less in life, entirely self-denying, labori- hands and make it up. Presently the ous to the highest point, learned, eloquent, crowd closes in, there is a scuffle, and the mystic, poetical-above all, a gentleman mediator emerges from the fray with there was no one in her little Court every external sign of having been acwhom she loved more than Roussel, no tively engaged on the side that has lost. one who more deserved her friendship. umph!" When Calvin looked to France for When he went south with his protector, help, it was first to Margaret and her he instituted everywhere schools for the circle; when they failed, he turned to young, and, by perpetual preaching and the scholars. If was as yet but the exhortation, laboured to bring the priests dawn of French scholarship; but there of his diocese to a higher level. He were already in France, as there had wrote a catechism of instruction, in which been for fifty years in Italy, men who ask he taught that nothing was to be a matter of the world nothing but leisure, books, of doctrine which was not found in the and quiet. Their talk was of idioms Bible; that there were only two sacra- and translations; they quarrelled over ments, and that personal holiness is the a word; they disputed over a doubtful great essential. He met his death by a reading. "When," says Erasmus, "afkind of martyrdom, but in a very singular ter a great deal of poring, they can spell fashion. For having sent one of his out the inscription of some battered ecclesiastics to preach at Mauléon, in monument, Lord! what joy, what triGascony, the fanatic populace, headed by Pierre Arnauld de Maytie, a gentleman of the place, chased him from the church. Then Roussel, as the bishop, went there himself, summoned a synod, and, mounting the pulpit, preached on the subject of saints' days, pointing out how their multiplication led to superstition, idleness, and other evils. He was going on, when the same De Maytie rushed forward with an axe and cut through the posts on which the pulpit was placed, so that it fell with the bishop. He was carried to Oleron, mortally bruised and injured, and died on the way. De Maytie was tried for the offence, and actually acquitted, while the approbation of the party at this brutal crime was further marked by their presenting the murderer's own son with the bishopric thus vacated. Deadly hatred could go no farther. These three men are representatives of Queen Margaret's party of order. They belong to that very large class of whom we find so many examples whenever a great question is at stake, being, in fact, of those who follow a sort of instinct in trying to smooth things rough. A little concession here, a little glozing there, a constant parade of points of agreement, are their only weapons. Amiability is their chief virtue, or, at least, their chief characteristic. They are often scholarly, well-bred, of excellent taste, of pure and blameless lives; they are beloved by their friends, they are good and holy men; but in the hour of danger they are as weak as a reed. In matters ecclesiastical they too often enact the part of the good-natured bystander in a street row, who exhorts the disputants to shake It was a mistake to expect of these men the active promotion of religious reform; but it was surely not absurd to expect that their influence would be at least in favour of it. In Italy, it is true, there had been abundant proofs of a widespread scepticism among scholars, which seemed to spring out of the new learning, and grow up side by side with it. But no signs of this had yet appeared in France. It remained for the new French scholars to import Italian doubt into their own country, and with the pitiless logic of their race, to carry what in Italy was generally a scholarly scepticism and graceful suspense of opinion, to an open and scoffing infidelity. No mind has more exercised the ingenuity of crities than that of Rabelais. Yet to us it seems that there is no writer of the day whose opinions are more easi ly gathered than his, from his great work. The key to the whole is given in the fourth book, published a few days or weeks before his death, and in the fifth, or last, an imperfect book, not published till ten years later. Pass over, in order to get at his real faith, all the grossiree tés, all the "comic." stories, all the good sound educational advice, and all the personal satire; but read carefully the rules of the Monastery of Theleme, the description of the Isle Sonnante, the Is land of Grippeminaud, the Inquisitor, and the concluding words of the priest ess: Depart, my friends, and may that intellectual sphere, whose centre is everywhere, and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD, help you in His almighty protection. When you return to the world, do not fail to affirm that the 66 greatest treasures are hidden underground." So things are denied to philosophers; only partially, indeed, revealed to Christians. Observe: it was not the business of All things are possible for science to disRabelais to be a religious teacher or re- cover, save only these two - Whence former. He was, before all things, a and Whither. Rabelais refused to look man of science and a scholar. Several in that place where an answer is given to things, indeed, he desired ardently- the second, and remained an infidel. that people should be allowed liberty of that when Calvin urged him to take his thought, expression, and