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almost the very canon to judge both doctrine and discipline by. French churches, both abroad and at home, were all cast according to that mould which Calvin had made. The church of Scotland, in erecting the fabric of their reformation, took the self-same pattern, till at length the discipline, which was at first so weak, began to challenge universal obedience."* Most of his works, however, though they still continue to produce their effect through the medium of more popular modern writers, who have imbibed his spirit, and adopted his opinions, are yet, at the present day, if we except the Institutes, much more frequently quoted than read, and are certainly little known to the general scholar. These, therefore, should be analyzed fully and fairly, as well with respect to their literary merit and their general character of thought and argument, as to their theological opinions. Finally, the personal, theological, and literary character of Calvin, should be ably and honestly summed up; a task which would demand the candour of Jortin or Watts, and all the vigour and critical acuteness of Johnson.

If all these subjects, exuberantly rich as they are, do not af ford sufficient scope for the biographer, there is still ample room for expansion and digression. The influence of his opinions may be traced; the biographer may show how the simple theology of Calvin has been worked up into metaphysical systems which never entered his mind, or explained away into what he would have shrunk from as heresy. He might point out, too, how far the spirit of the reformer of Geneva has pervaded those systems of religious faith which nominally disclaim all connexion with the peculiar doctrines which bear his name, and how much his genius has shed its influence and given its own colour to the literature, the manners, and even to some of the political institutions of the present day. Here is opened a field of speculation in which the excursive genius of Warburton, though as eccentric in his course as the orbit of a comet, might wanton in boundless digression. Here he might have run wild in paradox, or displayed his giant strength in grappling with the most arduous subjects. But Warburton would probably have viewed the character and opinions of

* Hooker's Ecclesiast. Polit. Preface.

Calvin with a malignant and jaundiced eye, certainly without any portion of that cordial admiration which would be essential to give interest and animation to the narrative. In every intellectual gift and accomplishment, in extent and variety of knowledge, in laborious industry and minute accuracy of research, and above all, in that bold originality of conception which can unite into one harmonious whole, the most dissonant materials, Gibbon, as the biographer of Calvin, would have stood without a rival; but his genius had no moral sympathy with that of this illustrious apostle of the reformed faith. Instead of kindling with congenial warmth from his inflexible integrity, his high-seated principle, and his generous yet tempered enthusiasm, he would have continually chilled his reader with cold-blooded sarcasm, and half-veiled irony. Of all the scholars of the last generation, Horsley appears to us to have been the one best fitted for this undertaking. But even Horsley, in America, could scarcely do justice to the task. There must doubtless exist in many neglected historical and polemical writers of the continent, a considerable body of curious matter relating to the history of Calvin's life; most of these are inaccessible to a compiler on this side the Atlantic. As rich as many of our public and private libraries are in works of much greater general utility, we much question whether all the libraries in this country could supply the means of making the researches necessary to give a thorough and satisfactory view of the character of the man and of his times.

After what has been said, our readers will readily anticipate that Mr. Waterman has scarcely filled up the plan which we have sketched out on so bold a scale. Indeed he has not attempted it. He has contented himself with compiling a faithful and unpretending narrative of the life and actions of the great reformer, and has executed his undertaking in a very creditable manner. He has assumed, as the groundwork of his biography, Theodore Beza's Vita Calvini, commonly prefixed to the later editions of the Institutiones Religionis Christiana. To this he has adhered very closely, and has translated and embodied almost the whole of it in his own work.

This brief and condensed narrative he expands by occasional

observations and remarks, and the addition of such historical facts as he could glean from various authors of that age, but chiefly from the epistles of Calvin himself, the whole of which are translated and inserted either in the body of the work or the appendix. The biography, which, in spite of these helps, is still meager, is farther enlarged by some digressions in defence or panegyric of Calvin. The longest and most laboured digression is one in vindication of the reformer from the charge so frequently brought against his character by many of the opponents of his doctrines, and lately repeated with much warmth by Mr. Roscoe, in his life of Leo X. -that of being the principal agent in the trial, condemnation, and execution of the Socinian Servetus. We were happy to find that the biographer almost exculpates him from the charge of persecution, and shows, in the most satisfactory manner, that though he partook of the general error of the age, in regarding it both as the right and duty of the civil magistrate to repress heretical opinions by the strong arm of legal authority, yet so far was he from having any particular agency in the punishment of Servetus, that he, in fact, interceded, though ineffectually, to mitigate his sentence.

