of extensive works, while he has been suffered to languish in comparative obscurity.

Soon after BOCHART's decease, his junior colleague in the pastoral care of the church at Caen, Du Bosc, who is well known as the zealous and able advocate of the liberties of his fellow Protestants in France, avowed an intention to write his life. (d) But this intention was completely frustrated by the troubles which preceded the revocation of the edict of Nantz, and the consequences of that revocation. These commenced almost immediately after BOCHART's decease, and resulted in the exile of Du Bosc, with the greater portion of his flock, to Holland, where he shortly after died. Had no such series of untoward events occurred, we should doubtless be in possession of a faithful portraiture of the life and manners of our author, and that with the additional advantage of its being from a master's pen.

This project having failed, STEPHEN MORIN, a junior associate with BOCHART and Du Bosc in the care of the church at Caen, was induced, by the intreaties of their common friends, to draw up, partly from recollection and partly from papers in the possession of BOCHART's family, a short account of the life and writings of our author in the Latin language. (e) This has been prefixed to both the editions of BOCHART'S collected works. It is the first article in the third volume of the splendid edition of LEUSDEN and VILLAMAND. Narration was not the forte of MORIN, and accordingly, as a history of the life of Bochart, his essay merits very little praise. The detail of facts is dry, unnecessarily concise, and provokingly meagre. His reflections are seldom more than common place, often almost puerile. But as a friend and apologist of his deceased colleague, he shows his zeal, and learning, and ingenuity, in an advantageous light. His account of the origin and design of the published and unpublished works of Bochart, also, is

(d) MORINUS de Clar. Boch. p. 1.

(e) STEPHANUS MORINUS de Clarissimo Bocharto et omnibus ejus Scriptis.

tolerably interesting and well arranged. On the whole, his thirty-six folio pages are filled with matter rather above the general character of the biographical notices commonly prefixed to posthumous editions of the works of celebrated men. From this life, a notice of Bochart contained in the Infelix Literatus of SPIZELIUS, and several scattered anecdotes in HUET'S Commentaries on his own Life, the materials of the following sketch have been principally derived.

When a man has acquired by his own talents and industry an enduring reputation, it can add but little to his importance to trace his descent from a noble ancestry. Yet that little the biographer is seldom willing to spare; and accordingly, scanty as are the memorials of SAMUEL BOCHART, it has been carefully recorded that he derived his origin, on the father's side, from a noble family. The frequency of the instances in which several individuals of the same family have excelled in the same or similar branches of science or the arts attaches rather more real value to a near connexion with men distinguished for their natural endowments. Of this advantage, also, our author was not destitute, his mother being sister to the famous PETER MOULIN or MOLINEUs. It was of more importance to him, however, that his parents were themselves eminent for their talents and their virtues. His father, BOCHART de MESNILLET, having filled the station of Chief Pastor of the Reformed Church at Rouen, with reputation, for many years; and his mother having even acquired celebrity for her remarkable prudence and sedateness, and unfeigned piety. Of such parents he was born at Rouen in 1599. Nothing is recorded of his early youth, except that it was well spent. There are yet extant forty-four Greek verses of no contemptible character, composed by him at the early age of thirteen, and addressed to his preceptor, who deemed them of sufficient value to be prefixed to a Corpus Romanorum Antiquitatum, published in 1612. These verses are of no small importance in tracing the literary life of our author, since they inform us that he was the cherished and grateful pupil of no less a scholar than THOMAS DEMPSTER. This man, a Scotchman by birth, a tutor in the University of Paris, was an object of admiration