investigation; part in the great struggle of the day, he that monasteries should be wholly abol- answered by a gibe of derision. It was ished, or made places of culture; that the same gibe that he had for the ortholearning should be respected in high dox-for he hated them all. And no places; that the ignorance of bigots man in France, excepting Voltaire, ever should be kept in proper subjection; that has had, or probably ever will have, anythe sciences of botany, anatomy, and thing like the influence of Rabelais; for medicine should be emancipated from his books were like text-books, read, rethe thrall of mediæval prejudices; that read, almost committed to memory. Furgentle manners should be taught to high ther, among his own friends and disciples and low; that the follies of alchemists were all the leaders and writers of the and astrologers should be duly exposed; day the great Du Bellay family, Marot, and that those evils with which the Dolet, Lyon Jamet, Maurice Scève, Saworld was then infected, foolish judges, lel, and the rest—and, remembering all cumbrous laws, greedy priests, pedantic this, can we doubt that the indifference scholars might, by the aid of ridicule and to religion which has been for two hunsatire, be scotched, if not killed. Ra-dred years a characteristic of modern belais was a great social reformer, but he was not a religious reformer. Was he careless about religion? He was more than careless — he was hostile to any existing form of religion. We have no doubt whatever that the names of Calvin and Luther were as unsavoury to Rabelais as that of the prejudiced, feverishly jealous, bigoted Doctor Beda. Had he, then, no belief? He had that belief which men in all ages contract who gather their religion from Nature alone. He saw in his plants, in the stars, in the human body, an Order so perfect and so wonderful that he needs must bow down and adore its Creator; he saw that Nature pours out her thousand forms of life in myriad profusion, reckless what became of each, and might have asked with the poet Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? He saw, further, that life, lavishly pro- -- France, rising sometimes to general and national infidelity, is largely due to the influence of Rabelais, and the balls which he first set rolling? We mention the name of Clement Marot, important here chiefly for the influence he might have had. For he translated the Psalms into French verse, put them to tunes, and set the Court singing them. Let us think for a moment what England owes to those sweet and simple hymns which it is our godly fashion to sing in the churches and in the homes from earliest childhood, and which form a link to connect our religion with our daily life. Let us only try to think what we should be without these. And then give praise to Marot, for it was he who gave to France what should have been the foundation and beginning of a national book of praise and service of song, had not the bigots, the stupid mischievous bigots, stopped the singing because they pretended to see heresy in the words David's words. And France is without hymns to this day. We must here say a word in remonstrance with Marot's latest biographer, Professor Henry Morley. When a writer begins by declaring that he has "long wished the truth to be told " about Marot, one has a right to expect something new. But he gives us nothing new. From beginning to end of his work there is not a fact which has not already been set down by M. Charles d'Héricault in that truly admirable and careful life of the poet, prefixed to his edition of the poems. back from Italy, he tries unsuccessfully, While the book is padded with super- to ingratiate himself with orthodoxy fluous details of political events, and with translations which have somehow all the spirit of the original dropped out, the Professor's object seems to be to prove that Marot was a great Protestant. But the promised truth about Marot — is it this, after all? It is not as we apprehend it. Marot was a poet of the Court, a flatterer by profession, a man of kindly heart, impulsive and thoughtless speech, keen sensibilities, and the sweetest, most tender, most delightful, most natural versifier that France ever had. To please his mistress, Margaret, and because it suited his unsettled fancies, which were of course in favour of religious liberty, he followed her example in satire of monks and praise of a religious life. To please his other friends, and perhaps himself, he wrote verses of a quite different character. Witness those two celebrated blasons of his the first of that collection of blasons on woman where the French poets in a body gave free play to every licentious and impure thought. This precious contribution to literature was commenced by Clement Marot, who rejoiced exceedingly in seeing it grow and wax fuller and fuller till there was nothing possible left to add. He, too, is the poet who wasted that graceful lament. which Spenser imitated ("Shepherd's Calender, Ægloga Undecima") on Loyse, mother of Francis I. : – misse. by translating the Psalms; and then, when this fails, takes his budget to Geneva, where they became for two hundred years and more the hymn-book of the Reformers. A light-hearted, freeliving, sweet-natured man, a mere butterfly as regards opinion, but with a wholesome tendency to freedom and light; a man of doubtful morals, no scholar, a writer with a keen sense of fun and humour, a poet who saw in the greasy dirty monk the most delightful subject possi ble for his pen; and a man who, when he got into trouble, was ready to perform any amount of grovelling necessary to get himself out. A Liberal, because his friends were of that school, and because they used him to write verses on their side; but not a religious reformer, because not a religious man. