Chapter 11

(H. L. C.)

CALOVIUS, ABRAHAM(1612-1686), German Lutheran divine, was born at Mohrungen in east Prussia, on the 16th of April 1612. After studying at Königsberg, in 1650 he was appointed professor of theology at Wittenberg, where he afterwards became general superintendent and primarius. He died on the 25th of February 1686. Calovius was the most noteworthy of the champions of Lutheran orthodoxy in the 17th century. He strongly opposed the Catholics, Calvinists and Socinians, attacked in particular the reconciliation policy or “syncretism” of Georg Calixtus (cf. theConsensus repetitus fidei vere lutheranae,1665), and as a writer of polemics he had few equals. His chief dogmatic work,Systema locorum theologicorum(12 vols. 1655-1677), represents the climax of Lutheran scholasticism. In hisBiblia Illustrata(4 vols.), written from the point of view of a very strict belief in inspiration, his object is to refute the statements made by Hugo Grotius in his Commentaries. HisHistoria Syncretistica(1682) was suppressed.

CALPURNIUS, TITUS,Roman bucolic poet, surnamedSiculusfrom his birthplace or from his imitation of the style of the Sicilian Theocritus, most probably flourished during the reign of Nero. Eleven eclogues have been handed down to us under his name, of which the last four, from metrical considerations and express MS. testimony, are now generally attributed to Nemesianus (q.v.), who lived in the time of the emperor Carus and his sons (latter half of the 3rd centurya.d.). Hardly anything is known of the life of Calpurnius; we gather from the poems themselves (in which he is obviously represented by “Corydon”) that he was in poor circumstances and was on the point of emigrating to Spain, when “Meliboeus” came to his aid. Through his influence Calpurnius apparently secured a post at Rome. The time at which Calpurnius lived has been much discussed, but all the indications seem to point to the time of Nero. The emperor is described as a handsome youth, like Mars and Apollo, whose accession marks the beginning of a new golden age, prognosticated by the appearance of a comet, doubtless the same that appeared some time before the death of Claudius; he exhibits splendid games in the amphitheatre (probably the wooden amphitheatre erected by Nero in 57); and in the words

maternis causam qui vicit Iulis1(i. 45),

there is a reference to the speech delivered in Greek by Nero on behalf of the Ilienses (Suetonius,Nero, 7; Tacitus,Annals, xii. 58), from whom the Julii derived their family.2Meliboeus, the poet’s patron, has been variously identified with Columella, Seneca the philosopher, and C. Calpurnius Piso. Although the sphere of Meliboeus’s literary activity (as indicated in iv. 53) suits none of these, what is known of Calpurnius Piso fits in well with what is said of Meliboeus by the poet, who speaks of his generosity, his intimacy with the emperor, and his interest in tragic poetry. His claim is further supported by the poemDe Laude Pisonis(ed. C.F. Weber, 1859) which has come down to us without the name of the author, but which there is considerable reason for attributing to Calpurnius.3The poem exhibits a striking similarity with the eclogues in metre, language and subject-matter. The author of theLausis young, of respectable family and desirous of gaining the favour of Piso as his Maecenas. Further, the similarity between the two names can hardly be accidental; it is suggested that the poet may have been adopted by the courtier, or that he was the son of a freedman of Piso. The attitude of the author of theLaustowards the subject of the panegyric seems to show less intimacy than the relations between Corydon and Meliboeus in the eclogues, and there is internal evidence that theLauswas written during the reign of Claudius (Teuffel-Schwabe,Hist, of Rom. Lit.§ 306, 6).

Mention may here be made of the fragments of two short hexameter poems in an Einsiedeln MS., obviously belonging to the time of Nero, which if not written by Calpurnius, were imitated from him.

Although there is nothing original in Calpurnius, he is “a skilful literary craftsman.” Of his models the chief is Virgil, of whom (under the name of Tityrus) he speaks with great enthusiasm; he is also indebted to Ovid and Theocritus. Calpurnius is “a fair scholar, and an apt courtier, and not devoid of real poetical feeling. The bastard style of pastoral cultivated by him, in which the description of nature is made the writer’s pretext, while ingenious flattery is his real purpose, nevertheless excludes genuine pleasure, and consequently genuine poetical achievement. He may be fairly compared to the minor poets of the reign of Anne” (Garnett).

Calpurnius was first printed in 1471, together with Silius Italicus and has been frequently republished, generally with Gratius Faliscus and Nemesianus. The separate authorship of the eclogues of Calpurnius and Nemesianus was established by M. Haupt’sDe Carminibus bucolicis Calpurnii et Nemesiani(1854). Editions by H. Schenkl (1885), with full introduction andindex verborum, and by C.H. Keene (1887), with introduction, commentary and appendix. English verse translation by E.J.L. Scott (1891); see H.E. Butler,Post-Augustan Poetry(Oxford, 1909), pp. 150 foil., and F. Skutsch in Pauly-Wissowa’sRealencyclopädie, iii. 1 (1897).

(J. H. F.)

1Iulisforin ulnisaccording to the best MS. tradition.

2According to Dr R. Garnett (and Mr Greswell, as stated in Conington’sVirgil, i. p. 123, note) the emperor referred to is the younger Gordian (a.d.238). His arguments in favour of this will be found in the article on Calpurnius by him in the 9th edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannicaand in theJournal of Philology, xvi., 1888; see in answer J.P. Postgate, “The Comet of Calpurnius Siculus” inClassical Review, June 1902. Dean Merivale (Hist. of the Romans under the Empire, ch. 60) and Pompei, “Intorno al Tempo del Poeta Calpurnio” inAtti del Istituto Veneto, v. 6 (1880), identify the amphitheatre with the Colosseum (Flavian amphitheatre) and assign Calpurnius to the reign of Domitian.

3It has been variously ascribed to Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius and Saleius Bassus.

CALTAGIRONE,a city and episcopal see of the province of Catania, Sicily, situated 1999 ft. above sea-level, 36 m. S.W. of Catania direct (55 m. by rail). Pop. (1881) 25,978; (1901) town 35,116; commune 45,956. It is well built, and is said to be the most civilized provincial town in Sicily. Extensive Sicel cemeteries have been explored to the north of the town (Not. Scavi, 1904, 65), and a Greek necropolis of the 6th and 5th centuriesb.c.has been found to the south-east (ibid.132). Remains of buildings of Roman date have also been discovered; but the name of the ancient city which stood here is unknown. The present name is a corruption of the SaracenKalat-al-Girche(the castle of Girche, the chieftain who fortified it).

