E have endeavoured to pre

sent our readers with a short view of the leading principles by which Hôpital was guided in the discharge of his high office; it remains to mention his fall from power. We have said, that he resisted the cardinal of Lorraine on the great question of the reception of the Council of Trent in France, and that his resistance was successful. This was never forgiven by the house of Guise: the princes of it determined on the chancellor's removal; but he was so much esteemed and loved by the king, the queen-mother, and the great body of the nation, that the Guises did not venture to take the seals from him; and therefore, by their continual opposition to his measures, compeiled him to resign them. He then retired to his country house at Virnay.

He had always cultivated the Muses: several of his Poetical EpisHles have reached us. Considering them as literary compositions, their unpretending simplicity is their greatest merit: but they show such real dignity of character, they breathe so pure a spirit of virtue, and are full of such excellent sentiments of public and private worth, that they will always be read with pleasure.

"

They are particularly remarkable for the perfect lessons to be found in them of complete religious toleration, and it adds much to their merit in this respect, that, in those days, religious toleration was a virtue very little known—“ It is a folly,' l'Hôpital observes in one of them (lib. vi. p. 2901, “to suppose, that you can destroy by force, the divisions which subsist among us. You may put to death some of the innovators; the consequence will only be, that the land, fertilized by their blood, will produce a thousand others. You may prevent them, for a time, from assembling in their temples; but, by thus concentrating the fire, you only give it more activity, when it finds a vent: an explosion must take place, and a general conflagration, the flames of which may touch the very skies, will then ensue. This kind of remedy does not suit the evils, under which we labour. Does not the founder of our religion enjoin us to love peace, to refrain from violence? Did he ever intimidate any one by acts of violence? Did he not constantly endeavour to gain hearts to him by the meekness of his words? What can the sword do to the mind? it may force the tongue to be silent, or perhaps to utter untruth; but the internal sentiment will re

"From these scenes of blood and carnage, his muse often fled.Health,' he exclaims in another epistle, bealth to the dear friends, who, quitting the roads to great towns and splendid castles, come to visit me in my humble retreat. The Juxury, the amusements of the capital, they don't expect to meet with there; the smallness of my fields does not enable me to treat them sumptuously. But, all I have, they may all command.' He proceeds to boast of his sheep, his lambs, his milk, his fruit, his nuts, and his wine, made under his wife's own care; the hares they might hunt, the birds they might shoot.' He hints to them, however, that the situation of the domain, to which he invites them, was not very beautiful: he tells them that they were not to look for extensive prospects, or even for a crystal stream; all his water, he says, come from a well. -But, Spartam, quam nactus sis, orna;-Sparta has fallen to my lot, and I must make the best of

6

* her.'

"His expressions on his fall from power are those of dignity and conscious rectitude. No! my dear friend! thus he writes to the president de Thou, I am not con1814.

quered! I have withdrawn from the administration of the public concerns; but I did not give up my post through cowardice. As long as I could be of any use to my king or country, no danger alarmed me; I endured every thing. But abandoned by all, both the king and the queen-mother being terrified from the support of me, I retired, with a sigh for my unhappy country. How contentedly should I die, if I could behold my king restored to his just prerogatives, and peace and liberty restored to my fellow subjects! My own career draws to its end, my tenth lustre verges to its close. The world to come should now be my only care.' He speaks of his general conduct in life with modesty, and appeals, with confidence, to the judgment of it by posterity; yet he wishes it better known, what violence he had to combat, what artifices to contend with. If those were fully known, it would be wondered that I was not sooner overpowered.' He rejoices that he had persevered to the end.

"He foresaw that the peace, which preceded the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day, would not be of long duration. He narrowly escaped being among its victims. One of the few circumstances in the life of Charles the ninth, which can be related with any praise, is the attachment which he showed to l'Hôpital. During the massacre on St. Bartholomew's-day, he sent a troop of horse to protect l'Hôpital from outrage; and in the last illness of l'Hôpital, he and the queenmother sent him a message of great kindness, with an assurance that they would provide for his grandchildren.

L'Hôpital survived his retirement from office about four years; and the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day some months. That horrid event embittered all his hours: I

have lived,' he says, in a letter written soon after it, 'I have lived too long! I have seen, what I could not have believed, a young prince of an excellent natural character, change, in a moment, from a mild king to a ferocious tyrant. Those were not the manners of the ancient kings: they were too fond of war; but they made it openly. No prospect of advantage would have induced them to break a peace, which they had solemnly sworn to observe. But we have been corrupted by our neighbours; our manners are changed.

"The office of chancellor had not added to his fortune. The small provision, which he should leave behind him. for his graudchildren, afflicted his last moments. He was sensible of the kind assurances which he received from the king and queen-mother; but he foresaw, that, if they had the will, the circumstances of the times would deprive them of the means of giving them effect.

In the life of the conrêtable de Montmorency, Brantôme inserts the will of l'Espital: It is very in teresting.