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that no religious change, no lasting religious movement is possible, save where the leaders are themselves profoundly penetrated with real religion. Such men were Luther, Calvin, Latimer, Hooper, and others of the time. Such, too, were some of those Frenchmen who chose to remain in their church, as Lefevre and Roussel. But such was not Rabelais, nor Marot, nor the two men of whom we proceed to speak. And, first, of Etienne Dolet, whose life and character we have always been surprised, since first we made acquaintance with the man, that no student of modern history has taken up. One French writer, of more zeal than wisdom, has devoted ten years of his life to producing an éloge upon him, for which he painfully collected all the facts of the case. It is not, however, the life of Etienne Dolet, which has yet to be written. Let us here do a little to resuscitate the memory of a most unfortunate man and most noble scholar. Dido the worst woman of her time in France, as Marot very well knew the licentious mother of a licentious son, whom good Queen Anne would not receive, and for whose evil sake, she long His parentage was quite unknown. refused to marry her daughter Claude to He was born at Orleans about 1509. the heir of the throne. Marot again is Somebody, we do not know who, enabled the poet who, when he fled to Geneva for him to obtain the rudiments of a liberal refuge, would have been imprisoned, per- education. That meant a good deal of haps executed, for immorality, had he Latin, with little or no Greek. At the not fled secretly, and gone elsewhere. age of twelve he went to Paris, where he Marot's religion was of a very undogmatic attended the lectures of Nicolas Berauld. kind. In his preface to his version of It is significant that Berauld was also tuthe "Romance of the Rose," he pays his tor to that Cardinal Odet de Coligny, homage to the Virgin; when he is im- Bishop of Beauvais, who went over to prisoned for something said or written, the Reformed cause, and publicly marhe loudly exclaims that he is not a Lu-ried Elizabeth de Hauteville. Berauld theran or Calvinist; when he comes was also a friend of Erasmus. For four years young Dolet lived on Cicero, made Cicero's thoughts his own, Cicero's style his model, and learned to look up to Cicero with an admiration which never flagged. Then he managed somehow the ways of mediæval students are mysterious - to get to Italy, where he sat for three years at the feet of Simon de Villeneuve, at Padua, removing thence to Venice, to follow the lectures of Baptiste Eganjio, still always working at Cicero. Here he had the great luck to get the protection of Jean Du Bellay, a member of that noble family which deserved so well of France in the sixteenth century soldiers, statesmen, churchmen, scholars, and poets. At Venice he fell in love with a certain Helena, about whom he writes Horatian poems Frustra, Venus, mihi jecur tentas novo Flammas; nihil tecum mihi isto tempore Plus forte quam castum decebat parui One rather suspects the genuineness of the passion when a young man at twenty talks of the fervour of youth; but, after all, it seemed Horatian, which was what he chiefly cared for. And as for Helena, she probably had as real an existence as Dulcinea del Tobosa, who was flourishing at about the same period, l'ornement de la terre, or as Horace's own Lalage. From Venice he went to Toulouse to study law. And here the troubles of his life began. Toulouse, which had the same reputation for law which Montpelier possessed for medicine, divided its scholars into "nations" like all mediaval universities. We hear, for instance, of French, Aquitanians, and Spaniards. Every nation had its captain, and once a year, on the day of its saint, the nation held a fête, at which the captain pronounced an oration. Unluckily for young Dolet, he was elected captain of the French nation, and still more unluckily, the Parliament of Toulouse, for some wise reasons now unknown, chose that very year for suppressing the fête. The "nation" resolved to hold its festival in spite of all the Parliaments, and Dolet was urged to deliver the oration as usual. It was certainly a fine opportunity for a young man to display that Ciceronian learning which it had taken him so much pains in the course of his cæca juventa to acquire. It was an occasion at once for the display of Latinity, eloquence, and righteous indignation, and in making the most of it, Dolet's début dans la vie was as unlucky as that young fellow's in Balzac's novel. For exalting his molehill of a grievance to a very mountain, he prepared an oration into which he poured all his available stock of invective, sarcasm, and simulated rageand then went and delivered it. Nothing could be more unreal than this youthful effusion of pretended patriotism, which is still preserved. It breathes the righteous wrath of Cicero against Catiline, and while its periods are balanced after the style of that great model, it is more fearless, more bitter, more unsparing. In other words, it is the work of