ing some little time at Rome, to obtain the benedic- tion of the Pope, he proceeded to Venice, and from Venice to Cyprus and the Holy Land. He reached Jerusalem, September 4, 1523, in the guise of the poorest pilgrim ; and after indulging his piety in fre- quent visits to all the spots which religion and tradi- tion have consecrated, he offered his services to the ecclesiastical officers resident there, for the conversion of the Infidels, or any other holy purpose. These however were refused, and he was dismissed, some- what peremptorily, and commanded to return to Eu- rope. It is curious, in reviewing the lives of some of those eminent men, who have left lasting traces of their ex- ertions, to observe how their own inclinations, had Providence allowed them their course, would some- times have led them away from the work which they were commissioned to accomplish. Had Wesley proved a successful missionary, which was his earliest enterprise, the society which bears his name might never have existed. Had Loyola been permitted to spend his energies in attempts at converting the Jews or Turks, his life might have been of short duration, and his name might never have been heard beyond the limits of Palestine. When his pilgrimage was completed, and he was restored to his native country, his passion for religious enterprise and distinction did not in any degree abate ; but he soon discovered that his literary acquirements were wholly insufficient for his purpose. He began therefore, at the age of thirty-three, to apply himself to the rudiments of grammar; and endeavoured to regain lost time by his zeal and industry. He com- menced his labours at Barcelona, and remained there till his pious attempts to reform a convent of aban- 294 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. doned nuns brought down upon him the vengeance of their lovers. Thence he retired to Alcala, where an university had lately been founded by Cardinal Ximenes. Here he pursued his studies with great ardour till the year 1527 : he attempted at the same time the three sciences of logic, physic, and theology, and was bent on accomplishing by a single effort what results to other men from the patient employment of much time and labour. But it was too late in life. His mind had been already formed to more active pursuits, and he could not bend it to the acquisition of learning. A confused mass of knowledge, directed by no reflection, and founded on no principles, could neither be applied nor retained ; and his endeavour to grasp so much, at so great a disadvantage, ended, where it was sure to end, in entire ignorance. He discovered his failure ; and thenceforward directed his energies to a more attainable end: and, though he desisted not entirely from his tardy struggles after learning, he seems rather to have looked lor success from the influence which personal intercourse gene- rally enabled him to acquire over those about him. Some lectures, however, which he delivered at Alcala, gave offence to the authorities of that university; and after an imprisonment of forty-two days, he was pro- hibited from public preaching, until he should have completed a course of four years in theology. It seems too, that, together with two or three compa- nions, he had assumed a peculiar dress, which they were ordered to lay aside. From Alcala he removed to Salamanca ; but there too he had no sooner resumed his preaching than the Inquisitors laid hands on him; and after a second confinement, with severer treatment, he and his com- panions were again dismissed, under a sentence not widely differing from the preceding. On these occa- sions it was not so much the character of his sermons IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 295 which gave the offence, as the circumstance that they were delivered by a layman. Thus discouraged in his native country, he hoped to find a wider, or at least a safer, field for his exer- tions in France. Accordingly he departed for Paris, and arrived there in the beginning of February, 1528. His means were extremely small, and even these had been provided by the generosity of his friends. He was deprived of all that remained to him, soon after his arrival, by the treachery of a fellow-student, and had no other method of subsistence than mendicity. Thus he lived, returning, as we are informed, with his first ardour to the rudiments of literature, and striving by his instructions and example to extend the narrow limits of his influence. Even thus however he was not beneath the notice of the Inquisitor, a spe- cial emissary of Clement VII., then resident at Paris; but on this occasion he cleared himself from any charge or suspicion of heresy, and was absolved with out any particular injunction or reproach. But his poverty still compelled him to employ his vacations in begging, through various countries, the means which were to maintain him during his studies; and in one of these mendicant excursions, he visited certain Spanish merchants resident in London. Doubtless his powers of observation were profitably exercised during these wanderings, and his perpetual inter- course, even in the character of a religious beggar, with all classes of all nations, could not fail to im- prove a penetrating intellect in the art of dealing with mankind. By this uncommon perseverance he was enabled to finish his course of study of three years, and was ad- mitted to the degree of Master of Arts. Then again he betook himself more especially to theology ; and it was at this time (1534) that he formed the first se- rious design of establishing a new Order. Such a 296 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. project, in the hands of so very humble a person as Loyola then was, might have seemed wild and hope- less ; and the prospect of its success was not improved by the number or quality of his associates. Seven individuals, of no distinguished rank or eminence, personal or ecclesiastical, some of whom were very young and others very poor, met together in the church of Montmartre, August 15, 1534, and devoted them- selves to the service of Christ. They were prepared for this solemnity by prayer and fasting. One of them , Le Fevre, who had lately been ordained, administered the sacrament to his brethren in a subterraneous chapel; and all then bound themselves, by a solemn vow, to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the conversion of the infidels of the East, and to renounce all their possessions, except such as should be neces- sary for that pilgrimage : or else, in case they should be unable to accomplish that design, to throw them- selves at the feet of the Pope, and offer their services as his faithful and gratuitous instruments and mis- sionaries, for the performance of any ministry that he might think proper to impose on them. Another of these devotees was Francis Xavier, a Spaniard, fifteen years younger than Loyola ; who, being from the very beginning one of his most zealous disciples, was num- bered in later life among the most distinguished orna- ments of the society. Such was the origin of the " Society of the Jesuits." From this little congregation of obscure enthusiasts in the subterraneous chapel of Montmartre arose that redoubted Company, which sprang up into such im- mediate eminence ; which spread so soon through the whole body of Christendom ; which took possession of the courts and the consciences of princes, and exerted for so many years a scarcely credible influence, in every quarter of the globe, over the course of human affairs. Its first professed object was the conversion of IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 29*7 the infidels : the entire devotion to the Roman See, whence its future importance chiefly proceeded, was not, as it would seem, the primary motive which Ig- natius inspired into his followers. Perhaps the chi- valrous feeling which animated, or rather created, the earliest efforts of his piety, was not yet extinct within him or it may have been his policy to put forward, as the leading part of his design, that which required the 'greatest sacrifice and offered the least reward. But, however that may have been, he had no sooner thus bound his associates together, than he prescribed to them rules arid practices of devotion, daily medita- tions, and penances, spiritual conversations, the study and imitation of the character of Jesus, constant self- examination, and frequent communion. He ap- pointed the Day of the Assumption, the anniversary of their vow, for their peculiar observance; and dur- ing an interval of preparation necessary for his dis- ciples, he directed his own exertions to repress the progress in France of the doctrines of Luther and Zuinglius. After visiting his native country, he proceeded to Venice, according to agreement with his followers, for the accomplishment of their vow of pilgrimage : and arrived there at the end of 1535. Their first design however was to present them- selves at Rome. There Ignatius acquired the confi- dence of Peter Ortiz, a distinguished Spaniard, em- ployed by Charles V. to sustain at the Holy See the validity of the marriage of Catharine of Arragon with Henry VIII. Ortiz presented him to Paul III., who approved his doctrine and encouraged his project. Howbeit, his departure for the Holy Land was pre- vented by the Turkish war, which at that moment broke out ; and at the end of 1537 he assembled his companions, now increased to nine, at Vicenza, and persuaded them, that, as the approach to Palestine s3 298 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. was closed, it only remained for them to fulfil the other part of their vow, and offer their devoted ser- vices to the Pope. Accordingly, Ignatius, with two others, returned to Rome for that purpose. The rest dispersed themselves among the principal academies of Italy, to gain proselytes. All bound themselves to the observance of certain distinctive rules and prac- tices ; and to any interrogatories which might be put to them respecting the Order to which they belonged, Ignatius instructed them to reply, that they were members of the bmpany of Jesus. The encouragement which he received at Rome induced him to take further measures for the esta- blishment and enlargement of his new Order. He presently recalled his missionaries, and collected them about him at Rome. During their residence at Venice they had taken the two vows of poverty and chastity ; they now added that of obedience, and de- cided to elect a General with absolute power. They next determined to undertake a fourth and peculiar obligation one, to which they had indeed already engaged themselves in the chapel of Montmartre, but which they had not yet proclaimed to the world that of doing, without aid or recompense, any errand on which the Pope, as Vicar of Christ, might think fit to send them. Loyola then applied to Paul III. for the confirmation of his Order. Some obstacles arose, which were gradually removed. A charge of heresy, founded chiefly on his early persecutions at Alcala and Salamanca, was advanced with great clamour against him and his companions ; but a judicial in- quiry, by confirming their innocence, increased their reputation. An influential Cardinal earnestly opposed the establishment of the new Order. But his objec- tions were finally overcome, and, September 27, 1540, the Pope issued his bull to sanction the institution of Ignatius. The number of his disciples was still con- IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 299 fined to nine. Three of these were then absent from Italy, Xavier and Rodriguez on a mission to India, Le Fevre at the Diet of Worms ; so that on the day appointed for the election of a general, six only as- sembled, together with Loyola. He was chosen unanimously : but he affected great sorrow at this decision, and only accepted the honour, after it had been pressed upon him by a second assembly, and urged by the authoritative command of his confessor. The ceremonies of profession were performed in the Church of St. Paul, April 22, 1541 ; and while Igna- tius made his vow of especial obedience directly to the Pope, the vows of the others professed were ten- dered exclusively to their General. The Pope immediately availed himself of the ser- vices thus offered him, and sent the six disciples on various missions into different parts of Europe. Ig- natius alone remained at Rome, and employed him- self in offices of piety. He lectured publicly on reli- gious subjects ; he discharged many duties of humanity and charity ; he took measures for the conversion of the Jews at Rome ; he established a penitentiary for women reclaimed from sin ; he founded an asylum for orphans ; and the leisure which he could spare from these holy works, he devoted to composing the Constitutions of his Order. These were founded on the principle of uniting spiritual meditation with active habits of practical piety ; BO that, while, on the one hand, he enjoined mental prayer, frequent self-examination, and reli- gious retirement ; on the other, he engaged his dis- ciples to use every exertion for the instruction and sanctification of the rest of mankind. He commanded them to be perpetually exercised in preaching and missions, in the conversion of infidels and heretics, in the inspection of prisons and hospitals, in the direc- tion of consciences, and the instruction of youth. To 300 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. this end, he discouraged every severity of mortifica- tion, and all superfluity both in their public and pri- vate devotions. He prohibited the possession of pro- perty by any of his establishments, except colleges, which he permitted to be endowed for the advantage of necessitous students ; and he closed, as far as he was able, all the various sources of ecclesiastical emo- lument. Similar professions of disinterested devotion and perfect self-denial had laid the foundations of the enormous wealth, power, and luxury of more ancient Orders ; and if Ignatius had been actuated by ambi- tion, he could have devised no better means of raising his society to affluence and importance, than by lay- ing the same snare for the credulity of mankind. In this mere sketch of the life of Loyola, it would be absurd to attempt any account of the internal con- stitution of his Order, of the particular laws by which it was regulated, of the gradual development of its principles, and the general evils which flowed from them. It is enough to give some faint notion of its earliest progress. Six years after the confirmation of the Order of Jesuits, a college was opened to them in Spain (it was the first of these establishments), by Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, and endowed with the same privileges as those of Alcala and Salamanca. Its statutes were composed by Loyola. In the same year, to give some pledge for the sincerity of his vow of self-denial, and to secure his followers against one of the commonest temptations of ambition, he pre- vailed upon the Pope to exclude them and their suc- cessors, by a perpetual edict, from the possession of bishoprics, abbeys, and every description of benefice. This restriction not only stamped tliem with a pecu- liar character, and recommended them to popular favour as singular instances of self devotion, but also left them, for the furtherance of the especial objects of the society, the leisure, talents, and industry which IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 301 might otherwise have been employed in the pursuit of ecclesiastical dignities, or the performance of pas- toral duties. But it was not faithfully observed, even during the lifetime of Ignatius. The Spiritual Exercises, the great work of the founder of the Jesuits, is asserted to have been com- posed by him, aided by the inspiration of the Holy Virgin, very soon after his return from Jerusalem. His capacity for such a composition, at that period of his life, has been disputed by many, and various doubts have been thrown on its genuineness. How- beit, the book passed for his during the infancy of the society, and in 1548 the Archbishop of Toledo took great pains to suppress it. Loyola turned this at- tempt into an advantage to himself. He caused the merits of the work to be strongly represented to Paul III., and obtained a bull in praise and confirma- tion of all contained in it. Thus recommended by the apostolical authority to the meditations of the faithful, it attracted more general attention on its author, and on the institution which he had founded. After the first step had been taken, the progress of the Company of Jesus surpassed in rapidity all that is recorded of the infancy of the older establishments. It was scarcely planted in Spain before it spread to Ferrara, and other parts of Italy. In 1548 it got footing a iMessina and Palermo. In 1550 it was introduced into Bavaria ; and in the same year it was still further confirmed by a bull of Julius III., and enriched, as it had previously been, by abundant be- nefactions from the apostolic treasury. Two years afterwards, it founded a Germanic college at Rome, and by this time it could boast of similar institutions in many of the most civilized cities of Europe. And not in Europe only : its missionaries had already pene- trated into India, Africa, and America. In the year 1553 they presented themselves in Cyprus, at Con- 302 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. stantinoplc, and Jerusalem, and were carried by the same impulse into Abyssinia and China. France alone avowed her suspicion of their principles, and refused them admission : nor were the utmost endeavours of Loyola himself able to achieve this object. Howbeit, the perseverance of his followers, supported by their general success, succeeded even there, and in Febru- ary, 1564, they opened their celebrated college in the Rue St. Jacques at Paris. Cheered by this sudden and most rapid prosperity, Loyola, whom his disciples represent as the only spring of all the movements of the Company, and the sole spirit of the mighty body which was already spread over all the quarters of the world whom his enemies describe as a vain, illiterate enthusiast, with- out talents, without knowledge, a mere machine in the hands of a crafty and worldly hierarchy peaceably expired at Rome, July 31, 1566, surrounded by his disciples, and animated (as they relate) with the deepest, feelings of piety, and gratitude to Providence for the blessing which had been vouchsafed upon his mission. 303 p^L JOHN KNOX was born in East Lothian, in 1505, pro- bably at the village of Giftbrd, but, according to some accounts, at the small town of Haddington, in the grammar-school of which he received the rudiments of his education. His parents were of humble rank, but sufficiently removed from want to support their son at the University of St. Andrew's, which Knox entered about the year 1524. He passed with credit through his academical course, and took or- ders at the age of twenty-five, if not sooner. In his theological reading, he was led by curiosity to exa- mine the works of ancient authors quoted by the scholastic divines. These gave him new views of re- ligion, and led him on to the perusal of the Scriptures themselves. The change in his opinions appears to have commenced about 1535. It led him to recom- mend to others, as well as to practise, a more rational course of study than that prescribed by the ancient usage of the University. This innovation brought him under suspicion of being attached to the prin- ciples of the Reformation, which was making secret 304 KNOX. progress in Scotland ; and, having ventured to censure the corruptions which prevailed in the Church, he found it expedient to quit St. Andrew's in 1542, and return to the south of Scotland, where he openly avowed his adherence to the Reformed doctrines. Having cut himself off from the emoluments of the Established Church, Knox engaged as tutor in the family of Douglas of Langniddrie, a gentleman of East Lothian. As a man of known ability, and as a priest, he was especially obnoxious to the hierarchy ; and it is said that Archbishop Beatoun sought his life by private assassination, as well as openly under colour of the law. At Easter, 1547, Knox, with many other Protestants, took refuge in the castle of St. Andrew's, which was seized and held, after the archbishop's murder, by the band of conspirators who had done the deed. He here continued his usual course of instruction to his pupils, combined with public reading and explanation of the Scriptures to those who sought his assistance. His talents pointed him out as a fitting person for the ministry ; but he was very reluctant to devote himself to that important charge, and was only induced to do so, after a severe internal struggle, by a solemn call from the minister and the assembled congregation. He distinguished himself during his short abode at St. Andrew's by zeal, boldness, and success in preaching. But in the following July the castle surrendered ; and, by a scan- dalous violation of the articles of capitulation, the garrison were made prisoners of war, and subjected to great and unusual ill-treatment. Knox, with many others, was placed in a French galley, and com- pelled to labour like a slave at the oar. His health was greatly injured by the hardships which he under- went in that worst of prisons ; but his spirit rose tri- umphant over suffering. During this period he com- mitted to writing an abstract of the doctrines which KNOX. 305 he had preached, which he found means to convey to his friends in Scotland, with an earnest exhortation to persevere in the faith through persecution and trial. He obtained liberty in February, 1549, but by what means is not precisely known. At that time, under the direction of Cranmer, and with the zealous concurrence of the young King Ed- ward VI., the Reformation in England was advancing with rapid pace. Knox repaired thither, as to the safest harbour ; and in the dearth of able and earnest preachers which then existed, he found at once a welcome and active employment. The north was appointed to be the scene of his usefulness, and he continued to preach there, living chiefly at Berwick and Newcastle, till the end of 1552. He was then summoned to London, to appear before the Privy Council on a frivolous charge, of which he was ho- nourably acquitted. The King was anxious to secure his services to the English Church, and caused the living of All Hallows, in London, and even a bishop- ric, to be offered him. But Knox had conscientious scruples to some points of the English establishment. He continued, however, to preach, itinerating through the country, until, after the accession of Mary, the exercise of the Protestant religion was forbidden by act of parliament, December 20, 1533. Shortly after- wards he yielded to the importunity of his friends, and consulted his own safety by retiring to France. Pre- vious to his departure, he solemnised his marriage with Miss Bowes, a Yorkshire lady of good family, to whom he had been some time engaged. Knox took up his abode in the first instance at Dieppe, but he soon went to Geneva, and there made acquaintance with Calvin, whom he loved and vene- rated, and followed more closely than any others of the fathers of the Reformation in his views both of doctrine and ecclesiastical discipline. Towards the 306 KNOX. close of 1554 he was invited by a congregation of English exiles resident at Frankfort to become one of their pastors. Internal discords, chiefly con- cerning the ritual and matters of ceremonial observ- ance, in which, notwithstanding the severe and uncom- plying temper usually ascribed to him, no blame seems justly due to Knox, soon forced him to quit this charge, and he returned to Geneva ; where he spent more than a year in a learned leisure, peculiarly grateful to him after the troubled life which he had led so long. But in August, 1555, moved by the favourable aspect of the time, and by the entreaties of his family, from whom he had now been separated near two years, he returned to Scotland, and w;is surprised and rejoiced at the extraordinary avidity with which his preaching was attended. He visited various districts, both north and south, and won over two noblemen, who became eminent supporters of the Reformation, the heir-apparent of the earldom of Argyle, and Lord James Stuart, afterwards Earl of Murray. But in the middle of these successful la- bours he received a call from an English congregation at Geneva to become their pastor; and he appears to have felt it a duty to comply with their request. It would seem more consonant with his character to have remained in Scotland, to watch over the seed which he had sown, and that his own country had the most pressing claim upon his services. But the whole tenor of his life warrants the belief that he was actu- ated by no unworthy or selfish motives ; and in the absence of definite information, some insight into the nature of his feelings may probably be gained from a letter addressed to some friends in Edinburgh, in March, 1557: "Assure of that, that whenever a greater number among you shall call upon me than now hath bound me to serve them, by His grace it shall not be the fear of punishment, neither yet of the KNOX. 307 death temporal, that shall impede my coming to you." He quitted Scotland in July, 1556. During this absence Knox maintained a frequent correspondence with his brethren in Scotland, and both by exhortation and by his advice upon difficult questions submitted to his judgment, was still of material service in keeping alive their spirit. Two of his works composed during this period require mention ; his share in the English translation of the Scriptures, commonly called the ' Geneva Bible,' and the * Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regimen of Women,' a treatise expressly directed against the government of Mary of England, but containing a Ijold and unqualified enunciation of the principles, that to admit a woman to sovereignty is contrary to nature, justice, and the revealed will of God. In January, 1559, at the invitation of the leading persons of the Protestant congregation, he again returned to Scotland. Matters at this time were drawing to a crisis. The Queen Regent, after temporising while the support of a large and powerful party was essential to her, had thrown off disguise, and openly avowed her determination to use force for the suppression of heresy : while the leading Protestants avowed as plainly their resolution of protecting their preachers ; and becoming more and more sensible of their own increasing strength, resolved to abolish the Roman, and set up the Reformed method of worship in those places to which their influence or feudal power ex- tended. St. Andrew's was fixed on for the com- mencement of the experiment ; and under the protec- tion of the Earl of Argyle and Lord James Stuart, Prior of St. Andrew's, Knox, who on his landing had been proclaimed a rebel and outlaw, undertook to preach publicly in the cathedral of that city. The archbishop sent word that he should be fired upon if he ventured to appear in the pulpit, and as that pre- 308 KNOX. late was supported by a stronger force than the retinue of the Protestant noblemen, they thought it best that he should abstain at this time from thus exposing his life. Knox remained firm to his purpose. After reminding them that he had first preached the Gospel in that church, of the sufferings of his captivity, and of the confident hope which he had expressed to many that he should again perform his high mission in that same church, he besought them not to stand in the way when Providence had brought him to the spot. The archbishop's proved to be an empty threat. Knox preached for four successive days without inter- ruption, and with such effect, that the magistrates and the inhabitants agreed to set up the Reformed worship in their town; the monasteries were destroyed, and the churches stripped of images and pictures. Both parties now rose in arms. During the contest which ensued, Knox was a chief agent in conducting the cor- respondence between Elizabeth and the Lords of the Congregation. The task suited neither his profession nor his character, and he rejoiced when he was relieved from it. In July, 1560, a treaty was concluded with the King and Queen of France, by which the adminis- tration of the Queen Regent was terminated ; and in August a parliament was convoked, which abolished the papal jurisdiction, prohibited the celebration of mass, and rescinded the laws enacted against Pro- testant worship. From the persecuted and endangered teacher of a proscribed religion, Knox had now become, not indeed the head, but a leader and venerated father of an Established Church. He was at once appointed the Protestant minister of Edinburgh, and his influence ceased not to be felt from this time forward in all things connected with the Church, and in many par- ticulars of civil policy. Still his anxieties were far from an end. Many things threatened and impeded KNOX. 309 the infant Church. Far from acquiescing in the recent acts of the parliament, the young King and Queen of France were bent on putting down the rebellion, as they termed it, in Scotland by force of arms. The death of Francis put an end to that danger; but another, no less serious, was opened by the arrival of Mary in August, 1561, to assume her paternal sove- reignty, with a fixed determination of reviving the supremacy of the religion in which she had been brought up, arid to which she was devotedly attached. There were also two subjects upon which Knox felt peculiarly anxious, and in which he was thwarted by the lukewarmness, as he considered it, of the legisla- ture, the establishment of a strict and efficacious system of church discipline, and the entire devotion of the wealth of the Catholic priesthood to the promotion of education, and the maintenance of the true religion. In both these points he was thwarted by the indiffer- ence or interestedness of the nobility, who had pos- sessed themselves, to a large amount, of the lands and tithes formerly enjoyed by monasteries. It soon became evident that the Queen disliked and feared Knox. She regarded his ' Blast against the Regimen of Women ' as an attack upon her own right to the throne; and this is not surprising, though Knox always declared that book to be levelled solely against the late Queen of England, and pro- fessed his perfect readiness to submit to Mary's au- thority in all things lawful, and to wave all discussion or allusion to the obnoxious tenet. His freedom of speech in the pulpit was another constant source of offence ; and it is not to be denied that, although the feelings of that age warranted a greater latitude than would now be tolerated in a teacher of religion, his energetic and severe temper led him to use violent and indiscreet language in speaking of public men and public things. For Mary herself he prayed in 310 KNOX. terms which, however fitting for a minister to employ towards one of his flock whom he regarded to be in deadly and pernicious error, a queen could hardly he expected to endure from a subject without anger. Accordingly, he was several times summoned to her presence, to apologise or answer for his conduct. The narrations of these interviews are very interesting : they show the ascendancy which he had gained over the haughty spirit of the Queen, and at the same time exonerate him from the charge urged by her apologists of having treated her with personal disrespect, and even brutality. He expressed uncourtly opinions in plain and severe language ; farther than this he neither violated the courtesy due from man to woman, nor the respect due from a subject to a superior. In ad- dition to the causes of offence already specified, he had remonstrated, from her first landing, against the toleration of the mass in her own chapel. And at a later time, he spoke so freely concerning the probable consequence to the Reformed Church from her mar- rying a Papist, that in reprimanding and remonstrat- ing with him she burst into a passion of tears. He remained unmoved, protesting that he saw her Ma- jesty's tears with reluctance, but was constrained, since he had given her no just ground of offence, rather to sustain her tears than to hurt his conscience, and betray the commonwealth through his silence. This interview is one of the things upon which Mr. Hume has sought to raise a prejudice against the Reformer in his partial account of this period. Many of the nobility who had aided in the esta- blishment of the Reformation, gained over either by the fascination of Mary's beauty and manners, or by the still more cogent appeal of personal interest, were far from seconding Knox's efforts, or partaking in his apprehensions. The Earl of Murray was so far won over to adopt a temporising and conciliatory policy, KNOX. 311 that a quarrel ensued in 1563 between him and Knox, which lasted for two years, until quenched, as Knox expresses it, by the water of affliction. Maitland of Lethington, once an active Reformer, a man of powerful and versatile talents, who was now made Secretary of State, openly espoused the Queen's wishes. In the summer of 1563 Knox was involved in a charge of high treason, for having addressed a circular to the chief Protestant gentlemen, requesting them to attend the trial of two persons accused of having created a riot at the Queen's chapel. It ap- pears that he held an especial commission from the (aeneral Assembly to summon such meetings, when occasion seemed to him to require them. Upon this charge of treasonably convoking the lieges, he was brought before the privy council. Murray and Mait- land were earnest to persuade him into submission and acknowledgment of error. Knox, however, with his usual firmness and uprightness, refused positively to confess a fault when he was conscious of none, and defended himself with so much power, that by the voice of a majority of the council he was declared free of all blame. In March, 1564, more than three years after the death of his first wife, Knox was again married to a daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a zealous Protestant. Throughout that year and the following, he continued to preach as usual. Meanwhile, the Protestant esta- blishment, though confirmed by the parliament, re- mained still unrecognised by the Queen, whose hasty marriage to Lord Henry Darnley in July, 1565, in- creased the alarm with which her conduct had already inspired the Reformers. But early in the following year, when Mary, in conjunction with her uncles of the House of Lorrain, had planned the formal re- establishment of Catholicism, her dissensions with her husband led to the assassination of Rizzio, and in 312 KNOX. rapid succession to the murder of Darnlcy, her mar- riage with Both well, and the train of events which ended in her formal deposition, and the coronation of her infant son James VI. It is denied that Knox was privy to the assassination of Rizzio, and the. tenor of his actions warrants us in disbelieving that he would have been an accomplice in any deed of blood ; but after that event, he spoke of it in terms of satis- faction, indiscreet, liable to perversion, and unbe- coming a Christian preacher. The Queen's resent- ment for this and other reasons became so warm against him, that it was judged proper for him to retire from Edinburgh. He preached at the coronation of James VI. After Mary was made prisoner and confined at Lochleven, he, in common with most of the ministers and the great body of the people, in- sisted strongly on the duty of bringing her to trial for the crimes of murder and adultery, and of inflicting capital punishment if her guilt were proved. During the short regency of Murray, Knox had the satisfaction, not only of being freed from the personal disquietudes which had been his portion almost through life, but of seeing the interests of the Church, if not maintained to the full extent which he could wish, at least treated with respect, and advocated as far as the crooked course of state-policy would permit. The murder of that distinguished nobleman, January 23, 1510, affected Knox doubly, as the premature decease of a loved and esteemed friend, and as a public cala- mity to church and state. In the following October he suffered a slight fit of apoplexy, from which however he soon recovered so far as to resume his Sunday preachings. But the troubled times which followed on the death of the Regent Murray, denied to him in Edinburgh that re- pose which his infirmities demanded, and in May, 1571, he was reluctantly induced to retire from his KNOX. 313 ministry, and again to seek a refuge in St. Andrew's. Nor was his residence in that city one of peace or ease, for he was troubled by a party favourable to the Queen's interests, especially by that Archibald Ha- milton, who afterwards apostatised to the Roman Catholic Church, and became his bitter calumniator ; and he was placed in opposition to the Regent Morton with respect to the filling up of vacant bishoprics and the disposal of church property, which, far from being applied to the maintenance of religion and the diffusion of education, was still in great measure monopolised by the nobility. In August, 1572, his health being rapidly declining, he returned to Edin- burgh, at the earnest request of his congregation, who longed to hear his voice in the pulpit once more. He felt death to be nigh at hand, and was above all things anxious to witness the appointment of a zealous and able successor to the important station in the ministry which he filled. This was done to his satis- faction. On Sunday, November 9, he preached and presided at the installation of his successor, James Lawson, and he never after quitted his own house. He sickened on the llth, and expired November 24, 1572, after a fortnight's illness, in which he displayed unmixed tranquillity, and assured trust in a happy futurity, through the promises of the Gospel which he had preached. It is the more necessary to state this, because his calumniators dared to assert that his death was accompanied by horrid prodigies, and visible marks of Divine reprobation. The same tales have been related of Luther and Calvin. Knox's moral character we may safely pronounce to have been unblemished, notwithstanding the out- rageous charges of dissolute conversation which have been brought by some writers against him, calumnies equally levelled against Beza, Calvin, and other fathers of the Reformation, and which bear their own refuta- VOL. i. T 314 KNOX. tion in their extravagance. As a preacher, he was energetic and effective, and uncommonly powerful in awakening the negligent or the hardened conscience. As a Reformer and leader of the Church, he was fitted for the stormy times, and the turbulent and resolute people among whom his lot was cast, by the very qua- lities which have been made a reproach to him in a more polished age, and by a less zealous generation. He was possessed of strong natural talents, and a de- termined will, which shunned neither danger nor labour. He was of middle age when he began the study of Greek, and it was still later in life when he acquired the Hebrew language, tasks of no small difficulty when we consider the harassed and laborious tenor of his life. No considerations of temporising prudence could seduce him into the compromise of an important principle ; no thought of personal danger could make him shrink when called to confront it. His deep sense and resolute discharge of duty, coupled with a natural fire and impetuosity of temper, some- times led him into severity. But that his disposition was deeply affectionate is proved by his private cor- respondence ; and that his severity proceeded from no acerbity of temper may be inferred from his having employed his powerful influence as a mediator for those who had borne arms against his party, and from his having never used it to avenge an injury. The best apology for his occasional harshness is that con- tained in the words of his own dying address to the elders of his church, as quoted by Dr. M'Crie. " I know that many have frequently complained, and do still loudly complain, of my too great severity ; but God knows that my mind was always void of hatred to the persons of those against whom I thundered the severest judgments. I cannot deny but that I felt the greatest abhorrence at the sins in which they in- dulged i but still I kept this one thing in view, that, KNOX. 315 if possible, I might gain them to the Lord. What influenced me to utter whatever the Lord put into my mouth so boldly, and without respect of persons, was a reverential fear of my God, who called and of His grace appointed me to be a steward of divine mys- teries, and a belief that He will demand an account of the manner in which I have discharged the trust committed to me, when I shall at last stand before His tribunal." [Knox's House in the Can ongnte, Edinburgh.] x2 316 KNOX. A list of Knox's printed works, nineteen in num- ber, is given by Dr. M'Crie, at the end of his notes. They consist chiefly of short religious pieces, exhorta- tions, and sermons. In addition to those more im- portant books which we have already noticed, his ' History of the Church of Scotland' requires men- tion. The best edition is that printed at Edinburgh, in 1732, which contains a life of the author, the * Regimen of Women,' and some other pieces. Dr. M'Crie's admirable ' Life of Knox' will direct the reader to the original sources of the history of this period. 317 MICHEL DE L'HfipiTAL was born at Aigueperse in Auvergne. The date of his birth he himself declares, in his testament, to be uncertain, but at the same time he refers it to the year 1505. His father was the domestic physician, the faithful friend, and trusted counsellor of the Constable of Bourbon, and still followed his patron's fortunes, when that ill-used and misguided prince took up arms against France in 1523. Michel de 1'Hupital, then a student at the University of Toulouse, was arrested as the son of one of Bourbon's partizans; but after a short time he was set at liberty by the express order of Francis 1., and after the lapse of two or three years was permitted to rejoin his father in Italy. He completed his educa- tion during a residence of six years at the celebrated University of Padua. Quitting that University with high credit for his acquirements both in polite litera- ture and legal knowledge, he took up his abode at Rome with his father, and soon obtained the favour- able notice both of the Emperor Charles V. and the French ambassador, Cardinal de Grammont. But 318 I/H6PITAL. preferring the hope of re-establishment in his native country to the prospects of advancement held out in a foreign land, he returned to France in the train of the Cardinal; was present at the espousal of Catherine de Medicis with the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II., in 1583; and laid a stepping-stone towards his for- tunes by attracting the notice of his future queen The death of the Cardinal however in the following year overclouded his prospects. His father was unable to procure a reversal of the sentence of exile, and confiscation passed on him for his adherence to Bourbon; and Michel de 1'Hopital, without means or friends, betook himself to the practice of the law in the courts of Paris. Fortunately, his merits pro- cured a discerning friend in Jean Morin, a high legal functionary, who gave him his daughter in marriage in 1537, with the judicial office of Conseillcr for her dowry. L'Hopital filled this office during nine years. It was one in which he found no pleasure ; for though attached to the philosophical study of the law (and he mentions it as one of the evils of his situation that he had been obliged to abandon a project for collect- ing into one body the laws of France, both written and resting on judicial decisions), he found the daily routine of trying causes extremely irksome. His letters are full of complaints of this drudgery, as he esteemed it, and express in lively terms the pleasure which he felt in escaping during the vacations into the country, and renewing his literary pursuits. He numbered the most intellectual and learned men of France among his friends, nor was he backward in seeking to conciliate the great and powerful. It is worth noting, as indicative of the manners of the age, that his favourite method of addressing such persons was in Latin hexameters. Accounts of his way of life, statements of his wishes, petitions, &c., are con- L'H&PITAL. 