"It contains a short statement of the principal events of his life. He particularly mentions his appointment to the office of chancelfor: I soon found,' he proceeds, that I had to do with persons as enterprising as they were powerful, who preferred violence to council and prudence. They almost dis

placed the queen from the administration of government; and they forced the king of Navarre into a war. It was ever my opinion, that nothing is so destructive to a state as a civil war ; and that peace, almost on any terms, is preferable to it. The advocates for war stirred up all ranks against me ;-nobility, princes, magistrates and judges; and by their cabals prevailed over me. Thus they ruined the king and kingdom. We saw, what I cannot mention without tears, foreign soldiers sporting with our lives and property, while those, who should have been the first to defend us against them, were the first to lead them on. Finding I had no longer the means of resisting them, I retired. My last prayer to the king and queen-mother was, that, since they had resolved to break the peace, and to make war on those, with whom, but a short time before, they were concerting measures of peace, they would, when the first thirst for carnage and blood was satisfied, and before the state was brought to the last stage of ruin, embrace the earliest occasion that offered of making peace. It broke my heart to see the young king and his brother taken from me, when they stood most in need of my councils. I take God and his angels to witness, that nothing has been so dear to me as my king and country. The good of religion served as a pretence for my removal : its real cause was, that those whose cabals removed me, felt, that so long as I remained in office, I would not permit the king's edicts to be trifled with, his finances to be dilapidated, or the fortunes of his subjects to be plundered.' He

thea

then proceeds to dispose of his property.

"L'Hôpital,' says Brantôme, was the greatest, worthiest, and most learned chancellor, that was ever known in France. His large white beard, pale countenance, austere manner, made all who saw him think they beheld a true portrait of St. Jerome; he was called St. Jerome by the courtiers. All orders of men feared him; particularly the members of the courts of justice; and, when he examined them on their lives, their discharge of their duties, their capacities, or their knowledge, and particularly, when he examined candidates for offices, and found them deficient, he made them feel it.'

"He was profoundly versed in polite learning, very eloquent, and an excellent poet. His severity was never ill-natured; he made due allowance for the imperfections of human nature; was always equal and always firm. After his death, his very enemies acknowledged that he was the greatest magistrate whom France had known, and that they did not expect to see such another.'

"He died at Vignay, on the 13th of March 1573.

"Both catholics and protestants reproached him with being a concealed protestant. Theodore Beza caused an engraving of him to be made, and a lantern with a lighted candle in it, fastened to his back ;

designing to intimate by it, that l'Hôpital had seen the light,, but turned his back to it, and left it for others to follow. His uniform declaration in favour of the toleration of the Huguenots, his marrying his daughter to a Huguenot, her subsequent conversion to Calvinism, and there not being found a single expression of regret, at any of these circumstances, in his poems, which are full of domestic details, favour this supposition. On the other hand, when the cardinal of Ferara was sent by the pope, as his ambassador to France, in 1562, one object of his mission was to procure the removal of the chancellor on the ground of his supposed Calvinism; but, in one of his letters to cardinal Borromeo, he mentions, that it would be impossible to fix on l'Hôpital the imputation of heresy; as he was seen regularly at mass, at confes. sion, and at communion. The cardinal adds, that when he mentioned the matter to the queenmother she would not hear of it; all these imputations, she said, were the work of a few individuals interested in his removal.' Most assuredly, his support of the Jesuits against the parliament does not favour the notion of his being a Calvinist; and it is observable, that under Henry the fourth, one of his grandsons was archbishop of Aix.

ANECDOTES

"C

ONTEMPORARY, or nearly contemporary with these sages of the heptarchy, was Bede, who from his superior learning and admirable virtues, received in his lifetime the appellation of Venerable. He was born in the county Palatine of Durham, within the domain of two neighbouring monasteries; under the superiors of which he was educated from his earliest youth, and where, becoming a monk, he lived, taught, and died. His first instructor was the abbot Bennet Biscop, the interpreter of Theodore, when he first came into England; and who had probably imbibed a love of letters from his lectures and conversation. The proficiency of Bede in all the branches of learning, and in the Greek and Latin languages, was certainly considerable, and while we admire his acquirements, we are inclined to suppose that there were others, amongst his brethren, pursued the same course; and that the late primate and his African friend had been been able to excite a spirit of intellectual cultivation, the beneficial effects of which were extensive ly diffused. The continued intercourse with Rome, among a people emerging from barbarism, would serve to animate curiosity, and to multiply the competitors for intellectual distinction. Bede thus speaks of himself: "My life was spent within the precincts of the same inonastery, devoted to the me

ditation of the divine word; and where, in the observance of conventual discipline and the songs of the choir, it was ever pleasing to me to learn, to teach, or to write.' He adds, that his days were passed in these occupations till he arrived at the age of fifty-nine; and he gives a list of the various works which he compiled.

"The fame of the Saxon monk, before he had reached his thirtieth year, had penetrated to distant countries; and Pope Sergius requested that he might be sent te confer with him in some pressing exigencies of the church. But Bede did not quit his cell. It was a subject of astonishment that such treasures of science should be found "in a remote corner of the globe.” The superiors of these northern convents, indeed, seem themselves to have been men of talents. They collected books, improved the style of architecture, and were the first who made use of glass in the construction of windows. So says the historian. Engaged in such society, and interested by the progress of the arts, Bede might naturally prefer the calm seclusion of his monastery to the more brilliant attractions of a journey to Rome. The number of his pupils was besides great; and he attended to their instruction to his dying hour, solving difficulties, and proposing questions for their exercise. His last labour was employed upon the gospel of St. John,