with his cotemporaries for his extraordinary talents, his uncommon boldness and great personal courage, and especially his extensive reading and astonishing memory. It is said of him that he did not know what it was to forget, and that there was no passage or circumstance in any ancient author with which he was not perfectly acquainted. (f) The number and variety of his works prove the use which he made of such extraordinary endowments. To have been placed at an early age under the care of such a man was undeniably no small advantage to BOCHART, and in all probability contributed greatly to form him to the character in which he afterward appeared. On the other hand, that such an advantage was not thrown away upon him, is evident from the fact that a man of such distinguished learning as Dempster was willing to prefix the commendatory verses of his pupil to one of his most elaborate productions. Shortly after the publication of those verses our author was removed to the College at Sedan. (g) He there studied philosophy under JOHN SMITH, a clergyman and professor of the institution; and in 1615, sustained his public theses in that branch with much credit. These he dedicated in verse to his grandfather, JOACHIM MOULIN, a pastor at Orleans, and to his uncle PETER MOULIN, then resident at Paris. About the same time he also published several other minor poems, which do credit to his proficiency in the Latin language, and the principles of its versification. One in particular, bearing date 1616, is worthy of notice, as a remarkable instance of the same indefatigable industry which adhered to him through life, and as exhibiting an extraordinary ingenuity which, perhaps, contributed to lessen the value of the learned labours of his maturer years. A friend and classmate had published some theses De Mundo. BOCHART, to do him honour, composed a copy of complimen

(f) Bayle, Dict. Art. DEMPSTER. Note E.

(g) He was probably residing at Paris, in the house of his uncle Peter Moulin, while he was under the care of Dempster. MoRiN, ubi supra. p. 2.

thods is conformable to the ancient pronunciation of the language. There is no plea for such an obstinate adherence on either side to peculiarities which deprive the Latin scholar of half. the benefit of his acquisition, by taking from it the character of an universal language and general medium of communication between the learned. As the English, and those who in this country have followed their pronunciation, are the minority, it behoves them to cede to the generally prevailing custom, and render their own Latin intelligible when spoken, to the rest of the world, and themselves able to understand the conversation of foreign men of letters.

BOCHART, having spent his time abroad with pleasure and profit, was recalled to his native place by the death of his father, and the duties he owed to his widowed mother. With her he resided some time at Rouen, until the Reformed Congregation at Caen being deprived, by death, of one of its pastors, and hearing of the young BOCHART's extraordinary talents and acquirements, unanimously elected him to supply the vacancy. He accepted the appointment, and consequently removed to Caen, which, excepting the short interval of his journey into Sweden, was his place of residence during the remainder of his life. The date of this settlement is not recorded, but all accounts agree in speaking of its happy consequences; and stating that BOCHART's assiduity and faithful attention to all the duties of the pastoral office quickly gained him a very great degree of popularity. Preaching, in consequence of the peculiar, and perhaps undue, importance which is attached to that ordinance by the reformed churches on the continent, occupied a great proportion of his studies. As might be expected when a man of such abilities concentrated his exertions on a single object, he met with eminent success. discourses were warm and practical, while at the same time, according to MORIN, (n) he displayed consummate ability in

His

(n) I quote my author, because the assertion appears a little marvellous, and because his judgment may have differed from that which would have been formed in the premises by a modern sermon-critic.

rendering them replete with learning, without in the least unfitting them for popular effect, or rendering them above the comprehension of his people.

But BOCHART was not left long undisturbed in this happy and useful connexion. The plans which the wily RICHELIEU had set in operation were now beginning to take effect, and all things were fast ripening for the downfall of the reformed religion in France. Among other indications of the approach of that event, was the appearance of a swarm of self-constituted pacificators, who, under pretence of seeking by the oft tried method of conference and disputation, to unite both parties, were in reality deepening the prejudices of the Romanists and exasperating their ill-will against the Protestant minority. A conspicuous place among these wranglers was held by one VERON, an ex-Jesuit, who, under authority of a royal licence, migrated from place to place, holding formal disputations with such of the reformed as he could persuade or tease into the measure. He was one of the set known in history by the name of Methodists, on account of their adopting and rigidly observing particular methods of conducting their controversies, which seemed to them best suited to effect their ends. His plan was to insist that his antagonists should make good their arguments and opinions, in every instance, by express and formal declarations of Holy Writ. No inference or conclusion, however fair, no circumstantial proof, however strong, was to be admitted. You appeal to Scripture,' was virtually his language to Protestants, and to Scripture we will go. But it shall be Scripture only, without the least aid of human reason in any way applied.' Of course there could be very little chance of failure in such a contest. With all the advantage of the negative side of the question, he deprived his opponents of the use of the only evidence which they could, or desired to, bring in support of their affirmative. (0) This champion made his appearance at Caen in

(0) MOSHEMII. Hist. Eccles. p. 873. SIMON Lettres Choisies, p. 212. s