319 veyed in that form ; and he composed with fluency, and with a competent share of elegance, without great attention to correctness. One of his frequent cor- respondents, to whose favour he owed in great mea- sure his future rise, was Cardinal Lorraine. The Chancellor Olivier, a man of no common virtue, was another of his best friends, and to him L'Hopital was indebted for being withdrawn from the hated bustle of the law, by his appointment as envoy to the Coun- cil of Bologna. This proved a sinecure ; and he employed his time in wandering about the neighbour- hood of that city, and writing letters to the Chan- cellor, full of poetical descriptions, and requests for a more permanent provision away from the tumult of the law courts. Early in 1549 L'Hopital was recalled, after re- maining upwards of a year in Italy. He found the Chancellor in disgrace; but his acknowledged merit obtained the notice of Margaret of Valois, daughter of Francis I., a steady patroness of learning, herself de- voted to literary as well as religious study. Being created Duchess of Berri, she appointed him her Chancellor, to manage the affairs of the province ; and one of his first steps in that capacity was the establish- ment of a new law-school at Bourges, to which he endeavoured to attract the most eminent teachers. Her influence, added to that of Cardinal Lorraine, procured for him the high financial appointment of Superintendent of the Chamber of Accounts in 1554. His conduct in that station was firm and honest. He laboured to put a stop to numberless abuses, which had prevailed both in the collection and disposition of the revenue; and his zeal is testified by the ill-will which it brought upon him, and which twice endan- gered the loss of his place. His independence in this respect is ill contrasted by his obsequiousness in sup- porting the edict known in French history by the 320 I/HfiPITAL. name of the Semcstrc. This requires a few words of explanation. No legislative body was recognised by the French constitution. Even the States-General could not enact : the power of making laws resided solely in the sovereign. But by the practice of the land, the edicts of the monarch required to be registered by the body of lawyers called the Parliament of Paris, before they could possess validity as law: a wholesome practice, which often served as a check upon the court. It was probably with the intention of render- ing that body more subject to control, that Henry II., or his ministers, introduced the above-mentioned edict, by which it was proposed to divide the Parlia- ment into two bodies, \o relieve each other every six months. Under this arrangement it would have been easy to collect the refractory spirits into one body, and then to bring measures forward for registration in whichever half year might best suit the views of the crown. L'Hfipital's accession to this measure has been palliated by alleging, that, as the price of it, he stipulated for the abolition of a custom which pre- vailed, for suitors to offer fees to the judges before whom their causes were to be tried, under the name of spices (epices), a ready means of corruption, for yielding to which, or something not much worse, Bacon, about half a century later, was removed with disgrace from the chancellorship of England. The whole tenor of L'Hopital's policy in after times tended to depress the Parliament ; and this furnishes a pre- sumption that his conduct in this particular^instance was honest. But it is strange that he should not have perceived any inroad on the independence of the ju- dicial body to be a still greater evil than even that from which he endeavoured to free it. After all, the echeme failed, and he was deeply mortified at the obloquy which his accession to it incurred. The accession of Francis II., by bringing the house L'HOPITAI,. 321 of Guise into power, proved the means of L'H<5pital's advancement. One of the first acts of the new go- vernment was to restore to the office of chancellor Olivier, a man of tried integrity, and a friend to tole- ration. But while the princes of Guise availed them- selves of his high character to court popularity, they had no thought of acting by his advice ; and Olivier, compelled to be the unwilling instrument of a policy which he detested, and afraid or unable to resign, was hastened by vexation to his grave. L'H6pital was selected to be his successor in June, 1560. The Guises and the Queen Mother are said to have been actuated by different views in agreeing upon this appointment. The former thought that from an old adherent and petitioner of Cardinal Lorraine they had no opposition to fear : the latter is said to have been influenced by the hope, that L'Hopital's patriotism would lead him to be a check on the over-powerful house of Lorraine. The circumstances under which he became Chan- cellor were such as might fairly breed suspicion of his honesty. None but a bold man could have hoped to do good after the example of Olivier ; none but a dex- terous man could have succeeded. And such dex- terity is seldom joined with that sincerity and purity of purpose, which is one of the most valuable qualities of a statesman, or any man. There are sometimes seasons in which an honest man may take office, with the certainty not only that he will not be permitted to do much that he would wish, but also that he will be obliged to do a good deal that he disapproves. But such compromises are of bad example and evil influ- ence, and can only by excused by the necessity of the times, and by the good results which ensue. By this test, L'Hopitai's conduct is vindicated. He conferred a signal benefit on France at his first entrance upon office, by dexterously contriving to prevent the esta- 322 L'H&PITAL. blishment of the Inquisition, which had been resolved on. He obtained the convocation of an Assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau, in which, through his influ- ence, conciliatory measures were adopted towards the Protestants, and it was resolved to summon a meeting of the States-General. But the Guises, by working on the young king's fears, turned that measure to their own advantage. Conde* no sooner appeared than he was arrested, tried, and condemned to death. The King of Navarre was threatened with a similar fate; and but for the opportune death of Francis II., the kingdom probably would have been plunged at once into the utmost fury of a religious war. But the suc- cession of Charles IX., a minor, in December 1560, threw the regency into the hands of Catherine ; and she, encouraged by L'Hopital, asserted her indepen- dence of the Guises, and, to conciliate the support of a powerful party, released Conde, and allied herself with the King of Navarre. At first, the Chancellor's liberal measures seemed to prosper. As if in compliance with the demands of the States, he published the celebrated Ordonnance of Orleans, which embodied most of his views for the reformation of the state, and introduced a variety of bold and important changes into the church, the courts of justice, and the financial system. One por- tion of it is expressly directed against the oppressive rights claimed and exercised by the nobility. But the spirit of the age was not ripe for such extensive re- forms; they were too far in advance to produce a lasting influence. And in attempting to overcome an interested and prejudiced opposition, the Chan- cellor was led to an act unworthy of his real zeal for the welfare of his country. His legal improvements had not conciliated the good-will of the lawyers ; and, foreseeing that the Parliament of Paris might probably refuse to register his edicts, he took it on himself to 323 despatch them to the provinces, without ever having submitted them to that body. To justify such a step, it is not enough to say that his views were enlarged and noble, theirs bigoted and illiberal ; for it is seldom or never that any object can be of importance enough to justify a constitutional statesman in breaking down a constitutional security. Nor had he even the bad excuse of success. The Parliament were justly in- censed, and probably became still more hostile to the measures adopted in defiance of its authority; and the high Catholic party prevailed in obtaining a new Assembly of Notables, at which all was undone which the Chancellor had been labouring to do, and the per- secuting edicts against the Protestants were re-esta- blished in full force. Tliis blow to his system of toleration the Chancellor contrived to obviate. He had no assembly, no body ef recognised authority on which to lean for support. The Parliament of Paris was against him ; the As- sembly of Notables, composed of lawyers and nobility, was against him ; the States General were tedious to convoke, and were paralysed by their division into three orders. In this difficulty he bethought himself of calling an assembly of deputies from the provincial Parliaments of the kingdom ; and fortified by their recommendation, he promulgated and obtained regis- tration of the celebrated edict of January, 1562, which, under certain restrictions, permitted the open profes- sion of the Protestant faith. Upon this the furious bigotry of the Duke of Guise broke into open vio- lence, and kindled the first of those religious wars which long desolated France. Strengthened by the adhesion of the Constable Montmorenci, and by pos- session of the persons of the King, and Queen Regent, the brothers of Lorraine usurped the conduct of affairs, and excluded L'Hopital from the council. It is re- markable, considering his resolute opposition to their 324 L S H6PITAL. policy, that they did not deprive him of his office ; and this may be taken as an evidence either of the consummate prudence with which, without betraying his own principles, he avoided giving personal offence to his opponents ; or that his character stood so high as to render his opponents unwilling to incur the odium of displacing him. The assassination of the Duke of Guise, in Febru- ary, 1563, restored to Catherine her own free-will, and L'Hfipital to power ; and he immediately availed himself of it to lay the basis of peace by fresh edicts in favour of toleration, which as usual were opposed by the Parliament. In the following year, Charles IX. having reached the age of fourteen, the Chancellor revived an old law which fixed the majority of Kings of France at that age, and declared the King's majo- rity before the Parliament of Rouen. Soon after, he was engaged in a quarrel with his old patron, Cardinal Lorraine, relative to the privileges of the Gallician Church. The question was, whether or not the de- crees of the Council of Trent should be admitted as authority in France. The Chancellor opposed this, and he carried his point. To amuse Charles, and to avoid some of the evils which usually beset a court, the Chancellor conducted his young sovereign on a tour to the southern pro- vinces of France. This was attended with unforeseen and evil consequences. AtBayonne Charles was met by his sister, the Queen of Spain, attended by the Duke of Alva and other Spanish noblemen. Alva acquired the confidence of Catherine, whom he per- suaded that in the hands of L'Hopital she really had no more freedom of action than under the control of the Guises ; and as in her opposition to them she had been actuated by no love of toleration, she had little to unlearn under the tuition of that bigoted and able partizan of the papacy. L'Hopital soon perceived L'HOPITAL. 325 that his power was shaken. He laboured to make up for the lost confidence of Catherine, by attaching him- self more and more to Charles IX. ; and for a time he succeeded in retaining influence over that prince, who, during the years 1565 and 1566, was kept in a state of vacillation between those who pleaded for peace and toleration, and those who would have ex- terminated Protestantism at all hazards and by all means. The religious war was renewed in 1567. Peace was concluded in 1568 ; but L'Hopital was not employed to manage it. His only hold upon power was now in the reverence of the King ; and this was shaken by the artful representations of Catherine. It shows, however, in a strong light, the ascendancy which L'Hopital had acquired over Charles's mind, that the joint influence of Catherine and the House of Guise could not induce him absolutely to dismiss his faithful minister. In 1568, he sent to request the Chancellor to give up the seals for a time, with a pro- mise of returning them. L'Hopital says in his Tes- tament, that " he judged it better to yield to the ne- cessity of the state, and to its new governors, than to contend with them." He retired to his estate at Vignay, near Etampes, where he returned with avidity to his literary pursuits, and to the amusements and occupations of the country, to which his letters repre- sent him as devotedly attached. The Chancellor had not amassed wealth in his various high employments ; but his pensions were continued by the King ; and Catherine herself did not forget his former services. Even in the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew's they interfered to pro- tect him ; though his family were Protestants, and he himself, though a Catholic by profession and in ob- servances, was so suspected by the bigot party, who did not understand how sincerity and tolerance could go together, that it passed into a sort of proverb, vou i. u 326 L'H&PITAL. * Lord, deliver us from the Chancellor's mass.' A troop of horse was sent from court to preserve his mansion from insult. His domestics were alarmed, and proposed to shut the gates. " No," said the Chancellor; "but if the small gate is not enough, open the great one." His daughter, then in Paris, was in imminent danger, and escaped only through the intervention of the Duchess of Guise. The Chancellor did not long survive this signal proof that his labours had been in vain. " I have lived too long," he said, " since I have seen what has occurred in my last days, a youth changed from a mild king into a merciless tyrant." He died March 13, 1573, and was buried in his parish church of Champmoteux. His monument is among those which have been collected at Paris, in the Musee des Petits- Augustins. Brantfime has described the person of L'H6pital. He wore a long white beard ; his face was pale, his demeanor grave, and he resembled the pictures of St. Jerome, by which name he was known at court. He and the Constable Montmorenci were famous as ra- broueurs, or reprimanders, and were joint terrors to the idle courtiers ; and this harshness, if we may trust his own representations, was not natural, but assumed as a necessary qualification for his office. His private habits were very simple and frugal, and he regarded the increase of luxury as the bane of France. Brant6me says that once, when he paid the Chancellor a visit with Mare*chal Strozzi, their host gave them for dinner a single dish of bouillie, and that his whole stock of plate consisted of one silver saltcellar. He adds an amusing account of the way in which the Chancellor rated two newly-appointed functionaries, who came to present themselves, and who could not pass satisfactorily through a legal exa- mination, which he bestowed upon them. L'H&PITAL. 327 The leading objects of L'Hopital's political life were to obtain the reformation of abuses, to establish the independence of the Gallican church against the usurpations of Rome, and to procure toleration for the Protestants. He is, we believe, the first minister who laid down the principle of toleration, and proclaimed the impossibility and absurdity of making force the rule of reason ; and he has thus gained an indefeasible title to the reverence, not only of his countrymen, but of mankind. " What laws," he said, in his inaugu- rative speech to the Parliament of Paris, " have not been promulgated on this point of religion ? What judgments and punishments, of which even the magis- trates of the Parliament have been victims ? To what purpose have served such continued armaments and combats in Germany, in England, and in Scotland ? The ancient religion has been shaken by these com- bats, and the new confirmed. The mistake lies in treating the maladies of the mind as if they were those of the body. Experience teaches us that it is the force of reason, the gentle persuasion of words alone, which can win hearts, and cure diseased spirits." This great man has another claim to notice, as one of the most distinguished jurists and reformers of France. He has been classed with Charlemagne and St. Louis, as one of the three principal legislators of that country ; and his eminent successor, D'Aguesseau, bore testimony to the merits of his edicts, as the foun- dation of the most useful laws which were afterwards enacted. His constitutional views were directed to- wards raising the royal authority, at the expense of the nobility and the Parliament. We have expressed our belief that in the latter instance his conduct was wrong. His views of reform are embodied in the Ordonnance of Orleans (January, 1561), and that of Moulins (February, 1566), which De Thou describes as being the complement of the former. Of the con- u2 328 L'HOPITAL. tents of the Ordonnance of Orleans we have already given such notice as our space allows ; that of Moulins pertains rather to legal and judicial reforms ; it limits and defines the powers of judicial officers, and deter- [The Couciergerie at Paris, from whnnce the Hiigonot prisoners were liberated bj L'Hupitol himself, from a Print iu the British Muteum.] L'H^PITAL. 329 mines the law on various points, relative to entails, arrests for debt, sales, &c. In short, these two edicts provide for the removal of most of those evils which, unredressed, produced the first Revolution. It is much to be regretted that L'Hopital's essay towards a work on French law is lost. There is a volume extant of his Poetical Epistles, of which the best edition is that of Amsterdam, 1132. To these, and to his Testament, which is printed in the Biblio- theque Choisie of Colomies, and in Brantfime (article of the Constable Montmorenci), we may refer for au- thentic details of his life ; of which numerous particu- lars will be found in the history of De Thou, the Memoirs of Brantfime, the Letters of Pasquier, the Eloges of Thevet, and other contemporary writers. His speeches before the States of Orleans have been published; and a Collection of Memoirs, consisting of various State Papers, printed at Cologne, 1672, has been ascribed to him. The Eloge of L'H6pital was proposed as a prize by the French Academy, in 1777. Slight accounts of him will be found in the various biographical dictionaries ; but no publication, so far as we know, has appeared either in French or English, which can dispense with the necessity of consulting the original authorities, on the part of those who wish to obtain more than a superficial acquaintance with the history of this illustrious statesman. 330 ON looking back to the commencement of the six- teenth century, by far the most brilliant epoch of modern art, we cannot but marvel at the splendour and variety of talent concentrated within the brief space of half a century, or less. Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, Titian, all fellow-labourers, with many others inferior to these mighty masters, yet whose works are prized by kings and nobles as their most precious treasures by what strange prodigality of natural gifts, or happy combination of circum- stances was so rare an assemblage of genius produced in so short a time ? The most obvious explanation is to be found in the princely patronage then afforded to the arts by princes and churchmen. By this none TITIAN. 331 profited more largely or more justly than the great painter, whose life it is our task to relate. Tiziano Vecelli was born of an honourable family at Capo del Cadore, a small town on the confines of Friuli, in 1480. He soon manifested the bent of his genius, and at the age of ten was consigned to the care of an uncle residing in Venice, who placed him under the tuition of Giovanni Bellini, then in the zenith of his fame. The style of Bellini though forci- ble is dry and hard, and little credit has been given to him for his pupil's success. It is probable, how- ever, that Titian imbibed in his school those habits of accurate imitation, which enabled him afterwards to unite boldness and truth, and to indulge in the most daring execution, without degenerating into man- nerism. The elements of his future style he found first indicated by Lionardo da Vinci, and more deve- loped in the works of Giorgione, who adopted the principles of Lionardo, but with increased power, amenity, and splendour. As soon as Titian became acquainted with this master's paintings, he gave his whole attention to the study of them ; and with such success, that the portrait of a noble Venetian, named Barbarigo, which he painted at the age of eighteen, was mistaken for the work of Giorgione. From that time, during some years, these masters held an equal place in public esteem; but in 1507 a circumstance occurred which turned the balance in favour of Titian. They were engaged conjointly in the decoration of a public building, called the Fondaco de Tedeschi. Through some mistake that part of the work which Titian had executed was understood by a party of connoisseurs to have been painted by Giorgione, whom they overwhelmed with congratulations on his extraordinary improvement. It may be told to his credit, that though he manifested some weakness in discontinuing his intercourse with Titian, he never 332 TITIAN. spoke of him without amply acknowledging his merits. Anxious to gain improvement from every possible source, Titian is said to have drawn the rudiments of his fine style of landscape painting from some Ger- man artists who came to Venice about the time of this rupture. He engaged them to reside in his house, and studied their mode of practice until he had mastered their principles. His talents were now exercised on several important works, and it is evi- dent, from the picture of the Angel and Tobias, that he had already acquired an extraordinary breadth and grandeur of style. The Triumph of Faith, a singular composition, manifesting great powers of invention, amid much quaintness of character and costume, is known by a wood engraving published in 1508. A fresco of the Judgment of Solomon, for the Hall of Justice at Vicenza, was his next performance. After this he executed several subjects in the church of St. Anthony, at Padua, taken from the miracles attri- buted to that saint. These avocations had withdrawn him from Venice. On his return, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, he was employed to finish a large picture left imperfect by Bellini, or, according to some authorities, by Gior- gione, in the great Council Hall of Venice, represent- ing the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa on his knees before Pope Alexander III. at the entrance of St. Mark's. The Senate were so well satisfied with his performance, that they appointed him to the office called La Senseria ; the conditions of which were, that it should be held by the best painter in the city, with a salary of three hundred scudi, he engaging to paint the portrait of each Doge on his election, at the price of eight scudi. These portraits were hung in one of the public apartments of St. Mark, At the close of 1514, Titian was invited to Ferrara, by the TITIAN. 333 Duke Alphonso. For him he executed several splen- did works ; among them, portraits of the Duke, and of his wife, and that celebrated picture of Bac- chus and Ariadne, now in our own National Gal- lery. The first works executed by Titian after his return to Venice, prove that he had already accomplished that union of grand design with brilliant colouring, which was designated by Tintoret as the highest per- fection of painting. His immense picture of the As- sumption, formerly in the church of Santa Maria Glo- riosa, and now in the Academy of Venice, exhibits, in the opinion of some first-rate judges, various excel- lences, such as have never been combined in any single performance, but by Titian himself*. The Virgin, whose figure relieves dark on the. irradiated back-ground, seems to ascend amid a flood of glory. She is surrounded and sustained by angels of ineffa- ble beauty, and the disciples below are personifica- tions of apostolic grandeur. It will scarcely be cre- dited that the Monks, for whom this picture was painted, objected to it on account of its apparent reality ; but the voice of public admiration soon made them sensible of its merits, arid they refused a large sum offered for it by the Imperial Ambassador. Such a report of this work was made to Leo X. by Cardi- nal Bembo, that Titian received an invitation to Rome from the Pontiff, with the offer of honourable appointments. A similar proposal from Francis I. of France, whose portrait he painted in 1515, he had already declined ; but he yielded to the temptation of visiting Rome, being not less anxious to see the great works of contemporary genius, than the wonders of * The writer has been informed by Canova that this was his own opinion, and that of Sir Thomas Lawrence. u3 334 TITIAN. ancient art. He did not, however, carry his purpose into effect at this time, but remained at Venice ; and thus secured to her the possession of those noble works, which, when they were produced, formed the brightest ornament of her power, and even now, when her other glories are set, confer upon her an impe- rishable distinction. To recompense in some degree his relinquishment of this invitation, Titian was employed by the Senate to paint the Battle of Cadore, fought between the Venetians and the Imperialists; a splendid produc- tion, which perished when the Ducal Palace was burnt. About this time was painted the fine altar- piece of the Pesari Family returning thanks to the Virgin for a victory over the Turks. This picture, as an example of simple grandeur, has been contrasted by Reynolds with the artificial splendour of Rubens ; and Fuseli alludes to it as constituting the due medium between dry apposition and exuberant contrast. The sublime picture of S. Pietro Martire was painted in 1523. Of this it is difficult to speak in adequate terms, without the appearance of hyperbolical pane- gyric. The composition is well known by engravings ; but these convey only a faint notion of the original, which unites the utmost magnificence of historical design, with the finest style of landscape-painting. The gorgeous hues of Titian's colouring are attem- pered in this picture by an impressive solemnity. The scene of violence and blood, though expressed with energy, is free from contortion or extravagance ; grandeur pervades the whole, and even the figure of the flying friar has a character of dignity rarely sur- passed. Two pictures on the same subject, the one by Domenichino, in the Academy of Bologna, the other by Giorgione, in our National Gallery, if com- pared with that of Titian, convey a forcible impression TITIAN. 335 of the difference between first-rate genius and the finest talents of a secondary order. The picture of Giorgione is, however, most Titianesque in colouring. In 1526 the celebrated satirist Aretine, and San- sovino fhe sculptor, came to reside in Venice. With these distinguished men Titian contracted an inti- macy, which was the source of great pleasure to him, and ceased only with their lives. When Charles V. visited Bologna in 1529, Titian was invited to that city, where he painted an equestrian portrait of the Emperor. Charles, not only an admirer but a judge of art, was astonished at a style of painting of which he had formed no previous conception ; he remune- rated the artist splendidly, and expressed his determi- nation never to sit to any other master. On returning to Bologna in 1532, he summoned Titian again to his court, and engaged him in many important works, treating him on all occasions with extraordinary re- epect and regard. It is affirmed, that in riding through Bologna he kept upon the artist's right hand, an act of courtesy which excited such displeasure among the courtiers that they ventured upon a remon- strance. The answer given by Charles is well known, and has been since ascribed to other monarchs : " I have many nobles in my empire, but only one Titian." On leaving Bologna, Titian accompanied Frederic Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, home to his own state ; where, besides painting portraits of the Duke and his brother the Cardinal, he ornamented an apartment of the palace contiguous to the rooms painted by Giulio Romano, with portraits of the twelve Caesars, taking his authorities from medals and antique marbles. In passing through Parma, on the way to Mantua, he first saw the works of Correggio, who had been en- gaged in painting the dome of the cathedral. So little was that great man's genius appreciated, and such was the ignorance of his employers, that they had actually 336 TITIAN. dismissed him as inadequate to the task he had un- dertaken ; nor was he allowed to resume it, until the lavish admiration bestowed on his work by Titian had taught them better how to estimate his talents. On returning to Venice, Titian found that a strong party had been raised in favour of Pordenone. He expressed no slight indignation at the attempt to exalt that painter to an equality with himself. Pordenone, nevertheless, was an artist of considerable powers, al- though certainly not qualified to compete with such an antagonist. The number of pictures which Titian continued to execute would far exceed our limits to enumerate, and is so great as to excite astonishment ; more especially as there is little evidence in his works that he was much assisted by inferior hands. In 1543, when Pope Paul III. visited Bologna, Titian painted an admirable portrait of him, and received an invitation to Rome. But he was unable to accept it, having engagements with the Duke of Urbino, whose palace he accordingly enriched with portraits of Charles V., Francis I., the Duke Guiclobaldo, the Popes Sixtus IV., Julius II., and Paul III., the Car- dinal of Lorraine, and Solyman, Emperor of the Turks. Truth, it appears, rather than embellishment, was sought for in the portraits of those days. Titian's por- trait of Paul III. is executed with uncompromising accuracy. The figure is diminutive and decrepit, but the eyes have a look of penetrating sagacity. His Holiness was greatly pleased with it ; and, as a mark of his favour, made offer to the artist of a valuable si- tuation in a public department; which Titian de- clined, upon finding that his emoluments were to be deducted from the income of those who already held possession of it. He obtained, however, the promise of a benefice for his son Pomponio. Aretine thought his friend illiberally treated by Paul, and did not scruple to publish his opinion on the subject. TITIAN. 337 In 1545, when the Venetian Senate was compelled by the public exigencies to lay a general tax on the city, Titian was the only person exempted from the impost, a noble homage to genius, which attests at once the liberality and the wisdom of that government. In this year, Titian having completed his engagements with the Duke of Urbino, and being, through the Car- dinal Farnese, again invited to Rome, determined on a visit to that city : and he set out, accompanied by his son Orazio, several pupils, and a considerable number of domestics. He was received at Urbino by the Duke Guidobaldo II., and splendidly entertained for some days. On his departure, the Duke accompanied him from Urbino to Pesaro, and from thence sent forward with him a suite of horses and servants, as far as the gates of Rome. Here he was greeted with cor- responding honours, and lodged in the Belvidere Palace. Vasari was, at this time, in the employment of Cardinal Farnese, and had the gratification of at- tending the great artist about the city. Titian was now engaged to paint a whole length portrait of Paul III., with the Cardinal Farnese and Duke Ottavio in one group. This picture is at present intheMuseo Borbonico ; and is a fine example of that highest style of portrait painting, which is scarce less difficult, or less elevated as a branch of art, than historical com- position. An " Ecce Homo," painted at the same time, does not appear to have excited that admiration which his works usually obtained. The taste of the Ro- man artists and connoisseurs had been formed on the severe examples of Michael Angelo, Raphael, Polidoro, and others ; so that the style of Titian was tried by a new and conventional standard, to which it was not fairly amenable. It was insinuated that his chief ex- cellence lay in portrait-painting. Vasari relates that, in company with Michael Angelo, he made a visit to Titian at the Belvidere, and found him employed on 338 TITIAN. the celebrated picture of Danae. Michael Angelo be- stowed high commendations on it ; but, as they went away, remarked to Vasari on Titian's inaccurate style of design, observing, that if he had received his ele- mentary education in a better school, his works would have been inimitable. Nothing, perh.ips, has tended more than this anecdote to give currency to a belief that Titian was an unskilful draughtsman ; an opinion which, if tried by the test of his best works, is utterly erroneous. There is not perhaps extant on canvass a more exquisite representation of female beauty, even in point of design, than this figure of Danae ; and, with due reverence to the high authority of Michael Angelo, it may be doubted whether his notion of cor- rect design was not tinctured by the ideal grandeur of his own style ; which, however magnificent in itself, and appropriate to the scale of the Sistine chapel, is by no means a just medium for the forms of actual nature, nor adapted to the representation of beauty. Michael Angelo however frequently returned to look at this Danae, and always with expressions of increased admiration. After a residence of two years at Rome, Titian re- turned to Venice, taking Florence in his route. The first work on which he engaged alter his return, was a picture of the Marquis del Vasto haranguing his troops. He likewise began some altar-pieces, but finished little, being summoned in 1 550, by the Em- peror Charles, to Vienna. The princes and ministers assembled at the Imperial Court were astonished at the confidence with which Titian was honoured by the Emperor, who gave him free access to his presence at all times, a privilege extended only to his most inti- mate friends. The large sums which the Emperor frequently sent him, were always accompanied with the courteous assurance that they were meant to testify the monarch's sense of his merits, not in payment for TITIAN. 339 his works, those being beyond all price. On one oc- casion, while the Emperor was sitting for his portrait, Titian dropt a pencil ; the monarch picked it up, and presented it to him, saying, on Titian's apologizing in some confusion, "Titian is worthy to be served by Caesar." The same jealous feeling which had been evinced towards him at Bologna, again manifested it- self; but the. artist, who amidst his loftier studies had not neglected the cultivation of worldly knowledge, found means to obviate envy, and to conciliate, by courtesy and presents, the good will of the whole court. It was at this time that Charles, sated with glory and feeling the advances of infirmity, began to meditate his retreat from the world. This intention, it is said, he imparted to Titian, with whom he delighted to confer concerning the arrangement of a large pic- ture, which he then commissioned the artist to paint, and which he intended to be his companion in his re- tirement. The subject was an apotheosis, in which Charles and his family were to be represented as in- troduced by Religion into the presence of the Trinity. At Inspruck, whither he accompanied the Emperor, Titian painted a superb picture, in which Ferdinand, King of the Romans, and his Queen Anna Maria, are represented with the attributes of Jupiter and Juno, and round them are the seven princesses, their daugh- ters. From each of these illustrious ladies Titian re- ceived a jewel each time they sat to him. Here also he collected portraits for the apotheosis. On the Emperor's departure for Flanders, Titian returned to Venice ; where, soon after his arrival, he offered to finish the works which were wanting in the great hall of the coxmcil. This offer was cordially ac- cepted by the Senate ; and he was empowered to select the artists whom he thought best qualified to be his coadjutors. He nominated Paul Veronese and Tin- toret, nor did those great painters feel themselves hu- 340 TITIAN. miliated in working under his directions. In 1553 the Emperor Charles returned to Spain, and heing at Barcelona, nominated Titian a Count Palatine of the empire, with all the privileges, authority, and powers attached to that dignity. He also created him a Knight of the Golden Spur, and a nohle of the empire, transmitting the dignity to his legitimate children and descendants. Crowned with these honours, and with faculties scarcely impaired, Titian had now reached his seventy- fifth year; and it would be difficult to select a man the evening of whose life has been more fortunate and happy. He still found in the practice of his art a source of undiminished pleasure; his works were sought by princes with emulous avidity ; he was considered the chief ornament of the city in which he dwelt. He was surrounded by friends dis- tinguished by their worth or talents ; he had acquired wealth and honour sufficient to satisfy his utmost am- bition ; and he was secure of immortal fame ! But at this period, to most men one of secession from toil, Titian engaged in new undertakings with as much alacrity as if life were still beginning, and the race of fortune still to run. He enriched Serravalle, Braganza, Milan, and Brescia, with splendid works, besides painting a great number for the churches of Venice, for different noblemen, and for his friends. Philip II. of Spain showed no less anxiety to possess his works, than Charles, his father, had done : and nowhere perhaps, not even in Venice, are so many of his pictures to be found, as in the palaces of Madrid and the Escurial. When Rubens was in Spain, he copied Titian's picture of Eve tempting Adam with the fatal fruit, nobly acknowledging that he had only made a Flemish translation of an elegant Italian poem. It is said by some of Titian's biographers, that he him- self made a visit to Spain ; but this has been clearly disproved. The most important works which he ex- TITIAN. 341 ecuted for Philip II. are the pictures of the Martyr- dom of St. Lorenzo, and the Last Supper. In the first, three different effects of light are admirably ex- pressed; the fire which consumes the saint, the flame of a tripod placed before a pagan deity, and the glory of a descending angel. This picture is said to be equal to any of his earlier productions. The Last Supper betrays signs of a feebler execution, which is, however, atoned for by more than usual purity of de- sign. Titian in this work partially imitated Lionardo da Vinci, but in the spirit of congenial feeling, not as a plagiarist. To this picture, which he began at the age of eighty, he devoted the labour of nearly seven years. For Mary of England, Philip II.'s consort, he painted four mythological subjects, Prometheus, Tityus, Sisyphus, and Tantalus, the figures as large as life, and conceived in the highest style of gran- deur. In 1570 died Sansovino the sculptor. Aretine had paid the debt of nature some years before, an event which sensibly affected Titian ; and this second loss plunged him into such affliction, that his powers, it is said, from that time perceptibly gave way. We learn, however, from Ridolfi, that the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, which he saw when in good condition, was ably executed. Some visions from the Apoca- lypse, in the monastery of St. John, painted about the same time, exhibit vivid imagination and fine colouring. Henry III. of France, being in Venice in 1574, paid Titian a visit, Accompanied by a numerous train. The venerable artist, then in his ninety-fifth year, re- ceived the monarch with dignified respect ! his fine person was scarcely touched by decrepitude, his man- ners were still noble and prepossessing. In a long conversation with the King, he adverted, with the complacency natural to an old man at the close of so 342 TITIAN. splendid a career, to honours which he had received from the Emperor Charles and King Ferdinand. When Henry, in walking through the galleries, de- manded the prices of some of the pictures, he begged his Majesty's acceptance of them as a free gift. In the mean time the courtiers and attendants were enter- tained with a magnificence, which might have hecome the establishment of a great prince. Titian had nearly attained his hundredth year, -when the plague, which had been raging some time in Trent, made its appearance in Venice, and swept him off, together with a third part of the inhabitants, within three months. He was buried in the church of the Frari ; but the consternation and disorders prevalent at such a period, prevented his receiving those funeral honours which would otherwise have attended him to the tomb. In comparing Titian with the great artists of the Roman and Florentine schools, it has been usual to describe him as the painter of physical nature, while to those masters has been assigned the loftier and ex- clusive praise of depicting the mind and passions. The works on which Titian was most frequently em- ployed, appertaining to public edifices and the pomp of courts, were certainly of a class in which splendid effect is the chief requisite ; but can it be said that the painter of the Ascension of the Virgin, and the S. Pietro Martire, was unequal to cope with subjects of sublimity and pathos ? May it not be asked with greater justice, on the evidence of those pictures, whe- ther any artist has surpassed him in those qualities ? Even in design, on which point his capacity has been especially arraigned, Titian knew how to seize the line of grandeur without swelling into exaggeration, and to unite truth with ideality. Of all painters he was most above the ostentation of art; like Nature herself, he worked with such consummate skill, that TITIAN. 343 we are sensible of the process only by its effect. Ru- bens, Tintoret, Paul Veronese, were proud of their execution ; few painters are not, but the track of Titian's pencil is scarcely ever discernible. His chiaro-scuro, or disposition of light and shade, is never artificially concentrated; it is natural, as that of a summer's day. His colouring, glorious as it is, made Tip of vivid contrasts, and combining the last degree of richness and depth with freshness and vivacity, is yet so graduated to the modesty of nature, that a thought of the painter's palette never disturbs the illusion. Were it required to point out, amidst the whole range of painting, one performance as a proof of what art is capable of accomplishing, it is surely from among the works of Titian that such an example would be selected. [Titian and Francisco di Mosaico, from a picture by Titian.] 344 TITIAN. There is scarcely any large collection in which the works of Titian are not to be found. The pictures of ActcEon and Callisto in the possession of Lord F. L. Gower, and the four subjects in the National Gallery, are among the finest in this country. The Venus in the Dulwich Gallery must have been fine; but the glazing, a very essential part of Titian's process, has flown. Details of the life of Titian will be found in Vasari, Larizi, Ridolfi, but more especially in Ticozzi, whose memoir is at once diffuse and perspicuous. There is a life of Titian, in English, by Northcote. 