CALTANISETTA,a town and episcopal see of Sicily, the capital of a province of the same name, 60 m. S.E. of Palermo direct and 83 m. by rail, situated 1930 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 43,303. The town is of Saracenic origin, as its nameKalat-al-Nisa, the “Ladies’ Castle,” indicates, and some ruins of the old castle (calledPietrarossa) still exist. Otherwise the town contains no buildings of artistic or historical interest, but it commands striking views. It is the centre of the Sicilian sulphur industry and the seat of a royal school of mines. Two miles east is the interesting Norman abbey of S. Spirito.

CALTROP(from the Mid. Eng.calketrappe, probably derived from the Lat.calx, a heel, andtrappa, Late Lat. for a snare), an iron ball, used as an obstacle against cavalry, with four spikes so arranged, that however placed in or on the ground, one spike always points upwards. It is also the botanical name for several species of thistles.

CALUIRE-ET-CUIRE,a town of eastern France, in the department of Rhone, 2½ m. N. by E. of Lyons by rail. Pop. (1906) 9255. It has manufactures of coarse earthenware and hard-ware, copper and bronze foundries and nursery-gardens.

CALUMET(Norm. Fr. form ofchalumet, from Lat.calamus, a reed), the name given by the French in Canada to the “peace-pipe” of the American Indians. This pipe occupied among the tribes a position of peculiar symbolic significance, and was the object of profound veneration. It was smoked on all ceremonial occasions, even on declarations of war, but its special use was at the making of treaties of peace. It was usually about 2½ ft. long, and in the west the bowl was made of red pipes tone (catlinite), a fine-grained, easily-worked stone of a rich red colour found chiefly in the Côteau des Prairies west of Big Stone Lake, Dakota. The quarries were formerly neutral ground among the warring Indian tribes, many sacred traditions being associated with the locality and its product (Longfellow,Hiawatha, i.). The pipe stem was of reed decorated with eagles’ quills or women’s hair. Native tobacco mixed with willow-bark or sumac leaves was smoked. The pipe was offered as a supreme proof of hospitality to distinguished strangers, and its refusal was regarded as a grievous affront. In the east and south-east, the bowl was of white stone, sometimes pierced with several stem holes so that many persons might smoke at once.

See Joseph D. Macguire (exhaustive report,640 pages), “Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Aborigines” inSmithsonian Report(American Bureau of Ethnology) for 1897, vol. i.; and authorities quoted inHandbook of American Indians(Washington, 1907).

CALUMPIT,a town of the province of Bulacán, Luzon, Philippine Islands, at the junction of the Quiñgua river with the Rio Grande de la Pampanga, about 25 m. N.W. of Manila. Pop. (1903) 13,897. It is served by the Manila & Dagupan railway, and the bridge across the Rio Grande is one of the longest in the Philippines. The surrounding country is a fertile plain, producing large quantities of rice, as well as sugar, Indian corn and a variety of fruits. Calumpit has a large rice-mill and one of the largest markets in the Philippines. The bridge, convent and church of the town were fired and completely destroyed by insurgent troops in 1899. The language is Tagalog.

CALVADOS,a department of north-western France, formed in 1790 out of Bessin, Cinglais, Hiémois, Bocage, the Campagne de Caen, Auge and the western part of Lieuvin. Pop. (1906) 403,431. Area, 2197 sq. m. It received its name from a ledge of rocks, stretching along the coast for a distance of about 15 m. between the mouths of the rivers Orne and Vire. It is bounded N. by the English Channel, E. by the department of Eure, S. by that of Orne, W. by that of Manche. The Bocage, or south-western part of the department, is elevated, being crossed from south-east to north-west by the hills of Normandy, the highest of which is 1197 ft.; the rest of the surface is gently undulating, and consists of extensive valleys watered by numerous streams which fall into the English Channel. The coast, formed by cliffs, sandy beaches or reefs, is generally inaccessible, except at the mouths of the principal rivers, such as the Touques, the Dives, the Orne and the Vire, which are navigable at high tide for several miles inland. Trouville is the chief of the numerous coast resorts. The climate, though humid and variable, is healthy. The raising of cattle, sheep and horses is the mainstay of the agriculture of the department. Pasture is good and abundant in the east and north-west, and there is a large export trade in the butter, eggs and cheese (Camembert, Livarot, Pont l’Evêque) of these districts, carried on by Honfleur, Isigny and other ports. The plain of Caen is a great centre for horse breeding. Wheat, oats, barley, colza and potatoes are the chief crops. The orchards of Auge and Bessin produce a superior kind of cider, of which upwards of 40,000,000 gallons are made in the department; a large quantity of cider brandy (eau-de-vie de Calvados) is distilled. Poultry to a considerable amount is sent to the Paris markets, and there is a large output of honey and wax. The spinning and weaving of wool and cotton are the chief industries. Besides these, paper-mills, oil-mills, tanneries, saw-mills, shipbuilding yards, rope-works, dye-works, distilleries and bleach-fields, scattered throughout the department, give employment to a number of hands. There are productive iron-mines and building-stone, slate and lime are plentiful. Fisheries, chiefly of lobster, oyster (Courseulles), herring and mackerel, are prosecuted. Coal, timber, grain, salt-fish and cement are among the imports; exports include iron, dairy products and sand. Caen and Honfleur are the most important commercial ports. There is a canal 9 m. in length from Caen to Ouistreham on the coast. The department is served by the Ouest-Êtat railway. It is divided into the six arrondissements (38 cantons, 763 communes) of Caen, Falaise, Bayeux, Vire, Lisieux and Pont l’Evêque. Caen, the capital, is the seat of a court of appeal and the centre of anacadémie(educational division). The department forms the diocese of Bayeux, in the ecclesiastical province of Rouen, and belongs to the region of the III. army-corps. The other principal towns are Falaise, Lisieux, Condé-sur-Noireau, Vire, Honfleur and Trouville (q.v.).

Amongst the great number of medieval churches which the department possesses, the fine Gothic church of St. Pierre-sur-Dives is second in importance only to those of Lisieux and Bayeux; that of Norrey, a good example of the Norman-Gothic style, and that of Tour-en-Bessin, in which Romanesque and Gothic architecture are mingled, are of great interest. Fontaine-Henri has a fine château of the 15th and 16th centuries.

CALVART, DENIS(1540-1619), Flemish painter, was born at Antwerp. After studying landscape-painting for some time inhis native city he went to Bologna, where he perfected himself in the anatomy of the human form under Prospero Fontana, and so completely lost the mannerism of Flemish art that his paintings appear to be the work of an Italian. From Bologna he went to Rome, where he assisted Lorenzo Sabbatini (1533-1577) in his works for the papal palace, and devoted much of his time to copying and studying the works of Raphael. He ultimately returned to Bologna and founded a school, of which the greatest ornaments are Guido and Domenichino. His works are especially admired for the power of grouping and colouring which they display.

