Chapter VII: Part 7

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 interruption 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 months afterwards at Prato, by Bernardo Nardi and some other Florentine exiles; but the complete inertness 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 befell 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 nephews, 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 character. He, at first, made some endeavours to convince 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 Soderini and other statesmen of more experience strongly recommended conciliatory measures. An army was accordingly sent under the command of the Count of Urbino, which, after obtaining admission into the unfortunate city by capitulation, despoiled and plundered its inhabitants for a whole day.

Though, on his first succeeding to his father, Lorenzo did not attempt to exercise the sovereign authority in person, he assumed it by degrees, in proportion 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 tyrannical 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 several members of the distinguished family of the Pazzi, whom Lorenzo had injured in their interests as well as in their feelings; Girolamo Riario, a nephew 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 individuals of inferior note, who were either moved by private or public wrongs. After vain endeavours to seize the two brothers together, the conspirators resolved to execute their enterprize 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 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 citizens was shed. The Pope pronounced a sentence of excommunication against him and the chief magistrates for having hanged an archbishop; and sent a crusade of almost all Italy against the republic, requiring that its leaders should be given up to suffer for their scandalous misdemeanour. 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 apprized 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 returned 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 Lorenzo 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 Frescobaldi, 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 public business to literary leisure, and spent his time in the society of men of talent, in philosophical studies, 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 approaching end. Having sent to request the attendance of the famous Savonarola, to whom he was desirous 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 deprived of the sovereignty in consequence of the reaction that the eloquent sermons of Savonarola produced 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 profligacy and extravagance; and Giuliano, who afterwards 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 immoderate 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, exhibit an uncommon versatility of genius, a rich imagination, 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 nearly buried in oblivion. His efforts for the diffusion 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 conceive any strong reverence or respect for his memory without forgetting his political conduct, which is far from deserving any praise.

_Engraved by E. Scriven._

GEORGE BUCHANAN.

_From a Picture by Francis Pourbus Sen. in the possession of the Royal
Society._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

BUCHANAN

George Buchanan was born in February, 1506, at a small village called Killearn, on the borders of Stirlingshire 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 obscurity, 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 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 principally in a careful perusal of the best Latin authors, especially the poets. This kind of learning was peculiarly 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. Alter 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 consequence 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 18th 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 (through Buchanan[2]) by his Latinized name of Major, was then reading lectures at St. Andrews on grammar and logic. He soon heard of the superior accomplishments of the poor student, and immediately took him under his protection. Buchanan, notwithstanding 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 doctrines which Major taught. He affirmed the superiority 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, divested 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, John Knox, the celebrated Scottish 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 1566 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 reasonings, and better thoughts to reason upon, produced great effects in the reformation of their native country.

Footnote 2:

See his epigram. “In Johannem solo cognomento Majorem ut ipse in
fionte libri scripsit.”

Cum scateat nugis solo cognomine Major,
Nec sit in immenso patina sana libro;
Non minem titulis quod se veracibus ornet;
Nec semper mendax fingere Creta solet.

The book was “ane most fulish tractate on ane most emptie subject.”

After Buchanan had finished his studies at St. Andrew’s, 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 reformation, 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.

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 “Somnium.” He feigns in this piece that Saint Francis d’Assize had appeared to him in a dream, and besought him to become a monk of his order. The poet answers, “that he is nowise fit for the purpose; because 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 understood, 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 brotherhood. 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 dissuaded 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 scruple. The Latin is pure, and free from the barbarisms 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 1539, 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 endeavours 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 exertions, 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, finding 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 Bourdeaux. During his residence there he composed his famous Latin Tragedies, ‘Jephthes’ and ‘Joannes Baptistes,’ and translated 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, however, he took care to let the King know that his 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 declared, 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 production 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 returned again to France. Here the Marechal de Brissac intrusted him with the education of his son Timoleon de Cossé. While thus employed he studied, more particularly than he had hitherto done, the controversies of the day with regard to religion, and became 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 ‘Sphœra,’ 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 Protestant 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.