345 GEORGE BUCHANAN was born in February, 1506, at a small village called Killearn, on the borders of Stir- lingshire and Dumbartonshire. He came, as he says, " of a family more gentle and ancient than wealthy." His father dying, left a wife and eight children in a state of poverty. George, one of the youngest, was befriended, and, perhaps, saved from want and obscu- rity, by the kindness of his mother's brother, James Heriot, who had early remarked his nephew's talents, and determined to foster them by a good education. The ancient friendship between France and Scotland, cemented by their mutual hate of England, was then in full force. The Scotch respected the superiority of the French in manners, arts, and learning ; and very commonly sent the wealthier and more promising of 346 BUCHANAN. their youth to be educated by their more polished neighbours. Accordingly Buchanan, at the age of fourteen, was sent by his uncle to the University of Paris. Here he applied himself most diligently to the prescribed course of study, which consisted princi- pally in a careful perusal of the best Latin authors, especially the poets. This kind of learning was pecu- liarly suited to his taste and genius ; and he made such progress, as not only to become a sound scholar, but one of the most graceful Latin writers of modern times. After having remained in Paris for the space of two years, which he must have, employed to much better purpose than most youths of his age, the death of his kind uncle reduced him again to poverty. Partly on this account, partly from ill health, he returned to his own country, and spent a year at home. After having recruited his strength, he entered as a common soldier into a body of troops that was brought over from France by John Duke of Albany, then Regent of Scotland, for the purpose of opposing the English. Buchanan himself says that he went into the army " to learn the art of war ;" it is probable that his needy circumstances were of more weight than this reason. During this campaign he was subjected to great hardships from severe falls of snow ; in conse- quence of which he relapsed into his former illness ; and was obliged to return home a second time, where he was confined to his bed a great part of the winter. But on his recovery, in the spring of 1524, when he was just entering upon his 1 8th year, he again took to his studies, and pursued them with great ardour. He seems to have found friends at this time rich enough to send him to the University of St. Andrews, on which foundation he was entered as a pauper , a term which corresponds to the servitor and sizer of the English Universities, John Mair, better known BUCHANAN. 347 (through Buchanan*) by his Latinized name of Major, was then reading lectures at St. Andrews on grammar and logic. He soon heard of the superior accom- plishments of the poor student, and immediately took him under his protection. Buchanan, notwithstand- ing his avowed contempt for his old tutor, must have imbibed from Major many of his opinions. He was of an ardent temper, and easy, as his contemporaries tell us, to lead whichever way his friends desired him to go; he was also of an inquiring disposition, and never could endure absurdities of any kind. This sort of mind must have found great delight in the doc- trines which Major taught. He affirmed the superi- ority of general councils over the papacy, even to the depriving a Pope of his spiritual authority in case of misdemeanour ; he denied the lawfulness of the Pope's temporal sway ; he held that tithes were an institution of mere human appointment, which might be dropped or changed at the pleasure of the people; he railed bitterly against the immoralities and abominations of the Romish priesthood. In political matters his creed coincides exactly with Buchanan's published opinions, that the authority of kings was not of divine right, but was solely through the people, for the people ; that by a lawful convention of states, any king, in case of tyranny or misgovernment, might be controlled, di- vested of his power, or capitally executed according to circumstances. But if Major, who was a weak man and a bad arguer, had such weight with Buchanan, * See his epigram. " In Johannem solo cognomento Ma- jorem ut ipse in fionte libri scripsit." Cum scateat nugis solo cognomine Major, Nee sit in immense pagiua sana. libro ; Non miuem titulis quod se veracibus oruet ; Nee semper mcndax fingere Creta solet. The book was " ane most fulish tractate on ane most emptie subject." 348 BUCHANAN. John Knox, the celebrated Scotch reformer, who was a fellow-student with him at St. Andrews, must have had still more. They began a strict friendship at this place, which only ended with their lives. Knox speaks very highly of him at a late period of his own life : " That notabil man, Mr. George Bucquhanane, remainis alyve to this day, in the yeir of God 1 566 yeares, to the glory of God, to the gret honor of this natioun, and to the comfort of thame that delyte in letters and vertew. That singular work of David's Psalmes, in Latin meetere and poesie, besyd many uther, can witness the rare graices of God gevin to that man." These two men speedily discovered the absurdity of the art of logic, as it was then taught. Buchanan tells us that its proper name was the art of sophistry. Their mutual longings for better reason- ings, and better thoughts to reason upon, produced great effects in the reformation of their native country. After Buchanan had finished his studies at St. An- drews, and taken the degree of Bachelor of Arts, he accompanied Major to Paris, where his attention was more seriously turned towards the doctrines of the re- formation, which at that time were eagerly and warmly discussed ; but whether from fear of the consequences, or from other motives, he did not then declare himself to be a Lutheran. For five years he remained abroad, sometimes employed, sometimes in considerable want ; at the end of which time he returned to Scotland with the Earl of Cassilis, by whom he had been engaged as a travelling companion. His noble patron introduced him at the court of James V. the father of Mary Stuart. James retained him as tutor to his natural son, James Stuart, afterwards Abbot of Kelso. It has been proved that he was not tutor to the King's other natural son, James Stuart, afterwards Earl of Murray and Regent of Scotland, whose first title was Prior of St. Andrews. BUCHANAN. 349 While he was at court, having a good deal of leisure, he amused himself with writing a pretty severe satire on the monks, to which he gives the name of " Som- irium." He feigns in this piece that Saint Francis d'Assize had appeared to him in a dream, and be- sought him to become a monk of his order. The poet answers, "that he is nowise fit for the purpose; be- cause he could not find in his heart to become slavish, impudent, deceitful, or beggarly, and that moreover very few monks had the good fortune, as he under- stood, to reach even the gates of paradise." This short satire was too well written, and too bitter, to pass unnoticed, and the sufferers laid their complaint before the king : but as Buchanan's name had not been put to it, they had no proof against him, and the matter dropped. Soon after the Franciscans fell into disgrace at Court ; and James himself instigated the poet to renew the attack. He obeyed, but did not half satisfy the King's anger in the light and playful piece which he produced. On a second command to be still more severe, he produced his famous satire * Franciscanus,' in which he brings all his powers of wit and poetry to bear upon the unfortunate brother- hood. The argument of the poem is as follows : he supposes that a friend of his is earnestly desirous to become a Cordelier, upon which he tells him that he also had had a similar intention, but had been dis- suaded from it by a third person, whose reasons he proceeds to relate. They turn upon the wretched morals and conduct of those who belonged to the order, as exhibited in the abominable lessons which he puts in the mouth of an ancient monk, the instructor of the novices. He does not give this man the character of a rough and ignorant priest, but makes him tell his tale cleverly, giving free vent to every refinement in evil which the age was acquainted with, and speaking the most home truths of his brethren without fear or VOL. I. X 350 BUCHANAN. scruple. The Latin is pure, and free from the bar- barisms of the time- After such a caustic production, it is no wonder that the party assailed made use of every means to destroy its author. The King, who was a weak and variable man, after much importunity on their part, allowed them to have Buchanan arrested in the year 1 539, on the plea of heresy, along with many others who held his opinions about the state of the Scottish church. Cardinal Beatoun, above all others, used his best en- deavours to procure sentence against him ; he even bribed the King to effect his purpose. But Buchanan's friends gave him timely warning of the prelate's exer- tions, and, as he was not very carefully guarded, he made his escape out of the window of his prison, and fled to England. He found, however, that England was no safe place for him, for at that time Henry VIII. was burning, on the same day and at the same stake, both protestant and papist, with the most unflinching impartiality. He went over, therefore, for the third time into France ; but on his arrival at Paris, rinding his old enemy the Cardinal Beatoun ambassador at the French court, and being fearful that means might be taken to have him arrested, he closed with the offer of a learned Portuguese, Andrea di Govea, to become a tutor at the new college at Bordeaux. During his residence there he composed his famous Latin Trage- dies, 'Jephthes' and 'Joannes Baptistes,' and trans- lated the Medea and Alcestis of Euripides into Latin metre, for the youth of his college. The two latter show that his acquaintance with the Greek language was by no means superficial. After holding this situation for about three years, Buchanan went with Govea, at the instance of the King of Portugal, to a lately established school at Coimbra. Before he ventured into Portugal, how- ever, he took care to let the King know that his BUCHANAN. 351 Franciscanus was undertaken at the command of his sovereign, and therefore ought nowise to endanger his safety in Portugal. The King promised him his protection. But he had not been at Coimbra long, before he was accused by the monks of heresy, and the King, forgetting his promise, allowed them to keep Buchanan prisoner in a convent, as they de- clared, for the purpose of reclaiming him. They gave him as a penance the task of translating the Psalms of David from the Vulgate into Latin verse. This he accomplished to admiration ; and his pro- duction is acknowledged to surpass all works of the like sort. The metres are chiefly lyrical. He was soon after dismissed from prison, and took ship for England, and staying there but a short time, he re- turned again to France. Here the Marechal de Brissac intrusted him with the education of his son Timoleon de Cosse. While thus employed he studied, more particularly than he had hitherto done, the con- troversies of the day with regard to religion, and be- came most probably a confirmed Protestant, though he did not openly renounce Catholicism till some time afterwards. He wrote, and dedicated to his pupil, a much admired piece, entitled ' Sphcera,' during his tutorship. In the year 1560 he returned again to Scotland, the reformed religion being then prevalent there, and became publicly a member of the Protest- ant Kirk. The most important, because the most public part of Buchanan's life now begins. Such a man could not long remain unnoticed by the great in Scotland, and Mary Stuart herself became one of his best friends. He had written for her two epithalamia, one on her marriage with the Dauphin, and one on her marriage with Lord Darnley. Her respect for his abilities was very great, and she had him appointed tutor to her son a month after he was born, in the year 1566. x2 352 BUCHANAN. It is a matter of no small wonder, that Buchanan, who was James's most influential tutor, for the three others, who were joined in the commission with him, were under his superintendence, should have educated him as he did, or make him what he was. A book which Buchanan published, and which is among the most famous of his works, ' De jure Regni apud Scotos,' being a conversation between himself and Maitland the Queen's secretary, contains (though de- dicated to his royal pupil) sentiments totally at va- riance with all the notions of James. In it Buchanan follows the ancient models of what was thought a per- fect state of policy. He proves that men were born to live socially, that they elected kings to protect the laws which bind them together, that if new laws are made by kings, they must be also subjected to the opinion of the states of the nation, that a king is the father of his people for good, not for evil, that this was the original intention in the choice of Scottish kings, that the crown is not necessarily hereditary, and that its transmission by natural descent but for its certainty is not defensible, that a violation of the laws by the monarch may be punished even to death according to the enormity of it, that when St. Paul lalks of obedience to authorities he spoke to a low con- dition of persons, and to a minority in the various countries in which they were, that it is not necessary that a king should be tried by his peers. He con- cludes by saying, " that if in other countries the people chose to exalt their kings above the laws, it seems to have been the evident intention of Scotland to make her kings inferior to them." In matters of religion he rails against episcopal authority of all kinds. Now nothing can be more opposed than all this to the opi- nions of James, who most strongly upheld the divine right of kings, and episcopal authority. Buchanan, when he was accused of making James a pedant, de- BUCHANAN. 353 clared it to be " because he was fit for nothing else." He was a stern and unyielding master, and no sparer of the rod, even though applied to the back of royalty ; and this may in some measure account for the want of influence which he had over the King's mind. James advises his son, in his Raffi\iKov Aypov, not to attend to the abominable scandals of such men as Buchanan and Knox, "who are persons of seditious spirit, and all who hold their opinions." It might have been well, however, for the unfortu- nate Charles if he had been rather more swayed by the opinions of the tutor, and less by the lessons of the pupil. In the early part of Buchanan's tutorship he attached himself strongly to the interests of the Regent, Murray ; and as the patron fell off from the interests of Mary, so did the historian, till at last he became the bitterest of her enemies. He alone has ventured to assert in print his belief of her criminal connexion with David Rizzio, in his ' Detectio Mariae Reginae,' published in 1571; and he was her great accuser at the court of Elizabeth, when ap- pointed one of the commissioners to inquire into Mary's conduct, she being a prisoner in England. Buchanan too lies under the serious charge of having forged the controverted letters, supposed to have passed between Mary and her third husband Bothwell, while she was yet the wife of Earl Darnley, from which documents it was made to appear that she was art and part in the murder of her Royal Consort. Whether he really forged these letters or not, is a question per- haps too deeply buried in the dust of antiquity to ad- mit of proof. He offered to swear to their genuine- ness, however, which was an ill return, if that were all his fault, to the kindness he had received from her. His friendship for Murray continued firm all his life ; this man was one of the few persons he seems to have been really attached to. Through the Earl's x 3 354 BUCHANAN. interest, Buchanan was made keeper of the Scottish seals, and a Lord of Session. Nothing is told us of his abilities as a practical politician, but it may be supposed that he was fitted for the office he held, for Murray was very careful in the choice of his public servants. Buchanan's last work, on which he spent the re- maining fourteen years of his life, is yet to be spoken of, his ' History of Scotland.' In this, which like the rest of his productions was written in Latin, he has been said to unite the elegance of Livy with the brevity of Sallust. With this praise, however, arid with that which is due to his lively and interesting way of relating a story, our commendations of this work must begin and end. As a history, it is value- less. The early part is a tissue of fable, without dates or authorities, as indeed he had none to give ; the latter is the work of an acrimonious and able par- tisan, not of a calm inquirer and observer of the times in which he lived. The work is divided into four books. The first three contain a long dissertation on the derivation of the name of Britain, a geographi- cal description of Scotland, with some poetical ac- counts of its ancient manners and customs a treatise on the ancient inhabitants of Britain, chiefly taken from the traditionary accounts of the bards, and the fables of the monks engrafted on them, on the vestiges of ancient religions, and on the resemblances of the various languages of different parts of the island. The real history of Scotland does not begin till the fourth book ; it consists of an account of a regular succession of one hundred and eight kings, from Fer- gus I. to James VI., a space extending from the beginning of the sixth century to the end of the six- teenth. The apocryphal nature of the greater part of these monarchs is now so fully admitted, that it is unnecessary to dilate upon them. Edward I., as is BUCHANAN. 355 well known, destroyed all the genuine records of Scot- tish history which he could find. Buchanan, instead of rejecting the absurd traditionary tales of bards and monks, has merely laboured to dress up a creditable history for the honour of Scotland, and to " clothe with all the beauties and graces of fiction, those le- gends which formerly had only its wildness and extravagance." This work, and his De jure Regni apud Scotos, he published at the same time, very shortly before his death ; and, while he was on his death-bed, the Scot- tish Parliament condemned them both as fake and seditious books. We may lay part of this condemna- tion to James's account. It is not probable that he would allow so much abuse of his mother as they contained, directly or indirectly, to pass without some public stigma. There remain to be noticed only two small pieces of this author in the Scottish language, one a grievous complaint to the Scottish peers, arising from the assassination of the Earl of Murray ; the other, a severe satire against Secretary Maitland, for the readiness with which he changed from party to party : this has the title of ' Chameleon.' Buchanan died at the good old age of seventy-four, in his dotage as his enemies said, but in full vigour of mind as his last great work, his History, has proved. Much has been said in his dispraise by ene- mies of every class, his chief detractors being the partisans of Mary Stuart and the Romish priesthood. The first of these accuse him of ingratitude to Major, Mary, Morton, Maitland, and to others of his bene- factors ; of forging the letters above mentioned, and of perjury in offering to swear to them. The latter accuse him of licentiousness, of drunkenness, and falsehood ; and one of them has descended so far as to quarrel with his personal ugliness. Of these charges many are, to say the least, unproved ; many 356 BUCHANAN. appear to be altogether untrue. But his fame rests rather on his persevering industry, his excellent scho- larship, and his fine genius, than upon his moral qualities. Buchanan wrote his own life in Latin two years before his death. To this work, to Mackenzie's * Lives and Characters of the most Eminent Writers of the Scots Nation,' to the Biographia Britannica, and the numerous authorities on insulated points there quoted, we may refer those who wish to pursue this subject. Buchanan's works were collected and edited by the grammarian Ruddiman, and printed by Free- bairn, at Edinburgh, in the year 1715, in two vo- lumes, folio. 357 PALLADIO is distinguished among the renowned pro- fessors of his age as the chief modifier of the revived style of Roman architecture. The celebrity, however, which attaches to his name, though just in regard to its extent, is not always correctly appreciated : inas- much as a bigoted admiration for his precepts and de- signs, on the ground of their intrinsic excellence, has too frequently supplanted that more sober estimate, which results from a consideration of the circum- stances under which those precepts and examples were given to the world. Neither have succeeding ages been sufficiently discriminating in respect to the predecessors and contemporaries of Palladio, several of whom either effected or assisted in effecting much, of which the credit has been given by the world at large too exclusively to him. Our less informed readers should therefore be ap- prised that, for more than a century before the time 358 PALLADIO. of Palladio, the ancient Roman style of architecture had been in progress of revival. Brunelleschi, who died in 1444, was the first to exhibit, in the upper part of Florence cathedral, some departure from the Italian Gothic, and an approach towards the more classic models of old Rome. Alberti, his pupil, pub- lished a system of the Five Orders, and Bramante, Raphael, and San Gallo, successively advanced the restored style in the famous Basilica of St. Peter, then erecting. Sansovino, in several costly edifices at Venice, and San Micheli, in many at Verona, antici- pated the best efforts of Palladio, and Vignola also distinguished himself as a practical architect and author. Serlio was the first to measure and describe the ancient examples of Rome; and in 153*7, pub- lished the first part of his * Complete Treatise on Architecture.* Much therefore had been already done to facilitate the operations of a succeeding candidate for architec- tural distinction. Materials had been amassed, and it only remained for a comprehensive genius to analyse them more closely, to modify them in detail, and to enlarge, by the exercise of a chastened fancy, the range of their combinations. At this juncture the subject of our memoir commenced his professional career. Andrea Palladio was born at Vicenza, November 30, 1518. His parents are said to have been " in the middle rank of life;" in belief of which, Temanza discredits the traditionary account that he worked as a common mason at the Villa di Cricoli, and that the name * Palladio' was bestowed upon him, as a kind of ennoblement, by his patron Trissino, who is said to have been his first architectural instructor. It is at least certain that, if Trissino taught him not, he assisted in stimulating his professional ardour. Vi- truvius and Alberti appear to have been his early PALLADIO. 359 studies, and allusions are made to his proficiency in geometry and polite literature at the age of twenty- three. The knowledge which he derived from books, far from satisfying, prompted him to seek a deeper insight into the details and the principles of his art ; and, during several visits to Rome, he employed him- self in delineating from admeasurement the ancient remains of that city. Among the earliest testimonies to his growing fame, was the commission he received to make certain costly additions to the Basilica, or Hall of Justice, in his native town. The building, before alteration, seems to have been a dilapidated example of the Italian Gothic style. It was the opinion of Giulio Romano, who was also consulted on the subject, that whatever new work might be necessary to afford strength or supply convenience, the character of the old building should be strictly preserved ; and the appropriate and unprejudiced idea of that architect merits quite as much praise as the realised design of his more fortunate competitor. But the romantic rage for the restored architecture of Pagan antiquity was too prevalent for the common sense of Giulio to find support; and the Graeco- Roman arcades of Palladio were carried round the Gothic Basilica, just as, under the same infatuation, the Corinthian portico of Inigo Jones was subsequently attached to the old Cathedral of St. Paul's in London. Considering the particular arrangements and pre- sent mixed style of this noted Basilica to have been peremptorily insisted on by the public, we can then concede to Palladio the merit of an honourable con- quest over difficulties. The adjoining wood-cut re- presents in simple outline one of the seven bays or compartments, which form the longitudinal elevation of the main building. The relative situations of the perpendiculars a to b, as well as their height, were 360 PALLADIO. unalterable. The heights a to c, and c to d, were also fixed. If, therefore, simple arches had been adopted, affording the required superficies of aperture, their limited height must have borne a very dispro- portioned ratio to their extended breadth. If columns had been employed alone, the great width of the in- terspaces would have been offensively opposed to the laws which govern that department of architectural design. The application, therefore, of the smaller columns is here most admirable. By this measure, a central arch of good proportions is obtained, and a sufficient supply of light is secured to the interior by PALLADIO. 361 the lateral openings under the imposts, and by the circular apertures above them. In 1546 the building of St. Peter's church was in active progress, when its third architect, San Gallo, died. Trissino, who was in Rome at the time, exerted himself to establish Palladio as San Gallo's successor. It is well known, however, that Michael Angelo was appointed to that important post, and that he remains recorded on the scroll of fame as the most celebrated of the architects of St. Peter's. In 1547 Palladio appears to have finally established himself as the leading architect of Northern Italy : nor was he less fortunate in opportunities for profes- sional display, than competent to avail himself of them. Vicenza is literally a museum of Palladian design. Besides the Basilica, already noticed, and the Olympic Theatre, which was designed after an- cient models, he constructed the great majority of the private palaces, the proprietors of which were content to impoverish their fortunes, that they might vie with each other in giving scope to the talents of their architect. The churches del Redentore and S. Giorgio, with other edifices public and private, evince the esti- mation in which Palladio was held at Venice ; and most of the other cities in the north of Italy also con- tain examples of his genius. The country around exhibits a variety of his designs, among which is the Villa di Capri, called the Rotunda, which has been imitated by the Earl of Burlington, at Chiswick, and by other architects in several parts of England. It stands upon a hill, and commands a beautiful view on every side. This was the architect's reason for adopting the four fronts and four porticoes. Oppressed (says Scamozzi) by the multiplicity and fatigue of his studies, and distressed by the loss of his sons (Leonida and Orazio), he sank under the influ- ence of an epidemic, which terminated his life Au- VOL. i. y 362 PALLADIO. gust 19, 1580, at the age of sixty-two. The Olympic Theatre had only heen commenced on the 23d of May [Villa di Capri.] preceding his death, and its completion was intrusted to his surviving son Silla, who, with Leonida, had studied architecture. The Olympic Academicians at- tended their deceased brother to the grave, and gave puhlic testimony of their feelings by the recital of fu- neral odes, and by the observance of all the " pomp and circumstance" consistent with the sepulture of so eminent a man. He was interred in the church of the Dominicans at Vicenza. Palladio was no less remarkable for modesty than for professional eminence. The affability of his con- duct won for him the perfect love of all workmen en- gaged in his buildings. He was small in stature, but of admirable presence; and united, to the most re- spectful bearing, a jocose and lively manner. Palladio's Treatise on Architecture, in four books, published at Venice in 1570, has been several times reprinted. A magnificent edition in three volumes, folio, appeared in London in 1715 ; and another has been since issued from the Venetian press. He also PALLADIO. 363 composed a work on the Roman Antiquities generally, and left many manuscripts on the subject of military as well as civil architecture. He illustrated the Com- mentaries of Caesar, by annexing to Badelli's transla- tion of that work, a preface on the military system of the Romans, and by supplying numerous copper-plates, designed for the most part by his sons Leonida and Orazio. He also studied Polybius, and dedicated a (yet unprinted) work on the subject to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. His manuscripts, having been left to the senator Contarini, were subsequently dispersed, and the Earl of Burlington became possessed of many of them. The latter nobleman, in 1732, published the fruits of Palladio's researches concerning the Roman baths ; and, some time after, appeared a truly beau- tiful work, entitled ' Le Fabbriche ed i Disegni di Andrea Palladio, raccolti ed illustrati da Ottavio Ber- totti Scamozzi.' The latter is by far the most interest- ing book connected with the name of Palladio. It enables us, at once, critically to examine his numerous designs, and to estimate them by a standard far su- perior to that which is merely founded on Vitruvian precept and Roman example. Our present acquaint- ance with all that Palladio had the means of knowing, and with very much more of which he was entirely ignorant, gives us a power and a right of censorship which the bigot alone will oppose and deny. Since the day of this celebrated architect, the Roman re- mains have been measured with more minute accu- racy, and examined with a more philosophical regard to the principles which regulated the arrangement of their component parts. The volume of Greek art, compared with which that of Rome was but a debasing translation, has since that time been opened to the world ; and, however we may continue to admire the industry by which Palladio obtained his then extended knowledge, the fancy and pictorial beauty which per- Y2 364 PALLADIO. vade many of his designs, and the worth of the archi- tect himself as a man of genius, taste, and letters, it is yet our duty to direct the architectural student to look much farther than Vicenza for examples of pure de- sign, and for principles of essential value. The authorities for the life of Palladio, in addition to those already referred to, are the works of Vasari, Tiraboschi, and Milizia. 365 AMBROISE PARE, the father of French surgery, and one of the most useful as well as the earliest of the innovators upon that art as practised by the ancients, was born at Laval, in the district of Maine, in the year 1509. After going through the rudiments of education, he was placed at an early age under the tuition of the chaplain Orsoy, in his native town, to be instructed in the classics ; but the means of his family appear to have been very narrow, or the eco- nomy with which they were supplied must have been strict ; for we find that the worthy chaplain was obliged to make use of the services of his pupil in grooming his mule and other menial capacities, in order to eke out the scanty remuneration he received for his instructions. In truth, these do not appear to have been great ; for Parti never achieved a knowledge 366 PARK. of Greek, and was but superficially acquainted with the Latin language ; and it is probable that even this small amount of classical acquirement was made at a late period of his life, when, being an author, he wished to quote. On leaving his tutor, he was placed with a barber- surgeon at Laval, named Vialot, who is recorded to have taught him how to bleed. Not long after this change in his pursuits, the lithotomist, Laurent Colot, came to Laval to undertake the treatment of one of the chaplain's ecclesiastical brethren : on this occa- sion Pare was present, and zealously assisted at the operation. This accidental circumstance appears to have suggested to him the ambitious project of follow- ing the higher departments of surgery ; and he con- trived to leave the shop of his master in phlebotomy, and repaired to Paris, where he availed himself with so much diligence of the advantages afforded by that city, as a school of anatomy and medicine, that he was soon intrusted with the subordinate charge of the patients of Goupil, who then held the surgical chair in the college of France. From this discerning tutor he learned not only all the knowledge which could at that time be obtained from secondary sources, but the art of expressing himself well, and acquitting himself of his duties with neatness and grace. The talents thus acquired were of the greatest service to him in his after-life, which was chiefly passed among the great; and gave him that ease of manner and power of gaining confidence, which stood him so frequently in stead as court-surgeon to four successive monarchs, and, aiding the natural frankness of his character, carried him safely through many an intrigue and cabal, dangerous not only to his reputation and fortunes, but even to his life. He was never a member of the community of barber-surgeons, but derived his legal qualification to practise from a degree in surgery taken PARE. 361 at the college of St. Edme, of which he was afterwards Provost. Having passed upwards of three years as a student, residing actually within the walls of the H6tel Dieu at Paris, he was appointed Staff-surgeon, in 1536, when twenty-seven years old, to the Mareschal Rene de Monte-jean, who commanded the infantry under the Constable Montmorenci in the campaign of Pied- mont. In this capacity, Pare was present at the siege and capture of Turin. From this time is to be dated the commencement of his acquaintance with military surgery, for which he afterwards did so much. " I was then," he says, " very raw and inexperienced, having never seen the treatment of gunshot wounds. It is true that I had read in the Treatise of Jean de Vigo on wounds in general, that those inflicted by fire-arms partake of a poisonous nature on account of the powder, and that they should be treated with hot oil of elder mixed with a little theriacum. Seeing, therefore, that such an applica- tion must needs put the patient to extreme pain, to assure myself before 1 should make use of this boiling oil, I desired to see how it was employed by the other surgeons. I found their method was to apply it, at the first dressing, as hot as possible, within the wound with tents and setons : and this I made bold to do likewise. At length my oil failed me, and I was faiu to substitute a digestive, made of the yolks of eggs, rose-oil and turpentine. At night I could not rest in my bed in peace, fearing that I should find the wounded, in whose cases I had been compelled to abstain from using this cautery, dead of poison : this apprehension made me rise very early in the morning to visit them ; but beyond all my hopes, I found those to whom I had applied the digestive suffering little pain, and their wounds free from inflammation ; and they had been refreshed by sleep in the night. On 368 PARE. the contrary, I found those to whom the aforesaid oil had been applied, feverish, in great pain, and with swelling and inflammation round their wounds. I re- solved, therefore, that I would never burn unfortunate sufferers from gunshot in that cruel manner again." Such was the casual origin of one of Fare's greatest improvements in surgery, the substitution of a mild treatment for the cautery in gunshot wounds ; a prin- ciple which he afterwards successfully extended to other injuries at that time deemed poisonous. The improvement seems as obvious as it was important : yet the adherents of the old practice gave him much trouble, and even made it necessary for him to defend his wholesome innovation long afterwards before Charles IX. in person. Yet with all his sound sense, Ambroise Pare was not by any means free from the credulity of his age. For instance, he relates, in his account of this siege, an amusing story of the court he paid to an Italian quack doctor, who lived at Turin, to wheedle him out of the secret of a dressing for fresh gunshot wounds, for which lie had great fame. This was found to con- sist of a mixture of bruised worms, the grease of pup- pies boiled down alive, and other absurd ingredients, constituting the celebrated oleum catellorum, the only merit of which consists in its harmlessness. He is erroneously praised by Dr. Ballingall for having ba- nished this unguent from practice, whereas, on the contrary, he introduced it ; and he shows, by his fre- quent reference to it in his works, that he had no small faith in its virtues, and was exceedingly proud of having been the means of its publication. The death of his patron, the Mareschal, soon after the fall of Turin, induced him to return to Paris, though tempted by large offers to remain in the camp. In 1543, he accompanied the Due de Rohan into Britanny, where Francis I. commanded in person PARE. 369 against the English; and the next year he followed that monarch in his expedition to throw supplies into Landrecy. In 1545, he was with the camp at Boulogne, where he cured the general of the royal army, Francis Duke of Guise, of a very dangerous wound, which gained him great reputation. In 1552, he attended the Due de Rohan in his campaign in Germany. During this expedition oc- curred one of those instances of combined humanity and skill, which made Pare the favourite of the French army. He thus tells the story : " A party had gone out to attack a church, where the peasants of the country had fortified themselves, hoping to get some provisions, but they came back very soundly beaten ; and one especially, a captain-lieutenant of the company of the Duke, returned with seven gashes in his head, the least of which had penetrated to the inner table of the skull, besides four sabre wounds in the arm, and one across the shoulder, which divided the shoulder-blade in half. When he was brought to quarters, the Duke judged him to be so desperately wounded, that he absolutely proposed, as they were to march by daylight, to dig a trench for him, and throw him into it, saying, that it was as well that the peasants should finish him. But being moved with pity, I told him (says Pare), that the captain might yet be cured : many gentlemen of the company joined with me in begging that he might be allowed to go with the baggage, since I was willing to dress and cure him. This was accordingly granted : I dressed him, and put him into a small well-covered bed in a cart drawn by one horse. I was at once physician, surgeon, apothecary, and cook to him; and thank God, I did cure him in the end, to the admiration of all the troops : and out of their first booty, the men-at- arms gave me a crown a-piece, and the archers half- a-crown each." 7 3 370 PARE. His reputation was now so high, that no expedition of importance, especially if generalled by a prince of the hlood, or one of the higher nohility, was considered complete without his presence. This was accordingly solicited by the old King of Navarre, more commonly called the Due de Vendume, on an occasion of that kind. But being tired of a military life, and disgusted with its cruelties and horrors, he endeavoured to evade the proposal, alleging the illness of his wife, and other excuses : but the Duke would take no denial ; and at last he consented to accompany him to the siege of Chateau le Comte. There he acquitted himself so well, that upon the warm encomiums of the Duke he was received into the service of Henry the Second, in 1552, being then but thirty- three years old. From this time he lived at the court, where, with other advantages, obtained not less by his behaviour and wit than his skill, he enjoyed, though a Huguenot, the especial favour of the Queen, Catherine de' Medici, who was fond of conversing with him in her own language, with which Pare had become well ac- quainted in his Italian campaign. She. served him powerfully on several important occasions. Pare, however, still continued to frequent the camp, when any emergency seemed to demand his services. Such an occasion occurred at the renowned siege of Metz, in the winter of 1552, conducted by Charles V. in person, with the Duke of Alva and 120,000 men, against a garrison of 6000, which ended, after two months, in the disastrous retreat of the besiegers. The defence was most gallantly carried on by the flower of the French army, headed by many of the higher noblesse, and several of the princes of the blood, under the Duke of Guise. It has been already mentioned that gunshot wounds were at that time thought to have something poisonous about them; and the severe cold, and other circumstances of that PARK. 371 siege, being such as unusually to depress and harass the garrison, their wounds proved almost uniformly fatal; and the idea arose and gained ground, that Charles had ordered his bullets to be actually poi- soned. Pare alone was thought able to meet the necessity of the case in such an extremity ; and the demand for his assistance became so pressing in the dispirited garrison, that at the* instance of the Duke of Guise the King was induced to send him. He was stealthily introduced by the treachery of one of Charles's captains, for a bribe of 1500 crowns, and his appearance on the ramparts was hailed by the troops with the most extravagant expressions of joy. " Now that Pare" is with us," they cried, " we shall not perish of our wounds." Their spirits revived, and the suc- cessful issue of their arduous struggle is generally ascribed to the presence of Pare*. Upon the raising of the siege, of which, as is usual in his writings, he gives a most lively and humorous account, Part? returned to court. In 1553 he was sent on a like errand to the siege of Hesdin, which, after a vigorous defence, and against the faith of a capitulation, was pillaged by the troops of the Duke of Savoy. Pare was himself one of the prisoners, but escaped in disguise after various adventures, and returned to Paris; notwithstanding the tempting offers of the Duke of Savoy, who had witnessed his skill, though kept in ignorance of his name. He was sent upon many other missions of the same kind ; as to the fields of St. Quentin and Moncontour ; to Rouen, where he attended the Due de Vendome on occasion of the wound of which he died ; and to St. Denys, where he performed the same unwelcome duty for the Constable. The long intervals of these services he always passed at court, in the enjoyment of his well-earned reputation and favour. On the death of Henry II. in 1559, occasioned by 3*72 PARE. an accident at a tournament, Francis II., his eldest son by Catherine de' Medici, succeeded to the crown. He immediately confirmed Pare in his situation of surgeon in ordinary and counsellor. It will not be supposed that he could enjoy this constant favour and good fortune without the usual drawback in the ex- cited jealousy of his professional rivals. Their rancour was at length carried to"such a pitch, that they gravely accused him of causing the premature death of Francis in 1560, by injecting poison into his ear under the pretext of treating him for an inflammation seated there, of which he died. Catherine, however, shielded him from this attack, expressing her complete reliance on his integrity as well as his skill, in words which the historians of the period have preserved. A similar accusation was brought against him as unsuccessfully in the case of Henry III., who was afflicted with the same disorder : on which occasion the Queen-Mother again stood forward in his behalf, and his innocence was fully attested by the physicians whom she had placed about her son, and who had witnessed every application he made. On the death of Francis II. in 1560, Pare* main- tained his place in the household of Charles IX., to whom it was thought he had rendered essential service after an injury inflicted on one of the nerves of the arm by an unlucky phlebotomist. This misfortune of his humbler brother was of great use to Pare", who, though a courtier during the predominance of the Guises, openly professed the Protestant faith ; for it was probably the means of procuring him in Charles the only protector powerful enough to save him from being included in the general massacre of the Hugue- nots on St. Bartholomew's Day. Brantome and Sully each connect his name with that event. The words of the former are as follow : " Le Roi quand il f ut jour, ayant mis la tete a la fenetre de sa chambre, PARE. 313 et qu'il voyait aucuns dans le fauxbourg St. Germain qui se remuoient, et se sauvoient, il prit une grande arquebuse de chasse qu'il avoit, et en tira tout plein de coups a eux; mais en vain, car 1'arquebuse ne tiroit si loin ; incessament crioit, ' Tuez, tuez,' en n'en vouloit sauver aucun si non Maitre Ambroise Part?, son premier chirurgien, et le premier de la Chrestiente, et 1'envoya querir et venir le soir dans sa chambre et garde robbe, commandant de n'en bouger ; et disoit qu'il n'etoit raisonnable qu'un qui pouvoit servir a tout un petit monde, fust ainsi massacre." " De tous ceux," says Sully, " qui approchoient ce prince (Charles IX.) il n'y avoit personne qui cut tant de part a sa confiance qu' Ambroise Pare. Get homme, qui n'etoit que son chirurgien, avoit pris avec lui une si grande familiarite, quoiqu'il fut Huguenot, que ce prince lui ayant dit le jour du massacre que c'etoit a cette heure qu'il falloit que tout le monde se fit cath clique, Pare* lui repondit sans s'etonner, ' Par la lumiere de Dieu, Sire, je crois qu'il vous souvient m'avoir promis de ne me commander jamais quatre choses ; sc,avoir, de rentre dans le ventre de ma mere, de me trouver a un jour de bataille, de quitter votre service, et d'aller k la messe.' " Pare* still retained his situation after the accession of Henry III. in 1574; but he seems to have re- signed the cares of active life about that time, and we hear little more of him. He died December 2, 1590, in the eighty-first year of his life, and was buried in the church of St. Andre des Arcs in Paris. Pare appears to have been a man of quick and inde- pendent observation rather than of reflection or genius. His constitution was vigorous, and fitted no less for social enjoyments than active business : his person was manly and graceful, his spirits buoyant, and his disposition remarkably amiable and attractive ; hence he was a universal favourite, particularly in a despotic 374 PARE. court, of which the dullness was agreeably relieved by his frankness, and his powers of humour and repartee. The amusing and well-told anecdotes and lively de- scriptions that teem in all his writings, which, it may be observed, are equal in point of style to any of the time, sufficiently attest his possession of those quali- ties, even if the stories and bon-mots that are related of him be questioned. His ' Apology,' as he calls one of his later pieces, containing an account of his various campaigns and journeys, is full of humour, and well worth the perusal of the general reader. It was pub- lished by way of answer to an attack upon his treat- ment of contused wounds and haemorrhages, made by an obscure Parisian lecturer, Avhose name he does not mention ; and he diverts himself exceedingly at the expense of the critic, for his presumption in pretending to teach a surgeon whose experience had been gathered from twenty sieges and fields of battle, through an active professional life of forty years. The. raillery he employs is often very keen and pointed, but never ill- natured, and indicates the infinite superiority he felt, and had a right to feel, over his merely book-learned adversary. His conduct throughout life appears to have been remarkably upright and sincere, though tinctured by the adulation which, in that age of violence and des- potism, was always exacted by the great from those who were more humbly born. He was a bold and good operator, and his general skill and success in the practice of his profession is unquestionable ; in that day it must have been won- derful. As a surgical writer, his fame principally rests upon his introduction of a soothing method of treating gunshot and other contused wounds, and his discovery or rather restoration of the method of arrest- ing haemorrhage, by the ligature of the bleeding vessel, instead of searing with hot iron, and other insufficient PARK. 315 and painful means. But he made many other novel and useful remarks which only do not deserve the name of discoveries, because they relate to more trivial points, and do not involve important principles : and, upon the whole, much as surgery has been improved since his time, there have been few writers to whom it has owed so much as to him, especially in the mili- tary department. The whole body of his writings on that subject, though diffuse, merit the perusal of pro- fessional men. The same praise cannot be given without exception and reserve to those of his writings which were less the records of his personal experience, than compilations from other sources. His remarks upon the subjects of Physiology, Medical Diseases, the Composition of Remedies, Natural History, and Obstetrics, are not free from error, credulity, and even indelicacy. The latter charge was successfully urged against him by the contemporary Parisian physicians, who were jealous of his encroachments upon what they considered their own domain, and he was obliged to alter the original editions. [Medal of Pare.] 376 PARE. He was too much occupied by his practice to engage deeply in the study of anatomy : hence his knowledge of it was rather sufficient than accurate ; and though he wrote upon it at some length, and even added new facts to that science, his success in advancing it can only be considered as a proof of the imperfect infor- mation of the time. He lived before the discovery of the circulation of the blood. His first publication, on Gunshot Wounds, in 1545, was incorporated with his other writings, comprising altogether twenty-six treatises, and printed at Paris in one large folio volume in 1561. This, with some post- humous additions, has been often reprinted, and there are translations of it in Latin and other languages. The first English edition was by Thomas Johnson in 1634. 