a conceited and thoughtless youth, eager to show his cleverness. Again, not content with attacking the Parliament, he must needs air his crude liberalism in theology, and attack the Toulousians for having burnt Caturce, the professor of theology, the year before. A man might commit any sin in those days, and it would be forgiven him, because the people were kindhearted and the law was uncertain. let him beware how he touched the Church. For the Church never forgives. Were it in a moment of madness, were it under provocation too intense for suppression, were it as mere child, the offender would never be safe from the resentment of the offended; while resentment among theologians meant the stake. But What! he asks, shall our students leave the society of scholars for that of barbarians? shall they prefer primitive savagery to the free thought which creates man afresh? ... Have the grossness of the Scythians and the monstrous barbarity of the Geta made irruption into this town only to help the human pests which inhabit it to hate, persecute, and vilify holy thought? . . . That sacred fire of mutual love which nature incessantly kindles in our hearts, they have longed to extinguish; that fraternity which the gods themselves inspire. reunion which every sympathy accords to us, they have wished to stifle; that right of free they have wished to annihilate. He was mad enough even to attack the superstitions of the place, the customs tained a spirit of free inquiry, which, while it led some too far, and brought ruin upon one at least of their number, undoubtedly did much to keep back that great wave of ignorance and bigotry which was perpetually threatening France during this century; and, though the society was not devoted to religious reform, every member was a marked man by the orthodox, and each, in peril of accusations false or true, coluit per mille pericula musas. peculiar to Toulouse, of galloping nine times round the church, of plunging the host on certain days into the Garonne, of offering up prayers to the river, of carrying wooden images of saints round the town in times of drought, and so on. A young man wise in his generation would at least have sat down to count the cost of making enemies of a whole town. But Dolet was not wise. The students applauded him, and he was happy, until the next morning brought reflection, repentance, and the officers of justice. Here Dolet found a friend who stood To prison he must go, while the people by him faithfully in the printer Gryphe, hooted and howled at him, tried to mur- who published his orations and epigrams der him, spread abroad infamous libels for him. Gryphe (Gryphæus) was one of respecting him, and carried about the that illustrious band of printers who, in streets a pig, which they labelled "Do- the first century of the invention, devotlet," and solemnly tortured and burned.ed themselves to the noble profession This is the first of that long series of with the zeal and ardour of artists. He imprisonments which made Floridus, the it was who published the Latin Bible of Italian scholar, author of the Apologia in 1550, an edition in the largest type yet Plauti... calumniatores, call a prison produced, remarkable for the few errors "patria Doleti." and the clearness of the character. The list of works issued from his press amounts to nearly three hundred. `Vulteius said of him How long he was confined we have no means of telling, but probably not many days. Good-natured Bishop Dupin helped him in his strait, pleading youth, and hot-headedness, and his great genius "juvenis est rarâ et excellenti quâdam ingenii bonitate præditus." But he seems first to have had to perform the amende honorable, for he says himself Nullum me scelus in vincula conjici Toulouse was no longer any place for him. He got out of it secretly, and made his way to Lyons, arriving there in a melancholy condition of mind and body, and without a friend. Castigat Stephanus, sculpsit Colinæus, utrum que Gryphius edoctâ mente manuque facit. La grand' griffe qui tout griffe, Non le los, non, non, jamais. At this time there was no better place in the world for a man of advanced opinions and of scholarship than the city of Then came the grand quarrel of the Lyons. Among the authors and students Ciceronians, Dolet being peaceably who formed the celebrated society called housed in Lyons, correcting, probably, "l'Angélique," were the Scéve family, for the press, and spending every spare consisting of Maurice, poet, antiquarian, moment on his commentaries. Erasartist, architect, and musician, and his mus's "Ciceronians" appeared in 1528. sisters Claudine and Sybille, also poets; In 1531 came Scaliger's celebrated diaSymphorien Champiry, who passed a tribe, to which Erasmus replied only by long and vainglorious life in studies of saying that it could not be the work of medicine and history; Benoît, court Scaliger. Six years later came Scaliger's lawyer and botanist, who wrote second "Discourse," Erasmus being by commentaries on Martial's "Arrêts this time dead. To the amazement of d'Amour;" and Matthieu de Vaugelles, Scaliger, who considered that when he magistrate and writer on law, broth-had once spoken no more was to be said er to Jean de Vaugelles, maître des on his side, Dolet had in 1535 also writ requêtes under Margaret of Navarre, and ten a "Discourse" against Erasmus. friend of Marot. This society main- | Scaliger flew into the most violent rage, |