CALVARY,the conventional English rendering of thecalvariaof the Vulgate, the Latin version of the Greekκράνιον, both meaning “skull” and representing the Hebrew Golgotha, the name given to the scene of Christ’s crucifixion. The term “a Calvary” is applied to a sculptured representation of the Crucifixion, either inside a church, or adjoining one in the open air. There are many examples of the latter in France, Italy and Spain. Among the most important are the Sacro Monte (1486) at Varallo in Piedmont, and those at Guimiliau (1581), Plougastel (1602), St Thegonnec (1610), and Pleyben near Quimper (1670), in Brittany, all in good preservation.

CALVÉ EMMA(1864- ), Spanish operatic soprano, was born at Madrid, and trained in Paris, making her first important appearance in opera at Brussels in 1882. She sang mainly in Paris for some years, but in 1892 was first engaged at Covent Garden, London, and at once became famous as the most vivid Carmen (in Bizet’s opera) of the day.

CALVERLEY, CHARLES STUART(1831-1884), English poet and wit, and the literary father of what may be called the university school of humour, was born at Martley in Worcestershire on the 22nd of December 1831. His father, the Rev. Henry Blayds, resumed in 1852 the old family name of Calverley, which his grandfather had exchanged for Blayds in 1807. It was as Charles Stuart Blayds that most of the son’s university distinctions were attained. He went up to Balliol from Harrow in 1850, and was soon known in Oxford as the most daring and most high-spirited undergraduate of his time. He was a universal favourite, a delightful companion, a brilliant scholar and the playful enemy of all “dons.” In 1851 he won the Chancellor’s prize for Latin verse, and it is said that the entire exercise was written in an afternoon, when his friends had locked him into his rooms, declining to let him out till he had finished what they were confident would prove the prize poem. A year later he took his name off the books, to avoid the consequences of a college escapade, and migrated to Christ’s College, Cambridge. Here he was again successful in Latin verse, and remains the unique example of an undergraduate who has won the Chancellor’s prize at both universities. In 1856 he took second place in the first class in the Classical Tripos. He was elected fellow of Christ’s (1858), publishedVerses and Translationsin 1862, and was called to the bar in 1865. Owing to an accident while skating he was prevented from following up a professional career, and during the last years of his life he was an invalid. HisTranslations into English and Latinappeared in 1866; hisTheocritus translated into English Versein 1869;Fly Leavesin 1872; andLiterary Remainsin 1885. He died on the 17th of February 1884. Calverley was one of the most brilliant men of his day; and, had he enjoyed health, might have achieved distinction in any career he chose. Constitutionally indolent, he was endowed with singular gifts in every department of culture; he was a scholar, a musician, an athlete and a brilliant talker. What is left us marks only a small portion of his talent, but his sparkling, dancing verses, which have had many clever imitators, are still without a rival in their own line. His humour was illumined by good nature; his satire was keen but kind; his laughter was of that human sort which is often on the verge of tears. Imbued with the classical spirit, he introduced into the making of light verse the polish and elegance of the great masters, and even in its most whimsical mood his verse is raised to the level of poetry by the saving excellence of style.

HisComplete Works,with a biographical notice by Sir W.J. Sendall, appeared in 1901.

(A. Wa.)

CALVERT,the name of three English artists: Charles (1785-1852), a well-known landscape-painter; Edward (1803-1883), an important wood-engraver and follower of Blake; and Frederick, an excellent topographical draughtsman, whose work in water-colour is represented at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and who published a volume ofPicturesque Views in Staffordshire and Shropshire(1830).

CALVERT, FREDERICK CRACE(1819-1873), English chemist, was born in London on the 14th of November 1819. From about 1836 till 1846 he lived in France, where, after a course of study at Paris, he became manager of some chemical works, later acting as assistant to M.E. Chevreul. On his return to England he settled in Manchester as a consulting chemist, and was appointed professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution in that city. Devoting himself almost entirely to industrial chemistry, he gave much attention to the manufacture of coal-tar products, and particularly carbolic acid, for the production of which he established large works in Manchester in 1865. Besides contributing extensively to the English and French scientific journals, he published a work onDyeing and Calico-Printing.He died in Manchester on the 24th of October 1873.

CALVERT, SIR HARRY, BART.(c.1763-1826), British general, was probably born early in 1763 at Hampton, near London. He was educated at Harrow, and at the age of fifteen entered the army. In the following year he served with his regiment in America, being present at the siege of Charleston, and serving through the campaign of Lord Cornwallis which ended with the surrender of Yorktown. From 1781 to 1783 he was a prisoner of war. Returning to England in 1784, he next saw active service in 1793-1794 in the Low Countries, where he was aide-de-camp to the duke of York, and in 1795 was engaged on a confidential mission to Brunswick and Berlin. In 1799, having already served as deputy adjutant general, he was made adjutant general, holding the post till 1818. In this capacity he effected many improvements in the organization and discipline of the service. He greatly improved the administration of the army medical and hospital department, introduced regimental schools, developed the two existing military colleges (since united at Sandhurst), and was largely responsible for the founding of the Duke of York’s school, Chelsea. In recognition of his work as adjutant general he was made a G.C.B. (1815), and, on retiring from office, received a baronetcy (1818). In 1820 he was made governor of Chelsea hospital. He died on the 3rd of September 1826, at Middle Claydon, Buckinghamshire.

CALVES’ HEAD CLUB,a club established shortly after his death in derision of the memory of Charles I. Its chief meeting was held on the 30th of each January, the anniversary of the king’s execution, when the dishes served were a cod’s head to represent the individual, Charles Stuart; a pike representing tyranny; a boar’s head representing the king preying on his subjects; and calves’ heads representing Charles as king and his adherents. On the table an axe held the place of honour. After the banquet a copy of the king’sIkon Basilikewas burnt, and the toast was “To those worthy patriots who killed the tyrant.” After the Restoration the club met secretly. The first mention of it is in a tract reprinted in theHarleian Miscellanyentitled “The Secret History of the Calves’ Head Club.” The club survived till 1734, when the diners were mobbed owing to the popular ill-feeling which their outrages on good taste provoked, and the riot which ensued put a final stop to the meetings.

CALVI,a sea-port in Corsica, capital of an arrondissement in the N.W. of the island, 112 m. N. of Ajaccio by road. Pop. (1906) 1967. It is situated on the Bay of Calvi, in a malarial region, and is the port in Corsica nearest to France, being 109 m. from Antibes; the harbour, however, is exposed to the east and north-east winds. The modern town lies at the foot of a rock, on which stands the old town with its steep rock-paved streets and fortified walls, commanded by the Fort Muzello. Fishing is carried on, and timber, oil, wine, lemons and other sub-tropical fruits are exported to some extent. The most important buildings are the old palace of the Genoese governor, used as barracks, and the church (16th century), with the monument of the Baglionifamily, which was intimately associated with the history of the town.