377 MICHEL, Seigneur, or Lord, of MONTAIGNE, a feudal estate in the province of Perigord, near the river Dor- dogne, was born February 28, 1 533, of a family said to have been originally from England. He was a younger son ; but, by the death of his elder brother, inherited the estate by the title of which he is known. His father, a blunt feudal noble, who had served in the wars of Francis I., placed him out at nurse in a village of his domain, and directed that he should be treated in the same manner as the children of the pea- sants. As soon as he could speak, he was placed under the care of a German tutor, selected for his ignorance of the French, and intimate acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages. All Montaigne's inter- course with his preceptor was carried on in Latin ; and even his parents made a rule never to address him ex- cept in that language, of which they picked up a suffi- cient number of words for common purposes. The 3*78 MONTAIGNE. attendants were enjoined to follow the same practice. " They all became latinized," says Montaigne himself, " and even the villagers around learnt words in that language, some of which took root in the country, and became of common use among the people." Thus, without any formal course of scholastic teaching, Montaigne spoke Latin long before he could speak French, which he was afterwards obliged to learn as if it had been a foreign language. When, at a mature age, he was writing his Essays, he professed to be still ignorant of grammar, having learnt various lan- guages by practice, and not knowing yet the meaning of adjective, conjunctive, or ablative. (Essais, b. i. c. 48.) This last assertion probably is not to be taken strictly to the letter. He studied Greek also by way of pastime, rather than as a task. The object of his father was to make him learn without constraint and from his own wish ; and, as an instance of the old soldier's whimsical notions on education, he caused his son to be awakened in the morning to the sound of music, that his nervous system might not be injured by any sudden shock. At six years old Montaigne was sent to the College of Guienne, at Bordeaux, an establishment which then enjoyed a very high reputa- tion. He soon made his way to the higher classes ; and at thirteen years of age had completed his college education. Having no taste for military life, which was then the usual career of young noblemen, he studied the law; and in 1554 was made Councillor (or Judge) in the Parliament of Bordeaux, in which capacity he acted for several years. He went several times to Court, and enjoyed the favour of Henry II., by whom, or as some say, by Charles IX., he was made a Gentleman of the King's Chamber, and Knight of the order of St. Michel. Among his brother coun- cillors at Bordeaux there was a young man of distin- guished merit, called La Boetie, for whom Montaigne MONTAIGNE. 3*39 conceived a feeling of the most romantic friendship, which soon became reciprocal. The sentiments and opinions of the two seem to have sympathized in an extraordinary degree. La Boetie died young, but his friend's affection survived : a chapter of the Essays is devoted to his memory, and in other parts of Mon- taigne's writings we find frequent recurrence to the same subject. Montaigne married Franchise de la Chassaigne when he was thirty-three years of age ; and this he did, he says, in consequence of external persuasions, and in order to please his friends rather than himself, for he was not inclined to a married life ; " but once married, although he had been till then considered a licentious man, he observed the conjugal laws more strictly than he had himself expected." On succeed- ing to the family estate, on which he generally resided, he took the management of it into his own hands ; and although his father, judging from his habits of abstraction and seeming carelessness of worldly ob- jects, had foretold that he would ruin his patrimony, Montaigne, at his death, left the property if not much better, certainly not worse than he found it. He was not rich, for we are told, by Balzac, that his income did not exceed 6000 livres, which was no great re- venue for a country gentleman even at that time. In 1569 he translated into French a Latin work of Se- bonde or Sebon, in defence of the mysteries and doc- trines of the Church of Rome, against Luther and other Protestant writers. France was at that time desolated by civil and religious war. Montaigne, al- though he evidently disapproved of the conduct of the Court towards the Protestants, yet remained loyal to the King. He lived in retirement, and took no part in public affairs, except by exhorting both parties to moderation and mutual charity. By this conduct he became, as it generally happens, obnoxious to both 380 MONTAIGNE. factions, and he incurred some danger in consequence. The massacre of St. Bartholomew plunged him into a deep melancholy. He detested cruelty and the shed- ding of blood, and in several passages of his Essays has animadverted in strong terms upon the atrocities committed against the Protestants. It was about this dismal epoch of 1572, when, solitude and melancholy urging him to the task, he began to write that cele- brated work, of which we shall presently speak more at length. It was first published in March, 1580; and had great success. After some time, Montaigne printed a new edition of it, with additions ; but with- out making any alterations in the part which had appeared before. The popularity of the book was such that in a few years there was hardly a man of education in France who had not a copy of it. Soon after the first publication of his Essays, Mon- taigne undertook a journey for the sake of his health. He went to Germany, Switzerland, and, lastly, to Italy. He visited several bathing-places, among others, Baden, and the baths of Lucca in Tuscany. He proceeded to Rome, where he was well received by several Cardinals and other persons of distinction, and was introduced to Pope Gregory XIII. Mon- taigne was delighted with Rome ; he found himself at home among those localities and monuments which were connected with his earliest studies, and with the first impressions of his childhood. His remarks on what he saw in the course of his journey are those of a man of penetration, sincere and plain-spoken, and written in his peculiar antique style. His MS. jour- nal, after lying forgotten for nearly two centuries, was discovered in an old chest in the chateau of his fa- mily, and published in 1775, by M. de Querlon, under the following title, ' Journal du Voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italic, par la Suisse et 1'Alle- magne, en 1580-1.' It is one of the earliest descrip- MONTAIGNE. 381 tions of Italy in a modern language. In this journey, Montaigne received the freedom of the city of Rome, by a special bull of the Pope, which he valued as the proudest distinction of his life. While he was abroad, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux by the votes of the citizens ; an honour which he would have declined, but that the king, Henry III., insisted on his accepting of it. This was a mere honorary office, no emolument being attached to it. The appointment was for two years; but Montaigne was re-elected at the expiration of that period, which was a mark of public favour of rare occurrence. On retiring from his office, Montaigne returned t0 his estate. The country was then ravaged by t#e war of the League. He had great difficulty in saving his family and property in the midst of the contend- ing parties, and once narrowly escaped assassination in his chateau. To add to the miseries of civil war, the plague broke out in his neighbourhood in 1586; and he then, with his family, left his home, and be- came a wanderer, residing successively at several friends' houses in other parts of the country. He was at Paris in 1588, busy about a new edition of his Essays. It appears from De Thou, that about this time he was employed in negotiation with a view to mediate peace between Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., and the Duke of Guise. At Paris, he made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle de Gournay, a young lady, who had conceived a kind of sentimental affec- tion for him by reading his book. In company with her mother, she visited and introduced herself to him, and from that time he called her his " fille d'alli- ance," or adopted daughter, a title which she retained for the rest of her life, as she never married. This at- tachment, which, though warm and reciprocal, has every appearance of being of a purely platonic nature, is 382 MONTAIGNE. one of the remarkable circumstances of Montaigne's life. At the time of his death, Mademoiselle de Gournay and her mother crossed one-half of France, in spite of the civil troubles and the insecurity of the roads, to mix their tears with those of his widow and daughter. On his return from Paris, in the latter part of 1588, Montaigne stopped at Blois, with De Thou, Pasquier, and other friends. The famous States-General were then assembled in that city, where the murder of the Duke of Guise, and of his brother, the Cardinal, soon after took place (23d and 24th December, 1588). Montaigne had long foreseen that the civil dissen- sions could only terminate with the death of one of the great party leaders ; and he also said to De Thou that Henry of Navarre was inclined to embrace the Catholic faith, were he not afraid of being forsaken by his party ; and that, on the other side, Guise himself would not have been averse from adopting the Pro- testant religion, if he could thereby have promoted his ambitious views. After these events, Montaigne returned to his chateau. In the following year, he became acquainted with Pierre Charron, a theolo- gical writer of considerable reputation. An intimate friendship ensued between the two authors; and Charron, in his book * Dela Sagesse,' borrowed many thoughts from the Essays, which he held in high esti- mation. Montaigne, by his will, empowered Charron to assume the coat of arms of his family, as he himself had no male issue. Montaigne's health had been declining for some time ; he was afflicted with gravel and colic, and he was obstinately resolved against consulting physi- cians. In September, 1592, he fell ill of a malignant quinsy, which kept him speechless for three days, during which he had recourse to his pen to signify to his wife his last intentions. He desired that seve- MONTAIGNE. 383 ral gentlemen of the neighbourhood should he re- quested to come and take leave of him. When they were assembled in his room, a priest said mass, and at the elevation of the host, Montaigne half raised himself on his bed, with his hands joined together, and in that attitude expired, September 13, 1592, in the sixtieth year of his age. His body was buried at Bordeaux, in the church of the Feuillans, where a monument was erected to him by his widow. He left an only daughter, heiress of his property. Montaigne's Essays have been the subject of much and very conflicting criticism. If we consider the age and the intellectual condition of the country in which the author was born, we must pronounce them a very extraordinary work, not so much on account of the learning contained in them, as for the philoso- phical spirit and the frank, independent, liberal tone that pervades their pages. Civilization and litera- ture were then at a low ebb in France ; the language was hardly formed, the country was still torn by the rude turbulence, and subject to the oppression, of feudal lords and feudal laws ; and was, moreover, distracted by ignorant fanaticism, by deadly intole- rance, and by civil factions, rendered more fierce by religious feuds. It is very remarkable that, in a remote province of a country so situated, a country gentleman, himself belonging to the feudal aristocracy, should have composed a work full of moral maxims and precepts, conceived in the spirit of the philoso- phers of Greece and Rome, and founded, not on the sanctions of revealed religion, but on a sort of natural system of ethics, on the beauty of virtue, on the innate sense of justice, on the lessons of history. It is almost more remarkable that such a book should have been read with avidity amidst the turmoil of factions, the din of civil war, the knell of persecution and massacre. 384 MONTAIGNE. The morality of the Essays has been called, and justly so, a pagan morality : it is not founded on the faith and the hopes of a Christian ; and its principles are in many respects widely different from those of the Gospel. Scepticism was the bias of Montaigne's mind ; his philosophy is, in great measure, that of Seneca, and other ancient writers, whose books were the first that were put into his hands when a child. Accordingly, Pascal, Nicole, Leclerc, and other Christ- ian moralists, while rendering full justice to Mon- taigne's talents, and the many good sentiments scat- tered about the Essays, are very severe upon his ethics, taken as a system. Yet he was not a determined infidel, for not only in the Essays, but in the journal of his travels, which was not intended for publication, he manifests Christian sentiments ; and we have seen that the mode of his death was that of a Christian. In his chapter on prayers, (Essais, b. i. 56,) he recom- mends the use of the Lord's Prayer in terms evidently sincere ; and in a preceding chapter, after speaking of two sorts of ignorance, the one, that which precedes all instruction, and the other, that which follows par- tial instruction, he says, that " men of simple minds, devoid of curiosity and of learning, are Christians through reverence and obedience ; that minds of middle growth and moderate capacities are the most prone to error and doubt ; but that higher intellects, more clear-sighted and better grounded in science, form a superior class of believers, who, through long and religious investigations, arrive at the fountain of light of the Scriptures, and feel the mysterious and divine meaning of our ecclesiastical doctrines. And we see some who reach this last stage, through the second, with marvellous fruit and confirmation ; and who, having attained the extreme boundary of Christian intelligence, enjoy their success with modesty and thanksgivings, accompanied by a total reformation of MONTAIGNE. 385 their morals, unlike those men of another stamp, who, in order to clear themselves of the suspicion of their past errors, become violent, indiscreet, unjust, and throw discredit on the cause which they pretend to serve." (Essais, b. i. ch. 54.) And a few lines after, he modestly places himself in the second rank of those who, disdaining the first state of uninformed simplicity, have not yet attained the third and last exalted stage, and who, he says, are thereby rendered " inept, im- portunate, and troublesome to society. But I, for my part, endeavour, as much as I can, to fall back upon my first and natural condition, from which I have idly attempted to depart." Although we may not trust implicitly to the sincerity of this modest admission, yet we clearly see from this and other passages, that Montaigne's mind was anything but dogmatical, and that he felt the insecurity of his own philosophy, which was made up of impulses and doubts, rather than of argumentation and conviction. Montaigne has been also censured for several licen- tious and some cynical passages of his ' Essais.' This licentiousness, however, is rather in the expressions than in the meaning of the author. He spoke plainly of things which are not alluded to in a more refined state of society, but he did so evidently without mis- chievous intentions, and as a thing of common occur- rence in his days. His early familiarity with the Latin classics probably contributed to this habit. Notwithstanding these faults, Montaigne's Essays are justly admired for the sound sense, honesty, and beauty which abound in them. " The best parts of them (says a French critic) are those in which he speaks of the passions and inclinations of men ; as for his learning, it is vague, not methodical, and uncertain ; and his philosophical maxims are often dangerous." (Melanges d'Histoire et de Litterature, Rouen, 1699, torn. i. p. 133.) Montaigne combats VOL. i. z 386 MONTAIGNE. most earnestly all the malignant feelings inherent in man, inhumanity, injustice, oppression, uncharitable- ness ; cruelty he detests, his whole nature was averse from it. His chapters on pedantry and on the educa- tion of children are remarkably good. He throws, at times, considerable light on the state of society and manners in France in his time, which may be consi- dered as the last period of feudal power in that country. In his chapter on the inequality among men, he speaks of the independence of the French nobility, especially in the provinces remote from the Court, as Britanny ; where the feudal lords living on their estates, sur- rounded by their vassals, their officers and valets, their household conducted with an almost royal cere- monial, heard of the king but once a-year, as if he were some distant king or sultan of Persia, and only remembered him on the score of some distant rela- tionship, which they hold carefully registered among their ancestral documents. Mademoiselle de Gournay edited Montaigne's ' Es- sais' in 1635, and dedicated the edition to the Car- dinal de Richelieu. She wrote a long preface to it, which is a zealous apology for Montaigne and his works against the charges of the earlier critics. An edition of the ' Essais' was published by Pierre Coste, 3 vols. 4to. London, 1724, enriched with valuable notes and several letters of Montaigne at the end of the third volume. The edition of Paris, 3 vols. 4to. 1725, is, in great measure, a reprint of that of Coste, except that the publishers have added extracts of the various judgments of the most distinguished critical writers concerning the 'Essais,' and also two more letters of Montaigne's at the end. These additions render this Paris edition the most complete. The ex-senator Vernier published in 1810, 'Notices et Observations pour faciliter la Lecture des Essais de Montaigne,' Paris, 2 vols. 8vo. It is a useful com* mentary. 38*7 TORQUATO TASSO, born at Sorrento, March 11, 1544, was the son of Bernardo Tasso by Portia de Rossi, a lady of a noble Neapolitan family. His father was a man of some note, both as a political and as a literary character ; and his poem of ' Amadigi,' founded on the well-known romance of Amadis de Gaul, has been pre- ferred by one partial critic even to the Orlando Furioso. Ferrante Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, chose him for his secretary, and with him and for him Bernardo shared all the vicissitudes of fortune. That prince having been deprived of his estates, and expelled from the kingdom of Naples by the court of Spain, Bernardo was involved in his proscription, and re- tired with him to Rome. Torquato, then five years old, remained with his mother, who left Sorrento and went to reside with her family in Naples. Bernardo Tasso having lost all hopes of ever re- turning to that capital, advised his wife to retire with z2 388 TASSO. his daughter into a nunnery, and to send Torquato to Rome. Our young poet suffered much in parting from his mother and sister ; hut, fulfilling the com- mand of his parents, he joined his father in October, 1554. On this occasion he composed a canzone, in \vhich he compared himself to Ascanius escaping from Troy with his father ^Eneas. The fluctuating fortunes of the elder Tasso caused Torquato to visit successively Bergamo, the abode of his paternal relatives, and Pesaro, where his manners and intelligence made so favourable an impression, that the Duke of Pesaro chose him for companion to his son, then studying under the celebrated Corrado of Mantua. In 1559, he accompanied his father to Venice, and there perused the best Italian authors, especially Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The next year he went to the University of Padua, where, under Sperone Speroni, and Sigonio, he studied Aristotle and the critics ; and by Piccolomini and Pandasio he was taught the moral and philosophical doctrines of Socrates and Pluto. However, notwith- standing his severer studies, Torquato never lost sight of his favourite art ; and, at the age of seventeen, in ten months, he composed his Rinaldo, a poem in twelve cantos, founded on the then popular romances of Charlemagne and his Paladins. This work, which was published in 1562, excited great admiration, and gave rise to expectations which were justified by the Gerusalemme Liberata. The plan of that immortal poem was conceived, according to Serassi's conjec- ture, in 1563, at Bologna, where Tasso was then pro- secuting his studies. The first sketch of it is still preserved in a manuscript, dated 1 563, in the Vatican Library, and printed at Venice in 1122. Unfortu- nately, while thus engaged, he was brought into colli- sion with the civil authorities, in consequence of some satirical attacks on the University, which were falsely TASSO. 389 attributed to him. The charge was refuted, but not until his papers had been seized and himself impri- soned. This disgusted him with Bologna, and he returned to Padua in 1564. There he applied all his faculties to the accomplishment of his epic poem ; collected immense materials from the Chronicles of the Crusades ; and wrote, to exercise his critical powers, the Discorsi and the Trattato sulla Poesia. While thus engaged, the Cardinal Luigi d'Este ap- pointed him a gentleman of his court. Speroni en- deavoured to dissuade the young poet from accepting that office, by relating the many disappointments which he had himself experienced while engaged in a similar career. These remonstrances were vain. Tasso joined the Cardinal at Ferrara at the end of October, 1564, and soon attracted the favourable notice of the Duke Alphonso, brother of the Cardinal, and-' of their sisters ; one of whom, the celebrated Eleonora, is commonly supposed to have exercised a lasting and unhappy influence over the poet's life. Ferrara continued to be his chief place of abode till 1571, when he was summoned to accompany his pa- tron the Cardinal to France. The gaieties of a court, celebrated in that age for its splendour, did not pre- vent his prosecuting his poetic studies with zeal ; for it appears from his will, quoted by Mr. Stebbing, that, at his departure for France, he had written a conside- rable portion of the Gerusalemme, besides a variety of minor pieces. His reputation was already high at the court of France, where he was received by Charles IX. with distinguished attention. But he perceived, or fancied that he saw, a change in the Cardinal's demeanour towards him, and, impatient of neglect, begged leave to return to Italy. In 1572, he was at Rome with the Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. In the same year he entered the service of the Duke of Fer- z3 390 TASSO. rara, and resumed with zeal the completion and cor- rection of the Gerusalemme. In 1573, Tasso wrote his beautiful pastoral drama Aminta. This new production added greatly to his reputation. He chose simple Nature for his model; and succeeded admirably in the imitation of her. The Gerusalemme Liberata was completed in 1575. Tasso submitted it to the criticism of the most learned men of that age. The great confusion which prevailed in the remarks of his critics caused him extraordinary uneasiness and labour. To answer their objections, he wrote the Lcttcre Poetiche, which are the best key to the true interpretation of his poem. During 1575, Tasso visited Pavia, Padua, Bologna, and Rome, and in 1576 returned to Ferrara. His abode there never was a happy one ; for his talents, celebrity, and the favour in which he was held, raised up enemies, who showed their spleen in petty under- minings and annoyances, to which the poet's sus- ceptible temper lent a sting. He was attracted, how- ever, by the kindness of the Duke and the society of the beautiful and accomplished Eleonora, the Duke's sister, for whom the poet ventured, it is said, to de- clare an affection, which, according to some historians, did not remain unrequited. The portrait of Olinda, in the beautiful episode which relates her history, is generally understood to have been designed after this living model : while some have imagined that Tasso himself is not less clearly pictured in the description of her lover Sofronio. But about this time, whether from mental uneasiness, or from constitutional causes, his conduct began to be marked by a morbid irrita- bility allied to madness. The Gerusalemme was surreptitiously printed without having received the author's last corrections ; and he entreated the Duke, and all his powerful friends, to prevent such an abuse. TASSO. 391 Alfonso and the Pope himself endeavoured to satisfy Tasro's demands, but with little success. This cir- cumstance, and other partly real, partly imaginary troubles, augmented so much his natural melancholy and apprehension, that he began to think that his enemies not only persecuted and calumniated him, but accused him of great crimes ; he even imagined that they had the intention of denouncing his works to the Holy Inquisition. Under this impression he presented himself to the Inquisitor of Bologna ; and having made a general confession, submitted his works to the examination of that holy father, and begged and obtained his absolution. His malady, for such we may surely call it, was continually ex- asperated by the arts of his rivals ; and on one occa- sion, in the apartments of the Duchess of Urbino, he drew his sword on one of her attendants. He was immediately arrested ; and subsequently sent to one of the Duke's villas, where he was kindly treated and supplied with medical advice. But his fancied in- juries (for in this case they do not seem to have been real) still pursued him ; and he fled, destitute of every thing, from Ferrara, and hastened to his sister Cor- nelia, then living at Sorrento. Her care and tenderness very much soothed his mind and improved his health ; but, unfortunately, he soon repented of his hasty flight, and returned to Ferrara, where his former ma- lady soon regained its power. Dissatisfied with all about him, he again left that town ; but, after having wandered for more than a year, he returned to Alfonso, by whom he was received with indifference and con- tempt. By nature sensitive, and much excited by his misfortunes, Tasso began to pour forth bitter in- vectives against the Duke and his court. Alfonso exercised a cruel revenge ; for, instead of soothing the unhappy poet, he shut him up as a lunatic in the Hospital of St. Anne. This act merits our unqualified 392 TASSO. censure ; for if Tasso had in truth any tendency to madness, what so likely to render it incurable as to shut him up in solitary confinement, in an unhealthy cell, deprived of his favourite books, and of every amusement? Yet, strange to say, notwithstanding his sufferings, mental and bodily, for more than seven years in that abode of misery and despair, his powers remained unbroken, his genius unimpaired; and even there he composed some pieces both in prose and verse, which were triumphantly appealed to by his friends in proof of his sanity. To this period we may probably refer the ' Veglie,' or ' Watches ' of Tasso, the manuscript of which was discovered in the Am- brosian Library at Milan, towards the end of the last century. They are written in prose, and express the author's melancholy thoughts in elegant and poetic language. The Gerusalemme had now been published and republished both in Italy and France, and Europe rang with its praises ; yet the author lay almost pe- rishing in close confinement, sick, forlorn, and des- titute of every comfort. In 1584, Camillo Pellegrini, a Capuan nobleman, and a great admirer of Tasso's genius, published a Dialogue on Epic Poetry, in which he placed the Gerusalemme far above the Orlando Furioso. This testimony from a man of literary distinction caused a great sensation among the friends and admirers of Ariosto. Two Academicians of the Crusca, Salviati and De Rossi, attacked the Gerusalemme in the name of the Academy, and assailed Tasso and his father in a gross strain of abuse. From the mad-house Tasso answered with great moderation ; defended his father, his poem, and himself from these groundless invec- tives ; and thus gave to the world the best proof of his soundness of mind, and of his manly philosophical spirit. At length, after being long importuned by the TASSO. 393 noblest minds of Italy, Alphonso released him in 1586, at the earnest entreaty of Don Vincenzo Gon- zaga, son of the Duke of Mantua, at whose court the poet for a time took up his abode. There, through the kindness and attentions of his patron and friends, he improved so much in health and spirits, that he resumed his literary labours, and completed his father's poem, Floridante, and his own tragedy, Torrismondo. But, with advancing age, Tasso became still more restless and impatient of dependence, and he con- ceived a desire to visit Naples, in the hope of ob- taining some part of the confiscated property of his parents. Accordingly, having received permission from the Duke, he left Mantua, and arrived in Naples at the end of March, 1588. About this time he made several alterations in his Gerusalemme, cor- rected numerous faults, and took away all the praises he had bestowed on the House of Este. Alfieri used to say, that this amended Gerusalemme was the only one which he could read with pleasure to himself, or with admiration for the author. But as there ap- peared no hope that his claims would be soon ad- justed, he returned to Rome, in November, 1588. Ever harassed by a restless mind, he quitted, one after another, the hospitable roofs which gave him shelter ; and at last, destitute of all resources, and afflicted with illness, took refuge in the hospital of the Bergamaschi, with whose founder he claimed rela- tion by the father's side : a singular fate for one with whose praises Italy even then was ringing. But it should be remembered, ere we break into invectives against the sordidness of the age which suffered this degradation, that the waywardness of Tasso's temper rendered it hard to satisfy him as an inmate, or to befriend him as a patron. Restored to health, at the Grand Duke's invita- 394 ' TASSO. tion, he went to Florence, where both prince and people received him with every mark of admiration. Those who saw him, as he passed along the streets, would exclaim, " See ! there is Tasso ! That is the wonderful and unfortunate poet!" It is useless minutely to trace his wanderings from Florence to Rome, from Rome to Mantua, and hack again to Rome and Naples. At the latter place he dwelt in the palace, of the Prince of Conca, where he com- posed great part of the Gerusalemme Conquistata. But having apprehended, not without reason, that the prince wished to possess himself of his manu- scripts, Torquato left the palace to reside with his friend Manso. His health and spirits improved in his new abode; and besides proceeding with the Conquistata, he commenced, at the request of Manso's mother, 'Le Sette Giornate del Mondo Creato,' a sacred poem in blank verse, founded on the Book of Genesis, which he completed in Rome a few days before his death. He visited Rome in 1593. A report that Marco di Sciarra, a notorious bandit, infested the road, in- duced him to halt at Gaeta, where his presence was celebrated by the citizens with great rejoicing. Sciarra having heard that the great poet was detained by fear of him, sent a message, purporting, that instead of injury, Tasso should receive every protection at his hands. This offer was declined ; yet Sciarra, in tes- timony of respect, sent word, that for the poet's sake he would withdraw all his band from that neighbour- hood ; and he did so. This time, on his arrival at Rome, Tasso was re- ceived by the Cardinals Cinzio and Pietro Aldobran- dini, nephews of the Pope, not as a courtier, but as a friend. At their palace he completed the Geru- salemme Conquistata, and published it with a dedi- cation to Cardinal Cinzio. This work was preferred TASSO. 395 by its author to the Gerusalemme Liberate. It is re- markable that Milton made a similar error in esti- mating his Paradise Regained. In March, 1594, Tasso returned to Naples in hope of benefiting his rapidly declining health. The experiment appeared to answer ; but scarcely had he passed four months in his native country, when Car- dinal Cinzio requested him to hasten to Rome, having obtained for him from the Pope the honour of a solemn coronation in the Capitol. In the following November the poet arrived at Rome, and was re- ceived with general applause. The Pope himself overwhelmed him with praises, and one day said, " Torquato, I give you the laurel, that it may receive as much honour from you as it has conferred upon them who have worn it before you." To give to this solemnity greater splendour, it was delayed till April 25,, 1595 ; but during the winter Tasso's health be- came worse. Feeling that his end was nigh, he begged to be removed to the convent of St. Onofrio, where he was carried off by fever on the very day ap- pointed for his coronation. His corpse was interred the same evening in the church of the monastery, according to his will ; and his tomb was covered with a plain stone, on which, ten years after, Manso, his friend and admirer, caused this simple epitaph to be engraved, Hie JACET TORQUATUS TASSO. Tasso was tall and well proportioned ; his coun- tenance very expressive, but rather melancholy ; his complexion of a dark brown, with lively eyes. Our vignette is taken from a cast in wax, made after his death. He has left many beautiful and remarkable pieces, both in verse and prose ; but his fame is based upon the Gerusalemme Laberata : the others are com- paratively little read. Among his countrymen, the comparative merits of this great work, and of the Orlando Furioso, have, ever since the daya of Pelle- 396 TASSO. grini, been a favourite subject of controversy. Some who persist in asserting that Ariosto was the greater [From a Cast taken after death.] poet, do not refuse to allow the superiority of the Gerusalemme as a poem ; and of this opinion was (at least latterly) Metastasio, who, in his youth, was so great an admirer of the Orlando, that he would not even read the Gerusalemme. In after-life, however, having perused it with much attention, he was so en- chanted by its beauties and regularity, that, being requested to give his opinion on the comparative merits of the two, he wrote in these words : " If it ever came into the rnind of Apollo to make me a great poet, and were he to command me to declare frankly whether I should I ke to choose for model the Orlando or the Gerusalemme, I would not hesitate to answer, the Gerusalemme." TASSO. 397 The principal biographers of Tasso, among his own countrymen, are his friend Manso, who wrote his life in 1600, six years only after the poet's death ; and the Abate Serassi, whose work was first published at Rome in 1785, and again at Bergamo in 1790. Besides these is his Life, in French, by the Abbe* de Charnes (1690) ; and that by M. Suard, prefixed to the translation of the Gerusalemme by Prince Lebrun (1803, two torn. 8vo.) : while in English we have a Life of Tasso by Mr. Black (1810) ; and a Memoir by the Rev. Mr. Stebbing (1833). The best com- plete edition of Tasso's works is that of Molini, in eight volumes 8vo., Florence, 1822-6. VOL. 1. 2 A 398 FRANCIS DRAKE, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was born in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted : with respect to the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, our annalists, Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told that Drake was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the care of a kinsman, the well- known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden, on the other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says that he was bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of Kent, who dying unmarried, in reward of his industry, bestowed his bark upon him as a legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1567 he went with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its colour to the rest of his life. Their little squadron was obliged by stress of weather to put into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of Mexico ; where, after being received with a show of amity, it was beset and attacked by a superior force, and only two vessels escaped. To make amends for his losses in this ad- venture, in the quaint language of the biographer DRAKE. 