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 made 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 dedicated to his royal pupil) sentiments totally at variance with all the notions of James. In it Buchanan follows the ancient models of what was thought a perfect 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 the death, according to the enormity of it,—that when St. Paul talks of obedience to authorities he spoke to a low condition 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 concludes 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 opinions of James, who most strongly upheld the divine right of kings, and episcopal authority. Buchanan, when he was accused of making James a pedant, declared 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 βασίλικον δῷρον 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 unfortunate 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 Mariæ Reginæ,’ published in 1571; and he was her great accuser at the court of Elizabeth, when appointed 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 perhaps too deeply buried in the dust of antiquity to admit of proof. He offered to swear to their genuineness, 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 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 remaining 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, and 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 valueless. 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 partisan, 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 geographical description of Scotland, with some poetical accounts 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 Fergus I. to James VI., a space extending from the beginning of the sixth century to the end of the sixteenth. 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 well known, destroyed all the genuine records of Scottish 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 legends 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 Scottish Parliament condemned them both as false and seditious books. We may lay part of this condemnation to James’s account. It is not probable that he would allow so much abuse of his mother as they contained, directly and 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 enemies 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 benefactors; 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 appear to be altogether untrue. But his fame rests rather on his persevering industry, his excellent scholarship, 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 Freebairn, at Edinburgh, in the year 1715, in two volumes, folio.

_Engraved by J. Thomson._

FÉNÉLON.

_From the original Picture by Vivien in the Collection at the Louvre._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

FENELON

Francois de Salignac de Lamothe-Fenelon was born August 6th, 1651, at the Castle of Fenelon, of a noble and ancient family in the province of Perigord.

Early proofs of talent and genius induced his uncle, the Marquis de Fenelon, a man of no ordinary merit, to take him under his immediate care and superintendence. By him he was placed at the seminary of St. Sulpice, then lately founded in Paris for the purpose of educating young men for the church.

The studies of the young Abbé were not encouraged by visions of a stall and a mitre. It seems that the object of his earliest ambition was, as a missionary, to carry the blessings of the Gospel to the savages of North America, or to the Mahometans and heretics of Greece and Anatolia. The fears, however, or the hopes of his friends detained him at home, and after his ordination he confined himself for several years to the duties of the ministry in the parish of St. Sulpice.

At the age of twenty-seven he was appointed superior of a society which had for its object the instruction and encouragement of female converts to the Church of Rome; and from this time he took up his abode with his uncle. In this house he first became known to Bossuet, by whose recommendation he was intrusted with the conduct of a mission, charged with the duty of reclaiming the Protestants in the province of Poitou, in the memorable year 1685, when the Huguenots were writhing under the infliction of the dragonnade, employed by the government to give full effect to the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Fenelon had no mind to have dragoons for his coadjutors, and requested that all show of martial terror might be removed from the places which he visited. His future proceedings were in strict conformity with this gentle commencement, and consequently exposed him to the harassing remonstrances of his superiors.

His services in Poitou were not acknowledged by any reward from the government, for Louis XIV. had begun to look coldly upon him; but it was not his fortune to remain long in obscurity. Amongst the visitors at his uncle’s house, whose friendship he had the happiness to gain, was the Duke de Beauvilliers, a man who could live at the court of Louis without ceasing to live as a Christian. This nobleman was appointed in the year 1689 Governor of the Duke of Burgundy, the grandson of Louis, and heir, after his father the Dauphin, to the throne of France. His first act was to appoint Fenelon preceptor to his royal charge, then in his eighth year, and already distinguished for the frightful violence of his passions, his insolent demeanour, and tyrannical spirit. The child had, however, an affectionate heart and a quick sense of shame. Fenelon gained his love and confidence, and used his power to impress upon him the Christian’s method of self-government. His headstrong pupil was subdued, not by the fear of man, but by the fear of God. In the task of instruction less difficulty awaited him; for the young prince was remarkably intelligent and industrious. The progress of a royal student is likely to be rated at his full amount by common fame; but there is reason to believe that in this case it was rapid and substantial.

In 1694 he was presented to the Abbey of St. Valery, and two years afterwards promoted to the Archbishopric of Cambray, with a command that he should retain his office of preceptor, giving personal attendance only during the three months of absence from his diocese which the Canons allowed. In resigning his abbey, which from conscientious motives he refused to keep with his archbishopric, he was careful to assign such reasons as might not convey an indirect censure of the numerous pluralists among his clerical brethren. Probably this excess of delicacy, which it is easy to admire and difficult to justify, was hardly requisite in the case of many of the offenders. One of them, the Archbishop of Rheims, when informed of the conscientious conduct of Fenelon, made the following reply: “M. de Cambray with his sentiments does right in resigning his benefice, and I with my sentiments do very right in keeping mine.” This mode of defence is capable of very general application, and is in fact very generally used, being good for other cases beside that of pluralities.