Calvi was founded in the 13th century and in 1278 passed into the hands of the Genoese. From that date it was remarkable for its adherence to their side, especially in 1553 when it repulsed two attacks of the united forces of the French and Turks. In recognition thereof the Genoese senate caused the wordsCivitas Calvi semper fidelisto be carved on the chief gate of the city, which still preserves the inscription. In 1794 Calvi was captured by the English, but it was retaken by the Corsicans in the following year.

CALVIN, JOHN(1500-1564), Swiss divine and reformer, was born at Noyon, in Picardy, on the 10th of July 1509. His father, Gérard Cauvin or Calvin,1was a notary-apostolic and procurator-fiscal for the lordship of Noyon, besides holding certain ecclesiastical offices in connexion with that diocese. The name of his mother was Jeanne le Franc; she was the daughter of an innkeeper at Cambrai, who afterwards came to reside at Noyon. Gérard Cauvin was esteemed as a man of considerable sagacity and prudence, and his wife was a godly and attractive lady. She bore him five sons, of whom John was the second. By a second wife there were two daughters.

Of Calvin’s early years only a few notices remain. His father destined him from the first for an ecclesiastical career, and paid for his education in the household of the noble family of Hangest de Montmor. In May 1521 he was appointed to a chaplaincy attached to the altar of La Gésine in the cathedral of Noyon, and received the tonsure. The actual duties of the office were in such cases carried out by ordained and older men for a fraction of the stipend. The plague having visited Noyon, the young Hangests were sent to Paris in August 1523, and Calvin accompanied them, being enabled to do so by the income received from his benefice. He lived with his uncle and attended as an out-student the Collège de la Marche, at that time under the regency of Mathurin Cordier, a man of character, learning and repute as a teacher, who in later days followed his pupil to Switzerland, taught at Neuchâtel, and died in Geneva in 1564. In dedicating to him hisCommentary on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians,as “eximiae pietatis et doctrinae viro,” he declares that so had he been aided by his instruction that whatever subsequent progress he had made he only regarded as received from him, and “this,” he adds, “I wish to testify to posterity that if any utility accrue to any from my writings they may acknowledge it as having in part flowed from thee.” From the Collège de la Marche he removed to the Collège de Montaigu,2where the atmosphere was more ecclesiastical and where he had for instructor a Spaniard who is described as a man of learning and to whom Calvin was indebted for some sound training in dialectics and the scholastic philosophy. He speedily outstripped all his competitors in grammatical studies, and by his skill and acumen as a student of philosophy, and in the college disputations gave fruitful promise of that consummate excellence as a reasoner in the department of speculative truth which he afterwards displayed. Among his friends were the Hangests (especially Claude), Nicolas and Michel Cop, sons of the king’s Swiss physician, and his own kinsman Pierre Robert, better known as Olivétan. Such friendships testify both to the worth and the attractiveness of his character, and contradict the old legend that he was an unsociable misanthrope. Pleased with his success, the canons at Noyon gave him the curacy of St Martin de Marteville in September 1527. After holding this preferment for nearly two years, he exchanged it in July 1529 for the cure of Pont L’Évêque, a village near to Noyon, and the place to which his father originally belonged. He appears to have been not a little elated by his early promotion, and although not ordained, he preached several sermons to the people. But though the career of ecclesiastical preferment was thus early opened to him, Calvin was destined not to become a priest. A change came over the mind both of his father and himself respecting his future career. Gérard Cauvin began to suspect that he had not chosen the most lucrative profession for his son, and that the law offered to a youth of his talents and industry a more promising sphere.3He was also now out of favour with the cathedral chapter at Noyon. It is said also that John himself, on the advice of his relative, Pierre Robert Olivétan, the first translator of the Bible into French, had begun to study the Scriptures and to dissent from the Roman worship. At any rate he readily complied with his father’s suggestion, and removed from Paris to Orleans (March 1528) in order to study law under Pierre Taisan de l’Etoile, the most distinguished jurisconsult of his day. The university atmosphere here was less ascetic than at Paris, but Calvin’s ardour knew no slackening, and such was his progress in legal knowledge that he was frequently called upon to lecture, in the absence of one or other of the regular staff. Other studies, however, besides those of law occupied him while in this city, and moved by the humanistic spirit of the age he eagerly developed his classical knowledge. “By protracted vigils,” says Beza, “he secured indeed a solid erudition and an excellent memory; but it is probable he at the same time sowed the seeds of that disease (dyspepsia) which occasioned him various illnesses in after life, and at last brought upon him premature death.”4His friends here were Melchior Wolmar, a German schoolmaster and a man of exemplary scholarship and character, François Daniel, Francois de Connam and Nicolas Duchemin; to these his earliest letters were written.

From Orleans Calvin went to Bourges in the autumn of 1529 to continue his studies under the brilliant Italian, Andrea Alciati (1492-1550), whom Francis I. had invited into France and settled as a professor of law in that university. His friend Daniel went with him, and Wolmar followed a year later. By Wolmar Calvin was taught Greek, and introduced to the study of the New Testament in the original, a service which he gratefully acknowledges in one of his printed works.5The conversation of Wolmar may also have been of use to him in his consideration of the doctrines of the Reformation, which were now beginning to be widely diffused through France. Twelve years had elapsed since Luther had published his theses against indulgences—twelve years of intense excitement and anxious discussion, not in Germany only, but in almost all the adjacent countries. In France there had not been as yet any overt revolt against the Church of Rome, but multitudes were in sympathy with any attempt to improve the church by education, by purer morals, by better preaching and by a return to the primitive and uncorrupted faith. Though we cannot with Beza regard Calvin at this time as a centre of Protestant activity, he may well have preached at Lignières as a reformatory Catholic of the school of Erasmus. Calvin’s own record of his “conversion” is so scanty and devoid of chronological data that it is extremely difficult to trace his religious development with any certainty. But it seems probable that at least up to 1532 he was far more concerned about classical scholarship than about religion.

His residence at Bourges was cut short by the death of his father in May 1531. Immediately after this event he went to Paris, where the “new learning” was now at length ousting the medieval scholasticism from the university. He lodged in the Collège Fortet, reading Greek with Pierre Danès and beginning Hebrew with François Vatable. It was at this time (April 1532) that Calvin issued his first publication, a commentary in Latin on Seneca’s tractDe Clementia. This book he published at his own cost, and dedicated to Claude Hangest, abbot of St Éloi, a member of the de Montmor family, with whom Calvin had beenbrought up. It was formerly thought that Calvin published this work with a view to influence the king to put a stop to the attacks on the Protestants, but there is nothing in the treatise itself or in the commentary to favour this opinion.