399 Prince, in his ' Worthies of Devon,' " Mr. Drake was persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might lawfully recover the value of the King of Spain by reprisal, and repair his losses upon him any where else. The case was clear in sea divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe in doctrines which make for their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a poor private man, undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a monarch." Dr. Johnson, in his ' Life of Drake,' states, with perfect complacency and without a word of qualifica- tion, that the bold sailor determined on an expedition, " by which the Spaniards should feel how impru- dently they always act who injure and insult a brave man." In his national zeal, the moralist seems to have forgotten that the retaliation of which he speaks was a lawless robbery, exercised upon the peaceable subjects of a king with whom we were not at war, in satisfaction of a wrong in which they the sufferers had neither part nor interest, and that this forcible levying of satisfaction, without national warrant and commis- sion, is what in modern language we call piracy. It is fortunate for the peace of the world that this system of " sea divinity" is gone by. But in judging of this undertaking, which the courage, constancy, and suc- cess of its contriver could not by themselves save from the stigma of piracy, we must take into account the peculiar circumstances of the times. War, it is true, was not declared between Spain and England; but the bigotry of Philip II., his deep-rooted hatred and persecution of the Protestant religion, and his known support of the Catholic malcontents, caused Spain to be regarded by the English Protestants as their dead- liest enemy ; so that the plunder of Spanish America might be regarded, in the language of the Puritans, merely as a spoiling of the Egyptians ; and the more because it was pretty clear, however the Queen's pru- 2x2 400 DRAKE. dence might delay it, that a breach must ensue between the two nations ere long. This feeling was strength- ened by the jealous care with which the Spaniards sought to exclude all foreigners from navigating the new-discovered seas ; and there is some justice in Elizabeth's reply to the Spanish ambassador, when he complained of Drake's piracies, that his country- men, by arrogating a right to the whole new world, and excluding thence all other European nations who should sail thither, even with a view of exercising the most lawful commerce, naturally tempted others to make a violent irruption into those regions. In the years 1570-1 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies, apparently to gain a more precise ac- quaintance with the seas, the situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of twenty-five tons, their united crews muster- ing only seventy-three men and boys, all volunteers. His object was to capture the now ruined city of Nombre de Dios, situated on the isthmus of Panama, a few miles east of Porto Bello, then the great reposi- tory of all the treasure conveyed from Mexico to Spain. Off the coast of America his little armament was augmented by an English bark, with thirty men on board ; so that, deducting those whom it was ne- cessary to leave in charge of the ships, his available force fell short of an hundred men. This handful of bold men attacked the town, which was unwalled, on the night of July 22, and found their way to the market-place, where the captain received a severe wound. He concealed his hurt until the public trea- sury was reached, but before it could be broken open, he became faint from loss of blood, and his disheart- ened followers abandoned the attempt, and carried him perforce on board ship. Such at least is the account of the English : there is a Portuguese state- DRAKE. 401 ment in f Hakluyt's Voyages,' vol. iii. p. 525, less favourable both to the daring and success of the as- sailants. Failing in this attempt, Drake continued for some time on the coast, visiting Carthagena and other places, and making prize of various ships ; and if we wonder at his hardihood in adventuring with such scanty means to remain for months in the midst of an awakened and inveterate enemy, how much more sur- prising is it that the wealthy, proud, and powerful monarchy of Spain should so neglect the care of its most precious colonies, as to leave, them unable to crush so slight a foe ! The English appear to have felt perfectly at their ease; they cruized about, formed an intimate alliance with an Indian tribe, named Sy- merons, the bond of union being a common hatred of the Spaniards, and built a fort on a small island of difficult access, at the mouth of a river, where they remained from September 24, to February 3, 1 573. On the latter day, Drake set forth with one portion of his associates, under the conduct of the Symerons, to cross the isthmus. On the fourth day they reached a central hill, where stood a remarkable " goodly and great high tree, in which the Indians had cut and made divers steps to ascend up neere unto the top, where they had also made a convenient bower, where- in ten or twelve men might easily sitt ; and from thence wee might without any difficulty plainly see the Atlantic Ocean, whence now wee came, and the South Atlantic (i. e. Pacific), so much desired. After our captain had ascended to this bower with the chief Symeron, and having, as it pleased God at that time, by reason of the brize, a very faire day, had seen that sea of which he had heard such golden reports, he besought Almighty God of his goodness to give him life and leave to sayle once in an English ship in that sea." We quote from a tract entitled ' Sir 402 DRAKE. Francis Drake Revived,' written by some of Drake's companions, corrected, it is said, by himself, and published by his nephew in 1626, which contains a full and interesting account of this adventurous expe- dition. Drake's present object was to intercept a convoy of treasure on the way from Panama to Nombre de Dios. The route was this : eight leagues from Panama lying inland to the north-west, is the town of Venta Cruz, high on the river Chagre. For this distance merchandise was carried on mules, then embarked in flat-bottomed boats, and carried down the river to its mouth, then shipped for Nombre de Dios, or after the abandonment of that town, for Porto Bello; and this is the route by which it has often been proposed to make a canal to join the Pa- cific and Atlantic Oceans. By this route the trea- sures of Peru and Chili, as well as Mexico, Avere brought to Europe, for the passage round Cape Horn was then unknown, and no ship but Magalhaens' had yet accomplished the passage round the world to Europe. Guided by the Symerons, the English ap- proached Panama, learned that a valuable treasure was expected to pass, and beset the lonely forest road which it had to travel. But the haste of one drunken man gave a premature alarm, in consequence of which the march of the caravan was stopped ; and Drake with his party, their golden hopes being thus defeated, forced their way through Vcnta Cruz, and returned by a shorter route to their encampment, after a toilsome and fruitless journey of three weeks. It was not till April 1, that the long-desired opportunity presented itself, on which day they took a caravan of mules laden with silver, and a small quantity of gold. They carried off part of the spoil, and buried about fifteen tons of silver; but on returning for it, they found that it had been recovered by the Spaniards. Drake returned to England, August 9, 1573. In DRAKE. 403 dividing the treasure he showed the strictest honour, and even generosity ; yet his share was large enough to pay for fitting out three ships, with which he served as a volunteer in Ireland, under the Earl of Essex, and " did excellent service both by sea and land in the winning of divers strong forts." In 1577, he ob- tained a commission from Queen Elizabeth to conduct a squadron into the South Seas. What was the pur- port of the commission we do not find : it appears from subsequent passages that it gave to Drake the power of life and death over his followers; but it would seem from the Queen's hesitation in approving his proceedings, that it was not intended to authorise (at least formally) his depredations on Spanish pro- perty. With five ships, the largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden, the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164 men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or adventure worthy of notice, the fleet arrived at Port St. Julian, on the coast of Patagonia, June 20, 1578. Here the discoverer Magalhaens had tried and executed his second in command on the charge of mutiny, and the same spot did Drake select to perform a similar tragedy. He accused the officer next to himself, Thomas Doughty, of plots to defeat the expedition and take his life ; plots undertaken, he said, before they had left England. " Proofs were required and alleged, so many and so evident, that the gentleman himself, stricken with remorse, acknow- ledged himself to have deserved death;" and of three things presented to him, either immediate execution, or to be set on shore on the main, or to be sent home to answer for his conduct, he chose the former ; and having at his own request received the sacrament, to- gether with Drake, and dined with him in farther 404 DRAKE. token of amity, he cheerfully laid his head on the block, according to the sentence pronounced by forty of the chiefest persons in the fleet. Such is the ac- count published by Drake's nephew, in ' The World Encompassed,' of which we shall only observe, with- out passing judgment on the action, that Drake's conduct in taking out a person whom he knew to be ill affected to him, was as singular as is the behaviour and sudden and acute penitence attributed to Doughty. But we have no account from any friend of the sufierer. It is fair to state the judgment of Camden, who says, " that the more unprejudiced men in the fleet thought Doughty had been guilty of insubordination, and that Drake in jealousy removed him as a rival. But some persons, who thought they could see further than others, said that Drake had been ordered by the Earl of Leicester to take off Doughty, because he spread a report that Leicester had procured the death of the Earl of Essex." Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15, they sailed for the Straits, reached them August 20, and passed safely into the Pacific, September 6, with three ships, having taken out the men and stores, and abandoned the two smaller vessels. But there arose on the 7th a dreadful storm, which dispersed the ships. The Marigold was no more heard of, while the dispi- rited crew of the Elizabeth returned to England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through Magellan's Strait.* Drake's ship was driven south- wards to the 56th degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the 56th degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the honour of * This is the general statement: but in the 'Lives of Early English Navigators,' in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. v., it is said that a Spaniard named Ladrilleros had made the pas- sage twenty years before. BRAKE. 405 having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7 to October 28, the adventurers were buffeted by one continued and dreadful storm ; and in estimating the merits of our intrepid seamen, it is to be considered that the seas were utterly unknown, and feared by all, those who had tried to follow in Magalhaen's course having seldom succeeded, and then with much pain and loss, and little fruit of their voyage ; that their vessels were of a class which is now hardly used for more than coasting service ; and that the imperfection of instruments and observations laid them under dis- advantages which are now removed by the ingenuity of our artists. Add to this, that as the Spaniards gave out that it was impossible to repass the Straits, there remained no known way to quit the. hostile shores of America, but by traversing the unexplored Pacilic. The storm at length ceased, and the lonely Pelican (which Drake, however, had renamed the Golden Hind) ran along the coast of Lima and Peru, reaping a golden harvest from the careless security of those who never thought to see an enemy on that side of the globe. There is something rather revolting, but very indicative of the temper of the age, in the con- stant reference to the guidance and protection of God, mixed with a quiet jocularity with which ' Master Francis Fletcher, preacher in this employment,' from whose notes the ' World Encompassed,' which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled, speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as would now be held disgraceful in open war : as, for instance, on meeting a Spaniard driving eight lamas, each laden with 100 pounds' weight of silver, " they offered their service without entreaty, and became drovers, not enduring to see a gentleman Spaniard turned carrier." Enriched by the most valuable spoil, jewels, gold, and silver, Drake steered to the 2AO 406 DRAKE. northward, hoping to discover a homeward passage in that quarter. In the 48th degree of latitude he was stopped by the cold ; and, determining to traverse the Pacific, he landed, careened his ship, and, in the Queen's name, took possession of the country, which he named New Albion. September 29, 1579, he sailed again, and reached the Molucca Islands No- vember 4. In his passage thence to the island of Celebes, he incurred the most imminent danger of the whole voyage. The ship struck, as they were sailing before a fair wind, on a reef of rocks, so precipitous that it was impossible to lay out an anchor to heave her off. They stuck fast in this most hazardous situ- ation for eight hours. At the end of that time the wind shifted, and the ship, lightened of part of her guns and cargo, reeled off into deep water, without serious injury. Had the sea risen, she must have been wrecked. This was Drake's last mishap. He reached Plymouth in the autumn of 1580, after near three years' absence. Accounts differ as to the exact date of his arrival. Since Drake had for this voyage the Queen's com- mission, by which we must suppose the license to rob the Spaniards to have been at least tacitly conceded, he seems to have been rather hardly used in being left from November to April in ignorance how his bold adventure was received at court. Among the people it created a great sensation, with much diversity of opinion : some commending it as a notable instance of English valour and maritime skill, and a just re- prisal upon the Spaniards for their faithless and cruel practices ; others styling it a breach of treaties, little better than piracy, and such as it was neither expe- dient nor decent for a trading nation to encourage. During this interval, Drake must have felt his situa- tion unpleasant and precarious ; but the Queen turned the scale in his favour by going, April 4, 1581, to DRAKE. 407 dine on board his ship at Deptford, on which occasion she declared her entire approbation of his conduct, and conferred on him the honour, and such it then was, of knighthood. His ship she ordered to be pre- served, as a monument of his glory. Having fallen to decay, it was at length broken up : a chair, made out of its planks, was presented to the University of Oxford, and probably is still to be seen in the Bod- leian library. Cowley wrote a Pindaric ode upon it. Drake had now established his reputation as the first seaman of the day; and in 1585 the Queen, having resolved on war, intrusted him with the com- mand of an expedition against the Spanish colonies. He burnt or put to ransom the cities of St. Jago, near Cape Verde, St. Domingo, Carthagena, and others, and returned to England, having fully answered the high expectations which were entertained of him. He was again employed with a larger force of thirty ships in 1587, with which he entered the port of Cadiz, burnt 10,000 tons of shipping, which were to form part of the Armada, took the castle of Cape St. Vincent, and sailing to the Azores, made prize of a large and wealthy ship on its way from the Indies. Still more eminent were his services against the Ar- mada in the following year, in which he served as vice- admiral under Lord Howard of Effingham. But these are well-known passages of history, and we have shortened our account of them, to relate at more length the early incidents of Drake's adventurous life. In 1589 Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris were joined in the command of an expedition, meant to deliver Portugal from the dominion of Spain. This failed, as many expeditions have done in which the sea and land services were meant to act together ; and, as usual, each party threw the blame on the other. Drake's plan appears to have been most judicious : it was at least accordant with his character, downright and daring. He wished to sail straight for Lisbon 408 DRAKE. and surprise the place ; but Norris was bent on land- ing at Corunna, where he did indeed some harm to the Spaniards, but no service towards the real ob- jects of the expedition. When the land-forces did at last besiege Lisbon, Drake was unwilling or unable to force his way up the Tagus to co-operate with them, and for this he was afterwards warmly blamed by Norris. He defended himself by stating that the time misspent by the English at Corunna had been well employed by the Spaniards in fortifying Lisbon ; and we fully believe that neither fear nor jealousy would have made him him hesitate at any thing which he thought to be for the good of the service. This miscarriage, though for a time it cast something of a cloud upon Drake's fame, did not prevent his being again employed in 1595, when the Queen, at the suggestion of himself and Sir John Hawkins, determined to send out another expedition against Spanish America, under those two eminent navigators, the expenses of which were in great part to be de- frayed by themselves and their friends. Great hope was naturally conceived of this expedition, the largest which had yet been sent against that quarter, for it consisted of thirty vessels and 2500 men. The chief object was to sail to Nombre de Dios, march to Pa- nama, and there seize the treasure from Peru. But the blow, which should have been struck immediately, was delayed by a feint on the parts of the Spaniards to invade England ; the Plate fleet arrived in safety, and the Spanish colonies were forewarned. Hawkins died, it was said of grief at the ruined prospects of the expedition, November 12, while the fleet lay before Porto Rico ; and on the same evening Drake had a narrow escape from a cannon ball, which carried the stool from under him as he sat at supper and killed two of his chief officers. Repulsed from Porto Rico, the admiral steered for the Spanish main, where he burnt several towns, and among them Nombre de DRAKE. 409 Dios. He then sent a strong detachment of 750 men against Panama ; but they found the capture of that city impracticable. Soon afterwards he fell sick of a fever, and died January 28, 1596. His death, like that of his coadjutor, is attributed to mental distress ; and nothing is more probable than that disappoint- ment may have made that noxious climate more deadly. Hints of poisoning were thrown out ; but this is a sur- mise easily and often lightly made. " Thus," says Fuller, in his Holy State, " an extempore performance, scarce heard to be begun before we hear it is ended, comes off with better applause, or miscarries with less disgrace, than a long-studied and openly-premeditated action. Besides, we see how great spirits, having mounted up to the highest pitch of performance, after- wards strain and break their credits in trying to go beyond it. We will not justify all the actions of any man, though of a tamer profession than a sea-captain, in whom civility is often counted preciseness. For the main, we say that this our captain was a religious man towards God, and his houses, generally speaking, churches, where he came chaste in his life, just in his dealings, true of his word, and merciful to those that were under him, hating nothing so much as idleness." To these good qualities we may add that he was kind and considerate to his sailors, though strict in the maintenance of discipline; and liberal on fit occa- sions, though a strict economist. He cut a water- course from Buckland Abbey to Plymouth, a distance of seven miles in a straight line, and thirty by the windings of the conduit, to supply the latter town with fresh water, which before was not to be procured within the distance of a mile. He is honourably dis- tinguished from the atrocious race of buccaneers, to whom his example in some sort gave rise, by the hu- manity with which he treated his prisoners. And it should be mentioned, as a proof of his judicious bene- volence, that in conjunction with Sir John Hawkins, 410 DRAKE. he procured the establishment of the Chest at Chatham, for the relief of aged or sick seamen, out of their own voluntary contributions. The faults ascribed to him are ambition, inconstancy in friendship, and too much desire of popularity. In person, Drake was low, but strongly made, " well favoured, fayre, and of a cheerefull countenance." He left no issue : his nephew was created a baronet by James I., and the title is still extant. The collection of voyages by Hakluyt, and the ac- counts published by Drake's nephew, quoted in this memoir, contain the fullest accounts of Drake's adven- turous history. Prince's ' Worthies of Devon,' Dr. Johnson's ' Life of Drake,' Kippis's ' Biographia Bri- tannica,' and the ' Edinburgh Cabinet Library,' vol. v., all give satisfactory accounts of this eminent ornament of the British navv. [From " drawn Plan of Her Majcstie's (Klizabeth) Harbour :it Berwick." Cuttouiuii MSS. Augustus, vol. ii., in British Museum. 411 THE materials for the personal history of Edmund Spenser are very scanty ; and it may not be amiss to warn the reader of what he will find exemplified in the present article, that early biography, with any preten- sion to authenticity, must partake nearly as much of a negative as of a positive character. As to the year of Spenser's birth, we are thrown for anything like admissible evidence on the date of his matriculation at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1569, which, according to the usual age of admission in those days, would place his birth about 1553. The monument erected to him by the Countess of Dorset, afterwards of Pembroke and Montgomery, places his birth in 1510, and his death in 1596. This monu- ment, having been erected only thirty years after the poet's death, might have been expected not to be very 412 SPENSER. inaccurate as to dates ; but its authority is completely put down by the college entry. It is altogether at variance with university practice at any period, that a man should be matriculated at the age of fifty-nine, for the purpose of passing through his seven years in statu pupillari, and proceeding to the degree of M.A. at the ripe age of sixty-six. Neither do any facts on record give countenance to the supposition that the poet lived to the advanced age of eighty-six. The parentage of Spenser is supposed to have been obscure : the only information he has given us on that point is confined to the unimportant fact, that his mother's name was Elizabeth. But although his si- lence respecting his parents, and his entering the university as a sizer, give reason to suppose that his nearest connexions had fallen into humble life, his claim of alliance with " an house of ancient fame" indicated that his blood was not altogether plebeian. The dedications of his ' Muiopotmos' to Lady Carey, of his ' Tears of the Muses' to Lady Strange, and of ' Mother Hubbard's Tale' to the Lady Compton and Mounteagle, express affection and bounden duty, on the score of kindred, to the house whence those ladies sprang, who were three sisters, and daughters of Sir John Spenser of Althorpe. Spenser took the degree of Bachelor in 1572, and that of Master of Arts in 1576, in which year it is said that he was an unsuccessful competitor for a fel- lowship ; but Mr. Church, student of Christ Church, in Oxford, who has been more minute in his inquiries than Spenser's other biographers, thinks that the story has no foundation. It is agreed on all hands that Sir Philip Sidney was the person who drew the poet from obscurity, and introduced him at court. On this subject we are told that Spenser sent a copy of the ninth canto of the first book of the ' Faery Queene' SPENSER. 413 to Leicester House ; and that Sidney was so trans- ported at the discovery of such astonishing genius, as, after having read a stanza or two, to order his steward to give the author fifty pounds : after the next stanza the sum was douhled. The steward was not so en- thusiastic as his master, and therefore in no hurry to make the dishursement ; hut one stanza more raised the gratuity to two hundred pounds, with a command of immediate payment, lest a further perusal should tempt the gallant knight to give away his whole estate. The obvious drift of this story is to magnify the genius of its subject ; but it is rather hard on Sir Philip, that a reputation fully capable of standing by itself should have been unnecessarily propped at the expense of his character for common sense. The plain fact is, that the celebrated Gabriel Harvey, Spenser's college friend, introduced him to Sidney; that he wrote part of his ' Shepherd's Calendar' at Penshurst, and under the modest name of /mmm/o, inscribed it to his patron. The general strain of this poem is serious and pen- sive, but with occasional bursts of amorous complaint. Without the latter it was considered that there could be no pastoral poetry ; but in this instance the wail- ings are thought not to have been altogether fictitious. The name of Rosalinde is said to have shadowed forth a mistress who had deserted him, as that of Colin Clout both there and elsewhere denoted himself. Sid- ney lost no time in introducing his new friend to the Earl of Leicester, and finally to Queen Elizabeth. On his presenting some poems to her, the Queen or- dered him a gratuity of a hundred pounds. Lord Treasurer Burleigh, better qualified to appreciate the useful than the ornamental, said, " What ! all this for a song?" The Queen in anger repeated the order ; and the minister from that time became the personal enemy of the poet, who alludes to this mis- fortune in several parts of his works. 414 SPENSER. The Earl of Leicester seems to have undertaken to provide for Spenser by sending him abroad. A letter to Gabriel Harvey from Leicester House fixes this to the year 1579; but either there is a mistake in the date, or the scheme must have been abandoned; for in 1580 he was appointed secretary to Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton, who was sent as lord-deputy to Ire- land. While in that country he wrote his ' Discourse on the State of Ireland,' a judicious treatise on the policy then best suited to the condition of that coun- try. His services were rewarded with a grant of 3028 acres in the county of Cork, out of the forfeited lands of Gerald Fitz Gerald Earl of Desmond. Spen- ser's residence was at the castle of Kilcolman, near Doneraile. The river Mulla, which he has more than once introduced into his poems, ran through his grounds. Here he contracted an intimacy with Sir Walter Raleigh, who was then a captain under Lord Grey. ' Colin Clout's come Home again,' in which Sir Walter is described as the Shepherd of the Ocean, is a beautiful memorial of this friendship, founded on a similarity of taste for the polite arts, and described with equal delicacy and strength of feeling. The au- thor acknowledges services at court rendered to him by Raleigh ; probably the confirmation of the grant of land, which he obtained in 1586. The friends re- turned to England together, and Spenser wished to have obtained a settlement at home, rather than to have continued in a country at that time little better than barbarous. To mortifications, and ultimate dis- appointment in his attendance at court, we probably owe the well-known lines in ' Mother Hubbard's Tale.' If his forced return to Ireland was the cause of his writing the ' Faery Queene,' his country was benefited, and his fame immeasurably enhanced by the disappointment of his wishes. On the publication of the first three books the Queen rewarded him with SPENSER. 415 a pension of fifty pounds a year; and in him the office of Laureate may be considered to have com- menced, although not conferred under that title. Spenser's marriage is placed by most biographers in 1593; by Mr. Church in 1596 the year of his death, if we could rest our faith on the monument. All we know of the lady is, that her Christian name was Elizabeth : a name, he says in his 74th sonnet, which has given him three graces, in his mother, his queen, and his mistress. In his ' Epithalamion ' he says, " Tell me, ye merchants' daughters, did ye see So fair a creature in your town before ? So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she, Adorn'd with beauty's grace and virtue's store: Her goodly eyes, like sapphire, shining bright. * * * * Her long loose yellow locks, like golden wire, t Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flow'rs atween, Do, like a golden mantle, her attire." He probably dwells the more on this latter circum- stance, because the Queen's hair was yellow. But even if the marriage took place in 1 593, his term of domestic happiness was very short. In the Earl of Tyrone's rebellion, in 1598, he was plundered and deprived of his estate. No direct or authentic ac- count of the circumstances attending this calamity has come down to us ; but among the heads of a conver- sation between Ben Jonson and Dmmmond at Haw- thornden, given in the works of the latter, Jonson, after saying that neither Spenser's stanzas pleased him, nor his matter, is stated to have given the fol- lowing appalling description of his misfortune : that " his goods were robbed by the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt : he and his wife escaped, and after died for want of bread in King Street, Westmin- ster." Jonson however adds a circumstance, the 416 SPENSER. strangeness of which throws suspicion over the former part of the story : " He refused twenty pieces sent him by my Lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no time to spend them." But whether these parti- culars be true or not, it is certain that he died in London, ruined, and a victim to despair, according to Camden, in 1598, but according to Sir James Ware, who wrote the preface to the ' View of the State of Ireland,' in 1599. Sir James, after having given a high character of his poetry, says, " With a fate pecu- liar to poets, Spenser lived in a continual struggle with poverty : he was driven away from his house and plundered by the rebels : soon after his return in penury to England he died. He was buried in West- minster Abbey near Chaucer, at the expense of the Earl of Essex ; the poets of the time, who attended his funeral, threw verses into his grave." In order to account for the inaccuracy of the dates on the monu- ment, it is alleged that the inscription had been de- faced, perhaps by the Puritans in revenge for the descriptions of the Blatant Beast; and that on its re- newal, the carver (the year of birth being illegible) put ten at a venture, and ninety-six instead of ninety- eight or ninety-nine. Respecting Spenser's private character, conversa- tion and manners, his contemporaries leave us nearly in the dark. We know that Burleigh was his enemy, that Sidney and Raleigh were his friends : and from the dignity of sentiment and moral tendency prevail- ing throughout his works, we may reasonably infer that his virtue was not unworthy of his genius. Mil- ton speaks of him as " our sage and serious poet, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." 'The Shepherd's Calendar,' the first of Spenser's works in print, is generally said to have come out in 1579. It is a series of pastorals, formed on no uniform plan, but lowered to the standard sup- SPENSER. 417 posed to be appropriate to that style of composition. But the rustic language of these pieces renders them so utterly untunable to a modern ear, that what ob- tained the applause of Sidney would not have saved the author's name from oblivion, had it not been borne up to imperishable fame by the splendour of the * Faery Queene,' the three first books of which were published in 1590. Six years afterwards three other books came out; and after his death two other cantos, and the beginning of a third. The poem, therefore, exists as a fragment : there is a traditionary story that he had completed his design in twelve books, as was his avowed intention ; but that the last six books were lost by a servant who had the charge of bringing them over to England. Yet, unfinished as the poem is, any one canto has merit and beauties enough to have secured its author's fame. In 1591 a quarto volume was ^published, containing the following nine pieces : ' The Ruines of Time ;' ' The Tears of the Muses ;' Virgil's Gnat ;' Mother Hubbard's Tale;' 'Ruines of Rome;' ' Muiopotmos;' 'Visions of the World's Vanitie;' 'Bellay's Visions;' ' Petrarche's Visions.' 'Daphnaida,' published in 1592, was dedicated to the Marchioness of Northampton, on the death of her niece, Douglas Howard. The pastoral elegy of ' As- trophel ' was devoted wholly to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney, and inscribed to Lady Essex. To enter on the subject of his Sonnets, &c. &c., would carry us far beyond our prescribed limits. In a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser sets forth the general design of the ' Faery Queene,' and settles the scheme of the whole twelve books. But the following passage proves that he contemplated .twelve more. " I labour to pourtraict in Arthur, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, per- fected in the twelve Moral Vertues, as Aristotle de- vised, the which is the purport of these first twelve 418 SPENSER. books : which if I find to be well accepted, I may perhaps be encouraged to frame the other part of Politic Vertues in his person, after that he came to be king." He also says, " In the person of Prince Arthur I set forth Magnificence in particular." By magnificence Dryden understands him to mean mag- nanimity, in succouring the representatives of the particular moral virtues when in distress, and con- siders his interposition in each legend as the only bond of uniformity in a design, which in all other respects insulates his allegorical heroes, without subor- dination or preference. This plan gave him much opportunity of drawing flattering portraits of individual courtiers, though few of the likenesses have been recognised, and the originals seem to have shown but little gratitude for the compliment. It is generally allowed that Prince Arthur was meant for Sir Philip Sidney, who was the poet's chief patron. The pre- vailing beauty of this great poem consists in its vein of fabulous invention, set off by a power of description and force of imagination, so various and inexhaustible, that the reader is too much pleased and distracted to be sensible of the faults into which his judgment is betrayed by occasional excess. It is remarked by Sir William Temple, in his ' Essay on Poetry,' that " the religion of the Gentiles had been woven into the contexture of all the ancient poetry with an agreeable mixture, which made the moderns affect to give that of Christianity a place in their poems ; but the true religion was not found to become fictions so well as the false one had done, and all their attempts of this kind seemed rather to debase religion than heighten poetry." Critics in general, and common sense itself, have confirmed Temple's remark as to the hazard, which it required such a mind as Mil- ton's successfully to face, of giving a poetical colour- ing to the solemn truths of religion. To a feeling of SPENSER. 419 this difficulty we probably owe the peculiarity of Spenser's epic, if so it may be called. In other epics, instruction is subordinate to story, and conveyed through it ; in the ' Faery Queene,' morality is the avowed object, to be illustrated by the actions of such shadowy personages, that but a thin veil is thrown over the bare design. Whatever may be thought of allegorical poetry as a system, the execution in this instance is excellent, the flights of fancy brilliant, and often sublime. Rymer finds fault with Spenser for having suffered himself to be " misled by Ari- osto ; " and says that " his poem is perfect Fairy- land." The readers of poetry in the present day will probably receive that censure as praise : marvels and adventures, even if probability be not made matter of conscience, may have more attraction than classic regularity and strict adherence to the unities. But though Spenser frequently imitated both Tasso and Ariosto in descriptions of battles, and his general de- lineation of knight-errantry, the plan and conduct of his poem deviated widely from Ariosto's model, and, it is generally thought, not on the side of improve- ment. Ariosto narrates adventures as real, however extravagant, and only occasionally intermixes portions of pure allegory. But allegory is the staple of Spen- ser's design ; and his legendary tales are interwoven with it so far only as they are connected with his one human hero. With the exception of Prince Arthur, his heroes are abstractions ; they bear the names of knights, but are in reality Virtues personified. Dry- den finds fault with Spenser's obsolete language, and the ill choice of his stanza. The poems of the Eliza- bethan age, now considered as the golden age of poetry, are so much more read and better understood in these later times, than they were in Dryden's days, that the language is no longer felt as a serious ob- stacle to the pleasures of perusal. With respect to the 420 SPENSER. form of stanza, if", was natural for Dryden, the mighty master of the couplet, to condemn it ; and it may be in itself objectionable, as favouring redundancy of style, not only in respect of expletives and tautology, but of ideas. Its fulness of melody, however, and sonorous majesty, have of late brought it into favour both with writers and readers. [Illustration cf the 'Faery Queenc,' after a design by Stothard.] SPENSER. 421 Of all critics, none can be better worth hearing, on such a subject as that of the Faery Queene, than the historian of English poetry. Warton writes thus : " If the Faery Queene be destitute of that arrange- ment and economy which epic severity requires, yet we scarcely regret the loss of these, while their place is so amply supplied by something which more power- fully attracts us ; something which engages the affec- tions, the feelings of the heart, rather than the cold approbation of the head. If there be any poem whose graces please, because they are situated beyond the reach of art; and where the force and faculties of creative imagination delight, because they are unas- sisted and unrestrained by those of deliberate judg- ment, it is this : in reading Spenser, if the critic is not satisfied, yet the reader is transported." The principal editions of Spenser are Upton's ' Faery Queene, with a Glossary and Notes,' London, 1751; and Mr. Todd's Variorum Edition of his Works, 8 vols. 8vo. 1805. VOL. I. 2 B 422 ELIZABETH, Queen of England, daughter of Henry VIII. by his second wife, Anne Boleyn, was born September 7, 1533. Her religious principles were early fixed on the side of the Reformation by Dr. Parker, her mother's chaplain, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, to whose care Anne Boleyn, not long before her violent death, recommended this her only child, with the charge that she should not want his wise and pious counsel. She passed her early days happily, in the seclusion of private life, uninitiated in the dissipation of the court, and unmolested by its intrigues ; but a few months after the accession of her sister Mary, she was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in Wyat's insurrection, of which it was the object to oppose the marriage of Mary witli the Arch- duke Philip, and to raise the princess Elizabeth to ELIZABETH. 423 the throne. Her life was placed in imminent danger, by her removal from her abode at Ashridge, in Buck- inghamshire, to London, during a severe illness, in compliance with an order to bring her, "quick or dead." She was committed to the Tower, and ex- posed to a capital charge of high treason. Two coun- cils were held, before which she defended herself with entire presence of mind, and great boldness. Several councillors voted for her death, but it was ultimately decided that she could be convicted only of misprision of treason, which was no longer a capital offence. She owed her life, therefore, to the saving power of the law ; not, as has often been stated, to the inter- cession of Philip : who did, however, stand forward afterwards in her behalf, so as to obtain a mitigation of the severity of her imprisonment, which was con- tinued after her acquittal on the capital charge. It may seem inconsistent in a bigot to the Catholic reli- gion to interfere in behalf of a person on whom the hopes of the Protestants were known to depend : but Philip's hatred against France was greater than his or even his wife's zeal in the cause of popery ; and the political motives of his conduct are obvious. In the event of Mary dying without issue, the Queen of Scot- land, who was actually betrothed, and soon after mar- ried to the Dauphin, stood next in succession to Eli- zabeth. Supposing the intermediate link in the chain to be broken, the crown of England, united to that of France, would give a fatal preponderance to the al- ready formidable rival of the Spanish monarchy. Philip, therefore, had a direct interest both in pre- serving the life and conciliating the good-will of the princess : he foresaw that the demise of his queen must take place before long, and he had formed the scheme of espousing her sister and successor, for which a dispensation would readily have been obtained from the pope. 2u2 424 ELIZABETH. The reign of Elizabeth began November 17, 1558, when she was twenty-five years of age. Her person was graceful, her stature majestic, and her mien noble. Her features were not regular ; but her eyes were lively and sparkling, and her complexion fair. Her spirit was high ; and her strong natural capacity had been improved by the most enlarged education attain- able in those days. She wrote letters in Italian before she was fourteen ; and at the age of seventeen she had acquired the Latin, Greek, and French languages. In addition to these studies, she had ventured on the high and various departments of philosophy, rhetoric, history, divinity, poetry, and music. As soon as she was fixed on the throne, her interest and her princi- ples engaged her in plans for the restoration of the Protestant religion. For although Pope Pius IV. promised, on her submission to the papal supremacy, "to establish and confirm her royal dignity by his authority," yet she must have felt, that with the avowal of popery would be coupled the virtual admis- sion that her father's divorce from Catherine of Ar- ragon was null and void ; and, consequently, that Anne Boleyn was not a wife but a concubine, and her own pretensions to the crown downright usurpation. It was only by rejecting the Pope as her judge that she could maintain her mother's fair fame and her own legitimate descent. Many writers, Bayle among others, have attempted to prove that she was at heart little more of a Protestant than her father ; and her determination to retain episcopacy was sufficient to raise that suspicion in the minds of the adherents to the presbyterian system of church government. While she was princess she received a private pro- posal of marriage from Sweden; but she declared, " she could not change her condition." On her be- coming queen, her brother-in-law, Philip II. of Spain, addressed her ; but this match also she declined. In ELIZABETH. 