It is amusing to observe that our biographer, in the course of this argument, as well as in other parts of the narrative, often appears to be half inclined to approve of the old-fashioned orthodox mode of treating contumacious heretics, and, without giving any direct opinion on the subject, is continually vibrating between the more tolerant practice of the present age, and the allegiance which, as a faithful and loyal biographer, he feels bound to show to all the opinions of his hero. But in his vindication of the moral character of Calvin from the accusations of Mr. Roscoe and others, we consider him as completely triumphant. Indeed, had his argument been much less powerful and ingenious than it is, we should yet have been strongly disposed to admit its force. We do not number ourselves among those who glory in calling Calvin rabbi and master, yet we confess, that considering him as one of the most illustrious fathers of our civil and religious liberties, we regard his memory with affectionate veneration. Whenever the historian or antiquary is thus successful in wiping away with pious diligence the spots and stains which time has left upon the cha

racter of wise and virtuous men, he assists in accomplishing many of the noblest purposes of history. He takes away from vice some portion of the apology and the malignant consolation which it finds in the frailty and lapses of imperfect human virtue. He excites the ingenuous mind to measure its conduct by a higher standard of moral and intellectual worth. He awakens in the breast the most generous enthusiasm, and the purest sentiments of our nature, by enabling us to embody, in some substantial form of active virtue, those grand and magnificent, but undefined, ideas of imaginary excellence, which often float before the mind, and then vanish away like the mist of the morning. If "that man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force in the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona," surely he is still more to be pitied, whose heart swells with no virtuous emotion when the clouds of error and prejudice are thus rolled away, and the form of moral greatness stands unveiled before his eyes in its native majesty, like the pillar of Pompey, towering in solitary grandeur above the waste and subject plain.

In one part of Mr. Waterman's work we were much disappointed. Our expectations had been raised by the title of memoirs of the life and writings of Calvin. But of his writings, important as they are, Mr. W. gives us but a brief and imperfect account; nothing more, indeed, than the mere titles of some of them, and of others but little more than the occasion on which they were composed, and some general praises of their style or doctrine. There is no regular analysis or criticism upon any of Calvin's works, nor any statement of his opinions on many subjects, of secondary importance, indeed, when compared with the weightier matters of doctrine, but infinitely curious and interesting to many a reader to whom the ponderous latin folios of Calvin are known only by reputation.

Mr. Waterman's style, in the ordinary tenor of his history, is unaffected, and sufficiently perspicuous, but when he leaves his narrative to digress into argument, or strives to rise into elegance, he loses all command of language, and his diction becomes deformed by provincialisms, and debased by strange and anomalous

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impurities. One of his most ordinary faults is the use of words not in their true and received signification, but in a different sense so nearly related to the true, that while the meaning is sufficiently obvious, the expression has a strange and foreign sound, not unlike the composition of a foreigner, or a literal translation from another language. Thus, for example, he uses the phrase "he dissembled repentance," for "he affected or pretended repentance;" and again, "The lapse of years rarely effaced from his recollection persons whom he had once recognised," meaning "persons whom he had known, or been acquainted with." Sometimes he indulges in metaphorical expressions not always very clear in their meaning, and singularly harsh and pedantic in their effect; such as "the hydras of faction shoot forth their successively revegetating heads;" and again he talks of "impeaching persons of a nictating vision;" meaning, as we gather from the context, accusing them of dulness of perception. These stately sentences are curiously contrasted by one or two slovenly colloquial phrases—he talks, for instance, of "the nervous system of some men being put all on shiver." These inelegancies are, perhaps, intentionally hazarded for the sake of producing a dashing effect of spirit and strength. If so, we cannot compliment Mr. Waterman upon his success; their only effect is to give to his composition a certain whimsical, particoloured appearance, forcibly reminding us of the dialect of the learned Hudibras, which was,

English cut on greek or latin,
Like fustian, heretofore on satin;
And had an odd promiscuous tone,
As if he spoke two parts in one.

It is but justice to our author to repeat that this fault is far from being habitual with him; there are, however, others of equal magnitude, of much more frequent recurrence in his pages. He constantly employs several words of American origin, of no authority or peculiar significancy whatever; in particular the word "locale," of which he seems very fond, a word useful and proper enough in its primitive legal and business sense, for which purpose it was originally manufactured, but unnecessary in any other, and espe

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