Soon after the publication of his first book Calvin returned to Orleans, where he stayed for a year, perhaps again reading law, and still undecided as to his life’s work. He visited Noyon in August 1533, and by October of the same year was settled again in Paris. Here and now his destiny became certain. The conservative theology was becoming discredited, and humanists like Jacques Lefèvre of Étaples (Faber Stapulensis) and Gérard Roussel were favoured by the court under the influence of Margaret of Angoulême, queen of Navarre and sister of Francis I. Calvin’s old friend, Nicolas Cop, had just been elected rector of the university and had to deliver an oration according to custom in the church of the Mathurins, on the feast of All Saints. The oration (certainly influenced but hardly composed by Calvin) was in effect a defence of the reformed opinions, especially of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is to the period between April 1532 and November 1533, and in particular to the time of his second sojourn at Orleans, that we may most fittingly assign the great change in Calvin which he describes (Praef. ad Psalmos; opera xxxi. 21-24) as his “sudden conversion” and attributes to direct divine agency. It must have been at least after hisCommentary on Seneca’s De Clementiathat his heart was “so subdued and reduced to docility that in comparison with his zeal for true piety he regarded all other studies with indifference, though not entirely forsaking them. Though himself a beginner, many flocked to him to learn the pure doctrine, and he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawal from people.” This indeed was forced upon him, for Cop’s address was more than the conservative party could bear, and Cop, being summoned to appear before the parlement of Paris, found it necessary, as he failed to secure the support either of the king, or of the university, to make his escape to Basel. An attempt was at the same time made to seize Calvin, but, being forewarned of the design by his friends, he also made his escape. His room in the Collège Fortet, however, was searched, and his books and papers seized, to the imminent peril of some of his friends, whose letters were found in his repositories. He went to Noyon, but, proceedings against him being dropped, soon returned to Paris. But desiring both security and solitude for study he left the city again about New Year of 1534 and became the guest of Louis du Tillet, a canon of the cathedral, at Angoulême, where at the request of his host he prepared some short discourses, which were circulated in the surrounding parishes, and read in public to the people. Here, too in du Tillet’s splendid library, he began the studies which resulted in his great work, theInstitutes, and paid a visit to Nérac, where the venerable Lefèvre, whose revised translation of the Bible into French was published about this time, was spending his last years under the kindly care of Margaret of Navarre.

Calvin was now nearly twenty-five years of age, and in the ordinary way would have been ordained to the priesthood. Up till this time his work for the evangelical cause was not so much that of the public preacher or reformer as that of the retiring but influential scholar and adviser. Now, however, he had to decide whether, like Roussel and other of his friends, he should strive to combine the new doctrines with a position in the old church, or whether he should definitely break away from Rome. His mind was made up, and on the 4th of May he resigned his chaplaincy at Noyon and his rectorship at Pont l’Évêque. Towards the end of the same month he was arrested and suffered two short terms of imprisonment, the charges against him being not strong enough to be pressed. He seems to have gone next to Paris, staying perhaps with Étienne de la Forge, a Protestant merchant who suffered for his faith in February 1535. To this time belongs the story of the proposed meeting between Calvin and the Spanish reformer Servetus. Calvin’s movements at this time are difficult to trace, but he visited both Orleans and Poitiers, and each visit marked a stage in his development.

The Anabaptists of Germany had spread into France, and were disseminating many wild and fanatical opinions among those who had seceded from the Church of Rome. Among other notions which they had imbibed was that of a sleep of the soul after death. To Calvin this notion appeared so pernicious that he composed a treatise in refutation of it, under the title ofPsychopannychia. The preface to this treatise is dated Orleans 1534, but it was not printed till 1542. In it he chiefly dwells upon the evidence from Scripture in favour of the belief that the soul retains its intelligent consciousness after its separation from the body—passing by questions of philosophical speculation, as tending on such a subject only to minister to an idle curiosity. At Poitiers Calvin gathered round him a company of cultured and gentle men whom in private intercourse he influenced considerably. Here too in a grotto near the town he for the first time celebrated the communion in the Evangelical Church of France, using a piece of the rock as a table.

The year 1534 was thus decisive for Calvin. From this time forward his influence became supreme, and all who had accepted the reformed doctrines in France turned to him for counsel and instruction, attracted not only by his power as a teacher, but still more, perhaps because they saw in him so full a development of the Christian life according to the evangelical model. Renan, no prejudiced judge, pronounces him “the most Christian man of his time,” and attributes to this his success as a reformer. Certain it is that already he had become conspicuous as a prophet of the new religion; his life was in danger, and he was obliged to seek safety in flight. In company with his friend Louis du Tillet, whom he had again gone to Angoulême to visit, he set out for Basel. On their way they were robbed by one of their servants, and it was only by borrowing ten crowns from their other servant that they were enabled to get to Strassburg, and thence to Basel. Here Calvin was welcomed by the band of scholars and theologians who had conspired to make that city the Athens of Switzerland, and especially by Oswald Myconius, the chief pastor, Pierre Viret and Heinrich Bullinger. Under the aupices and guidance of Sebastian Münster, Calvin now gave himself to the study of Hebrew.

Francis I., desirous to continue the suppression of the Protestants but anxious, because of his strife with Charles V., not to break with the Protestant princes of Germany, instructed his ambassador to assure these princes that it was only against Anabaptists, and other parties who called in question all civil magistracy, that his severities were exercised. Calvin, indignant at the calumny which was thus cast upon the reformed party in France, hastily prepared for the press hisInstitutes of the Christian Religion, which he published “first that I might vindicate from unjust affront my brethren whose death was precious in the sight of the Lord, and, next, that some sorrow and anxiety should move foreign peoples, since the same sufferings threatened many.” The work was dedicated to the king, and Calvin says he wrote it in Latin that it might find access to the learned in all lands.6Soon after it appeared he set about translating it into French, as he himself attests in a letter dated October 1536. This sets at rest a question, at one time much agitated, whether the book appeared first in French or in Latin. The earliest French edition known is that of 1540, and this was after the work had been much enlarged, and several Latin editions had appeared. In its first form the work consisted of only six chapters, and was intended merely as a brief manual of Christian doctrine. The chapters follow a traditional scheme of religious teaching: (1) The Law, (as in the Ten Words), (2) Faith (as in the Apostles’ Creed) (3) Prayer, (4) the Sacraments; to these were added (5) False Sacraments, (6) Christian liberty, ecclesiastical power and civil administration. The closing chapters of the work are more polemical than the earlier ones. His indebtedness to Luther is of course great, but his spiritual kinship with Martin Bucer ofStrassburg is even more marked. Something also he owed to Scotus and other medieval schoolmen. The book appeared anonymously, the author having, as he himself says, nothing in view beyond furnishing a statement of the faith of the persecuted Protestants, whom he saw cruelly cut to pieces by impious and perfidious court parasites.7In this work, though produced when the author was only twenty-six years of age, we find a complete outline of the Calvinist theological system. In none of the later editions, nor in any of his later works do we find reason to believe that he ever changed his views on any essential point from what they were at the period of its first publication. Such an instance of maturity of mind and of opinion at so early an age would be remarkable under any circumstances; but in Calvin’s case it is rendered peculiarly so by the shortness of the time which had elapsed since he gave himself to theological studies. It may be doubted also if the history of literature presents us with another instance of a book written at so early an age, which has exercised such a prodigious influence upon the opinions and practices both of contemporaries and of posterity.