425 the first parliament of her reign, the house of com- mons represented it as necessary to the welfare of the nation " to move her grace to marriage." She answered, that by the ceremony of her inauguration she was married to her people, and her subjects were to her instead of children ; that they would not want a successor when she died; adding, "And in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare, that a queen having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin." Several great per- sonages proposed a matrimonial union with this il- lustrious princess ; but she maintained her celibacy to the last. The Duke of Anjou seems to have been the most acceptable of her suitors. On his visit to England in 1581, not only was he received with much public parade, but she vouchsafed him strong tokens of personal attachment, and even suffered the mar- riage articles to be drawn up. But the strong re- monstrances of her ministers and favourites finally prevailed, and the intended marriage was broken off. The compilers of memoirs have racked their brains for some plausible explanation of Elizabeth's re- pugnance to matrimony. When overtures were first made to her she was young, and had a good person, which she spared no art in setting off to advantage : she was notoriously fond of admiration, and was no less jealous of the personal beauty of Mary, Queen of Scots, than of her competition as a rival sovereign, or as a claimant of the crown of England. Neither prudery nor coldness could be imputed to her. Her gaiety extorted a sarcastic exclamation from an am- bassador : " I have seen the head of the English church dancing !" She chose her favourites, Leicester, Essex, Raleigh, and others, from among the most comely, as well as the most valiant and accomplished of her subjects. Melvil, who had been sent by Mary of Scotland to the court of Elizabeth, relates in his 2u3 426 ELIZABETH. Memoirs, that on creating Lord Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and Baron of Denbigh, at Westminster, with much solemnity, the queen assisted at the cere- monial, and he knelt before her with great gravity : " but," he says, "she could not refrain from putting her hand to his neck, smilingly tickling him, the French ambassador and I standing by." In relating his diplomatic transactions, he furnishes other proofs of the queen's partiality for the Earl of Leicester. He had occasion to name before her "my Lord of Bedford and my Lord Robert Dudley. She answered, " It appeared I made but small account of my Lord Robert, seeing I named the Earl of Bedford before him;" but that ere long she would make him a far greater Earl ; and that I should see it done before my return home ; for she esteemed him as her brother and best friend, whom she would have herself married, had she ever intended to have taken a husband. But being determined to end her life in virginity, she wished the queen her sister might marry him." It is no wonder that her propensity to gallantry should have been stigmatised by popish writers, or that they should even have ventured to assail her character for chastity : even those of the reformed religion were somewhat scandalised by the levities of their eccle- siastical governess. Her foreign biographer, Gregorio Leti, in his ' Histoire d'Elizabeth,' says, " I do not know whether she was so chaste as is reported ; for, after all, she was a queen ; she was beautiful, young, full of wit, delighted in magnificent dress, loved en- tertainments, balls, pleasures, and to have the hand- somest men in her kingdom for her favourites. This is all I can say of her to the reader." The charge of personal depravity in so illustrious a sovereign deserves a fuller examination than is ad- missible within our limits. But it is in a great mea- sure discredited by the circumstance that it originated ELIZABETH. 427 with those Romish and political enemies, who per- severingly strove to destroy the queen, as the main prop of that fabric they were moving every engine to overthrow. Dr. Sanders and Cardinal Allen, the popes, the Spanish writers and their partisans, make statements, some of them manifestly untrue, others unsupported by respectable testimony. Among her own subjects, the popular scandal turned chiefly on Leicester, Hatton, and Essex; but without a single criminating fact as to either. Bacon states the case candidly, and probably puts it on its true ground : " She suffered herself to be honoured, and caressed, and celebrated, and extolled with the name of love, and wished it and continued it beyond the suitability of her age. If you take these things more softly, they may not even be without some admiration, because such things are commonly found in our fabulous nar- ratives, of a queen in the islands of Bliss, with her hall and institutes, who receives the administration of love, but prohibits its licentiousness. If you judge them more severely, still they have this admirable cir- cumstance, that the gratifications of this sort did not much hurt her reputation, and not at all her majesty, nor even relaxed her government, nor were any notable impediment to her state affairs." Some writers of secret history have assigned the danger to which it was thought she would be exposed in bearing children as the real reason for her perseverance in celibacy. We do not propose to relate the events of the reign of Elizabeth, inasmuch as our object does not extend beyond a sketch of her personal character. It is per- haps the most brilliant period in English history ; it called into action some of the most able statesmen and greatest warriors of whom this country could ever boast. Leti tells us that Pope Sixtus V. was her ardent admirer, and placed her among the only three persons who, in his estimation, deserved to reign : 428 ELIZABETH. the other two members of this curious triumvirate were Henry IV. of France and himself. He once said to an Englishman, " Your queen is born for- tunate: she governs her kingdom with great hap- piness ; she wants only to be married to me, to give the world a second Alexander." The same author, in his life of Sixtus, records a secret correspondence of that pope with Elizabeth ; among other particulars of which he relates the following anecdote. Anthony Babington, a gentleman of Derbyshire, with other English papists, had engaged in a conspiracy against the queen. Their project was, after having assas- sinated her, to deliver Mary of Scotland from prison, and to place her on the throne. Babington and three of his accomplices armed themselves against the pos- sible failure of their enterprise, by applying to the pope for prospective absolution, to take effect at the time of their last agonies. His Holiness complied with their demand ; but is said instantly to have de- spatched due warning to the queen. This conspiracy was the preliminary to an event, which has been justly characterised as the stain of deepest dye on the fair fame of Elizabeth, the ex- ecution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1586. It would be foreign to the subject, to relate the circumstances which led that princess to take refuge in England, trusting to Elizabeth's promises of protection and kindness. Her reception at first was as favourable as was perhaps consistent with due attention to the public safety, considering that the Roman Catholic portion of British subjects held her to be the rightful sovereign, and Elizabeth an illegitimate and heretical usurper. But feelings of habitual enmity, enforced perhaps by the arguments of her political advisers, overpowered the sympathy of the first moments, and suggested the advantages to be taken of a defenceless competitor. Elizabeth, therefore, after having in the ELIZABETH. 429 first instance ordered her to be treated like a queen, afterwards committed her to close prison. On the discovery of Babington's plot, in which Mary was deeply implicated, the queen of Scots was arraigned of high treason before commissioners specially ap- pointed by the crown. By that solemn tribunal, she was tried and found guilty, and by Elizabeth was de- livered over to execution. Even Bohun, in his cha- racter of Elizabeth, though in general her panegyrist, says on this occasion, " By this action, she tainted her reign with the innocent blood of a princess, whom she had received into her dominions, and to whom she had given sanctuary." If the sentence was executed, not in vindication of the offended laws, but as a sacri- fice to personal revenge, Elizabeth's guilt was greatly aggravated by her extreme dissimulation in the ma- nauement of the affair. She no sooner received in- telligence of Mary's decapitation than she abandoned herself to misery and almost despair : she put on deep mourning ; her council were severely rebuked ; her ministers, and even Burleigh, were driven from her presence with furious reproaches. Her secretary Davison was subjected to a process in the Star-Cham- ber for a twofold contempt, in having revealed her Majesty's counsels to others of her ministers, and having given up to them the warrant which she had committed to him in special trust and secrecy, to be reserved for a case of sudden emergency. But Davi- son's apology, an extract from which was inserted by Camden in his Annals, has since been found entire among the original papers of Sir Amias Paulet. From this authentic source it appears, that Davison was made her unconscious agent and instrument. Those who have endeavoured to extenuate the apparent treachery of Elizabeth, have alleged that the queen of Scots kept the queen of England in continual dread of dethronement; and that if the necessity existed to 430 ELIZABETH. take the life of the queen of Scots, it was equally ne- cessary that it should be done with a show of reluct- ance, and the least possible odium to the queen of England. Such has been the defence, both of the act itself, and of the subsequent dissimulation. But it would be difficult to apologise for her proceedings against Davison, an able and honest servant, whom she disgraced and ruined, for the purpose of impress- ing the belief that Mary was executed without her knowledge and contrary to her intentions. Right and wrong must be differently estimated in sovereigns and ordinary persons, if the sacrifice of such a victim to the shade of Mary or the indignation of her son can be justified. The reign of Elizabeth lasted forty-four years, fuur months, and six days. It was distinguished by great actions; it raised the British name to a high and glorious rank in the scale of nations ; and we of the present times are indebted to it for some of our great- est advantages. But the sovereign herself closed her long and eventful life in a state of deep melancholy. Her kinsman, Sir Robert Gary, relates, with the quaintness of the time, the circumstances of his visit to her on her death-bed. " She took me by the hand, and wrung it hard, and said that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days ; and in her dis- course she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was grieved at first to see her in this plight; for in all my lifetime I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded." She died March 24, 1603, in her seventieth year. Few as are the particulars of her life which we have been able to admit into our narrative, they have perhaps been sufficient to give an outline, however faint, of her character. It has been drawn out in form, and with fairness, by Lord Bolingbroke, in the following pas- sage from his Idea of a Patriot King : " Our Eliza- ELIZABETH. 431 beth was queen in a limited monarchy, and reigned over a people at all times more easily led than driven ; and at that time capable of being attached to their prince and their country by a more generous principle than any of those which prevail in our days, by affec- tion. There was a strong prerogative then in being, and the crown was in possession of greater legal power. Popularity was however then, as it is now, and as it must always be in mixed government, the sole foun- dation of that sufficient authority and influence which other constitutions give the prince gratis and inde- pendently of the people, but which a king of this na- tion must acquire. The wise queen saw it; and she saw too how much popularity depends on those ap- pearances that depend on the decorum, the decency, the grace, and the propriety of behaviour of which we are speaking. A warm concern for the interest and honQur of the nation, a tenderness for her people and a confidence in their affections, were appearances that ran through her whole public conduct, and gave life and colour to it. She did great things; and she knew how to set them off according to their true value, by her manner of doing them. In her private beha- viour she showed great affability, she descended even to familiarity ; but her familiarity was such as could not be imputed to her weakness, and was therefore most justly ascribed to her goodness. Though a woman, she hid all that was womanish about her ; and if a few equivocal marks of coquetry appeared on some occasions, they passed like flashes of lightning, vanished as soon as they were discovered, and im- printed no blot on her character. She had private friendships, she had favourites : but she never suffered her friends to forget that she was their queen ; and when her favourites did, she made them feel that she was so." Our delineation of Elizabeth has been rather that 432 ELIZABETH. of a very great personage, than of a good woman ; but it must be admitted on all hands, that the poison of calumny has been largely administered, in propor- tion to the invidiousness of her position. This general lot of greatness fell the heavier on her, in consequence of the severe laws which she was compelled to enact and execute against the papists. The libels against Elizabeth's good fame were put forth mostly by per- sons of that proscribed sect, who have represented her, not as indulging the frailties from which her most strenuous advocates cannot exonerate her, but as a monster of cruelty, avarice, and lust. It is but justice to place in contrast with so hateful a picture the noble character ascribed to her even by a Jesuit, in a book published in the Catholic metropolis of France. Pere d'Orleans, in his * Histoire des Revolutions d' Angle- terre,' speaks thus : " Elizabeth was a person whose name immediately imprints in our minds such a noble idea, that it is impossible well to express it by any de- scription whatsoever. Never did a crowned head better understand the art of government, and commit fewer errors in it, during a long reign. The friends of Charles V. could reckon his faults : Elizabeth's enemies have been reduced narrowly to search after hers ; and they, whose greatest concern it was to cast an odium upon her conduct, have admired her. So that in her was fulfilled this sentence of the Gospel, that the children of this world are often wiser in their views and designs than the children of light. Eliza- beth's aim was to reign, to govern, to be mistress, to keep her people in submission, neither affecting to weaken her subjects, nor to make conquests in foreign countries; but yet not suffering any person to en- croach in the least upon the sovereign power, which she knew perfectly well how to maintain, both by policy and by force; for no person in her time had more wit, more skill, more judgment than she had. ELIZABETH. 433 She was not a warlike princess ; but she knew so well how to train up warriors, that England had not for a long time seen a greater number of them, nor more experienced." VOL. I. 2c 434 IN the sixteenth and the latter part of the fifteenth century, a man of learning filled a very prominent and distinguished place in the world's esteem. Public attention was not then distracted by the multitude of claimants ; for scarcely any country but Italy possessed a national literature ; and few branches of knowledge were much prized, except the faculties of divinity, law, and physic, and the newly-opened stores of Greek and Roman antiquity. As Latin was still the univer- sal language of Europe, that which was done in one country soon and readily became known to the learned men of all ; and if the general standard of informa- tion was low, those who possessed it abundantly tow- ered the higher above their fellows. Though there were then fewer helps to learning, it was a time of great discovery and much excitement. A modern scholar of far inferior calibre mav have a more accu- JOSEPH SCALIGER. 435 rate knowledge of antiquity, and a deeper insight into the minutiae of the ancient languages, than the great- est men of the age of which we speak ; but as far as regards the mass of information gained by their indi- vidual labour, few indeed could venture to compete with such men as Casaubon, Lipsius, Graevius, the Scaligers, and others. And the honour paid them was proportionate to their merits. Princes and States courted them, Universities competed for their resi- dence, Europe at large took an interest in their quar- rels and controversies; and as humility and charity were not the graces in which they most abounded, the interest in these subjects was in no danger of perishing for want of agitation. Of this remarkable class of men, none were more admired by their contempora- ries than the two Scaligers. Julius Csesar Scaliger, the elder, was as singular a mixture of great talent, learning, vanity, and presump- tion, as the world has often seen. He was born, pro- bably at Verona, in 1484, being the son, according to the best authorities, of a miniature painter, named Benedict Bordoni, was baptized by the name of Julius, studied at the University of Padua, adopted the medi- cal profession, and having attracted the favourable notice of Antoine de la Rovere, Bishop of Agen in Gascony, accompanied him thither, in 1525, in the quality of domestic physician. We are not informed of the exact time at which he thought fit to make ad- dition to his real name, but in 1528 he obtained letters of naturalization under the sounding appellation of Julius Csesar de Lescalle de Bordoms, or Bordonis ; and in 1529 he married a girl of sixteen, by whom he had a very numerous family. This is his real history, as far as it is known ; but the truth was far too com- mon-place to satisfy his passion for notoriety, and he in- vented a new version of his history, to the following effect : 2 c 2 436 JOSEPH SCAI.IGER. He called himself the son of Benedict de la Scala, one of the bravest captains of the fifteenth century (of whom it is observed that his name unfortunately occurs in no contemporary historian), and through him de- scended from the ancient family of the Princes of Ve- rona. He was born near the Lago di Guarda; and having narrowly escaped, in infancy, the jealous search of the Venetians, who were anxious to cut off every scion of his house, was brought up as a page in the service of the Emperor Maximilian. He served with distinc tion in the Italian wars. But the desire of recovering Verona, the inheritance of his family, from Venice, ever haunted him ; and seeing no chance any other way, he became a monk, in hope of rising to the Holy Chair, and rendering the resources of the papacy sub- servient to the gratification of this ruling passion. The frivolous and wearisome observances of the clois- ter soon disgusted him, and he (broke his vows, we presume, and) returned to his old trade as a soldier, and again distinguished himself in the wars of Pied- mont, while at the same time he studied the ancient languages, philosophy, and medicine. At the solicita- tion of the Bishop of Agen he closed his adventurous course, as is above related. This extravagant story, entirely without foundation in any of its parts, and garnished with abundance of gasconade, was stoutly upheld by the elder Scaliger, and generally believed by his contemporaries : the younger Scaliger wrote a book to maintain it, with equal stoutness, but without equal success. After Scaliger took up his abode at Agen, his chief employment was the cultivation of learning ; his chief passion, the acquisition of fame. In this he succeeded to the extent of his wishes ; and we need seek no stronger proof of the ascendancy which he gained over his contemporaries, than the general acceptation of the wonderful story which we have just told. De JOSEPH SCALIGER. 437 Thou said of him, that the age did not furnish his equal, nor antiquity his superior ; and Lipsius classed him with Homer, Hippocrates, and Aristotle, and named him ' the miracle and glory of his age.' Un- questionably he possessed a vast fund of knowledge, was an excellent Latin scholar, and wrote extremely well in Latin prose. Of Greek his knowledge pro- hably was much less ; he did little for Greek litera- ture, and appears not to have taught his son Joseph so much as the rudiments of the language. His many fine qualities were sadly obscured by a temper arro- gant and overbearing in the last degree : on this sub- ject it is enough to refer to the abuse which he lavishes on a better man than himself, the excellent Erasmus, in their controversy concerning Ciceronianism. Un- fortunately, he bequeathed the same overweening vanity and propensity to scurrilous language to his still more distinguished son. Joseph Justus Scaliger, the tenth child of this sin- gular man, was born at Agen, August 4, 1540. At the age of eleven he was sent with two of his brothers to study at the University of Bourdeaux ; but at the end of three years the plague broke out, and he re- turned in consequence to his paternal home. The elder Scaliger from that time forward took charge of Joseph's education : concerning his method of teach- ing we know little more than that he obliged his pupil to compose an essay every day upon some historical subject. He died in 1558; and in the following year Joseph Scaliger went to Paris, and devoted him- self to the study of Greek under the celebrated Tur- nebus. At that time his acquaintance, if he had any, with the language was very slight. Before two months elapsed he found the progress of his master too slow to please him ; and resolving to take the matter into his own hands, he made himself cursorily acquainted with the conjugations, and set to work at 438 JOSEPH SCALIGER. once upon Homer, whom he read through in twenty- one days, constructing a grammar for himself as he went along. The other Greek poets he perused in the same manner in four months. The orators and historians he took next in order ; but these extraor- dinary exertions rest upon his own testimony, which in things connected with the gratification of his vanity cannot be considered unimpeachable. After two years' study of Greek he undertook Hebrew and other Oriental languages, which he learned without assist- ance in the same manner. He certainly possessed an uncommon talent for the study of languages : it is stated by Du Bartas that he knew thirteen, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, German, French, English, Ethiopian, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Persian. His habits throughout life were very laborious ; he slept little, and sometimes passed days almost without taking food. Heinsius, in his first oration, reports that he had often heard Scaliger speak of having been in Paris during the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and engaged so deeply in his He- brew studies as for a long time not to be aware of the tumult without. On the contrary, the Vassans, col- lectors of the ' Scaligera secunda,' state, also on the authority of Scaliger's private conversation, that he was at Lausanne when the massacre took place. The matter is of little moment, excepting in so far as it may serve to illustrate the speaker's boastful disregard for veracity. Joseph Scaliger embraced the Reformed religion in 1562, and in the following year became domestic tutor in a noble family named Roche-Pozay. In this connexion he was very fortunate : his patron was a generous and discerning man, by whose liberality he was enabled to visit the principal Universities of France and Germany. He studied theology at Ge- neva under Beza, and shortly after the massacre of JOSEPH SCALIGER. 439 St. Bartholomew, in 1572, was invited to accept the chair of philosophy in the University of that city : this he declined, but it appears that he did give lec- tures therein 1578. In 1573 he ventured to return to his patron's estate near Tours, and there composed the greater portion of his works. He visited Italy, whence he brought home a number of inscriptions, which he communicated to Gruter, with leave to publish them in his ' Thesaurus ; and he even ex- tended his travels to our northern, and then unin- viting, realm of Scotland. The multiplicity of Scaliger's labours did not enrich him. " Poverty," he says in one of his letters, " has been my faithful companion through life, and I never thought to lose her company." But his spirit was lofty and independent, and he refused on more than one occasion large sums of money, which those who esteemed his merits would have forced upon him. In 1593 he was invited by the States of Holland to accept the professorship of belles-lettres at Leyden, with a liberal salary. This he accepted, so that the close of his life was spent in independence. Unfortunately for his tranquillity, his evil genius of vanity led him in 1594 to publish his testimony to the truth of his own illustrious descent, in his ' Letter concerning the Antiquity of the Family della Scala' (Epistola de ve- tustate et splendore gentis Scaligerae, et vita Jul. C. Scaligeri, &c.). It is here, says Niceron, that the vanity and presumption of Scaliger appear to the greatest advantage ; and Scioppius, a brother critic and scholar, who expressed the highest regard and admiration for the Leyden professor, so long as they were on terms of mutual admiration, no sooner felt a touch of Scaliger's power of sarcasm, than he attacked him in this weak point, in the ' Scaliger hypoboli- mseus ; hoc est, Elenchus Epistolae Joan. Burdonis, 440 JOSEPH SCALIGER. pseudo-Scaligeri, de vctustate et splendore gentis Sca- ligerse : 1607.' Seal iger retorted on Scioppius, whose life and conversation were open enough to attack, in his ' Confutatio stultissimse Burdonum fabulae: 1608,' published under the name of Rutgersius, one of his pupils. It has been said that the veteran con- troversialist died of chagrin in consequence of Sciop- pius's book. This, however, is not much in accord- ance with his character ; at all events, his annoyance was long in killing him, for he did not die till 1609, and his disease was a dropsy. High honours were paid by the University to his memory; a funeral oration was pronounced in his praise by the eminent scholar Heinsius, and a monument was erected to him at the public expense. For the fullest account of Scaliger's very numerous works, we refer to Niceron, ' Memoires pour servir a 1'histoire des Hommes Illustres,' vol. 23. The ear- liest of them, * Conjectanea in Varronem,' was com- posed w : hen the author was only twenty years old. Another of his earlier productions was an edition of * Lycophron,' with a version into Latin iambics, for which he has obtained the sarcastic commendation of having by a tour de force, of which no other person was capable, made the translation quite as unintelli- gible as the original. He translated the ' Ajax ' of Sophocles, in the same metre. He has commented upon Caesar, Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, Per- sius, Ausonius, Manilius, the Tragedies of Seneca, and on Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, &c. His original works contain treatises on astronomy, mathematics, numismatics, and chronology, and various depart- ments of philological and antiquarian research. He flattered himself that he had discovered and pro- pounded in his ' Cyclometrica Elcmenta duo ; nee non Mesolabium ;' a method for the quadrature of JOSEPH SCAL1GER. 441 the circle : but the fallacy which deceived him was soon exposed by Vieta and others. Scaliger's most important and most original work is that * l)e Emen- datione Temporum, 1583,' which merits especial praise, as being the first attempt to produce a system of chronology. It contains a vast quantity of learn- ing, in the collection of which the author was greatly assisted by his knowledge of the Oriental languages, as well as of Greek and Latin. That he is often in error is, in this instance, hardly a blemish upon his merited fame : in so vast an untrodden field it was impossible to avoid mistakes. And doubtless this would have been willingly conceded, but for his pre- sumptuous, uncharitable, and abusive manner of treating the mistakes of others : those who had suf- fered from his venomous tongue, of course were ready and eager to revenge themselves at the first opportu- nity. In the second and third editions he made con- siderable alterations. Petavius, another eminent chro- nologer of the same age, who had the advantage, it is to be recollected, of all that Scaliger had done before him, finds great fault with the ' De Emendatione ; ' but he allows that " the learning diffused through it, the immense variety of topics which it embraces, the novelty of the subject, and the decided tone of the author, procured for him a very high reputation." It was in this that Scaliger propounded the Julian period, as a sort of common measure for the various eras ; but it never became general, and has fallen into complete disuse. The same Petavius, in speak- ing of Scaliger's letters, which are full of curious matter, easy and familiar, and brilliant without affec- tation (Epistolse Omnes, 1627, published by Hein- sius), declared, that if he had then seen these " divine letters," he would never have attacked the author of them. Scaliger's poems (Poemata Omnia, collected 2c3 442 JOSEPH SCALIGER. and published in 1615) have not done much for his fame, though he boasted of his critical skill in poetry. " Je me connois en trois choses in vino, poesi, et juger des personnes. Si bis hominem alloquar, statim scio qualis sit." (Scaligerana Secunda.) From his translation of select epigrams of Martial into Greek (Florilegium Martialis Epigrammatum, cum versione Graeca metrica, 1607) a list of sixty-four faults, false quantities, and barbarisms, has been drawn up and preserved in the * Menagiana,' vol. i. p. 325 ; many of them, however, are very trifling. Concerning Scaliger's character as a critic, we may quote the opinion of Bayle ' Nouvelles de la Repub- lique des Lettres,' for June 1684 " I know not whether it might not be said that Scaliger had too much wit and learning to write a good commentary ; for his wit enabled him to find in the authors on whom he commented more refinement and genius than in fact they possessed ; and his deep knowledge of literature was the cause of his fancying a thousand points of connexion between the thoughts of a writer and some rare matter of antiquity. And having made up his mind as to the reference contained in the passage, he proceeded forthwith to correct it accord- ingly ; unless it should rather be thought that the desire of throwing light upon some mystery of learn ing, unobserved by previous critics, led him to fancy hidden meanings where they did not really exist. Be this as it may, his notes are full of conjectures, bold, ingenious, and learned; but it is not clear that the authors always meant to say all that he has made them. It is possible to go as far wide of the real meaning, by having too much wit, as by having too little ; and it will not do to believe that the lines of Horace and Catullus contain all the erudition which it pleases Messieurs the note-makers to bestow upon JOSEPH SCALIGER. 443 them." This passage will sufficiently explain the grounds of the bitter saying, that Scaliger was born to corrupt, rather than to correct, the classics. The praises bestowed on him by his contempo- raries, however, were most extravagant. Heinsius says, in his Funeral Oration, " Men call him differ- ently, an abyss of erudition, a sea of sciences, the sun of doctors, the divine progeny of a divine father, of the race of gods, the greatest work and miracle, the extreme reach of Nature." His great contempo- raries, Casaubon, Lipsius, and De Thou, adopt a somewhat similar style of exaggerated commendation. Such expressions of course are to be taken with allow- ance ; rather as specimens of the taste of the age than as the deliberate testimony of those who use them. That Scaliger was profoundly learned and of immense acquirement, will not be denied ; that it is impossible to r push things farther than he has, will not now be asserted, " because," says Niceron, " it has been done by many." Unfortunately, this extravagant admiration contributed, no doubt, by feeding his va- nity, to exacerbate that intolerably scurrilous and malignant humour, the worst part of his character, which he inherited, with his great talents, from his remarkable father. The Table-Talk, as we may call it, of Scaliger has been collected in two series, entitled ' Scaligerana, Prima et Secunda.' For the history of these see Niceron, or the preface to Des Maizeaux's edition. They bear the same unfavourable impress of character as the rest of his writings : " the pride, arrogance, and venom of an angry pedant reign from the first leaf to the last ; and they are sometimes defective in point of learning." So says Vigneul Marville, and his judgment is fully confirmed by others. " The Scaligerana," says D'Israeli, " will convince us that he was incapable of thinking or speaking favourably 444 JOSEPH SCALIGER. of any person." We have already quoted one pas- sage which gives a specimen of the strange way in which French and Latin are mixed up in the second series, and we conclude with another, which contains an amusing instance of his vanity, both for himself and his father : " Auratus dicebat Jul. Cses. Scali- gerum Regi alicui fucie similem. Oui, a un Empe- reur ! II n'y a Roi qui eut si belle fa^on que lui. Re- gardez moi ! je lui ressemble en tout, et partout, le nez aquilin." 445 HENRY IV., the most celebrated, the most beloved, and perhaps, in spite of his many faults, the best of the French monarchs, was born at Pau, the capital of Beam, in 1553. His parents were Antoine de Bour- bon, Duke of Vendume, and, in right of his wife, ti- tular King of Navarre, and Jeanne d'Albret, the heiress of that kingdom. On the paternal side he traced his descent to Robert of Clermont, fifth son of Louis IX., and thus, on the failure of the elder branches, became heir to the crown of France. Educated by a Protestant mother in the Protestant faith, he was for many years the rallying point and leader of the Huguenots. In boyhood the Prince of Beam displayed sense and spirit above his years. Early inured to war, he was present and exhibited strong proofs of military talent at the battle of Jarnac, 446 HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. and that of Moncontour, both fought in 1569. In the same year he was declared chief of the Protestant League. The treaty of St. Germain, concluded in 1570, guaranteed to the Huguenots the civil rights for which they had been striving : and, in appear- ance, to cement the union of the two parties, a mar- riage was proposed between Henry, who, by the death of his mother, had just succeeded to the throne of Navarre, and Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX. This match brought Conde, Coligni, and all the leaders of their party, to Paris. The ceremony took place August 17, 1572. On the twenty-second, when the rejoicings were not yet ended, Coligni was fired at in the street, and wounded. Charles visited him, feigned deep sorrow, and promised to punish the assassin. On the night between the twenty-third and twenty- fourth, by express order of the Court, that atrocious scene of murder began, which history has devoted to execration, under the name of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. For three years afterwards Henry, who to save his life had conformed to the established religion, was kept as a kind of state-prisoner. He escaped in 1576, and put himself at the head of the Huguenot party. In the war which ensued, with the sagacity and fiery courage of the high-born general, he showed the indifference to hardships of the meanest soldier. Content with the worst fare and meanest lodging, in future times the magnificent monarch of France could recollect when his wardrobe could not furnish him with a change of linen. He shared all fortunes with his followers, and was rewarded by their unbounded devotion. Upon the extinction of the house of Valois, by the assassination of Henry III. in 1589, Henry of Na- varre became the rightful owner of the French throne. But his religion interfered with his claims. The League was strong in force against him : he had few HENRY IV. OP FRANCE. 447 friends, few fortresses, no money, and a small army. But his courage and activity made up for the scan- tiness of his resources. With five thousand men he withstood the Due de Mayenne, who was pursuing him with twenty-five thousand, and gained the battle of Arques, in spite of the disparity. This extraor- dinary result may probably be ascribed in great mea- sure to the contrast of personal character in the two generals. Mayenne was slow and indolent. Of Henry it was said, that he lost less time in bed than Mayenne lost at table ; and that he wore out very little broad-cloth, but a great deal of boot-leather. A person was once extolling the skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry's presence. " You are right," said Henry ; " he is a great captain, but I have always five hours' start of him." Henry got up at four in the morning, and Mayenne about ten. The buttle of Arques was fought in the year of his accession. In the following year, 1590, he gained a splendid victory at Ivri, over the Leaguers, com- manded by Mayenne, and a Spanish army superior in numbers. On this occasion he made that cele- brated speech to his soldiers before the battle : "If you lose sight of your standards, rally round my white plume : you will always find it in the path of honour and glory." Nor is his exclamation to his victorious troops less worthy of record : " Spare the French !" Paris was soon after blockaded ; and the hatred of the Leaguers displayed itself with increased violence, in proportion as the King showed himself more worthy of affection. A regiment of Priests and Monks, with cuirasses on their breasts, muskets and crucifixes in their hands, paraded the streets, and heightened the passions of the populace into frenzy. At this period of fanaticism, theologians were the most influential politicians, and the dictators of the public conscience. Accordingly the Sorbonne de- 448 HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. cided that Henry, as a relapsed and excommunicated heretic, could not be acknowledged, even although he should be absolved from the censures. The Parlia- ment swore on the Gospels, in the presence of the Legate and the Spanish Ambassador, to refuse all proposals of accommodation. The siege was pushed to such extremities, and the famine became so cruel, that bread was made of human bones ground to powder. That Henry did not then master the capital, where two hundred thousand men were maddened with want, was owing to his own lenity. He declared that he had rather lose Paris, than gain possession of it by the death of so many persons. He gave a free passage through his lines to all who were not soldiers, and allowed his own troops to send in refreshments to their friends. By this paternal kindness he lost the fruit of his labours to himself ; but he also pro- longed the civil war, and the calamities of the king- dom at large. The approach of the Duke of Parma with a Spanish army obliged Henry to raise the siege of Paris. It was not the policy of the Spanish court to render the Leaguers independent of its assistance, and the Duke, satisfied with having relieved the metropolis, avoided an engagement, and returned to his government in the Low Countries, followed by Henry as far as the frontiers of Picardy. In 1591 Henry received succours from England and Germany, and laid siege to Rouen ; but his prey was again snatched from him by the Duke of Parma. Again battle was offered and declined ; and the retiring army passed the Seine in the night on a bridge of boats : a retreat the more glorious, as Henry believed it to be impossible. The Duke once said of his adversary, that other generals made war like lions or wild boars; but that Henry hovered over it like an eagle. During the siege of Paris, some conferences had HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. 449 been held between the chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The Catholics of the King's party began to complain of his perse- verance in Calvinism ; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion, especially his confi- dential friend and minister Rosny, represented to him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in the 'Roman church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at St. Denys, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we cannot but suppose, the monarch's conver- sion was owing to political motives, the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human tribunal : politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most be- neficial steps ever taken towards the pacification and renewal of prosperity of a great kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at Chartres, and in 1594 Paris opened her gates to him. He had but just been received into the capital, where he was conspicuously manifesting his beneficence and zeal for the public good, when he was wounded in the throat by John Chatel, a young fanatic. When the assassin was questioned, he avowed the doctrine of tyrannicide, and quoted the sermons of the Jesuits in his justifi- cation. That society therefore was banished by the Parliament, and their librarian was executed on ac- count of some libels against the King, found in his own hand-w riting among his papers. For two years after his ostensible conversion, the King was obliged daily to perform the most humiliat- ing ceremonies, by way of penance ; and it was not till 1594 that he was absolved by Clement VIII. The Leaguers then had no further pretext for rebellion, and the League necessarily was dissolved. Its chiefs exacted high terms for their submission ; but the civil 450 HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. wars had so exhausted the kingdom, that tranquillity could not be too dearly purchased ; and Henry was faithful to all his promises, even after his authority was so firmly established, that he might have broken his word with safety to all but his own conscience and honour. Although the obligations which he had to discharge were most burdensome, he found means to relieve his people, and make his kingdom prosper. The Due de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and the Due de Mercceur in Britanny, were the last to protract an unavailing resistance ; but the former was reduced in 1596, and the latter in 1598, and thenceforth France enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace till Henry's death. But the Protestants gave him almost as much unea- siness as the Catholic Leaguers. He had granted liberty of conscience to the former ; a measure which was admitted to be necessary by the prudent even among the latter. Nevertheless, either from vexation at his having abjured their religion, from the violence of party zeal, or disgust at being no longer the objects of royal preference, the Calvinists preferred their de- mands in so seditious a tone, as stopped little short of a rebellious one. While on the road to Britanny, he determined to avoid greater evils by timely com- promise. The edict of Nantes was then promulgated, authorising the public exercise of their religion in several towns, granting them the right of holding offices, putting them in possession of certain places for eight years, as pledges for their security, and establishing salaries for their ministers. The clergy and preachers demurred, but to no purpose ; the Par- liament ceased to resist the arguments of the Prince, when he represented to them as magistrates, that the peace of the state and the prosperity of the church must be inseparable. At the same time he endea- roured to convince the bigots among the priesthood HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. 