This preferment was the last mark of royal favour which he received. Louis was never cordially his friend, and there were many at court eager to convert him into an enemy. An opportunity was afforded by Fenelon’s connexion with Madame Guyon.

It is well known that this lady was the great apostle of the Quietists, a sect of religionists, so called, because they studied to attain a state of perfect contemplation, in which the soul is the passive recipient of divine light. She was especially noted for her doctrine of pure love; she taught that Christian perfection consisted in a disinterested love of God, excluding the hope of happiness and fear of misery, and that this perfection was attainable by man. Fenelon first became acquainted with her at the house of his friend the Duke de Beauvilliers, and, convinced of the sincerity of her religion, was disposed to regard her more favourably from a notion that her religious opinions, against which a loud clamour had been raised, coincided very nearly with his own. It has been the fashion to represent him as her convert and disciple. The truth is, that he was deeply versed in the writings of the later mystics; men who, with all their extravagance, were perhaps the best representatives of the Christian character to be found among the Roman Catholics of their time. He considered the doctrine of Madame Guyon to be substantially the same with that of his favourite authors; and whatever appeared exceptionable in her expositions, he attributed to loose and exaggerated expression natural to her sex and character.

The approbation of Fenelon gave currency to the fair Quietist amongst orthodox members of the church. At last the bishops began to take alarm: the clamour was renewed, and the examination of her doctrines solemnly intrusted to Bossuet and two other learned divines. Fenelon was avowedly her friend; yet no one hitherto had breathed a suspicion of any flaw in his orthodoxy. It was even during the examination, and towards the close of it, that he was promoted to the Archbishopric of Cambray. The blow came at length from the hand of his most valued friend. He had been altogether passive in the proceedings respecting Madame Guyon. Bossuet, who had been provoked into vehement wrath, and had resolved to crush her, was sufficiently irritated by this temperate neutrality. But when Fenelon found himself obliged to publish his ‘Maxims of the Saints,’ in which, without attacking others, he defends his own views of some of the controverted points, Bossuet, in a tumult of zeal, threw himself at the feet of Louis, denounced his friend as a dangerous fanatic, and besought the King to interpose the royal arm between the Church and pollution. Fenelon offered to submit his book to the judgment of the Pope. Permission was granted in very ungracious terms, and presently followed by a sentence of banishment to his diocese. This sudden reverse of fortune, which he received without even whispering a complaint, served to show the forbearance and meekness of his spirit, but it deprived him of none of his powers. An animated controversy arose between him and Bossuet, and all Europe beheld with admiration the boldness and success with which he maintained his ground against the renowned and veteran disputant; and that, too, in the face of fearful discouragement. The whole power of the court was arrayed against him, and he stood alone; for his powerful friends had left his side. The Cardinal de Noailles and others, who had in private expressed unqualified approbation of his book, meanly withheld a public acknowledgment of their opinions. Whilst his enemy enjoyed every facility, and had Louis and his courtiers and courtly bishops to cheer him on, it was with difficulty that Fenelon could find a printer who would venture to put to the press a work which bore his name. Under these disadvantages, harassed in mind, and with infirm health, he replied to the deliberate and artful attacks of his adversary with a rapidity which, under any circumstances, would have been astonishing. He was now gaining ground daily in public opinion. The Pope also, who knew his merit, was very unwilling to condemn. His persecutors were excited to additional efforts. He had already been banished from court; now he was deprived of the name of preceptor, and of his salary,—of that very salary which some time before he had eagerly offered to resign, in consideration of the embarrassed state of the royal treasury. The flagging zeal of the Pope was stimulated by threats conveyed in letters from Louis penned by Bossuet. At length the sentence of condemnation was obtained; but in too mild a form to satisfy altogether the courtly party. No bull was issued. A simple brief pronounced certain propositions to be erroneous and dangerous, and condemned the book which contained them, without sentencing it in the usual manner to the flames.