After a short visit (April 1536) to the court of Renée, duchess of Ferrara (cousin to Margaret of Navarre), which at that time afforded an asylum to several learned and pious fugitives from persecution, Calvin returned through Basel to France to arrange his affairs before finally taking farewell of his native country. His intention was to settle at Strassburg or Basel, and to devote himself to study. But being unable, in consequence of the war between Francis I. and Charles V., to reach Strassburg by the ordinary route, he with his younger brother Antoine and his half-sister Marie journeyed to Lyons and so to Geneva, making for Basel. In Geneva his progress was arrested, and his resolution to pursue the quiet path of studious research was dispelled by what he calls the “formidable obtestation” of Guillaume Farel.8After many struggles and no small suffering, this energetic spirit had succeeded in planting the evangelical standard at Geneva; and anxious to secure the aid of such a man as Calvin, he entreated him on his arrival to relinquish his design of going farther, and to devote himself to the work in that city. Calvin at first declined, alleging as an excuse his need of securing more time for personal improvement, but ultimately, believing that he was divinely called to this task and that “God had stretched forth His hand upon me from on high to arrest me,” he consented to remain at Geneva. He hurried to Basel, transacted some business, and returned to Geneva in August 1536. He at once began to expound the epistles of St Paul in the church of St Pierre, and after about a year was also elected preacher by the magistrates with the consent of the people, an office which he would not accept until it had been repeatedly pressed upon him. His services seem to have been rendered for some time gratuitously, for in February 1537 there is an entry in the city registers to the effect that six crowns had been voted to him, “since he has as yet hardly received anything.”

Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus constrained to settle at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief interval, was spent. The post to which he was thus called was not an easy one. Though the people of Geneva had cast off the obedience of Rome, it was largely a political revolt against the duke of Savoy, and they were still (says Beza) “but very imperfectly enlightened in divine knowledge; they had as yet hardly emerged from the filth of the papacy.”9This laid them open to the incursions of those fanatical teachers, whom the excitement attendant upon the Reformation had called forth, and who hung mischievously upon the rear of the reforming body. To obviate the evils thence resulting, Calvin, in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of Christian doctrine consisting of twenty-one articles. This the citizens were summoned, in parties of ten each, to profess and swear to as the confession of their faith—a process which, though not in accordance with modern notions of the best way of establishing men in the faith, was gone through, Calvin tells us, “with much satisfaction.” As the people took this oath in the capacity ofcitizens, we may see here the basis laid for that theocratic system which subsequently became peculiarly characteristic of the Genevan polity. Deeply convinced of the importance of education for the young, Calvin and his coadjutors were solicitous to establish schools throughout the city, and to enforce on parents the sending of their children to them; and as he had no faith in education apart from religious training, he drew up a catechism of Christian doctrine which the children had to learn whilst they were receiving secular instruction. Of the troubles which arose from fanatical teachers, the chief proceeded from the efforts of the Anabaptists; a public disputation was held on the 16th and 17th of March 1537, and so excited the populace that the Council of Two Hundred stopped it, declared the Anabaptists vanquished and drove them from the city. About the same time also, the peace of Calvin and his friends was much disturbed and their work interrupted by Pierre Caroli, another native of northern France, who, though a man of loose principle and belief, had been appointed chief pastor at Lausanne and was discrediting the good work done by Pierre Viret in that city. Calvin went to Viret’s aid and brought Caroli before the commissioners of Bern on a charge of advocating prayers for the dead as a means of their earlier resurrection. Caroli brought a counter-charge against the Geneva divines of Sabellianism and Arianism, because they would not enforce the Athanasian creed, and had not used the words “Trinity” and “Person” in the confession they had drawn up. It was a struggle between the thoroughgoing humanistic reformer who drew his creed solely from the “word of God” and the merely semi-Protestant reformer who looked on the old creed as a priceless heritage. In a synod held at Bern the matter was fully discussed, when a verdict was given in favour of the Geneva divines, and Caroli deposed from his office and banished. He returned to France, rejoined the Roman communion and spent the rest of his life in passing to and from the old faith and the new. Thus ended an affair which seems to have occasioned Calvin much more uneasiness than the character of his assailant, and the manifest falsehood of the charge brought against him, would seem to justify. Two brief anti-Romanist tracts, one entitledDe fugiendis impiorum sacris,the otherDe sacerdotio papali abjiciendo,were also published early in this year.

Hardly was the affair of Caroli settled, when new and severer trials came upon the Genevan Reformers. The austere simplicity of the ritual which Farel had introduced, and to which Calvin had conformed; the strictness with which the ministers sought to enforce not only the laws of morality, but certain sumptuary regulations respecting the dress and mode of living of the citizens; and their determination in spiritual matters and ecclesiastical ceremonies not to submit to the least dictation from the civil power, led to violent dissensions. Amidst much party strife Calvin perhaps showed more youthful impetuosity than experienced skill. He and his colleagues refused to administer the sacrament in the Bernese form,i.e.with unleavened bread, and on Easter Sunday, 1538, declined to do so at all because of the popular tumult. For this they were banished from the city. They went first to Bern, and soon after to Zürich, where a synod of the Swiss pastors had been convened. Before this assembly they pleaded their cause, and stated what were the points on which they were prepared to insist as needful for the proper discipline of the church. They declared that they would yield in the matter of ceremonies so far as to employ unleavened bread in the eucharist, to use fonts in baptism, and to allow festival days, provided the people might pursue their ordinary avocations after public service. These Calvin regarded as matters of indifference, provided the magistrates did not make them of importance, by seeking to enforce them; and he was the more willing to concede them, because he hoped thereby to meet the wishes of the Bernese brethren whose ritual was less simple than that established by Farel at Geneva. But he and his colleagues insisted, on the other hand that for the proper maintenance of discipline, there should be a division of parishes—that excommunications should be permitted, and should be under the power of elders chosen by the council, inconjunction with the clergy—that order should be observed in the admission of preachers—and that only the clergy should officiate in ordination by the laying on of hands. It was proposed also, as conducive to the welfare of the church, that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper should be administered more frequently, at least once every month, and that congregational singing of psalms should be practised in the churches. On these terms the synod interceded with the Genevese to restore their pastors; but through the opposition of some of the Bernese (especially Peter Kuntz, the pastor of that city) this was frustrated, and a second edict of banishment was the only response.