451 on both sides, that the love of country and the per- formance of civil and political duties may be com- pletely reconciled with difference of worship. But it would be unjust to attribute these enlight- ened views to Henry, without noticing that he had a friend as well as minister in Rosny, best known as the Due de Sully, who probably suggested many of his wisest measures, and at all events superintended their execution, and did his best to prevent or retrieve his sovereign's errors by uncompromising honesty of advice and remonstrance. The allurements of plea- sure were powerful over the enthusiastic and impas- sioned temperament of Henry : it was love that most frequently prevailed over the claims of duty. The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrees became the absolute mistress of his heart ; and he entertained hopes of obtaining permission from Rome to divorce Margaret de Yalois, from whom he had long lived in a state of separation. Had he succeeded time enough, he con- templated the dangerous project of marrying the fa- vourite ; but her death saved him both from the hazard and disgrace. It is not by anecdotes of his amours that we would be prone to illustrate the life of this remarkable sovereign ; but the following may deserve notice as highly characteristic. Shortly after the peace with Spain, concluded by the advantageous treaty of Vervins in 1598, Henry, on his return from hunting, in a plain dress, as was usual with him, and with only two or three persons about him, had to cross a ferry. He saw that the ferryman did not know him, and asked what people said about the peace. "Faith," said the man, " I know nothing about this fine peace ; everything is still taxed, even to this wretched boat, by which I can scarcely earn a livelihood." "Does not the King intend," said Henry, " to set all this taxation to rights?" " The King is good kind of man enough," answered the 452 HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. sturdy boatman ; " but be bas a mistress, who wants so many fine gowns, and so many trumpery trinkets, and we have to pay for all tbat. Besides, that is not the worst : if she were constant to him, we would not mind ; but people do say tbat the jade bas other gal- lants." Henry, much amused with this conversation, sent for tbe ferryman next day, and extorted from him all that be had said tbe evening before, in presence of the object of bis vituperation. The enraged lady in- sisted on his being handed forthwith. " How can you be such a fool ?" said the King ; " this poor devil is put out of humour only by his poverty : for the time to come, he shall pay no tax for bis boat, and then he will sing for the rest of his days, Vice Henri, vive Gabriclte." The King's passions were not buried in the grave of La Belle Gabrielle : she was succeeded by another mistress, Henrietta d'Entragues, a woman of an artful, intriguing, and ambitious spirit, who inflamed bis desires by refusals, until she extorted a promise of marriage. Henry showed this promise, ready signed, to Sully : tbe minister, in a noble fit of indignation, tore it to pieces. " I believe you are mad," cried the King, in a rage. " It may be so," answered Sully; " but I wish I was the only madman in France." The faithful counsellor was in momentary expectation of an angry dismissal from all bis appointments ; but his monarch's candour and justice, and long-tried friendship, prevailed over bis besetting weakness ; and as an additional token of bis favour, he conferred on Sully the office of Grand Master of the Ordnance. The sentence of divorce, so long solicited, was at length granted ; and the King married Mary de Medicis, who bore Louis XIII. to him in 1601. The match, however, contributed little to bis domestic happiness. While France was flourishing under a vigilant and HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. 453 [Marriage of Henry IV. and Nfary de Medici*, from the Picture by Kiibens] 454 HENRI; iv. OF FRANCE. paternal administration, while her strength was be- ginning to keep pace with her internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against the King. D'Entragues could not be his wife, but continued to be his mistress. She not only exasperated the Queen's peevish humour against him, but was ungrateful enough to combine with her father, the Count d'Au- vergne, and the Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely discovered. The criminals were arrested and condemned, but received a pardon. The Duke de Bouillon afterwards stirred up the Calvinists to take Sedan, but it was immediately restored. Spite of the many virtues and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could never pardon his former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was continually surrounded with traitors and assassins : almost every year pro- duced some attempt on his life, and he fell at last by the weapon of a misguided enthusiast. Meanwhile, from misplaced complaisance to the Pope, he recalled the Jesuits, contrary to the advice of Sully and the Parliament. Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians, to have disclosed a project for form- ing a Christian republic. The proposal is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed powers, none of which should be allowed to make any new acquisition, but should together form an association for maintaining a mutual balance, and preserving peace. This political reverie, impossible to be rea- lised, is not likely ever to have been actually divulged, even if meditated by Henry, nor is there any trace of it to be found in the history, or among the state-papers of England, Venice, or Holland, the supposed co- operators in the scheme. His more rational design in arming went no further than to set bounds to the am- bition and power of the house of Austria, both in Ger- many and Italy. His warlike preparations have, HENRY IV. OP FRANCE. 455 however, been ascribed to his prevailing weakness, in an infatuated passion for the Princess of Conde. Whatever may have been the motive, his means of success were imposing. He was to march into Ger- many at the head of forty thousand excellent troops. The army, provisions, and every other necessary were in readiness. Money no longer failed ; Sully had laid up forty millions of livres in the treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were already assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all seemed to forbode such a storm, as must probably have overwhelmed an emperor devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a king of Spain under the dominion of the inquisition. Henry was impatient to join his army ; but his mind had become harassed with sinister forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary alienation from his faith- ful ^linister. He was in his way to pay a visit of reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled as it passed along the street. His attendants left the carriage to remove the obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to the heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angoulfeme. This calamitous event took place on May 14, 1610, in the. fifty-seventh year of his age. The Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe, were supposed to have been the instigators ; but the fear of implicating other powers, and plunging France into greater evils than those from which their hero had rescued them, deterred not only statesmen, but even the judges on Ravaillac's trial, from pressing for the names of accomplices. Hardouin de Perefixe, in his History of Henry the Great, says, " If it be asked who inspired the monster with the thought? History answers that she does not know ; and that in so mys- terious an affair, it is not allowable to vent suspicions and conjectures as assured truths; that even the 456 HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. judges who conducted the examinations opened not their mouths, and spoke only with their shoulders." There were seven courtiers in the coach when the murder took place ; and the Marshal d'Estrees, in his History of the Regency of Mary de Medicis, says that the Duke d'Epernon and the Marquis de Verneuil were accused by a female servant of the latter, of having heen privy to the design ; but that, having failed to verify her charge before the Parliament, she was condemned to perpetual imprisonment between four walls. The circumstance that Ravaillac was of Angouleme, which was the Duke's government, gave some plausibility to the suspicion. It was further whispered, that the first blow was not mortal ; but that the Duke stooped to give facility to the assassin, and that he aimed a second which reached the King's heart. But these rumours passed off, without fixing any well-grounded and lasting imputation on that eminent person's character. The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight, discountenance the belief of an extended poli- tical conspiracy. The house of Austria, Mary de Medicis his wife, Henrietta d'Entragues his mistress, as well as the Duke d'Epernon, have been subjected to the hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other histo- rians ; but he who actually struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no accomplice, and that he was carried forward by an uncontrollable instinct. If his mind were at all acted on from without, it was pro- bably by the epidemic fanaticism of the times, rather than by personal influence. Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medicis. Of no prince recorded in history, probably, are so many personal anecdotes related, as of Henry IV. These are for the most part well known, and of easy access. The whole tenor of Henry's life exhibits a HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. 457 lofty, generous, and forgiving temper, the fearless spirit which loves the excitement of danger, and that suavity of feeling and manners, which, above all qua- lities, wins the affections of those who come within its sphere : it does not exhibit high moral or religious principle. But his weaknesses were those which the world most readily pardons, especially in a great man. If Henry had emulated the pure morals and fervent piety of his noble ancestor, Louis IX., he would have been a far better king, as well as a better man ; yet we doubt whether in that case, his memory would then have been cherished with such enthusiastic attach- ment by his countrvinen. VOL. I. 2 D 458 MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA was baptized October 9, 1547, at Alcald de Henares, a town of New Castile, not far from Madrid. The exact date of his birth does not appear ; and even the locality of it has been disputed by several towns, as the Grecian cities contended for the honour due to the birth-place of Homer. Sprung from noble, but not wealthy pa- rents, he was sent at an early age to the metropolis, to qualify himself for one or other of the only lucrative professions in Spain, the church, the law, or medi- cine; but his attention was diverted from this object by a strong propensity to writing verses. Juan Lopez de Hoyos, a teacher of some note, under whom he studied ancient and modern literature, thought Cer- vantes the most promising of his pupils ; and inserted an elegy, and other verses of his favourite's composi- tion in an account of the funeral of Queen Isabel, CERVANTES. 459 wife of Philip II., published in 1569. These, like the greater number of Cervantes' early poems, which are very numerous, do not rise above mediocrity ; though the author, who was a long time in discovering that his real talent lay in prose writing, seems to have thought otherwise. He was an indefatigable reader, and used to stop before the book-stalls in the street, perusing anything that attracted his attention. In this manner he gained that intimate knowledge of the old literature of his country, which is displayed in his works ; especially in the " Canto de Caliope," the " Escrutinio de la libreria de Don Quixote," and the " Viage al Parnaso." Thus he spent his time, reading and writing verses, seemingly needless of his future subsistence, until the pressure of want, and the ill success of his poetry, drove him to quit Spain, and seek his fortune elsewhere. He went to Rome, and entered the service of Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva; but soon after enlisted as a private in the armament which Pope Pius V. fitted out in 1570 for the relief of Cyprus, then attacked by the Turks. In 1571 he fought in the famous battle of Lepanto, when the combined squadrons of the Christian powers, com- manded by Don Juan of Austria, defeated and de- stroyed the Ottoman fleet. On that memorable day Cervantes received a gun-shot wound, which for life deprived him of the use of his left hand. Far how- ever from repining, the generous Spaniard always expressed his joyfulness at having purchased the honour of sharing in that victory at that price. The wounded were landed at Messina, and Cervantes among them. Having recovered his health, he en- listed in the troops of Naples, then subject to the crown of Spain. In 1575, as he was voyaging to Spain, the vessel was taken by corsairs ; and being carried to Algiers, Cervantes became a slave to Dali Mami, an Albanian renegade, notorious for cruelty. 460 CERVANTES. The high- spirited Spaniard bent all his energies to effect an escape ; and contrived to get out of the city of Algiers, and conceal himself in a cave by the sea- coast, near a garden belonging to a renegade, named Hassan, whose gardener and another slave were in the secret. He was there joined by several Christian prisoners ; and the party remained in the cave for several months, hoping that the opportune arrival of some vessel might deliver them from their anxious duress. At last a ransomed captive, a native of Ma- jorca and friend of Cervantes, left Algiers, and re- turning to his country, fitted out a vessel, with the intention of releasing his countrymen. He arrived off the coast in the night, and was on the point of landing near the entrance of the cave, when some Moors, who were passing by, spied him, and raised the alarm, on which the vessel stood out again to sea. One of Hassan's two servants next day went to the Dey, and, in hopes of a reward, informed him that fifteen Christians were concealed in the cave. They were immediately seized and loaded with chains. Cervantes, who appeared the leader, was closely ques- tioned by the Dey himself, whether he had any accom- plices in the city. He answered steadily, that the scheme had been planned and carried on by himself alone. After this examination, he was returned to his master. Nothing disheartened, he devised other means of escape, which likewise failed ; until at last he con- ceived the daring scheme of organising a general rising of the Christian slaves in Algiers, and taking forcible possession of the town. But by the cowardice of some of them, the plot was betrayed ; and Cervantes was again seized, and carried to the prison of the Dey, who declared that his capital and his ships were not safe " unless he kept himself a close watch over the crippled Spaniard." So earnest was he in this feeling, that he even purchased Cerventes from his CERVANTES. 461 master, and kept him confined in irons ; but he did not otherwise ill treat the prisoner, partly, perhaps, out of respect for so brave a man, partly in the hope of obtaining a high ransom for him. Father Haedo, in his " Topografia de Argel," gives an account of Cervantes' captivity, and of the repeated attempts which he made to escape. Meantime his widowed mother and his sister in Spain had not forgotten him, and they contrived, in the year 1579, to raise a sum of 300 ducats, which they delivered to two monks of the order of Trinity, or Mercy, who were proceeding to Algiers for the ransom of slaves. In 1580 they arrived, and treated with the Dey for Cervantes' ran- som, which, after an extravagant sum had been de- manded, was settled at 500 golden scudi. The good fathers made up the deficiency in the sum they had been intrusted with ; and at last, in September of that year, Cervantes found himself free. Early in the following year he returned to Spain. Having met nothing but misfortunes and disappointment in his endeavours to make his fortune in the world, he now determined to return to his literary pursuits. In 1584 he published his "Galatea," a pastoral novel. At the end of that year he married Dona Catalina Palacios de Salazar, a lady of ancient family, of the town of Esquivias. This marriage, however, does not seem to have much improved his fortune, for he began soon after to write for the stage as a means of sup- porting himself. In the next five years he composed between twenty and thirty plays, which were per- formed at Madrid, and, it would seem, most of them with success, A few are still remembered, namely, " Los Tratos de Argel," in which he describes the scenes of Algerine captivity ; " La Destruccion de Numancia," and " La Batalla Naval." He ceased to write for the stage about 1590, when Lope de Vega was rising into reputation. After this he lived se- 462 CERVANTES. veral years at Seville, where he had some wealthy relatives, and where he appears to have been employed as a commercial agent. He was at Seville in 1598, at the time when Philip II. died. The pompous pre- parations for the funeral, the gorgeous hearse and pall, and the bombastic admiration of the people of Seville at their own magnificence on the occasion, ex- cited the grave and sober Castilian's vein of irony, and he ridiculed the boastful Andalusians in a sonnet which became celebrated, and which begins Voto A Dios que me espanta esta grandeza. " I declare to God that all this magnificence quite over- whelms me," &c. He has also given an amusing account of the peculiar character, taste, and habits of the Sevillians in one of his tales, " Rinconete y Cortadillo," in which he describes the several classes of the inhabitants of that city, which is the second in Spain, and, in many respects, offers a strong contrast to Madrid. It was in one of his journeys between these two cities that he resided some time in the province of La Mancha, which he has rendered famous by his great work. He examined attentively both the country and the people ; he saw the cave of Montesinos, the Lagunas de Ruydera, the plain of Montiel, Puerto Lapice, the Batanas, and other places which he has described in Don Quixote. Being intrusted with some commis- sion or warrant for recovering certain arrears of tithe due from the village of Argamasilla to the Prior of St. John of Consuegra, he incurred the hostility of the villagers, who disputed his powers, and threw him into prison ; and he seems to have remained in confinement for some time, as during that period he imagined and sketched the first part of Don Quixote, as he himself has stated in the preface. He fixed upon this village of Argamasilla as the native place CERVANTES. 463 of his hero, without however mentioning its name, " which," he says at the beginning of the book, " I have no particular wish to remember." After this occurrence, we find Cervantes living with his family at Valladolid in 1604-5, while Philip III. and his court were residing there. There is a document among the records of the prison of that city, from which it appears that, in June, 1605, Cervantes was taken up on suspicion of being concerned in a night brawl which took place near his house, and in which a knight of Santiago was mortally wounded. The wounded man came to the house in which Cer- vantes lived, was helped up-stairs by one of the other lodgers whom he knew, assisted by Cervantes, who had come out at the noise. The magistrate arrested several of the inmates of the house, which contained five different families, living in as many sets of cham- bers on the different floors. From the examinations taken, it appears that Cervantes, his wife, and daugh- ter, his widowed sister and her daughter, his half sister, who was a monja, or domestic nun, and a female servant, occupied apartments on the first floor ; and that Cervantes was in the habit of being visited by several gentlemen, both on commercial business and on account of his literary merit. Cervantes was honourably acquitted ; as the wounded man, before he- died, acknowledged that he had received the fatal blow from an unknown stranger, who insolently ob- structed his passage, upon which they drew their swords. Soon afterwards, in 1605, the first part of Don Quixote appeared at Madrid, whither Cervantes probably removed after the court left Valladolid. It seems at once to have become popular ; for four edi- tions were published in the course of the year. But it was assailed with abuse by the fanatical admirers of tales of chivalry, by several dramatic and other poets unfavourably alluded to, and also by some of the par- 464 CERVANTES. tisans of Lope de Vega, \vho thought that Cervantes had not done justice to their idol. Cervantes did not publish anything for seven years after the appearance of the first part of Don Quixote. He seems to have spent this long period in studious retirement at Madrid : he had by this time given up all expectations of court favour or patronage, which it would appear that he at one time entertained. Philip III., although remarkably fond of Don Quixote, the perusal of which was one of the few things that could draw a smile from his melancholy countenance, was not a patron of literature, and he thought not of in- quiring after the circumstances of the writer who had afforded him some moments of innocent gratification. Cervantes, however, gained two friends among the powerful of the time, Don Pedro de Castro, Count de Lemos, and Don Bernardo de Sandoval, Archbishop of Toledo. To the first he was introduced by his friends, the two brothers and poets Argensola, who were attached to the household and enjoyed the con- fidence of the Count. In 1 610, when De Lemos went as Viceroy to Naples, Cervantes expected to go with him ; but he was disappointed ; and he attributed his failure to the coldness and neglect with which his application to that effect was treated by the Argen- solas. It is certain, however, that he received from the Count de Lemos some substantial marks of favour, and among them a pension for the remainder of his life. To this nobleman Cervantes dedicated the se- cond part of his Don Quixote, and other works, with strong expressions of gratitude. The Spanish bio- graphers say also that he received assistance in money from the Archbishop of Toledo. These benefactions, added to his wife's little property at Esquivias, and the remains of his own small patrimony, kept him above absolute want, though evidently in a state of penury. CERVANTES. 465 In 1613 he published his " Novelas Exemplares," or moral tales. They have always been much es- teemed, both for the purity of the language and for the descriptions of life and character which they contain. In 1614 Cervantes published his "Viage al Par- naso," in which he passes in review the poets of former ages, as well as his contemporaries, and dis- cusses their merits. While rendering justice to the Argensolas, he alludes to the above-mentioned disap- pointment which they had caused him. He com- plains of his own poverty with poetical exaggeration, and styles himself " the Adam of poets." He next sold eight of his plays to the bookseller VillaroEl, who printed them ; after observing, however, that Cer- vantes' prose was much better relished by the public than his poetry, a judgment which has been generally confirmed by critics. These plays were dedicated to the 'Count de Lemos, whom he tells that he was pre- paring to bring out Don Quixote armed and spurred once more. Cervantes had then nearly finished the second part of his immortal work ; but before he had time to send it to press there appeared a spurious continuation of the Don Quixote, the author of which, apparently an Aragonese, assumed the fictitious name of A veil an ed a. It was published at Tarragona, to- wards the end of 1614. It is very inferior in style to the original, which it strives to imitate. The writer was not only guilty of plagiarisms from the first part of Cervantes' work, already published, but he evi- dently pirated several incidents from the second part, which was still in MS., and to which, by some means or other, he must have found access. At the same time, he scruples not to lavish vulgar abuse on Cer- vantes, ridiculing him for the lameness which an honourable wound had entailed upon him, and for his other misfortunes. This disgraceful production was 466 CERVANTES. deservedly lashed by the injured author in the second part of Don Quixote, which was published in 1615, and received with universal applause. His fame now stood at the highest, and distinguished strangers ar- riving at Madrid were eager to be introduced to him. His pecuniary circumstances, however, remained at the same low ebb as before. The Count de Lemos, who was still at Naples, appears to have been his principal friend. In October, 1615, Cervantes felt the first attacks of dropsy. He bore the slow progress of this oppres- sive disease with his usual serenity of mind, and occupied himself in preparing for the press his last production, " Persiles y Sigismunda," an elegant imitation of Heliodorus's Ethiopian story. The last action of his life was to dictate the affecting dedication of this work to the Count de Lemos. He died with- out much struggle, April 23, 1616, in his sixty-ninth year. It is a singular coincidence, that Spain and England should have lost on the same day of the same year the peculiar glory of their national litera- ture : for this was the day upon which Shakspeare died. By his will he appointed his wife and a friend as his executors, and requested to be buried in the monastery of the Trinitarios, the good fathers who had released him from captivity. After the custom of pious Spaniards, he had inscribed himself as a brother of the third order of St. Francis, and in the dress of that order he was carried to his grave. No monument was raised to his memory. The house in which he died was in the Calle (or street) de Leon, where the Royal Asylum now stands. Cervantes' great work is too generally known to require criticism. It is one of those few productions which immortalize the literature and language to which they belong. The interest excited by such a work never dies, for it is interwoven with the very CERVANTES. 467 nature of man. The particular circumstances which led Cervantes to the conception of Don Quixote have long ceased to exist. Books of chivalry have been forgotten, and their influence has died away; but Quixotism, under some form or another, remains a characteristic of the human mind in all ages : man is still the dupe of fictions and of his own imagination, and it is for this, that, in reading the story of the aberrations of the Knight of La Mancha, and of the mishaps that befell him in his attempt to redress all the wrongs of the world, we cannot help applying the moral of the tale to incidents that pass every day be- fore our own eyes, and to trace similarities between Cervantes' hero and some of our living acquaintances. The contrast between the lofty, spiritual, single- minded knight, and his credulous, simple, yet shrewd, and earth-seeking squire, is an unfailing source of amusement to the reader. It has been disputed which of the two characters, Don Quixote or Sancho, is most skilfully drawn, and best supported through the story. They are both excellent, both suited to each other. The contrast also between the style of the work and the object of it, affords another rich vein of mirth. Cervantes' object was to extirpate by ridicule the whole race of turgid and servile imitators of the older chivalrous tales ; which had become a real nuisance in his time, and exercised a very pernicious effect on the minds and taste of the Spaniards. The perusal of those extravagant compositions was the chief pas- time of people of every condition ; and even clever men acknowledged that they had wasted whole years in this unprofitable occupation, which had spoiled their taste and perverted their imaginations so much, that they could not for a long time after take up a book of real history or science without a feeling of weariness. Cervantes was well acquainted with the 468 CERVANTES. nature and the effects of the disease : he had himself employed much time in such pursuits, and he resolved tu prepare a remedy for the public mind. That his example has been taken as a precedent by vulgar and grovelling persons, for the purpose of ridiculing all elevation of sentiment, all enthusiasm and sense of honour, forms no just ground of censure on Cervantes, who waged war against that which was false and im- probable, and not against that which is noble and natural in the human mind. Nature and truth have their sublimity, which Cervantes understood and re- spected. The best Spanish editions of Don Quixote are that of the Spanish Academy, in four vols. 4to., 1788 ; the edition by Don Juan Antonio Pellicer, with a good life of Cervantes, five vols. 8vo., 1798; and the edition by Don Martin F. de Navarrete, five vols. 8vo., 1819. The edition published by the Rev. J. Bowie, six vo- lumes in three, 4to. London, 1781, contains a valuable commentary, explanatory of idioms, proverbs, &c. Of the English translations, the oldest by Skelton is still much esteemed ; there are also versions by Mot- teux, Jarvis, and Smollet. A new translation was made for the splendid London edition of 1818, four vols. 4to., enriched with engravings from pictures by Smirke. Le Sage translated Don Quixote into French ; but with omissions and interpolations which render this a very unfaithful version. Next to Don Quixote, Cervantes' best works are his 'Novclas.' They have been translated into Eng- lish. The language of Cervantes is pure Castilian, and is esteemed by learned Spaniards to be one of the best models for prose composition. Don Agustin Garcia de Arrieta published, in 1814, an inedited comic novel of Cervantes, styled ' La Tia Fingida,' or ' The Feigned Aunt,' to which he added CERVANTES. 409 a dissertation on the spirit of Cervantes and his works. The best biographers of Cervantes are Pellicer and Navarrete, already mentioned. [Don Quixote and Sunclio Punza. From one of a sciii-s of designs by Vanderbanck ] VOL. I. 2fi 470 THE materials which we possess for the biography of Shakspeare are very unsatisfactory. The earliest life is that by the poet Rowe, who, as if aware of its scan- tiness, merely entitles it ' Some Account.' It contains what little the author could collect, when no sources of information were left open but the floating traditions of the theatre after the lapse of nearly a century. Mr. Malone prefixed a new life to his edition, extending to above 500 pages ; but he only brings his author to London, and as to his professional progress, adds no- thing to Rowe's meagre tale, except some particles of information previously communicated in notes by himself and Steevens. William Shakspeare was born at Stratford-upon- Avon in Warwickshire, April 23, 1564. He was one of ten children. His father was a dealer in wool, as it is generally^saidjbut, according to Malone, a glover, SHAKSPEARE. 471 and alderman in the corporation of Stratford. Our great poet received such education as the lower forms of the Grammar School at Stratford could give him ; hut he was removed from that establishment at an early age, to serve as clerk in a country attorney's office. This anecdote of his boyhood receives confirm- ation from the frequent recurrence of technical law- phrases in his plays ; and it has been remarked that he derives none of his allusions from other learned professions. Before he was eighteen years of age he contracted a marriage with Anne Hathaway, a woman some years older than himself, and the daughter of a substantial yeoman in his own neighbourhood. He went to London about 1586, when he was but twenty- two years of age, being obliged, as the common story goes, to fly the country, in consequence of being de- tected in deer-stealing. This tale is thought to be confirmed by the ridicule cast on his supposed prose- cutof, Sir Thomas Lucy, in the character of Justice Shallow, pointed as it is by the commendation of the "dozen white luces as a good coat." But as this is the only lawless action which tradition has imputed to one of the most amiable and inoffensive of men, we may perhaps esteem the tale to be the mere gossip of the tiring-room : indeed, Malone has adduced several arguments to prove that it cannot be correctly told. It is not necessary to suppose that Shakspeare was compelled to fly his native town because he came to the metropolis ; his emigration is sufficiently accounted for by his father's falling into distressed circumstances, and being obliged in this very year, 1586, to resign his alderman's gown on that account. Another tradi- tional anecdote, that Shakspeare's first employment was to wait at the play-house door, and hold the horses of those who had no servants, is discredited by Mr. Steevens, who says, " That it was once the general custom to ride on horseback to the play I am yet to 2*2 472 SHAKSPEARE. learn. The most popular of the theatres were on the Banksicle; and we are told by the satirical pam- phleteers of that time that the usual mode of convey- ance to those places of amusement was by water ; but not a single writer so much as hints at the custom of riding to them, or at the practice of having horses held during the hours of exhibition. Let it be remembered, too, that \ve receive this tale on no higher authority than that of Gibber's ' Lives of the Poets.' " Nothing is authentically proved with respect to Shakspeare's introduction to the stage. His first play is dated by Malone in 1589, three years after the time assigned for the author's arrival in London. It ap- pears, from the dedication to ' Venus and Adonis,' published in 1593, in which he calls that poem "the first heir of his invention," that his earliest essays were not in dramatic composition. The * Lucrece,' published in 1594, and the collection of sonnets, en- titled the 'Passionate Pilgrim,' published in 1599, also belong to an early period of his poetical life. The * Lover's Complaint,' and a larger collection of son- nets, were printed in 1609. It may be conjectured that he was led to write for the stage in consequence of the advice and introduction of Thomas Green, an eminent comedian of the day, who was his townsman, if not his relation. Shakspeare trod the boards him- self, but he never rose to eminence as an actor ; it is recorded that the Ghost in ' Hamlet ' was his master- piece. But the instructions to the players in ' Ham- let ' exhibit a clear and delicate perception of what an actor ought to be, however incompetent the writer might be to furnish the example in his own person. The extent of Shakspeare's learning has been much controverted. Dr. Johnson speaks of it thus : " It is most likely that he had learned Latin sufficiently to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy perusal of the Roman au- SHAKSPEARE. 473 thors. Concerning his skill in modern languages, I can find no sufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations of French or Italian authors have been discovered, though the Italian poetry was then high in esteem, I am inclined to believe that he read little more than English, and chose for his fables only such tales as he found translated." Other writers have contended that he must have been acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics : but Dr. Farmer, in his * Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare,' has accounted in a very satisfactory manner for the frequent allusions to the facts and fables of antiquity to be met with in Shakspearc's writings, without supposing that he read the classic authors in their original languages. The supposition indeed is at variance with his whole his- tory. Dr. Farmer has particularly specified the Eng- lish translations of the classics then extant, and con- cludes, on the whole, that the studies of Shakspeare were' confined to nature and his own language. The merit of Shakspeare did not escape the notice of Queen Elizabeth. He evinced his gratitude for her patronage in that beautiful passage in the ' Mid- summer Night's Dream,' where he speaks of her as " a fair vestal, throned in the west." Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, is the relater of an anecdote which shows the continuance of high favour to our author. It is expressed in these words : that " the most learned prince and great patron of learning, King James I., was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter to Mr. Shakspeare ;" and Dr. Farmer supposes, with apparent probability, that this honour was conferred in return for the com- pliment paid to the monarch in ' Macbeth.' Shak- speare also possessed the esteem of, and was admitted to familiar intercourse with, the accomplished Earls of Southampton and Essex ; and enjoyed the friendship of his great contemporary Ben Jonson. 474 SHAKSPEARE. Of the poet's career before the London public no- thing authentic has come down to us ; and perhaps, if more were known, it might not be worth recording. But his retirement in 1611 or 1612, about four years before his death, though it affords no story, furnishes a pleasing reflection. He had left his native place, poor and almost unknown : he returned to it, not rich, but with a competence and an unblemished character. His good-natured wit made him a welcome member of private society when he no longer set the theatre in a roar ; and he ended his days in habits of intimacy, and in some cases in the bonds of friendship, with the leading gentlemen of the neighbourhood. He died on his birth-day, April 23, 1616, when he had completed his fifty-second year. If we look merely at the state in which he left his productions, we should be apt to conclude that he was insensible of their value. To quote the words of Dr. Johnson, "It does not appear that Shakspeare thought his works worthy of posterity ; that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had any further prospect than that of present popu- larity and present profit." But the imperfect form in which they came before the public is not necessa- rily to be accounted for by this extravagance of hu- mility. It is clear that any publication of his plays by himself would have interfered at first with his own interest, and afterwards with the interest of those to whom he made over his share in them ; besides which, such was the revulsion of the public taste, that the publication of his works by Hemings and Condell was accounted a doubtful speculation. For several years after his death the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were more frequently acted than those of Shakspeare ; and the beautiful works of the joint dramatists after- wards gave place to the rhyming rhapsodies of Dryden and the bombast of Lee. Garrick brought back the public to Shakspeare and every-day nature ; Kemble SHAKSPEARE. 475 exhibited him in the more refined dress of classical taste and philosophy. Mr. Malone has observed, that our author's prose compositions, should they be discovered, would ex- hibit the same perspicuity, the same cadence, the same elegance and vigour, which we find in his plays. In 1751, an attempt was made to impose on the public by a book entitled ' A Compendious or Brief Examination of certayne Ordinary Complaints of divers of our Countrymen in these our Days, &c., by William Shakspeare, Gentleman ;' the signature to which, in the original edition of 1581, was "W. S., Gent. ;" and Dr. Farmer has clearly proved the ini- tials to mean "William Stafford, Gent." Another and more impudent forgery was attempted by Ireland, who published in 1795 a volume, entitled 'Shak- speare's Manuscripts.' The fraud met with partial success, and the tragedy of ' Vortigern ' was performed as one of Shakspeare' s, to the great disgust, it is said, of John Kemble, who had to act in it much against his will. Malone exposed the imposition in 1796, and Ireland himself ultimately acknowledged it. With respect to the probable character of Shakspeare's prose compositions, it is needless to speculate on it, as we have no reason to believe that he ever wrote any prose, except for the stage. Some interesting criticisms of Mrs. Siddons on the chief female characters of Shakspeare will be found in the life of that eminent actress in this work. We may here introduce another observation of hers on Constance in ' King John.' She said that the intui- tion of Shakspeare in delineating that character struck her as all but supernatural : she could scarcely con- ceive the possibility of any man possessing himself so thoroughly with the most intense and most inward feelings of the other sex : had Shakspeare been a wo- 476 SHAKSPEARE. man and a mother, he must have felt neither less nor more than as he wrote. The two first folio editions are in great request among book-collectors, and, owing to their scarcity, fetch high prices at auctions. They have nothing to recommend them either as to accuracy or elegance of typography, but are really valuable for the various readings which they contain. The best modern edi- tions are those of Johnson and Steevens, and Malone. The last edition is the posthumous one of Malone, edited by Boswell, and little room is left for any farther elucidation of our great dramatist, as far as verbal criticism is concerned. But for the higher branches of criticism, the works of such a poet are as inexhaustible as those of Homer ; and if his fame be equally immortal, its fate is more singular. However ardent may be the admiration of Homer on the part of modern scholars, and however profound their in- vestigation of his merit?, far from pretending to dis- coveries unknown to the Grecian critics and philo- sophers, they support their own views by constant references to the ancients ; but Shakspeare has found his most elaborate, and, with certain drawbacks, his best critics, among foreigners. In England Shak- speare is the idol of those who read either for the amusement of the imagination, or as students, not of poetical or metaphysical, but of every-day nature; and his English editors have rather criticised down to the level of such readers, than aimed at ripening their taste, or elevating their conceptions. We find emi- nent men among them, such as Pope, Warburton, and Johnson, yet none well qualified to perform the highest functions of a commentator. Johnson's pre- face is highly valued for the justness of his general criticism, and his vindication of the poet on the score of the unities is triumphantly conclusive. But his SHAKSPEARE. 477 remarks at the end of each play are so jejune and su- perficial, that, short as they are, no reader perhaps ever wished them longer. One cannot help wonder- ing that the acute, and in many instances profound, though sometimes partial, critic of Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Gray, should have skimmed so lightly over the surface of Shakspeare. Not so his German translators and critics. No sooner did the Germans take up the study of English literature, than they selected Shakspeare on whom to try their powers; and they are thought to have dived deeper into his mind than have his own countrymen, with their ap- parently better opportunities. Nor is this wonderful ; for they have regarded the poet not merely as the minister of amusement to an admiring audience, but as a metaphysical philosopher of Nature's forming, possessed of deepest insight into the complex mo- tive^ which move the hearts and stimulate the actions of mankind; and seeking with a reverent attention to trace the workings of the maker's mind (for in this instance there is a peculiar propriety in translating the Greek word poefy, they have succeeded in furnishing profound and satisfactory explanations of much that less intellectual critics hud treated as instances of the author's irregular and capricious genius. In this, as in other branches of German literature, Goethe stands pre-eminent; and the translation of his 'Wilhelm Meister ' has placed within the reach of all readers a series of original and masterly criticisms, especially on that stumbling-block of commentators, the cha- racter of Hamlet. We may quote as a specimen his exposition of the principle upon which the anomalies of the Prince of Denmark's conduct arc to be solved. " It is clear to me that Shakspeare's intention was to exhibit the effects of a great action, imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its accomplishment. In this case I find the character consistent throughout. 