It is needless to say that Fenelon submitted. He published without delay the sentence of condemnation, noting the selected propositions, and expressing his entire acquiescence in the judgment pronounced; and prohibited the faithful in his diocese from reading or having in their possession his own work, which up to that moment he had defended so manfully. Protestants, who are too apt in judging the conduct of Roman Catholics, to forget every thing but their zeal, have raised an outcry against his meanness and dissimulation. Fenelon was a sincere member of a Church which claimed infallibility. We may regret the thraldom in which such a mind was held by an authority from which the Protestant happily is free; but the censure which falls on him personally for this act is certainly misplaced.

The faint hopes which his friends might have cherished, that when the storm had passed he would be restored to favour, were soon extinguished by an event, which, whilst it closed against him for ever the doors of the palace, secured him a place in history, and without which it is probable that he would never have become the subject even of a short memoir.

A manuscript which he had intrusted to a servant to copy, was treacherously sold by this man to a printer in Paris, who immediately put it to the press, under the title of Continuation of the Fourth Book of the Odyssey, or Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses, with the royal privilege, dated April 6, 1699. It was told at court that the forthcoming work was from the pen of the obnoxious archbishop; and before the impression of the first volume was completed, orders were given to suppress it, to punish the printers, and seize the copies already printed. A few however escaped the hands of the police, and were rapidly circulated. One of them, together with a copy of the remaining part of the manuscript, soon after came into the possession of a printer at the Hague, who could publish it without danger.

So eager was the curiosity which the violent proceedings of the French court had excited, that the press could hardly be made, with the utmost exertion, to keep pace with the demand. Such is the history of the first appearance of Telemachus.

Louis was persuaded to think that the whole book was intended to be a satire on him, his court, and government; and the world was persuaded for a time to think the same. So, whilst the wrath of the King was roused to the uttermost, all Europe was sounding forth the praises of Fenelon. The numerous enemies of Louis exulted at the supposed exhibition of his tyranny and profligate life. The philosophers were charmed with the liberal and enlightened views of civil government which they seemed to discover. It is now well known that the anger and the praise were alike undeserved. The book was probably written for the use of the Duke of Burgundy, certainly at a time when Fenelon enjoyed the favour of his sovereign, and was desirous to retain it. He may have forgotten that it was impossible to describe a good and a bad king, a virtuous and a profligate court, without saying much that would bear hard upon Louis and his friends. As for his political enlightenment, it is certain that he had his full share of the monarchical principles of his time and nation. He wished to have good kings, but he made no provision for bad ones. It is difficult to believe that Louis was seriously alarmed at his notions of political economy. That science was not in a very advanced state; but no one could fear that a prince could be induced by the lessons of his tutor to collect all the artificers of luxury in his capital, and drive them in a body into the fields to cultivate potatoes and cabbages, with a belief that he would thus make the country a garden, and the town a seat of the Muses.

Nothing was now left to Fenelon but to devote himself to his episcopal duties, which he seems to have discharged with equal zeal and ability. The course of his domestic life, as described by an eyewitness, was retired, and, to a remarkable degree, uniform. Strangers were courteously and hospitably received; but his society was confined for the most part to the ecclesiastics who resided in his house. Amongst them were some of his own relations, to whom he was tenderly attached, but for whose preferment, it should be noticed, he never manifested an unbecoming eagerness. His only recreation was a solitary walk in the fields, where it was his employment, as he observes to a friend, to converse with his God. If in his rambles he fell in with any of the poorer part of his flock, he would sit with them on the grass, and discourse about their temporal as well as their spiritual concerns; and sometimes he would visit them in their humble sheds, and partake of such refreshment as they offered him.

In the beginning of the 18th century we find him engaged at once in controversy and politics. The revival of the old dispute with the Jansenists, to whom he was strongly opposed, obliged him to take up his pen; but in using it he never forgot his own maxim, that “rigour and severity are not of the spirit of the Gospel.” For a knowledge of his political labours we are indebted to his biographer, the Cardinal de Bausset, who first published his letters to the Duke de Beauvilliers on the subject of the war which followed the grand alliance in the year 1701. In them he not only considers the general questions of the succession to the Spanish monarchy, the objects of the confederated powers, and the measures best calculated to avert or soften their hostility, but even enters into details of military operations, discusses the merits of the various generals, stations the different armies, and sketches a plan of the campaign. Towards the close of the war he communicated to the Duke de Chevreuse heads of a very extensive reform in all the departments of government. This reform did not suppose any fundamental change of the old despotism. It was intended, doubtless, for the consideration of the Duke of Burgundy, to whose succession all France was looking forward with sanguine hopes, founded on the acknowledged excellence of his character, which Fenelon himself had so happily contributed to form. But amongst the other trials which visited his latter days, he was destined to mourn the death of his pupil.