Calvin and Farel betook themselves, under these circumstances, to Basel, where they soon after separated, Farel to go to Neuchâtel and Calvin to Strassburg. At the latter place Calvin resided till the autumn of 1541, occupying himself partly in literary exertions, partly as a preacher and especially an organizer in the French church, and partly as a lecturer on theology. These years were not the least valuable in his experience. In 1539 he attended Charles V.’s conference on Christian reunion at Frankfort as the companion of Bucer, and in the following year he appeared at Hagenau and Worms, as the delegate from the city of Strassburg. He was present also at the diet at Regensburg, where he deepened his acquaintance with Melanchthon, and formed with him a friendship which lasted through life. He also did something to relieve the persecuted Protestants of France. It is to this period of his life that we owe a revised and enlarged form of hisInstitutes, hisCommentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and hisTract on the Lord’s Supper. Notwithstanding his manifold engagements, he found time to attend to the tenderer affections; for it was during his residence at Strassburg that he married, in August 1540, Idelette de Bure, the widow of one Jean Stordeur of Liége, whom he had converted from Anabaptism. In her Calvin found, to use his own words, “the excellent companion of his life,” a “precious help” to him amid his manifold labours and frequent infirmities. She died in 1549, to the great grief of her husband, who never ceased to mourn her loss. Their only child Jacques, born on the 28th of July 1542, lived only a few days.

During Calvin’s absence disorder and irreligion had prevailed in Geneva. An attempt was made by Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto (1477-1547), bishop of Carpentras, to take advantage of this so as to restore the papal supremacy in that district; but this design Calvin, at the request of the Bernese authorities, who had been consulted by those of Geneva, completely frustrated, by writing such a reply to the letter which the bishop had addressed to the Genevese, as constrained him to desist from all further efforts. The letter had more than a local or temporary reference. It was a popular yet thoroughgoing defence of the whole Protestant position, perhaps the best apologia for the Reformation that was ever written. He seems also to have kept up his connexion with Geneva by addressing letters of counsel and comfort to the faithful there who continued to regard him with affection. It was whilst he was still at Strassburg that there appeared at Geneva a translation of the Bible into French, bearing Calvin’s name, but in reality only revised and corrected by him from the version of Olivétan. Meanwhile the way was opening for his return. Those who had driven him from the city gradually lost power and office. Farel worked unceasingly for his recall. After much hesitation, for Strassburg had strong claims, he yielded and returned to Geneva, where he was received with the utmost enthusiasm (September 13, 1541). He entered upon his work with a firm determination to carry out those reforms which he had originally purposed, and to set up in all its integrity that form of church polity which he had carefully matured during his residence at Strassburg. He now became the sole directive spirit in the church at Geneva. Farel was retained by the Neuchâtelois, and Viret, soon after Calvin’s return, removed to Lausanne. His duties were thus rendered exceedingly onerous, and his labour became excessive. Besides preaching every day in each alternate week, he taught theology three days in the week, attended weekly meetings of his consistory, read the Scriptures once a week in the congregation, carried on an extensive correspondence on a multiplicity of subjects, prepared commentaries on the books of Scripture, and was engaged repeatedly in controversy with the opponents of his opinions. “I have not time,” he writes to a friend, “to look out of my house at the blessed sun, and if things continue thus I shall forget what sort of appearance it has. When I have settled my usual business, I have so many letters to write, so many questions to answer, that many a night is spent without any offering of sleep being brought to nature.”

It is only necessary here to sketch the leading events of Calvin’s life after his return to Geneva. He recodified the Genevan laws and constitution, and was the leading spirit in the negotiations with Bern that issued in the treaty of February 1544. Of the controversies in which he embarked, one of the most important was that in which he defended his doctrine concerning predestination and election. His first antagonist on this head was Albert Pighius, a Romanist, who, resuming the controversy between Erasmus and Luther on the freedom of the will, violently attacked Calvin for the views he had expressed on that subject. Calvin replied to him in a work published in 1543, in which he defends his own opinions at length, both by general reasonings and by an appeal to both Scripture and the Fathers, especially Augustine. So potent were his reasonings that Pighius, though owing nothing to the gentleness or courtesy of Calvin, was led to embrace his views. A still more vexatious and protracted controversy on the same subject arose in 1551. Jerome Hermes Bolsec, a Carmelite friar, having renounced Romanism, had fled from France to Veigy, a village near Geneva, where he practised as a physician. Being a zealous opponent of predestinarian views, he expressed his criticisms of Calvin’s teaching on the subject in one of the public conferences held each Friday. Calvin replied with much vehemence, and brought the matter before the civil authorities. The council were at a loss which course to take; not that they doubted which of the disputants was right, for they all held by the views of Calvin, but they were unable to determine to what extent and in which way Bolsec should be punished for his heresy. The question was submitted to the churches at Basel, Bern, Zürich and Neuchâtel, but they also, to Calvin’s disappointment, were divided in their judgment, some counselling severity, others gentle measures. In the end Bolsec was banished from Geneva; he ultimately rejoined the Roman communion and in 1577 avenged himself by a particularly slanderous biography of Calvin. Another painful controversy was that with Sébastien Castellio (1515-1563), a teacher in the Genevan school and a scholar of real distinction. He wished to enter the preaching ministry but was excluded by Calvin’s influence because he had criticized the inspiration of the Song of Solomon and the Genevan interpretation of the clause “he descended into hell.” The bitterness thus aroused developed into life-long enmity. During all this time also the less strict party in the city and in the council did not cease to harry the reformer.