2E3 478 SHAKSPEARE. Here is an oak-tree planted in a china vase, proper only to receive the most delicate flowers. The roots strike out and the vessel flies to pieces. A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but without that energy of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under a load which it can neither support nor endure to abandon altogether. All his obligations are sacred to him ; but this alone is above his powers ! An im- possibility is required at his hands ; not an impossi- bility in itself, but that which is so to him. Observe, how he turns, shifts, hesitates, advances, and recedes; how he is continually reminded and reminding himself of his real commission, which he nevertheless in the end seems almost entirely to lose sight of, and this without ever recovering his former tranquillity !" How different this from the praise of variety allowed to this tragedy by Johnson, to "the pretended madness, causing mirth," without any adequate cause for feign- ing it, and the objection that through the whole piece he is " rather an instrument than an agent !" Malone's " attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays of Shakspeare were written " occupies 1 80 pages. Where so many words are necessary, the ar- rangement to be justified may not be very certain ; but that of Malone is generally received. It runs thus: The First Part of King Henry VI., 1589. Second and Third Parts, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1591. Comedy of Errors, 1592. King Richard II. and III., 1593. Love's Labour's Lost, Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream, 1594. Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, King John, 1596. First Part of King Henry IV., 1597. Second Part, All's well that ends well, 1598. King Henry V., As You like it, 1 599. Much Ado about Nothing,*Hamlet, 1600. Merry Wives of Windsor, 1601. Troilus and Cressida, 1602. Measure for Measure, King Henry VIII., 1603. Othello, 1604. King Lear, 1605. SHAKSPEARE. 479 Macbeth, 1606. Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, 1607. Antony and Cleopatra, 1608. Cymbeline, 1609. Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, 1610. Winter's Tale, 1611. Tempest, 1612. Except the placing the his- torical plays in separate succession, the order of Malone's edition follows the above dates. Previous editions arranged the plays as comedies, histories, and tragedies, beginning with the Tempest, the last written, and ending with Othello. We must add to the list of plays ascribed to Shakspeare, and included in the edi- tions of his works, Pericles and Titus Andronicus, which are now acknowledged not to be the composi- tion of Shakspeare, though perhaps retouched by him. The Yorkshire Tragedy, Lord Cromwell, and others, have still less right to bear the honour of his name. [$h;iksl>eare's Mimumunt at Striitford-upou-Avuu.J 4SO JACQUES AUGUSTE DE THOU, whom it is no exagge- rated praise to call the greatest writer of contempo- rary history that has appeared since the extinction of Roman literature, was descended of a noble family of the Orleanois ; and his immediate ancestors for three generations had filled with honour the higher legal offices of the realm. He was born in Paris, October 9, 1553. His temper was naturally studious; but the extreme weakness of his childhood interfered greatly with the early cultivation of his mind, and almost incapacitated him for severe application. He re- ceived, however, the best instruction which Paris could afford, until 1570, when he went to the Univer- sity of Orleans to study law. Thence he removed to Valence in Dauphiny, to attend the lectures of the celebrated civilian Cujas. De Thou returned to Paris in 1572, and, meaning to take orders, applied himself principally to the study DE THOU. 481 of Greek and of the canon law. In the next year he visited Italy in the train of Paul de Foix, ambassador of France to the Pope and other Italian sovereigns, and employed himself diligently and profitably in cultivating the acquaintance of learned men, and in collecting materials for his history, the design of which he had already conceived. He returned to Paris in 1575, and during four years applied himself chiefly to study, taking various occasions to extend his travels into Flanders and Germany. In 1578 he was appointed Conseiller-clerc to the parliament of Paris, and in 1581, one of a commission sent into Guienne, to provide for the better administration of justice, which had been greatly impeded by religious dissension. Returning to Paris in November, 1 582, immediately after the decease of his father, and having become the head of his family by the death of two elder brothers, he determined to abandon the ecclesiastical profession, and exchanged. his place of Conseiller-clerc for the lay appointment of Maitre des Requetes. In 1586 he obtained the reversion of the office of President a Mortier, held by his uncle Au- gustin de Thou ; and, having obtained a dispensation from the ecclesiastical engagements which he had contracted, he married, in 1587, Maria de Barbanson. When the Parisians embraced the party of the League, in 1588, and Henry III. was obliged to quit the capita], De Thou followed the person and fortunes of the monarch, and received a commission to travel through Normandy and Picardy, to sound the inten- tions, and, if possible, to secure the adherence, of the authorities, civil and military, of those provinces. His services were rewarded by the dignity of Con- seiller d'Etat. In the autumn he was present at the convention of the States at Blois ; but he returned to Paris before the murder of the Duke of Guise. He was not informed of the intention to commit that 482 DE THOU. crime ; and he believed, from certain peculiarities of behaviour, that the king had sent for him expressly to communicate that intention, but had changed his mind during the course of the interview. In the tumults which took place on the arrival of the news at Paris, De Thou's life was in considerable danger, until he effected his escape under the disguise of a soldier, and returned to Blois. De Thou laboured to induce Henry III. to reconcile himself sincerely to the King of Navarre ; and, being engaged in a journey to raise supplies of men and money in Germany and Italy when the former was assassinated, he returned with all haste to tender his allegiance to the new monarch, Henry IV., by whom he was favourably received, and employed in the most important and confidential negotiations. Of this period of his life, and of its ill requital, he has spoken with considerable bitterness in a letter, dated March 31, 1611, to his friend the President Jeannin, and written, it is to be observed, in a moment of considerable mortification, because his claims to the office of First President had been passed over in favour of M. de Verdun. " I remained," he says, " after returning from Italy, in Henry IV. 's camp for five years, except when commissioned to repair to Tours, where the Parliament was then held, or to visit other parts of the kingdom upon business. At last, after the king was crowned at Chartres, and the surrender of Paris, being restored to my library and my home, I thought myself sufficiently repaid for my labours, in enjoying, with a sound conscience and unstained fidelity to my sovereign, the benefits of the peace, expecting that the king would do something for me, in remembrance of those five years of service in the camp, during which I hardly quitted his side. Throughout that time I was in the greatest need of all things, being deprived of all my means by the war, DE THOU. 483 and having served the whole time at my own cost, without pay or fee. And the king himself used to say that I was very different from other men, inas- much as I, though a constant loser, made no com- plaints, while others, who were every day profiting by the public misfortunes, used diligently to complain of their own losses. Which in truth was complimentary enough ; but this praise was my only payment for past labours ; for the king's temper changed with his fortune, and I learnt, at my own expense, how fleeting is the favour of princes, and how ready they are in prosperity to forget past sufferings, arid to take the mention of them by their fellow- sufferers as a re- proach." " For two years," he contiues, " nothing was said of me, until the Protestants again made inconvenient demands, and I was selected by the king with full povyers to hear their complaints." These were the disputes which were terminated, in 1598, by the pub- lication of the celebrated Edict of Nantes. De Thou was very reluctant to undertake this office, foreseeing that it would involve him in great odium. Nor was he mistaken in this respect. He was a zealous advo- cate of toleration ; and his liberality of spirit, mani- fested upon this and on other occasions, but most of all in the unsparing impartiality of his History, placed him, though a Catholic, in bad odour at the court of Rome, by whose influence with the Queen Regent, after the death of Henry IV., he was frustrated ia the chief object of his ambition, that of succeeding to the office of First President of the Parliament of Paris, which became vacant in 1611. To that of President a Mortier he had succeeded in 1595, by his uncle's death. He was deeply mortified at this slight, and and meditated the resignation of all his offices : and he has strongly expressed his sense of the weight of his claims, and of the injury done to him by thus 484 T)E THOU. overlooking them, in the letter to the President Jean-" nin, part of which \ve have just quoted. The first suggestion of pique, however, was overruled by his friends. He was appointed one of the directors-ge- neral of finance, after the death of Henry IV., and consequent resignation of Sully, in 1610, and was consulted by the Regent in almost all matters of deli- cacy and importance. His leisure moments during these latter years were devoted to his History, which he did not live to bring down to its intended point of conclusion, the death of Henry IV. He died May 7, 1617, leaving three sons and three daughters by a second marriage : his first wife, childless, died in 1601. The eldest of these, Francois Auguste de Thon, is known in history by having suffered death with Cinq-Mars, in the reign of Louis XIII., for an alleged conspiracy against the state, the real object of which was the overthrow of Cardinal Richelieu. In 1593 De Thou was appointed principal libra- rian to Henry IV. ; and by his advice the valuable library of Catherine de' Medici was purchased, and the foundation was laid of that splendour and import- ance which the Bibliotheque du Roi has since at- tained. He had himself brought together a very excellent library, a large part of which has since passed into the royal collection. He was a steady friend and favourer of learning and learned men ; a zealous, faithful, and disinterested subject; an able statesman ; an upright and enlightened magistrate : and his life, both in public and private, displayed the same undeviating integrity and love of truth, which especially distinguish him as an historian. Ue Thou began to write his great work, the His- tory of his own Times, in 1591: but, as has been already stated, he had been engaged from early youth in collecting materials for it, and his own description of the pains which he bestowed on the task will con- HE THOU. 485 vey the best idea of his zeal and industry. We quote again from the letter to the President Jeannin : " Having always received great pleasure from the perusal of history, and being of opinion that men are to be formed for happiness by examples, as well as precepts, I came to the conclusion, that by under- taking a history of my own time, beginning Avhere Paulus Jovius left off, I should do what would be useful to my country, and honourable to myself. Re- solute in this purpose, even from boyhood, I laboured afterwards, in my travels, at the bar, in embassies, in the employments of war and peace, for this one object, that when leisure came for the execution of it, I might have all things necessary to my purpose pro- vided. All printed histories I purchased, imprinted ones I procured to be copied, I consulted the notes of military commanders, the records of embassies, the papers of secretaries to kings. I also acquired a great deal of knowledge from the confidential conversations of illustrious men who were my seniors, and weighed, by their judgment and candour, the contradictory reports of party spirit. Thus prepared, I began to compose my History, while the civil war still raged ; and I call on God, who gave me strength and under- standing to complete a work of such magnitude, amidst such troubles and employments, to witness my entire and uncorrupted honesty, unswayed either by fear or favour, and that I had no other end in view but the glory of God, and the benefit of the public. In style, eloquence, perspicuity, depth of thought, I confess myself inferior to many : in good faith and diligence I yield to none who have preceded me in this kind of composition ; and I refer this point to the judgment of posterity." He proceeds to speak of his full knowledge that the tenor of the book would involve him in broils and danger, and expresses a wish that he could have published it anonymously. 486 DE THOU. But he was prepared, he adds, to sacrifice court fa- vour, fortune, and his good name with the public, rather than, by an excess of prudence, throw a shade of discredit upon a work which he had composed with such lofty ends, and with so great labour. He was not wrong in his anticipations. It was impossible honestly to write the history of the stormy and profli- gate times in which he lived, without saying much that would shock religious zeal, offend party spirit, and raise up bitter enemies in those whose misdeeds were openly and unsparingly brought to light and condemned. De Thou, himself a Catholic, recognised the existence of virtue and talent among the Re- formers, and exposed the selfish schemes and atro- cious cruelties, which had been formed and exercised under the cloak of maintaining true religion. This was enough to bring on him the hatred of those who still clung to the principles of the League, and the enmity of the court of Rome, which in 1609 placed his His- tory in the list of forbidden books, and, as has been said, exerted its influence with success in 1611 to prevent his promotion. In a Latin epitaph, which he composed for his own tomb, after a solemn declaration of his orthodoxy, he demands, as the only favour which he has to ask of men, to be more kindly treated by them after his death than he had been before it. Posterity at least has responded to the appeal, and, by its admiration of the very qualities which involved him in his mortifications, has done him ample justice for the jealousy of Rome, and for the lukewarmness of the master whom he had well served through bad and good fortune. The History is written in Latin : the style is good, but it is disfigured by the affectation not only of La- tinising names, but of expressing modern offices by classical phrases, which of necessity bear a very forced, or no analogy to the things which they are tortured to BE THOU. 487 denote. For instance, it would be difficult to recog- nise the Constable of France under the title Magister Equitum. This makes the assistance of an explana- tory dictionary very requisite, and such a one was published by Jacques Dupuy in 1634, under the title, Index Thuani. The History is comprised in 138, or, as divided in some editions, into 143 books ; and, in the London edition of 1733, fills six ponderous folios. In the relation of foreign affairs, De Thou's authority is less valuable, for it is stated that he received with little examination the accounts which were trans- mitted to him from abroad : but for the history of Fiance during the sixteenth century, his work is the standard authority on which later writers have relied. The best and wisest men of all parties have joined, since his death, in according to him the praise of strict integrity and impartiality, a generosity of temper which scorned to suppress or pervert the truth, and great diligence, as well as unusual opportunities, in ascertaining the real course of events. It is not meant to claim for him an entire exemption from the errors of limited information, or the faults of temper and prejudice : defects such as these are incident to all human productions. It is to be observed that the heaviest charges against him on this head have been made by those who were of his own religion. The first portion of this work was published in 1604, comprising the first eighteen books, with the letter to Henry IV., which serves as a preface. This, which was translated into French, and published se- parately, has obtained great admiration, as one of the finest specimens extant of this branch of composition. De Thou published the remainder at different times, and superintended several editions. Prudential con- siderations induced him to make some changes and suppressions, but upon his death-bed he intrusted a perfect manuscript copy to his friends Peter Dupuy 488 DE THOU. and Rigault, with injunctions to publish it. The passages expunged hy De Thou himself were subse- quently collected and published in Holland, under the title, Thuanus Restitutus. But the most com- plete edition is that of London, 1733, from the collec- tions and papers of Carte the historian, which were purchased for that purpose by Dr. Mead. This con- sists of six splendid folio volumes, with a seventh, containing De Thou's autobiography, and a variety of supplementary pieces. The Eloges of learned men, to the number of 400 and upwards, contained in the History, were extracted and published in a body by Antoine Teissier. The whole has been translated into French. A doubt has been expressed whether the Latin memoirs, which profess to be written by DC Thou, proceed from his own pen or from that of Rigault. They are translated into French, and printed by them- selves. They are interspersed with many pieces in Latin verse, which De Thou took pleasure in com- posing, and wrote with elegance. He composed a poem on Hawking, entitled Hieracosophion, and translated the Book of Job, and several portions of the Prophecies. The gleanings of his conversation, extant under the title Thuana, are scarcely worthy of his high reputation. 489 VERY little is known concerning the youth of Sir Walter .Raleigh. He was a younger son, descended of an ancient family, and was born at a farm called Hayes, near the mouth of the river Otter, in Devon- shire, in the year 1552. He went to Oriel College, Oxford, at an early age, and gained high praise for the quickness and precocity of his talents. In 1569 he began his military career in the civil wars of France, as a volunteer in the Protestant cause. It is conjectured that he remained in France for more than six years, and returned to England in 1576. Soon after, he repaired to the Netherlands, and served as a volunteer against the Spaniards. In such schools, and under such leaders as Coligni and the Prince of Orange, Raleigh's natural aptitude for political and military science received the best nurture : but he was soon drawn from the war in Holland by a pur- 490 RALKIGH. suit which had captivated his imagination from an early age the prosecution of discovery in the New World. In conjunction with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a man of courage and ability, and a skilful sailor, he made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a colony in North America. Returning home in 15*79, he immediately entered the Queen's army in Ireland, and served with good esteem for personal courage and professional skill, until the sup- pression of the rebellion in that country. He owed his introduction to court, and the personal favour of Elizabeth, as is traditionally reported, to a fortunate and well-improved accident, which is too familiar to need repetition here. It is probable, however, that his name and talents were not unknown, for we find him employed almost immediately in certain matters of diplomacy. Among the cares and pleasures of a courtier's life, Raleigh preserved his zeal for American discovery. He applied his own resources to the fitting out ano- ther expedition in 1 583, under command of Sir Hum- phrey Gilbert, which proved more unfortunate than the former one : two out of five vessels returned home in consequence of sickness, and two were wrecked, including that in which the admiral sailed; and the only result of the enterprise was tbe taking possession of Newfoundland in the name of England. Still Ra- leigh's desire for American adventure was not damped. The Continent northward of the Gulf of Florida was at this time unknown. But Raleigh, upon careful study of the best authorities, had concluded that there was good reason for believing that a considerable tract of land did exist in that quarter ; and with the assent of the Queen in council, from whom he obtained letters patent, granting to himself and his heirs, under cer- tain reservations, property in such countries as he should discover, with a right to provide for their pro- RAI.EIGH. 491 tection and administration, he fitted out two ships, which sailed in April, 1584. The first land which they made was an island named Okakoke, running parallel to the coast of North Carolina. They were well received by the natives, and returned to England in the following autumn highly pleased. Nor was less satisfaction felt by Raleigh, or even by the Queen, who conferred on him the honour of knighthood, a title which was then in high esteem, inasmuch as it was bestowed by that wise princess with a most frugal and just discrimination. She also gave him a very lucrative mark of favour, in the shape of a patent for licensing the selling of wine throughout the king- dom ; and she directed that the new country, in allu- sion to herself, should be called Virginia. Raleigh did not think it politic, perhaps was not allowed, to quit the court to take charge in person of his under- taking ; and those to whom he intrusted the difficult tqsk of directing the infant colony appear to have been unequal to their office. It is not necessary to pursue the history of an enterprise which proved un- successful, and in which Sir Walter personally bore no share. He showed his earnestness by fitting out several expeditions, which must have been a heavy drain upon his fortune. But he is said to have de- rived immense wealth from prizes captured from the Spaniards ; and we may here observe that the lavish magnificence in dress, especially in jewels, for which Raleigh was remarkable, even in the gorgeous court of Elizabeth (his state dress is said to have been en- riched with jewels to the value of 60,000), may be considered less as an extravagance, than as a safe and portable investment of treasure. A mind less active might have found employment more than enough in the variety of occupations which pressed upon it at home. He possessed a large estate, granted out of forfeited lands in Ireland ; but this was always a source rather 492 RALEIGH. of expense than of profit, until, in 1601, he sold it to the Earl of Cork. He was Seneschal of the Duchies of Cornwall and Exeter, and held the wardenship of the Stannaries ; and in 1586, as well as formerly in 1584, we find that he possessed a seat in parliament. In 1587, the formidable preparation of the Spanish Armada withdrew the mind of Raleigh, as of all Eng- lishmen, from objects of minor importance, to the defence of their country. He was a member of the council of war directed to prepare a general scheme of defence, and held the office of Lieutenant-General of Cornwall, in addition to the charge of the Isle of Port- land : but as on this occasion he possessed no naval command, he was not actively engaged in the destruc- tion of that mighty armament. In 1589 he served as a volunteer in the expedition of Norris and Drake to Portugal, of which some account has been given in the life of the latter. Nor were his labours unre- warded even in that unfortunate enterprise; for he captured several prizes, and received the present of a gold chain from the Queen, in testimony of her appro- bation of his conduct. Soon after these events, Raleigh retired to his Irish property, being driven from court, according to some authorities, by the enmity of the Earl of Essex, then a, young man just rising into favour. He there re- newed a former intimacy with the poet Spenser, who, like himself, had been rewarded with a grant of land out of forfeited estates, and then resided at Kilcolman Castle. Spenser has celebrated the return of his friend in the beautiful pastoral, ' Colin Clout's come home again ;' and in that, and various passages of his works, has made honourable mention of the highly poetic spirit which enabled the ' Shepherd of the Ocean,' as he is there denominated, to appreciate the merit of the ' Fairy Queen,' and led him to promote the publication of it by every means in his power. IULEIGH. 493 The loss of Raleigh's court-favour, if such there were, could not have been of long duration on this occasion. But he incurred more serious displeasure in conse- quence of a private marriage contracted with Eliza- beth Throgmorton, one of the Queen's maids of ho- nour, a lady of beauty and accomplishments, who proved her worth and fidelity in the long train of misfortunes which beset the latter years of Raleigh's life. In consequence of this intrigue, he was com- mitted to the Tower. One or t\vo amusing anecdotes are related of the devices which he employed to obtain forgiveness, by working on that vanity which was the Queen's chief foible. He succeeded in appeasing his indignant mistress so far as to procure his release; and about the same time, in 1 594, she granted to him the valuable manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire : but though she requited his services, she still forbade his appearance at court, where he now held the office of Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. Raleigh was peculiarly fitted to adorn a court by his imposing person, the graceful magnificence of his taste and habits, the elegance of his manners, and the interest of his conversation. These accomplishments were sure passports to the favour of Elizabeth; and he improved to the utmost the constant opportunities of intercourse with her which his post afforded, insomuch that, except the Earls of Leicester and Essex, no one ever seems to have stood higher in her graces. But Elizabeth's jealousy on the subject of her favourites' marriages is well known, and her anger was lasting, in proportion to the value which she set on the incense of Raleigh's flattery. He retired, on his disgrace, to his new estate, in the improvement and embellish- ment of which he felt great interest. But though deeply alive to the beauties of nature, he had been too long trained to a life of ambition and adventure to rest contented in the tranquil routine of a country life ; VOL. I. 2 F 494 RALEIGH, and during this period of seclusion, he again turned his thoughts to his favourite subject of American ad- venture, and laid the scheme of his first expedition to Guiana, in search of the celebrated El Dorado, the fabled seat of inexhaustible wealth. Having fitted out, with the assistance of other private persons, a considerable fleet, Raleigh sailed from Plymouth, February 6, 1595. He left his ships in the mouth of the river Orinoco, and sailed 400 miles into the inte- rior in boats. It is to be recorded to his honour, that he treated the Indians with great kindness ; which, contrasted with the savage conduct of the Spaniards, raised so friendly a feeling towards him, that for years his return was eagerly expected, and at length was hailed with delight. The hardships of the under- taking, and the natural advantages of the country which he explored, are eloquently described in his own account of the ' Discovery of Guiana.' But the setting in of the rainy season rendered it necessary to return, without having reached the promised land of wealth ; and Raleigh reaped no other fruit of his ad- venture than a certain quantity of geographical know- ledge, and a full conviction of the importance of colo- nising and taking possession of the newly-discovered region. This continued through life to be his favourite scheme ; but neither Elizabeth nor her successor could be induced to view it in the same favourable light. On reaching England, he found the Queen still un- appeased; nor was he suffered to appear at court, and he complains in pathetic terms of the cold return with which his perils and losses were requited. But he was invested with a high command in the expedi- tion of 1596, by which the Spanish fleet was destroyed in the harbour of Cadiz ; and to his judgment and temper in overruling the faulty schemes proposed by others the success of that enterprise was chiefly due. RALEIGH. 495 Indeed his services were perhaps too important, and too justly appreciated by the public, for his own in- terests ; for the great and general praise bestowed on him on this occasion tended to confirm a jealousy of long standing on the part of the commander-in-chief, the Earl of Essex ; and it was probably owing to that favourite's influence that Raleigh was still forbidden the Queen's presence. Essex, and the Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil, regarded each other with mu- tual distrust and dislike. Cecil and Raleigh were connected by ties of common interest, and, as the latter supposed, of friendship. Still Raleigh found the in- terest of the minister too weak to serve his purpose, while the interest of the favourite was employed against him ; and, as the only method of effecting his own re- storation to the Queen's favour, he undertook to work a reconciliation between these two powerful rivals. In this he succeeded, to the great admiration of all spec- tators ; and the fruit of his policy was seen in his re- admission to the execution of his official duties at court, June 1, 1597. In the following August he was appointed Rear Admiral in the expedition called the Island Voyage, of which Essex held the chief command. The slight successes which were obtained were again due to the military talents of Raleigh ; the main objects of the voyage were lost through the Earl's inexperience. From this time to the death of the Queen, Raleigh enjoyed an uninterrupted course of favour. The an- cient enmity between Essex and himself was indeed renewed, and that with increased rancour; but the indiscretions of the favourite had greatly weakened his influence. Raleigh and Cecil spared no pains to un- dermine him, and were in fact the chief workers of his ruin. This is perhaps the most unamiable passage in Raleigh's life ; and the only excuse to be pleaded for him is, the determined enmity of that unfortunate 2F2 496 IIALE1GH. nobleman. This fault, however, brought a slow but severe punishment with it; for the death of Essex dissolved the tie which held together Cecil and him- self. Neither could be content to act second to the other; and Raleigh's high reputation, and versatile as well as profound abilities, might well alarm the secretary for his own supremacy. The latter took the surest way of establishing his power prospective!}'. Elizabeth was now old : Cecil took no steps to dimi- nish the high esteem in which she held Sir Walter Raleigh, but he secretly laboured to prejudice her suc- cessor against him, and he succeeded to his wish. Very soon after the accession of James I., Raleigh's post of captain of the guard was taken from him ; and his patent of wines was revoked, though not without a nominal compensation being made. To complete his ruin, it was contrived to involve him in a charge of treason. Most writers have concurred in speaking of this passage of history as inexplicable : it is the opinion of the last historian of Raleigh, Mr. Tytler, that he lias found sufficient evidence for regarding the whole plot as a device of Cecil, and he has supported this opinion by cogent arguments. Lord Cobham, a vio- lent and ambitious but weak man, had engaged in private dealings with the Spanish ambassador, which brought him under the suspicion of the government. By a device of Cecil's (we here follow the account of Mr. Tytler) he was induced, in a fit of anger, and in the belief that Raleigh had given information against him, to accuse Sir Walter himself of being privy to a conspiracy against the government. This charge Cobham retracted, confirmed, and retracted again, behaving in so equivocal a manner, that no reliance whatever can be placed on any of his assertions. But as the King was afraid of Raleigh as much as the secretary hated him, this vague charge, unsupported by other evidence, was made sufficient to commit him to the RALEIGH. 497 Tower ; and, after being plied with private examina- tions, in which nothing criminal could he elicited, he was brought to trial, November 17, 1603. For an account of that memorable scene we shall refer to Mr. Jardine's ' Criminal Trials,' vol. i. It is reported to have been said by one of the judges who presided over it, on his death-bed, that "the justice of England had never been so degraded and injured as by the con- demnation of Sir Walter Raleigh." The behaviour of the victim himself was the object of universal ad- miration, for the tempered mixture of patience and noble spirit with which he bore the oppressive mea- sure dealt to him. He had before been unpopular ; but it was recorded by an eye-witness that " he be- haved himself so worthily, so wisely, and so tem- perately, that in half a day the mind of all the com- pany was changed from the extremest hate to the ex- tremest pity." The sentence of death thus unfairly and disgrace- fully obtained was not immediately carried into execution. James was not satisfied with the evidence adduced on the trial ; and believing at the same time that Raleigh had been plotting against him, he set his royal wit to dive into the mystery. Of the singular scene which our British Solomon devised it is not necessary to speak, since Raleigh was not an actor in it. But as no more evidence could be obtained against him even by the King's sagacity, he was re- prieved, and remanded to the Tower, where the next twelve years of his life were spent in confinement. Fortunately, he had never ceased to cultivate litera- ture with a zeal not often found in the soldier and politician, and he now beguiled the tedium of his lot by an entire devotion to those studies which before had only served to diversify his more active and en- grossing pursuits. Of his poetical talents we have already made short mention : to the end of life he 2 F3 498 RALEIGH. continued the practice of pouring out his mind in verse, and there are several well-known and beautiful pieces expressive of his feelings in prison, and in the anticipation of immediate death, especially ' The Lie,' and the beautiful little poem called 'The Pilgrimage.' He also possessed a strong turn for mathematics, and studied them with much success in the society and under the guidance of his friend Thomas Harlot, one of the most accomplished mathematicians of the age. Chemistry was another favourite pursuit, in which, according to the standard of his contemporaries, he made great progress. But the most important oc- cupation of his imprisonment was the composition of his ' History of the World.' Notwithstanding the quaintness of the style and the discursive manner in which the subject is treated, it is impossible to read this volume without admiring the wonderful extent of the author's reading, not only in history, but in philoso- phy, theology, and even the ponderous and untempting stores of Rabbinical learning. Many of the chapters relate to subjects which few persons would expect to find in a history of the world ; yet these will often be found among the most interesting and characteristic portions of the book ; and its deep learning is relieved and set off by passages of genuine eloquence, which display to the best advantage the author's rich ima- gination and grasp of mind. The work extends from the Creation to the end of the second Macedonian war. Raleigh meant to bring it down to modern times ; but the untimely death of Henry Prince of Wales, for whose use it was composed, deprived him of the spirit to proceed with so laborious an under- taking. He enjoyed the .confidence of that generous youth in a remarkable degree, and maintained a close correspondence with him on civil, military, and naval subjects. Several discourses on these topics, addressed to the Prince, will be found in the editions of Raleigh's RALEIGH. 499 works. Henry repaid these services with sincere friendship and admiration ; and we may presume that his adviser looked forward to that friendship, not only for a cessation of misfortune, but for a more brilliant period of favour and power than he had yet enjoyed. Fortunately, however, this calamity was preceded by the death of his arch-enemy, Cecil ; and through the mediation of the Duke of Buckingham, employed in consideration of 1500/. paid to his uncles, Sir William, Sir John, and Sir Edward Villiers, Raleigh was re- leased from the Tower in March, 1615 ; and obtained permission to follow up his long-cherished scheme of establishing a colony in Guiana and working a gold mine, of which he had ascertained the existence and situation. The terms on which this license was granted are remarkable. He was not pardoned, but merely let loose on the engagement of his friends, the Earls of Amndel and Pembroke, that he should return to England. Neither did James contribute to the ex- pense of the undertaking, though it was stipulated that he was to receive a fifth part of the bullion im- ported. The necessary funds were provided out of the wreck of Raleigh's fortune (his estate of Sherborne had been forfeited), and by those private adventurers who were willing to risk something in reliance on his experience and judgment. A fleet of fourteen sail was thus provided, and Raleigh, by letters under the privy seal, was appointed commander-in-chief and governor of the intended colony. He relied, it is said, on the full powers granted him by this commis- sion as necessarily including a remission of all past offences, and therefore neglected to sue out a formal pardon, which at this period probably would hardly have been denied him. The results of this disastrous voyage must be shortly given. Raleigh sailed March 28, 1617, and reached the coast of Guiana in Novem- 500 RALEIGH. ber following. Being himself disabled by sickness from proceeding farther, he despatched a party to the mine under the command of Captain Keymis, an officer who had served in the former voyage to Guiana. But during the interval which had elapsed since Ra- leigh's first discovery of that country, the Spaniards had extended their settlements into it, and in parti- cular had built a town called Santa Thome, in the immediate neighbourhood of the mine in question . James, with his usual duplicity, while he authorised the expedition, revealed every particular connected with it to the Spanish ambassador. The English, therefore, were expected in the Orinoco, and prepara- tion had been made for repelling them by force. Keymis and his men were unexpectedly attacked by the garrison of Santa Thome, and a sharp contest ensued, in which the English gained the advantage, and burnt the town. In this action Raleigh's eldest son was killed. The Spaniards still occupied the passes to the mine, and after an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge them, Keymis abandoned the enterprise, and returned to the ships. Raleigh's correspondence expresses in affecting terms his grief and indignation at this double misfortune ; the loss of a brave and promising son, and the destruction of the hopes which he had founded on this longTcherished adventure. On his return to England, he found himself marked out for a victim to appease the resentment of the Spa- nish court, to which he had long been an object of fear and hatred. He quietly surrendered himself to Sir Lewis Stukeley, who was sent to Plymouth to arrest him, and commenced the journey to London under his charge. But his mind fluctuated between the desire to confront his enemies, and a sense of the hopelessness of obtaining justice, and he was at last entrapped by the artifices of the emissaries of govern- ment who surrounded him into an attempt to escape, in RALEIGH. 501 [Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower.] 502 RALEIGH. which he was arrested and committed to close custody in the Tower. Here his conversation and corre- spondence were narrowly watched, in the hopes that a treasonable understanding with the French govern- ment, from which he had received the offer of an asylum in France, might be established against him. His conduct abroad had already been closely scruti- nised, in the hope of finding some act of piracy, or unauthorised aggression against Spain, for which he might be brought to trial. Both these hopes failing, and his death, in compliment to Spain, being resolved on, it was determined to carry into effect, the sentence passed fifteen years before, from which he had never been legally released ; and a warrant was accordingly issued to the judges, requiring them to order execu- tion. The case was a novel one, and threw that learned body into some perplexity. They determined, however, that after so long an interval execution could not be granted without allowing the prisoner the op- portunity of pleading against it; and Raleigh was therefore brought to the bar of the Court of King's Bench, October 28, 1618. The record of his con vie tion having been read, he was asked whether he could urge anything why the sentence should not be carried into effect. He insisted on the nature of his late commission, and on that plea being overruled, sub- mitted with his usual calmness and dignity. The execution, with indecent haste, was ordered to take place on the following morning. In this last stage of life, his greatness of mind shone with even more than its usual lustre. Calm, and fearless without bravado, his behaviour and speech expressed the piety and resignation of a Christian, with the habitual coolness of one who has braved death too often to shrink at its approach. The accounts of his deportment on the scaffold effectually refute the charges of irreligion and atheism, which some writers have brought^against him, RAI.EIGH. 503 unless we mate up our minds to believe him an ac- complished hypocrite. He spoke at considerable length, and his dying words have been faithfully re- ported. They contain a denial of all the serious offences laid to his charge, and express his forgive- ness of those even who had betrayed him under the mask of friendship. After delivering this address, and spending some time in prayer, he laid his head on the block, and breathing a short private prayer, gave the signal to the executioner. Not being imme- diately obeyed, he partially raised his head, and said, " What dost thou fear? Strike, man !" and under- went the fatal blow without shrinking or alteration of position. He died in his sixty-sixth year. Raleigh sat in several parliaments, and took an active part in the business of the house. His speeches, preserved in the Journals, are said by Mr. Tytler to be remarkable for an originality and freedom of thought far in advance of the time. His expression was va- ried and animated, and his powers of conversation remarkable. His person was dignified and handsome, and he excelled in bodily accomplishments and mar- tial exercises. He was very fond of paintings, and of music; and, in literature as in art, he possessed a cultivated and correct taste. He was one of those rare men who seem qualified to excel in all pursuits alike ; and his talents were set off by an extraordinary laboriousness and capacity of application. As a navi- gator, soldier, statesman, and historian, his name is intimately and honourably linked with one of the most brilliant periods of British history. The works of Oldys, Birch, Cayley, Mrs. Thomp- son, and Mr. Tytler, may be consulted concerning this remarkable person. The life of the last-named gentleman, published in the ' Edinburgh Cabinet Library,' is the most recent ; and the industry of the 504 RALEIGH. author has enabled him to gain a clue to some points which before had been imperfectly understood. A list of Raleigh's numerous works is given in the ' Bio- graphiaBritannica.' They will be found collected in eight volumes, in the Oxford edition of 1 829. Several of his MSS. are preserved in the British Museum. END OF VOL. I. Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stuuiluid Street DATE DUE PRINTED IN U.S. A. UC Southern Regional Library F A 000517193 9