Fenelon did not long survive the general pacification. After a short illness and intense bodily suffering, which he seems to have supported by calling to mind the sufferings of his Saviour, he died February 7th, 1715, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. No money was found in his coffers. The produce of the sale of his furniture, together with the arrears of rent due to him, were appropriated, by his direction, to pious and charitable purposes.

The calumnies with which he was assailed during the affair of Quietism were remembered only to the disadvantage of their authors. The public seem eventually to have regarded him as a man who was persecuted because he refused to be a persecutor; who had maintained, at all hazards, what he believed to be the cause of truth and justice; and had resigned his opinion only at that moment when conscience required the sacrifice.

Universal homage was paid by his contemporaries to his talents and genius. In the grasp and power of his intellect, and in the extent and completeness of his knowledge, none probably would have ventured to compare him with Bossuet; but in fertility and brilliancy of imagination, in a ready and dexterous use of his materials, and in that quality which his countrymen call esprit, he was supposed to have no superior. Bossuet himself said of him “Il brille d’esprit, il est tout esprit, il en a bien plus que moi.”

It is obvious that his great work, the Adventures of Telemachus, was, in the first instance, indebted for some portion of its popularity to circumstances which had no connexion with its merits; but we cannot attribute to the same cause the continued hold which it has maintained on the public favour. Those who are ignorant of the interest which attended its first appearance still feel the charm of that beautiful language which is made the vehicle of the purest morality and the most ennobling sentiments. In the many editions through which it passed, between its first publication and the death of the author, Fenelon took no concern. Publicly he neither avowed nor disavowed the work, though he prepared corrections and additions for future editors. All obstacles to its open circulation were removed by the death of Louis; and in the year 1717, the Marquis de Fenelon, his great-nephew, presented to Louis XV. a new and correct edition, superintended by himself, from which the text of all subsequent editions has been taken.

The best authority for the life of Fenelon accessible to the public is the laborious work of his biographer, the Cardinal de Bausset, which is rendered particularly valuable by the great number of original documents which appear at the end of each volume. Its value would be increased if much of the theological discussion were omitted, and the four volumes compressed into three.

WREN

Christopher Wren, the most celebrated of British architects, was born at East Knoyle in Wiltshire, October 20, 1632. His father was Rector of that parish, Dean of Windsor, and Registrar of the Order of the Garter: his uncle, Dr. Matthew Wren, was successively Bishop of Hereford, of Norwich, and of Ely; and was one of the greatest sufferers for the royal cause during the Commonwealth, having been imprisoned nearly twenty years in the Tower without ever having been brought to trial. The political predilections of Wren’s family may be sufficiently understood from these notices; but he himself, although his leaning probably was to the side which had been espoused by his father and his uncle, seems to have taken no active part in state affairs. The period of his long life comprehended a series of the mightiest national convulsions and changes that ever took place in England—the civil war—the overthrow of the monarchy—the domination of Cromwell—the Restoration—the Revolution—the union with Scotland—and, finally, the accession of a new family to the throne; but we do not find that in the high region of philosophy and art in which he moved, he ever allowed himself to be either withdrawn from or interrupted in his course by any of these great events of the outer world.

His health in his early years was extremely delicate. On this account he received the commencement of his education at home under the superintendence of his father and a domestic tutor. He was then sent to Westminster School, over which the celebrated Busby had just come to preside. The only memorial which we possess of Wren’s schoolboy days, is a dedication in Latin verse, addressed by him to his father in his thirteenth year, of an astronomical machine which he had invented, and which seems from his description to have been a sort of apparatus for representing the celestial motions, such as we now call an orrery. His genius is also stated to have displayed itself at this early age in other mechanical contrivances.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.

_From the original picture by Sir G. Kneller, in the possession of the
Royal Society._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]