But the most memorable of all the controversies in which Calvin was engaged was that into which he was brought in 1553 with Michael Servetus (q.v.). After many wanderings, and after having been condemned to death for heresy at Vienne, whence he was fortunate enough to make his escape, Servetus arrived in August 1553 at Geneva on his way to Naples. He was recognized in church and soon after, at Calvin’s instigation, arrested. The charge of blasphemy was founded on certain statements in a book published by him in 1553, entitledChristianismi Restitutio, in which he animadverted on the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and advanced sentiments strongly savouring of Pantheism. The story of his trial is told elsewhere (see art.Servetus), but it must be noted here that the struggle was something more than a doctrinal one. The cause of Servetus was taken up by Calvin’s Genevan foes headed by Philibert Berthelier, and became a test of the relative strength of the rival forces and of the permanence of Calvin’s control. That Calvin was actuated by personal spite and animosity against Servetus himself may be open to discussion; we have his own express declaration that, after Servetus was convicted, he used nourgency that he should be put to death, and at their last interview he told Servetus that he never had avenged private injuries, and assured him that if he would repent it would not be his fault if all the pious did not give him their hands.10There is the fact also that Calvin used his endeavour to have the sentence which had been pronounced against Servetus mitigated, death by burning being regarded by him as an “atrocity,” for which he sought to substitute death by the sword.11It can be justly charged against Calvin in this matter that he took the initiative in bringing on the trial of Servetus, that as his accuser he prosecuted the suit against him with undue severity, and that he approved the sentence which condemned Servetus to death. When, however, it is remembered that the unanimous decision of the Swiss churches and of the Swiss state governments was that Servetus deserved to die; that the general voice of Christendom was in favour of this; that even such a man as Melanchthon affirmed the justice of the sentence;12that an eminent English divine of the next age should declare the process against him “just and honourable,”13and that only a few voices here and there were at the time raised against it, many will be ready to accept the judgment of Coleridge, that the death of Servetus was not “Calvin’s guilt especially, but the common opprobrium of all European Christendom.”14

Calvin was also involved in a protracted and somewhat vexing dispute with the Lutherans respecting the Lord’s Supper, which ended in the separation of the evangelical party into the two great sections of Lutherans and Reformed,—the former holding that in the eucharist the body and blood of Christ are objectively and consubstantially present, and so are actually partaken of by the communicants, and the latter that there is only a virtual presence of the body and blood of Christ, and consequently only a spiritual participation thereof through faith. In addition to these controversies on points of faith, he was for many years greatly disquieted, and sometimes even endangered, by the opposition offered by the libertine party in Geneva to the ecclesiastical discipline which he had established there. His system of church polity was essentially theocratic; it assumed that every member of the state was also under the discipline of the church; and he asserted that the right of exercising this discipline was vested exclusively in the consistory or body of preachers and elders. His attempts to carry out these views brought him into collision both with the authorities and with the populace,—the latter being not unnaturally restive under the restraints imposed upon their liberty by the vigorous system of church discipline, and the former being inclined to retain in their own hands a portion of that power in things spiritual which Calvin was bent on placing exclusively in the hands of the church rulers. His dauntless courage, his perseverance, and his earnestness at length prevailed, and he had the satisfaction, before he died, of seeing his favourite system of church polity firmly established, not only at Geneva, but in other parts of Switzerland, and of knowing that it had been adopted substantially by the Reformers in France and Scotland. The men whom he trained at Geneva carried his principles into almost every country in Europe, and in varying degree these principles did much for the cause of civil liberty.15Nor was it only in religious matters that Calvin busied himself; nothing was indifferent to him that concerned the welfare and good order of the state or the advantage of its citizens. His work embraced everything; he was consulted on every affair, great and small, that came before the council,—on questions of law, police, economy, trade, and manufactures, no less than on questions of doctrine and church polity. To him the city owed her trade in cloths and velvets, from which so much wealth accrued to her citizens; sanitary regulations were introduced by him which made Geneva the admiration of all visitors; and in him she reverences the founder of her university. This institution was in a sense Calvin’s crowning work. It added religious education to the evangelical preaching and the thorough discipline already established, and so completed the reformer’s ideal of a Christian commonwealth.

Amidst these multitudinous cares and occupations, Calvin found time to write a number of works besides those provoked by the various controversies in which he was engaged. The most numerous of these were of an exegetical character. Including discourses taken down from his lips by faithful auditors, we have from him expository comments or homilies on nearly all the books of Scripture, written partly in Latin and partly in French. Though naturally knowing nothing of the modern idea of a progressive revelation, his judiciousness, penetration, and tact in eliciting his author’s meaning, his precision, condensation, and concinnity as an expositor, the accuracy of his learning, the closeness of his reasoning, and the elegance of his style, all unite to confer a high value on his exegetical works. The series began withRomansin 1540 and ended withJoshuain 1564. In 1558-1559 also, though in very ill health, he finally perfected the Institutes.

The incessant and exhausting labours to which Calvin gave himself could not but tell on his fragile constitution. Amid many sufferings, however, and frequent attacks of sickness, he manfully pursued his course; nor was it till his frail body, torn by many and painful diseases—fever, asthma, stone, and gout, the fruits for the most part of his sedentary habits and unceasing activity—had, as it were, fallen to pieces around him, that his indomitable spirit relinquished the conflict. In the early part of the year 1564 his sufferings became so severe that it was manifest his earthly career was rapidly drawing to a close. On the 6th of February of that year he preached his last sermon, having with great difficulty found breath enough to carry him through it. He was several times after this carried to church, but never again was able to take any part in the service. With his usual disinterestedness he refused to receive his stipend, now that he was no longer able to discharge the duties of his office. In the midst of his sufferings, however, his zeal and energy kept him in continual occupation; when expostulated with for such unseasonable toil, he replied, “Would you that the Lord should find me idle when He comes?” After he had retired from public labours he lingered for some months, enduring the severest agony without a murmur, and cheerfully attending to all the duties of a private kind which his diseases left him strength to discharge. On the 25th of April he made his will, on the 27th he received the Little Council, and on the 28th the Genevan ministers, in his sick-room; on the 2nd of May he wrote his last letter—to his old comrade Farel, who hastened from Neuchâtel to see him once again. He spent much time in prayer and died quietly, in the arms of his faithful friend Theodore Beza, on the evening of the 27th of May, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. The next day he was buried without pomp “in the common cemetery called Plain-palais” in a spot not now to be identified.

Calvin was of middle stature; his complexion was somewhat pallid and dark; his eyes, to the latest clear and lustrous, bespoke the acumen of his genius. He was sparing in his food and simple in his dress; he took but little sleep, and was capable of extraordinary efforts of intellectual toil. He had a most retentive memory and a very keen power of observation. He spoke without rhetoric, simply, directly, but with great weight. He had many acquaintances but few close friends. His private character was in harmony with his public reputation and position. If somewhat severe and irritable, he was at the same time scrupulously just, truthful, and steadfast; he never deserted a friend or took an unfair advantage of an antagonist; and on befitting occasions he could be cheerful and even facetious among his intimates. “God gave him,” said the Little Council after his death, “a character of great majesty.” “I have been a witness of him for sixteen years,” says Beza, “and I think I am fully entitled to say that in this man there was exhibited to all anexample of the life and death of the Christian, such as it will not be easy to depreciate, such as it will be difficult to emulate.”

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